Chapter 3

“You’d take me home with you?”

“I wouldn’t dare take you home.”

“Where would you take me, then?”

“I’d find you somewhere to live and pay the rent. I could give you money to live on too.”

“You have that much money?”

“I’m a celebrity already. I’ve made quite a bit. My mom’s taken most of it, but money really isn’t a problem for me.”

“It still doesn’t seem right. Mom would hit me if she found out.”

“Your mom hits you too?” Fei Randi sounded delighted. “Compared with yours, mine’s actually pretty nice.”

“I’d better go.”

He was blocking my way. To climb down, I’d have to step over him. I didn’t want to bother him by asking him to move, so I looked down to judge the height, steeled myself, gritted my teeth, and jumped.

My sudden leap startled him, but it was too late to stop me. My feet hit the ground first, then I tipped backward and landed on my bottom. My legs and feet hurt and felt numb. I tried moving my feet. They still moved.

“Are you all right?” Fei Randi jumped down in alarm. He was taller and stronger than I was and landed without any trouble.

“I’m fine! See? Perfectly all right.” I lifted my legs.

“You’re brave. What if you’d hurt yourself?”

“It’s not that easy to hurt yourself.” Laughing at him, I got up and brushed off the dust. A few grains of sand had stuck to my palms. When I brushed them away, they left deep little dents and some slight grazes.

One anxious day followed another. A week later, I finally received the news: I’d got into Angel Girls.

I was surprised and delighted. But who had been eliminated? Suddenly I couldn’t feel happy anymore.

All this was thanks to Mom. The way I’d succeeded was a little… But she’d said everybody did it. Winners became kings; losers became outlaws. To succeed, you could do whatever it took.

So… I hadn’t done anything wrong!

Someone tapped my shoulder in a corridor at Huahaoyueyuan Entertainment. I turned to find Fei Randi grinning at me without a care in the world. He bent down and whispered in my ear.

“Chenxi, you should thank me. I did you a huge favor.”

My eyes widened. He’d helped me?

“I said quite a few good things about you to Uncle Pu.”

“Didn’t you say you couldn’t help?”

“Shh. Keep your voice down. Why wouldn’t I be able to help? Huahaoyueyuan’s practically my home.”

I looked around, terrified someone might hear us.

“Oh. Thank you, then,” I whispered.

I hadn’t expected him to be able to help after all.

“No big deal.”

He was afraid of being seen talking to me too. With a brilliant smile, he walked past as though we’d merely happened to brush shoulders.

In Monica’s office, I met Pan Shuwei and Zhang Ruirui. The girl I’d replaced was Wang Leqian.

Mom had lied to me. All that talk about studying and singing at the same time was a lie. The company trained us intensively, and we had an album to prepare. I couldn’t attend classes regularly. On top of the pressure of work, I worried about the lessons I was missing.

Lili offered to help me catch up. Whenever I had time, I went to her house. Once, while we were working through exercises, we came across a chemistry problem she couldn’t solve either.

“This is giving me a headache. Never mind. We can ask someone.”

It was nearly dinnertime when she took me out. After about ten minutes’ walk, we went into a fast-food restaurant.

“Chenxi, what do you want to eat?”

“Didn’t we come out to ask about the problem?”

“Oh, let’s eat first!” She grinned mischievously.

It was a Chinese fast-food place, mostly serving office workers from nearby.

“I’m not hungry. I’d like noodles.”

“Just have a little rice and more soup,” Lili suggested.

Seeing how much she wanted to eat there, I changed my mind.

“I’ll have a set meal. Do you have the pork-rib set?”

“Yes. Just a moment,” a middle-aged man answered.

“I’ll have a set too. The diced-chicken one, please.”

“All right.”

We found seats. Lili craned her neck, staring at the kitchen at the back.

“What are you looking at?”

“You’ll see in a minute.”

About five minutes later, a boy came toward us carrying a set meal in each hand.

“Oh, it’s you, Huang Lili.”

“Hi, Song Gaosong.” Lili looked especially happy. “Do you have a moment?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to wait a little.”

“That’s fine.”

He went back to the kitchen.

“Don’t tell me we’re going to ask him?”

“Yes, him.”

She looked so happy.

“Is he in your class?”

“He’s our class’s math representative. He’s brilliant at science!”

Suddenly I realized there was more to this. When she spoke about him, her eyes shone with affection. It wasn’t envy or admiration. It was love.

We finished our meals, then waited a little longer before Song Gaosong came over.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. What is it?”

“We can’t do this chemistry problem. Could you take a look?”

He picked up the textbook, glanced at it, and said, “Oh, I’ve done this one. Here’s how it works.”

He seemed friendly, hardworking, and gentle, the kind of boy who was good at looking after people. Suddenly he looked up. I wasn’t watching the problem; I was watching him. Our eyes met, and we both paused.

“Hi! I’m Lili’s classmate. We sat together all through primary and junior high school,” I said with a smile.

“You’re not the one who’s always missing class, are you?”

“How do you know?” I looked at Lili. She shouldn’t be telling other people my private business.

“I told him,” she said, giving me an innocent smile.

On the way back, I scolded her. “You shouldn’t tell people things about me without asking.”

“Song Gaosong isn’t someone who talks carelessly,” she argued.

“I don’t want people knowing my business.”

I didn’t want anyone to know I was getting ready to release a record. I still imagined that one day I might go back to being an ordinary student.

“I didn’t tell him you were a singer.”

“I’m not a singer yet.”

Being a singer wasn’t a good job. I didn’t want to become someone like Mom, or enter the world I’d hated since childhood. I didn’t want people looking at me differently. I had a feeling that becoming a pop star would make my life turn out badly.

But I had no choice.

While we were training as hard as we could, Zhang Ruirui was replaced. Wang Leqian came back. Monica explained that Leqian was a better fit than Ruirui.

It happened so suddenly that I couldn’t sleep for several nights. With so little ability, might I be replaced just as abruptly? The thought of Mom’s anger terrified me. I was afraid of hurting her too.

Afraid of disappointing her.

Wang Leqian had changed. Before, she’d merely disliked me. Now she hated me: a deep, bitter, teeth-gritting hatred, the kind that wanted to grind someone’s bones to dust.

She’d always loved to smile. Now her smiles were more charming, and more careful.

I had a feeling she would stab me in the back. She’d come back for revenge.

The painful thing was that we were a girl group. We had to be united and friendly.

Monica told us to move into the dormitory the company had arranged. The three of us had to live together to learn to work in harmony. Often I wondered whether Wang Leqian and I might have become good friends if we’d met under different circumstances.

At midnight, training ended and we were getting ready to return to the dormitory when Monica stopped me.

“Chenxi, you keep going off-key in that chorus. You need to practice it a few more times.”

“All right. I’ll practice when I get back.”

“And another thing…”

Pan Shuwei and Wang Leqian were waiting by the door.

“Why haven’t you left?” Monica asked.

“We’re waiting for Chenxi,” they answered together.

“We’ll leave it there, then. Chenxi, go back with them.”

“Let’s go.” They linked their arms affectionately through mine.

Once we were back in the dormitory and the door was shut, Wang Leqian smiled and murmured to Pan Shuwei, “She can’t even sing a chorus. She’d better not drag us down.”

“Practice properly, Chenxi,” Shuwei warned. “If you don’t sing it well, you’ll ruin more than us. You’ll ruin all the work the company’s put in.”

“She’s not pretty, and she can’t sing either,” Leqian said maliciously. “I really wonder how she got chosen.”

Shuwei glared at her. Shuwei wasn’t much of a singer herself. She sang all the simplest parts. More to the point, she hadn’t been selected through the auditions at all. Leqian’s words were an indirect dig at her too.

“Don’t push it. I’m not someone you can bully as much as you like.”

Every time we returned to the dormitory, there was a war of words. I admitted that the way I’d got in wasn’t honorable. When they picked on me, I put up with it—but I couldn’t put up with it every time. The more I gave way, the further they pushed.

“Oh, you’re angry? You can’t sing, and you still have the nerve to get angry?”

Shuwei strode up to me, full of arrogance. She thought I’d be afraid of her. I’d never been afraid of her. I only gave way because I didn’t want trouble.

Tonight, I wasn’t going to.

“You think you sing so well?”

Her face flushed with anger. She sneered. “No, I don’t sing well. But I’m better-looking than you!”

She picked up a mirror.

“Look at yourself. A face nobody would notice in a crowd, and you want to be a celebrity? That’s hilarious.”

“Exactly,” Leqian said. “She’s hideous. We’re so unlucky, being in a group with her and having to see her every day.”

Shuwei sighed. “Angel Girls will have to depend on the two of us. You should thank us. If we ever become famous, you’ll be riding on our success.”

“Hah! We don’t know yet who’ll be riding on whose success. Don’t get so pleased with yourself just because you’re pretty. The entertainment industry’s full of beautiful people. Put you among them, and nobody would notice you either.”

“Yang Chenxi, that’s going too far!” Leqian snapped. “Shuwei, she just said nobody would notice you!”

Shuwei stamped her foot in fury, but there was nothing she could do to me.

“I’m not wasting my time on trash like her. Let’s shower.”

There was only one bathroom. They took their time, spending more than an hour between them. I showered last.

By the time I fell asleep, it was 2:20 a.m.