A Time-Limited Romance with Movie Queen Ex - Chapter 52.1

The photographer only gave Luo Mijin three minutes. After hearing Rong Qingyao’s words, she had already stood frozen for a minute and a half.

She couldn’t think of what to say, and there were no tears in her eyes. The young woman simply stood by the shore where waves crashed, quietly gazing at the woman who carried an aura like snow.

Confusion and panic simultaneously spread like mist, filling every water molecule in the tidal surges. They came with overwhelming force, heavy enough to drown a person.

At the horizon where the sea met the sky, billions of raindrops fell. Rong Qingyao never once looked away from Luo Mijin as she repeated her words.

“Luo Mijin, I still love you. No, for these seven years, I never stopped loving you.”

“I’m sorry I hesitated for so long. My pride was too high, you know how I am. I always push fate away, always mess things up.”

Rong Qingyao naturally recalled the early days of their relationship, how stubbornly Luo Mijin had chased after her, whether it was when she misunderstood Luo Mijin’s potential romance with someone else or when she firmly told her there was no chance between them.

This person always appeared when she was needed most.

“So when we met again at the guesthouse that day, I misunderstood that you and Lan Mingyu might be in a relationship.”

Rong Qingyao lowered her eyes slightly, her words growing disjointed. “After that, I had my assistant investigate you for a long time. I found out you lived with Lan Mingyu, went everywhere together, even worked at her café. I didn’t dare to face you directly.”

“Maybe I hated you, hated how easily you said ‘break up’ seven years ago, hated how you turned and walked away, hated how you vanished without a trace for seven years, hated how you never once tried to find me. A few years ago, at an awards ceremony where I won Best Actress, I thought you must have seen my films. No matter how far apart we were, you could have found news about me.”

“Back then, I thought if you wanted to find me, if you had even a shred of intention, you could have seen on every platform that my official accounts listed my assistant’s contact for private matters. The email address suffix was the pinyin for ‘Electronic Sheep.’ You could have reached me. I was always waiting for you to reach out.”

When Rong Qingyao said, “You could have reached me,” Luo Mijin’s body twitched involuntarily for a second, as if recalling some terrible truth, the pain etched deep into her muscle memory.

“But it’s okay. None of that matters. Even though you never contacted me, we still reunited in a place where you can see the Aurora. At the time, I felt that even if fate had been unkind to me, it still favored me in the end.”

“I’m still lucky, aren’t I?”

The sea wind whipped at the woman’s black trench coat. Her face was pale and sickly, the dark circles under her eyes visible even behind silver-rimmed glasses. She looked fragile, like shattered glass washed ashore.

Yet she remained as captivating as ever, reminding Luo Mijin of that moment in the abandoned bar when the woman had said with such conviction, “You can’t drive me away.”

Countless emotions surged in Luo Mijin’s chest, rendering her speechless.

“No,” Luo Mijin finally spoke, her voice hoarse and broken. “Rong Qingyao, no it wasn’t that I didn’t want to contact you.”

At certain moments, she even felt it was unworthy for Rong Qingyao, a surge of intense resentment welling up within her.

Resenting herself for dragging Rong Qingyao down like this, for trapping someone who should have shone like a star in the quagmire of “loving Luo Mijin.”

She didn’t deserve such love.

Perhaps seven years ago, Luo Mijin still held some insignificant value that made her worthy of being cherished.

But after seven years, perhaps the moment she heartlessly uttered those words of breakup, that value had scattered with the wind and vanished.

What did she have now that could make Rong Qingyao love her?

She dared not imagine what kind of terrible life Rong Qingyao, who had loved her all this time, had endured over the past seven years.

Why did heaven punish Rong Qingyao like this?

“Luo Mijin, I still love you. Whether you allow it or not, I will always love you.”

A mist gathered in Rong Qingyao’s narrow eyes, only to be dispersed by the sea breeze. Her voice was barely audible over the tides, like a firefly attempting to cross the vast ocean.

So faint, so distant.

Yet she still recklessly bared her heart, casting aside fear and the hollow pride of her ego.

She didn’t understand the art of playing hard to get, nor did she wish to employ any of love’s thirty-six stratagems. She only wanted to declare her love without regret, without restraint, staking everything on this one throw.

She was willing to be the sacrifice in this offering.

“Luo Mijin, do you still love me?”

“Can you tell me honestly? It’s alright if you don’t love me anymore.”

The woman’s pale face held eyes as dark and clear as ink, within which seemed to burn withered leaves, waiting at any moment to either be reborn or perish completely.

“If you still love me, don’t push me away, because I won’t be driven off.”

“If you don’t love me anymore, then tell me, and help me stop.”

“Help me stop this delusion.”

“I beg you.”

The woman’s eyes were red, yet no tears fell. She feared that tears would blur her vision, causing her to miss the moment Luo Mijin passed judgment on her.

Even if this person no longer loved her, she didn’t want to cause Luo Mijin any further distress.

So she refused to cry, refused to beg for love in a weak and pitiable manner.

What she wanted was love pure, unadulterated love, untainted by pity or the filters of time.

Under the night sky, Luo Mijin nearly gave in to the impulse to grasp Rong Qingyao’s hand, but the woman took a step back, evading her touch.

“They’re calling you back for the shoot.”

Luo Mijin stood frozen, staring at her empty hands before looking up at Rong Qingyao in confusion.

“Go back first. Don’t give me an answer right away. I want you to think it over carefully, and only tell me once you’re certain.”

For the second half of the single recording and cover shoot, more models arrived. Luo Mijin was surrounded by a crowd, yet her mind wandered like a ghost detached from the world.

Coincidentally, the photographer adored this half-dead demeanor and clicked away with his shutter in delight.

“Director Rong, I thought you’d left. Why are you still here? Didn’t you finish talking with Xiao Luo earlier?” Wei Xiashuang emerged from somewhere, noticing the suspicious redness lingering at the corners of Rong Qingyao’s eyes, fragile yet striking.

“Yes, we still have much to discuss.”

Watching these models actively approach Luo Mijin to chat, Wei Xiashuang remarked, whether intentionally or not, “I’m certain that if Xiao Luo debuted as a singer or songwriter, she’d be incredibly popular. Look how willing these models are to gather around her and take photos.”

Rong Qingyao’s fingers tapped unconsciously as she maintained a composed smile. “She has always been dazzling.”

Wei Xiashuang let out a long sigh before suddenly launching into a story after a brief pause.

“To be honest, I once had a girlfriend I loved deeply. We got together in college but had to break up after graduation because we ended up in different cities.”

Hearing this familiar tale, Rong Qingyao finally showed a reaction, giving Wei Xiashuang a glance.

“About three or four years after the breakup,” Wei Xiashuang recalled with a nostalgic expression, “we met again at a theater performance seated in consecutive rows, perfectly positioned for Cupid’s arrow. She looked just as I remembered: wearing a little white dress, a plain hair clip, with two dimples appearing when she smiled.”

At the mention of “dimples,” a shadow flickered through Rong Qingyao’s eyes, though she remained elegantly poised, betraying none of her inner turmoil.

“And then?”

Encouraged by Rong Qingyao’s question, Wei Xiashuang grew more animated. “At the time, she had several attractive and accomplished suitors around her some even better off financially than me. I frequently asked her out: to parks, visits to our alma mater, class reunions, yacht sailing recreating every memory we’d shared.”

“Finally, I confessed at the perfect moment, a romantic candlelit dinner with a view of her favorite harbor lighthouse right outside the window. She said yes, and we got back together. She moved into my place, and we spent seven blissful months.”

“Then one night, on her birthday, I left work early to buy a cake and roses, preparing a feast to celebrate. As she ate her favorite ice cream cake, she suddenly burst into tears, saying she couldn’t do it no matter how hard she tried.”

“Couldn’t do what?” Rong Qingyao adjusted her glasses, the unease in her heart slowly dissipating.

She had already prepared herself for the possibility that Luo Mijin no longer loved her. This current anxiety was unnecessary.

In her twenty-some years, Rong Qingyao had never understood herself better than at this moment. She was the type to charge headfirst into walls, never regretting it. Once she decided to love someone, that love would last a lifetime.

Perhaps it was in her genes this willingness to sacrifice herself for love, this inability to let go. Her mother had been the same, and so was she.

No one had ever taught her how to release her grip. She only knew how to gamble everything.

Nervousness and tension served no purpose. All she could do was wait silently for her judgment.

“She said she couldn’t keep pretending to love me, pretending we could start over, or even pretending to be happy while reliving our past.”

“Why?” Rong Qingyao asked, puzzled yet vaguely comprehending.

“You’ve never experienced something like this, have you, President Rong? Reuniting with an old flame?”

Rong Qingyao exhaled softly, unsure how to respond. “No, not yet.”

Wei Xiashuang wore an expression that said “No wonder you don’t understand.” She unscrewed her water bottle and took a sip. “There’s a reason the phrase ‘repeat past mistakes’ exists. When you get back together, you think you can avoid all the obstacles, that failure is the mother of success but that’s just wishful thinking.”

“You’ll argue over what material your socks are made of, over different shower temperatures, over a bad movie choice for the weekendeven whether to eat watermelon chilled or at room temperature.”

“In the end, all that arguing leaves everyone exhausted, and you have no choice but to part ways. She finally told me that during those long years apart, she had stopped loving me. Maybe it was just habit, mixed with gratitude and pity, that made her agree to try again. But it was a mistake. Rekindling old flames is a mistake.”

Rong Qingyao’s gaze rested steadily on Luo Mijin, watching the girl clumsily adjust her pose. That beautiful, youthful face was just as pure and translucent as it had been years ago.

She suddenly laughed, leaving Wei Xiashuang, who had been telling the storylooking bewildered. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Rong Qingyao said quietly, her eyes fixed on that slender figure. For no reason, she remembered Luo Mijin saying, “After today, my stars will be your friends too.”

“If possible, I wish my ex had let me go sooner, so I wouldn’t have lost so badly in the end, left nursing heartbreak for years.”

“Are you saying you regret getting back together with her?”

Wei Xiashuang nodded toward the ocean. “I regret it. Of course I regret it. I regret that my sincerity went unrewarded, that I had to repeat the same mistakes.”

“Is sincerity only sincere if it’s rewarded?” Rong Qingyao’s soft question caught Wei Xiashuang off guard.

Silence settled between them.

“Director Rong, don’t you agree? Hanging yourself on one tree is really unwise. The world is vast no one has to be with anyone, and no one will love anyone forever.”

The sea breeze drifted toward the distant cliffs where green leaves still clung, the sound of waves coming and going as mist blurred the surroundings.

Listening to Wei Xiashuang’s words, Rong Qingyao’s eyes were distant and hazy.

Staying true to one’s heart was a matter of doing one’s best and leaving the rest to fate. Luo Mijin was free, free to choose whether to love her or not.

She was free too free to choose to wait year after year, to love quietly even knowing Luo Mijin didn’t love her back.

“You’re very perceptive, and very open-minded,” Rong Qingyao said, the corners of her lips curving slightly. She supposed both she and Luo Mijin would be labeled “love-struck fools” by many.

But she felt no regret, no shame, nothing of the sort. To have the ability, courage, and responsibility to choose the life one wanted was enough.

“Flattery. So, Director Rong agrees with me, then?”

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