The sudden question put Jiang Ling in a difficult spot.
She faced the gathering gazes of the others and, trembling, said, “Only children make choices—I want them all, of course—”
“Please consider reality, Little Bell.”
Mo Ran smiled beside her, gently rejecting, “Time isn’t so abundant. You can only pick one person for each of the two performances to join you on stage.”
Forced into a dead end, Jiang Ling swallowed hard, her brain working furiously—at this moment, she felt as smart as Einstein!
After a moment, she spoke in a timid voice, “Then… how about Xiao Ran and Sister Bai Xue?”
After all, they hadn’t performed together on stage before. From the audience’s point of view, a new combination would be more appealing and have more buzz.
More importantly, Jiang Ling felt that if she had to choose between Lin Xiaoyu and Fang Wannan, something terrifying might happen. So, in an almost official tone, she added, “After all, we’ve never worked together before!”
At these words, Lin Xiaoyu’s brows twitched almost imperceptibly, clearly dissatisfied, but she quickly returned to normal, her expression calm as she nodded slowly, “That makes sense. For NOVA’s sake, this is the most suitable choice.”
Fang Wannan, on the other hand, was much more transparent in her reaction. She bit her lip tightly, staring intently at Jiang Ling, the movement of her fingers twirling her hair slowing, her voice tinged with obvious disappointment: “…I see.”
She turned away and said nothing more.
Yet Jiang Ling felt a strange pressure. She snuck glances at the sulking Fang Wannan, wanting to say something, but had no idea where to start.
Noticing this, Mo Ran followed her gaze with some confusion, then suddenly smiled in realization, “What’s this? Nan Nan, do you really want to perform with Little Bell that much?”
Abruptly brought up, Fang Wannan’s body trembled slightly.
She quickly turned away, her golden ponytail swinging a hasty arc through the air.
“Who—who wants to perform with her?”
Her tone was a bit anxious, immediately denying it, “I’m just worried she’ll drag you down, that’s all… Since you’ve already decided, let’s just hurry up and start practicing!”
After she finished, Fang Wannan turned back around, a suspicious blush coloring her face as she hurried over to the speakers, fiddled to start the music, and immediately threw herself into practice.
Seeing this left Jiang Ling even more confused. Helpless, she looked to Mo Ran, who had just lightened the mood, only to receive a cheerful, comforting pat: “Alright, you can talk about it later.”
Jiang Ling had nothing else to say, so she could only begin practicing for now, planning to talk to Fang Wannan afterwards.
But to call it “talking”—Jiang Ling really had no idea what was going on with Fang Wannan.
…
But her intuition told her she definitely couldn’t just ignore it.
So almost the moment practice ended, she summoned her courage and walked over to Fang Wannan.
“Nan Nan, I…”
Before she could speak, Fang Wannan hurriedly grabbed her bag and left, as if she hadn’t even seen Jiang Ling.
Jiang Ling’s outstretched hand fell back to her side.
She stared blankly at Fang Wannan’s departing figure, a mix of confusion and bitterness welling up inside her.
What… happened?
In the following days, Jiang Ling noticed that the atmosphere between her and Fang Wannan had grown strangely subtle.
It wasn’t exactly open hostility, but Fang Wannan seemed to effortlessly ignore everything she said.
For instance, when they were practicing dance, even though their positions put them right next to each other, there was no communication at all—not even an extra glance came her way.
This left Jiang Ling both confused and a little tortured.
Fang Wannan had never been like this before.
Had she done something wrong?
With these thoughts on her mind, Jiang Ling inevitably made mistakes during practice. Under Lin Xiaoyu’s half-strict, half-comforting words, she finally had to stop for the day and return to her room to rest.
Once inside, Jiang Ling buried her head in her pillow. The slightly suffocating feeling only made the bitterness in her heart worse.
After a while, she sat up suddenly, grabbed her phone, opened her chat with Fang Wannan, and quickly typed a message.
[Are you mad at me?]
Then she swiftly deleted it.
[Did I do something to make you angry?]
After hesitating a moment, Jiang Ling made a bitter face and deleted this one, too, growing even more nervous and flustered.
Oh, heavens!
Someone please tell her what on earth was happening!
…Of course, Miss Jiang Ling’s plea received no answer from any god. She could only keep restlessly opening and closing the chat, repeating this pointless action as she watched the time tick by.
Jiang Ling desperately wanted to ask outright, but her timid nature made things anything but simple.
She bit her finger, racking her brains for how to ask without sounding too weird.
[Did you finish practicing? Are you tired?]
Looking at her own message in the chat, Jiang Ling couldn’t help but cover her face.
Haha…
What kind of useless nonsense was she even saying?!
Having no experience comforting girls, Jiang Ling found herself facing the biggest crisis since her “rebirth.”
She agonizingly shook her phone, not noticing at all that the pointless message had already been sent without her realizing it.
“Ding—”
The sound of a message reply startled Jiang Ling so much she nearly jumped. She quickly looked down and saw that the message had indeed been sent out, making her suck in a breath and nervously check Fang Wannan’s reply…
…
[?]
Jiang Ling clutched her phone, tears streaming down her face.
So scary!
How could a single, tiny question mark hurt this much?!
Jiang Ling lowered her head, her trembling fingers frozen in mid-air, unable to think of what to say next.
After a brief silence, the message alert sounded again.
[Did you message me just to say such brainless, stupid things?]
Jiang Ling instantly felt as if a thousand arrows had pierced her heart. With a face full of dark lines, she gloomily typed two words in reply.
[Sorry.]
Poof—plan, utterly failed!
Jiang Ling shut her eyes, imagining countless little people around her laughing at her pathetic state.
In the end, just what on earth was wrong with her!
Before Jiang Ling could think further, there was a heavy knock at the door, more like someone kicking than knocking, which startled her into sitting upright.
“Ha… who, who is it?”
A brief silence.
Jiang Ling stood up in confusion and walked to the door, pressing the handle—
It wouldn’t open?
She tried again. The handle pressed down a little, then quickly popped back up, and an impatient voice sounded from outside.
“Don’t open the door.”
Jiang Ling immediately recognized Fang Wannan’s voice, tensing up as she instinctively let go of the handle.
Separated by the door, Fang Wannan heard Jiang Ling give up on opening it, and only then did she let out a tiny breath of relief. She leaned back against the door, knees slightly bent, her face tangled and shy, unconsciously twisting her hair. Because she’d run here in a hurry, there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead.
Perhaps made awkward by the silence, Fang Wannan kicked the door with the heel of her shoe.
“Hey… say something, will you.”