My Boyfriend, Brother Sun

The price of one ovulation induction needle: 1,200 yuan.

The weight of 50 million US dollars in cash, I don't know. I've never seen it.

When I asked him for it over the phone at the Montage Laguna Beach, I didn't calculate the weight. I was calculating something else: if he said no, what would I do next?

He said, let me think about it.

Since I met him, it was the first time he said those four words.

In 2011, I filmed a 150-million-yuan movie called The Warring States. Sun Honglei, Francis Ng, Kim Hee-sun, and Jiang Wu were all in it. I was the female lead.

I was twenty-three that year.

No one asked me if I wanted to act. No one asked me if I was ready. Everything was arranged; I just needed to show up.

Later, the whole internet cursed me. The Golden Broom Award for Most Disappointing Actress. I searched my own name, and there wasn't a single good word on the first three pages.

One term followed me for ten years: "Resource Girl."

It meant you don't deserve it. Everything you have wasn't earned by you. Your very presence there is a mistake.

I never responded.

It wasn't out of magnanimity. It was because I didn't know what to say. Because in some parts, they were right.

In 2018, I was with that athlete.

He tattooed the word "Tian" on his left chest, with "unbreakable" underneath.

The first time I saw it, I touched it with my finger; the ink was still new, the skin slightly raised. I wondered what it meant for a man to carve your name above his heart.

Later, I found out. It means it takes three to five laser sessions to wash it off, with eight weeks between each session.

We broke up in 2019. There were many reasons; I don't want to talk about them.

After the breakup, I became depressed. I couldn't leave my room for days and nights. The curtains were drawn, the phone was off, and my manager knocked on the door, but I wouldn't open it.

One day my mom sent a photo. A divorce certificate.

She said, "Tian Tian, Mom is free."

I looked at that photo and thought for a long time. I wasn't thinking about her and my dad; I was thinking—so when a relationship ends, you can take a photo as a souvenir.

In 2021, Rattan was broadcast.

I became famous. Truly famous. Not the kind of trending topic piled up by resources, but the kind where the audience found me themselves. Someone in the bullet comments said, "Jing Tian has finally found the right role."

When I saw that sentence, I was in a hotel room at 2 AM, alone. I didn't cry, and I didn't laugh. I put my phone face down on the bed, looked at the ceiling, and thought about one thing: if this show had flopped too, would I be completely finished?

Then I thought, actually, being finished is nothing. I've been finished many times already.

On May 28, 2022, I was fined for illegal endorsements. 7,221,200 yuan.

Illegal gains of 2,579,000, and a fine of 4,642,200. I paid it all. Paid it that same day.

Then, I couldn't take any advertisements for three years.

Three years.

What does it mean for an actor to have no advertising income for three years? I calculated it, and with previous matters and some debts I don't want to mention, the amount in my account was much less than most people would imagine.

"The Wealthy Flower of the Human World."

When I saw those words online, I would sometimes laugh.

In the autumn of 2025, someone introduced me to Brother Sun.

I knew of him. TRON, cryptocurrency, Forbes cover. Born in 1990, from Qinghai, Peking University, UPenn.

What I didn't know was that he had added me as a friend on Xiaonei.com in 2007.

He told me later. He said he spent forty minutes writing a message, and finally just sent two words: "Hello."

I didn't accept it.

I really didn't use Xiaonei. That year I was nineteen, had just finished my first film, and was on set from morning to night every day. I didn't know there was a boy in a Peking University dorm hesitating over my photo for forty minutes.

When he told this story, we were on a sofa at the Rosewood Hotel. His expression was calm, like he was talking about a case whose statute of limitations had expired.

I looked at him, wanting to say something. But I found I had no corresponding story. In 2007, no one left a message for me online that made my heart race. In 2007, my world consisted only of lenses, lines, and a name I cannot mention.

I said, "Then you waited a long time."

He said, "Eighteen years."

I didn't respond.

The day we met at the Rosewood, he took me to see a banana.

Cattelan's. Taped to the wall.

I asked, "How much?"

He said, "6.2 million US dollars."

I looked at it for a long time. A real banana, taped to a white wall with grey duct tape. I thought about how this banana would get spots in three days, rot in a week, and after it rotted, only a piece of tape would be left on that wall.

I said, "What happens when it rots?"

He fell silent.

I said, "Never mind, let's go see a movie."

I said, "I don't want anyone else in the theater."

He went out to make a call.

Later I found out he had his assistant buy all the tickets for the entire theater. For those already sold, people were sent to the door to buy them back one by one with cash. There was a kid holding popcorn who was stopped outside; the adult took the money and led the child away.

Twenty-six people.

When I didn't know about this, I thought the movie was very quiet and good.

After I knew, I thought about something else: would that kid with the popcorn ask his parents why they couldn't watch it anymore when they got home?

How would the adults answer?

After the movie, I changed my WeChat avatar to Officer Judy.

That night he touched me. His fingernails scratched me, and it hurt.

I didn't say no. I told him to give me his hand.

I pulled a nail file out of my bag and filed them for him one by one. The coarse side for the shape, the fine side for polishing, and the last side in one direction—no back and forth.

Ten fingers, nearly an hour.

He asked, "How long will it take?"

I said, "Until they don't scratch anymore."

After I finished, I turned his hand over to look.

I said, "There. You can touch wherever you want."

In the middle of it, I said one thing. I said, "If I'm not here in the future, no one will ever file your nails for you again."

When I said that, I wasn't thinking about the "future." I was thinking about "now"—this moment, the light is warm, his hand is on my leg, and the nail dust falls on the sheets, fine, like sand.

This moment is good.

I remember good things clearly. Because there aren't many.

He calls me Mom.

I made him call me that.

On the plane, on the way to Tenerife. I asked him, "Is my name pretty?"

He said it was.

I said, "My father's surname is Jing, and my mother's surname is Tian. Jing Tian. Isn't that a coincidence?"

He said, "I remembered it from the first day."

I said, "Don't call me Jing Tian anymore; call me Mom."

He said, "Okay, Mom."

Why did I want him to call me that? I don't know. Maybe because I wanted a different kind of relationship. Not fan and idol, not benefactor and starlet, not any kind I had experienced.

Maybe just because my mom's name is Tian Xin'ai. I wanted someone to call me with the meaning of my mom's name in it.

Maybe there was no reason at all.

At the Ritz-Carlton in Tenerife, the floor-to-ceiling windows faced the Atlantic. I can't sleep with any light. Not a single bit.

This has been a problem since I was a child. When filming, the crew always had to give my room extra treatment. Sometimes it was blackout curtains, sometimes black trash bags, sometimes tape.

His assistant used black tape to seal the entire room. Window frames, air conditioner indicator lights, the little green dots on the sockets—all taped shut. It had to be re-taped every day because the glass got too hot in the afternoon and the tape would fall off.

Two girls were responsible for this. They figured out that taping in the morning held the best.

I know their names. One is Xiao Lin, the other is A-Wen.

He doesn't know.

By the road in Teide National Park, we stopped to watch the sunset. The assistant brought roses and opened champagne. The sea of clouds was beautiful.

I said, "But it's not as good as the sunset in Delingha, Qinghai."

I only remembered after I said it that he is from Qinghai.

He didn't speak.

I'm not sure if I did it on purpose. Maybe. Maybe I wanted to see his reaction to hearing the name of his hometown. He had no reaction. Or rather, his reaction was to have no reaction.

This person is very strange. He can book an entire floor of a hotel, an entire plane, an entire cinema for me, but he won't be moved by a place name.

At night we watched the stars on the mountain top. It was fifteen degrees below zero, and it was still cold even in a down jacket.

I said, "Make a wish."

He asked me what I wished for.

I didn't tell him.

My wish was: let me know if he really likes me, or if he likes that photo from 2007.

I asked for a betrothal gift. Thirty million, RMB. To be given to my father Jing Guoqing and my mother Tian Xin'ai.

He said okay.

When he said okay, I was looking into his eyes. I wanted to find a trace of hesitation in them.

There was none.

After the transfer, my mom replied with two words: "Received."

I handed him the phone to see. He glanced at it and said nothing.

Once I asked him, "Do you know what I was thinking when I asked for these things?"

He said, "What?"

I said, "I was wondering if you would say no just once."

He said he wouldn't.

I said, "Then it's no fun."

I was serious when I said that.

A person who always says yes—you don't know where his bottom line is. You don't know if he loves you or if he loves the act of "saying yes" itself. For someone who never refuses, every agreement is cheap.

I wanted to find that line.

Not to cross it. But to know where it is.

Once I knew, I could feel at ease.

Maldives, Soneva Jani.

No news, no shoes. I felt relieved.

At night we exchanged exes. Like two dynasties checking their era names.

He mentioned a few names. I mentioned a few.

There was one person I didn't mention. He didn't ask either.

But I know he knows.

I have a tattoo on my back. It's not small. I got it that year.

It can't be washed off. I tried once; it was too painful, ten times more painful than getting it. So I kept it.

Every time he hugs me from behind, his hand inevitably touches that spot. He has never asked what it is.

I think he probably knew long ago.

That file of his—I know he did a background check. Over forty pages. He did it when we had known each other for three months.

I'm not angry.

I checked him too. But my method was more primitive: I went to look at his ex-girlfriend Zeng Ying's social media accounts. I looked many times.

Later she found out and posted a screenshot of the visitor records.

That later became evidence.

On January 2nd, at Soneva Jani, he proposed to me.

The ring was decided upon on the morning of January 1st; the assistant took a seaplane to Malé to get it, and it didn't arrive until the afternoon. It was in a hotel envelope.

I opened it and took a look.

I said, "The diamond is too small."

I regretted it as soon as I said it. Not because I didn't care about the size—I did. It was because I saw his expression change for a moment. Very quickly, in less than a second, it returned to normal.

I said, "It's okay, we'll get a bigger one later."

He smiled.

That night I asked him, "Why are you so good to me?"

He said, "Because I like you."

I said, "Were you like this with others before?"

He said, "No."

I believe him. And I don't.

For a person who has waited eighteen years, is what he likes really you, or the waiting itself? When the waiting ends, what does he have left?

One morning I woke up very early. It wasn't light yet.

I sat on the terrace, facing the sea. The whole sea was black.

I was counting the days.

Counting what days—counting how much time my ovaries had left. Counting the window for ovulation induction. Counting when surrogacy must start at the latest if we were to do it.

I'm thirty-seven years old.

My AMH value drops every year. The doctor said if I delay any longer, I might not even be able to retrieve any eggs.

He came out and asked why I was up so early.

I said, "Go back to sleep."

He sat with me for a while. He didn't know what to say. Later he went back.

I continued counting.

Beijing. Blood draw.

The second day of the menstrual cycle, leaving the house at 6 AM. Winter, not yet light.

Fasting. Eight tubes of blood.

Six hormones, ultrasound, AMH.

I went alone.

It wasn't that no one could accompany me. It was that I didn't want anyone to. The hospital corridors were full of women, some with big bellies, some holding children, some like me, empty-handed, empty-bellied, waiting for their numbers to be called.

No one recognized me. I was wearing a mask and a hat.

When I came out after the blood draw, it was light outside. I stood at the hospital entrance for a while, wanting to find a place for breakfast. I had fasted for too long and felt a bit dizzy.

Later I ate a McMuffin at a McDonald's.

The costs for those tests went through his assistant's monthly summary. A few thousand yuan. He probably approved it quickly without looking at the details.

I didn't tell him I was doing these things. It wasn't a secret. I just felt it wasn't necessary. This is my body, my eggs, my time window. He only needs to appear at the end.

Before going to Los Angeles, he said he wanted to buy a house in Hong Kong.

He sent over a dozen for me to see. All picked by the assistant. In the video, there was one in Mid-Levels with a view of Victoria Harbour.

I didn't like any of them.

It wasn't that the houses weren't good. It was that I didn't know what kind of house I wanted. I have a house in Beijing, a house in Shanghai, but not one was chosen by me. From childhood to adulthood, all important decisions were made by others for me. What movies to film, what contracts to sign, where to live, who to be with.

I said they weren't nice.

He didn't ask why.

On February 28, I flew to Montage Laguna Beach.

An entire floor. Thirty days. One million US dollars. For my privacy.

That place is on a sea cliff, with the Pacific Ocean below.

I stayed for eight days.

Every morning someone came to clean. I hid in the bathroom waiting for them to leave. Not because I was afraid of being recognized. I just didn't want to be seen. I didn't want anyone to see me as I am now—no makeup, bloated, needle marks on my belly, a row of ovulation drugs in the fridge.

On the third day, I started giving myself injections. The left side of the lower abdomen, pinch a piece of skin, insert the needle, push the medicine, pull it out, press down. Every day at the same time.

After the injection, I would lie on the bed for a while. It wasn't pain. It was a feeling I couldn't describe. Like something in my body was being urged, forced to accelerate.

I thought of that 6.2-million-dollar banana. Taped to the wall, waiting to rot.

On the eighth day, I made that call.

I said, "Fifty million, US dollars."

Why fifty million?

Because I had calculated it. The total cost of surrogacy, plus the arrangements after the child is born, plus all the costs I would need to raise a child alone if we ultimately didn't stay together, plus the income I lost over these three years, plus the 7.22 million fine, plus those debts I don't want to detail, plus my parents' future lives—

Added together, fifty million US dollars was the number I could think of.

It wasn't extortion. It was security.

It was the only thing belonging to me that I exchanged for an egg.

He said, "Let me think about it."

There was the sound of the sea on the phone. It was early morning for him, afternoon for me.

I didn't speak.

After a while, I said, "Okay."

I hung up.

I didn't sleep that night. I sat in that whole floor of empty hotel rooms, hearing echoes in the hallway. The sound of the air conditioner, the sound of the refrigerator, the sound of the sea.

I thought, he will call back.

He will definitely call back. He waited eighteen years. He won't give up because of a number.

The next day he called back.

I said, "The sea is big."

He said, "Is it?"

I said, "This floor is too big; there's an echo. Someone comes to clean in the morning, and I hide in the bathroom waiting for them to leave."

He said, "I can tell them not to come."

I said, "No need."

Then I said, "Have you thought about it?"

He didn't speak.

Eleven seconds.

I counted.

I said, "Fine."

I said, "I understand."

I hung up.

After hanging up, I did one thing. I opened the fridge and looked at that row of ovulation needles. Eight days' worth, and a few unused ones left.

I closed the fridge.

Then I started packing. One suitcase. I never had much stuff.

I remembered I hadn't checked out yet. There were twenty-two days left.

I thought of those cleaners who would still come tomorrow. And the day after. They would push their carts, go into each room, change towels, wipe surfaces, and tuck in the corners of the blankets. Two hours to finish the whole floor.

No one would tell them they didn't need to come anymore.

I left.

No one saw me again.

Later, I saw some things in the news.

His lawyer issued a statement. Over 30 million yuan, civil litigation.

He wrote an article. Over ten thousand words. The title was "My Girlfriend Jing Tian."

I didn't finish reading it.

I saw the part about filing the nails. He remembered it very clearly. Coarse side, fine side, in one direction.

He remembered every word I said.

But the person he wrote about wasn't me.

That person was a pixel in a 2007 QQ pop-up, a friend request on Xiaonei that wasn't accepted, the product of eighteen years of imagination.

He loved the waiting. Not me.

I thought of that night at Soneva Jani, the old German couple sitting at the next table, the Sri Lankan waiter walking past with a tray, and no one recognizing me.

I took off my sunglasses, took off my hat.

No one gave me a second look.

At that moment, I thought, this is the real me. No resources, no background, no 150-million-yuan movie, no Zhang Yimou or Matt Damon—just a thirty-seven-year-old woman sitting in a restaurant, eating a meal.

He was sitting opposite me.

Which one did he see?

My studio issued a statement. Eight words: "Believe in the law, leave it to the court."

I didn't write ten thousand words.

It wasn't that I had nothing to say. It was that saying it would be useless.

He has a hundred million followers, he has Twitter, he has lawyers, he has Claude Code, he has YouMind, he has a whole set of AI making decisions for him.

What do I have?

I have a tattoo that can't be washed off, a fine that has been paid in full, a box of unused ovulation needles in the fridge that was sent back, and a surrogate waiting in California for three months only to receive a cancellation notice.

And a child.

A child that never existed.

Born in 2027, if it were faster, it could even be the Year of the Horse.

This was my own suggestion.

Sometimes I wonder, what if he had given it that day?

Would I have stayed?

I thought about it for a long time.

The answer is: I don't know.

I really don't know.

Maybe I would have stayed, had a child, lived in a house in Mid-Levels, Hong Kong, looking at Victoria Harbour every day, waiting for him to fly back from some time zone.

Maybe I would have still left.

Because some things, fifty million US dollars cannot buy.

For example, when someone looks at you, they see you. Not a blurry photo from 2007. Not an eighteen-year obsession. Not a story about conquest that started from Xiaonei.com.

I want to be seen.

Not to be possessed.

It's August now. Beijing is very hot.

I live alone.

When I wake up in the morning, I stand by the window for a while. Not looking at anything, just looking.

Sometimes I think of that morning at Montage Laguna Beach, the cleaner pushing her cart in, and me hiding in the bathroom, hearing her outside changing towels and wiping surfaces.

She didn't know someone was inside.

She left as soon as she was done.

The sound of the door closing was very light.

Then the whole floor was empty again.

This article is purely fictional; any resemblance is purely coincidental.

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