Chapter 377: A Two-Way “Loving Lie” Between Mother and Son
The entourage van sped through the night.
Lin Wan sat across from Jiang Ci, her fingertips sliding across her phone screen, refreshing the video page.
On the thumbnail, Jiang Ci’s face, reddened from the cold, was wrapped in a pilling red scarf, the background a dilapidated wall plastered with old newspapers.
This image stood out among the sea of refined and luxurious celebrity New Year greeting posters like a ragpicker who had stumbled into a banquet.
For the first ten minutes after the video was posted, the engagement metrics were abysmal.
The comment section only had a few stray remarks from random passersby.
“Who is this? Did someone buy a promotion slot and upload the wrong video?”
“What kind of cringe blogger is this? Wrong set?”
Lin Wan’s fingertip lightly tapped the two-digit like count on the screen.
She couldn’t be bothered to elbow her way into the conventional promotional track.
The card she held in her hand was meant for flipping the entire table.
Half an hour later, the vehicle arrived at the airport VIP lounge.
Lin Wan’s phone began vibrating incessantly.
At first, it was just the usual reposts by a few marketing accounts, with the comment sections still filled with jeers about “cringe bloggers on the wrong set.”
But Lin Wan wasn’t anxious. She was like a patient hunter, waiting for that one spark capable of igniting everything.
Ten minutes later, that spark arrived.
A cultural Big V known for his sharp tongue and pickiness, “Sharp Old Ginger,” reposted the video.
Lin Wan’s heart clenched.
“In this domestic entertainment circle where everyone wears a mask, where all New Year wishes sound like AI-generated greetings, I was actually broken down by a ‘cannon fodder extra’s’ ‘don’t catch a cold.’”
“He didn’t wish me wealth, he didn’t wish me success. He was just worried I might be cold.”
Under this comment, likes instantly broke ten thousand.
Immediately after, Lin Wan’s phone went completely berserk. The notification chimes from WeChat and Weibo merged into a frantic, rapid drumbeat.
Countless @mentions and private messages flooded in. With every screen refresh, the metrics doubled.
“Sister Wan! We’re trending!” Her assistant’s call came through, his voice trembling.
Lin Wan opened the trending chart. The simple, unadorned hashtag #JiangCi Don’t Catch A Cold# was climbing up the rankings with a brutal, domineering momentum, starting from the very bottom and leaving those meticulously crafted hashtags like #XXX’s New Year Battle Attire# and #XXX’s Handwritten ‘Fu’ Character# far behind.
“Don’t rush,” Lin Wan said, watching the hashtag break into the top ten, a cool, sharp smile finally curling at the corner of her mouth. “Let the bullet fly a little longer.”
Jiang Ci was completely oblivious to the storm brewing outside. He was staring at his system panel.
[Detecting a large amount of ‘Warm Heartache’ emotion, judged as a special heartbreak scenario…]
[Heartbreak Value +80]
…
The rapid string of notifications left him a bit dazed.
So it turned out that extreme warmth could also give birth to heartbreak.
Because when a person has stood in the cold wind for too long, a simple “don’t catch a cold” is enough to make them remember the shelter they once had, but have long since lost.
This kind of heartbreak isn’t intense, but it is lingering.
Jiang Ci suddenly understood something.
The “Chen San” he portrayed had offered a gesture of the most sincere concern in the clumsiest way possible.
This concern acted like a mirror, reflecting the loneliness and vulnerability that countless people dared not acknowledge.
This was the true power of “performance.”
He found a corner by the window and dialed his mother Chu Hong’s number.
Before the call connected, he cleared his throat, instinctively sat up straight, trying to shake off the weariness of “Chen San.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Xiao Ci, are you done for the day?” Chu Hong’s voice was gentle.
“Yeah, just finished shooting a scene. On my way to the capital now.”
Jiang Ci kept his voice as light as possible. “Mom, I need to tell you something. I might not be able to come back this New Year’s Eve.”
He paused, then added, “I’m going to be on the Spring Festival Gala.”
Silence on the other end for a few seconds.
Jiang Ci waited nervously for her reaction.
“Oh, the Spring Festival Gala.” Chu Hong’s tone was very calm.
Jiang Ci was a bit surprised. He then casually dropped another piece of news.
“Oh, right, Mom. A while back, I won an award. The Golden Rooster Awards, Best Actor.”
“Oh, that award…” Chu Hong’s tone hesitated, as if trying hard to recall, “A while ago, your Auntie Wang and the others posted some photo in the group chat, all shiny and gold, saying the person in it looked like you.”
“I told them at the time they must be seeing things. How would our Xiao Ci have time to go receive something like that? They must have gotten it wrong.”
She paused, using a tone of confirmation that was actually guiding Jiang Ci to say what she wanted to hear:
“So that really was you? Oh my, then your Auntie Wang and them weren’t wrong. My eyesight really is failing.”
All the carefully prepared, meticulously structured drafts of good news Jiang Ci had mentally rehearsed—complete with build-up and dramatic reveals—were utterly shattered by his mother’s breezy, offhand remark. Not a single word of them was usable.
A feeling of not knowing whether to laugh or cry washed over him.
He changed the subject. “Mom, I just finished shooting a film recently. It’s a commercial movie, pretty lighthearted.”
He concealed the name “Icebreaker” and certainly didn’t dare mention it was a film about narcotics officers.
That topic was forbidden territory at home.
Chu Hong on the other end of the line didn’t expose his lie.
She was sitting on the sofa, an iPad lighting up her lap, an old photo frame covered in a thin layer of dust placed beside it.
On the screen was the official announcement for “Icebreaker”: starring Jiang Ci, written by Yan Zheng.
Her fingers repeatedly stroked the two characters for “drug enforcement” on the screen. Her fingertips were icy, as if touching a tombstone.
In the photo frame was her late husband from his youth, wearing a police uniform, smiling as brightly as Xiao Ci on the phone.
Chu Hong’s eyes instantly reddened, but into the phone, she laughed.
“Lighthearted is good. Your mom loves comedies.”
“Shooting comedies is safe. Then Mom can rest easy.”
His mother’s simple, unadorned words of caution flowed through Jiang Ci like a warm current, dispelling the fatigue accumulated from days of filming.
He unconsciously softened his tone.
His mother’s reaction was almost exactly as he had anticipated—so down-to-earth it put him at ease, yet… so calm it sent an indescribable flicker of unease through his heart.
Maybe he was overthinking it.
Jiang Ci laughed at himself inwardly. For family, safety and peace were indeed more important than any trophy.
He actively ignored that fleeting sense of strangeness.
“Got it, Mom. I’ll take on more comedies in the future.”
Lin Wan, not far away, gave him the boarding signal.
“Mom, gotta go. Need to board. You take care of yourself too. Don’t skimp on food and clothes during the New Year.”
“Okay, okay.”
Jiang Ci hung up the phone and stood up.
Looking at the plane on the tarmac about to depart for the capital, he felt he had handled everything perfectly.
His mother would be proud of him, yet wouldn’t worry about him.
He thought he had fooled everyone.
Chu Hong, after hanging up, looked at the photo of her late husband. “Old Jiang, our son is going to finish telling your story for you.”