Two-year-old Fang Xu sat on the floor of a luxuriously decorated nursery. To his left sat a little girl with pigtails, and on the balcony behind them stood a little boy in a Western-style school uniform. They all appeared to be members of Fang Xu’s family.
Cui Yan watched the video of Fang Xu playing with mecha toys alongside the little girl. His mouth grew wider and wider in surprise, his voice a mix of shock and disappointment: “Xiao Fang, so you have older brothers and sisters? I’ve never heard you mention them…”
Fang Xu: “…”
He had been in a cold war with his family for so many years, and their relationship was bad. How could he possibly tell others!
Fang Xu was about to explain, but then he suddenly realized…wait, what did this have to do with Cui Yan? He and Cui Yan weren’t at all close enough to share everything. Why was this guy acting so disappointed!
Behind them, the many trainees had just recovered from the overly gorgeous decoration of the nursery when they noticed the boy on the balcony, who looked older than both Fang Xu and the pigtailed girl.
“Hey! Look! That guy’s school uniform looks really familiar. Isn’t that from that international school or something?”
“Ooh ooh ooh! It is! It does look very similar. The tie color is different, probably the difference between the middle school and high school divisions?”
“Are you talking about that school where we filmed the theme song MV?”
“Confirmed young master. I couldn’t even afford that school. So who is this kid?”
Xue Mingzhu didn’t remember what the Deville school uniform looked like. When they went to film the MV, there had indeed been students passing by, but who would pay attention to that? He only remembered that Quentin had graduated from that school.
He listened to the other trainees’ discussions with one ear, and with the other he heard Cui Yan’s persistent questioning of Fang Xu. His eyes stared intently at Fang Xu as he exclaimed in surprise: “Xiao Fang, your brother goes to Deville. You wouldn’t happen to go there too, would you? So you and Quentin are actually alumni? Did you graduate high school? You should have graduated, right…”
Before he could finish, Fang Xu couldn’t take it anymore. It was one thing for Cui Yan to call him Xiao Fang… at least that guy was a year older. But how could Xue Mingzhu say it!
The young man interrupted with a dark expression: “We’re not alumni. I moved out and lived in a boarding school starting from middle school. Same for high school. Also, I’m 20 years old this year, a sophomore in college.”
Fang Xu didn’t explain why he didn’t attend the same school as his older brother. He wouldn’t discuss family matters on the show. First, he didn’t want to bring it up himself, and second, his family certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with him, the mediocre, rebellious, and disappointing younger son.
Xue Mingzhu said “oh,” completely missing the implication that Fang Xu was hinting he was older than him.
On the other side, Cui Yan, not getting a response from Fang Xu, didn’t dwell on this small matter. He raised his hand and placed it on Fang Xu’s shoulder, leaned over to look at Xue Mingzhu, and added with a smile: “Xiao Fang and I are the real alumni. We’re at university together.”
By then, the video had progressed to Fang Xu’s six-year-old birthday party.
In the frame, the child’s hair had turned black, but his complexion remained pale. He stood expressionlessly by the birthday cake, his features about fifty percent similar to the Fang Xu of now.
Now all the trainees recognized Fang Xu. For a while, the practice room was filled with all sorts of teasing and joking remarks like “So it’s Young Master Fang,” “Young Master Fang has such presence even at a young age,” “So the dark circles are natural, huh?”
Fang Xu’s face silently turned red in the dim light. Although his videos, when compared to the “daily lives of mischievous kids destroying homes” shown earlier for most others, couldn’t even be considered embarrassing history, the more he listened, the more he wanted to hide his face.
This is the disadvantage of having thin skin. Someone with thicker skin would have gracefully accepted the title of young master, waved their hand heroically, and declared that all expenses tonight were on Young Master Fang…
The short video of the birthday party continued. The camera pulled back to show that the location seemed to be inside some villa. The opulent and lavish interior decoration matched the style of the nursery from before. This was presumably Fang Xu’s home.
The guests coming and going in the hall, judging by their attire, were clearly all wealthy. This scene alone outdid the lavish banquets shown in many TV dramas.
Since the camera’s focus had been on the six-year-old Young Master Fang, the faces of other guests in the background were blurry. Unless one was familiar with them, it was hard to identify them, so the production team did not blur them out.
In the director’s view, the “little movie” segment tonight was full of explosive moments enough to ignite fan enthusiasm, worth at least several high-ranking trending searches. Fang Xu’s family background was one of them.
The surname “Fang” in Yanhai carried a lot of connotations, and there were not many families that could be mentioned in the same breath.
Of course, the affairs of these wealthy families were not common knowledge online, but that was fine. Their production team could buy marketing accounts to stir up the narrative!
Earlier, when fans dug up that Quentin had attended Deville International School, it had trended on the searches numerous times, spreading wildly across forums based solely on a student ID card.
As far as Director Wang knew, there was no surname “Kun” among the wealthy in Yanhai. Fang Xu would be a much bigger deal than Quentin’s student ID card, right?
When the team first received the materials from Fang Xu’s family, the production crew was completely shocked and in an uproar.
My goodness, they had been joking before about the show having royalty that capital forcibly promoted, but they never imagined that among a bunch of little trainees, there was such a big Buddha!
Although the domestic entertainment industry was well-developed, the situation of the “wealthy class” had evolved over the past century to be that only wealthy people could afford to mess around in the entertainment circle. But there were many levels among the wealthy.
Truly wealthy families rarely allowed their younger generation to become actors or singers, let alone idols at the bottom of the entertainment industry’s “chain of disdain.”
Who would have thought that Fang Xu, this low-key and hard-working trainee of Class A, would have such a background.
While the trainees were discussing enthusiastically, Quentin was staring blankly at a person in the background of the birthday party video.
It was a sixteen or seventeen-year-old young man. He wore a dark gray suit and a navy blue striped tie at his chest. He was tall with long legs, his demeanor gentle and restrained.
When it came to wearing suits, some people looked like insurance salesmen, some like spoiled rich young masters. Some people just stood in a corner doing nothing, yet they naturally carried an aura of education and refinement.
Regardless of what such a person looked like, it didn’t affect the attention drawn to them. Like a piece of jade mixed in with stones, they didn’t need to shine for people to instantly recognize their distinct value.
But these were not the main point. The main point was that Quentin knew this person!
The camera lingered at this angle for nearly five seconds. The protagonist, “Young Master Fang,” was raising a knife to personally cut the cake, giving Quentin enough time to examine the young man in the gray suit in the background frame.
If Quentin had not recently gained those memory fragments filled with a sense of familiarity, perhaps when he saw the video, he wouldn’t have paid special attention to the people in the background. Even if he found them familiar, it would have been hard to recognize them on the spot.
However, he had just matched the man in his twenties from the memory fragments with the childhood playmate from his past life in his hometown, and the face of the sixteen or seventeen-year-old youth before him was clearly in the transitional period between the man and the playmate.
Quentin had never seen Jin Sui’s youth in his past life, nor had he seen Jin Sui as a mature adult. But it didn’t matter, because Jin Sui’s face was highly recognizable, and easy to identify from childhood to adulthood.
So… the memory fragments he had obtained were real? Did this world also have a “Jin Sui”? Or did there exist a person who looked exactly like Jin Sui?
But why would this person appear in his memory fragments and also in Fang Xu’s birthday party video?
The system had said those memories were automatically filled in based on the stories Quentin fabricated. But could the people in the memories also be fabricated out of thin air?
If they were fabricated, why fabricate a person not mentioned in Quentin’s stories?
If they were not fabricated, wouldn’t that mean that before Quentin transmigrated into the book, a “Quentin” connected with “Jin Sui” already existed in this world?
Quentin had never doubted the system before. This did not mean he trusted the system very much, but merely because he didn’t care whether the system concealed or deceived him.
He was a person who had died once. Regardless of whether the system’s purpose in binding him to this book was to save the protagonist group, this experience of transmigrating into the book was a rebirth for him, an invaluable gift.
From the perspective of being reborn, the system had done him a favor regardless. Besides, the system had always been very good to him, and he didn’t resist the so-called redemption mission.
As for what would happen after the mission was completed, he didn’t care. Quentin had always been a person who valued the process over the result. After his sudden death and rebirth, he hadn’t agonized over or clung to his past life’s career. He was just as deeply immersed and engaged in this life.
Precisely because he was enjoying himself so much, he hadn’t thought to doubt anything. But now strange things were right in front of his eyes, and it wouldn’t be right not to get to the bottom of it.
The childhood friend from over twenty years ago… was actually quite important, right? He had long forgotten unimportant people. Among so many people in his hometown, he now only remembered the faces of his grandmother, his mother, and Jin Sui.
Quentin decided to look into this later. Until he found a result, he did not plan to tell the system for the time being. What if Jin Sui, like him, had transmigrated into the book or been reborn? What if the system and the “headquarters” behind it did not know of Jin Sui’s existence?
In short, he would investigate it himself first. This matter didn’t necessarily have to rely on the system; there were obvious clues readily available.
Whether it was “Quentin’s” memory fragments or Fang Xu’s birthday party, both could be traced. If the name “Jin Sui” hadn’t changed, it would be even easier to look up.
While thinking about these things, Quentin didn’t forget to continue scrutinizing Fang Xu’s growth videos. Unfortunately, Jin Sui did not appear again after that, and Fang Xu’s video ended abruptly at the year he turned fourteen.
The next video was Cui Yan’s.
Unlike Fang Xu’s dazzling videos, Cui Yan’s childhood was spent moving between various extracurricular classes.
Many details in the video revealed the strict discipline and demands Cui Yan’s parents placed on him, and their determination to raise their child to become a big star.
The pressure that accumulated with age became so heavy that the trainees watching from outside the screen instinctively fell silent. Only Cui Yan himself could laugh it off.
Objectively speaking, Cui Yan’s growth video was not as eye-catching as Fang Xu’s, but it resonated strongly with the other trainees, even making some tremble.
In theory, these videos were all obtained by the production team from the trainees’ parents. But would parents really send videos of themselves scolding their child to the show’s director?
And there was even corporal punishment. So strict, so terrifying!
Fang Xu also hadn’t expected Cui Yan’s family situation to be like this. He had previously envied how Cui Yan’s parents wholeheartedly supported his trainee life, but in fact… this “wholeheartedness” was also an inescapable pressure.
Taking advantage of the darkness, he secretly glanced at Cui Yan and found that the other party was still laughing it off, showing no sign of discomfort.
After thinking for a moment, he didn’t shake off Cui Yan’s hand resting on his shoulder.
I am very curious about Quentin’s childhood. Thank you for the chapters