Starlight Descends - 2
Youth
September 16. The sky hung low and heavy.
The scenery halfway up the mountain was breathtaking, clouds drifting through the valleys beneath a radiant haze. Lush willow trees lined the path, their branches concealing the sweeping corners of the eaves.
Incense smoke coiled through the air at the Daci Temple. Visitors moved in a slow, steady stream.
At four in the afternoon, the sun was hidden behind the clouds, yet the lingering autumn heat remained oppressively stifling.
Qi Yao emerged from the covered walkway, casting one last glance at the courtyard behind the main hall, then slowly making her way down the steps, one level after another.
She wandered down the mountain at an unhurried pace, letting her thoughts empty themselves in the rare quiet. When she reached the foot of the mountain, she saw Qiao Nian standing beside an Audi A4.
The woman wasn't tall, but she had a petite figure and an efficient air about her. She raised a hand and removed her sunglasses. “How was it?”
“What do you think?” Qi Yao smiled and walked around to the passenger seat. “Said everything there was to say."
Qiao Nian shifted into gear and turned the steering wheel. “About yesterday, I owe you an apology. The opportunity was too good to pass up, and the day completely slipped my mind.”
Qi Yao gave a quiet hum and said nothing.
Qiao Nian couldn't help turning her head to study her.
Qi Yao was beautiful even without makeup.
A simple white shirt and black trousers, a sun hat covering most of her face. Her features were small yet sharply defined, her skin clear and porcelain-pale, the tip of her nose delicate and straight. Her eyes had the shape of peach blossoms, neither excessively round nor too narrow, softening the sharpness beneath.
Qiao Nian could never quite decide if this was a blessing or a curse.
While this face inspired immediate affection, it also limited the image she could cultivate and the roles she could take. She rarely received characters that allowed her to break through her established image, much less the kind of transcendent leading role in an exceptional script that could leave audiences stunned.
A gentle, quiet, serene beauty.
Ever since her debut, these words had trailed her like a shadow.
Right now, however, the 'Nation's First Love’ had dark circles beneath her eyes and was slumped listlessly against the car window.
“...Were you out robbing houses last night?” Qiao Nian asked, baffled.
They'd had late shoots and early morning calls before. But even after staying up all night, she had never looked this exhausted.
“Robbing houses would’ve been less exhausting.”
Qi Yao remembered the way the man had looked back at her the night before, cool and detached, polite yet distant. That single glance had followed her into a whole night of bizarre, disjointed dreams. Her fingers curled unconsciously.
She leaned forward, pulled an eye mask from the compartment, slipped it over her head in two quick motions, and reached up to pull down the sun visor.
The message was clear: Do not disturb. Sleeping.
Qiao Nian shook her head and launched into her usual nagging.
“When we meet the boss later, try not to say anything if you can help it. I know you've been in two productions back-to-back this first half of the year. You're exhausted and want some time off. But the performance agreement is freshly signed, ink still wet. The boss isn't going to let you off.”
“He's supported you for so many years. Even if you don’t owe him gratitude, he has certainly put in the work.”
As she spoke, she kept sneaking glances at Qi Yao's expression.
When she was twenty, Qi Yao had played the second female lead in a low‑budget web drama. Unexpectedly, the character became a fan favorite. Word of mouth spread across the internet without any official promotion.
Later, she signed with the studio and everything seemed to fall into place. Offers came one after another. She worked hard, could take the grind, and was far more professional than most people in the industry. Gradually she’d carved out a name, and before long she became one of the most promising young actresses in her age group. Her career had been, by any measure, smooth sailing.
Yet beneath that gentle, mild exterior, Qi Yao actually had a mind of her own.
Qiao Nian had always thought of her as a lone wolf wrapped in sheep's clothing. At first glance, you'd be disarmed by the gentle exterior. But if you tried to peel back that shell, you'd find yourself pricked and bleeding before you knew it.
Qi Yao, unaware of this mental detour, simply leaned against the window and answered wearily, “Got it.”
The car moved smoothly all the way to the entrance of Shengyu Media.
Wearing her mask, Qi Yao took the express elevator upstairs with Qiao Nian and went straight to the fifth-floor conference room. When they pushed open the door, they interrupted a discussion already in progress.
Qiu Lang sat at the head of the conference table, dressed in a suit and holding a folder loosely in his hands. His gaze swept over her. “This is your senior fellow artist. She’s usually punctual. Today is a special case.”
Qi Yao curved her eyes into a polite smile and nodded to greet the seven or eight newly signed artists seated on either side.
She recognized only about half of them at a glance.
There were both men and women, most of them visibly nervous. A few even seemed ready to stand and bow; she gave a small shake of her head to stop them.
Qiao Nian followed her to a seat and quietly filled her in. “Everyone on the left came from the talent shows. One ranked at the very bottom of the debut lineup, and one didn't make the final lineup, but President Qiu brought them in anyway. The ones on the right…”
“Oh.” Qi Yao looked around the room, then turned to glance over the contents of the presentation slides.
She’d never had much interest for Qiu Lang’s grand ambitions. But she could not exactly walk out in the middle of the meeting, so she hid her phone beneath the conference table and began playing with it.
She opened the trending searches and scrolled down. The headlines were all entertainment-related, with plenty of familiar names among them. She skimmed past them without pause until her finger stilled around the thirtieth‑odd spot.
After a moment, she opened one of the last entries.
It was financial and business news, far less popular than the entertainment stories occupying the top spots. Before opening it, Qi Yao had never imagined that she would see that face there.
The same face she had seen only the night before.
[XX Finance Exclusive]: Fengxing Group has entered into a partnership with rising technology company Jingfan Tech. According to an announcement posted on the company's official website, the X-11 series scheduled for release at the end of the year will feature the new XM-9521 chip, developed entirely by Jingfan Tech.”
“This will be the first domestically developed and mass-produced semiconductor chip to be fully designed and manufactured in China. Performance is expected to improve by 49% over the previous generation…”
The accompanying photograph showed two men standing together. The middle-aged man on the left was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a formal suit, with a stern and imposing face.
Thanks to Qiu Lang, Qi Yao had met him once before. She recognized him as the president of Fengxing Group.
The other man was again wearing a white shirt, though the hem was looser and the cut was different from the one he had worn the previous night. His long legs were clad in black dress pants and leather shoes, somehow he managed to give even such a conventional outfit an air of unrestrained elegance. He regarded the camera with a calm, uninflected gaze.
Behind them, the words “Jingfan Tech” gleamed in gold beneath the sunlight.
Qi Yao paused for two seconds. The urge to sigh that had seized her the previous night suddenly rose again.
In all her time in the entertainment industry, she'd met all sorts of people, yet she had never encountered someone with an aura quite like his.
He just stood there, casting an indifferent glance at the lens. Nobility and cool detachment seem to come naturally to him, like pine and bamboo beneath fresh snow, impossible not to notice.
Qi Yao pressed her lips together. After hesitating for a moment, she tapped the screen and saved the photograph.
Qiu Lang was still going over the plans for the final quarter, detailing assignments for every artist. Qi Yao absorb none of it.
Top comment: “Sounds impressive. Don’t understand any of the word means. But damn he’s hot. Someone give me a breakdown???”
Second top comment: “I don't even use a domestic phone, but I need this man's entire information within one minute!!!"
The comments were full of teasing and jokes. The post's popularity soared. One refresh sent it five places higher on the trending list, while highly liked comments kept getting pushed toward the top.
@CCityLinQingxia: “Professional internet lurker, at your service! He was my high school classmate. Always been at the top of his class. Excelled at everything—academics, sports, arts. Top-tier univ undergrad, Ivy League master's. And not the kind who always buried his head in books. Felt like he just casually study his way into the provincial top ten, then casually get into a top university. There’s a whole universe between people like him and us mere mortals T_T”
@CrazyAltAccountDoNotDisturb: “Same school, can confirm. Also his family is stupid rich. Just look up Jingfan's controlling parent company and you'll see.”
@LittleBunnyRabbit777: “Another No. 1 High alum checking in! Adding: he was already ridiculously handsome back then! I didn’t go to the same uni (I’m too lame orz), but mutual friends say he was already winning research competitions left and right as an undergrad. His advisor was a leading scholar and doctoral supervisor in the field. The professor had stopped taking students, but made an exception and accepted him for a master's…”
Qi Yao read every word with her lips pressed together.
Even though she had already heard much of this before, she still couldn't bring herself to let go of any piece of information related to him.
She refreshed the page again, and the replies were getting more heated.
“Holy shit, I looked it up. Fengxing is Jingfan's largest shareholder... This guy is Yu Chongshan's son?! Why else would they hand a project this important to some no-name company?”
“Jingfan a no-name? Seriously? It's the biggest semiconductor dark horse of the past two years. Stock’s been soaring since their IPO. They’d be huge even without Fengxing's backing.”
“Isn't this just a Fengxing subsidiary then? Why bother calling it a partnership like they’re separate entities? This trending search has to be bought, right?? This country's done for. Tech companies are starting to use entertainment-industry tactics.”
“Can you people please get your facts straight? The company has been around for five or six years. Fengxing only started investing two years ago. ‘Subsidiary’ my ass.”
"Y'all are arguing so hard up there. Don't get it, I’m a simple girl, I'm just here for the eye candy. Saw this random hot guy in a friend’s Moments ages ago, never thought I’d actually ID him. [image]”
The attached image was a photograph someone had taken of him. He stood at a podium in a university auditorium, backed by reddish-brown hardwood. An English university crest was emblazoned prominently at the center in grand gold lettering, a dream university for countless student. Framed oil portraits of outstanding alumni from different generations lining the walls.
It seemed to be a banquet. Glasses clinked, toasts were made, figures mingled, yet Qi Yao saw him at once.
Yu Jiashu wore a black suit with a neatly tied burgundy tie, his shirt collar was immaculate. His formal posture softened by a trace of casualness, as though the commanding presence he carried had been part of him from birth. One hand rested around the microphone at the podium.
His dark lashes were lowered, several loose strands of hair falling over his forehead. It looked as though the next second he might break into a smile.
Just as he had once stood on the award podium at No. 1 High School, relaxed and nonchalant, chin slightly raised, his sharp jawline gilded by the light.
Youth, in full stride.
“...Qi Yao.”
Qiu Lang called her name three times, but her eyes remained glued to the screen. She didn’t hear him until Qiao Nian nudged her with an elbow, snapping her back to the present.
At some point, the meeting had already ended. The large room was completely empty.
Qiu Lang said, “I know you've worked hard this year. The way you look right now, I’d have to be a monster not to give you time off.”
Qi Yao finally gathered herself and raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Finally grown a conscience?”
“You're the only general I have under my command. Of course I have to take care of you.” Qiu Lang smiled and pushed the documents across the table. “Just one task before the year ends."
Qi Yao looked up at him, already feeling that it could not possibly be that simple.
Her fingers touched the edge of the folder and turned open the first page. As she did, the “Smiling Tiger’s” smooth voice sounded above her.
“Land this one, and I'll bump five percentage points to your year-end bonus. How does that sound?”
The same thing that had just appeared on her phone screen now lay before her again in bold print:
Fengxing X-11 Series Brand Ambassador
The Smiling Tiger always framed his decrees as negotiations. In reality, once he decided something, no one could change it. But this was so wildly unrealistic that Qiao Nian, rarely one to challenge him outright, opened her mouth to refuse.
“‘How does that sound’? This is straight up impossible! A brand at Fengxing's level would never come to us...”
For a moment, Qi Yao felt her soul adrift. The sounds around her grew distant and muffled.
All she could hear was her own voice cutting Qiao Nian off.
“I'll do it.”
Her lips parted and closed again, the note quivering at the end.
Qiao Nian froze for a moment. Even Qiu Lang lowered his eyes in surprise.
Qi Yao stared at the document in her hand and thought:
Why not?
In all those long years, she had waited without hope for their names to intertwine.
She’d already waited ten years.
---
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