Xiao Yu lowered her head, nonchalantly picking up a shrimp dumpling with her chopsticks and flinging it onto Jia He’s plate, her gaze burning.
“Don’t be fooled by how quickly he made that clarification announcement. Based on my many years of experience in the entertainment industry circle, those two definitely have something going on.” He took out a matchbox, pinching out a match.
“Damn,” Xiao Yu uncharacteristically swore under her breath. “He’s still trying to put on an act.”
“Stop causing a ruckus.” Jia He glared at her, then continued pricking up her ears to listen in.
Those two college arts students were clearly also very interested. One was even extremely excited as she babbled on about how she had always liked Wu Zhilun and for this year’s Lunar New Year film lineup, she had watched his movie three or four times already. Casually cradling the lit flame in his palm, that young man deeply inhaled before continuing slowly, “Do you guys know about Yi Wenze’s new movie? The trailer came out today. I have an insider buddy who shared it with me. That woman is also in it and it looks like she has quite a lot of scenes. I ask you, if there’s nothing going on between them, how could some no-name newbie actress who has never shown her face before end up playing opposite Yi Wenze?”
He deliberately left them hanging.
One of the young women promptly took the bait. “That’s right! Wu Zhilun and Yi Wenze have been friends for more than a decade. So does that mean Wu Zhilun talked things over with Yi Wenze and the production team and pulled some strings to get his own girlfriend a role?”
Jia He gave a jerk of her hand and spilled vinegar outside of the small dish.
Too awesome… This reasoning ability. This young girl was not suited for acting; she was definitely suited to be a screenwriter.
Xiao Yu hurriedly pulled out some napkins to help Jia He clean up while chuckling under her breath, “Sounds pretty convincing when you put it that way.”
“Stop listening to his nonsense,” Jia He said drily. “I was forced by Qiao Qiao and the rest to do it. My total scenes add up to just a couple minutes with three lines… And because I’m the screenwriter, they said it was to silently show support for the production crew and didn’t even pay me.”
Xiao Yu snorted with laughter. “That’s got Qiao Qiao’s style written all over it. Kick someone when they’re down and penny pinch.”
Jia He stuffed that entire shrimp dumpling into her mouth. When she returned, she definitely needed to watch that trailer and see how her face had ended up in it…
That other table was still continuing to babble on with their discussion. The two women hastily finished their meal. Xiao Yu was just settling their bill when one of the young girls was still murmuring about that matter: “I read some online gossip forum posts. That woman is already twenty-six or twenty-seven. Why would Wu Zhilun like someone so old?”
Jia He gave a little sniff. Was she considered very old? Wu Zhilun was already thirty-five himself…
“Oh well, it’s just fate,” the other girl sighed. “I’m going to an audition in a couple days. I wonder if I’ll get lucky like her and run into some big celebrity star.”
In contrast, Xiao Yu did not have much of a reaction. She took the card and bill the server handed to her and stuffed them into her bag. With a mocking smile that did not reach her eyes, she turned her head and said to that girl who was using her phone screen as a mirror while examining her own face, “An audition? I suggest you start sharpening and contouring your jawline first. Getting older isn’t that worrying since you can cover it up with makeup anyway. But if your face is a little big, once you’re on camera, you really will look like a pancake.”
Her volume was not loud yet also not soft, just perfect for the two tables of people to overhear.
The other table clearly reacted with stunned silence. Just as they were about to retort something back angrily after regaining their senses, when they saw Jia He, they noticeably hesitated and did not utter any sound.
Jia He was galloping like the wind as she pulled Xiao Yu outside.
It was not until they were in the car that she fiercely beat Xiao Yu with her bag. Still shielding herself, Xiao Yu laughed, “What’s wrong with standing up for you a little?”
“Drive,” Jia He ordered once she had vented enough anger. Hugging her bag, she glowered at the road ahead and decided to pretend Xiao Yu did not exist.
Once they were on Beijing’s Third Ring Road, they very soon arrived at Xiao Yu’s home. After swiftly washing up, Jia He sprawled on the bed and began absentmindedly staring at her phone screen, seriously debating whether she should give him a call saying she was going to sleep.
In the end, after agonizing over it for half a day, she still ended up going online to ask Qiao Qiao for that trailer. As soon as Jia He mentioned this, Qiao Qiao immediately rushed to declare she had purposely watched from the side for a long time before painstakingly managing to get Jia He’s scenes added in. Jia He did not know whether to laugh or cry, but she was too lazy to say more to Qiao Qiao about the embarrassing situation she had found herself in tonight. She swiftly obtained the trailer and promptly disconnected from the Internet.
She watched that three minute trailer from beginning to end, then end to beginning, a good four or five times.
The freaking thing was, she had actually been tortured into crying for half a day…
Right when she was continuously pulling out tissue after tissue, her phone buzzed with an incoming text message. Her heart gave a thump. She roughly guessed who it was, and her heart raced uncontrollably as she picked up her phone. Sure enough, it was from Yi Wenze: Are you asleep?
She promptly hit the callback button, but then immediately disconnected it. Shoot, she had just been crying earlier so her voice must sound awful…
Very soon, her phone rang as he called back. She desperately coughed twice to try to make herself sound normal before finally picking up and forcing an easy tone as she said, “How’d you know I’m not asleep yet?”
It sounded like he had taken a drink of water over there before slowly responding at an unhurried pace, “I’m already very familiar with your habits.”
The sounds of Xiao Yu taking a shower could be heard in the background. Feeling a little guilty, Jia He walked over to the window and looked down at the street below, where vehicles were still continuously coming and going. Her finger unconsciously and randomly doodled on the glass pane. “How come you’re not asleep yet?”
He gave a chuckle. “I was waiting for your call.”
She uttered an “Oh.” Then all of a sudden, she did not know how else to continue the conversation.
Usually when she made calls to him, she would say whatever came to mind about things she had just seen or thought of. But right now, faced with him, what was she supposed to talk about…? She was struggling immensely when Yi Wenze unexpectedly asked, “Were you crying earlier?”
“… Mm-hmm.”
“What happened?”
She could only honestly admit, “I just watched the trailer and was tortured into tears.”
Silence for a moment on his end. Then his voice faintly carried laughter as he told her, “Write less tragically next time.”
Hearing him laugh, her heart gave a thud. She cautiously said, “You also feel it’s too sad?”
“It’s all right.”
“What did you think when you watched the trailer?”
He casually analyzed, “Domestically, there’s a lack of sad, tragic dramas recently. If the promotions are done well, the viewership should be pretty good.”
Jia He fell silent. Why did his response seem so… official? “What I meant is, were you not moved by it?”
He appeared to seriously contemplate this for a moment. “It was all right. As long as the ending is happy, that is good enough.”
For some reason, she felt let down.
“I cried for a long time when I saw you film that kiss scene with Liao Jing.”
What she had wanted to say was: that kissing scene. But when the words were at her lips, she still felt it somehow seemed inappropriate and she also still felt a trace of discomfort in her heart. To think, her favorite thing to do had been watching Yi Wenze’s kissing scenes… She would always be able to swiftly find out exactly what the time point was in all those movies that had kissing scenes. As expected, once the relationship had changed, she was starting to mind those things.
Yet he unexpectedly responded right away, “Kissing scenes are only acting requirements. There’s no need for you to take them so much to heart.”
Jia He’s face grew hot. He had actually heard her implication so quickly. She was a screenwriter, for crying out loud. After watching so many kissing scenes already, how could she still need someone to console her like this? Wouldn’t that make her seem like she had no class?
Before she could even think of how she should respond, laughter was already sounding from the other end. “Jia He, let me teach you a method. In the future, every time he films a kissing scene, you can make up for it when you get home. What others get once, you get one hundred times. In the end, you’re guaranteed to become numb to it.”
It was Wu Zhilun…
In that instant, Jia He was stunned rigid. There was actually someone listening in…? She swiftly did not dare say anything more and anxiously asked, “Is there someone else over there with you?”
“Mm.” His tone was indifferent. “We’re in a company meeting.”
A company meeting?
He was actually in a company meeting?!
“I’m going to sleep now, then.” She swiftly finished saying this and hung up the phone.
After pacing around the room for some time, she felt more and more embarrassed the more she thought about it. She could only send another text message: Actually, I don’t really mind…
Ding. The text reply came swiftly: It’s nothing. It’s normal to feel that way. Go to sleep sooner.
If he was in a meeting, there would definitely be more than one person present…
However, Wu Zhilun had directly said those types of words. As soon as anyone else heard them, they would know Yi Wenze was talking on the phone with his girlfriend.
Girlfriend… Jia He shook her head. She actually still felt like this was unreal.
In the days that followed, Jia He was extremely busy, because she had arrived a few days late. Normally, half a day would be spent in meetings and the other half of the day resting and organizing information materials. That entire week, though, she was in meetings the entire day. She worked on sorting through information materials until three or four o’clock in the morning every day. It was also because of this that she could only call Yi Wenze during occasional breaks or send him a couple text messages.
But the good thing about this was that it enabled them to have progressively closer contact, which allowed Jia He to slowly start accepting that she truly was in a relationship with him now.
Sometimes when she felt too embarrassed, she would also ask, “You won’t mind that I’m too busy, right?”
He was not bothered about this, though. “I’m also rarely so free these days. Once work truly starts up, time will get arranged very full. You’ll need to prepare yourself for that.”
Jia He considered this. No wonder. A relationship was difficult when you were an actor. The whole point of being in a relationship was to interact and converse to maintain feelings, right?
She leaned against the hallway and softly said, “That’s no problem. When the time comes, I’ll just take on a couple more projects and write nonstop day and night. I won’t have time to miss you that way.” After she finished speaking, she felt embarrassed. “When you get truly busy, make sure you let me know. I won’t disturb you.”
Someone walked down the hallway past her, smilingly nodding a greeting. Jia He hurriedly smiled back, a bit nervous that her words just now had been overheard.
“Check your email when you get back,” Yi Wenze remarked and then stated, “I have a guest here. We’ll talk more tonight.”
“All right.”
After Jia He hung up the call, by the time she returned to the conference room, everyone was laughing and joking around.
She noiselessly poured herself a glass of water, walked over to her seat, and clicked open her email. A new message had just come in, with only a simple line: This is the most recent update.
She felt somewhat baffled until she opened the attachment and reacted blankly in pleasant surprise. It was as if she had been touched in the softest part of her heart, and she was purely moved.
What he had sent her was his work schedule for the latter half of the year, his entire arrangements laid out.
The lively background noises were still going on, but she was as if in another world by herself, not even paying attention when the topic of the discussion turned to discussing the next steps regarding the new drama.
“Jia He,” Director Liu unexpectedly called her name.
Still in a confused daze, it took her a while before she focused. “What is it, Director Liu?”
Director Liu chuckled. “I watched the trailer for your latest TV series. You’re guaranteed to shoot to fame.”
Jia He gave an embarrassed smile. “Hopefully.”
“That role Yi Wenze plays will definitely bring him skyrocketing popularity again,” Director Liu continued. “Just yesterday, I was even considering whether I need to hurry and get a project sent over, borrowing the momentum of Eternal Peace to have him do another period costume piece.”
Jia He forced a laugh while constantly praying, Director Liu, please stop talking…
Thankfully, he merely laughed and nodded, then dropped this topic of conversation.
After an entire week of intensive meetings, it was not until nighttime that she at long last returned home. Amidst her mother’s rebukes for her lack of conscience, she finally somehow managed to finish putting away her things and successfully persuaded her mother to keep playing mahjong before slipping into her own room.
Pasted on the wall behind her computer was a poster of Yi Wenze from years ago when he had first shot to fame. At that time, she had been only fifteen or sixteen years old when she bought it at Xidan Book Building. She would never have imagined that more than ten years later, she would have such strong ties with him. Unknowingly, two weeks had passed where the two of them kept in contact solely through phone calls. Sometimes when she thought about it, it truly did seem like they were in an online, long-distance relationship…
She picked up her mobile phone, an idea suddenly popping into her head. “Do you have a webcam on your computer…?”
Quietness for a moment on his end before he finally said, “Hold on. Let me have A Qing set things up.”
She gave an “Mm-hmm.” A Qing had already taken over the call: “Screenwriter, do you use MSN[25] messenger?”
Jia He reported her MSN account to her. After a while, someone added her. It turned out to directly use the three characters “Yi Wen Ze” … The two women tinkered about for half a day before they finally were able to see the video picture. On that end was his study. A Qing’s head swayed back and forth as she watched for quite some time before finally speaking to the computer screen, “Screenwriter, your room is so girly and pink…”
Jia He gave a laugh. “I haven’t been back home in a long time. This is still my high school bedroom.”
A Qing very sensibly moved out of the way. The view on the video instantly opened up, and that familiar face crashed into her sight. Jia He was suddenly somewhat embarrassed. How could she have not changed her clothes…?
Just as she was about to say something, the door was unexpectedly pushed open.
With one hand holding a fruit platter, her mother nagged about how she needed to eat more strawberries to fight aging as she swept a glance at the computer screen. She promptly said, “Yi Wenze again? When are you ever going to switch your idol?” Jia He blankly gaped, unable to shut off the window in time before her mother had already leaned in to scrutinize the screen. “Is this video? It’s not a concert, is it? The atmosphere seems quite ordinary and everyday.”
Jia He felt like crying. In her nervousness, the words actually tumbled straight out of her mouth: “It’s a secretly filmed video…”
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