Shangguan Xiyue’s hand was slender and graceful, easily able to flatten mine inside her palm.
Her middle finger was nearly a whole knuckle longer than mine.
So, yeah—what she said earlier wasn’t wrong.
Compared to hers, my hand really was delicate and petite.
She was still giggling and joking as she held my hand—but the moment her fingers brushed my chilly fingertips,she instinctively glanced down—
And when she saw my face, completely drained of color, her heart gave a sharp jolt.
Even if she’d been dense before, she couldn’t ignore it now—something was definitely wrong.
“Xiaoyan, what’s going on?”
I forced a wobbly smile—stiff, awkward.
Someone I didn’t want anything to do with…was somehow managing to creep into every corner of my life.
A sweet little girl?
I recalled how Shangguan Xiyue had described her…
In my mind’s eye, a certain face appeared.
Her?
Cute?
Seriously?
In what universe?
I quietly withdrew my hand from hers and gave a strained chuckle.
“You know… our tastes might actually be a lot more alike than I thought.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled.
I simply shook my head.
The little ahoge strand on top of my head swayed with the motion.
I didn’t want to unpack that topic. Not now.
I wasn’t ready to tell Shangguan Xiyue about the Su family.
“I’m just feeling a little tired. Mind if I have a moment to myself?”
Shangguan Xiyue could tell something was bothering me—something I didn’t want to talk about.
She decided to let it go and save the catch-up session for another day.
“Alright… But you have to take care of yourself, okay? If something comes up and you don’t know how to handle it—come find me, right away.”
She turned to leave the 514 dorm room—
But I reached out and grabbed her arm from behind.
Startled, she looked over her shoulder and saw a pale, delicate little hand holding her back.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sorry,” I murmured. “We just met up again after so long…I should’ve spent more time with you. Next time, okay?”
My voice carried clear regret.
Shangguan Xiyue smiled helplessly.
We were standing so close that her hand naturally came to rest on my fluffy head,
gently ruffling my hair.
“Silly girl, why are you apologizing? After all we’ve been through together, do we really need to say stuff like that? Everyone’s got things they’re dealing with.”
It wasn’t until this moment that Shangguan Xiyue finally started to associate the online version of me—the aloof, dependable “bro”—with the delicate girl sitting in front of her.
And without realizing it, she’d already started using the gentle tone of a doting older sister.
Her hand rubbing my head made my body stiffen slightly.
Well, it’s just my bro.
Nothing weird.
Truthfully, it was only me, still adjusting to this newbie-girl phase, who was uncomfortable.
As for Shangguan Xiyue, she hadn’t thought much of it at all.
To her, this was just a perfectly normal way of comforting someone.
The dorm quieted once more, and I sat alone on the chair, listening to the steady hum of the computer fan.
I reached out to turn off the screen—and in the black reflection, a girl’s face stared back at me.
My hair had already grown long enough to brush past my shoulders.
I lightly bit my lip.
Adapting to life as a girl… wasn’t something that could be done overnight.
It had everything to do with ingrained, subconscious habits.
Take something as simple as this: if someone yelled “handsome guy” on the street, my reflex was still to glance back instinctively—wondering if they were calling out to me.
But a girl who had always lived as a girl?
She’d never react that way.
Her first instinct would be to not turn around.
Only after processing the situation would curiosity maybe make her look.
I pulled out my phone and returned the recent transfer.
I didn’t know Shangguan Xiyue had already set our earnings at a 50/50 split.
So I didn’t realize she’d also received a good bit of money herself, and never mentioned the refund to her.
Meanwhile, Su Liumeng had just uploaded her starry-eyed post about playing games with her beloved “idol.”
She glanced at her phone—
Only to receive a message like a bolt of lightning straight from a clear sky.
【Sorry. I won’t be continuing the paid companion service.】
Immediately after that—
Her chat window displayed a glaring red exclamation mark.
Blocked.
Su Liumeng froze.
Her eyes went wide with disbelief—as if her whole world had just collapsed.
She never imagined…
That she would get cut off.
Just like that.
Clatter—
Her phone slipped from her trembling hand, landing on the ground.
Her eyes welled with tears—slowly filling, her slight shoulders quivering unconsciously with each unsteady breath.
Drip—
A tear landed heavily on the back of her hand.
The chilling touch of it…was still not as cold as the emptiness in her heart.
She didn’t want to cry.
She’d always thought of herself as strong.
How could someone like her… break down?
When Si Xinyan had set her up again and again, she had only been a little girl of twelve or thirteen—
and even then, she hadn’t cried.
But now—
Su Liumeng raised her arm to wipe at her eyes, over and over, yet no matter what she did, she couldn’t stop the tears from falling like broken pearls.
Suddenly, she stood up from the bed, biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood—only then did she manage to halt the flood of tears.
No.
This wasn’t right.
No one would just delete her out of the blue for no reason.
Something must’ve happened.
Jiuyan had deleted her right after playing a game together.
Could it be—Jiuyan recognized her in real life?
Maybe she’d heard her name and pieced together her identity?
And once she realized who Su Liumeng was… she didn’t want to have anything to do with her?
Could it be—
Jiuyan not only knew her… but held a grudge from the past?
The more Su Liumeng thought about it, the more she felt this possibility was likely.
She wiped away the last remnants of her tears.
And in her eyes, not a trace of sadness remained from being deleted by someone she liked.
From a young age, she had been taught one thing—
If you want something, you fight for it.
Sitting and waiting would get you nothing.
And now—what she needed to do was simple.
Take back the love that hadn’t even begun.
She picked up a separate phone, her tone calm and commanding.
“Find someone for me. Use the highest clearance and resources.”
“Keywords: StarDust game. Jiuyan account. From precise IP targeting to real-name verification—
not a single step is to be missed.”
This was very different from when she casually inquired about Si Xinyan through the academic office.
This time, she meant business.
On this land, no matter what you did, you could never escape real-name registration.
If she truly wanted to track someone down—it was all too easy.
Before, she had never wanted to use such methods on Jiuyan.
But now she’d been blocked.
If she didn’t do something now, it’d really be over.
What was there left to hesitate about?
Su Liumeng paced slowly back and forth inside the villa.
Her pale pink princess dress was stained with tear marks.
Once the cleanest, most fastidious person, she didn’t even care anymore.
The anxious wait clenched her heart tighter with every second.
Her fingers curled tightly into fists—long manicured nails digging deep into her palms—yet she didn’t feel a thing.
Ding-dong—
A file came through on her WeChat.
She fumbled to open the file with trembling hands.
And the moment her eyes landed on the photo and name, her pupils began to dilate inch by inch—
her eyes widening in disbelief.
How could this be?!
Si Xinyan?
Gender: Female.
If anyone in the world claimed to know Si Xinyan better than she did, Su Liumeng would call them a liar.
After so many years of rivalry—overt and covert—even if Si Xinyan were reduced to ashes, she would still recognize her.
There was no mistake.
This was definitely the same Si Xinyan she had known.
The shock was so great that Su Liumeng didn’t even register the change in Si Xinyan’s gender.
Her hands trembled uncontrollably as she forced herself to keep reading.
The file was painstakingly detailed—
From Si Xinyan’s emergence as a prodigy in StarDust at age thirteen, to her recent climb in the ladder rankings, every detail had been documented thoroughly.
So—
Si Xinyan was Jiuyan?!
The person she’d admired and adored for so many years…was the same one she had once called “brother,” the one she had personally driven out of the Su family, and who now bore no blood or legal ties to her.
It was as if the heavens were playing the cruelest joke on her.
And of the two people involved in this twisted irony—it was Su Liumeng who clearly had the hardest time accepting it.
Suddenly, she understood—
Why Si Xinyan had deleted her so decisively upon recognizing her.
Because she would’ve done the same.
After a lifetime of being enemies, how could the hatred and tangled history between them be undone in a few words?
Just like that, it was over?
Su Liumeng stared at the glaring red exclamation mark on the screen.
A surge of resentment and unwillingness welled up inside her.
This was the only person she had ever loved.
The one person she had quietly admired and dreamed of for so many years.
A dream cherished in the heart of a girl who had never dared to say it aloud.
How many youths can a person truly have in a lifetime?
First love—it’s something one will remember for the rest of their life.
How could she possibly give it up so easily?
Without the slightest hesitation, Su Liumeng grabbed the hem of her skirt and bolted out of the villa.
No matter what the outcome—
She would never allow the passionate love that once lit up her youth to end in such a quiet, bitter whimper.
Even if—
That person was the one she hated most: Si Xinyan.
This was the kind of resolve that only a young girl in love could have.
An undying longing untouched by the harshness of reality—a beautiful fantasy still burning bright,
and a defiant refusal to let go.
Jeez Louise please tell me him and his sis don’t end up together. That would kill me.