My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend - Chapter 14

Lin Sanyuan didn’t have any major issues; by the next day, her spirits had returned to normal.

Her head no longer ached, her heart had stopped drumming against her ribs, and the dizziness in her eyes had cleared. Feeling like herself again, she showed off her recovered health by devouring an entire steamer basket of buns with a hearty appetite.

Following standard procedure, the doctor ordered a few scans. After a morning of CT and MRI scans, the results all came back normal, and in the end, she wasn’t even prescribed any medication.

Qiao Lian handed her phone back to her.

“Last night, I accidentally touched your phone and somehow placed a call. You might want to check if it’s an issue.”

The excuse was a bit thin. The probability of accidentally placing a WeChat voice call while a phone is on the lock screen is practically non-existent.

Lin Sanyuan, being the eccentric soul she was, didn’t notice anything unusual in Qiao Lian’s expression, nor did she question the holes in the story.

“Really? Let me see.”

If it happened around that time yesterday, it must have been quite late. Would a call like that have bothered someone? Then again, most normal people wouldn’t pick up at three or four in the morning anyway.

“Huh? Who is this? It was four in the morning, and they actually picked up?”

What a night owl.

Qiao Lian froze. “You… don’t know her?”

Lin Sanyuan let out a laugh. “What? I have so many people on my WeChat friend list, I don’t necessarily need to know every single one, right?”

She didn’t have the habit of setting nicknames for people. Even with good friends, if they suddenly changed their profile picture or username, it would take her a long time to recognize them. Usually, she’d rely on chat logs to figure it out, as she never deleted them.

But there were no chat logs for this person, ‘A September Views My Wish’.

There wasn’t even a notification saying, ‘You have added the other party as a friend.’

She had switched to this phone a year ago, which meant she hadn’t contacted this person in at least a year. Clearly, they weren’t particularly close. What was stranger was that this person, who looked like a micro-vendor, hadn’t posted a single thing to their Moments since registering the account.

How odd. Was there a ghost friend living in her phone?

Seeing Qiao Lian’s expression, she seemed skeptical. Qiao Lian frowned, confirming with her, “Really?”

“Qiao Lianlian, I’ve noticed you’re being very strange today.”

Qiao Lian knew that when Lin Sanyuan started dragging out the last syllable of her name, she was starting to lose her patience. Observing Lin Sanyuan’s minor movements as she tapped into the Moments to double-check, Qiao Lian’s frown relaxed, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

Lin Sanyuan put down her phone, pushed her glasses up with her knuckle, and squinted. “Something’s wrong. You are very suspicious.”

One moment she was frowning, the next she was laughing. Gloomy one minute, happy the next—was puberty for girls these days really this complicated?

Qiao Lian smiled. Glancing sideways, she saw her own face reflected in the small round mirror on the coffee table.

She was indeed acting a bit strange.

“Oh, right, what did this person say to you last night? Was it a man or a woman?”

“A woman. She told me I had the wrong number.”

“That’s it?”

“She said two more words afterward.”

“What?”

“’Mhm, okay.’”

Lin Sanyuan: “…”

She tapped her phone, checking the duration of the call from the previous night. It lasted exactly eight minutes and forty-seven seconds. And the person hadn’t even spoken ten words.

That’s bizarre.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Qiao Lian’s eyebrows twitched as she saw Lin Sanyuan’s finger moving to delete the contact.

Lin Sanyuan swiftly deleted the ghost friend.

“Well… just hearing you describe it, this person probably isn’t a friend from my real life. It’s a bit awkward that this happened. To avoid any unnecessary trouble, I might as well delete them.”

Qiao Lian hesitated, “There’s no need to go that far…”

“It’s fine. Having too many people on WeChat is inconvenient anyway. I’ll just take this opportunity to clear out some ‘zombie’ accounts.”

Lin Sanyuan ran a WeChat cleanup tool.

The result gave her a start.

Whoa… she had swept out over a hundred little zombies.

She didn’t make Qiao Lian go to school today. After the ordeal at the hospital last night, she figured the girl hadn’t slept well, so she told her to take a shower and rest at home for the day.

Lin Sanyuan also showered, changed into clean clothes, and went to the market to buy some pork ribs, corn, and side dishes, along with a freshly slaughtered Sanhuang chicken.

She planned to make a pork rib and corn soup for lunch to nourish Qiao Lian. A kid spending the night in a place like a hospital was bound to lose some “vital energy.”

Aside from her love for sweet and sour ribs, Qiao Lian was also very fond of beer chicken. She was a picky eater; she liked spicy food, but when it came to a big dish like beer chicken, she wanted the fragrant spice of stir-fried chilies without actually having to see any peppers.

She was quite the high-maintenance young lady.

Qiao Lian was out on the balcony, letting her damp, long hair air-dry. Her flaxen-gold curls shimmered under the sun. Her thin frame was wrapped in a crisp, neat school undershirt. As she leaned against the back of a chair, a layer of fragmented light fell across her long lashes. With her damp hair and collar, she looked like she was starting to get sleepy.

“Can we really finish all this food?”

Lin Sanyuan first served Qiao Lian a bowl of soup, setting it on the dining table to cool for a bit, then went to get her own rice and called Qiao Lian over to eat.

“With this kind of weather, as long as the meat dishes aren’t left out overnight, they’re fine for a second meal.”

Qiao Lian liked soups that had been simmered over a low flame. Whether it was old duck soup, pork rib soup, or medicinal chicken soup, she loved them all, but she only liked drinking the broth and eating the side ingredients; she didn’t care much for the meat.

She looked at the ribs in her bowl and voiced her nth protest: “I don’t want to eat boiled meat.”

Lin Sanyuan didn’t listen at all, her tone like she was lecturing a child. “Don’t be a picky eater. You’re at the age where you’re still growing. Even if this boiled meat doesn’t have much flavor, it’s nutritious.”

“Growing? But I think I’m taller than you, Lin Sanyuan. If I keep growing, when we go shopping in the future, will I be able to rest my chin on your head?”

“You brat, you really know how to poke at my insecurities every day.”

Qiao Lian poked at the meat with her chopsticks, a hint of laughter escaping her eyes.

She had discovered another trait of Lin Sanyuan’s personality: she was only “tough” at home.

Was she really someone who cared about nutrition? She herself never touched a drop of meat broth. When it came to being a picky eater, how could Qiao Lian even compare to this ancestor?

After eating one piece of rib from the bowl, Qiao Lian began to bargain again. “I’ve already eaten one piece, and this meat is so filling. You made that beer chicken I love today, and it looks delicious. I want to save room for the chicken, okay?”

She knew that Lin Sanyuan could never resist it when someone acted spoiled or played the “weak” card. In those moments, Lin Sanyuan would become incredibly easy to talk to.

Sure enough, Qiao Lian saw her immediately get up and head to the kitchen, returning with a clean plastic bag. Perhaps because she heard Qiao Lian praise her chicken, her expression was a little smug.

“Then pack the ribs in the bag. When we go for a walk after dinner, we can feed the bones to Zhuangzhuang. Not the chicken bones, though; dogs can’t eat those.”

Zhuangzhuang was the big Golden Retriever.

Qiao Lian obediently fished the ribs out of the bowl. Then, for some reason that hit just the right nerve, she began to laugh softly. It was a rather charming, innocent laugh.

Lin Sanyuan was surprised. “Just because you don’t have to eat the ribs? Are you really that happy?”

“No.”

The laughter in Qiao Lian’s voice hadn’t faded. Her eyes were filled with the bright, clear light of an autumn afternoon. “I just realized… I really like this kind of life.”

“Huh? Don’t say that. Isn’t this just the life of an ordinary old person? Are you already this ‘Zen’ at such a young age? Once you get into a good university, you should travel more, enjoy the passion of youth, and a beautiful, brilliant future. Then find a lovely, pure romance. That’s the way to go.”

Qiao Lian held her bowl and sipped the soup. Her voice, warmed by the liquid, sounded soft and pleasant. “There will be a day like that.”

She turned her gaze, looking steadily at Lin Sanyuan, and repeated, “There will be a day like that.”

***

After lunch, Lin Sanyuan didn’t let Qiao Lian help clean up. The sudden incident yesterday had truly given her a scare. She had taken two days off, and both her novel and manga work had been put on hold for two days.

After cooking the meal, Lin Sanyuan felt a bit uncomfortable, so she went to the bathroom to take another shower.

At twelve-thirty, she wasn’t feeling sleepy and didn’t feel like drawing, so she found a horror movie online and headed to the master bedroom with her phone.

“Qiao Lian, do you want to watch a movie?”

Qiao Lian smiled, making room for her and thoughtfully placing a pillow beside her.

“Let’s close the curtains; the sunlight is a bit blinding.”

Lin Sanyuan scurried over in her little grey chicken slippers and pulled the curtains shut. Then she went to the small room to grab her own blanket.

When she slept, she liked to wrap herself up, ideally with a bolster to hug. But she was too embarrassed to use Qiao Lian as a bolster, nor was she used to sharing a blanket with anyone. She didn’t like being physically close to others, even if they were the same gender.

The master bedroom had a projector, which was very convenient.

Qiao Lian sat leaning against the headboard. Even in bed, her back was straight and elegant.

“A horror movie, huh.” She shot her a sidelong glance. No wonder she came to cling to her.

Lin Sanyuan gave a small “ah” and glanced back, her expression a bit provocative. “Are you scared?”

Qiao Lian didn’t answer. She looked down at the blanket Lin Sanyuan had brought and smiled. “Are you planning to sleep here tonight too?”

Lin Sanyuan’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Okay, I admit it. After watching a horror movie, I don’t really want to sleep alone.”

That was why she hadn’t watched a horror movie in years.

The movie began, but Qiao Lian’s gaze remained on Lin Sanyuan’s profile. She nodded solemnly. “I’m also very timid. I don’t want to sleep alone tonight either.”

Lin Sanyuan felt completely understood and gave her a thumbs-up. “Exactly. Huddling in blankets together to watch a horror movie, that’s a romance exclusive to girls.”

Before the movie was even halfway through, the “thumbs-up” Lin Sanyuan had turned into a puddle. Most of her face was buried in the blanket, her hands clutching the top edge. Whenever a scary scene appeared, she would shrink into the covers. Then, a moment later, her head would pop back out, a stray hair sticking up as she peeked again.

Qiao Lian didn’t remember much of the movie’s plot. She felt that Lin Sanyuan’s reactions were far more interesting than the film itself.

The unfinished movie was interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone.

The familiar whale-song ringtone.

Lin Sanyuan blinked, sat up in the blankets, and reached for her phone. Looking at the caller ID on the screen, it was He Ye.

Support My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend