My Idol Turns Out To Be My Ex-Girlfriend - Chapter 26

Lin Sanyuan felt her teeth go a bit numb under the weight of those deeply sincere eyes.

They were clearly discussing family education, so why did she detect a hint of something eerie in Qiao Lian’s tone? Especially that last “Mom,” it sounded so… inappropriate.

Lin Sanyuan frowned, but before she could pin down that strange feeling, she heard Qiao Lian let out another sigh.

“Isn’t that the truth? My stepsister has a spine of her own, she said she’d run away and she actually did. They eventually found her huddled under a bridge.”

Lin Sanyuan froze and looked at her, “You spent all of last night looking for her?”

Qiao Lian blinked, “I wasn’t looking for that long. When she runs away in a fit of rage, there are only a few places she ever goes.”

Lin Sanyuan put down her chopsticks and stood up to feel Qiao Lian’s forehead.

Qiao Lian didn’t dodge. Instead, she stretched her slender neck forward, proactively pressing into the touch while looking at her with a beaming smile.

Only after the hand made contact did she ask, “What are you doing?”

“No fever.” Lin Sanyuan felt that her temperature was normal and sat back down.

The rain had been heavy last night and the wind was sharp, even with an umbrella, one would get soaked.

A few flickers of strange emotion danced in Qiao Lian’s eyes as she smiled and said, “I really didn’t get caught in the rain. I brought a change of clothes when I went to find Lu Xi. I knew she wouldn’t want to go home, so as soon as I found her, we checked into a hotel.”

“Lu Xi? Your sister?”

“Mhm.”

“Sounds like you two get along pretty well. She was willing to go with you even after running away.”

“Not really.” Qiao Lian smiled, “She doesn’t like me. She just doesn’t want me living in her house. She has a very strong sense of territory, just like you.”

Actually, it’s a bit different, because you were willing to let me stay in your home.

Lin Sanyuan knew her personality had its issues, but being called out so bluntly was still a bit embarrassing.

“What are you talking about? Making me sound so cold and heartless. How am I like her? Have I ever said I don’t like you or tried to kick you out?”

Qiao Lian stared at her intently, “So, what you’re saying is, you didn’t kick me out because you like me?”

Eh? Was that the logic?

“I… that’s not exactly what I meant,” Lin Sanyuan said.

“Then what did you mean? I don’t quite understand,” Qiao Lian’s tone was hard to read.

Lin Sanyuan’s backside felt itchy on the small plastic stool, and she wanted to scratch it, but she held back.

She glanced at the smiling Qiao Lian, nodded, and said quite honestly, “Yeah, I actually like you quite a bit.”

The smile on Qiao Lian’s face vanished. She looked into Lin Sanyuan’s eyes with a serious gaze, staring for a long time.

In those eyes, she found nothing. The ripples that had begun to stir in her heart returned to a dead calm under that overly clear gaze.

Qiao Lian said half-jokingly, “I quite like myself, too.”

After finishing breakfast, Lin Sanyuan cleared the table and asked, “You haven’t rested well these past two nights, do you want to catch up on some sleep?”

She noticed Qiao Lian had been yawning ever since she walked through the door.

“We’re not going to keep watching horror movies?” Qiao Lian walked toward the bathroom. As she started taking off her clothes to shower, she noticed the laundry basket was half-full.

She stood there staring for a while, realizing these were the clothes Lin Sanyuan had worn yesterday, still unwashed.

Lin Sanyuan was lazy and casual at home, but she was very clean. The clothes she took off after a shower never stayed unwashed overnight.

“Can’t watch today, I have a draft to draw.” Lin Sanyuan’s voice drifted from the master bedroom, sounding like she was making the bed.

Qiao Lian tilted her chin up slightly and walked out of the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe of the master bedroom to watch Lin Sanyuan’s back. She asked, “You didn’t come home last night?”

“Ah, the rain was really heavy last night. I had a bit to drink at He Ye’s sister’s place and felt a bit unwell, so I stayed the night there.”

Lin Sanyuan was indeed spreading out the quilt.

Qiao Lian exhaled, but there was no smile in her naturally curved eyes. Her tone remained gentle, “You only came back this morning?”

“Yeah, just about half an hour before you did. This pillow is one I just bought, I’ve aired it out several times so the smell is gone, you can use it now.”

That pillow was a new rebound pillow she bought to protect the cervical spine.

She spent the whole year hunched over her work, so her neck was in bad shape and often hurt. When the pain flared up, it was excruciating. Consequently, the usually frugal Lin Sanyuan was willing to spend a lot of money on pillows.

It cost over seven hundred yuan.

Qiao Lian was young and shouldn’t theoretically be troubled by cervical issues, but Lin Sanyuan knew that students nowadays studied very hard, and poor posture could easily lead to problems.

Besides, Qiao Lian had a beautiful neck, long and straight. It would be such a shame if she developed neck problems or a hunch, so Lin Sanyuan had ordered an identical pillow for her online.

Qiao Lian didn’t look at the pillow. She watched Lin Sanyuan’s busy back, her eyelids drooping slightly, “Why would you stay overnight at a stranger’s house? And drink, too…”

Lin Sanyuan laughed, “What stranger? He Ye is my friend. And he wasn’t alone, his sister was there, and his sister’s friend. They’re all girls. He Ye didn’t even stay at his sister’s place that night…”

As she spoke, she realized something felt a bit off.

It was true she and He Ye were friends, but before this, she hadn’t known his sister or Tang Hengzhi at all.

Saying she stayed at a stranger’s house for the night was, well, technically correct.

Tsk, she had accidentally violated the core principles of a veteran socially anxious shut-in. Clearly, the God of Shut-ins was angry and had sentenced her to one social death after another. She repented, she reflected.

Qiao Lian chuckled again, “Even so, you shouldn’t drink. A girl being out alone, it’s easy for people to take advantage of you.”

What “advantage” could anyone take? This tone of hers… she sounded just like her grandmother.

“Alright, didn’t you want to shower? The bed is ready, hurry up…”

Lin Sanyuan finished making the bed and turned around, only to see Qiao Lian leaning against the doorframe wearing nothing on her upper body but her bra. Her school T-shirt was tossed at her feet.

Lin Sanyuan’s face morphed into a shocked kitten meme clutching a blanket.

“Crap! What kind of look is this?” Lin Sanyuan scurried over and pulled the curtains shut.

Then she ran back to Qiao Lian and slapped her arm, “You’re a girl! You have to protect your privacy! This is the second floor, the second floor! Even if this is a small village full of old folks who aren’t likely to take secret photos, you still have to be careful, okay? That idiot Zhang Mianmian has such thick nerves, she likes to walk around naked at home and almost got into trouble.”

Qiao Lian covered the arm Lin Sanyuan had slapped, frowning, “Who is Zhang Mianmian? And why do you know she likes to walk around naked at home?”

“My friend. I’ve known her for over ten years. When we graduated and were looking for jobs, I shared a tiny studio with her. She was picky about sleep and liked sleeping naked, saying it improved sleep quality and blood circulation. It was a bit weird. She wouldn’t even put on clothes to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Several times when I was half-asleep, she scared the life out of me, I thought I’d seen a ghost.”

The more Qiao Lian heard, the deeper her frown became.

A tiny studio, one bed, two people, and sleeping naked…

“Alright, what are you standing there overthinking for? Go shower, don’t catch a cold or I’ll have to exhaust myself taking care of you.”

Lin Sanyuan pulled her toward the bathroom, then suddenly turned back to look at her, “You aren’t trying to skip school by intentionally getting a cold so you can just lie around at home, are you?”

Qiao Lian: “…”

Lin Sanyuan hadn’t accepted the red envelope from He Ye’s parents, she had secretly returned it to He Ye during breakfast.

By the time she finished her work, it was already 8:00 PM. Lin Sanyuan checked her phone, and her first thought was that it was a pity she had missed Qiu Feng’s livestream tonight.

She couldn’t help but open the WeChat chat, looking at the ID “September Observes My Wish.” Lin Sanyuan still felt like she was dreaming.

In her world, she lived every day normally, went to work on time, spaced out when she was free, and quietly endured the boss’s lectures when she made a mistake.

Life was lukewarm and slow. A simple life was enough to keep her content, which was why she rarely tried to reach out to new things or people. She had no great ambitions, nor any overly intense emotions or desires.

Lin Sanyuan never followed celebrities, but even so, she understood that an ordinary person like her and an internet superstar like Tang Hengzhi lived on opposite sides of a dimensional wall.

That was why she felt everything that happened today was so surreal.

Meeting her at He Ye’s house was surreal, the embarrassing incident in the bathroom was surreal, and sleeping in the same bed with her while drunk was surreal. After it all ended, the way she claimed to be a fan in the car and proactively asked for her WeChat was beyond surreal.

Lin Sanyuan, who had held the script of a background character for twenty-four years, couldn’t help but fall into deep thought.

This change was like a stone thrown into the stagnant lake of her unchanging life. She didn’t deny the truth of that “like” in the message she sent He Ye. Whether it was the liking a fan has for an idol or something else.

Regarding this change, she actually felt a sliver of unease.

To like something that is too dazzling, something destined to be unattainable, brings great anxiety. She didn’t even have the right to feel the fear of losing it.

Lin Sanyuan didn’t like this feeling of letting her emotions spiral out of control.

After staring at her phone for a full few minutes, she exited WeChat, leaned against her pillow, and closed her eyes in thought.

She didn’t know when she had lost the strength to chase things. Even when she truly liked something, it felt listless and faint.

Lin Sanyuan actually hadn’t thought about these existential questions for a long time. The daily grind filled her time, so a free night like this was actually quite precious to her.

Maybe she should watch a movie, finish that anime she liked, or browse Weibo to look at dogs and cats to replenish the energy drained from her weary body, just like she usually did to relax.

But for some reason tonight, it just wasn’t working.

Her mind kept drifting toward things it shouldn’t, and she couldn’t control it.

Her brain was sending out signals of exhaustion, she was incredibly sleepy, yet she simply couldn’t enter a healthy state of sleep.

Lin Sanyuan was all too familiar with this feeling. She licked her numbing teeth, got out of bed, and went to rummage through the medicine cabinet.

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