The Stars Don't Lie

[Roguish, stoic older brother x sweet, radiant little sister]

Fake siblings / Reunion after years apart / Long-planned romance / Mutual pining

When You Xingna was five, she moved into the Chen family home and met Chen Xi, her brother in name only, for the first time.

The seven-year-old tugged on her little braids and looked at her with disdain. "Crybaby. Such a nuisance."

But this same brother would crawl into her bed with a pillow on every stormy night, covering her ears with his warm hands and saying in a childish but earnest voice, "If you're scared, hold on tight to me."

He would also carry her through every muddy alley and save his breakfast money to slip a melted candy into her palm.

Then a family upheaval forced them apart, with one of them in the north and the other in the south. Before they parted, he gave her a glass jar filled with hand-folded stars.

"I'll come back to see you every year," he promised.

But he never came back.

Not once.

Until she takes her college entrance exam acceptance letter and rides a green train for two days and one night to find him amid Haicheng's damp twilight.

The cool, proud boy she remembers has grown into a man, sharp-edged and unfamiliar.

He bends over, fiddling with machine parts. His black work tank top is soaked through with sweat, clinging to his broad back and taut shoulders and arms. His muscles move smoothly beneath his skin as he works. Oil and dust stain his arms, and his skin is dark as wheat from years spent outdoors. Beads of sweat roll down his neck, tracing the clean line of his Adam's apple.

He looks at her, his Adam's apple bobbing. His voice is roughened by oil and dust. "You shouldn't be here. Go back."

Before he's finished speaking, she throws herself at him.

She doesn't care that he's covered in oil and sweat or that his back has stiffened. She wraps her arms tightly around his neck and buries her face in his scorching shoulder.

"I'm not leaving." Her voice is muffled against his skin, trembling, but resolute.

He freezes as if burned. After a long moment, his hand finally settles on her slender waist. His touch is featherlight, yet heavy, as if catching a long-lost, tottering world.

Later, during their many intimate moments, he kisses her sweat-damp shoulder blade, gently grazing the delicate skin with his teeth, his voice hoarse.

"Why did you throw away the glass jar of stars I gave you?"

Her mind hazy, she answers with a sob. "You broke your promise..."

He falls silent for a moment, then presses a deeper kiss to her, swallowing all her sobs. Before she loses herself completely, amid the endless darkness and scorching desire, he finally gives her the answer she has waited years for:

"I didn't dare tell you back then."

"There were 426 hand-folded stars in that jar, and on every slip of paper..."

"I wrote, 'Wait for me.'"

The secret those silent stars kept was the loudest love of my entire youth.

A completed sweet romance: The Right Way to Fake a Kissing Scene

Cool, chaste movie emperor x sultry newcomer

Old flame rekindled | Nine-year age gap | Fake romance turns real

On the day Jiang Wanzhi graduates from film school, the hashtag #MostBeautifulGraduate tops Weibo's trending list.

Thanks to her face, hailed as "a peerless beauty," she unexpectedly lands the role of the fourth female lead in a renowned director's new film, Palace. She plays Princess Yueli, the most beautiful woman in Beicheng.

In the script, Princess Yueli is infatuated with General Pei Linzhi and tries every trick in the book to win his favor, her eyes brimming with allure. The actor playing Pei Linzhi is none other than Xie Jinchuan, a triple-crown Best Actor, and Jiang Wanzhi's idol since her teenage years.

She's so nervous to be acting alongside her idol that she trembles all over.

But Xie Jinchuan is a gentleman, patient and accommodating. He works through take after take of their kissing scenes without complaint when she messes up, and even thoughtfully drapes an extra shawl over her after their intimate scenes so she won't accidentally expose herself.

Jiang Wanzhi is deeply grateful. She praises Xie Jinchuan to everyone, saying it's no wonder he's a triple-crown Best Actor with both virtue and talent. Even a newcomer like her receives such thoughtful care from him.

The director nearly chokes on his own blood. Is this girl an idiot? How can she not see that Xie Jinchuan, that sly old fox, is making his intentions obvious? The kissing scene is a long shot, so they could easily use camera tricks, but he kisses her for real every time, and deeply, too! Even after the director calls cut, Xie Jinchuan's hand keeps lingering at her waist. When he drapes the shawl over her, his fingertips casually brush her bare shoulder and neck...

Before this, Xie Jinchuan always kept his distance from every actress he worked with and avoided intimate scenes whenever he could. When has he ever been this clingy?

Still, since this is the first time the man has caught fire for someone in his old age, now that he's thirty, the director decides to turn a blind eye.

After the film wraps, Jiang Wanzhi packs her bags to leave. Xie Jinchuan pins her in a corner, his voice husky. "You seduced me eight hundred times in the film, and now you're giving up?"

Jiang Wanzhi admires him even more. "You really are an incredible actor. You're so immersed in your role that you still haven't come out of character, even after filming wrapped!"

Xie Jinchuan is silent for a long moment, then smiles helplessly. "Zhizhi, I'm pursuing you. Can't you tell?"

Theme: World peace