Chapter 50: Long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.

Chapter 50: Things long divided tend to unite; things long united tend to divide.

At 11:00 PM, Gao Yun finished a hurried wash and prepared to go to bed. Right before sleeping, he took out his phone to scroll through Douyin and frowned upon seeing Daria’s latest video.

The content of the video was still her daily modeling routine, but this time it was a collaborative shoot with a male model. The behind-the-scenes footage showed Daria and a foreign male model laughing and chatting, carrying a slightly ambiguous atmosphere that was clearly crafted through intentional editing.

After watching, Gao Yun pondered for a few seconds and dialed Daria’s number. Fortunately, this time it wasn’t her assistant who answered, but Daria herself.

Daria sounded slightly exhausted, her Russian slow and vague: "Darling, I was just about to fall asleep."

Gao Yun asked directly, "What is going on with the new Douyin video you posted?"

"What?" Daria was a bit dazed. "I handed all my accounts over to the company; my assistant always handles the shooting and editing. Let me take a look..."

Half a minute later, a string of Russian curses spewed from the other end of the line as Daria flew into a rage: "Those bastards! They must be trying to use me to make that male model popular! I've only met him once, just for this shoot. How could they do this?!"

Gao Yun pressed on, "So, what do you plan to do?"

"I’ve already deleted the video and changed the password."

Daria said angrily, "I’ll go talk to the company people tomorrow and make them give me an explanation."

"Then what about us?"

"..."

Right now, the two of them were each busy with their own lives, like two parallel lines that seemed destined never to intersect.

After a long silence, Gao Yun spoke first: "I have a suggestion. You quit modeling, and I’ll give you some startup capital. You can pursue travel vlogging just like you originally planned. If I have time, I’ll travel and shoot with you; if I'm busy, you can shoot on your own. How does that sound?"

Daria hesitated. A month ago, she probably would have agreed. But during this period, the nurturing and resource allocation from Dragon Pupil had allowed her to taste the sweetness of success.

First, her income had skyrocketed. A studio shoot or runway show that used to pay no more than fifty thousand RMB now started at five hundred thousand, and it was bound to increase in the future.

Second, under the management of the company's professionals, her two video accounts were experiencing explosive follower growth. The company's vice president had even decided to establish a dedicated office for Daria, opening personal channels on Weibo, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media platforms to crack open the doors of the fashion world and mold her into a Chinese version of Kendall Jenner.

As long as she had enough followers online, high popularity, sufficient trending topics, and commercial value, major brands would invite her for endorsements and major fashion shows would hire her for the runway. She wouldn't have to struggle step-by-step relying on runway techniques and sheer luck like traditional models.

Any perceptive person could see that this was the starting point of her path to becoming a supermodel. Not to mention becoming a top supermodel like Kendall with an annual income exceeding one hundred million US dollars, an annual income of over one hundred million RMB was at least something to look forward to.

Therefore, asking Daria to give up modeling now was virtually impossible; no one in her position would be willing to let that go.

"...No."

Gao Yun was not at all surprised by this answer. Calmly, he said, "Then do you have any suggestions? For the two of us, going on like this is clearly not a solution. You are busy traveling everywhere for your career, and I am busy with mine. Even if I take the initiative to go see you, you don't have much time to accompany me."

"I have to make an appointment with your assistant just to call you now. Thank goodness this call actually went through today; otherwise, I’d constantly feel like my hair color was changing and probably wouldn't even be able to sleep well."

"блять (Fuck)!"

Hearing his familiar, calm tone accompanied by the faint mockery in his words, the anger that was about to subside in Daria flared right back up. She cursed angrily, "Are you trying to force me to break up again? Just like last time?"

Gao Yun felt both resigned and wronged: "How am I forcing you? I'm the one who got dumped, okay? Besides, wasn't everything I just said the truth?"

Daria completely lost her temper and raised her volume: "охуевший (Shameless bastard)! It is the truth! Yes, I dumped you! Now, I am officially informing you, you've been dumped again! Get lost, you idiot!"

"Beep, beep, beep, beep..."

"..."

With a flurry of busy signals, Daria hung up first. Gao Yun, half-reclined against the headboard, stared at his phone screen, dazed for a moment before snapping back to reality. He let out a long sigh, put the phone down, and mused with profound emotion: "They say that things long divided tend to unite, and things long united tend to divide. This is an eternal law of the universe, much like formation, abiding, destruction, and emptiness, birth, aging, illness, and death, the rising and setting of the sun—none of which can be altered by human will. Alas, what can be done?!"

With that, he glanced at his system panel.

[Name: Gao Yun]
[Emotional Status: Single]
...

Gao Yun let his body lie flat down completely, tucked the blanket around himself, rested his head on the latex pillow, and hummed comfortably: "You said, you loved someone you shouldn't have loved..."

Unlike his peaceful breakup with Daria last time, the two of them had actually gotten into a minor argument this time.

Feeling a slight sense of regret, Gao Yun suddenly developed an urge to pour his heart out. He took out his phone, opened WeChat, and sent a message to a contact nicknamed "Emotional Mentor Li Xiao."

"(Laughing through tears) Mentor, I got dumped again."

Li Xiao was a Ph.D. graduate from the University of Oxford and currently taught psychology at Peking University. The story of how the two of them met was quite interesting.

He and Gao Yun had previously met on a social networking app.

Back then, having just gone through a breakup with his first love, Gao Yun held the mindset that the way to forget a past relationship was to start a new one, and he was desperately eager to escape singlehood.

However, he was troubled by the small number of women in his immediate circle. To find a girlfriend, he first needed a sufficient pool of women to choose from, so Gao Yun consciously used various methods to broaden his social channels—approaching women on the street, joining dance studios to learn dancing, and even using dating apps like Momo and Tantan.

Li Xiao, the psychology expert, was researching the psychology of romantic relationships. To understand the initial stages of relationship development more objectively and comprehensively, he decided to run an interesting experiment.

With permission, Li Xiao used the information and photos of one of his female students to register a female profile on these apps.

That student could be considered a textbook definition of a wealthy, attractive young woman. Her profile information, photo album, and external presentation were meticulously managed by Li Xiao to look extremely high-class, so countless desperate guys swarmed in upon registration, bombarding her with awkward opening lines.

Gao Yun happened to be one of the relatively high-quality matches among that batch of desperate guys, and his chat style spared Li Xiao from too much annoyance and cringe. Therefore, after chatting for a while, Li Xiao decided this guy wasn't bad and told him the truth—though there was also a bit of mischievous humor at play, wanting to tease someone.

At first, Gao Yun almost wanted to grab a knife and crawl through the internet cable to hack him. The person he had been chatting with so passionately all this time wasn't a young woman? It was a man in his forties?

Who could handle that? Disgusting!

Li Xiao could understand his feelings and sent him some videos of his lectures at Peking University to prove he wasn't lying. At the same time, he explained that this was merely an experiment aimed at a deeper understanding of interpersonal psychology, and that both of them had made an indelible contribution to science and the progress of human society.

In an instant, Gao Yun's mindset shifted from initial disgust to eager curiosity. After all, he was a Peking University professor; ordinary people rarely had the chance to interact with one, let alone participate in a research experiment with one. The more he thought about it, the more interesting it became.

Seeing Gao Yun's reaction and not expecting him to accept it so quickly, Li Xiao added him on WeChat, and the two became online friends.

As a psychology expert, Li Xiao was well-versed in the psychology of relationships. Seeing that his young online friend wanted to escape singlehood as soon as possible, out of kindness, he recommended quite a few books on psychology, sociobiology, and other related fields.

At the same time, unable to shake his natural urge to play the mentor, he began teaching Gao Yun how to get along with women.

From then on, Gao Yun called him "Mentor," and his theoretical knowledge of dating and approaching women began to be systematically filled out.