Li Ling's mind was blank; she felt like she might still be dreaming. Otherwise, how could the first words Director Jin said to her be so... She instinctively touched her pocket but didn't feel any buttons. She wasn't wearing her strawberry bear pajamas today. "Your collar," Xiao Liu whispered beside her. Li Ling let out an "oh," tugged at her coat, and was dumbfounded. All the buttons were misaligned. ... People really shouldn't get up at four in the morning. It was very cold on the mountaintop. The strong wind blew, turning Li Ling into a disheveled scarecrow. She was left with only two choices. First, obediently unbutton all the misaligned buttons and rebutton them correctly. During this long and awkward process, Jin Jingyao might keep staring at her coldly and then say, "I don't like people who can't even button their clothes properly. You look like an idiot. Leave." And he wouldn't even reimburse her for the return trip. Li Ling decided to go with the second option. She took a swift step forward, rushed to him, and grabbed his hand. "Idol!" she said passionately, "I've finally met you. I've loved your movies for many years!" In reality, Li Ling had hardly watched any of his films. But based on her years of experience running around film sets, no director could resist a little flattery. Jin Jingyao slowly lowered his head and glanced at their clasped hands. Up close, he was indeed handsome, but his demeanor was too cold and hard, easily intimidating people. Li Ling, however, wasn't intimidated. She shook his hand even more enthusiastically. Perhaps it was an illusion created by the sunrise. The beautiful light and shadow intertwined on the young man's face, like a faint blush on a snow-capped mountain. She suddenly felt that Jin Jingyao might not be that difficult to get along with. Li Ling seized the opportunity to explain, "I'm really sorry, Director. I left in a hurry this morning. I'll make sure to check my attire carefully and button every button properly in the future." Jin Jingyao: "Hmm." She emphasized, "I'm also very punctual and never late." "Hmm." Jin Jingyao looked at her, hardly blinking. His eyes were light-colored, his gaze silent and still, like a frozen river under the sunlight. "Didn't sleep well?" he suddenly asked in a very pleasant voice. Li Ling was flattered. Director Jin's personality was too good. Huang Yingqian had scolded him for over three hours; it must have been Huang Yingqian's problem. "Maybe I was too nervous," she said obsequiously. "I couldn't sleep at all thinking about meeting my idol for the first time." Jin Jingyao suddenly smiled at her and said in a steady tone, "First meeting." He gripped her hand more firmly. Probably because he had been standing outside for a long time, Jin Jingyao's hand was colder than hers. His palm was broad and strong, with thin calluses at the knuckles. When his fingertips tightened slightly, they left a faint stinging sensation on her skin. Li Ling didn't feel it strongly. Her mind was filled with one thought: What a magnificent face. The young director's smile was truly beautiful, like sunlight reflecting off cracks in the ice, shimmering and almost blinding Li Ling. Without thinking, she said, "Yes, it's such a pity. How come I'm only meeting my idol today..." Jin Jingyao let go of her hand. Li Ling: ? She was caught off guard. He had already turned his gaze away indifferently. "Meeting in ten minutes," he said to Xiao Liu. Xiao Liu: "Got it!"He turned around and left without giving Li Ling another glance. Afterward, Li Ling thought for a long time but couldn't figure out how she had offended him. She waited in the crew for several days, but no one came to ask her to audition. When she subtly inquired with Xiao Liu, he just stammered and said that the director was too busy lately and asked her to be patient. Li Ling had been an actress for many years and was very familiar with such polite rejection tactics. But this person was Jin Jingyao. If he didn't ask her to leave, she definitely wouldn't go. With nothing else to do, Li Ling watched some documentaries about Jin Jingyao's filmmaking. She found that the actors praised him highly, calling him gentle, polite, and very patient at all times. In the documentaries, he indeed appeared very gentle and patient, never losing his temper. She might have met a fake Jin Jingyao. "So what do we do now?" her agent said worriedly. "That little scandal with your drama has blown up so much..." On the same day Li Ling met Jin Jingyao, Qin Yi, who had long been blacklisted, suddenly went crazy and used a small account to start a live broadcast, making a series of destructive revelations. Netizens flocked to the scene and quickly dug up photos of Qin Yi in a nightclub, where a middle-aged, bloated man was slumped in a dark corner. That man was the director of the drama. The scandal escalated, turning into a dog-eat-dog spectacle. It was said that the director's wife had already hired a lawyer, planning to take a hefty sum from him. "Don't laugh at others' misfortune," the agent said with a frown. "There were a few web dramas looking for you, but now they all say it's too much trouble and want to avoid the spotlight..." "It's okay," Li Ling comforted her. "Between web dramas and Jin Jingyao, who would you choose? We can't pick up sesame seeds and lose the watermelon." Agent: "That depends on whether he wants you. It's been so many days..." "He will want me," Li Ling said firmly. She hung up the phone and decided to go out and chase down Jin Jingyao. - When a person is determined to do something, even the heavens will help her. Not long after she went out, Li Ling encountered a heavy rainstorm and was drenched. She wanted to find a place to take shelter and unknowingly walked near the theater that the crew had requisitioned. The wet buildings exhaled like giant beasts in the oppressive rain. She ran over in a sorry state and tried to gently push the back door of the theater. The door opened. A well-defined hand firmly held the door. Because of his tall stature, Li Ling immediately felt a sense of suppression. Standing before her was not just Jin Jingyao, but a huge, glittering gold mine. "Hello, Director," she said with a flattering smile. "I'm Li Ling." Jin Jingyao showed no expression. He looked different from the last time they met. His hair and clothes were a bit messy, a button was missing from his loungewear, and he wore a pair of thin-framed glasses, looking as if he hadn't fully woken up. Li Ling's smile stiffened. Great, this guy looked completely bewildered. Had he really forgotten her? She took a step forward and said in a slightly pitiful tone, "The rain is too heavy, Director. Can I come in to take shelter?" Her clothes were soaked through. Standing so close, her breath, like trembling rain, almost clung to him. Jin Jingyao lowered his eyes and, without saying a word, turned and walked away. Li Ling: ? Alright, at least he left the door ajar. She followed him step by step, knowing full well that he was several years younger than her, yet she still sweetly said, "Thank you, Director. You're so kind." Jin Jingyao had his back to her, his steps slightly paused, and finally, he squeezed out three words sparingly: "Sit there." He pointed to a corner. Li Ling said, "Okay." In fact, she didn't see clearly where he was pointing. The room was unlit, very dark, and quite crowded. She groped her way in the dark for a while, bumping her forehead into unknown hard objects at least three times. Jin Jingyao watched indifferently from the side, occasionally giving brief instructions like "left" or "right." The longest sentence he said was, "Don't bump into the books." Li Ling, already seeing stars from the collisions, couldn't help but say, "Director, can we turn on the light first?" In the darkness, faint footsteps sounded, a pull cord was tugged, and a dim, hazy light filled the entire room. Li Ling was startled. Because the place was astonishingly messy, with books and manuscripts piled everywhere, from the base of the walls to the ceiling. A musty, old book smell mixed with damp rainwater wafted towards her. "Director, you have so many books, that's impressive," Li Ling praised insincerely. Jin Jingyao glanced up at her, "Is that so." She nodded with great emotion, even more insincerely saying, "It's very cozy." Turning around, Li Ling recognized the culprit she had bumped into multiple times earlier—a hard, very un-cozy iron bed. "Director, can I sit here?" she asked, pointing at it with a vengeful spirit. "No," Jin Jingyao said. Li Ling: "." Forget it, she knew it. She sensibly sat down against the wall, neither touching his precious bed nor his noble books. Her forehead still hurt, and she was very cold. She had just walked through a storm, feeling like she had collided head-on with a tidal wave, soaked from head to toe. A towel was suddenly handed to her. Li Ling, bewildered, said, "Thank you, Director," and uncertainly took it, then gave Jin Jingyao a grateful smile. It seemed he wasn't that bad after all. He smiled back at her, "Why are you using a rag to wipe your face?" Li Ling: ? He nudged the floor with his shoe, indicating the water stains on it. Then he pointed to the towel in her hand. Li Ling: "..." So, there's a living person in front of you, cold and wet, shivering. And you just want her to wipe the floor. No, just this kind of jerk, Huang Yingqian only scolded him for three hours? ...Forget three hours, as long as Jin Jingyao was willing to cast her in a film, she could scold him for three hundred hours. Li Ling, while mentally chanting "this is not a rag, this is Jin Jingyao's shroud," knelt on the floor with her back to him and resignedly started wiping the floor. The floor was hard, water seeped into her wet pants, and her knees hurt from the pressure. She slipped ungracefully. "What are you doing," Jin Jingyao suddenly said. His tone was bad, almost like he was scolding someone. Li Ling felt baffled, turned to look at him, and found his face indeed looked worse. "Director, I'm cleaning the floor," she said. Jin Jingyao said, "Get up first." Li Ling couldn't understand what he was thinking. "That's not right, Director," she pretended to be remorseful, but actually sarcastic, "My clothes are so wet, I've dirtied your floor." As she spoke, she surreptitiously rubbed her calf against the floor and stepped on his precious books twice. The dim light flickered over Li Ling's body. Her pant legs were covered in mud, making her ankles look even whiter, like a crisp lotus root, ready to be peeled and broken at any moment. Jin Jingyao almost said stiffly, "Get up." Li Ling didn't quite hear him. She was preoccupied with how to discuss the audition with him. Therefore, she completely failed to notice when his breathing became rapid, like flickering lights, filling the entire room. He seemed to say something else, but his voice was too low, too indistinct, dissolving into the torrential rain. The lamp cord swayed back and forth. Out of the corner of her eye, Li Ling suddenly glimpsed a tall, dark shadow climbing up from behind. Like a cold tide, it seeped through her body, engulfing her hand pressed against the floor. She was startled. Something was approaching, falling towards her, and she had no time to dodge. With a loud crash— Li Ling was heavily pressed to the ground. "Ugh!" She let out a weak groan. Jin Jingyao was too heavy, catching her off guard, almost crushing her. "Director? Director?" Li Ling called out to him in vain, "Jin Jingyao? ...You dead dog?" Jin Jingyao did not respond. His cheek was tightly pressed against her neck, very clean, very soft, emitting waves of morbid, unsettling heat. Li Ling could hear his breathing. Chaotic, low, suppressed. His scorching breath brushed against her ear, and the hard frame of his glasses also poked her. It was very uncomfortable, almost creepy. She used all her strength to push Jin Jingyao off her. The instigator lay on the ground, eyes tightly closed. She touched his forehead. He had a high fever. - Some people get drenched in a heavy rain, soaked to the skin, and remain perfectly healthy. While others lock themselves in a garbage house, silently running a high fever, and pass out on the floor. Li Ling sat on the bed, glanced at her phone, which had no signal due to the heavy rain, then looked at Jin Jingyao, unconscious on the floor, and let out an unkind laugh. "Don't forget who your savior is." She jumped off the bed, nudging his arm with her toe. If it weren't for her, the great Director Jin would have burned himself into an idiot here, and no one would have known. Jin Jingyao was really too tall and too heavy. Li Ling used all her strength to drag him to the iron-framed bed. She helped him take off his coat, removed his glasses, and wiped his sweat with a wet towel to cool him down. Finally, she kindly picked up the rag that had wiped the floor and wiped his face, making it even dirtier. Throughout the entire process, he was docile, compliant, without any resistance, like a robot freshly reset to factory settings. Li Ling was very satisfied, opened the cached drama on her phone, and started playing it by his ear. Her idea was simple: since the noble Director Jin wouldn't let her audition while awake, now that he was unconscious, he could at least spare some time to appreciate her performance, right? Today's featured film was a classic representative work of Ms. Li Ling. A 2.6-rated campus pure love web drama, packed with epic clichés like amnesia, abortion, car accidents, cheating, and teacher-student romance, hailed as "so bad it could be written into web drama history." The plot progressed to Li Ling holding a three-month-old baby, trying to win back her amnesiac playboy boyfriend after a car accident, kneeling on the ground, tears streaming down her face. It was too embarrassing; even Li Ling herself could hardly bear to watch. She glanced at Jin Jingyao lying on the ground. His brows were furrowed, and he slept restlessly. She felt a pang of guilt and turned up the volume by another five percent. On the screen, Li Ling tearfully said to her playboy boyfriend, "How could you forget me? It was clearly you who..." The dialogue was cut off by a timed alarm. Damn. Time to change the rag for the patient, no, the towel. Li Ling touched Jin Jingyao's forehead while thinking: What was the second half of the line again? After performing for so long, she had indeed forgotten it. Jin Jingyao's face was still very pale and weak. After taking off his glasses, his long eyelashes trembled slightly, casting a shadow under his tightly closed eyelids. Suddenly, his lips moved, emitting a low, indistinct sound, like a murmur in his sleep. Curious, Li Ling leaned in to listen. "...It was clearly you who got me pregnant and then forced me to have a C-section." Li Ling: ? Isn't this the second half of the line she couldn't remember no matter what?