Chapter 1: Cohabitant: Gu Jingxiu
The flight took off from Haiyuan City and landed in Jinghua, the journey taking a total of five hours.
Through the small window, the golden setting sun poured in, casting its light on the face of the young boy sitting nearby. The handsome contours of his face were bathed in a faint glow, drawing the gazes of the surrounding passengers.
However, Lin Zhile, the subject of their admiration, had no mind to appreciate the scenery outside. He quickly fished a piece of chewing gum from his pocket, chewed on it numbly for a few moments, and only then did the discomfort in his left ear begin to ease.
The flight attendants spoke in gentle, warm tones as they saw the passengers off the plane. This being his first time flying, Lin Zhile sensibly blended into the crowd, following them onto the jet bridge and heading toward the exit.
The golden sunset blanketed the floor of the jet bridge. Only then did Lin Zhile have the time to lift his head and glance at the northern sunset.
In the distance stood rows of towering skyscrapers. The sky was vast and high, scattered with a fiery orange-red hue.
It was unfamiliar, yet beautiful.
Stepping off the jet bridge, his next stop was the baggage claim center to retrieve his luggage.
The overhead directional signs were numerous. The young man stood in the spacious hall, lifting his slender neck. His bangs half-covered his eyes as he carefully deciphered the signs.
A few seconds later, his fan-like eyelashes fluttered, his eyes lit up, and he finally began to walk in a certain direction.
As he walked, a corner of his light blue button-up shirt fluttered up, revealing the white T-shirt underneath and the slender outline of his figure. He only came to a stop once he reached the carousel.
The number of people waiting for their luggage gradually increased. Some were looking at him, their faces openly displaying their awe, while others sneakily took photos with their phones.
The subject of their attention, however, remained intently focused on the conveyor belt. His suitcase contained his precious musical instruments and equipment, as well as the invitation letter to participate in the show Lingering Resonance in Jinghua.
Lingering Resonance was a music idol survival show. The production team had massive capital backing, the competition format was strict, and the rivalry was incredibly fierce.
The competition consisted of four stages in total, selecting three winners out of dozens of contestants. While pleasing the audience’s ears, it also allowed them to experience the joy of voting for their favorites.
Lin Zhile had originally assumed that the production team just liked fresh faces, which was why they sent an invitation to a university student like him.
It was only later that he found out his mentor had recommended him to the program.
That was why he was in Jinghua City today.
Soon, black, white, red, and various other colored suitcases appeared on the conveyor belt. It wasn’t until a green suitcase, painted with a little yellow-finned dinosaur, appeared that the young man’s eyes finally brightened.
After verifying the tag stuck to the suitcase, Lin Zhile puffed out his cheeks, let out a sigh of relief, and quickly lifted the little dinosaur suitcase off the belt.
“So cute, so cute!”
Who knew that this simple action would cause a few university students queuing behind him to cover their mouths and stomp their feet, exclaiming how adorable he was.
They had noticed Lin Zhile the moment they stepped into the hall.
Jinghua was a gathering place for film and television professionals. Handsome men and beautiful women were as abundant as carp crossing a river, but Lin Zhile possessed a rather unique aura.
His looks carried a natural sense of coldness.
His skin was pale, the bridge of his nose high and straight, and his lips were plump but very light in color.
His eyes and brows were especially unforgettable; his eyelashes were incredibly long, and his eye shape resembled a phoenix’s, looking as flawless as if they were painted on.
When he wasn’t speaking, he naturally exuded a feeling of keeping others at a thousand miles’ distance.
Yet, entirely contrary to this, from the moment he looked for the signs to waiting for his luggage, his every action revealed a kind of adorkable cuteness.
Especially when such a cold, handsome guy puffed out his cheeks to lift a little dinosaur suitcase—this sense of contrast reached its peak, finally making them unable to hold back their squeals.
After some pushing and shoving among the group, a brave soul was finally chosen to step forward and strike up a conversation.
“Hello, little brother. Can we get to know each other?”
Lin Zhile looked up to see a pink-haired girl looking at him with a beaming smile.
“Hello,” Lin Zhile replied politely.
He appeared poised and natural, but if one observed carefully, they would notice he was gripping the handle of his suitcase, his fingers tightening around it.
The pink-haired girl flashed an ‘OK’ sign behind her back with her left hand and continued, “We’re students from the Jinghua Drama Academy, heading back to school today. We noticed you as soon as you walked in. Are you heading back to school too?”
“No…” Lin Zhile paused. He was a sophomore at the Haiyuan Music Conservatory, coming here to participate in a show. Did that count as an internship?
“An internship,” he added.
“Ah?” The pink-haired girl gasped in surprise. “Are you already a senior?!”
Lin Zhile shook his head. “No, I’m still a sophomore.”
“Oh~ Let’s walk and chat!” The girl didn’t press the matter further; chance encounters were all about letting things flow naturally.
She didn’t abruptly ask for his contact information either. Instead, she chose to walk with him toward the exit, waiting until they had chatted a bit more and become familiar before asking.
“Sure.”
At this moment, the pink-haired girl’s friends caught up. There were two girls with short hair and a boy wearing glasses.
They introduced themselves as students from the Film and Television Directing Department at the Jinghua Film Academy, currently also doing their internships.
The airport was bustling with people hurrying by, their ears filled with unfamiliar regional dialects as people reported their safe arrivals to their families. Lin Zhile turned on his phone and sent a voice message to his family group chat.
“Mom, Dad, I’ve arrived in Jinghua~”
His soft, slightly excited tone was recorded into the chat box. However, the moment he spoke, a dry, itchy sensation tickled his throat.
Moving from the humid South to the dry North, the climate difference was far greater than he had imagined.
His fingertips paused slightly. He tapped on a number he had just saved the night before, typed out a text message word by word, and hit send.
This was his first time traveling alone to a city so far away. The Lin parents were worried and had pulled some strings from God knows where to entrust him to someone’s care in advance.
The family he was entrusted to was surnamed Gu. They were supposedly distant relatives who had rooted themselves in Jinghua for many years, and they had a child working in the entertainment industry just like him.
They had even told Lin Zhile not to worry about imposing, saying that the older generation had a very deep friendship, and the other party would definitely treat him warmly.
Lin Zhile, however, held immense doubts about his parents’ unilateral definition of “warmly.”
No matter who it was, having a hillbilly relative they hadn’t contacted in over twenty years suddenly pop up—how could they possibly be warm about it?
But Father Lin was a language teacher with decades of experience who never misused adjectives. Lin Zhile had no choice but to temporarily suppress the doubts in his heart; he would know whether they were warm or not once he got there.
Opening the chat interface again, several new messages popped up in the family group.
They all meant roughly the same thing: telling him to take good care of himself.
Lin Zhile’s heart warmed slightly.
The boy who had introduced himself as a screenwriting student let his gaze fall on Lin Zhile’s neck and suddenly asked, “Is the accessory you’re wearing from an ethnic minority?”
The item around Lin Zhile’s neck was also one of his eye-catching focal points.
It was a collar, shaped similar to a choker, woven from a red string. It was about 0.5 cm thick, roughly the size of a phone charging cable.
The woven pattern was incredibly beautiful, featuring two tiny hollowed-out sections. The color of the red string hadn’t faded or bled in the slightest; it was hard to imagine its true value.
Strangely enough, resting at the nape of his neck was a small segment, about a centimeter long, wrapped in extremely fine silver wire. Suspended from it was a tiny longevity lock, no larger than the knuckle of a pinky finger.
It was equally exquisite beyond compare.
A faint flush appeared on Lin Zhile’s cheeks. “No, I’m Han Chinese. This is just an ordinary longevity lock.”
“My health hasn’t been very good since I was young, and I fell sick often, so…”
“Ah? Is that so…” The group exchanged glances; looking closely, his complexion was indeed a bit pale.
However, asking too much about this topic seemed intrusive. The short-haired girl next to the boy adjusted her glasses and changed the subject. “When I went to a certain southern city for research before, I actually heard a story.”
“There’s a local legend about a Mountain God. Every hundred years, the Mountain God sends his child to the mortal realm. The Child of God is incredibly beautiful but plagued by illness and has a very short lifespan, only able to live until adulthood.”
“After that, they are summoned back by the Mountain God. In order to keep the child, the mortal parents will make them wear accessories like longevity locks, hoping to tether them to the human world.”
Lin Zhile knew he certainly wasn’t any Child of God, but who knows what crossed his mind. He looked slightly dazed, and after a moment, under the girl’s gaze, he offered a soft smile.
“The Child of God… That’s a very interesting story.”
The group continued walking forward. The pink-haired girl’s enthusiasm didn’t wane as she asked, “Where are you going for your internship?”
Lin Zhile thought about it. There was nothing secretive about participating in the show, so he told her the truth.
He was going to Lingering Resonance as a contestant.
The girl exclaimed in pleasant surprise, “I’m heading to that show for my internship right now too! I’m a director’s assistant.”
“Are you a vocal? Or in the composition group?”
The contestants on Lingering Resonance were divided into two categories: those who excelled at composing and arranging, and those who excelled at singing.
When the time came, contestants from the two groups would be randomly paired up to create music and compete on stage as a team.
Bringing the birth of a piece of music to the stage, allowing the audience to see the musicians’ thought processes and learn some musical knowledge, thereby expanding their musical aesthetics—this was precisely the production team’s original intention.
He hadn’t expected such a coincidence. Lin Zhile replied, “Contestant in the composition group.”
“Wow~”
Just as they were about to expand on this topic, the boy beside them suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“Eh, Teacher Gu’s movie is actually cleared for release?”
Lin Zhile followed his gaze. It was a movie poster.
On one side of the wide canvas, the title Night Run was written in elegant, flowing cursive. The other half was occupied by the side profile of a character, with the lead actor’s name written beside it: Gu Jingxiu.
The protagonist was dressed in plain cloth clothes, grasping a long sword. Beneath a bamboo hat were a high-bridged nose and a jawline that looked as if it had been carved by a knife and chiseled by an axe.
And the partial gaze he revealed from beneath the bamboo hat—it was cold and piercing, like eternal, unmeltable ice that could pierce straight through a person’s heart.
Lin Zhile’s gaze froze slightly.
This was probably the mark of a great actor; just a single look could spark an audience’s desire to uncover the truth.
Even though Lin Zhile didn’t watch many films or television shows, he had still heard the name of this internationally renowned Best Actor.
Many of his friends were Gu Jingxiu’s fans.
Although he wasn’t a fanboy himself, whenever he felt like watching a movie, picking one starring Gu Jingxiu was a foolproof choice.
He was a highly talented actor.
“Didn’t this script fail to get picked up back then? Tsk, it really had to be Teacher Gu. He dares to shoot it, and he dares to act in it,” the girls discussed.
The boy sighed in admiration, “I really hope I get the chance to work with Best Actor Gu in this lifetime.”
The short-haired girl, however, put away her look of worship, shuddered, and said, “Even so, I heard from my senior that working in the same crew as Best Actor Gu is absolute hell mode. He is super strict.”
“And nitpicky,” the pink-haired girl added. “Didn’t he trend on the hot searches a while ago? That top-tier star just accidentally brushed against Best Actor Gu’s clothes and got scolded in public.”
“Wow, yeah. I saw the behind-the-scenes footage. Being asked if his brain was filled with water in front of so many people… that top-tier star’s face turned completely white.”
Listening to the gossip from the sidelines, Lin Zhile’s eyes widened slightly.
“Is it because they had a conflict beforehand?” he asked, somewhat curious.
The boy, being Gu Jingxiu’s fanboy, tried to salvage his idol’s reputation. “I heard Best Actor Gu is a germaphobe, a very severe one.”
Lin Zhile: ?
He seems even harder to get along with now.
Although they had just met, being fellow university students, they kept the conversation flowing nicely.
They walked all the way to the exit before Lin Zhile felt his phone vibrate slightly.
It wasn’t a reply from that “warm” relative, but a money transfer.
It was sent by Mother Lin; the family’s financial power was entirely under her control.
The red envelope didn’t contain a huge amount, but Mother Lin’s voice message sounded incredibly joyful: “Baby, your dad’s secret stash of money was exactly in the spot you mentioned. We’re splitting it fifty-fifty!”
Lin Zhile covered his mouth and giggled.
Father Lin had no idea his base had been raided. He had probably just finished class and was asking Lin Zhile in the family group where he was and if his ride had arrived yet.
Lin Zhile said no.
Father Lin’s side showed he was typing for a while before sending a long message:
[I forgot to tell you yesterday. The son of your Aunt Fang changed his stage name. He is called…]
“Where are you heading? Do you want to come with us?”
The pink-haired girl and her friends had a clear destination. The boy went ahead to hail a taxi; they were heading straight back to school.
She looked at Lin Zhile.
Lin Zhile raised his head and replied, “Thank you, but there’s no need. Someone is coming to pick me up, so I have to wait here.”
The girl nodded. “Oh, oh~ Is it someone from the production team?”
Just as Lin Zhile was about to answer, Father Lin sent the rest of his sentence:
[He is called Gu Jingxiu]
Lin Zhile froze in his tracks.
Translator’s Note:
Welcome to our new translation! Our lovely MC Lin Zhile (whose name has characters meaning “knows happiness”) is stepping right into the lion’s den without even realizing it.
A little cultural note: The “longevity lock” (长命锁 – chángmìngsuǒ) is a traditional Chinese silver or gold charm placed on children to ward off evil spirits and “lock” them to a long life, often worn by kids who are sickly or fragile.
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