Abrupt? Sure. Like a pebble dropped into a still pond. I’m Wen Zhou, a supposedly seasoned agent at a talent agency.

My morning isn’t a timeclock grind; it’s steam rising from a mug of hot tea, then a scroll through today’s trending blaze to see if my artist lit another brushfire.

“Shock! A rich aroma of cooking drifts across a midnight highway!”

“Shocking the nation! The once ‘Thousand-Face’ Best Actress sets up a malatang stall at 3 a.m. on the expressway!”

“Didn’t see that coming! To chase a wild-cooking fantasy, Jiao Wan drives out of the city late at night!”

“Jiao Wan Brand Malatang.”

“...”

And so on, like firecrackers popping down an alley.

I mean—yeah. The tide hits again, again, and yet again. Another day of manager misery rolls in like gray surf.

“Jiao Wan! How many times have I said this? Retired or not, you’re still a face of our agency. Do normal civilian stuff, will you? Don’t hand me a bouquet of nonsense and make the company wipe up after.”

“But I didn’t do anything, Sis Zhou.” Her voice hums down the line, weary as a rain-soaked sparrow. “A civilian got hungry, went out at midnight, and ate malatang. Who knew the paparazzi could cook rumors faster than noodles? I already quit. They still cling to me for clicks.”

“Clicks are one thing. But what civilian finishes malatang, then doesn’t sleep, drives onto the highway, and sells the same malatang out of her car? Isn’t that nuts?” I stare at the newest PR photo set, my lip twitching like a snagged kite.

Yes, she went out for malatang. No, it didn’t end there. She bought the street stall like snapping off a bamboo shoot, then tore down the night road to the outskirts and started selling on her own. Tell me that’s not a loose screw rattling in a tin pail.

“That’s because my wife was stuck in a traffic jam on the highway at night. I worried she was hungry, so I brought her something to fill her stomach. What’s wrong with that?” Her protest lands hot, and I feel my blood pressure rise like mercury in a glass tube.

“You dating Shuyao Qin isn’t my business. Fine. But hand on your heart—does a best-actress-level public figure belong on a midnight highway selling malatang? Does that sound sane to you?”

I swear on the city skyline, in nearly ten years I’ve never seen an artist as gloriously weird as Jiao Wan. The fact that Shuyao Qin can live with her? That’s its own legend, like a quiet pine standing through snowstorms.

“...” The silence stretches, thin as frost on glass. I use those seconds to reel my temper back in like a kite string.

Honestly, I did blow up. She’s retired. Though we told the world it’s a “break,” the contracts say I don’t really manage her anymore. And yet every time her name hits the hot list, my hands itch to lecture, like a storm itching to break.

Maybe I’m just nosy to the bone. I won’t even let myself off the hook. I pick fights with my own peace like a cat teasing a string.

“Um...” I decide to apologize, softening like snow in sunlight, when she says, grave and puzzled, “Do I... have a heart?”

“...”

Right. I’m still too naïve. With a woman whose brain circuits twist like mountain paths, what makes me think words could hurt her? My manager cultivation is a sapling; the wind still tosses it.

Anyway. I look down at my phone, now a heap of scrap metal on the floor like a crushed beetle, and start thinking about which shockproof brand to preorder next. Thanks to Jiao Wan, I’ve saved a decent nest egg these years. But at a new-phone-every-three-days rate, I’ll be bankrupt by summer like a pond drying under noon sun.

I’m not someone who loves meddling. I just can’t watch people on the internet bully her; it hits me like grit in the eye.

Maybe it’s because we worked together once. Maybe it’s because she hauled me up more than once, like a hand pulled from a river. Beyond her flair for chaos, she’s actually a decent human being, steady as warm brick in winter.

“Sis Zhou, free this afternoon? Let me buy you a meal.”

That’s my first message on the morning of Lunar New Year’s Day, a red dawn over quiet streets. I’m flipping through headlines, checking if that menace kicked another hornet nest. No sign of her in the tag cloud. Then her text lands, like a coin in a still fountain.

“?” I reply slow as a drifting leaf, wondering if she texted the wrong person.

On normal days she can go months without pinging me. Now she’s offering a meal? There’s a catch glowing like a fish under moonlight.

Maybe it’s meant for Shuyao Qin and she clicked the wrong name. But she wrote my name in the first line... I’m still thinking when her second message pops, crisp as a firecracker: “It’s your birthday. I want to treat you.”

Huh? Birthday. The word rolls in, soft as a stray snowflake. I freeze with my button phone in hand. Counting days, it really is my birthday. With everything going on, I almost forgot.

One thing puzzles me. “How do you know it’s my birthday?” I’ve never told her, not once, not even in passing.

“Shuyao and I ran into a street interview while shopping,” she texts back, honest as a clear stream. “We met someone who used to work with you. She told me. She also said you haven’t had anyone celebrate you for seven years. I’ve got three restaurant coupons. Thought of you.”

She’s a little too honest. The words hit like sunlight with no blinds.

I start to suspect she just didn’t want the coupons to go to waste. My fingers itch to type: “Who said I’ve had nobody for seven years! Every year I throw a big birthday party!” The sentence swells like a proud peacock... then deflates. Those so-called “friends” were party stand-ins, paper dolls bought with cheap bills, bright and hollow as lanterns at noon.

Forget it. I’ll grant myself a day off, like a field let rest after harvest.

I sit on the sofa, eyes on the text, and finally send one word: “Okay.”

But after twenty, I haven’t had a proper birthday. Seven years later, I don’t even know how to dress for my own night, like a moth unsure which lamp to seek.

Go sexy? These days, people love that spark on a winter street.

I pull a low-cut dress from the closet, a black river with a gleam. I imagine it, then veto it, tossing it back like a fish too small.

Am I out of my mind? Two women in love treating me to a birthday, and I show up like a blooming peony—who am I trying to seduce?

In the end, I choose the weather like a compass. Today’s the sharpest cold on record, a blade of wind over stone. I stand before the closet a long while, then decide.

...

“So... that’s why you dressed like a thermos today?”

My artist stands with her little lover beside her, lips twitching like a bowstring.

I feel fine about it. Cotton hat, padded pants, down jacket—the holy trinity of warmth. On TV, that’s the winter armor. How did her mouth turn it into a kitchen appliance?

“I saw this on TV. Winter’s best outfit,” I defend, waving steam like a kettle. “Grown-up things. You wouldn’t get it.”

She refuses to play along. “What channel was that? Senior Wellness, ages seventy and up?”

“...”

Anyway, I end up buying a new outfit to get past the restaurant door, coins fluttering like startled sparrows.

Because, yes. Her “let me treat you” means a buffet. Seven years since my last real birthday, and I’m spending it at a buffet, bright as a food market at dusk. For heaven’s sake.

The staff outside wouldn’t let me in at first because I was padded like a snowdrift. They worried I’d stash food under the jacket and smuggle it out like a winter squirrel.

I explained myself politely, words lined up like bricks. They looked through me like glass.

“Sorry for your loss, Sis Zhou.” When I finally trudge in, after that little circus, Jiao Wan appears with plates already piled high, patting my shoulder like a drum. “Worst case, we eat our money’s worth. No need to dress like a blizzard for a few dishes.”

“...”

I want to pinch her neck and tell her this avalanche of cotton was to keep you from nagging. And still you peck at me like a woodpecker.

“Fine. Since it’s my birthday, will you grant me one wish?” I lean in while her sweetheart heads off for fruit, wedges glinting like tiny moons.

“Say it out loud and it won’t come true.” She’s dense as a steel beam, eyes on the buffet like a hawk.

“Cut the nonsense. Yes or no?” My face darkens like gathering rain. If I hadn’t seen action stars lose to her, I’d test her right here and teach her that agents aren’t soft persimmons.

“Alright.” She looks up at last, setting down her chopsticks like a sword. “Say it, Sis Zhou. Anything but making me go back to work.”

She was born to blaze under stage lights, sweat shining like dew at dawn. Shame she doesn’t crave the stage.

“Next year, take me to dinner again.”

“Huh?” She didn’t expect that. Her eyes blink like shutters in sun, then slowly adjust. “Sure. Dinner’s easy. I thought you were about to drop a mountain on me.”

“So that’s settled?”

“Yep. Today you’re the birthday star. You call it.”

She starts to turn back to her plate, then stops, a spark catching. “Wait. Sis Zhou, are you planning to trap me into one birthday dinner every year?”

I just smile, lips curving like a crescent moon, and wave Shuyao Qin over with her bowl of fruit.

It’s my birthday. Let tomorrow’s wind blow tomorrow.