Chapter 1: How did she get here?
Late at night, the endless sea was sparkling, the reflection of the bright moonlight shimmering on the water like a silver foil. The breeze suddenly became stronger and the sea clashed.
Qiao Dai was awakened by the sound of the waves and rubbed her eyes before realizing she had been washed away by the sea. She quickly swam back to her little friend, took her companion’s hand, and went back to sleep.
Qiao Dai was a sea otter that lived in the Pacific Ocean. Her daily life was about catching small fishes with her friends and sleeping when she was full. Occasionally, she would transform into a human and go to shore to play. But the human society was too complicated for her and her happy life as a little sea otter was easier.
The sound of the waves quickly lulled her back to sleep.
***
She did not know how much time had passed when she suddenly felt light in front of her eyes and subconsciously wanted to roll in the water to avoid the sun. As soon as she turned over, she fell off the bed with a bang.
???
Qiao Dai opened her eyes in a daze, her thick and curled eyelashes slightly trembling. Her dark and clear pupils were like two beautiful black pearls and she looked at the strange scene in front of her with a confused face. Had she not been alone, people would have had an urge to poke her soft little face.
How did she get here??
Qiao Dai’s first thought was that she had slept too soundly and had not realized she had drifted so far away. Thinking of last night’s storm, Qiao Dai could only lower her head with regrets; had she been less lazy, she would have tied herself up before going to sleep. She would not have ended up washing away to an unfamiliar place.
But the same instant, several pictures suddenly appeared in her mind. The life of Qiao Dai, a country bumpkin who was mocked by her teammates as a “beautiful fool”.
Unlike her poor background, this girl named “Qiao Dai” had a soft face, a delicate white and smooth skin, and watery eyes comparable to those of a small animal. She looked innocent and pitiful and just glancing at her would make people unable to refuse anything she would ask.
It was precisely because of such an innocent appearance that Qiao Dai had quickly gained a large number of fans at the beginning of the <Pick Eleven> talent show and had become relatively popular.
But as the show had aired, the audience had soon realized that under this cute temperament, a sensitive, gloomy, and withdrawn girl had been hiding. Qiao Dai had low self-esteem and would often show jealousy and dissatisfaction with each new ranking. Qiao Dai’s performance had quickly completely broken the image the public had of her; the audience wanted to watch and support an innocent little fairy and not a calculating, lonely, and narrow-minded girl.
This contrast had caused Qiao Dai’s popularity to plummet tragically. In the end, she had been condemned by the entire network for competing against Ruan Tao, the real spotlight of the show, and ended up dying in a car accident on the same day Ruan Tao had won the draft. There had been no report about it and after the news of her tragic death had been known, Ruan Tao had sent a Weibo to sympathize with Qiao Dai’s early demise and had reminded everybody of such an annoying little girl. The fans had boasted about Ruan Tao’s kind and beautiful temperament and Qiao Dai had been labeled as a wicked person before disappearing from the public’s mind.
But what everyone had not known was that the world they had been living in was actually a real and fake daughter entertainment novel. Ruan Tao was the fake daughter who had grown up in a wealthy family and Qiao Dai was the real daughter and vicious female character raised outside.
Ruan Tao had been born with a serious genetic heart disease, making her unlikely to live past thirty without surgery. Because the cost of the operation was astronomical, Ruan Tao’s biological mother had taken advantage of her work at the hospital to switch her daughter with the baby of a wealthy family so she could be treated.
More than a decade later, Ruan Tao had grown up in the Ruan family, under the care and pampering of her parents, while Qiao Dia had been taken to the countryside, forced to work while still attending school and determined to leave her greedy relatives and this land she hated.
But after leaving her hometown, Qiao Dai had been worried she would die because of the hereditary heart disease that had taken both her mother and grandmother. For this reason, she had been saving money in order to get an operation and ended up being scouted and participating in the talent show <Pick Eleven>. Qiao Dai had thought that <Pick Eleven> would become her salvation and lead her out of her depressing life and had not expected it to be only the beginning of yet another tragedy.
She had soon realized the limitation her origins had brought her. She had wanted to make friends with these beautiful girls but her personality and background had made her unable to integrate herself into the group. She would often hear the comments of her teammates behind her back:
“I don’t want to talk with Qiao Dai at all. My god, even her name is stupid, no wonder she is a country bumpkin.”
“Don’t say that, it’s not her fault she’s stupid, let’s ignore her?!”
“Hehe, I am telling you, she didn’t even know how to eat escargots! You didn’t see it but it was too funny!”
“Wow, you’re too much. Escargots are tricky to eat, don’t embarrass her.”
“I just hate people like her. She’s boring.”
At this moment, Qiao Dai had realized that her family’s influence had had a far more profound impact than she had imagined. She had been raised with nothing and had to be careful about appearances; but unlike Ruan Tao, the other contestant would take into account her origins and only find Qiao Dai noisy, selfish, and ugly.
That had been how the seeds of jealousy had been planted. And when Qiao Dai had learned she was the real daughter of the Ruan family, she had become even more uneasy watching them dislike her; Qiao Dai had been regarded as a gloomy child and not as kind and innocent as Ruan Tao.
Just like that, Qiao Dai had started targeting Ruan Tao everywhere. She had only been a teenager and had not understood that the more aggressive she was, the more her biological family hated her and looked at Ruan Tao with colored glasses. Qiao Dai had exhausted their sympathy and had soon been sent away with a sum of money in disgust only to die on the way out.
And when Ruan Tao, who had occupied Qiao Dai’s life, had heard about the tragedy, she had said with emotion to her friends: “If it hadn’t been for my sister, I would not be there today.”
***
After a while, these pictures stopped infiltrating her head and Qiao Dai came out of her thoughts. She looked around her and noticed it was 7 am, two hours before the first recording of the <Pick Eleven> program.
Qiao Dai slowly digested all the information that poured into her mind. At the same time, she stood up from the ground, the quilt in her hands. She looked at the dormitory room and at the few other beds. She was the only one there but could hear laughter from outside.
Although she did not understand how she had ended up here from the sea, it seemed that she had become the character of a novel. This character had the same name as her and even looked exactly the same as her human form. The only difference was that Qiao Dai was a sea otter spirit and the other Qiao Dai was just an ordinary human.
Thinking of it, Qiao Dai’s eyes widened like she had just thought of something and rushed to the bathroom in a panic.
She opened the shower curtain and put water in the bathtub. She was very nervous, tightly squeezing her hands, her eyes were fixated on the water slowly filling the tub. Was she still a sea otter? She held her breath until the tub was almost filled and took her clothes off quickly before stretching a leg forward, closed her eyes, and said to herself: “Otter! Otter! Otter! Otter! Please turn back!”
Qiao Dai immersed herself in the water, still chanting to herself until she felt like she was floating. When she opened her eyes again, she found out with pleasure that she had transformed back to a little sea otter again. Great, it looked like while she had become a human girl, she had also kept her identity as a sea otter!
Seeing her chubby and familiar body, Qiao Dai started rolling happily in the water until she heard footsteps outside the bathroom, followed by a female voice: “Qiao Dai, are you up? Sister Ling said we would leave soon.”
Luan Zhen knocked on the door. She was Qiao Dai’s roommate and another trainee of the company who would participate in <Pick Eleven> with her.
She looked a bit impatient as she stood outside. Luan Zhen neither liked nor disliked Qiao Dai, her innocent and clear eyes always made her feel a bit uncomfortable. They were competitors and Qiao Dai’s beautiful appearance made people uneasy. Nevertheless, Luan Zhen had taken the initiative to go wake Qiao Dai up when the other trainees had been reluctant to.
“Coming!”
A slightly panicked voice was heard and the closed door was opened from the inside, letting Qiao Dai dressed in a bathrobe appear.
“You…”
Before she could say anything, Luan Zhen’s eyes stopped on Qiao Dai’s face and she couldn’t help being startled.
Qiao Dai looked like she had just finished taking a shower. Her hair was a little messy and crystal clear drops of water gently dropped from the tips, like pearls falling on her smooth and white skin. Her eyelashes were thick and curled and her pair of bright dark eyes sparkled under the water mist.
Luan Zhen looked at the girl in front of her in silence and her face reddened slowly.
Chapter 1: How did she get here?
Late at night, the endless sea was sparkling, the reflection of the bright moonlight shimmering on the water like a silver foil. The breeze suddenly became stronger and the sea clashed.
Qiao Dai was awakened by the sound of the waves and rubbed her eyes before realizing she had been washed away by the sea. She quickly swam back to her little friend, took her companion’s hand, and went back to sleep.
Qiao Dai was a sea otter that lived in the Pacific Ocean. Her daily life was about catching small fishes with her friends and sleeping when she was full. Occasionally, she would transform into a human and go to shore to play. But the human society was too complicated for her and her happy life as a little sea otter was easier.
The sound of the waves quickly lulled her back to sleep.
***
She did not know how much time had passed when she suddenly felt light in front of her eyes and subconsciously wanted to roll in the water to avoid the sun. As soon as she turned over, she fell off the bed with a bang.
???
Qiao Dai opened her eyes in a daze, her thick and curled eyelashes slightly trembling. Her dark and clear pupils were like two beautiful black pearls and she looked at the strange scene in front of her with a confused face. Had she not been alone, people would have had an urge to poke her soft little face.
How did she get here??
Qiao Dai’s first thought was that she had slept too soundly and had not realized she had drifted so far away. Thinking of last night’s storm, Qiao Dai could only lower her head with regrets; had she been less lazy, she would have tied herself up before going to sleep. She would not have ended up washing away to an unfamiliar place.
But the same instant, several pictures suddenly appeared in her mind. The life of Qiao Dai, a country bumpkin who was mocked by her teammates as a “beautiful fool”.
Unlike her poor background, this girl named “Qiao Dai” had a soft face, a delicate white and smooth skin, and watery eyes comparable to those of a small animal. She looked innocent and pitiful and just glancing at her would make people unable to refuse anything she would ask.
It was precisely because of such an innocent appearance that Qiao Dai had quickly gained a large number of fans at the beginning of the <Pick Eleven> talent show and had become relatively popular.
But as the show had aired, the audience had soon realized that under this cute temperament, a sensitive, gloomy, and withdrawn girl had been hiding. Qiao Dai had low self-esteem and would often show jealousy and dissatisfaction with each new ranking. Qiao Dai’s performance had quickly completely broken the image the public had of her; the audience wanted to watch and support an innocent little fairy and not a calculating, lonely, and narrow-minded girl.
This contrast had caused Qiao Dai’s popularity to plummet tragically. In the end, she had been condemned by the entire network for competing against Ruan Tao, the real spotlight of the show, and ended up dying in a car accident on the same day Ruan Tao had won the draft. There had been no report about it and after the news of her tragic death had been known, Ruan Tao had sent a Weibo to sympathize with Qiao Dai’s early demise and had reminded everybody of such an annoying little girl. The fans had boasted about Ruan Tao’s kind and beautiful temperament and Qiao Dai had been labeled as a wicked person before disappearing from the public’s mind.
But what everyone had not known was that the world they had been living in was actually a real and fake daughter entertainment novel. Ruan Tao was the fake daughter who had grown up in a wealthy family and Qiao Dai was the real daughter and vicious female character raised outside.
Ruan Tao had been born with a serious genetic heart disease, making her unlikely to live past thirty without surgery. Because the cost of the operation was astronomical, Ruan Tao’s biological mother had taken advantage of her work at the hospital to switch her daughter with the baby of a wealthy family so she could be treated.
More than a decade later, Ruan Tao had grown up in the Ruan family, under the care and pampering of her parents, while Qiao Dia had been taken to the countryside, forced to work while still attending school and determined to leave her greedy relatives and this land she hated.
But after leaving her hometown, Qiao Dai had been worried she would die because of the hereditary heart disease that had taken both her mother and grandmother. For this reason, she had been saving money in order to get an operation and ended up being scouted and participating in the talent show <Pick Eleven>. Qiao Dai had thought that <Pick Eleven> would become her salvation and lead her out of her depressing life and had not expected it to be only the beginning of yet another tragedy.
She had soon realized the limitation her origins had brought her. She had wanted to make friends with these beautiful girls but her personality and background had made her unable to integrate herself into the group. She would often hear the comments of her teammates behind her back:
“I don’t want to talk with Qiao Dai at all. My god, even her name is stupid, no wonder she is a country bumpkin.”
“Don’t say that, it’s not her fault she’s stupid, let’s ignore her?!”
“Hehe, I am telling you, she didn’t even know how to eat escargots! You didn’t see it but it was too funny!”
“Wow, you’re too much. Escargots are tricky to eat, don’t embarrass her.”
“I just hate people like her. She’s boring.”
At this moment, Qiao Dai had realized that her family’s influence had had a far more profound impact than she had imagined. She had been raised with nothing and had to be careful about appearances; but unlike Ruan Tao, the other contestant would take into account her origins and only find Qiao Dai noisy, selfish, and ugly.
That had been how the seeds of jealousy had been planted. And when Qiao Dai had learned she was the real daughter of the Ruan family, she had become even more uneasy watching them dislike her; Qiao Dai had been regarded as a gloomy child and not as kind and innocent as Ruan Tao.
Just like that, Qiao Dai had started targeting Ruan Tao everywhere. She had only been a teenager and had not understood that the more aggressive she was, the more her biological family hated her and looked at Ruan Tao with colored glasses. Qiao Dai had exhausted their sympathy and had soon been sent away with a sum of money in disgust only to die on the way out.
And when Ruan Tao, who had occupied Qiao Dai’s life, had heard about the tragedy, she had said with emotion to her friends: “If it hadn’t been for my sister, I would not be there today.”
***
After a while, these pictures stopped infiltrating her head and Qiao Dai came out of her thoughts. She looked around her and noticed it was 7 am, two hours before the first recording of the <Pick Eleven> program.
Qiao Dai slowly digested all the information that poured into her mind. At the same time, she stood up from the ground, the quilt in her hands. She looked at the dormitory room and at the few other beds. She was the only one there but could hear laughter from outside.
Although she did not understand how she had ended up here from the sea, it seemed that she had become the character of a novel. This character had the same name as her and even looked exactly the same as her human form. The only difference was that Qiao Dai was a sea otter spirit and the other Qiao Dai was just an ordinary human.
Thinking of it, Qiao Dai’s eyes widened like she had just thought of something and rushed to the bathroom in a panic.
She opened the shower curtain and put water in the bathtub. She was very nervous, tightly squeezing her hands, her eyes were fixated on the water slowly filling the tub. Was she still a sea otter? She held her breath until the tub was almost filled and took her clothes off quickly before stretching a leg forward, closed her eyes, and said to herself: “Otter! Otter! Otter! Otter! Please turn back!”
Qiao Dai immersed herself in the water, still chanting to herself until she felt like she was floating. When she opened her eyes again, she found out with pleasure that she had transformed back to a little sea otter again. Great, it looked like while she had become a human girl, she had also kept her identity as a sea otter!
Seeing her chubby and familiar body, Qiao Dai started rolling happily in the water until she heard footsteps outside the bathroom, followed by a female voice: “Qiao Dai, are you up? Sister Ling said we would leave soon.”
Luan Zhen knocked on the door. She was Qiao Dai’s roommate and another trainee of the company who would participate in <Pick Eleven> with her.
She looked a bit impatient as she stood outside. Luan Zhen neither liked nor disliked Qiao Dai, her innocent and clear eyes always made her feel a bit uncomfortable. They were competitors and Qiao Dai’s beautiful appearance made people uneasy. Nevertheless, Luan Zhen had taken the initiative to go wake Qiao Dai up when the other trainees had been reluctant to.
“Coming!”
A slightly panicked voice was heard and the closed door was opened from the inside, letting Qiao Dai dressed in a bathrobe appear.
“You…”
Before she could say anything, Luan Zhen’s eyes stopped on Qiao Dai’s face and she couldn’t help being startled.
Qiao Dai looked like she had just finished taking a shower. Her hair was a little messy and crystal clear drops of water gently dropped from the tips, like pearls falling on her smooth and white skin. Her eyelashes were thick and curled and her pair of bright dark eyes sparkled under the water mist.
Luan Zhen looked at the girl in front of her in silence and her face reddened slowly.
