The phone call ended just like that, and Jia He still felt as if in a fog.
Yi Wenze put his phone aside, picked up the landline phone, and dialed an extension. “Ah Qing, could you please bring some food in? Thank you.”
The light congee and dishes didn’t seem to have any taste, whether it was because of her cold or because he kept watching her eat the entire time. Only after forcing everything down did she put her bowl down. “What time is it?”
Yi Wenze glanced at his watch. “Nine o’clock.”
Nine?
She had actually slept until the middle of the night. “I’m sorry for bothering you for so long.”
He neither agreed nor denied. “Do you want to sleep a little longer?”
Sleep… Jia He was struck speechless by him. She suddenly felt like she had just openly and blatantly slept for a long time right in front of him.
In the past, she had also watched TV shows he acted in as she slept in her own room, hugging her blanket and drifting off in a daze. She had felt that being able to fall asleep listening to her idol’s voice was true happiness. But now, that was clearly not on the same level at all.
In this very dark room, there were only the two of them, one lying on the bed and the other sitting at the bedside.
“I’ve slept too much. I want to go out and watch some TV,” Jia He mumbled after a long period of silence, coming up with an extremely pointless sentence.
After another lengthy stretch of quiet, he finally said with a smile, “How about watching a movie instead?”
She blanked briefly before reacting that there probably wasn’t cable television in Yi Wenze’s home…
She had originally wanted to alleviate the awkwardness of being alone together, but they had merely shifted locations in the end, from the guest room to the study. Compared to last night’s liveliness, tonight was much quieter. Ah Qing had casually mentioned Wu Zhilun was attending an event tonight and would probably come to spend the night after midnight. Then she told Jia He where things like the flower tea and teapot were, and had even specially taken her to see where the tea light candles were kept…
In reality, her fever had already gone down. She was just feeling a little weak and listless, but was still relatively healthy compared to Yi Wenze.
And so, ever since Ah Qing closed the door, she had started assuming the role of caregiver.
After steeping the tea and lighting the candle, the transparent teapot was placed over the fire.
Only then did she pause and look at Yi Wenze sitting behind the desk. “Should I go downstairs to grab some food?”
Yi Wenze smiled. “No need. The discs are on those shelves over there. Go ahead and pick something.”
Since she was the one who suggested it, Jia He didn’t feel right declining further politeness. She could only carefully look through the rows and rows of CD shelves. The variety was quite abundant. There was one shelf in particular where all the discs were movies that had just been recently released.
Her eyes swept over Ju Jiu’s new movie at first glance, Qian Du [Ex-Boyfriend].
This film had received quite favorable reviews. Without thinking too much, she popped the disc into the player.
It was amusing at the start, but the further in it went, the more it was filled with ambiguous scenes between Ju Jiu and her ex-boyfriend. The more Jia He watched, the more uncomfortable she felt. She subtly turned the volume down a bit and discreetly glanced at Yi Wenze to see he still seemed to be looking through documents, apparently not paying attention to what was on the screen. Only then did she secretly heave a sigh of relief.
But when she was changing discs midway, he suddenly spoke up.
“What, not a good watch?”
Jia He hemmed and hawed. “No, I just suddenly realized I’ve seen this already.”
“Among the smaller Hong Kong productions recently, there are quite a few good ones,” Yi Wenze said as he signed a stack of documents. “That one, Return of the Cuckoo, is also not bad. It’s very true-to-life.”
Jia He blurted out, “The seven day dating one?”
It was the film starring Yu Wenle and Miriam Yeung. From beginning to end, the main impression she was left with after watching the whole thing was the seven day whirlwind romance. It fit right in with the current culture of fast romance, but no matter how she looked at it, the foundation seemed too weak.
Yi Wenze appeared to be in an exceptionally leisurely mood, setting his pen down. “Both films received good reviews. Which do you like better?”
Listening to this, no matter how you sliced it, it sounded like he was asking: between an ex’s ambiguity or a new flame’s whirlwind passion, which do you prefer?
The flame beneath the tea light candle was leisurely yet steadily burning the tea water.
Jia He hesitated for a moment. “To be honest, I don’t really like watching urban romance movies. I prefer The East is Red.”
A very old film. Back in her college days, she could recite practically all of the dialogue.
“Go take a look at that third shelf, tenth disc over. That should be it,” he suddenly instructed.
“Old or new version?”
“Old one.”
She walked over as directed. Pulling it out, it really was that disc.
“When it was released in 1994, the movie was a huge box office failure at first, but because it won a lot of major awards, it suddenly became popular,” he paused and smiled at Jia He. “You must have only been around thirteen or so back then?”
Jia He did a quick mental calculation. “Not even ten years old yet,” she saw he had filed it away properly and casually asked, “Do you really like this film, too?”
His reply: “If judging from the cinematography and editing, I like it very much, but I don’t particularly admire the male lead’s personality.”
Jia He sighed as she thought about Brother Leslie Cheung. “Self-exile?”
Yi Wenze smiled. “His attitude of avoiding emotions.”
Jia He hadn’t expected the conversation to shift to this topic and didn’t know how to respond for a time. She could only laugh dryly, saying Brother’s acting was good while putting that disc into the player to continue killing time. By around eleven-something, right when the movie was nearing the end, Ah Qing finally knocked on the door to say Qiao Qiao had arrived. Jia He felt as if she had received a pardon and fled downstairs like her life depended on it.
Qiao Qiao had lugged over two boxes of Xiaolongbao [soup dumplings], and was drinking water downstairs when she saw her. She immediately winked. “One box to butter up your idol, one box for me to butter up my Bassdar husband. What do you think? Aren’t I awesome?”
Ah Qing giggled at that while Jia He felt extremely embarrassed.
She helped Qiao Qiao carry one box of dumplings to the kitchen while the other box went to the guest room.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Qiao Qiao suddenly said.
Jia He stared blankly at her. “Why wouldn’t that be okay?”
Qiao Qiao immediately flopped onto the bed, smiling as she said, “Won’t get in the way of anything good happening, right?”
Jia He finally understood her implication. “Stop fooling around. If you hadn’t driven away with my car, I wouldn’t have had to stay here for the night either.”
Qiao Qiao looked all around her, up and down. “When you were passed out sleeping this afternoon, I came back already. How come I didn’t see you driving away?”
“You came back this afternoon?”
“Of course. With your high fever not going down, how could I not rush back?” Qiao Qiao grinned. “Too bad. Clearly I was extraneous. Even Wu Zhilun, who’s such a skilled actor, didn’t dare play third wheel. Let alone me.”
Jia He was rendered speechless. Since she had slept like the dead in the afternoon, no matter how Qiao Qiao fabricated things, there was no way for her to poke holes in it. She tacitly stayed silent.
Qiao Qiao fidgeted around for a while longer before embracing her pillow and falling sleep. Jia He thought she had slept too much during the day and kept tossing and turning in bed. By one o’clock, she still hadn’t fallen asleep. When she went out for water, she unconsciously took a look at the study. The light was still on.
She wavered for half a minute before slowly walking upstairs and knocking on the door.
“Come in.” Yi Wenze’s voice was a little low-pitched, the tiredness audible.
She half pushed the door open and saw he was still sitting behind the desk, in front of the computer.
The tea light candle had long burned out, leaving only the dregs of tea behind.
The screen still showed the paused frame from when she went downstairs, Maggie Cheung Man Yuk frozen in the middle of some motion, wearing a bright red cheongsam.
He typed a last few words before raising his head to look at her. “Still not asleep?”
Fortunately Jia He had already thought up an excuse before coming upstairs. She only smiled and said, “I woke up halfway feeling hungry. Qiao Qiao happened to bring a box of Xiaolongbao dumplings. May as take the chance to cook them since we’re both awake. Want to eat together?” The pre-prepared excuse made her feel much more at ease. She admired more and more her own steadiness.
“Alright.”
“Should I add an egg?”
She wasn’t very clear about Hong Kong people’s tastes. If not for Qiao Qiao giving her a crash course, she wouldn’t have even known of this Xiaolongbao dumpling brand’s existence. She simply used common sense thinking that when cooking noodles, you should crack an egg in to make it tastier.
He nodded again, his smile deepening. “Sure.”
Jia He had originally wanted to ask some more questions, but figured he probably didn’t know what was available in the fridge either. She may as well take a look herself and add in anything tasty she found. Seeing Yi Wenze truly seeming interested, she hurried downstairs to rummage around the kitchen. The Shanghai aunty had likely dropped by with more groceries today. She swiftly dug out luncheon meat [spam] and eggs, took out a pot to boil water, and only then discovered the box of dumplings hadn’t been opened yet.
There was a wide adhesive sealing the box shut. She squatted on the ground and slowly tore at the edges with her fingers. Hearing the water start boiling, she was about to stand up when a hand had already turned down the heat behind her.
She turned around. Yi Wenze was leaning against the marble countertop and told her, “The scissors should be in that right cabinet.”
Jia He hastily squatted down again to grab the scissors, cut open the box, and took out two packs of dumplings.
The boiling water continuously let off steam, emitting faint sounds.
After she opened the packs and took out the dumplings, Yi Wenze had already sliced open the luncheon meat and took out a clean plastic cutting board to neatly cut it into slices with smooth, extremely skilled motions that made Jia He, an amateur with knives, break out into a sweat of shame.
Next, crack the eggs and add the meat.
He took over practically all the prep work while Jia He slowly transformed into his assistant, passing him things until he picked up bamboo cooking chopsticks and started stirring. Only then did Jia He recall that she had originally said she wanted to cook noodles for him to eat…
Feeling somewhat embarrassed, she started making small talk. “What a coincidence. Both movies we talked about tonight had noodle-cooking scenes. Seems all you Hong Kongers truly love eating this.”
His expression hovered between a smile and not. He gave her a look. “Get out two empty bowls.”
Jia He hurried to the cupboards again to take out two white porcelain bowls. One was swiftly filled.
He went to pour some cold water as well and started boiling it.
“Why don’t you eat first?” She helped him tear open the other pack of dumplings.
“It’s fine. It’ll be quick,” was his tranquil reply.
She felt awkward. “I was the one who said I’d cook for you to eat…”
“Does your leg feel okay coming downstairs like this?”
“It’s fine,” he calmly answered. “As long as you don’t have any demands for me to play ball or go running, there shouldn’t be any issues.”
Jia He quieted. If she did make demands for him to play sports or run, she estimated she would face a thousands cuts and burns torture ending in a wretched death by both his agency and fans.
Tiny bubbles started spreading from the bottom of the pot, slowly beginning to boil again.
With nothing left to pass to him and no other tasks she could think of to occupy herself, and at a loss for conversation, she could only stand by his side and stare at the bubbles on the pot bottom to distract herself. Not until he dished out another bowl of noodles did she hurry to hold out her hand to take the pot, wanting to go rinse it clean first.
Completely unguarded, her hand touched his in the process.
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