The elevator opened on the fourth floor, and Guiying stepped out into a studio that felt wrong from the first step.
The chaos was gone, the rigs packed away, Pei Jiahao no longer shouting schedules into his headset. The room had lost the sharp, crackling energy it carried on shoot days. Now it stood quiet, like a stage after the curtain fell.
Guiying's gaze moved across the space, every face turning to him. He felt the weight of those eyes settle on his skin.
Behind him the monitor cycled through his photos, his face over and over, clean, lit, finished. He stopped walking and just stood there.
For three seconds no one spoke. Then Bai Zichen broke the silence because he always broke it first. "You're here," he said, and it came out too loud, too fast. He winced at his own voice, then tried to play it off. "I mean, obviously you're here. Door just opened."
