WBSGVS Chapter 169 V1

Xu Yin was caught up in the unsettling thought that no matter what she did, Huo Qingli still seemed to have her stroke of luck. That sense of crisis weighed even heavier on her.

Shen Yanjun, meanwhile, waited a few seconds. When Xu Yin still didn’t let go, he finally lost patience, pried her hands away, and frowned. “Don’t cover my eyes like that again,” he said bluntly.

Still shaken, Xu Yin automatically twisted his serious tone into sounding like a scolding. Her eyes reddened, and she said aggrievedly, “It’s because you were looking so intently! I even walked behind you, and you didn’t notice!”

Right—he was actually that focused!

Normally, even if he had his head down, he should’ve noticed someone walking past. But just because of a photo of Huo Qingli, he’d been so absorbed he hadn’t seen anything else?

If he liked her that much, why had he rushed to her the moment she returned to the country?!

Xu Yin’s heart was full of questions, almost spilling from her lips.

But Shen Yanjun, caught off guard by her comment, froze for a moment before looking genuinely surprised. “Was I really that focused just now?”

Xu Yin held her breath, too afraid to say anything.

She worried she might remind him of something.

At the same time, she was frustrated with herself—what was she thinking?! She knew full well Shen Yanjun’s feelings were for Huo Qingli. It was only because he was confused about his own heart and stubbornly believed he still loved the little girl he once knew.

How could she have said that?!

But two seconds later, Shen Yanjun composed himself and said calmly, “She’s changed a lot. No wonder I looked longer.”

Of course, it was because she’d changed.

How could he possibly love someone who had once confessed to her best friend’s boyfriend? Someone so manipulative? Back in high school, she had constantly made excuses to eat with him. Although he had been annoyed, he tolerated it out of respect for Xu Yin.

Later, he realized it had all been because of him.

In their later relationship, Huo Qingli had always been the one chasing after him shamelessly, perfectly fitting his assumption that she wasn’t a good person.

He chose to marry Huo Qingli mainly because their work overlapped, and with his parents pressing him to settle down, marrying someone who had a connection to Xu Yin was somewhat comforting.

He couldn’t deny that Huo Qingli’s doting ways had made life comfortable.

Now that she had suddenly disappeared and changed so much, it was bound to attract attention—at least he found it unsettling.

Like how he now had to eat all his meals outside. Xu Yin’s cooking was decent, but compared to Huo Qingli’s, it was lacking—sometimes even worse than restaurant food.

Or how he had to pick out his clothes for the next day.

And then, there were those other little inconveniences…

Thinking about all this, Shen Yanjun figured the discomfort in his chest was probably just due to these changes. There couldn’t be any other reason.

Still, life without Huo Qingli was less convenient.

He and Xu Yin weren’t at that level yet either—she couldn’t exactly take over all the things Huo Qingli used to do.

But he had already chosen Xu Yin, and he needed to stay focused.

Shen Yanjun looked up and gave a slight smile to the flustered Xu Yin.

Xu Yin’s wildly beating heart suddenly calmed. She smiled back and hurriedly said, “I’ll go change real quick. Let’s go eat afterward—can you check where you want to eat?”

The way he acted reassured her—he hadn’t realized anything.

If she just kept working at it, helped him forget Huo Qingli, maybe even turned things physical between them, he wouldn’t be able to deny it anymore. As the “white moonlight” of his heart, Xu Yin knew how much Shen Yanjun valued a child. Having grown up in an unhappy home himself, he would surely want his child to have a complete family.

Maybe because he’d just been thinking about Huo Qingli, when Xu Yin asked about dinner, Shen Yanjun blurted out, “Fried chicken.”

Xu Yin was stunned. “Why fried chicken?”

Shen Yanjun smiled a little awkwardly. “I saw it on Weibo earlier. Forget it, it’s not healthy. Let’s go back to that private kitchen place we tried before—the food there’s pretty good.”

Xu Yin didn’t think much of it and just smiled, quickly heading to the dressing room.

The brief encounter had left her so rattled she’d completely forgotten the reason she’d come out dressed up in the first place. She wasn’t about to ask Shen Yanjun if she looked good now.

Wait—fried chicken?!

Halfway through zipping up her dress, Xu Yin suddenly thought of something and quickly pulled out her phone to search: “Huo Qingli fried chicken.”

Sure enough, search results popped up just as she had guessed—

Huo Qingli’s favorite food was fried chicken. Because her parents had been so strict when she was a child, she was only allowed to eat heavy, oily foods like that once a year, usually during the New Year.

So, as an adult, she loved it even more.

But as an actress, she had to maintain her skin and figure, so her diet was strictly controlled—she could only sneak fried chicken once in a while.

What Xu Yin found was a marketing post full of pictures: a girl from a privileged background, adorable and charming, with the comments flooded with—

“Ahh, fried chicken is my favorite too now!”
“Girl, your fried chicken is mine now!”

Xu Yin’s lips pressed into a tight line. Her eyes blurred with fresh tears.

It was so ironic—Shen Yanjun kept saying he loved her, yet the preferences he subconsciously remembered were Huo Qingli’s.

Even worse, he didn’t realize it at all.

—

The behind-the-scenes photos for Destiny Files were posted by Huo Qingli’s manager.

Since crime dramas lose their intrigue if the killer is revealed too soon, productions were extremely strict about leaks.

But after Pursuit’s official stills had stirred up drama, netizens had been paying extra attention to Huo Qingli.

Though fans had been told to hold back, an idol couldn’t disappoint her followers forever.

After much negotiating with the director, the manager managed to get a still image from a filmed scene—one that was striking enough but wouldn’t give away the plot.