The External Relations Department Can't Do Without Me

Coming soon: Unfrozen. Please add it to your collection.

Race car driver x criminal profiler, philandering playboy x heartbroken, cold-hearted woman

Double stand-ins / older woman and younger man / groveling for forgiveness

Blurb:

Yin Moyu used her acrobatic skills to apply for an audition on a talent show.

After passing, she became one of the 99 contestants and moved into the contestants' dormitory.

On the eve of the first performance, a staff member in a cultural T-shirt secretly called her aside, saying she needed to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Yin Moyu: "I get it! Keeping my debut spot under wraps, right? I won't make a big deal out of it. I'll work hard in the upcoming rounds and earn my place in the lineup for real."

Staff member: "No. This is actually an agreement that lets you become a civil servant."

Yin Moyu: ...

"If you're willing, you can join the External Liaison Department right away."

"The External Liaison Department?" she repeated. She was pretty good at socializing, after all.

The staff member spoke earnestly. "That's right. The Department of Joint Governance with Extradimensional Lifeforms."

Yin Moyu grimaced. "That sounds like a completely different thing!"

With her special ability, which only worked when luck was on her side, she couldn't believe she could get a secure job.

Besides, the job involved frequent field assignments. She couldn't guarantee she'd come back in one piece to clock in.

You shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Even after signing the agreement, she couldn't let the competition slide.

But something started to feel off when the production team invited Mu Zezhi, an inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of clay sculpture, to help with the stage design for one of the performances.

*

Yin Moyu bragged to her groupmates about the scrunchie that had just arrived: "Listen, this collaboration is so popular online right now. I spent almost a week waiting for it..."

Three or four meters away, in the corner of the stage, Mu Zezhi was discussing the set with a staff member. "If we're set on using this lighting, a yellow-and-blue clay sculpture would stand out more on camera."

Yin Moyu turned her head despite herself. "I think Teacher Mu has a point. The lighting and shadows onstage really do need to work well together."

She looked back at her groupmate. "I spent almost a week waiting for it, and finally managed to get one. Look..."

Mu Zezhi clearly hadn't heard her. He continued, "Maybe we could put a plain white porcelain vase beside it to soften the impact."

She turned her head again. "Negative space? I hadn't thought of that."

Without even turning back this time, she continued her previous conversation. "Look at the little details on the scrunchie. Aren't they clever?"

Mu Zezhi said, "I got a little dust on me just now. Do you have a tissue?"

He was clearly talking to the staff member.

But the hand with which she was showing off the scrunchie immediately changed course, reaching into her pocket for a tissue.

! Seeing her groupmates staring at her in shock, Yin Moyu suddenly realized what was happening.

Why did everything she was talking about have to give way whenever Mu Zezhi spoke? She couldn't control it at all.

From then on, whenever Mu Zezhi was around, a new line automatically opened up in Yin Moyu's mind, prioritized and devoted exclusively to him.

But what she couldn't accept was the fact that Mu Zezhi had become the main plotline.

Time and time again, Yin Moyu silently screamed at the heavens: When will I finally get to finish talking about my own stuff?!

*

To find the source of the problem, Yin Moyu reread the confidentiality agreement and decided to claim her employee benefits first. Once she joined, she could arrange a full-body medical exam available only to internal employees.

After getting her staff ID and clocking in, she officially pushed open the door to the External Liaison Department head's office. The first thing she saw was a familiar clay sculpture.

Mu Zezhi sat at the desk, making a frame out of straw.

"H-Hello, boss?" Yin Moyu's eyes widened.

Intangible cultural heritage clay sculptor x aspiring idol, second-generation heir to a mysterious lineage

Coming soon: Unfrozen

Race car driver x criminal profiler, philandering playboy x heartbroken, cold-hearted woman

Double stand-ins / older woman and younger man / groveling for forgiveness

1

While surveying a murder scene, Jing Nuo noticed a suspicious motorcyclist loitering outside the police cordon.

She was telling a colleague about it when the motorcyclist took off his helmet. Jing Nuo hesitated for a few seconds at the sight of his profile, which looked just like someone's, and then the man disappeared.

They met again at a family banquet. The moment she saw Shang Xichen, she glimpsed another blurry face almost perfectly superimposed over his features.

The man she had once loved but never been able to have, the man she had lost to death and separation.

Even if it was only for comfort, she went over to talk to him. That night, she learned from a friend that he was known in their circle as a playboy, surrounded by countless admirers, and that no one ever lasted more than three months with him.

Jing Nuo thought this was perfect. She was only a little addicted to the feeling she'd had back then, and she sank into it with her eyes wide open.

2

The three-month limit was there to keep herself in check. Jing Nuo reminded herself of that more than once.

But during a trip to Europe with Shang Xichen, they were invited to an engagement party in a castle. The bride-to-be was so moved when she saw Shang Xichen that she left her fiance and went away with him.

Only then did Jing Nuo realize that good and evil would always be repaid in the end. All those times Shang Xichen had looked at her, he had been thinking about someone else.

So she stepped away with ease and left with her dignity intact.

"We were only using each other."

3

When they met again at the racetrack, Jing Nuo had been avoiding him. She left early through an emergency exit without even crossing paths with him during the awards ceremony.

She walked down a long, narrow corridor and saw a familiar figure near the light a few steps away. This time, she didn't mistake him for someone else.

Shang Xichen: "You said we were using each other, but I still haven't gotten what I really want."

The one thing Jing Nuo couldn't deny was that there had been moments during their brief relationship when she truly had feelings for him.

But they were like snow melting on a glacier, with broken pieces of ice floating on the sea. The warmth was too great for them to freeze again, but they could never melt together into something warm, either.

[Our meeting was entirely unexpected]

[It wasn't until I met you that I knew what it meant to truly fall in love.]

Theme: Having a clear goal helps you achieve more with less effort