BANCB 02

Chapter 02

“Little Xuan,” Qin He said, sizing her up. “Are you in a relationship lately?”

Liang Yuxuan opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Qin He smiled and patted her shoulder. “I was just asking casually. The tour was a great success. It’s only right that you unwind and enjoy yourself now that it’s over.”

“Thank you, Teacher Qin.”

On this cool late summer night in late August, downtown Amsterdam was bustling with tourists.

Having washed off her stage makeup and taken down her hair, Liang Yuxuan had changed into a lotus-root-pink, subtly patterned dress. She now stood at a street corner near Leidseplein, waiting for a car.

In the distance, the intersecting canals shone like a shimmering spiderweb under the city lights. Cruise boats crisscrossed the water, churning up clusters of white foam in their wake. Liang Yuxuan, however, was in no mood to take in the lively scenery. Her head was bowed, her eyes glued to her phone.

Her screen was parked on Weibo’s trending topics. The top hashtag, marked with an explosive “HOT” tag, read: #Bei Ying, Bian Xu#.

With a female and a male name placed side by side like that, one could practically smell the juicy gossip without even clicking for details—especially considering the sheer weight behind these two names.

Bei Ying was the main dancer of the overseas girl group ROF. Since the group’s debut four years ago, they had swept every prestigious award in the local music industry, catapulting themselves to top-tier stardom. In recent years, she had been pursuing solo activities in the domestic entertainment industry as a Chinese artist, gaining a massive following there as well.

Bian Xu, on the other hand, was a top-tier Asian music producer and composer whose work spanned across both commercial and serious classical music.

Every commercial album that passed through his hands achieved global sales in the tens of millions, and his film scores had received multiple nominations from authoritative international awards.

Furthermore, within the “music snobbery hierarchy,” which valued serious classical music above all else, his achievements in classical composition had successfully forced certain self-important, academic elites to shut their critical mouths. From then on, they remained quiet as mice in his presence.

What added even more to his mystery and buzz was that this twenty-four-year-old musician lived strictly behind the scenes of the vanity fair, rarely making public appearances.

Two years ago, after a video clip surfaced of Bian Xu appearing at a high-profile awards ceremony, a Weibo account named “Did Bian Xu Debut Today?” suddenly popped up out of nowhere, gathering a massive fanbase at lightning speed.

The reason was simple: when God opened the window of “musical genius” for Bian Xu, He forgot to close the door on his “visual genius.”

Everyone felt that a man like him not debuting as a star was a fatal loss to the entertainment industry.

Although Bian Xu had shown no signs of debuting to this day—and hadn’t even registered a Weibo account himself—two years later, when another video clip of him was leaked online, combined with Bei Ying’s massive traffic, Weibo completely exploded.

The footage had been captured a few nights ago on Qixi (Chinese Valentine’s Day), at a luxury hotel in Amsterdam.

Bian Xu had braked his sports car under the hotel porch, cut the engine, stepped out, and casually tossed the car keys to the valet. He and Bei Ying, who was in the passenger seat, then walked into the hotel lobby one after the other.

In the video, Bei Ying was dressed in a glamorous, alluring nightclub outfit, her steps slightly unsteady in her high heels.

Bian Xu wore a sharply tailored white shirt that perfectly outlined his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Under his black trousers, his legs looked exceptionally long and straight. He stood out so much from the crowd that it was absolutely impossible to mistake him for anyone else.

As the two figures disappeared through the revolving doors, the footage came to an abrupt halt.

But the story didn’t.

At least, not in the minds of the netizens.

The rumor about the two had topped the trending charts since early evening, and the discussion around the topic remained sky-high even now.

Meanwhile, neither party had stepped forward to clarify.

On Weibo, people were eagerly eating up the gossip, fans were grieving over their idol’s secret romance, and fandoms were fighting fiercely. The atmosphere was boiling hot.

Liang Yuxuan felt that this perfect pair truly deserved to generate this kind of buzz. If she were just a bystander, she might have treated the rumor as idle chatter over tea.

If only Bian Xu weren’t her boyfriend.

If only, on the night of Qixi, her boyfriend hadn’t stood her up for several hours, only to later act as if nothing had happened, take her to a completely different hotel, and bring her up to the presidential suite.

And if only she hadn’t just found out the reason behind his broken promise after seeing the trending topics.

Liang Yuxuan looked down at her phone screen, her gaze resting quietly on the top upvoted comment: [I’ve always felt that Bian Xu’s song “Rosabella” was based on someone in real life. Case closed—the female lead is definitely Bei Ying!]

It wasn’t until a taxi pulled up in front of her that Liang Yuxuan locked her screen, opened the car door, and stepped inside. “To the pier, thank you.”

After departing from the pier and spending half the night on a yacht, Liang Yuxuan’s stomach was in knots by the time she reached her destination island. Her first step onto the shore felt like treading on cotton.

In the dead of night, the man who drove over to pick her up was also bleary-eyed with sleep. “Miss Liang.”

Liang Yuxuan looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Assistant Lu. I’ve disturbed your rest.”

This was Bian Xu’s private island, where all the facilities and staff served him alone. If she hadn’t been unable to get onto the island by herself, Liang Yuxuan really wouldn’t have wanted to trouble anyone.

After all, Lu Yuan was Bian Xu’s personal lifestyle assistant. He managed all the trivial, everyday matters around Bian Xu, which kept him busy enough as it was.

“It’s no trouble at all, please don’t always be so polite with me,” Lu Yuan said as he ushered her into the car. “It’s not like you don’t know the boss’s schedule. I’m basically an owl myself, living like a nocturnal creature. I wasn’t even asleep yet when I got your call.”

“He’s not asleep yet either?” Even as Liang Yuxuan asked, her tone carried no surprise.

“He’s busy in the recording studio.” Lu Yuan started the car and scratched his head. “By the way, I haven’t told the boss that you were coming over yet… Last time, I knocked on his door and interrupted his inspiration, and I almost got thrown into the ocean to feed the sharks…”

“No rush, I’ll wait for him in the villa next door.” Liang Yuxuan fell silent for a moment, tightening her grip on the phone in her palm. “What time did he lock himself in?”

“Around four or five yesterday afternoon, so it’s been about ten hours.” Lu Yuan let out a sigh. “How does the saying go? Right, ‘There’s a fine line between genius and madness.’ I feel like the boss borders on crazy every time he works on music. It’s a good thing you’re here; you can finally get him to take a break.”

Liang Yuxuan shook her head. “I don’t have that kind of influence.”

Lu Yuan was about to tease her playfully, but when he turned his head, he noticed that there wasn’t a trace of a smile on Liang Yuxuan’s face. She looked as though she meant those words with absolute seriousness.

Unsure if he had said the wrong thing, Lu Yuan found himself at a temporary loss for words.

The car drove smoothly along the winding asphalt road, slowly snaking its way up the mountain.

The streetlights cast scattered beams of light, making the dense green vegetation covering the mountain look like flickering, shadowy silhouettes.