The Moon Runs to Me

This feeling was strange.

She’d longed for it for so long, had even sensed it coming—yet when it finally became real, she wasn’t as happy as she’d imagined. Instead, there was an indescribable ache.

“Sorry, I need to use the restroom.”

Qin Sang lowered her gaze and said it quickly.

Before Penny could even react—just a “Oh”—she’d already hurried off.

Penny paused, then followed.

Qin Sang stood in the washroom for a while, the tap running, water flowing over her skin. If you looked closely, you’d notice a small scar on the edge of her right index finger—left over from winters in the capital when she’d suffered from recurring chilblains, scars that never fully healed.

She looked at herself in the mirror—soft brows, gentle eyes, faint traces at the corners like crumpled fins, tinged with pink.

Penny watched her for a moment, then stepped forward, turned off the tap, pulled out a tissue, and took Qin Sang’s hand, carefully drying it. “If you don’t want to stay, I can take you home. Go back, get some sleep, close your eyes, and don’t think about anything.”

Qin Sang’s nose suddenly stung. “Cousin, am I being too dramatic?”

She just couldn’t take it.

The emotions that surged in that moment were overwhelming, threatening to crush her. If she hadn’t found an excuse to escape, she felt she might suffocate.

“Silly girl.” Penny chuckled. “That’s not being dramatic—it’s human. You don’t have to force yourself to handle everything perfectly. You don’t always have to respond. If you don’t want to face it, walk away. If you don’t like it, refuse. That’s your right.”

“I do like him.”

Qin Sang said it very softly.

Penny paused. “Then why?”

“Because I like him too much—I don’t know how to face it.”

Her eyes red, her voice trembling, she still forced a smile. “Cousin, have you ever liked someone—really, really liked them? You might have watched them from afar for a long time, but you never dared to hope they’d stop for you. You never even imagined they’d look back and see you.”

That’s what Xie Yuncan was to her.

She’d carefully preserved everything related to him—even just an accidental glance across a crowd was a precious memory. Something she’d cling to, even in her final moments, as her life flashed before her eyes.

She’d never thought secret love was a beautiful experience. Being completely consumed by someone who didn’t even know you existed—thinking about them, going crazy for them, crying and laughing for them—and no one caring.

Because to him, you were just a passing stranger. He might not even remember your name.

You resent it. Your heart aches. But what can you do?

All you can do is hide those “secrets” carefully, so no one finds out.

Once, she’d come across a “confession bot” on Weibo. One topic was “Secret Love.”

“What does secret love feel like? Do you still remember the person you once liked?”

She’d forgotten a lot, but she remembered that night—after a shoot, on a cold winter night. The capital’s winters always came early. Her basement was damp and cold—a bone-deep chill. Even breathing felt painfully sharp.

There was no light except a narrow, long window. It was almost 3 AM—the capital’s streets were quiet, only streetlights standing in the deep winter night. Their warm glow filtered through that narrow window into the dark basement.

She was hungry, cold, exhausted. The fake blood on her face had dried, crusted onto her skin, impossible to peel off.

She sat on the only piece of furniture—a flimsy folding bed—eating a convenience store rice ball that had gone cold. The filling was black pepper beef, but cold, the sauce had become cloyingly thick. She scrolled through her phone.

Her phone had been damaged on set—the screen was cracked but still usable, so she couldn’t bear to replace it.

There was a group chat for odd jobs in Hengdian, filled with people like her—no connections, no stable resources, but still dreaming of stardom. They took bit parts, performed desperately in front of every assistant director, like salespeople peddling themselves, like clowns.

A notification dinged—the crew head had transferred her pay for the day’s extra work. She collected the red packet: two hundred yuan, fifty more than agreed.

The crew head said: “You worked hard today, and the director was pleased. The extra fifty is from me personally. Didn’t you break your phone? Find a shop and see if it can be fixed.”

Her hands were red with cold, trembling as she typed: “Thank you, you’ve worked hard too. I appreciate the thought. Next time there’s a suitable opportunity, I hope you can put in a good word for me.”

She was sensible—she didn’t dare keep the extra fifty and transferred it back. The underworld demanded its toll. Sister Wen couldn’t help her—they had a contract, but the agency was restructuring. Sister Wen had been sidelined by the artist she’d managed and had lost her resources. People like her had to fight alone and learn the “rules” of survival.

The crew head was clearly pleased with her understanding. “Don’t worry, I know your situation. Keep working hard, and you won’t be shortchanged. There’s a special guest role coming up in a few days—I can recommend you. The pay won’t be high, but give it a shot. Seize the opportunity, do well, and when you make it big, don’t forget me, haha.”

She replied with a “thank you” sticker. Then a new push notification appeared—the bot she followed had posted a new submission topic: “Secret Love.”

She bit into the cold rice ball, tasteless as chewing wax. The phone’s dim light fell on her face, streaked with dried blood—quite eerie in the dark.

Everyone was sharing their feelings, their stories. She was just one of millions—the most ordinary one. These obsessive feelings weren’t unique to her.

How pathetic—secret lovers’ emotions were all so similar. Not special, not rare. Commonplace, and therefore cheap.

She tossed and turned on that winter night in the capital, struggling to survive in that splendid, dreamlike castle.

A corner of her phone screen had discolored, glowing green. Her fingers were red and swollen with chilblains.

She lowered her gaze and typed, weighing every word, as if each one was a heavy stone pressing down on her bones.

“Secret love is sitting in a basement in the capital on a winter night, with a hundred-fifty-yuan paycheck and a cold rice ball, still delusional enough to dream of a future with him.”

The capital’s winters were so long. She didn’t know how to survive those countless bitter, freezing nights.

What was the future like? How could she have known back then?

Feelings didn’t have hierarchies—but people did.

She had nothing. She was just an ordinary person clutching a foolish summer dream, surviving day by day, not knowing where tomorrow would lead.

Without dignity. So pathetic.

The happiest she’d ever been was when the first McDonald’s opened in her town—a mundane chain to most, but a novelty to someone from a small place.

Qin Dahai had taken her after school to have her first Double Cheeseburger. She’d loved it so much back then. But when it became ordinary, it lost its magic.

Like that little bear—the one from abroad, the one that got ruined. When she lost it, she’d cried for two whole days.

Now, having found it again…

It stuck in her throat.

Perhaps it was because the pain of that loss was still etched deep in her bones, hiding in every crevice of memory. Whenever she stirred, those deliberately forgotten pasts would turn into tiny needles piercing her flesh.

She later understood that she’d never been clinging to the “bear” itself—but to her younger self, to her own helplessness and cowardice, to what she couldn’t let go.

“I used to fantasize countless times—if he saw me now, would he ever regret it? Regret overlooking me, regret missing me?”

Tears welled in Qin Sang’s eyes, but she forced a smile and shook her head. “But that was too long ago. Waiting—it’s never been a pleasant feeling.”

She tried so hard, even if she refused to admit it. That’s why when Liu Chengcheng mentioned him ten years later, she’d always act dismissive, as if it were just a youthful fling—as if that could numb her, convince her it was all insignificant, that she’d moved on.

“I thought I’d be happy—ecstatic—because the scene I’d imagined countless times had finally come true. But it wasn’t like that.”

She was just sad.

“Cousin, I’ve only just realized—I’m not as happy as I thought I’d be. I don’t think it’s something to celebrate. I feel sorry for myself. What I can’t let go of is everything I’ve been through.”

Longing is a prison. She was a bird with broken wings, always looking up at the sky, always dreaming of soaring free.

But when the locked gate finally opened, and she tentatively stepped out, she’d forgotten how to fly.

What she’d lost was an innate ability—the self-respect that had been shattered piece by piece.

Her voice was so low, even her breakdown was silent.

Perhaps she was too used to considering others’ feelings—even her outbursts couldn’t be too loud.

But it was too quiet. So quiet that he heard every word of her anguish, every painful syllable.

Xie Yuncan instinctively reached for a cigarette—then smiled bitterly. He hadn’t smoked in a long time. The mint candies she’d given him had replaced the craving.

But he’d become addicted to something else—only to discover that what he’d thought was “found again” had been her unhealed wound for years.

Did he regret it?

Xie Yuncan leaned against the wall, his long lashes casting shadows over his eyes. His Adam’s apple moved painfully, his voice impossibly low and rough as he whispered his answer.

“Yes.”

But she couldn’t hear him.