A Time-Limited Romance with Movie Queen Ex - Chapter 45.2

“Qingyao, before this, I recommended quite a few young men and women to you, but you didn’t like any of them. This time, I’ve gathered a fresh batch. They’re all huge fans of yours some even quietly asked me if they could meet you once they heard they might get a connection in the industry.”

Rong Qingyao was too rigid and proper, carrying herself like a monk detached from worldly desires, making anyone who wanted to approach her hesitate.

Over time, rumors in the industry about her being frigid grew more rampant. Not long ago, there was even a trending hashtag: #RongQingyao truly has eyes empty of desire#

The accompanying video showed Rong Qingyao sitting alone on the high platform at the company’s annual gala, watching the attractive performers on stage with complete disinterest her gaze no different from if she were looking at flowers or stones.

Someone even edited the stage performance to feature dancing skeletons, commenting: You all don’t get it, you need something more explicit.

Rong Qingyao had no interest in any of it, her expression dark as she looked at Luo Mijin. “We should go back. It’s time for bed.”

“So early?” Wei Xiashuang, ever graceful and patient, didn’t press them to stay, only smiling charmingly as she said, “Then it’s settled between us, yes?”

“What’s settled?” Rong Qingyao’s lashes lowered slightly as she asked, her tone somewhere between amusement and something sharper.

Wei Xiashuang cast a glance at Rong Qingyao, her voice sweet and soft, “It’s just a little secret between me and Xiao Luo. Qingyao, you don’t need to ask too much about it.”

Luo Mijin smiled faintly but still politely declined, “No, Xiashuang. Thank you for your kindness, but I’m afraid I’m not up to the task.”

“What a shame,” Wei Xiashuang sighed, gazing at Luo Mijin with reluctance. “I won’t give up, though. Can I still invite you out to play sometime?”

Before leaving, Wei Xiashuang made a phone gesture to Luo Mijin, signaling her determination not to give up.

Rong Qingyao immediately tugged Luo Mijin away, walking faster. Once in the car, her voice turned icy as she asked, “Did you have a good time with Wei Xiashuang today?”

Not wanting Rong Qingyao to know what she had inquired about, Luo Mijin smiled and replied, “It was alright.”

To Rong Qingyao, that smile seemed to indicate Luo Mijin’s satisfaction with Wei Xiashuang and how well they had gotten along.

“Wei Xiashuang is a notorious playgirl in our circle. You’d better not get too close to her.”

“Mhm, I know. I’m grown up and can judge for myself. She’s not a bad person.”

“How do you know she isn’t bad?” Rong Qingyao gripped the steering wheel tightly, her voice cold enough to freeze someone to death.

Luo Mijin turned to look at Rong Qingyao, puzzled by her sudden outburst of anger.

“Just a feeling. I don’t have any value to exploit, what harm could she possibly do?”

Nearly driven mad by Luo Mijin’s naivety, Rong Qingyao let out a cold, uncontrolled laugh and accelerated the car, driving much faster than before.

After returning home, Rong Qingyao went straight upstairs to her room without a word, and the two inexplicably began a cold war that lasted an entire day.

**

The next afternoon, Rong Qingyao still hadn’t spoken to Luo Mijin, sitting alone in the garden in a rare sulk.

The doorbell rang for a long time with no one answering, so Luo Mijin had to go downstairs from the second floor to open the door.

Outside stood Bai Jinhuai, carrying a large bag of snacks and alcohol. Without wasting words, she asked bluntly, “Xiao Luo Luo, where’s Qingyao?”

Luo Mijin initially wanted to say she didn’t know, but she had seen Rong Qingyao in the garden from the second-floor balcony earlier, so she couldn’t bring herself to lie.

“She seems to be in the garden. You can go find her there.”

Bai Jinhuai nodded in thanks and was about to head over when she suddenly reconsidered, dramatically collapsing onto the sofa with exaggerated exhaustion.

“Ugh, the trip here was so tiring. I need a good rest. Could you take these things to her for me and let her know I’m here? I’ll come find you both in the garden after I’ve rested a bit.”

“Maybe you should deliver them yourself, ” Luo Mijin took the handful of white medicine bottles Bai Jinhuai handed her, labeled for migraines and filled with ingredients and technical terms she couldn’t understand.

“Are all these medications for her to take?”

“Yep. She gets headaches a lot. As long as she follows the doctor’s orders and takes them on time, it’s usually not a big problem.”

Luo Mijin frowned, her clear, youthful eyes filled with deep concern. “Usually not a big problem? But why would a healthy person need so much medication?”

Realizing she’d slipped up, Bai Jinhuai flopped onto the sofa and played dead.

“I’m not a doctor. Even if you ask more, I wouldn’t understand.”

Luo Mijin waited for a while but ultimately couldn’t resist Bai Jinhuai’s insistence. She had no choice but to take the medicine bottle and go to the garden to find Rong Qingyao.

In one corner of the garden, a gray stone screen wall carved with landscapes, flowers, and birds came into view. Luo Mijin walked along the dazzling stepping stone path, which shimmered like fireworks, and saw many flowers that only bloomed at night.

Ephemeral blossoms, gourds, evening primroses, and clerodendrum, there was a kind of silent yet radiant brilliance.

She found Rong Qingyao amidst the clusters of plumbago and morning glories.

Rong Qingyao was wearing ultra-short shorts and a black camisole, lazily bending over to trim flower branches, her demeanor pale yet exuding endless charm.

Under the gauzy sunlight, her fair skin seemed translucent, contrasting starkly against the black fabric like white jade splashed with ink.

Her delicate complexion made the bruise on the side of her elbow all the more noticeable.

Hearing the rustle of fabric brushing through the flowers, Rong Qingyao straightened up. When she saw it was Luo Mijin approaching, her heart skipped a beat.

“Luo Mijin, do you need something?”

“Your friend Bai Jinhuai,” Luo Mijin paused, thinking that was the right name, “asked me to give you these medicine bottles. She’s sitting on the couch and will come find you later.”

“Mm, thank you.” Rong Qingyao took the bottles, her expression unusually cold. Paired with her slightly pale complexion, she almost looked sickly.

Ever since that day at Scott’s party, when they had parted on bad terms in the car, the atmosphere between them had grown increasingly strange distant, yet still responsive in every interaction.

A peculiar kind of cold war, unique to the two of them.

Luo Mijin noticed how Rong Qingyao immediately put the medicine away, clearly unwilling to discuss it further.

“So… why do you need to take medicine long-term?”

In Luo Mijin’s memory, Rong Qingyao had lived a disciplined and demanding life throughout university, often exercising to maintain energy and health.

She used to be in excellent shape, if anyone was the sickly one, it should’ve been Luo Mijin herself.

But lately, she kept seeing various medicines around the house and noticed how often Rong Qingyao looked pale and pained.

“It’s nothing serious. Just headaches sometimes. The medicine helps.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yeah, I have. The doctor said it’s nothing major.”

An awkward silence fell between them. They used to talk about everything, but now even sharing a single honest thought felt impossible.

Luo Mijin twisted her hands together, took several deep breaths, and let her gaze wander across the sky.

It was a clear blue, the afternoon sunlight softened. The octagonal window on the balcony cast a sunset glow, beautiful like an ever-shifting oil painting.

“Why do you get headaches? Are you sick or hurt?” Luo Mijin’s instincts told her there was more to this, so she pressed further.

Rong Qingyao, unwilling to engage, countered with a question of her own:

“Then why did you stop playing Go? I thought you’d keep at it, winning every tournament, then winning them all over again.”

At the mention of Go, the light in Luo Mijin’s eyes dimmed. She averted her gaze and mumbled,

“I just… stopped finding it fun. It got boring. I don’t like it anymore.”

“Is that the truth?” Rong Qingyao didn’t buy it. Go had been a constant in Luo Mijin’s life, how could she just quit like that?

Luo Mijin didn’t know how to lie. Her brows furrowed tighter, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak.

Rong Qingyao didn’t let her off the hook either, staring fixedly at her, waiting for an answer with an air of relentless determination.

Then, a small butterfly with blue-green markings fluttered past Luo Mijin’s line of sight.

“Why do you keep so many butterflies?”

“Because it’s a habit,” Rong Qingyao replied casually, her tone inscrutable, as if hinting at something deeper. “I raise a few every year, then release them back into the wild.”

Luo Mijin fell silent, recalling how they had once spent half their savings just to take a flight to the tropical rainforest, releasing the pupating Blue Morpho butterflies back into their natural habitat.

Sunlight, rain, stars, snowfields, poor but free.

The woman had completely rescued Luo Mijin from the state of “not seeing a future because she had already seen it.”

“Today, two of the butterflies meant for release went missing. I’ve been looking for them.”

For a moment, Luo Mijin felt as if they had returned to their penniless college days.

But dreams always shatter.

“Let’s split up and search the garden then,” Luo Mijin lowered her eyes, the daze in them not yet fully dissipated.

“Mm.” Rong Qingyao pulled up photos of the two butterflies on her phone and showed them to Luo Mijin for confirmation once more.

Luo Mijin randomly chose a direction, searching for the butterflies while intending to look up the specific effects of Rong Qingyao’s medications on her phone.

She vaguely remembered seeing familiar ingredients among her younger sister Luo Zhiwen’s prescriptions drugs used to dissolve blood clots in the brain.

They weren’t prescribed lightly unless the condition was severe.

And that time Bai Jinhuai drove her home, there had been scattered pill bottles in the car. Bai Jinhuai had claimed they were hers, but now it seemed those medications must have belonged to Rong Qingyao.

“Found them.”

“Found them.”

They spoke almost simultaneously, spotting each other standing a meter apart.

The two small butterflies were hiding beneath a tall Nandina bush, where the foliage was dense and lush.

“Why would they hide here?”

“They seem to be mating.”

The moment Luo Mijin finished speaking, she turned her head and nearly bumped into Rong Qingyao, who had crouched down beside her.

Their breaths were dangerously close. One of Rong Qingyao’s shoulder straps had slipped off unnoticed, revealing a tantalizing curve that was more alluring than the surrounding blossoms.

Her lips were full and crimson, and when she looked at you intently, there was always an unspoken invitation, an innate sensuality that lingered between words.

“What are you two doing hiding here?” Just then, Bai Jinhuai walked over, holding Luo Mijin’s phone from the living room.

“Watching butterflies mate,” Luo Mijin answered honestly.

“Little Luo Luo, Wei Xiashuang sent you a bunch of messages asking you out. Didn’t expect you two to hit it off so quickly, seems like you really get along.”

Bai Jinhuai deliberately exaggerated, torn between wanting the two to reconcile and wanting them to cut ties cleanly, anything but this ambiguous limbo.

This was just absurd. Rong Qingyao had already sacrificed seven years for this, even her health and future. She shouldn’t keep sinking into this lost cause.

The previously eased tension between the two instantly froze over. Having stirred the pot, Bai Jinhuai tactfully made a swift exit, leaving the atmosphere to fester between awkwardness and unresolved tension.

“So happy, huh? Yesterday you rejected Wei Xiashuang, and today you changed your mind so quickly?” Rong Qingyao’s voice was cool.

But Luo Mijin dodged the question. “It just came back to me, those medications are for people with symptoms of cerebral hematoma. Why exactly are you taking them?”

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