WS - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

People in the entertainment industry generally have no personal privacy. No matter what happens, once it becomes public knowledge, even something as trivial as swatting a mosquito can spawn countless stories, and depending on one's status, occupy a corresponding amount of news space on StarNet.

Song Shiyue didn't have many works, but she had recently ridden the wave of her confession to Yu Nianbing, so quite a few people knew her. Naturally, she couldn't afford to be linked to a wall that had mysteriously collapsed.

Wang Mancang arrived early in the morning and immediately shut Song Shiyue in the guest bedroom, repeatedly instructing her not to come out until the workers repairing the wall had left. Only after hearing her lock the door from inside did he feel at ease.

As for Song Shiyue, she hadn't rested well the previous night and being woken up by Wang Mancang so early in the morning made it even harder to keep her eyes open. Now with the guest bedroom locked, she flopped back onto the bed.

But the breakfast Wang Mancang had brought was sitting piping hot on the nightstand. The faint aroma of rice, meat, and beans from the bag made it truly difficult for Song Shiyue to resolutely close her eyes.

Ah, it's all because of last night...

Covering her mouth as she yawned, Song Shiyue sat up and untied the breakfast bag.

Before long, the workers arrived and soon the place was bustling with the sounds of hammering and knocking.

In the guest bedroom, Song Shiyue gnawed on the rice ball Wang Mancang had brought her while listening to the construction noises outside.

Of course, she also caught plenty of the workers' hushed discussions about how that wall had ended up collapsing like that.

The warm glutinous rice wrapped around crispy fried dough stick pieces, topped with slices of rich, fatty sausage, chopped refreshing pickled radish, oh, and a whole salted egg yolk — one bite and it was just impossibly satisfying.

Best of all, there was also a dry spicy mix of peanuts, crispy peas, and dried chili peppers inside, making every mouthful burst with fragrance, impossible to stop.

But having such good hearing was a bit of a nuisance. The workers' exclamations and curiosity seemed so close, inevitably distracting the culprit behind the wall's collapse from her meal.

Fortunately, I'm a Strength-Type Ability User, so my hearing is only slightly enhanced compared to ordinary people. If I were a hearing-type, those discussions would probably be right in my ear, making it so awkward I wouldn't be able to eat properly. Song Shiyue consoled herself with this thought, reaching up to tuck the stray hairs that had fallen loose behind her ear, then burying her head to take another huge bite of the rice ball.

She had only taken two bites when a message from Wang Mancang came through on her wristband StarNet client. [The load-bearing wall is mostly undamaged. We just need to patch up the brick wall part. It should only take a few hours. Stay in the room properly. Let me know if you want something for lunch and I'll bring it in for you.]

Song Shiyue lowered her head, took a couple more bites of the rice ball, thought for a moment, then replied: [Yu Nianbing said she'd come by today. Uncle Wang, keep an ear out and don't let the workers see her.]

Soon, Wang Mancang replied with [Okay].

Song Shiyue's wristband client then fell silent again.

But, she probably won't come anymore...

Song Shiyue thought back to the events of the previous night.

Thanks to her excellent hearing, while washing the dishes in Yu Nianbing's kitchen the night before, she had picked up fragmented conversations about "your child, my child, whose child," and later, deep into the night, there was that woman knocking relentlessly on Yu Nianbing's door...

At the time, after Song Shiyue had cleared space for the frozen chicken, she had followed Yu Nianbing's instructions, ignored the business outside, and obediently returned to her room. But with that person lingering just outside their door, Song Shiyue still overheard quite a bit.

It sounded like Yu Nianbing had hung up on her call and then connected to the woman outside.

Soon, the doorbell ringing and door-pounding next door both stopped.

With the person outside quiet, Song Shiyue couldn't help but think about the bits she had earlier overheard about "your child, my child, whose child." She rifled through the original host's memories, couldn't help flipping over and opening StarNet. Sure enough, as the original host knew, in this technologically advanced world, society had only just reached the point of same-sex marriage legalization, still far from the ability to have same-sex biological children. Song Shiyue felt embarrassed by her own wild imagination.

Not long after, new footsteps sounded outside, then Yu Nianbing and that woman's hushed conversation gradually faded into the distance.

Next door was silent, and from start to finish, no one had entered.

Inside and out, only Song Shiyue remained. It was just that her drowsiness seemed unlikely to return anytime soon.

Afterward, Song Shiyue lay awake for a long time, so she simply pulled up the sitcoms the original host had filmed and watched them on StarNet.

But... after only a couple episodes, she couldn't help clicking the little X in the upper right corner.

Sure enough, when it's your own face, it's hard to put on a beauty filter and tolerate that acting.

However, the later film she watched starring Yu Nianbing was quite interesting.

The female lead was the young successor of a reclusive martial arts sect, living a pure and ascetic life, single-mindedly pursuing the pinnacle of martial arts until she met the male lead, a fallen man bearing a blood feud, and together they wrote a story of heroism and romance.

The theme wasn't particularly novel, but both leads gave outstanding performances.

Especially Yu Nianbing.

That pure, aloof, otherworldly female lead, peerlessly beautiful yet unaware of it, was a role practically tailor-made for Yu Nianbing. Meanwhile, the male lead's somewhat clumsy yet endearing journey to thaw the ice was so agonizing to watch it made viewers wish they could take his place.

Beneath the seemingly unyielding icy surface lay a warmth that only one person could access. This ultimately became the film's most unforgettable quality.

No wonder Yu Nianbing won her first Golden Planet Award for that film.

It was indeed stirring, lingering long in the heart.

For Song Shiyue, however, the film's appeal didn't end there.

In the film, there were scenes where the female lead cooked for the male lead.

Among them, there was sizzling grilled meat, and... a pot of richly fragrant, simmering chicken soup.

And the recipe for that chicken soup was exactly the same as the one Yu Nianbing had described to her in that previous video.

Soft, tender potatoes, crisp cabbage, and chicken that fell off the bone along with the rich broth...

Could that prop pot in the film have come from Yu Nianbing's hands?

Late at night, Song Shiyue's thoughts drifted like that until she finally fell into dreamland, and until Wang Mancang woke her, she had been dreaming about chicken soup.

Food was undeniably one of the things... that people who had lived through the apocalypse yearned for most.

But the events of the previous night made Song Shiyue unsure whether Yu Nianbing would still come today.

If she doesn't come, then delivery it is — I'll go with chicken soup!

Around noon, with the repair work half done, there was no sign of anyone returning next door.

After hesitating again and again, Song Shiyue ordered a five-dish, one-soup combo from delivery — no chicken soup.

By three or four in the afternoon, the wall had been mended and even repainted, the workers had left, and still no one had come back to the neighboring unit.

Wang Mancang checked in on Song Shiyue's mental state and, upon hearing that she didn't need his company, hesitated and dawdled for a while before finally leaving as well.

All was quiet, the two houses no longer connected.

Not until evening, just when Song Shiyue had stopped hesitating and was about to open the StarNet page for a soup specialty restaurant she had spotted at noon, did she hear the elevator outside and the sound of footsteps arriving at the neighboring door.

But that was only the beginning.

The elevator sounded again and again, footsteps came and went.

The neighbor's door remained unopened. Those people only paused briefly at the doorstep, left some things, and left without even knocking.

In just half an hour, four or five groups of people came by.

Curious, Song Shiyue took advantage of a lull between visits to open her door and take a look. She saw that outside the neighboring door, large and small, several boxes had piled up.

With so many people delivering things, it seemed like she really might come back today.

After having the delivery page open for half an hour, Song Shiyue finally chose to close it.

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