Love Contract with the Queen Actress - Chapter 5

In the hotel suite that afternoon.

Fu Mozheng held a glass of red wine, sitting by the warm fireplace.

He Yunyun: “Mozheng? What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, nothing,” Fu Mozheng snapped out of her thoughts and smiled at He Yunyun. “I just suddenly remembered the person I saw today.”

“Who?” He Yunyun had clearly forgotten about Su Yuchen and took a while to recall. “Oh! That girl who wore the same outfit as you?”

She scoffed and waved her hand dismissively. “Pfft, whoever dares to twin with you should be the one embarrassed.”

“Actually, I’m not sure what it is, but I have this strange feeling in my heart…”

Fu Mozheng’s voice grew softer. “She’s one of the few people I’ve seen who’s genuinely beautiful…”

So beautiful that it evoked… an inexplicable resistance.

“Her? She’s nowhere near as pretty as you. You’re our campus belle, the number one beauty.”

He Yunyun unlocked her phone. “Mozheng, don’t waste your thoughts on some random passerby. We haven’t taken a photo together since you came back. I want to post one on my feed and show off.”

After being pulled into a photo by He Yunyun, Fu Mozheng smoothed her hair. “Yunyun, did you graduate with a degree in broadcasting?”

He Yunyun was busy scrolling through her phone for pictures. “Yeah, my dad and the others weren’t supportive, but my family couldn’t win against me. They still arranged a job for me. I’m about to start hosting an interview show soon.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.”

He Yunyun happily edited her social media post, muttering to herself. “Mozheng, you’ve always been gentle and thoughtful. Even a random stranger who copied your outfit makes you think so much. I don’t know if you’ll get bullied in the entertainment industry…”

Fu Mozheng seemed lost in thought, her gaze drifting to the vast night outside the window. “But I have someone like you, a future famous host, to back me up.”

He Yunyun, engrossed in crafting her caption, beamed at the compliment. “Don’t worry, if anyone dares to bully you, I won’t care if it’s a professional setting, I’ll shut them down on the spot!”

Finished editing, she hit send.

[Welcoming the return of the stunning beauty! Enjoyed hot springs and red wine. Though the hotel’s springs aren’t as authentic as Hokkaido’s, the mood was perfect. Sisters’ selfie [Peace sign]]

The moment the post went live, replies flooded in almost instantly.

July: [You went abroad to find Fu Mozheng?]

Baobao: [Damn, with all the buzz, you actually caught her?]

Frank: [Then you must know some inside scoop, right? Spill the tea, darling.]

[…]

He Yunyun replied to a couple of comments.

Yunbao replied to July: [Did you even read the caption? Mozheng is back in the country.]

Yunbao replied to Frank: [What inside scoop? Mozheng is here to film with Shen Wu. Just wait for their official announcement.]

Baobao replied to Yunbao: [No way, you’re kidding me. Isn’t Shen Wu on a dating show with Su Yuchen? And now she’s announcing something with Fu Mozheng??]

Yunbao replied to Baobao: [What are you talking about?]

Frank replied to Yunbao: [Hah, turns out you not only don’t know the inside scoop, you don’t even know the situation?]

Baobao: [Well, go check the trending topics yourself.]

He Yunyun froze, phone in hand.

After a long pause,

“Who is Su Yuchen?”

She scrolled through the trending topics for a while until Su Yuchen’s campus belle drama still appeared on her screen.

The sunlight filtered through the trees, casting warm rays that enveloped the girl smiling softly on the library lawn. Half of her hair was bathed in the golden hues of the setting sun, suffused with an oil-painting-like glow. Her slender fingers brushed aside the strands of hair tousled by the evening breeze, delicate as jade.

The interplay of light and shadow was breathtaking, fresh and radiant. Without a trace of makeup, her beauty was ethereal and transcendent.

Full of vitality.

Fu Mozheng bit her lip lightly: “This person… turns out to be Su Yuchen.”

He Yunyun was clearly even more surprised: “That random passerby?!”

Fu Mozheng’s gaze, usually gentle as water, now darkened as her brows furrowed. Even when scrolling through trending topics, she had never been this unsettled.

Her long French-manicured fingertips nearly lost their grip on her phone.

As she scrolled further, her expression shifted between pale and flushed.

He Yunyun watched worriedly beside her, occasionally reaching out to pat Fu Mozheng’s back.

“Mozheng, don’t worry. If those two really end up on Love or Marriage, they won’t have it easy. Not only am I the observer for the new season, but I also have some hosting duties for the off-stage segments.”

“Whoever bullies you, I’ll make sure they regret it! And that Shen Wu, I’ll make her pay! It’s not like she and you are actually…”

Finally, Fu Mozheng put down her phone, cutting He Yunyun off. “It will be real.”

Now composed, she slightly lifted her chin.

“If I want it to be real, it will be.”

“After all, since childhood, there’s nothing I haven’t gotten.”

…

“Don’t even think about getting me.”

Top-floor apartment of Lan Mansion.

In the lavishly stone-clad bathroom, the soft, warm light reflected off the pristine mirror, capturing Shen Wu’s gesture of mimicking a gun with her fingers before she withdrew it.

She flicked a wavy lock of hair behind her ear and blew on the imaginary “barrel.”

Shen Wu wore no makeup, her skin as flawless and luminous as fine porcelain.

The slight tilt of her head as she adjusted her hair elongated her already slender, swan-like neck.

She ran her fingers through the voluminous locks gathered to one side.

Undoing one more button of her fitted knit top, she revealed a glimpse of skin and the delicate strap of her slip dress, just that small gesture exuded an innate, intoxicating allure.

Then, her slender fingertips traced the elegant curve of her collarbone before she smiled approvingly at her reflection.

“With beauty like mine, who couldn’t I have if I wanted?”

Shen Wu raised her right hand again, shaping it like a gun, while her left hand steadied her wrist. She tilted her wrist slightly toward the mirror, mimicked a “bang” with her lips, and blew on the “barrel” once more.

“Someone’s about to be utterly smitten.”

…

“Achoo!”

Amid the winter night’s chill, someone sneezed inexplicably.

Su Yuchen sniffled, her nose pink from the cold, and tugged the collar of her white down jacket tighter.

Now standing before the landscaped flower bed of Lan Mansion, she strained her neck to look up at the towering penthouse.

A warm, hazy glow spilled from the floor-to-ceiling windows, faintly revealing glimpses of the interior furnishings.

Shen Wu must be inside right now.

What was she doing?

Su Yuchen’s ears flushed inexplicably, she had no idea why Shen Wu had asked her over tonight.

It couldn’t be that, right? No way, no way.

Su Yuchen told herself: Calm down, stay composed.

Even though she and Shen Wu had done everything, that was just the alcohol talking. It didn’t mean anything would actually happen.

“Grow up, be a little more carefree, don’t take things too seriously!”

Su Yuchen couldn’t resist, she didn’t know how many times she had opened the chat window by now.

Shen Wu’s message lay there, plain as day.

Wu: [Come to my place tonight.]

What did she want her to come over for? To explain tonight’s trending topic?

She had just confirmed with Fu Nan, and even her agent had no idea why Shen Wu had dragged her onto a dating show together. Not to mention, Shen Wu had demanded that she get engaged to her…

The Fu Mozheng she met this afternoon was her actual fiancée: stunningly beautiful, dressed in luxurious fabrics, standing tall and graceful, the center of attention wherever she was.

Someone like that standing next to Shen Wu, that was the true definition of a perfect match, a union of equals.

And from what she heard, the two of them had a family betrothal dating back generations. A marriage alliance between prestigious families like theirs was the kind of plotline you often saw in novels.

But once tonight’s press release dropped, the entire internet was flooded with trending topics like #ShenWuAndSuYuchenAppearTogetherOnDatingShow#.

Now the whole world was posting, asking:

Who the hell is Su Yuchen?

The fan forums were buzzing.

[Does anyone know who this Su Yuchen is?]

[No clue, she’s practically a ghost online!]

[I looked her up, she’s signed under Shen Wu’s company, played the campus belle Zhou Yu in some show. Pretty and fresh-faced, but I don’t get the strategy here. Why pair up with some rookie actress?]

[Is this just marketing for a fake CP, or is it real?]

[If it’s just for hype, why not go with Fu Mozheng, the high-profile socialite? Why Su Chenyu?]

[Correction, OP, her name is Su Yuchen, not Su Chenyu. But yeah, she’s got zero name recognition. People can’t even get her name right…]

[As Sherlock Holmes said: ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ Holy crap, are these two for real?]

Forget everyone else, even she, the person involved, had no idea what was going on.

“God, my head hurts!”

Su Yuchen’s face was practically screaming I want to run away. But after all this overthinking, the most pressing issue right now was, what the hell was going to happen tonight? Could it really be the kind of big event her dirty imagination had conjured up?!

What was she supposed to do? Was she really going to have to go through this with Shen Wu again?!

Su Yuchen clenched her fists, psyching herself up, and took a step forward,

Only to pause mid-stride, her gaze drifting toward the pitch-black bushes nearby.

And then she froze.