Chapter 1

November 2023. Jin City. Shuangliu Airport.

Wen Fu wore a black mask, a matching windbreaker, hands stuffed in his pockets, head down, striding fast down the VIP corridor toward the exit.

His assistant Zhou Ji took one look at the mess his hair had become from sleeping on the plane and quickly pulled a knit beanie from his bag. 'Put this on.'

He took the hat from Zhou Ji, yanked it on, tugged the brim down. His bangs got pressed to his eyebrows, almost hiding those long, dark-lashed eyes.

'Wear it properly,' Zhou Ji reached over and fixed it for him. 'Stella's gonna nag again if she sees you like that.'

Wen Fu's hair was black and coarse, and he couldn't be bothered to style it. Add a packed schedule these past two years — he'd knock out the second he got on a plane and come down looking like a disaster. So the assistant always kept a hat in his bag.

A black commercial van had been waiting at the exit. Maybe a dozen fans stood on either side for the airport pickup. Wen Fu waved goodbye to them like always before getting in, and the two assistants collected letters from the fans and climbed in after him.

As one of the hottest rising pop singers in the Chinese entertainment industry right now, Wen Fu was way too unkempt. All he had going for him was a face that looked 3D-rendered. Every time he traveled privately, he'd wrap himself up so tight you could barely see him. Media and fans only ever saw him on variety shows and in commercial ads.

Beyond that, only the fans who tracked his schedule got to see him in person, briefly, at airport pickups and drop-offs.

Once in the van, Stella sat next to Wen Fu and handed him a salad she'd bought ahead of time. 'Later I'm meeting with a sponsor I'm trying to land for the concert. If it goes well, the main deal's basically locked in. The company's been short on cash these past two years — this sponsor's a big fish. If I can pull this off, everything else for the concert is small potatoes. You should come with me.'

Wen Fu pulled his mask down, revealing a face pale from exhaustion. He started in on the salad — beef first, then the egg. 'Not going.'

His voice was always light and fast, barely audible. A normal person would have to hear him two or three times to catch it, but the assistant and Stella were used to it by now.

When Wen Fu said no, it wasn't him throwing his weight around — he just wasn't built for these situations. Stella knew that. He'd been like this since debut: born quiet, and it wasn't going to change. He didn't like talking to people. Outside of singing and shows, he basically didn't open his mouth unless absolutely necessary, and when he had to talk to someone, he'd get it done in the shortest, fastest words possible.

By all logic, a personality like that shouldn't survive in the entertainment industry. But luckily, the one who'd been managing Wen Fu since debut was Stella — the top, most capable agent in the country.

Stella was the ceiling for agents in Chinese entertainment. The name itself was a brand.

An agent at her level wouldn't normally focus on some unknown nobody like Wen Fu. In this industry, whether you made it was luck. Even though she'd discovered him herself, Stella had managed a sea of people — only one or two ever broke through. Chinese entertainment had no shortage of good-looking, talented nobodies. Fame was a mystery. Wen Fu didn't fight for it, had no ambition. Years after debut, he was still lukewarm. Forget the industry — even within the company, he was getting edged out.

Then, just her luck — two years ago, the 'year of career collapses.' The two biggest names under Stella both crossed red lines and got banned back to back, and the company's main drama investments fell apart with them.

Shows filmed but couldn't air. The artists involved were either in prison or fled overseas. Hundreds of millions in investment went down the drain. On top of that, brand partners sued the company for damages, leaving them over a hundred million in debt. They'd lost money in every direction imaginable, and Stella's reputation in the industry was hanging by a thread.

And then, right at that moment, Wen Fu accidentally blew up from a singing video he'd filmed on a whim. His heat suddenly took off. He became the company's lifeline. Not an overnight top-tier star, sure, but at least he'd gone from nowhere to mid-tier — the kind of level where people recognized his name.

After that, the company treated Wen Fu like a cash cow. Best resources piled on him, best team around him. Stella needed an artist to put up results and turn her reputation around, so she gave Wen Fu more attention than she'd ever given anyone.

Right time, right place, right people. By all logic, a star at this point should be hitting life's peak and soaring. But Wen Fu didn't have that kind of luck.

To plug the financial hole, the company started running him ragged year-round — Commercial Performance, projects, anything that made money. They'd have him work twenty-five hours a day if they could.

And it was right around then that everyone realized: Wen Fu might be quiet, but when there was work, he did it. Whatever the team scheduled, he showed up without a word. The worst stretch — four flights in one day, five commercial gigs plus a music variety show. After all that, when the company took 1.8 million out of his 2 million performance fee, he didn't push back.

Put bluntly, the guy was born to suffer.

When the company was thriving, he stood on the sidelines. Now that they were broke, they made him carry the weight.

Wen Fu carried that weight without complaint, without regret. Only one thing was non-negotiable: he didn't do business dinners and networking events.

Everyone knew his temperament. They'd already put him through so much — on this one thing, they gave way. If he didn't absolutely have to be there, they respected his wishes.

'You really not going?' Stella asked again.

Wen Fu shook his head. Finished the egg, started picking at the lettuce and carrots, taking half-hearted bites.

He didn't like vegetables. He liked meat.

Didn't like salad or fitness meals either. Liked plain white rice.

Wen Fu was already thin — the kind of body that never put on weight no matter what he ate. One look at his hand and you could see the veins and knuckles standing out. But Stella still kept the rules she'd used managing top-tier stars: no artist under her was allowed too many carbs, especially rice and noodles. Back when Wen Fu was a nobody, nobody cared. Now he couldn't escape being held to the same standard.

Stella watched him silently shoving lettuce into his mouth, then asked with sudden interest, 'You know which company this sponsor is?'

Wen Fu shook his head again, focused on battling his greens.

Stella: 'Sifuse Media Group.'

Wen Fu hummed through his nose, didn't even look up.

Whether it was Sifuse Media Group or Forget-About-It Media Group, he never cared about this stuff. Never even heard of them.

'The person Sifuse Media Group is sending to talk to us is their executive director — executive director.' Stella repeated it on purpose. 'You can tell they take you seriously, right?'

She didn't expect Wen Fu to say anything meaningful about it, so she cut straight to the last question: 'You know the name of this director they're sending?'

Wen Fu shook his head, swallowed a piece of broccoli, and decided he absolutely was not eating the rest of the salad.

Just as he was about to close the box, he caught the receipt on the bag. 220 yuan for this salad. He froze, picked the fork back up, and decided he absolutely was finishing it.

Just as he was bringing the next bite of greens to his mouth, he heard Stella say: 'Fei Bolin.'

The greens stopped halfway to his mouth.

Like a key sliding into a lock — click — Wen Fu froze solid.

His gaze stalled for a full minute before he slowly turned to look at Stella. 'What?'

Wen Fu was genuinely beautiful — looked like a porcelain doll. Under those thick lashes sat a pair of very black eyes, same shade as his brows and hair, jet black, cold and hard, no warmth in them year-round, no emotion you could read.

Right now, looking at Stella, his expression was still calm — that was just how he was born, hard to stir — but the way he stared carried a silent pressure.

'Fei Bolin.'

For a reaction like this, Stella — old hand at reading people — wasn't nervous. If anything, she was pleased. Almost laughing inside.

Like watching a robot she'd raised herself suddenly glitch, a human soul planted inside it.

Even the deadest water can be stirred someday.

So she slowly smiled, and repeated the name clearly.

— Fei Bolin.

Wen Fu stared blankly for a long time again.

During that time, he searched every inch of Stella's expression, checking her face over and over for any sign she was joking.

Then he asked, 'Which Fei Bolin?'

'How many Fei Bolins do you know?' Stella shot back on purpose.

Wen Fu blinked, dropped his gaze, set the fork down, rested his hand on his knee, and fell into a long silence.

Stella found his reaction too funny. She stopped beating around the bush: 'Fei, like Fei Bolin's Fei. Bo, like Fei Bolin's Bo. Lin, like Fei Bolin's Lin.'

She explained airtight: 'The Fei Bolin who eight years ago sat with you through the auditions, the interviews, and personally put you on the plane — now will you go?'

Wen Fu: 'Not going.'

Stella: 'You really not going?'

This wasn't back when he was crying and making a fuss about going back to the country to find him, was it?

Wen Fu was silent for a second. 'Where is he?'

Stella burst out laughing. 'On his way right now.'

Wen Fu's gaze drifted forward. 'How long?'

'Hmm...' Stella checked the road sign. 'Less than two kilometers, maybe five or six minutes. No traffic right now.'

Five minutes.

Wen Fu's mind went blank. Those words floated around in his head.

Five minutes...

Like he suddenly didn't know what to do with himself.

After a moment, Wen Fu suddenly remembered he hadn't finished the salad. Figuring there wasn't time, he just grabbed the box, tipped his head back, and shoveled the salad into his mouth.

'Hey! Your table manners!' Stella hissed through her teeth, punctuating every word with a smack to his arm. His near-zero image management drove her up the wall. 'What if someone snaps a photo again? You know last time just buying your eating photos off the paparazzi cost me a hundred and eighty thousand?'

Last month, Wen Fu recorded a professional music show on Huangtai Platform. He'd drawn the last slot in the lottery, and the recording equipment kept glitching — the whole thing took six hours. The Program Team didn't provide food; the guest room only had the sponsor's yogurt. The second recording wrapped, he ran downstairs, bought an eight-yuan fried rice, sat on a flower bed, and ate like a wolf — clean sweep. The paparazzi photos came out to a full three gigabytes.

Luckily the paparazzi negotiated with Stella before releasing them. The photos showed Wen Fu sitting boldly on the flower bed, head down, shoveling rice. When those HD images got projected on the office's big screen, Stella's migraine nearly killed her.

Stella hit hard on her end. On his end, Wen Fu's Adam's apple bobbed a few times as he chewed and swallowed half the salad without stopping.

He set the box down, half his face hidden behind messy bangs, jaw muscles working, silently but forcefully chewing his greens. No matter how Stella hit him, he didn't react.

Stella watched him eat — that table manners completely at odds with his face — and rolled her eyes so hard they nearly hit the ceiling. She cursed him straight in her native Guangdong Province dialect: 'Hungry ghost reincarnated! Model body, savage eating!'

The van pulled into a tunnel. The inside went dark all at once. Stella turned her face away, took a few deep breaths to get her emotions in check, ready to brief Wen Fu on the meeting. When she looked back, Wen Fu had his phone out, a search engine open, staring intently at the screen.

The cold light of the screen fell on his face. Wen Fu's skin was translucent pale. His lashes trembled, barely perceptible. The line of his high nose bridge and jaw carved out an almost too-perfect profile.

After eating, Wen Fu went still again — back to being a porcelain-white statue, like something carved by a chisel.

Stella looked at that face, thought about the tens of millions in revenue Wen Fu brought the team every year, and her anger evaporated completely — same as every time.

In Chinese entertainment right now, singers fall into a few tracks.

One: full-on traffic. Talent not enough, fan votes fill the gap. Start as an idol, then once the fanbase is solid, leverage the traffic to pivot into acting. That's the path most singers and idols take now — fast money, high exposure. Of course, only one in a thousand actually makes it. Most get weeded out along the way. Luck and fate both.

Two: de-traffic. Songs and variety shows, both. Some fans, not totally dependent on the fan economy — pure talent. But that means you need real works under your belt. Even if you don't have the kind of classic songs a top-tier king or queen has, you need at least a dozen breakout drama OSTs, or you'll embarrass yourself trying to sell concert tickets.

Three: the king-and-queen tier. You never see them in online discussions. Less than a thousand active followers on Weibo. Then they announce a concert — sold out in three seconds, packed house. No fans, just music lovers.

Wen Fu sat somewhere between one and two.

Stella had originally planned route one for him, but with Wen Fu's personality, that was never going to work. Luckily, his talent was undeniable. After a quiet stretch, a singing video he'd recorded at home went viral, word of mouth spread, and he got chances to slowly join music variety shows. He built up a stack of breakout covers and originals, and that put him on route two.

He could've just been a singer, doing his thing, no extra noise outside of recording. But beyond the company's financial mess, the reason event organizers loved inviting him once he had some fame was that face.

When an artist has nothing but looks, that face is a bubble in the air — won't last. But once the public recognizes both fame and talent, a beautiful face becomes the icing on the cake.

Wen Fu was twenty-six this year. His first singing video had exploded two years ago.

In the video, he wore a pilling gray sweater, sat on his living room floor, a Guitar in his arms, a baseball cap pulled so low it almost hid the top half of his face. You only saw his feather-fall lashes when he tipped his head down to sing.

The video was probably recorded around dusk or dawn. No lights on in the room, just a sliver of transparent, crab-shell-blue sky-light coming through the window. The hazy frame slipped out of focus now and then — Wen Fu's thin lower face blurring in and out, red lips, white teeth, beautiful.

His speaking voice was clear and cool, but when he sang, it went low and rough.

The internet's favorite word for it: 'story feel.'

As for what 'story feel' actually means — you get it or you don't.

The top-liked comment on that video explained his tone like this:

When the strings start, it's spring planting. When the song ends, it's already winter.

Whether he sang out any 'story feel' is debatable, but the four seasons? Definitely there.

The song in the video was just a fragment — looked like Wen Fu recorded it on a whim. No track name, no Sheet Music, nothing on the music apps. But once he posted it, three days later the video site had four million likes and a million shares. That was when Wen Fu's real career as a singer began.

Every coin has two sides. That face also meant he could never fully escape the fan-circle traffic game.

Even though Wen Fu stayed hidden in private, his name still showed up in marketing accounts' press releases hitting their KPIs. And because he never acted, a few stars who'd successfully pivoted from idol to actor liked to drag him into their press releases, mocking his zero film and commercial track record to boost themselves.

Wen Fu himself could ignore all that drama with both ears closed. But Stella, as his agent, wouldn't pass up any opportunity.

Free traffic is free traffic. Stella used that buzz as Wen Fu's calling card, dragging him to dinners with producers and music companies to get his face out there — even if at the table Wen Fu just buried himself in his food and did nothing else, Stella's mouth was enough. On the side, she kept landing him commercial endorsements with decent titles.

Of course, all of this was built on Wen Fu's genuinely extraordinary musical talent.

Producers who'd heard his self-produced singles and live shows — ninety percent of them signed on by the end of one meal.

Stella figured this sponsor meeting would go the same way.

Wen Fu, the guy you couldn't beat a single word out of, willing to sit through the meeting with her was already showing plenty of sincerity on their side.

When they got out of the van, Wen Fu closed the salad box, handed it to the assistant to bag, and quickly murmured to Stella, 'Don't buy such expensive ones next time.'

Stella took a second to realize he meant the salad.

She knew Wen Fu was always frugal with his living expenses. She could only sigh: 'This was already the cheap one. Other artists' are four or five hundred a box.'

Wen Fu, half a foot out the door, turned back. 'Fried rice is fine for me.'

Stella: 'How many times have I told you that stuff is heavy on oil and salt, it's not healthy!'

Wen Fu plunged headfirst into the cold wind, totally pretending he hadn't heard.