A writer has arrived in the Chinese entertainment industry.

Early the next morning, Su Liu and Chen Duling walked along Xiahe Road to the pier and took a ferry to Gulangyu Island.

The two people on the boat kept yawning.

Yawning is contagious. After Chen Duling yawned, Su Liu's yawning nerves were also triggered, and so the two of them started yawning one after the other, as if in a relay.

Chen Duling is a low-energy girl who has trouble waking up early. Su Liu is no less so in this regard.

"Chen Duling." Su Liu's eyes were glistening with tears, her voice slightly muffled from a yawn, "It's harder for either of us to get up early, so why do you insist on coming over so early in the morning?"

"Of course you should play all day when you go out to play!"

"Your left and right brains are working against each other!"

The two sat side by side on a ferry bench near the railing, their bodies swaying slightly with the rise and fall of the boat. A cool morning sea breeze swept in, making Chen Duling's hair fly wildly and constantly brush against Su Liu's face.

"You've decided to give it a try in Yanjing?"

"Yes, that's what Ms. Sherman said yesterday."

Rao Xueman, as expected of someone who writes about youthful pain, personally called Chen Duling last night, and her opening line was: "Dudu, Little Ears is a gift for your youth."

Although Chen Duling is now a straight woman, she read her novels when she was a child, so how could she stand this? She immediately exuded a melancholy aura and wanted to go back to high school to experience just how painful youth really is.

"Hey." Chen Duling bumped her head against Su Liu's shoulder. "Did you already know? You were acting all crazy back in Jinling."

"How could I possibly know? I was just saying it offhand back then."

"Really?" Chen Duling tilted her head, her gaze sweeping over his face.

"Otherwise what? Do you believe I can predict the future?"

"If you could really do that, then just tell me directly what I will do in the future and what kind of person I will become."

"Dudu, have you seen The Matrix?" Su Liu suddenly turned to ask her.

"Yes, I've seen it. What's wrong?"

Just then, the ferry sounded a low whistle and slowly approached the shore. The two got up and joined the sparse crowd to disembark. There weren't many tourists early in the morning, and looking out from Sanqiutian Wharf, the entire Gulangyu Island appeared somewhat deserted in its tranquility.

"I am now the prophet, and you are Neo."

"I'm Neo? Can I knock you flying with one punch?" Chen Duling waved her thin wrist.

"no."

"Then what am I, Neo?"

"If I told you that you were destined to act in 'The Left Ear' and would definitely become an actor, Neo would feel that the prophet was manipulating him with a prophecy."

"Actually, no." The two said this at the same time. They stopped and looked at each other in surprise.

Chen Duling smiled and said, "Actually, my future self has already written the explanation for 'why I made this choice' for my present self."

"Huh?" Su Liu was taken aback. "You have a good memory."

"Of course."

"So, do you know what you want to do in the future?"

"Of course I don't know!" Chen Duling pouted, speechless. "Come on, I'm only a sophomore. Do I need to plan my life so early?"

Su Liu immediately realized what he meant and chuckled, "I forgot, you switched to science just out of spite."

"So, Prophet, if you met me back then, when I was still in music school and forced to practice every day, would you tell her, 'You're going to switch to science and go build airplanes'?"

"Back then, you probably couldn't have been happier to hear those words."

Su Liu knew how much she hated practicing the piano when she was a child. In order to practice less, she even secretly played the original recording to deceive her mother.

"Haha, not necessarily." Chen Duling imagined the scene and couldn't help but laugh. "If you say, 'Someone like you can't learn to play the piano, go build me an airplane,' then with my temper, I'll definitely learn it well to show you."

"Your life has been controlled by your competitive spirit!" Su Liu couldn't help but complain.

As the two talked, they reached a fork in the road. Ahead stood a red-brick villa, and the street branched off to either side. Some tourists were stopping at this intersection to take pictures.

"Many people like to take pictures here," Chen Duling said softly.

"Come on in! I'll take your picture."

"Okay, okay!"

Chen Duling had been studying on Gulangyu Island since she was a child, so she should have been used to the scenery there and felt nothing new about it. But at this moment, she was like a tourist visiting for the first time, constantly posing in front of that red Western-style building.

As a result, Su Liu's disastrous photography skills left her speechless!

"Is this me?" Chen Duling asked incredulously.

"yes."

"How...how did you take this picture?"

"So this is what you look like?"

"Is this what I look like?"

In Su Liu's hands, the whole world seemed to become chaotic.

Chen Duling said with deep agreement, "It seems that even geniuses have their weaknesses."

As the two walked, they arrived at the snack street. Su Liu looked at the dazzling array of snack shops and was about to try some when Chen Duling pulled him away.

She said these places are all specifically for tourists, and the food is expensive and not very good. So she took Su Liu across Gulangyu Island to the Neicuo'ao old area where local residents live.

The two ate fish ball soup made with shark meat and then visited Chen Duling's childhood school. Neicuo'ao is a traditional fishing and farming settlement that preserves old buildings such as ancestral halls and temples.

Chen Duling led Su Liu around for most of the day, and in the late afternoon, the two went to climb Sunlight Rock.

The main body of Sunlight Rock is formed by two giant granite blocks, one vertical and one horizontal, leaning against each other. The top of the rock is a naturally formed giant stone platform. After climbing to the top, you can have a 360° panoramic view of the entire island.

Chen Duling grew up here and was used to seeing this big rock, but she never thought of climbing up to take a look. Today is actually the first time she has reached the top.

The two leaned side by side on the railing, their hands hanging idly outside, swaying gently in the wind.

Looking at the thin line where the sea and sky meet in the distance, Chen Duling suddenly asked, "Do you know why I went to act in 'The Left Ear'?"

Su Liu turned her head and said in a teasing tone, "Isn't it a gift of youth?"

"Hmm." She shook her head. "No. It's because I want to be closer to you."

The wind at the top of Sunlight Rock was so strong that it froze Su Liu's entire face.

"Do you know how much pressure I feel having such a talented friend by my side?" Chen Duling said, as if she were talking to herself. "I always feel like I haven't worked hard enough, that I don't have enough talent, and that I don't have enough confidence. Of course, I'm very happy for you to have achieved these things. But sometimes I think, how wonderful it would be if you could be more ordinary."

"Even with my eyes closed, I can't imagine what my future will be like, but I can see yours. I bet you'll be just as spirited as you are now. You seem to know exactly what you want to do, don't you?"

Chen Duling turned her head, and their eyes met on the horizon. At that moment, a sea breeze swept in from behind her, and her flying hair obscured half of her face.

Su Liu then slowly spoke, "I'm not a genius, Dudu. I'm just a lucky person."

His voice seemed to be scattered by the wind, then gathered again, and steadily entered Chen Duling's ears.

"When I wrote 'Like a Head,' I should have done what most mystery writers do: first publish it in a magazine, and then wait until I had a certain readership before publishing it in print. But I was young and impetuous at the time, and I sent it directly to Phoenix Publishing House. Logically speaking, I didn't even have a chance to be published."

"Fortunately, Mr. Hua from DuKe saw my novel and strongly recommended it to Editor-in-Chief Liu. But if it had only gone this far, I would probably have ended up like many mystery writers, remaining unknown."

"It was Lao Liu who actually made the tough decision to get Kadokawa Shoten to release the book simultaneously in China and Japan, which made me an overnight sensation. Whether it was President Hua or Lao Liu, they inexplicably believed in my abilities."

"Later, I met Sister Wenxiu. She went to great lengths to help me negotiate international copyrights. Otherwise, I wouldn't have the internationally renowned author I am today. It was the same with making movies. She helped me with things that would give me a headache just by looking at them. And then there's Xiao Liu. Although she always complains about me, she's always been a hard-working assistant to me."

"Then Chen Si, Reba, Sister Xiaotong and A Xian came to the company... Dudu, it's because I have such a group of people around me, it is their trust that supports me to move forward."

"I wasn't born knowing what to do; they pushed me to this point. Without them, I might just be a struggling writer."

"Dudu, I'm not a genius, I'm just like you. Trust is a power, and I believe that you can walk confidently on your own path in life, just as Sister Wenxiu believed in me, I believe in you too."

"So you don't need to think about getting closer to me, because I'm already by your side."

Why would the wind make a "thump-thump-thump" sound? Chen Duling couldn't understand. But the wind at the top of Sunlight Rock was so strong, it felt like it was going to blow her heart out.