The ache in her heart returned, distant yet familiar. Whether he was Qin Xiaoyi or Diao Zhiyu when answering these questions no longer mattered—the outcome remained unchanged for Hu Xiu.
"Sister, you're too clever." This was the first time he had called her "sister."
"Am I just another player to you?"
"No..."
"But I can never surpass Lin Qiumei, can I?"
A long silence lingered on the other end of the line.
"I wish I could say it doesn’t matter, that being by your side as a friend is enough for me."
Hu Xiu held back tears, took a breath away from the receiver, and sighed. There was no need to pretend anymore: "I can’t do it..."
"Do you like me, or Qin Xiaoyi?"
Hu Xiu froze. A soft chuckle came through the phone: "You’re just like me—still blurring the lines between the role and reality. You threw away the Marriage Certificate with Feng Youjin, didn’t you? If it were a Marriage Certificate with Qin Xiaoyi, you would have kept it. Ever since I played Feng Youjin, you’ve only visited once.
It’s the image of me in a white shirt and black suit, with dark curly hair—aloof, captivating, and tormented by love—that you’re drawn to. That’s why you could approach me so easily in real life, isn’t it?"
"No, I—"
"I heard you call my name in the Escape Room. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have realized you still see me as Qin Xiaoyi.
I appreciate you praising my professionalism and recognizing my acting skills, but getting too immersed in the role only brings pain. Wake up sooner, and you’ll free yourself sooner."
Hu Xiu desperately wanted to show him the torn and reassembled Marriage Certificate on her wall. Why had she torn it and pieced it back together? Why had she lied about throwing it away? The lies kept piling up...
Flustered and unsure how to respond, Hu Xiu hurriedly stood up, slipped on her shoes, and prepared to go find him: "Where are you?"
"I’m about to leave." Diao Zhiyu had no intention of continuing the conversation. "I came to see you today because you mentioned working on your thesis and borrowed my computer. I wanted to ask if you needed help fixing it. I was worried I might disturb your rest, but now I see you probably don’t need me much."
"Diao Zhiyu, even if I like Qin Xiaoyi, am I—just a friend to you?"
He didn’t give a direct answer, only whispered softly, "Sister, goodnight."
That single word—"sister"—drew a clear boundary.
Hu Xiu couldn’t sleep well for the next week. She often lay awake in the dark, thinking of Qin Xiaoyi scattering roses and Diao Zhiyu waiting downstairs in a Lakers jersey, until strange dreams overtook her in the early hours.
The dreams haunted her for seven days, weaving together like a series: she and Diao Zhiyu met at a hotel, engaging in the most direct of encounters. The dream held no visceral sensations, only the mechanical act of eating room service food upon waking.
In the dream, Diao Zhiyu’s eyes were no longer profound and longing but hollow, as if she could see straight through to the end. He left with a sleek suitcase, leaving her alone in bed to dwell on the aftermath.
They say hotels are places with no stories, offering nothing new beyond desire. In her dream, she traced her own path, exhausted by a relationship that felt out of sync, as if they were living in different time zones.
In the end, the suitcase came and went. She lay on the bed like a prop in a one-act play, long after the audience had dispersed, still trapped in the performance.Every morning felt like struggling free from sleep paralysis. Even such an empty relationship in dreams could leave scars on each other's hearts, and now she didn't know how to face Diao Zhiyu.
Having neither gone to REGARD nor contacted Zhao Xiaorou, Hu Xiu's phone remained unusually quiet except for work matters.
Entering Director Cai's office on Monday, Hu Xiu detected a heavy atmosphere.
Just as she encountered Chen Yang walking out, the two cautiously glanced at each other—since the regular employee quotas were announced, they had spent two months in mutual wariness.
Before she could finish inputting the documents while sitting in the office, a message from her senior colleague arrived: "Hu Xiu, come to my office."
Suddenly, the whole world seemed to address her differently.
Director Cai in the office still wore a smile that didn't reach his eyes: "Sit..."
Hu Xiu, who hadn't slept well for a month, felt somewhat nervous. Preoccupied with her disappointment, she had forgotten it had already been six months since she started working at the hospital.
After a while, the dean called Director Cai to his office, leaving only Chen Yang and Hu Xiu in the room. Chen Yang swallowed hard: "It might be about the regularization."
"Probably..."
"I'm not holding out much hope anymore." Chen Yang suddenly laughed: "There are always unexpected situations every year. I've gotten used to being treated as backup staff."
"Being a temporary employee isn't so bad either. You can occasionally take leave without feeling so guilty."
"Actually, I'm... fine with it too." Hu Xiu voiced her confusion: "I don't know if I was hired by the hospital for my translation skills or other reasons. I have to handle both administrative trivialities and translation work, yet I don't seem to excel at either."
"You're already outstanding. I envy your ability to focus completely; I'm not someone who can devote personal time to these things. Relationships are more troublesome."
"Having a partner for the long haul—I actually envy you more." Hu Xiu sighed: "My romantic luck is probably just terrible."
The door opened, and Director Cai entered, sat down, took a sip of tea, and pretended to struggle before speaking: "I called you here today to discuss regularization. Although civil service exams are publicly announced, given how long you've interned at the hospital, you're prioritized for consideration. Once you confirm taking the exam, you'll likely pass if nothing goes wrong."
Without explicitly stating there were no plans, Director Cai's meaning was clear: "The administrative department only has one regularization slot left this year. Teacher Tang, a senior employee from Daning Hospital, is being transferred here laterally. So regarding the administrative position..."
"You're still young. Someone will retire next year, and I'll recommend prioritizing you both to the hospital. Do you understand?"
"So you mean we can still become regular employees, just without civil service status?"
"Yes. Your contract can be signed soon. Before that, there should be a regularization interview. I'll discuss the specific arrangements with you later."
"Compared to most administrative staff at the hospital, you and Chen Yang are younger with respective strengths. Keep working hard here."
After leaving the office, Chen Yang laughed: "I'm not surprised at all. Three years—I've been rejected for various quotas. Today's was relatively straightforward."
"I heard from former leaders that some couldn't accept homosexuality, so they imposed blanket requirements for young hospital staff to maintain proper conduct, especially in administration—absolutely no behavioral issues.""Every year I get my hopes up only to be disappointed, all while having to guard against colleagues and unable to make real friends. I'm tired of it too. I wish I could cross their red lines, but I just don't have the courage."
Hu Xiu couldn't quite describe the feeling in her heart, only smiling as she said: "It's alright. The permanent staff position is like a golden hoop tightening around your head. Nothing is permanent these days anyway - this just means you can explore other job opportunities."
"Hospitals are ultimately more stable." Chen Yang laughed: "Working five days a week from eight to five - I'd be willing to do that my whole life."
"Don't you want any personal growth?"
"Grinding yourself down just for worldly honors and recognition isn't that necessary. I could rent a place forever like it's my paradise, and choose not to marry when needed. Nothing is more important than spiritual freedom."
This sounded more like stubbornness to Hu Xiu. She smiled along: "You make a good point. Anyway, getting regularized is what matters."
She wasn't lying - after all, becoming a regular employee would perfectly shut her father up. This surprised Chen Yang somewhat.
He looked at Hu Xiu from the stairs: "Will you continue with administration or translation work?"
Guarding her words, Hu Xiu thought for a moment: "I haven't really decided yet. I'll tell you when I'm certain."
Returning to her office, Hu Xiu messaged Pei Zhen. It took seven hours for Pei Zhen to reply after surgery, responding briefly: "Expected. The permanent staff position doesn't matter - what's important is you got regularized. I still don't have one myself. If you were working hard just for that, it wasn't necessary."
"I misunderstood. I thought regularization meant I'd have to leave immediately without the permanent position. Since I can still work formally at the hospital anyway, it doesn't really matter to me. So we'll still be colleagues."
"Of course..." Normally Pei Zhen would have continued the conversation, but today the dialogue ended there.
Hu Xiu looked at her phone - Diao Zhiyu's chat history had sunk three screens down, lying as quietly as erased memories, making her feel like just another player in this game.
Hungry after work, Hu Xiu went to REGARD to eat noodles with Li Ai. The usually quiet shop during off-hours was suddenly packed to capacity.
Li Ai moved his crutch with increasing ease, fine sweat on his forehead, looking surprised to see Hu Xiu: "Why didn't you give me a heads-up before coming?"
"Today was so busy..."
"Yeah, people from the financial district booked the whole place for team building. My kitchen urgently prepared ten cases of alcohol." Li Ai noticed Hu Xiu's expression: "Something wrong?"
"Nothing. I confirmed I'll be regularized at the hospital in a couple days, so I came to celebrate with some noodles."
"Then we should invite Diao Zhiyu and Zhao Xiaorou. Can you wait a bit? We should finish around 10:30 - I'll cover their taxi fare then."
"Really, there's no need..." Just hearing Diao Zhiyu's name made Hu Xiu choke up: "Can I go upstairs for a while? I suddenly feel tired."
"Did you two have a fight?" Li Ai wondered while fishing out his keys: "He hasn't been around lately. Normally he'd be here during store closures or weekends - we even went to watch a ball game two weeks ago."
Hu Xiu grabbed the keys and ran off before Li Ai could see her reddened eyes: "I'll skip the pasta, just going to rest upstairs for a while."She couldn't stand being in environments where the noise didn't belong to her; the Christmas carols made her feel out of place with the crowd. That camp bed by the shelves and the small room—she had lain there with Diao Zhiyu, and there she had kissed him...
Thumping up the dusty stairs, she fumbled for a while before finding the keyhole. She could have lain on the bed, or examined the wooden tobacco jars, silverware, and light perfumes in the acrylic cabinet; or she could have pushed through the tweed curtain to open the closet and look at Li Ai's personal clothes under the dust covers. Instead, she just sat on the floor, as if sitting in a room stripped bare, with nothing but four walls.
Finally, she reached relatively unfamiliar territory. She hadn't expected that just one week without contact would make all the places Diao Zhiyu had been feel so hard to approach. Those memories of being together left her disoriented, and she kept finding herself following Diao Zhiyu's words, wondering whether what she truly liked was Qin Xiaoyi.
This was a flaw she'd had since childhood—when someone stated a conclusion definitively, she found it hard to refute and would seriously reflect along their lines of thought.
But when she drew Diao Zhiyu out of the act, it was absolutely to strip away Qin Xiaoyi's influence over him. And in that short month, she had found immense happiness—it definitely wasn't just about projecting Qin Xiaoyi into her daily life.
Someone knocked—it was Zhao Xiaorou. Bringing a chill into the room with her, Zhao Xiaorou said, "Li Ai asked me to bring coffee and cake up, saying you're upset. What's wrong, did you quarrel with Qin Xiaoyi?"
"Don't call him Qin Xiaoyi."
"What's going on?" Zhao Xiaorou wasn't really interested; a decade of friendship seemed to mean pouring out troubles without needing comfort: "A few days ago, I told my boy toy that I'd been married before. Then, when I tried to connect with him on a live stream recently, he didn't answer and blocked me. Isn't that bleak? I've been getting mocked online because of that video lately."
Hu Xiu suddenly scrambled to her feet: "I'm going out."
It seemed like everyone around her was being tainted by bad luck, and this matter had to be resolved somehow.
At the back door of the mall where Snowpiercer was located, only a few streetlights along the entire road were lit, with FamilyMart being the only brightly lit spot.
The damp asphalt road exuded a faint chill, and Hu Xiu tightened her clothes around her. Zhao Xiaorou followed behind: "What's so urgent?"
As they approached the emergency exit, they heard footsteps—it was Lin Qiumei, her hair tied in a ponytail. She had coincidentally run into them just as she was getting off work.
Zhao Xiaorou, initially confused, had her mouth gently covered and immediately understood the situation.
Lin Qiumei bent over to peer inside the emergency exit, forcefully blocking the door, then giggled and released it upon hearing Diao Zhiyu's voice from inside—another group of weary actors.
Hu Xiu stood at a distance, her black trench coat tucked behind an outdoor AC unit, barely noticeable.
After the group scattered like birds and beasts, only Lin Qiumei and Diao Zhiyu remained. Lin Qiumei spoke first: "You're the one who dug this hole in the emergency exit."
"I didn't wait until now to talk about that."
"What do you want to say?"
"You know I only took the role of Feng Youjin for you. Being trapped in Qin Xiaoyi's shadow, loving you but unable to have you, made my performance increasingly frustrating."
Lin Qiumei laughed: "I have that much power over you?"
"So when you broke up with Geng Geng, I wanted to ask—was it because of me?"
Hu Xiu saw the distress in Lin Qiumei's eyes: "Of course not, we had incompatible values."
"Does it... have anything to do with me? I was there when you argued, and Geng Geng said it was because of me. So... I want to understand.""Why must everything be so clearly defined?"
"You always say in the game that you treat me like a younger brother, yet you keep being good to me. It's the same outside the game too. I can't tell what's real and what's fake."
"If we continue this conversation, it will only hurt you."
"I'm not afraid..."
The petite Lin Qiumei spoke with stubbornness etched from her eyebrows to the corners of her mouth. Hu Xiu stood nearby watching, as if witnessing Lin Qiumei's perverse victory: "Only those who have developed feelings would treat these as memories—they're just one person's delusions. You've collected them all and mistaken them for my love for you, but that's just wishful thinking.
My kindness toward you was genuine, but there wasn't the slightest hint of romantic interest.
Before, when you didn't say anything, I thought you'd eventually understand—you can't force feelings."
"So, your kindness toward me in the game was just acting?"
"Yes. It was wrong of me to string you along, and it was also my fault to take advantage of your feelings for me to deceive Geng Zhongliang into breaking up with me and leaving his job.
I know you're obsessed with the game, and I know you can't separate yourself from your Role and refuse to act, but it really is time for you to learn to distinguish between acting and genuine feelings.
I'm not afraid of you telling Geng Zhongliang—I have a new boyfriend now, a player who came before. He comes from a good family—being a Live Action Role Playing Game actor is too hard."
Diao Zhiyu smiled: "Alright, I understand."
As soon as he turned around, he saw Hu Xiu standing behind him. He shivered in the wind and instinctively reached out his hand.
Lin Qiumei, keenly understanding everything, quietly withdrew. Hu Xiu stood in the wind, her nose probably red from the cold, breathing unevenly. She thought to herself that there was no need to speak first now—she would wait for him.
After a long time, Diao Zhiyu calmly met Hu Xiu's gaze: "I too have a youth to bid farewell to."
"Diao Zhiyu, you damn—" Zhao Xiaorou threw her bag to the ground, her hand already gripping Diao Zhiyu's collar: "Are you even a man?Hu Xiu pressed down Zhao Xiaorou's hand and turned her face away, just in time to see the door facing the emergency exit.
That mischievous peephole Lin Qiumei had left to spy on employees after work, through which she and Diao Zhiyu had once locked eyes, still let through a sliver of light from the shopping mall.
She too had experienced chests pressed close in the Escape Room, hands held firmly, and hidden ice cream wrappers.
Lin Qiumei was absolutely right—only those who have developed feelings would treat these as memories, they're just one person's delusions.
The one who first developed desire placed all their innocence, madness, and passion into the interactions between two people, then, obsessed, molded the memories into new forms. How intimate they were, how many sweet lines they shared in the game, how much affectionate play they had during leisure time—all became material to write the unfinished story alone.
The cold winter air and the damp frosty leaves on the ground reminded her that the night was deep.
She glanced at Diao Zhiyu and said goodbye: "In my heart, who you are doesn't matter anymore."
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