Mistakenly Marked – Chapter 16
by Little PandaRetaliation
Thought this time would be the same.
“So you two really had a huge fight back then?”
The gala had ended late. The car traveled down the nighttime road, streetlamps stretching into lines outside the window.
Xu Jialuo looked up at Zhou Fu in the driver’s seat. “What?”
A red light. Zhou Fu pressed the brakes. “With Bo Suiqing. Back in the dressing room, you both looked really awful.”
“…”
Xu Jialuo turned her face away. “It’s green.”
The car moved forward again. A cold-pale profile, weariness etched into it, reflected in the window.
Xu Jialuo tugged her jacket zipper down a little and slowly let out a breath.
She had no strength in her body. One moment she felt cold, the next she was sweating heat, the back of her neck damp.
Maybe she really had caught something.
Xu Jialuo had already changed out of her gown. Naturally, she hadn’t put back on the clothes she suspected Bo Suiqing had spat on, either.
A dark short-sleeved shirt under a black jacket — Zhou Fu had grabbed it from the studio on her way back.
Zhou Fu stole a glance at Xu Jialuo. “Do you really hate her that much?”
Her tone was light — the kind of teasing joke you’d make to humor a child.
Expecting Xu Jialuo to stay silent as usual, Zhou Fu smiled and was about to say something else when she heard:
“Yes.”
Zhou Fu paused.
The car fell quiet for a few seconds. Then Zhou Fu said, “That’s fascinating.”
“What’s fascinating?”
“Because it’s the first time I’ve ever heard you give such a direct opinion about someone.”
And such an unequivocally negative one, at that.
It was something she had never heard from Xu Jialuo’s mouth before.
“What exactly is so disagreeable about her? Could you spare a moment to tell me in detail?”
“…”
When no response came, Zhou Fu laughed. “Never mind. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”
As she spoke, her phone buzzed several times — a few messages seemed to have come in — and then it erupted in a barrage of notifications.
Her sixth sense told her something wasn’t right. Worried it might be urgent, Zhou Fu pulled over and checked her phone screen, then suddenly went silent.
Xu Jialuo asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Earlier, to make communication easier, I contacted the staff on Bo Suiqing’s side. Just now, they kicked all our staff out of the group chat.”
Zhou Fu turned the screen toward Xu Jialuo.
“They blocked me too.”
Her gaze swept over the red exclamation marks. The discomfort across her body was steadily worsening. Xu Jialuo said nothing and turned back toward the window.
“Also, the online sentiment right now…” Zhou Fu chose her words carefully. “There’s a bit of a problem. But you don’t need to worry — I’ll get the heat brought down right away.”
Catching the evasion in her words, Xu Jialuo asked, “Sentiment about what?”
“About… you and Ms. Jiang. Mentioning some… old matters from back then. All of it is baseless rumor.”
Xu Jialuo unlocked her phone and opened the trending topics page.
【Xu Jialuo’s Mother Mistress Usurping Legal Wife】
She tapped it. The page jumped, and she read through comment after comment filled with insulting language.
Her knuckles tightened inch by inch, pressing white.
Zhou Fu glanced at her, then quickly lowered her eyes and began typing, methodical and composed. “I’ll immediately have someone draft an official statement under the studio’s name and post it. For rumors that have spread beyond a certain threshold, I’ll have people collect evidence and handle them all together.”
“…”
Xu Jialuo leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “Thank you for the trouble.”
“What trouble? I collect a salary — of course I should do my job.”
After a beat, Zhou Fu asked, “Should I try reaching out to their side again to communicate?”
She meant Bo Suiqing’s side.
That side had just carried out a series of actions, and then this happened. Who was responsible seemed rather self-evident.
Zhou Fu’s first instinct was that, stung by today’s unpleasantness, the other side had retaliated.
“…No need.”
When she’d said those things in the dressing room, Xu Jialuo hadn’t been oblivious to the possibility of angering Bo Suiqing.
It seemed Bo had run out of patience to keep up the act with her.
Humiliated into rage. Daggers drawn1.
She just hadn’t expected the blade to cut this deep this time.
“Hey,” Zhou Fu’s voice lifted. “The trending topic got taken down! Thank goodness!”
Xu Jialuo exited the page and refreshed again. The entry had indeed vanished completely.
It must have been Xu Heng’s side that saw it.
Only the Xu Family’s Family Head stepping in could execute something this cleanly.
She tossed her phone aside. Xu Jialuo fumbled for a tissue and wiped the damp sweat from the back of her neck. When her fingertips brushed the side of her neck, they paused.
A few hours ago, that faint, barely-there kiss had landed right there.
So intimate — and yet entirely false.
The moment the thin veneer of peace was pierced, this was what you got.
“From now on…” Xu Jialuo frowned, pressing hard with her fingertips, almost scrubbing across the spot, flushing the cold-pale skin red, “don’t contact Bo Suiqing’s side again.”
Zhou Fu’s typing fingers faltered. Though she leaned toward reopening communication to resolve things, she respected Xu Jialuo’s wishes more. “Okay.”
Zhou Fu started the car again. “Should I… take you home first?”
“Mm. Home first, then I’ll drive to the recording studio.”
“You’re still going to record that new piece?” Zhou Fu felt a pang of concern over how hard Xu Jialuo pushed herself. “You’re not feeling well — don’t stay too late.”
Xu Jialuo acknowledged with a sound. “Mm, don’t worry.”
Thanks to her consistent exercise routine, she’d always been in good health in recent years. Ordinarily, a cold or fever wouldn’t hit too hard — two or three days and she’d recover.
She thought this time would be the same.
“Weird… we didn’t buy that trending topic either…”
“But we just cut contact with them, so it looks completely like we’re the ones causing trouble!”
“By the way, why did they suddenly tell us to stop contacting Xu Jialuo’s team?”
“Apparently it was the artist’s request.”
“So the two of them really do have beef?”
“Then who exactly is going after Xu Jialuo?”
“Maybe it’s our artist doing it, just not through us.”
“I think so too.”
“Hey hey, the trending topic’s gone! Some big shot stepped in?”
…
In the company’s anonymous employee group chat, messages came one after another.
Xiao Nan sat in the passenger seat, head bowed, secretly reading. After a while, she couldn’t help looking up, catching a glimpse through the rearview mirror of the person reclining in the back seat.
After the gala, there had been a continued print shoot.
Someone who already hadn’t been feeling well looked even more thoroughly exhausted now.
Yet she still keenly caught the little assistant’s gaze, lifting her dense lashes as shimmering silver eyes met Xiao Nan’s through the rearview mirror.
Xiao Nan startled. “Suiqing-jiejie…”
“…Mm?”
The words rolled in her throat, again and again. Then she remembered how, when she’d rushed over earlier, she’d caught sight of the person helping push the photographer away.
In the end, she spoke up. “Um, Jiejie, do you want to take a look at the trending topics…”
Thinking it was just about tonight’s footage, Bo Suiqing hadn’t planned on looking. She only asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just… that musician Xu who was in the same frame as you today — online, people are discussing some… not very good things about her and her mother…”
Xiao Nan kept her voice low. “The trending topic’s already been taken down, but some screenshots are still circulating. And everyone seems to think… it was our side that leaked the information.”
But she’d been with Bo Suiqing the entire time and knew perfectly well that Bo Suiqing had only asked the company people to stop contacting Xu Jialuo’s team — she hadn’t ordered anyone to push anything onto the trending topics.
Bo Suiqing startled, reaching for her phone.
It was too dark in the car; she couldn’t find it right away. Bo Suiqing looked up directly. “Let me see.”
Xiao Nan immediately handed her phone over.
Slender fingertips swiped rapidly across the screen, reading through post after post, lashes faintly trembling.
A minute later, Bo Suiqing fished out her own phone and dialed.
It rang a few times, then was declined outright by Xu Jialuo.
Bo Suiqing’s fingertips paused.
…Never mind.
The degree of disgust was already that deep. What was one more drop?
Xiao Nan turned to look at the person in the back seat.
The car moved forward, fragments of light spilling in through the windows, flickering bright and dark. They fell across that beautiful face, melting into an expression that made one’s heart ache.
It looked just like that other time she’d seen.
Xiao Nan’s chest tightened. “Suiqing-jiejie…”
Bo Suiqing paused, raising a hand to return the phone.
Her fingertip accidentally slipped, tapping into a real-time comment thread where a fan had just uploaded a photo. It was a check-in photo with the building’s advertising screen.
Bo Suiqing’s movements suddenly slowed.
Her gaze stopped, landing on the corner of the photo — that familiar tall figure.
She asked suddenly, “The jewelry ad we shot for SL — is it premiering tonight on the 813 Building’s screen?”
“Mm… yes, Jiejie.” Xiao Nan answered. “Quite a few fans are going there to check in too.”
Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes, studying that figure over and over — one that had clearly been caught accidentally by the camera lens.
She handed the phone back to Xiao Nan. Bo Suiqing said, “Head to the 813 Building.”
The driver acknowledged. “Yes.”
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