The day of the press conference dawned with a sky full of trembling light.
Holograms rippled across skyscrapers, showing real-time newsfeeds and speculative headlines:
"Xue Lian: Fallen star or returning queen?"
"Press conference at 14:00—industry bracing for impact."
"Su Meiyan remains silent. Manager Lu Jing unavailable for comment."
Li Cheng Cheng stood before the mirror of the small apartment and adjusted the simple black blazer she had chosen. No jewels, no stage makeup — only a quiet, deadly elegance, the kind that people could not look away from.
Her reflection was steady.
Her pulse was not.
System 003: Heart rate elevated 18%. Emotional preparedness: high. Mission trajectory: favorable.
She exhaled slowly.
"Let's begin."
When she stepped into the hallway, Director Wei Han nearly dropped his tablet.
"…You look like you're about to make the galaxy kneel."
Cheng Cheng gave him a small smile. "I only need this world to listen."
Li Qian arrived moments later, dressed in monochrome white, expression impossibly calm. Fans screamed from the street below as he walked beside her.
Wei Han muttered, "Why are you coming again?"
Li Qian's answer was unblinking: "She might need backup."
Wei Han scoffed. "She needs fire, not fans."
Li Qian's gaze sharpened.
"She has both."
Cheng Cheng stepped between them. "Enough. We go."
The Venue
The press auditorium was already overflowing.
Drones hovered overhead. Photographers elbowed for position. Screens projected every microscopic motion.
As she walked in, a shockwave of whispers rolled through the hall.
"Is that really Xue Lian?"
"She looks… different."
"No makeup? Is this a sympathy stunt?"
"Why does she look stronger than before?"
She walked with a grace that felt ancient — regal, cold, awoken.
Wei Han moved to the side of the stage.
Li Qian took a seat near the front, arms crossed, eyes fixed on her.
Cheng Cheng stepped to the podium.
And the room fell silent.
A reporter immediately stood.
"Miss Xue Lian — the whole industry wants to know. Why hold this press conference after your collapse? Is it to avoid lawsuits?"
Cheng Cheng smiled — not sweetly, not humbly, but like someone who had survived storms older than this world.
"I came," she said softly, "because someone must tell the truth."
The statement reverberated like a harp string struck too hard.
Another reporter shouted,
"Truth? Are you saying the videos weren't real?"
"No," Cheng Cheng answered. "I'm saying they were manufactured."
Gasps.
The hall teetered.
A dozen drones zoomed closer. Holo-cameras magnified her face tenfold on the floating screens.
She raised a hand.
Instantly, a ring of luminescent symbols formed — System 003 projecting through her smart lens.
System 003: Public disclosure protocol active.
The screens shifted.
Audio files.
Metadata.
Irregular timestamps.
Signals from Lu Jing's private studio traced directly to the scandal clip.
Reporters leaned forward, eyes wide.
"Miss Xue Lian… are you saying your manager framed you?"
"No," she said. "I'm saying my manager and another actress conspired to destroy me."
A second screen flickered on — Su Meiyan smiling during Lu Jing's press statement, her nervous glance captured in high resolution.
A ripple of panic surged through the auditorium.
Suddenly, Lu Jing himself appeared at the back of the hall, face pale, breath ragged.
"You're lying!" he shouted. "I have proof—"
Cheng Cheng turned her gaze on him, cool as obsidian.
"You have nothing left, Lu Jing. I've recovered your data logs, your falsified transfer records, and the deleted drafts of your PR plans."
"Deleted dra—? That's impossible!"
He stumbled backward.
"You couldn't have—"
"I did."
The calmness of her voice stunned even her allies.
Li Qian's lips curved faintly, as if he had expected nothing less.
Wei Han muttered to himself: "She's terrifying."
The Turning of Tides
The reporters erupted.
"Miss Xue Lian, were you threatened?"
"Did Su Meiyan bribe the judges?"
"Is this the end of her career?"
"Will you press charges?"
Cheng Cheng lifted a hand.
The hall quieted instantly.
"I do not seek revenge," she said — letting her lie fall like silk.
"But I will not let the truth be buried."
The screens dissolved into one final projection:
A timestamped record of the night of her collapse.
Lu Jing entering the backstage control booth.
Su Meiyan standing behind him.
The scandal clip loading in.
Every denial crumbled.
Every witness stared.
Su Meiyan, watching from a private feed somewhere, must have felt her world cracking in half.
"Miss Xue Lian," a senior journalist asked, voice trembling, "what do you want now?"
The crowd leaned in.
Cheng Cheng lifted her chin.
"To return."
A single breath.
A single heartbeat.
Then—
"Return…?"
"You mean—"
"—to acting?"
"—to the top?"
"No," she said.
Silence snapped tight.
"I mean to reclaim what was stolen. And to become more than they ever let me be."
Her voice filled the auditorium.
"I will not hide.
I will not apologize.
I will not be erased."
She stepped forward.
"This is not my comeback."
She met every eye.
"This is my beginning."
The hall exploded — cameras flashing, drones whirring, reporters shouting.
Li Qian rose from his seat, gaze unreadable but burning.
Wei Han let out a long, low whistle.
"That," he whispered, "is a queen."
The press conference shattered the entertainment world in the span of one breath.
By the time Li Cheng Cheng stepped off the stage, social feeds were already in meltdown:
> #XueLianReturns – 37 million posts
#LuJingExposed – 12 million
#TruthBehindTheScandal – crashing servers
#SuMeiyan – trending in red warning
Screens across the city displayed her face — not weeping, not broken, but sharp, luminous, unforgettable.
She walked down the backstage corridor as if she had never fallen.
Her shadow stretched behind her like the train of a coronation robe.
Wei Han caught up first, breathless.
"That was—Cheng Cheng, that was war."
"No," she corrected softly.
"That was truth."
Li Qian followed, silent as a blade. He studied her profile, as though seeing a pattern in her expression only he could read.
> System 003: Public sentiment shift — overwhelming positive. Host popularity rating rising at exponential rate.
She smiled faintly. "Let's use it."
While she walked out of the venue, reporters swarmed the outside gates.
At the same moment, Lu Jing was dragged into a blinding storm of cameras.
"What do you say about the evidence?"
"Did you sabotage Xue Lian's career?"
"Were you paid by Su Meiyan?"
"Lu Jing, why did you disappear after her collapse?"
He tried to shout back, but his voice drowned under the avalanche of voices.
He wasn't the storm anymore.
He was the debris.
And Li Cheng Cheng, standing on the steps above him, watched with the calm of a judge.
Lu Jing froze when he saw her.
Terror and disbelief twisted his face.
"You should have died quietly," he spat without thinking.
The world gasped.
Cameras snapped.
Li Cheng Cheng descended one step, eyes colder than neon rain.
"I lived loudly," she said. "And that is your punishment."
Next morning, every sponsor cut ties with him.
By evening, Lu Jing's agency filed a formal dismissal.
His empire of lies broke like glass under her footsteps.
Across the city, inside a luxury penthouse, Su Meiyan watched the livestream with trembling hands.
"No… no, it can't be—she was supposed to be gone!"
Her carefully painted face twisted as the evidence replayed again and again.
The assistant beside her whispered, "Should we issue a statement?"
"Statement?!" Su Meiyan shrieked. "What can I say — 'Sorry I destroyed her career for jealousy'?!"
But the assistant wasn't listening anymore.
Her eyes were fixed on the rising numbers on the screen.
> #CancelSuMeiyan
#PutHerInTrial
#JusticeForXueLian
Her career — the one she stole — was crumbling faster than she could breathe.
"Call Lu Jing!" Su Meiyan screamed.
"His phone is off."
"Then call Wei Han — he owes me!"
The assistant swallowed.
"Director Wei Han is publicly supporting Xue Lian."
Su Meiyan's hand dropped.
Her face went pale as ice.
"She's going to destroy me…"
Her voice thinned.
"She's not even human anymore."
By nightfall, Li Cheng Cheng returned to her apartment, the city glowing beneath her like a galaxy of restless stars.
She removed her blazer, letting the night wind cool her fevered pulse.
> System 003: Host influence increasing. Public trust level — 89%. Mission trajectory — optimal.
She sat on the worn sofa and breathed out.
Xue Lian's memories fluttered through her mind — the laughter, the despair, the loneliness.
But now, those memories softened, like wounds beginning to heal.
"If she could see this," Cheng Cheng murmured, "I think she'd cry."
> System 003: Host emotional empathy detected. Analyzing…
A quiet knock sounded at the door.
She frowned.
Wei Han had gone home to prepare contracts.
Li Qian was at rehearsal.
Who—?
She opened the door.
Li Qian stood in the hallway, rain dripping from the edges of his white coat.
His eyes — usually cool, distant — burned with a strange brightness.
"You shouldn't be out," Cheng Cheng said. "Fans will tear this building apart."
"I turned off my tracking tags."
His voice was calm, but something trembled beneath it.
He stepped inside.
"Why did you really come?" she asked.
Li Qian looked directly at her.
"To see…" He paused, searching for words that seemed too fragile to speak.
"…if the person who stood on that stage today is truly Xue Lian."
Cheng Cheng met his gaze.
"Do I look like someone else?"
"Yes."
He stepped closer.
"You look like someone I knew before I ever debuted. Someone I dreamed of. Someone who shouldn't exist in this world."
Her breath stilled.
The system flickered inside her mind—
> System 003: ALERT. Emotional resonance detection. Subject exhibits anomalous memory fragments. Cross-world signal confirmed…
Cross-world?
Cheng Cheng's pulse quickened.
"Who are you, Li Qian?" she asked quietly.
He smiled — a sad, wistful shape that did not belong to this glittering world.
"A singer who once lost an important promise," he said.
"Now, I think I've found it again."
The next morning, the entertainment empire woke to the impossible:
> XUE LIAN RETURNS TO FILM
DIRECTOR WEI HAN SIGNS HER FOR "ETERNAL WEAVE"
FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE BREAKS GLOBAL RECORDS
SU MEIYAN UNDER INVESTIGATION
Fans flooded the streets with holographic banners.
Old supporters came out of hiding.
New ones appeared in millions.
A video clip trended at number one — a slowed replay of her speech:
> "This is not my comeback.
This is my beginning."
At sponsor headquarters, executives scrambled.
Scriptwriters rewrote roles.
Fashion houses begged for collaboration.
The star who fell was now the star that terrified the sky.
That evening, Wei Han toasted her with cheap beer on the balcony.
"I've directed legends," he said. "But not one of them had the fire you showed today."
She laughed softly. "Fire can burn."
"That's the point."
He raised his bottle.
"Burn the whole rotten system if you must."
Li Qian leaned on the railing beside her, the city lights reflected in his eyes.
Wei Han smirked. "Why are you always around?"
Li Qian's voice was calm.
"To see what she becomes."
Cheng Cheng turned to him.
"And what is that?"
He held her gaze, a faint starlit tremor in his expression.
"A star that remembers different skies."
She froze—because the words felt like déjà vu, like a thread connecting to another world.
> System 003: Cross-world emotional interference rising. Monitoring…
She looked back at the city.
"Let's see how brightly we can shine, then," she whispered.