The Paranoid Film Queen Hooked Me, and I Fell in Love. (GL) - Chapter 32

Shen Buhui’s gaze paused slightly, landing on the open script. Bright neon green highlighter notes were scattered across the pages.

If the lights were off, those markings would probably glow faintly in the dark, wouldn’t they?

In that case, it truly was a glow-in-the-dark script.

Her expression remained calm, but her next words struck Xu Zhiyan like a bombshell, exploding in her chest and leaving her stunned and speechless.

“I—I…”

“How could you say something like that…” she stammered, unable to form a full sentence.

Still kneeling behind her, Xu Zhiyan’s face flushed a deep red.

Shen Buhui turned, now facing her directly. Her lips curved into an ambiguous smile, half playful, half unreadable. “What did I say? I simply made a reasonable guess based on what you said earlier.”

Their eyes met, tension crackling between them.

Perched high up in the hotel’s top-floor suite, none of the city’s noisy nightlife—its flashing lights and roaring traffic—could reach them. The night felt especially still.

The curtains were drawn open. Through the spotless, transparent windows, silvery moonlight streamed in, spilling quietly across the floor like liquid light.

Xu Zhiyan slowly set the hairdryer aside, her hands still clenched tightly as if she needed something to hold on to. Aside from what she held, there was nowhere for her nerves to escape.

Shen Buhui’s expression remained unreadable. Her silk nightdress hung loosely off her snow-white shoulders, exposing her delicate, sensual collarbones.

“You said you wanted to seduce me just now?” Shen Buhui asked, her voice soft but unmistakably direct.
“Were you trying to seduce me?”

She asked it twice. Her lashes lowered slightly as her gaze lingered on Xu Zhiyan’s matching nightdress.

Caught in the moment, Xu Zhiyan could only manage a slight nod.

Her hair, which had just fallen forward with the movement, swayed again as she quickly shook her head in panic.

“No—I didn’t! I wasn’t!”

This was absolutely not something she could admit to Shen Buhui’s face—not unless she wanted to completely destroy her own image.

A rookie actress, showing up late at night in revealing clothes at a senior’s hotel room? Just the thought of it, from any perspective, felt mortifying.

Frustration welled up inside her. How had she ended up blurting everything just because of a few moments of temptation?

Shen Buhui raised an eyebrow. “First you say yes, then you say no. Which is it, really?”

Her tone was calm, but her persistence made it feel like a gentle interrogation.

Xu Zhiyan grew flustered. She tugged at the robe that had slipped down slightly from her shoulders, her mind racing.

Shen Buhui’s gaze dropped slightly—just in time to catch the faint glimmer of exposed skin at Xu Zhiyan’s chest.

Her mouth felt a little dry.

She licked her lips, silently urging Xu Zhiyan for an answer.

Under the warm lighting, Xu Zhiyan’s eyes sparkled with intensity as she lifted her gaze. But there was something else in her look—something heavy and unreadable, pressing in from all sides. It made Shen Buhui’s heart thump with an unusual urgency.

Once.
Twice.
Each beat echoed loudly in the quiet of the night.

It felt like something was about to happen.

“Jiejie,” Xu Zhiyan murmured.

Shen Buhui’s lashes trembled faintly. Though she had been leading the conversation until now, she could feel the balance of power beginning to shift.

“Mm.”

“Miss Shen.”

“Mm.”

“Shen Buhui.”

It was the first time Xu Zhiyan had ever called her by name, face to face.

“…Mm.” A flicker of understanding crossed Shen Buhui’s face.

“I wasn’t trying to seduce you,” Xu Zhiyan said, her voice low and serious.

Shen Buhui lightly pinched the hem of her silk skirt—at this moment, she actually felt slightly overwhelmed by Xu Zhiyan’s intensity.

“I was trying to lure you.”

“……??”

Wasn’t that the same thing?

Shen Buhui couldn’t help but want to respond, to say something—anything—but as soon as her eyes met Xu Zhiyan’s serious gaze, the words caught in her throat.

Xu Zhiyan forced down her inner panic, summoning the most composed, rational version of herself she could muster, hoping to appear calm and steady.

“I want to seduce you because I like you.”

“I like you, Shen Buhui.”

Her expression remained composed, eyes focused and unwavering. She seemed calm and confident as she laid her feelings bare.

But inside, the little version of herself in her mind dramatically collapsed backward with a huge sigh of relief.

Still, she couldn’t relax—after all, the start of this confession had been far from ideal, and who knew how it might end?

With that in mind, Xu Zhiyan did her best to stay calm, her eyes still fixed on Shen Buhui.

The two of them sat face to face, very close. The lights were bright—bright enough to make every flicker of emotion on the other’s face clearly visible.

But as Xu Zhiyan stared at Shen Buhui, who showed no clear reaction, her heart began to pound with anxiety.

Was she going to get rejected? Wasn’t this exactly how rejection started?

Who even confesses like this?!
This is ridiculous. She must think so too, right?

The longer the silence dragged on, the more Xu Zhiyan imagined Shen Buhui composing a kind but firm rejection in her head.

…
A storm of defeatist thoughts swirled wildly in her mind. Her lips pressed into a tight line, and a thin sheen of sweat formed on her palms.

Meanwhile, Shen Buhui was still frozen in place—stunned at first, then overwhelmed by a wave of pure, breathtaking joy.

The surprise had hit her so hard that it took her a long time to recover. Her eyes flickered, her lips parted as if to speak.

And then she saw Xu Zhiyan do something completely absurd.

So absurd that even recalling it later made Shen Buhui want to bury her face in her hands from secondhand embarrassment.

Xu Zhiyan—ran.

Right at the exact moment Shen Buhui was about to open her mouth to accept the confession, Xu Zhiyan, wearing the expression of someone calm beneath a collapsing mountain, suddenly sprang up from the couch—and bolted.

She ran. Full-on fled.
Missing one shoe.

With a loud “thud,” the door slammed shut behind her in a frantic mess, echoing thunderously through the room.

The impact still echoed faintly in Shen Buhui’s ears.

“…She’s really adorable,” she muttered to herself, unable to hold back a soft laugh.

She picked up the single slipper left behind in Xu Zhiyan’s panicked escape.

—

Meanwhile, Xu Zhiyan was holding her face, which felt hot enough to boil an egg, and wildly fanning herself in an attempt to cool down.

It took a long time for her to mentally regroup, only for regret to come crashing down like a tidal wave.

Why did I run?!

What was Teacher Shen about to say just now? Was she about to politely decline?

Now she’d never know—and she’d left herself with nothing but a storm of unanswered questions.

Frustrated, Xu Zhiyan yanked the blanket over her head and buried herself beneath it, deciding not to think about anything anymore.

“So you’ve been avoiding her these past few days? You haven’t even spoken to her privately once?” Su’er bit into her lollipop, looking at Xu Zhiyan in disbelief.

“It’s not like I didn’t speak at all… I said hi,” Xu Zhiyan replied weakly.

But right after saying hi, she’d scurried away like a mouse dodging a cat.

Su’er: “……”

“You really outdid yourself. The person who got confessed to didn’t even get a chance to react, and you were the one who panicked and fled. You straight-up bailed mid-confession. You really mastered the art of self-deception!”

Su’er was so exasperated she rattled off three idioms in a row—just to express how thoroughly shook she was.

“I was just scared she’d reject me,” Xu Zhiyan said, resting both arms on the railing, visibly uneasy.

“You’re such a coward.”

Xu Zhiyan glared at her.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a coward. Look at me now—totally different from you.”

She took a big bite of the lollipop her girlfriend had given her, crunching loudly for emphasis.

Xu Zhiyan turned to look at the row of streetlights flickering on across the campus path and sighed. “Let’s just… talk about it after tomorrow.”

Ever since that night—her grand confession and even grander retreat—she hadn’t been able to face Shen Buhui properly. Every time she saw her, she instinctively avoided her, terrified that staying even a second longer might lead to a formal rejection. The anxiety had her ducking and dodging like a fugitive.

She had originally planned to return to campus the day of the opening ceremony. But instead, she came back a day early, citing vague excuses.

Now she leaned against the dorm balcony railing, staring at her phone screen that had stayed dark the whole night, her chest tightening.

Why hadn’t Shen laoshi messaged her these past few days?

Sure, she’d been avoiding her—but Shen Buhui could’ve at least sent a WeChat message… or called, right?

Why didn’t she?

Was it because she didn’t want to?

If Shen Buhui knew the nonsense Xu Zhiyan was cooking up in her head while hiding away at school, she might’ve laughed out loud in sheer disbelief.

But she didn’t know.

At that moment, Shen Buhui was in her hotel room, wearing a face mask while Xiao Fang helped her organize her things, casually chatting as she packed.

“These past few days, I have no idea what’s up with Miss Xu. She runs off the moment she sees anyone.”

“And today she rushed back to school all of a sudden. Weren’t you two supposed to head back together?”

She grumbled, clearly confused.

Even Yuan Yuan didn’t have a clue—it was all very strange.

Shen Buhui peeled off her face mask and looked into the mirror, the corners of her lips curling upward.

“No rush. It’s close now.”

“What’s close?” Xiao Fang asked reflexively.

“Love,” she replied, leaving the sentence hanging in the air with a mysterious smile.

She stood, walked to the nightstand, and picked up the script resting there. She slipped it into the bag she’d be taking tomorrow.

“Huh? Isn’t this Miss Xu’s script? Why’s it still here?” Xiao Fang’s attention shifted as she recognized the familiar handwriting and neon-green markings.

Everyone knew Xu Zhiyan loved to highlight her scripts with fluorescent green pens. It wasn’t exactly a beautiful look, but according to Xu Zhiyan, the color was “mentally stimulating and memory-enhancing.”

Shen Buhui smiled faintly. “She left it behind when she fled.”

And that wasn’t the only thing she’d left behind.

Shen Buhui thought of the single slipper sitting by the shoe rack, and her smile deepened.

—

The next morning, Xu Zhiyan was up early.

While heading out to buy breakfast, she noticed the campus was abuzz with activity. Cars came and went, and many of the people walking around clearly weren’t students.

Su’er slurped her coconut milk through a straw and mumbled, “It’s already so lively this morning. The opening ceremony this afternoon is gonna be wild.”

Xu Zhiyan nodded absentmindedly.

Su’er nudged her. “I heard outstanding alumni will be giving speeches. You think Shen Buhui will show up?”

She’d mentioned before how much she admired Shen Buhui’s acting, so this kind of excitement wasn’t unusual.

“…Probably,” Xu Zhiyan replied, her tone awkward.

Su’er didn’t notice the shift in mood. She sipped her drink and muttered, “I heard she’s been super busy with filming. Not sure if she’ll have the time.”

“…She will,” Xu Zhiyan said again, a little too quickly.

Su’er raised a brow. “Why are you so sure? You’re giving definite answers to everything I say.”

Because I heard it straight from her!

Xu Zhiyan wanted to blurt it out, but after a moment of hesitation, she muttered instead, “…Just a guess.”

Su’er tilted her chin proudly, tossed her empty drink into the bin, and said, “Well, I guessed the same thing!”

Xu Zhiyan looked at her and thought, Yeah, but you guessed. I know—we’re not the same. Hmph.

Back at the dorm, while changing her shoes, her phone suddenly lit up on the desk.

It was a WeChat notification.

Forgetting to finish tying her shoelaces, Xu Zhiyan lunged for the phone and opened the message.

Shen Buhui: [Do you still want your glow-in-the-dark script?]

Shen Buhui: [Image.jpg]

The image clearly showed the script she’d left at Shen Buhui’s place that night—fluorescent green notes glowing vividly under a dark background.

A literal, glowing script.