It was just dawn when Su Wan woke up. She didn’t linger in bed; the first thing she did after sitting up was reach for her phone. The screen lit up—88 percent battery, thanks to a full overnight charge before bed.

She nudged the desk lamp closer to the edge of her Su Wan’s bedroom desk, adjusting the angle so the light shone from the left front, avoiding any glare on her face. The curtains were drawn halfway, and outside, the breakfast stall downstairs had already begun to emit smoke, with the faint sound of youtiao sizzling in the oil. She set her phone on a stand.

“Let’s run through the process again,” she murmured, flipping open the script in her notebook.

Opening line: Close-up shot, straight question—“Do you also wake up only after the alarm has gone off for the eighth time?”

She tried it out in front of the camera: “Do you also…?” Then she shook her head. “Too stiff.”

Back to square one.

“This is the most painful part of every morning—not getting out of bed, but realizing after you do that you have to go out and see people.” This time, her tone was a bit more relaxed, almost like an offhand complaint. She nodded and jotted down this version.

With everything ready, she took a deep breath, turned off all filters, switched on the front-facing camera, and hit record.

The footage started rolling.

She sat at her desk, her hair tied into a low ponytail, wearing a loose white T-shirt. Her face was bare, with a slight dark circle under her eyes, but she looked fairly alert. The camera focused on her face, with an old wall covered in sticky notes and a class schedule as the backdrop.

“Girls, 8 a.m. crowd, assemble!” she said, her voice a little higher than usual, laced with a deliberately cheerful tone. “Is there anyone else like me who wakes up every day wondering: Can I just call in sick today?”

She paused for a second, then continued: “No way, right? So we’ve got to face reality—how can we spruce ourselves up in five minutes?”

As she spoke, she picked up three items from the table: a skin-tone cream / BB cream, an angled eyebrow pencil, and a tinted lip balm. All were standard supermarket brands, plain packaging, with price tags still stuck on them.

“First, apply the skin-tone cream, focusing on covering the dark circles under your eyes and the dullness around your mouth. You don’t need to cover your whole face—saves time and product,” she said, smoothing it on with quick, practiced wrist movements. “Remember, we’re not aiming for a flawless base; we want your complexion to look naturally even.”

Next came the brows—two strokes to define them, no lining or extra detailing. “Once your brows are in place, you instantly look more awake,” she winked at the camera. “Try it—you’ll see, just drawing on your brows will make your coworkers think you’ve changed your hairstyle.”

Finally, the lip balm: a light swipe, and her lips immediately gained a healthy flush. “This shade is called ‘milk tea nude pink’—30 yuan for three tubes. I’ll put the link in the comments,” she said with a smile. “Don’t thank me just yet; you’re going to love me even more later.”

In the last five seconds of the video, she stitched together a before-and-after comparison: on the left, her freshly-awakened face; on the right, her simple, polished look. A subtitle popped up: “It’s not about becoming beautiful—it’s about looking fresh.”

“Done,” she sighed, hitting stop.

She recorded three takes in total and chose the second one. The opening was a bit choppy, the third was smooth but the smile felt too forced, while the second was just right—flawed, but authentic.

Now for editing.

Using the built-in editing tools on her phone, she trimmed the first two seconds of black screen and the excess at the end, then spliced together the smoothest section in the middle. Her hands trembled a bit when adding subtitles, and she had to type “fake no-makeup” three times before getting it right. For the background music, she picked a light, upbeat tune whose rhythm perfectly synced with the transitions between steps, without stealing the spotlight.

The final video clocked in at one minute and nineteen seconds—perfect.

Before posting, she watched the finished clip again. The image wasn’t exactly HD; the desk lamp cast a small patch of light on her forehead, but she didn’t bother retouching it. In fact, that roughness made it feel more believable—who among working folks actually bothers to set up lighting in the morning?

She tapped “Post.”

The title read: [8 a.m. Faux No-Makeup Commuting Look | Done in Five Minutes, All Products Under 50 Yuan]

She added three hashtags: #commutingmakeup #affordablemakeup #workingpeople’sdailylife

Clicking “Confirm Upload,” the progress bar slowly crept upward. She stared at the screen, her fingers unconsciously tapping the desk.

Su Chen poked his head out from the living room: “Already posted?”

“Yep,” she replied without turning around. “Just uploaded it.”

“That fast?” He shuffled over in his slippers, holding half a cup of soy milk. “I thought you’d be tweaking it until noon.”

End of Chapter 6: The Fake No-Makeup Tutorial