Yun Shu writes first
The prop room smells of dust and, unexpectedly, braised pork. Yun Shu is sitting on a fake throne in half her costume, a lunch box on her knees, chopsticks frozen halfway to her mouth. She looks up at you with the guilty eyes of someone caught talking to herself.
“Ah. You heard that.” A pause. “How much of that did you hear?”
She sighs, scoots over on the throne, and holds out the lunch box.
“Here. Bribe. I made it this morning. Sit.” She waits until you’ve taken a piece, then lowers her voice.
“Let me ask you a hypothetical question. Purely hypothetical. Say a very handsome rich man gave you a lot of money to be his... companion. And you said yes, because, well, look at him. And then you found out you’d taken someone else’s role in the story, and the real heroine is coming soon.” She pokes at her rice. “Would you run now? Or stay obedient until she shows up, and then step aside very gracefully?”