Mistakenly Marked – Chapter 15
by Little PandaIn the Same Frame
“Did I satisfy you?”
“What’s the situation?”
A voice came through the wireless earpiece. “Did Xu Jialuo go in?”
“She’s been in for a while… but they probably haven’t started arguing yet. Doesn’t sound like much commotion… could also be the lounge is too well soundproofed.”
“You two keep a close watch. In a few minutes, I’ll switch the live-stream feed over there directly.”
“If they still haven’t come out in a bit, you go up, knock that door open, and get right in their faces for the shot!”
“…Understood.”
After cutting the call, the cameraman muttered under his breath, “Let’s wait a little longer—”
Someone crouched down next to him and leaned in. “Wait for what?”
“Wait for the live-stream feed to come over, then knock on the door and shove the camera in their faces—ah!”
The moment he turned around, he suddenly saw a woman’s face inches from his own, and the cameraman shrieked.
His companion jumped too, stumbling backward onto the ground.
Zhou Fu curved her lips into a smile and pulled two boxes of premium cigarettes from her bag. “Working hard, huh. How about you two do me a favor and have a little chat with me?”
A figure in a black dress leaned down, one hand braced on the back of the sofa, one leg bent against the edge of the seat.
In a deeply invasive posture, she loomed over the woman on the sofa.
Xu Jialuo looked down, raven-feather lashes lowered listlessly, her cold-pale face devoid of any emotion.
It was an intimately suggestive position, yet she remained so detached it was as if she didn’t know the woman beneath her at all.
Without any superfluous movement, Xu Jialuo peeled the Suppressant Patch from Bo Suiqing’s neck, pressed her wrist bone against the collar of Bo Suiqing’s dress to hold it aside, found the right spot, and slid the needle in.
Bo Suiqing’s whole body flinched. Her hands moved, as if wanting to rise, then settled back onto the sofa.
She gripped her skirt hem tightly.
For a fleeting moment, Xu Jialuo suddenly thought of the omega from that night at the villa.
Her gaze shifted upward, landing on Bo Suiqing’s face.
Bo Suiqing was also an omega.
So what would Bo Suiqing look like in a state of intense heat?
The question flashed by and was discarded in the time it took to lower her eyes.
She shouldn’t, and had no reason to, be curious about such things.
The suppressant in the syringe was pushed in slowly.
Xu Jialuo’s fingers held the barrel, her wrist resting against the lace collar of the dress.
She didn’t touch Bo Suiqing’s skin at all.
It looked like courtesy. Like restraint. More like blatant distaste.
Bo Suiqing turned her head away, pressing her cheek into the cascade of her curls, enduring to the limit before a choked sob finally escaped, her breathing fractured.
Xu Jialuo’s finger bones tightened around the syringe.
Then she furrowed her brow and steadied herself.
The speed at which she pushed the medication slowed a fraction more.
After a long moment, the needle was withdrawn from the skin.
This time the pheromone fluctuation was nowhere near as severe as at the villa. Bo Suiqing slumped against the sofa, her agitated pheromones quickly stabilizing.
She kept her eyes downcast. Xu Jialuo’s bracing hand was beside her face.
She couldn’t resist leaning toward it. Wanting to nuzzle.
But a hand clamped her chin, turning her head straight.
Xu Jialuo looked down at her. “It seems Xu Shangning’s terms really do tempt you.”
Xu Jialuo tossed the spent syringe into the trash. “Enough to make you act this hard.”
The superstar had a face that had been beautiful since childhood, and she knew it well.
Many years ago, Xu Jialuo had seen it firsthand.
How this person could smile and spin people in circles, then drop the smile the instant they left, as though switching faces.
Even back then, she was already an expert deceiver.
“…”
Bo Suiqing tilted her head up. She could hear the mockery in Xu Jialuo’s words.
“Yes. I’m very satisfied. That’s why I tried so hard.”
Long lashes veiled the darkness in her eyes. That beautiful face smiled. “So—did I satisfy you?”
An expression she had always reserved for others now, rarely, fell into Xu Jialuo’s line of sight.
It only felt blinding. “Putting results above all else, resorting to any means necessary—do you think that’s something to be proud of?”
“Any means necessary…”
Bo Suiqing repeated in a low voice, a thin edge of anger entering her tone. “If I achieved my goals through my own abilities, why shouldn’t I be proud?”
Xu Jialuo’s finger bones suddenly tightened.
So this person really had entangled and maneuvered around her only to achieve her objectives.
“Your abilities—meaning your acting skills, manipulating people, treating the emotions between people as bargaining chips for a deal?”
Frequent shows of weakness to soften her heart. Using this fake “reconciliation” to exchange for the benefits Xu Shangning had promised.
Bo Suiqing’s pupils trembled.
When she first debuted, few people knew her connection to the Bo family. When she won her first award, public opinion turned ugly. The loudest accusation claimed Bo Suiqing had latched onto a middle-aged director, using every dirty trick to steal someone else’s role.
No one knew, and no one cared, how she had stood freezing through an entire snowy night just to earn her first audition opportunity.
Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes, glanced at Xu Jialuo’s hand gripping her chin, then looked up again.
A clever performer knew exactly how to make someone’s heart soften—and also knew precisely how to drive the blade in deepest.
Bo Suiqing curved her peach blossom eyes1, smiling with a cold voice. “But the result is that I succeeded. And you did exactly as I said, didn’t you?”
The finger bones pressed against the sofa suddenly clenched. Xu Jialuo straightened up abruptly.
Dang dang.
At the near-drawing of swords, a knock suddenly sounded.
“Jialuo.”
Zhou Fu’s voice.
One minute later, Zhou Fu stood in the lounge, one hand pinching her nose, the other wielding the pheromone neutralizer spray she kept in her bag, spraying furiously in every direction.
Only after emptying an entire bottle did she cross her arms and survey the two people in the room.
“Miss Bo, an omega’s pheromones tend to be unstable when she’s sick.”
Zhou Fu shook the empty bottle in her hand.
“You might want to have your assistant keep some of this handy. It works wonders.”
Seeing that neither person intended to respond, Zhou Fu wasn’t annoyed. She continued, “It’s time to head in. But there are two cameramen crouched out in the corridor, waiting for you to come out so they can live-stream your reactions.”
She looked at the two faces, each looking worse than the other, and smiled. “My expectations are very low. Once you’re out that door, please try to stay silent.”
“If we can agree on that, let’s go.”
Xu Jialuo moved first, picking up the things scattered on the floor and putting them in order.
As she passed Bo Suiqing, she said coldly, “There won’t be a next time.”
Bo Suiqing paused.
“I don’t care what Xu Shangning promised you.”
Expressionless, Xu Jialuo spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear clearly:
“Take your boring tricks and, just like before—”
“Stay far away from me.”
The lounge door was opened.
A figure in black and a figure in white stepped out one after the other.
The cameraman, whose legs had gone numb from crouching, limped over. He glanced at Zhou Fu, and when she nodded, aimed his camera at the two of them.
The live-stream feed officially switched over.
Within seconds, the bullet comments2 in the live-stream room, previously sparse, instantly skyrocketed.
“It’s Bo Suiqing!”
“Jiejie, Jiejie, look at me!”
“I heard Jiejie caught a cold. Is she feeling any better?”
“If certain irrational fans could stop following her car, our Suiqing baby would be a lot more comfortable!”
“Teacher Xu! My Teacher Xu!”
“The new album is seriously amazing!”
“Luoluo, whip me!”
“Good luck tonight at the premiere performance!”
Mixed in among the joy of both fan camps, people gradually noticed something off.
“Wait, those two… came out of the same room?”
“Did they just have a face-to-face blowout?”
“Both of their expressions seem even worse than before.”
“I’m getting curious now. What kind of grudge do these two have? Can someone dig it up?”
“Bo Suiqing still has the nerve to stand next to our Teacher Xu?”
“Person above, watch your mouth. Let’s see who’s the ugly one who doesn’t deserve to share the frame!”
“Sorry, but there’s a wall between female celebrities and regular people!”
“Our Luoluo has both the looks and the talent!”
“Everyone, looking at the two of them, I actually think they’re kind of cute together.”
“Person above, get lost! If your eyes are bad, go get them treated!”
“Bo fan here, I agree!”
“…”
The cameraman held up his camera, diligently keeping it trained on the two of them.
Zhou Fu smiled and raised a hand, blocking the cameraman closest to Xu Jialuo back to a polite distance.
The assistant hadn’t returned yet. Bo Suiqing had no one on her side. The cameraman kept reminding himself of the order from above—”shove the camera in her face”—and pushed the machine in extremely close.
Bo Suiqing stepped back, her waist hitting the railing. The cameraman immediately followed.
Too close. Even the slightest expression would be screenshotted and dissected endlessly. The neckline of her gown wasn’t snug enough—there was even a risk of a wardrobe malfunction.
Bo Suiqing lowered her eyes, the pale silver of her irises flat with numbness.
Her body hadn’t fully recovered. She didn’t have the strength to resist.
Besides, that was exactly the kind of discussion and buzz the other side wanted.
Entertainment first, traffic rules all—a grotesque game rule everyone in the entertainment industry should have learned long ago.
At worst, she’d be strung up on the trending list3, subjected to rounds of judgment and mockery—
A tall figure swept past her. A hand reached out and pressed against the shoulder of the cameraman who kept closing in.
Cold-pale finger bones tightened abruptly, easily sending the overbearing man stumbling two steps backward.
“What’s going on? Keep the camera steady, would you?”
“Huh, did a hand just appear in the shot?”
The cameraman scrambled to steady himself and looked up into a pair of cold, pitch-dark eyes. His heart clenched suddenly, and he froze in place.
Assistant Xiao Nan came running back with water, quickly seizing the opening to slip past the cameraman. She reached out to shield Bo Suiqing. “We need to go in now. Please step aside, thank you!”
Zhou Fu watched Xu Jialuo already striding forward, hid the surprise in her eyes, and smiled as she patted the cameraman who still didn’t want to give up.
“Be a dear and make way. It’s time to go in.”
At her words, the cameraman—who’d taken her cigarettes—shifted aside with a nod.
Footnotes
- 桃花眼 | taohua yan | Literally 'peach blossom eyes' — a Chinese facial-beauty term for eyes with a distinctive curved shape and slightly upturned outer corners, traditionally associated with romantic allure and emotional expressiveness.
- 弹幕 | danmu | Real-time bullet comments that stream across video players on Chinese livestreaming platforms; viewers type short messages that appear as flying text overlays, with volume surging during key moments.
- 热搜 | resou | Literally 'hot search' — the trending-topics list on Chinese social media platforms like Weibo, where the most discussed subjects are ranked in real time; being 'hung on hot search' means becoming the target of mass public scrutiny and commentary.
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