It was still early, so Lin Xun booted up another computer and played a few ranked games with him, successfully carrying him up to Bronze II.
Just as Zhou Zhou was riding that hopeful high, convinced he might actually hit Bronze I today, the studio’s other director-writer, Tang Huan, walked in.
Her heels clicked a steady rhythm against the floor. The glass door swung open with a creak. Lin Xun and Zhou Zhou exchanged a glance, and with perfect unspoken coordination, exited the game, opened Word, and began fake-discussing the script with great conviction.
“……”
Tang Huan rolled her eyes and slapped the planning document onto Lin Xun’s desk. “Unbelievable. I genuinely cannot believe it. Day in, day out — who’s actually the boss here? Next time I catch anyone playing games in the studio, that’s a five-hundred-yuan fine.”
“……” Lin Xun good-naturedly straightened the document. “Ah Huan, don’t say that. You’re a shareholder, which technically makes you my boss. Doesn’t that work for you?”
Getting Tang Huan to buy into the studio was the single best decision Lin Xun had made since starting the business. Without her, this place would have collapsed long ago.
Lin Xun herself ran purely on instinct and a finely tuned ear — demanding, high-standard, full of passion, taste, and technical skill, but completely clueless about actually running a business. Zhou Zhou was a local kid from a comfortable family who had graduated university with one goal in mind: finding somewhere low-key to coast through life. The rest of the team — post-production, design, marketing — were cut from the same cloth. Pretty much everyone in this industry was an introvert, no exceptions.
Tang Huan was different. She was Lin Xun’s college classmate, same directing-and-writing background. An ENTJ through and through, stacked with the career-obsessed drive of a Capricorn, she moved fast and hit hard, with a level of self-discipline that bordered on unnerving.
She had zero interest in audio dramas and couldn’t tell a good voice from a bad one. But she had caught the early scent of the rising “ear economy,” and without a second thought, quit her job and tracked down Lin Xun, who had just barely started out on her own.
If Lin Xun was the ears and heart of Nightingale — the one who held the standard for everything sonic and narrative — then Tang Huan was the brain, the one who handled strategy, coordination, and keeping the whole operation from falling apart.
Three and a half years together. Nightingale had gone from total obscurity to a studio with a real foothold in the audio drama world. Neither of them could have done it without the other.
Tang Huan got straight to the point, her gaze sharp. “Boss Lin, have you found your Yuqingzi yet?”
“……” Lin Xun felt a prickle at the back of her scalp. Somehow her homeroom teacher back in school had never been this intimidating. “Not yet.”
Tang Huan’s eyes shifted to Zhou Zhou. “What about you? Are the other voice actors for Mortal Dust locked in? Did you send the audition demos to the boss?”
“Sent them,” Zhou Zhou said, visibly relieved, his voice lifting. “Sent them before I clocked out yesterday. Boss hasn’t replied yet though.”
All eyes turned to Lin Xun.
Caught between Tang Huan’s full-pressure stare and Zhou Zhou’s barely concealed amusement, Lin Xun let out a yawn, cracked one eye open, and looked back at Zhou Zhou with lazy deliberateness. “Oh, the demos? I reviewed all of them last night. Sent you my notes this morning. What, you didn’t see them?”
Zhou Zhou looked stricken. “…Damn it, boss, you set me up?”
The worst kind of person was this type — the one who performed total carelessness on the surface while quietly grinding harder than anyone else. Like those top students from school who slept through class to throw people off, then went home and studied until midnight.
While they were talking, the rest of the studio staff trickled in one by one. The morning meeting got underway, everyone giving their updates in turn.
Once the introverts had dutifully made their way around the table, Tang Huan finally nodded. “Little Rosebud wrapped up strong. Word of mouth has been really solid, we’ve got steady, loyal plays across platforms, and the revenue’s decent. Once Mortal Dust finishes casting, we’ll get bonuses sorted and everyone can take a proper break.”
She paused — then pivoted with the precision of someone who had absolutely mastered the capitalist move of dangling a carrot before reaching for the stick. “But. The market is brutal. Just this month, I’m aware of five or six audio drama studios in Zhoushan that registered and shut down before they even got started. Nightingale’s numbers are decent, but we still don’t have a breakout hit.”
The other introverts in the studio said nothing. Tang Huan’s gaze was razor-sharp. “Boss Lin, what was it you said when we took on Mortal Dust?”
Lin Xun twisted open a bottle of water and hummed. “…Mortal Dust is the best script we’ve picked up in years. It’s not a massive hit on the novel platform, but the story, the characters, the imagery — all of it is strong. It’s a natural fit for an audio drama.”
Tang Huan nodded. “I trust Boss Lin’s instincts a hundred percent. So we need to do Mortal Dust right, especially when it comes to casting the male lead.”
She tilted her head toward Lin Xun as she said it.
Lin Xun raised an eyebrow and spread her hands. “The role is genuinely hard to cast. I’m not lowering the bar.”
Tang Huan couldn’t argue with that.
Lin Xun’s bar was Nightingale’s bar.
She thought for a moment, then came at it from a different angle. “Right now you’re basically searching through voice actors you’ve already worked with before. Given your memory for voices and how sensitive your ear is, the fact that you still haven’t found anyone means none of them are quite right. I have some recordings from people our studio hasn’t worked with yet. I’ll send them over after this — give it another look.”
─ ⊹ ⊱ ⊰ ⊹ ─
Near the end of a long, unremarkable day, Lin Xun finally found a stopgap for that divine voice she was after: a veteran voice actor with a cool, clear timbre who went by the stage name Yuanshan, from Ruili Culture’s audio division.
Ruili was one of Zhoushan’s better-known entertainment companies, with fingers in games, film, television, and advertising. Their audio division was more of an experimental investment — they had signed a handful of veteran voice actors, and Yuanshan was their most recognizable.
His voice wasn’t in Shen Yu’s league, but he had years in the industry behind him, and his technical foundation was solid. Lin Xun went through his past work. His expressiveness was strong too, with real dramatic instinct.
She made her decision, rolled out the stiffness in her neck, and forwarded his information to Zhou Zhou’s email with instructions to reach out and negotiate a rate.
Then she cupped her ears with both hands, face drained of color. She had listened to hundreds upon hundreds of voice recordings, and her ears ached deep inside, a dull throbbing soreness that had settled into the canal and the drum both.
Tang Huan looked up from her planning document, poured a cup of an herbal tea supposedly good for ear health, and slid it across the desk. “Drink it. Then go home and sleep.”
The studio kept this tea stocked at all times. Beyond that, Tang Huan had also gotten Lin Xun a membership at an ear-cleaning salon — framed, with a straight face, as routine equipment maintenance. Absolutely unhinged.
Lin Xun glanced at her, downed the cup without a word, grabbed her bag, and left.
The rain had passed. The streets were washed clean.
The sycamores lining both sides of the road were a vivid, dripping green, their branches layering overhead, blotting out the sky.
The studio was only a ten-minute walk from Shengling Yuan. That had been one of the reasons she bought the apartment in the first place.
Her biggest flaw, if she were being honest, was that she had no interest in lifestyle comforts. Years of fending for herself had shaped her into someone who walked everywhere and came home to instant noodles — she valued speed and convenience above everything else.
Lin Xun, in her canvas sneakers, drifted at an easy pace past a row of vegetable stalls near the entrance to the complex and crouched down in front of an old woman with snow-white hair. As she did most evenings, she picked out a bundle of scallions.
The old woman had appeared at this stretch of roadside market about two weeks ago. She was very old — eighty, at a guess. She came out morning and evening both, selling scallions, garlic, and small jars of homemade pickles.
Lin Xun had overheard a few of the neighbors mention her. The old woman’s surname was Jiang, and she had lived in Shengling Yuan for some thirty years. Her husband had died when she was still young. Later, her only daughter was killed in a car accident. All she had left was a disabled grandson, the two of them getting by together. Life had not been easy.
She had disappeared for a stretch earlier in the year, and most people assumed she had moved away. Then, unexpectedly, she had started coming back out to sell again.
Old Mrs. Jiang carefully packed the scallions for her with practiced hands, then said, out of nowhere: “Girl, what are you buying this many scallions for every day?”
Lin Xun paused, stuffed the scallions into her canvas bag, and with half-lidded eyes offered a completely unconvincing explanation. “Oh, I stay up all night, so — I heard soaking scallions in water is good for your skin.”
“……”
The old woman squinted at her with an expression that said she wasn’t buying a word of it.
A few passing aunties and neighborhood women overheard and whipped around to look Lin Xun up and down. No makeup, but it didn’t matter — the face underneath was outrageously pretty, the kind that didn’t need any help. The skin in particular was so clear and luminous it seemed to glow, only the faint shadows under her eyes giving away the toll of all those late nights.
A woman like that could say eating dirt was good for your complexion and people would believe her.
“Give me a few scallions.”
“Me too.”
“I was here first.”
“……”
Old Mrs. Jiang’s entire stock was gone in minutes. She folded up the oilcloth she’d spread on the ground with the calm of someone who had seen it all before, tucked it into her reusable bag, and made her exit.
Lin Xun trailed behind her at a leisurely pace, scallions in hand, heading home.
But after a while, something started to feel off. The old woman’s steady footsteps carried her through the complex gate, past Lin Xun’s building, and right through the same entrance door. Then she turned around and looked at Lin Xun with a puzzled expression.
“……”
Lin Xun quickly waved her hands and pointed upward. “I’m not following you. I live upstairs.”
“Oh, what a coincidence.”
Old Mrs. Jiang nodded cheerfully, turned around, and walked straight to the door of unit 101, humming to herself as she fished out her keys.
Lin Xun watched, and it took her a moment to notice that the broken bicycle and stack of old newspapers that had always been piled outside unit 101 were gone.
It was dinner time. But there was no takeout bag on the door handle — she had been so busy lately that she almost always missed dinner when she got home, and today was a rare exception.
After a beat, Lin Xun stepped closer and asked quietly. “…The tenant who was there before — did they get kicked out?”
She had assumed at the time that Shen Yu had simply forgotten to pay rent. She hadn’t expected that he genuinely couldn’t afford it.
Lin Xun scratched her head, feeling vaguely unsettled.
She had thought she was being considerate, leaving his pride intact by not bringing it up. She hadn’t realized he’d already been shown the door. They weren’t close — old classmates with a thin thread of history between them — so lending money would have been awkward. But letting him sleep on her couch until he found somewhere else to go would have been simple enough.
Old Mrs. Jiang looked thoroughly baffled. “Who got kicked out? No one. We’re perfectly settled.”
Before Lin Xun could make sense of who “we” referred to, the iron door swung open with a creak.
A tall, lean young man appeared in the doorway, blocking out every bit of light from the window behind him.
He turned his blank gaze toward the old woman and reached out his hand. When a light, unexpectedly empty bag landed in it, he raised an eyebrow. “…Sold out?”
“Every last one.”
The satisfied look on Old Mrs. Jiang’s face smoothed out the deep lines between her brows. “All thanks to this young lady. She’s a walking advertisement.”
Then, unhurried, she kicked a pair of slippers out onto the doorstep, her tone gentle but leaving no room for argument. “Come in and eat, child.”
“…I… you two… uh.”
Boss Lin’s brain stalled completely. She stood there stammering without managing a single coherent sentence.
And that was how she finally figured out who the neighborhood had been calling old Mrs. Jiang’s crippled grandson.
