Riding the wind, we soar down to survey the mountains and rivers.

The camera pans to the sky, where a vibrant green leaf drifts gently down.

Subtitles appear on the screen:

Starring: Ye Chu

Edited by: Ye Luochen

Material compiled with thanks to: Chlorophyll, Leaf Breeze, First Leaf Tip Star, Summer of Cherry Amber, Anonymous Brand Fengyoujing...

2018.08.13

All materials are from the internet. Thank you for watching.

The video has finished playing.

Shang Yechu was completely unaware. It wasn't until Weibo automatically redirected to the next video in the compilation and the music started again that she came to her senses and subconsciously pressed pause.

Shang Yechu's lips trembled slightly, and a hint of saltiness came through her tongue. She gently touched her lips and found them slightly moist.

For some reason, Shang Yechu's first reaction was as if she had been burned, and she pressed the power button on the laptop.

The computer screen went black, revealing a woman's face. Her expression was blank, two lines of tears streamed down her face, and her lower lip was bitten until it bled.

Suddenly, Shang Yechu frantically pressed the power button on the computer as if she had gone mad. The normally functioning computer lit up instantly—the press had only put it into sleep mode, not shut it down.

The screen lit up again, refreshing the page. The long video reappeared before Shang Yechu's eyes. She clicked the mouse, selecting @叶初Leaves, and Yechu's Weibo homepage appeared on the screen.

Ye Chu's latest Weibo post is a nine-grid selfie, with the central photo featuring a colorful, exquisite, and dreamy fruit cake adorned with 22 candles.

The caption, in a lighthearted tone, reads: "Off work now [green leaf] Wondering when I'll get to eat cake?"

The selfie in this Weibo post was taken by Shang Yechu last week and meticulously edited by her studio. The cake in the picture was ordered by her assistant, but it was immediately shared by other members of the studio after the photo was taken; Shang Yechu didn't touch a single bite. Only the caption was casually edited by Shang Yechu herself, and she asked her staff to post it promptly at 8:00 PM. The staff had a clever touch, deliberately setting the time to 8:13 PM.

This is a cobbled-together piece of content, with 70% being false and deceitful. Yet, at this moment, the Weibo post has already surpassed 300,000 reposts and 200,000 comments.

Shang Yechu's breathing suddenly became very light.

She clicked into the comments section of this Weibo post, and the next second, the hand that was clicking the mouse covered her mouth.

@YeLuoChen: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@CatPawLeafCoffee: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@DesperateAbandonedWomanReborn: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@Xiao Yueming: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@Ye Xiaoxiao - Reincarnated Spirit Child No. 813: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@Those Wasted Love—: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@Chlorophyll-Half the Sky Mega Version: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@SevenSeconds: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you.]

@PandoraGreenBeanSkin: [Happy Birthday Ye Chu, I love you.]

…………

Countless messages of "Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you!" lined the comment section like an endless river. Shang Ye Chu saw many people—familiar old fans and unfamiliar new fans. Unbeknownst to her, Ye Ya's little circle had grown to an unimaginable extent, seemingly endless.

The fans, in unison, changed their profile pictures. They weren't glamorous selfies of Shang Yechu, nor were they popular characters like Ping Zhao, Xiao Fengque, or Li Yiming. Instead, they were the minor roles Shang Yechu had played—refugees on the roadside, soldiers on horseback, medicine sellers, peddlers carrying goods, and maids standing guard. Every character who had once been screenshotted and turned into insulting memes by haters became a profile picture for the fans; every character who had been used as evidence of plastic surgery now sent birthday wishes.

These down-to-earth, ordinary people from all walks of life were neatly arranged in Shang Yechu's comment section. It seemed as if they were telling Shang Yechu in this way: We saw the path you came from, and we love all of you.

Shang Yechu cried.

Tears streamed down her face unexpectedly. Shang Yechu was completely unaware that she was crying until a sob escaped her lips, startling Ji Juntao, who was staring at her phone screen: "Ye, you're crying?"

Shang Yechu did not answer Ji Juntao. At this moment, she had forgotten Ji Juntao's existence. One cry, then two, and she burst into tears.

Since her rebirth, she had cried many times, but each time it was with the purpose of performance. Only this time, without any audience or cameras, she cried in a way that even she herself did not expect.

Her cries were loud and clear, accompanied by unpleasant sniffling and wailing. At first, Ji Juntao tried to comfort her, but then he shut up and listened quietly to her crying.

She strained to open her blurry, tear-filled eyes, looking at the countless round figures on the screen. Tears blurred everything; she couldn't see anything clearly. Yet she continued to stare at the screen, as if the words would fly away on their own.

From birth, she craved attention, gaze, focus, success, love, and happiness. And in this instant—at least in this instant—she suddenly possessed everything she had dreamed of in her first half of life and in both her previous lives.

Everyone—Ji Juntao, Grandma Hu, Qi Ming, Sheng Wenzhi, Zheng Bohan, Xu Hanwen, Shi Shan, Li Yi… her friends, family, collaborators, and even her haters—had all vanished from her at that moment. Only rows of small profile pictures remained, along with whispered messages: "Happy Birthday Ye Chu, we love you."

She already had the love of many people, but she was trapped by her ridiculous and boring pride and self-esteem, and did not realize it.

In that instant, Shang Yechu shouted in her heart: "I love acting! Yes, to hell with mountains, revenge, and repentance! I love acting from the bottom of my heart because it brought these people to me... to me. I am a good actor and will become a great actor. Because I have them after all! I love acting more and act better than so-called acting fanatics and slick actors, and they see that very clearly!"

She wiped away her tears and clicked on Ye Luochen's homepage. The person who posted the scissors was writing a thank-you message on the homepage:

Thank you all for your great help! We're trending at number one! This is the result of everyone's joint efforts.

@叶初Leaves, you're quite the actress! So many roles, you almost killed me with all that editing! [doge]

Have you been secretly dropping little pearls on my homepage?

"No," Shang Yechu cried, "Never."