Melon Eating Cannon Fodder, On Air!-Chapter 63 - Sixty-Three: Unraveling Tangled Threads

Chapter 63: Chapter Sixty-Three: Unraveling Tangled Threads

Dinner went relatively well. Lu Jiaxin was as genuine as one could get. She made sure no one was left out, her warmth neither forced nor performative, and she listened with the kind of attention that made people feel seen rather than inspected.

The atmosphere was unexpectedly good.

Even the livestream chat seemed momentarily unsure of how to behave.

[Why does this feel like a family dinner suddenly] 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

[This is not the drama I was promised but I am strangely healed]

Lu Jiaxin laughed softly at Wu Shiyun’s complaint about village life, nodded seriously when Jiang Shuyue talked about nearly falling into a well, and praised the food with sincere enthusiasm that made the cooking team visibly relax.

No one was overlooked. Not even Shen Xiyu, who had quietly retreated into polite silence.

[She remembered everyone’s name??]

[This is why she was the national sweetheart, I get it now]

An Ning watched from the side, chewing slowly. There was nothing false about Lu Jiaxin’s smile, nothing sharp hidden behind it. If anything, she felt softer than her reputation suggested, as though time had worn away the gloss and left something more real behind.

The chat, however, was already spiralling into analysis.

[She feels different from before]

[But her smile still looked so good!]

[I feel that she is enjoying herself now]

For once, the director did not interrupt. The cameras lingered. The moment was allowed to breathe.

Dinner ended not with drama, but with quiet contentment.

Which, somehow, felt far more dangerous.

*****

Get closer.

The feeling did not carry hostility. There was no sense of danger, no instinctive urge to retreat. Instead, it was the opposite. A pull. A gentle but unmistakable nudge telling her that this person mattered, that distance would be a mistake.

Lu Jiaxin.

Sun Qiaolian’s smile softened almost imperceptibly.

She adjusted her posture and leaned in just a little, the movement natural enough to escape notice. "Jiaxin-jie," she said lightly, as though the thought had just occurred to her, "you must be exhausted after today. Would you like some more soup?"

Lu Jiaxin blinked, then smiled. "That is very kind of you."

As Sun Qiaolian reached for the ladle, her expression remained calm, but her attention sharpened. She listened more carefully now, noticed the way Lu Jiaxin’s hands moved, the faint tension that lingered beneath her relaxed demeanor, the way her laughter came easily yet never lingered too long.

Not guarded.

Measured.

Sun Qiaolian felt it clearly then.

This was not someone who needed to be watched from afar.

This was someone she needed to understand.

She did not know why yet. Her sixth sense rarely explained itself. It only pointed the way.

So she followed it, offering small kindnesses, drawing Lu Jiaxin gently into conversation, closing the space between them one warm, ordinary moment at a time.

And somewhere deep within her, the quiet certainty settled.

Getting closer to Lu Jiaxin was not a choice.

It was the right thing to do.

*****

Su Manqing’s face paled visibly as she watched the livestream of the dating show Lu Jiaxin was on. This was not how things were supposed to turn out.

Not this way.

And yet, there Jiaxin was.

Alive on screen. Smiling. Standing under warm lights as if the years of silence had never happened.

Su Manqing’s fingers tightened around her phone.

How was she still able to smile like that?

She had been there at the wedding. She remembered it clearly. Lu Jiaxin’s smile had been dazzling, almost painfully so, the kind that made people believe in fairy tales. Su Manqing had stood to the side, hands clasped, forcing herself to smile along while her nails dug into her palm.

She had told herself it was fine. That this was what best friends did.

She had been there when reality set in, when marrying into an influential family proved far more suffocating than glamorous. When Lu Jiaxin struggled to adjust, Su Manqing had listened patiently, offering comfort and encouragement, saying all the right things at all the right moments.

She had been there when the cracks widened.

Late-night calls. Tear-stained sleeves. Long silences that said more than words ever could.

She had been there when the marriage finally began to collapse. She had watched Lu Jiaxin cry until her voice broke, had offered her shoulder without hesitation, had whispered reassurances about new beginnings and better tomorrows.

She had been there for everything.

Su Manqing stared at the screen, at the calm ease with which Lu Jiaxin spoke to the others, at the natural warmth that still drew people toward her without effort. Nothing about her looked broken. Nothing about her looked like someone who had lost everything.

The comments scrolling past only made it worse.

Praise. Nostalgia. Affection.

They welcomed her back as if she had never left.

As if nothing had happened.

Su Manqing’s lips pressed into a thin line.

She had thought time would erase Lu Jiaxin’s place. That absence would dull memories. That once Jiaxin stepped away, the world would quietly move on.

Instead, it had been waiting.

Waiting for her to return.

A slow, unfamiliar unease settled in Su Manqing’s chest.

For the first time in a long while, she realised something she did not like acknowledging.

Lu Jiaxin had not disappeared.

She had only been silent.

And now that she had chosen to speak again, the world was listening.

This was not what Su Manqing wanted.

It made her feel foolish, as though all the years she had spent waiting, calculating, enduring, had been built on a fragile assumption that no longer held. As though she had been standing still while the person she thought she had eclipsed was simply gathering herself in the dark.

She refused to be the fool.

Her grip tightened around her phone, knuckles whitening. The smile on the screen felt like a quiet provocation, one that did not need to be intentional to cut deep.

If the world was listening again, then Su Manqing would not allow herself to be left behind.

Not this time.