Chapter 3Tainted Moonlight

In a corner of the coffee shop, the reality show was streaming on a tablet.

The scene showed Emma taking a bite out of Xander's half-eaten tart.

Watching Xander's helpless expression, Emma smiled brightly.

Xander looked at the laughing Emma, shaking his head with an air of resignation.

They exchanged glances, and it seemed like pink bubbles were floating in the air between them.

"They're a perfect match!" the tall girl shrieked, cupping her face.

The short-haired girl glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, deliberately asking loudly:

"Hey, what do you think? Are they super compatible? Everyone online says they're the best couple of the year!"

I saw that Xander had already taken a bite of that tart, and I saw the way Emma looked at Xander.

I knew her too well, so I knew it wasn't all acting.

At least, when the two of us first started out and only had enough money for one bowl of ramen,

Emma wouldn't have eaten from the same bowl as me.

At least, she could always deduce his favorite music and food from the smallest clues in Xander's social media.

And me, I was right in front of her.

Yet she never noticed my increasingly pale complexion, or the frequent nosebleeds.

She never noticed the painkillers scattered around the house, nor did she realize I spent night after night beside her, in too much pain to sleep.

A part of my heart felt like it was pricked with a fine needle, a dense, aching soreness spreading through me.

But I just froze for a few seconds, then offered a genuinely heartfelt smile:

"Yes, they really are a perfect match."

My reaction clearly caught them off guard.

After all, for years, tabloid headlines had always featured reports of me scowling at Emma interacting with other male celebrities.

They exchanged a disgruntled glance, then the short-haired girl suddenly remembered something and leaned closer to me:

"Hey, we once heard a fan account say that backstage, you slapped Emma. Is that true or false?" Her words made my body jolt, my head swimming.

That was in the third year of our careers, when I was caught by paparazzi delivering a Valentine's Day gift to Emma.

This led to massive online abuse from Emma's fans.

They called me disgusting and a pervert, claiming I was obsessed with my own artist.

Almost every day, I'd wake up to hundreds of Photoshopped obituaries and hateful comments flooding my DMs and comment sections.

Those days, Emma was like a powder keg, but her eyes held a mix of pain and concern for me.

In the dressing room, she looked at my face and seriously said she wanted to quit the industry, that she couldn't bear to see me treated that way.

Emma's eyes were terrifyingly red. She wouldn't listen to anything I said, stubbornly insisting she would announce her retirement.

Finally, I slapped her across the face.

"If you quit, then all these years of me being cursed at will have been for nothing!"

"Do you remember what you told me back then, that you would fight your way to the top?"

Emma's head was turned by my slap, but she eventually burrowed fiercely into my arms.

Her tears fell onto my neck, as hot and passionate as her sincerity then.

"Julian, wait for me. I'll take you to the highest place."

The girls' insistent voices, urging me for an answer, became distant and blurred.

"Hey, say something!"

"Why did you do it?"

Yes, why?

Why do people's feelings change so suddenly?

"I..."

A broken syllable squeezed from my throat, and then my world plunged into complete darkness.

The smell of disinfectant filled my nostrils.

I struggled to open my eyes.

"He's awake!" The short-haired girl scurried over, looking relieved.

"Are you okay? The doctor said you almost burned up with fever."

I gave a weak smile, looking at their bewildered faces, wanting to say something.

Just then, the TV screen in the corner of the room flickered, showing the backstage interview segment of "Seven-Day Lovers."

"So, Emma, having worked with so many excellent male co-stars, what is your ideal type like?"

I turned my head to look at Emma, elegant and refined on the TV screen, and my heart skipped a beat.

"Hmm... I like someone lively and cheerful, like a little sun. It's perfectly fine if they're a bit clingy; it's cute. Preferably not like a nagging parent, telling me what to do all the time, not too rigid, and not too materialistic..."

Every word was like a tiny hammer, gently tapping my heart.

Lively, a little sun, clingy.

She was describing the Julian of ten years ago, the naive Julian who scraped by with her in a basement apartment.

Controlling, mature, materialistic.

She hated the Julian of ten years later, the Julian who had endured multiple online attacks and finally learned to be cautious with his words and actions.

I let out an absurd laugh, my eyes burning and dry, but not a single tear fell.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and looked at the two girls by the bed, their expressions complex. My voice was hoarse as I said:

"Please, don't tell anyone that I fainted today."

The two girls were obedient; they didn't mention my illness.

But they did upload a secretly filmed video of me saying Emma and Xander were a good match to the internet.

Emma called me.

But her very first words caught me off guard.