Chapter 100: She Has Become a Princess

The meal left Li Wen and Gao Litong tasting both sweetness and a private unease.

Mr. Su, who spoke gracefully and read faces with uncanny ease, treated the two girls equally. He kept everything balanced because he really could not tell which of them was meant to be his future daughter-in-law.
In truth, neither was close to that yet; their fates had not even made a first mark.

After they finished, Gao Litong rushed to wash the dishes. Li Wen, though she had never done such chores, followed with stubborn resolve—she could not let Gao Litong get the better of her.
In the clamor and confusion, Li Wen still knocked over a bowl, and she was close to crying right away.
Gao Litong, who had done this sort of work before, handled it with effortless ease, which only made Li Wen more agitated and anxious.
Both girls knew the same truth: each was a best friend and a rival.

“Before the sun goes down, go home while you can,” Su Tong said, coming into the kitchen and pulling them out.

Su Tong’s house sat at the upper-left edge of the village. On the right was the main road, behind it a stretch of barren open ground, and beyond that a thicket of woodland.
Watching the Marashati pull away slowly, Su Tong turned and looked toward the trees, where soft gold light spilled across everything.
The sunset was exquisite, if also near dusk.

Inside the car, Li Wen drove in silence. Gao Litong also kept silent. One checked the rearview mirror, the other kept turning to look back.
In the setting sun, that silhouette, wrapped in dusk-colored light, seemed mysterious and unnameable, with a scent she could not quite name—loneliness.
Yes, loneliness.
No matter how easily he laughed, no matter how often he made those around him laugh with him, in that moment his back looked heartbreakingly alone.

There was a sharp creak, and the Marashati came to a stop.
Li Wen pushed open the car door and ran toward Su Tong; halfway there, her tears broke loose.

The old Su Tong had once been so withdrawn, and apart from his good looks and sharp grades, he had hardly offered anything else to draw people in.
But the Su Tong she saw now was not that same person.
If it were only his face, Li Wen was certain she would not have felt this breathless ache at the sight of his figure in the light.

Su Tong heard something before he knew what it was; he turned.
Seeing Li Wen rushing toward him as if she had suffered some terrible injustice, tears streaming, startled him.
“Don’t… don’t turn your back on me like that,” she sobbed. “It hurts so much…”
She threw herself into his arms and wept, knowing that she would never forget, for the rest of her life, that lonely figure in the golden glow.

Su Tong stood there blankly, hands uncertain where to go.
Gao Litong stood nearby, weeping just as hard.
He was flustered, thinking in bewilderment—no poison had gone into his food.

“Tong-tong, what happened to you two? Did dust get into your eyes?”
he asked.
If the girl in his arms had been Gao Litong, he would have smiled.
But Li Wen made him keep his distance; she seemed so startlingly raw, so outside the ordinary.

Look at Gao Litong, he thought. She was crying, yes, but standing there in a delicate, pitiable way, making him want to protect her.
Gao Litong’s tears were partly for the loneliness he had just seemed to carry, and partly for herself—she had no courage, not bold enough the way Li Wen was.

Li Wen always loved fiercely and hated fiercely; Gao Litong admired that, but when that same daring fell on the man Gao liked, it hurt badly.

“All right, all right, stop crying. If there’s anything you want to say, tell me. People from the village might have seen.”
Su Tong murmured near Li Wen’s ear.
Li Wen withdrew into herself, unwilling to lift her head. Her hearing was so sharp.
“I’m fine if they see. Let them see,” she said with a pout.

“It’s getting late. I need to start livestreaming in seven minutes. Go back now.”
Su Tong said, exasperated.
Li Wen checked her watch and reluctantly let him go, though she still clung to his arm.

Su Tong crossed over and used a tissue to wipe Gao Litong’s tears and nose.
But the harder he dabbed, the more she cried.
Li Wen turned away, jealous, and angry—yet she was not his girlfriend, so she had no right to complain.

“You two are still children, not grown at all,” Su Tong said, taking Gao Litong’s hand and heading toward the Marashati.
If that was so, both girls thought, we’d rather stay this way forever.

“Su Tong, Litong and I want to watch your livestream tonight. Is that okay?”
Li Wen refused to leave. Gao Litong stood there with a soft, helpless expression.
“Everyone wants to see me livestream,” Su Tong thought. “Yang Feifei came, Lin Yin came, and now these two too.”
“I can’t. If we do that, it will be too late.”
“So let us get in the car and we’ll drive back.”
“No—I’m not getting in.”
If Li Wen caused a scene, Su Tong could still calm her.
If Gao Litong caused one, he could not bear to push her away.

“Fine. You’ve had a hard day. Watch it then.”
He hurried inside to prepare, though his computer had not even started yet.
He had announced last night that he would stream at seven; a new song was coming.

“Sit beside me. Don’t talk, and don’t laugh.”
Su Tong repeated this twice before going live.
Both girls nodded repeatedly.
“Think you can hold it?”
“I can.”
“I can.”
They guaranteed it.

Su Tong nodded once and told a small joke.

“Teacher: Xiaoming, get out.”
“Xiaoming: Why? I did nothing.”
“Teacher: I’m about to ask a question!”

A small laugh escaped him first.

Li Wen and Gao Litong immediately covered their mouths, and that quickly turned to both hands over their mouths. They had just promised complete composure.

“Ha, Su Tong, that Xiaoming and the female teacher bit is so funny. Every time I hear it, I can’t help laughing. Sorry.”
Li Wen said in a low laugh.
Gao Litong laughed a little louder.
It was exactly as Li Wen had said: when that story came up, many listeners could not keep quiet.

“Fine, enough. Let’s start the stream.”
Su Tong had no other choice.
Yang Feifei and Lin Yin had once laughed through one of his streams as well; he had explained to the audience they were friends, but they looked too ordinary to appear on camera.
For that, Yang Feifei had nearly gone to blows as if ready to prove “ordinary” was an insult no one should make—there were hardly any truly handsome people left, after all.

He logged into the platform and entered the Nian Nujiao room. There were still two minutes before seven, yet nearly two million viewers were already waiting.

“Ha ha, brother has arrived. Queue up and welcome—blessings and luck!”
“Blessings and luck.”
“Blessings and luck.”
“Blessings and luck.”
……

As Nian Nujiao entered the room, the audience seemed to shout it in their hearts.
A few moderators had been chatting idly in the voice channel, but when they saw Su Tong arrive, one reported in and dropped off, handing control to him.

“Who decided to change ‘brother’ into this? Step forward. I swear I won’t kill you.”
He said with a laugh, not yet turning on the camera.
Some bored idle League of Legends fan, or some loud-mouthed zealot, had clearly thought up this one: a direct masculine address twisted in one pitch change into a feminine one.

The subtitles were immediately flooded, and many fans roared in the chat.
“We should have called you by this long ago. Even heaven must be jealous of your face.”
“Right. How could heaven be blind and let you look this way? We don’t accept it.”
“We are correcting the world. From now on, we call you ‘sister.’”
“Blessings and luck.”
“Sister, hello.”
“Isn’t it too reckless to shout like this? I hear the authorities are cracking down on wrong speech these days.”
“What’s so severe? Is it just one of those anti-indecency raids? People with money don’t even know where to find private services now. Even the internet is under scrutiny—the net has almost been wiped clean. You have to be careful even to write someone simply holding hands.”

“Unbelievable.”
“……”

Though only accounts with enough fan value were allowed to post in Nian Nujiao’s room, and post intervals were strictly limited, messages still poured in without end.