There was an unusually quiet stillness all around, and one could even faintly hear the sound of cars driving by.
With just a subtle movement, everyone’s hearts were easily gripped. Jia He stared fixedly at him, only remembering that she had no more lines, yet no matter how she tried, she couldn’t think what to do next. She could only sigh silently in her heart, afraid they would have to reshoot the scene again.
Yi Wenze, however, looked as calm as ever, imperceptibly putting his hand down. “This matter today, I will not pursue any further. You also do not need to remain in the prince’s residence anymore.” After saying that, he bent down to pick up his “son” and indifferently left the room.
In the entire great hall, only a tearful Jia He was left standing there alone.
…
“Cut!” The director had a delighted expression on his face as he stood up. “Alright, it’s a wrap.”
There were still tears hanging on Jia He’s face. She awkwardly dabbed at them a couple times. As she walked to the door, Qiao Qiao immediately covered her up snugly with a down jacket. “So it’s you, huh. One heartbreaking scene nearly got turned by you into a melodramatic tragedy of romantic affections and parting in life and death. Luckily your idol reacted quickly enough.”
“Was it very bad?” Jia He already lacked confidence to begin with, and hearing Qiao Qiao say this made her even more uneasy.
“It was okay,” Qiao Qiao handed her a cup of hot water. “Why are you thinking so much? Anyway, you’re just making a cameo. Do you think the audience is watching you in this scene? Everyone’s eyes are glued on Yi Wenze.”
Although it was the truth, it made this diligent and conscientious extra feel extremely stifled in her chest.
As people were trickling away from the set, Yi Wenze was still standing by the monitor making a phone call, unlike his usual unruffled, faint smile. His brows were slightly knitted in a frown as he spoke on the phone while massaging his temples with his fingers. Jia He secretly snuck a glance at him before slowly dragging her feet as she left the door with Qiao Qiao.
For the next three days, Yi Wenze took leave from the crew for promotional activities for his movie, returning to Hong Kong.
Before leaving, he had specifically discussed the upcoming scenes with Director Jiang and left a lot of feedback. As a result, Little Ou ended up shoving a full ten pages of A4 paper, filled with writing, into Jia He’s hands, feeling guilty as he verbatim relayed Director Jiang’s words—She must properly revise these in the three days.
Little Ou giggled and then immediately fled as if flying away.
As Jia He stared at the stack of densely packed opinions, she suddenly had the misconception that this feeling was extremely similar to when she was in elementary school. When the teacher went away for three days for external training, he would deliberately leave behind a mountainous pile of homework, for fear the students would slack off…
But still, despite her complaints, she diligently locked herself away for two days until late into the second night before finally completing the task.
When she typed the last character, her mood instantly lifted and she swiftly opened up Internet Explorer. The microblog she had registered that day using the new account automatically logged her in. She was only following one person, Yi Wenze. She had not yet switched over to use her normal ID before she discovered that Yi Wenze, who had left his microblog idle for a month, had actually updated it.
The time was this afternoon. There was only one picture, taken at the airport, and no words at all. The black background of the microblog platform mixed with the white lighting of the afternoon airport and created an enticing hue.
She suddenly remembered that many years ago when she was still in high school, she had spent an entire day at home cutting out magazines before finally having a whole bed covered and would stick them one by one onto her notebook. Back then, there was no microblog or entertainment news or fan clubs. She could only fangirl over her favorite idol by herself, discussing for a few sentences at most with some classmates. The idols back then were truly blissful since their private lives were not magnified to this extent… The sweet and sour bitterness, when enlarged by the camera lens, all acquired the flavor of venom…
Drinking poison to quench thirst—that was truly the number one remarkable skill an idol needed to learn.
She calculated the time. From when the picture was posted to now, not even six hours had passed, yet there were already over 1,400 comments. It seemed her idol’s popularity was not considered low at all. Amidst the diverse forms of comments, there were clearly quite a few words from people in the entertainment circle as well, but those were all just vague, cryptic words of comfort in a line or two. Yi Wenze had only cherrypicked a couple comments to reply to, his words casually amusing and witty, seeming to indicate he was in good spirits.
Jia He scrolled with her mouse through all thousand-plus comments before finally returning back to her own microblog page.
With no profile picture or intro section set up and just that lone pathetic line of “Idol, I will always support you” left on the main page, strangely, next to the comments section, it showed “1.”
Who was so free that they would even comment on such silly words?
She clicked it open and swept a glance, instantly shocked still. The simple, three words—“Thank you”—were left in the comments by Yi Wenze.
On the monotonous page, with her stupid comment, the one who had left his remark was like a explosive bombshell. It instantaneously blasted apart Jia He’s mood that had just started to even out moments ago. She immediately closed the webpage, logged in again, took a deep breath, and reopened the comments. Those three words were still there along with that person. Glancing at the name she had registered with, it was truly as ordinary as could be, completely innocuous.
She suddenly felt like someone had stroked the nape of her neck in the middle of the night while she watched a horror movie.
On the air conditioner’s display screen, the light blue 24 degrees Celsius blinked repeatedly. It was clearly a very comfortable temperature, yet her heart was alternating between an icy cave and fiery pit. Jia He stood up, not knowing what she intended to do, and could only sit back down again. Feeling defeated, she rested her forehead on the keyboard, attempting to calm herself down.
Because of the force of her forehead, Word started rapidly recording endless gibberish that quickly filled up the screen and continued piling onto the next pages…
Until Qiao Qiao suddenly showed up twenty minutes later did Jia He’s computer finally receive salvation.
“Let’s go sing karaoke,” Qiao Qiao said as she came in through the door and took the initiative to close Jia He’s laptop for her. But then she discovered a screen filled with crazy symbols and glyphs. “Miss hoity-toity, isn’t the stress too much for you? Or did some ghost possess you that you smashed out stuff like this?”
Jia He hurriedly shut the display screen. “You just got back from Shanghai. You’re not tired?”
“Director Jiang said you’ve been busy for two days already and told me to take you out for some relaxation,” Qiao Qiao did not pursue her question further. “Let’s go. The car’s downstairs already.”
Taking one look at Qiao Qiao’s slightly reddened eyes, Jia He knew she was just finding an opportunity here to vent the distress of getting dumped yet again.
Lovelorn woes took precedence. Even though she currently only felt agitated because of her own awkward situation, she still went and threw on her down jacket to be relentlessly rushed along by Qiao Qiao down the hotel hallway and into the vehicle. Upon getting in, she discovered that there was a whole car full of people already. Assistant Director Cheng Hao hurriedly gave up his seat for Qiao Qiao and Jia He before squeezing in to sit beside someone else, causing that person to grimace.
“You’re seriously too high profile,” Jia He whispered by Qiao Qiao’s ear. “Just because you were in a bad mood, you went and dragged this many people to keep you company in your revelry.”
Qiao Qiao looked at her innocently. “Didn’t I say already? It’s to help relieve your stress.”
Jia He decided to stop arguing with her.
Most of the shops lining both sides of the road had already closed for the night, but their signboards were still blinking with light. There were also visibly fewer tourists because of the cold weather. Their vehicle did circuitous turns as it wound its way to the KTV. By the time they arrived, Qiao Qiao had already resumed her usual high spirits and ushered everyone into the venue. Since the people who had come along in the car were all on familiar terms with one another already, there were no qualms as they forthwith delved into exuberantly choosing songs the moment they stepped into their room.
The table was piled with four large packs of beer that were swiftly downed by half.
Having stared at her computer screen for two days, Jia He was too tired to fight over the microphone. She simply crowded in beside Qiao Qiao and listened to her alternate between cheering enthusiastically and mocking the cheesiness of someone she was familiar with who showed up in a music video. Jia He’s mind had already started drifting away, mulling over the television series’ script she was working on and contemplating whether she should take this opportunity over the next few days to make some adjustments. That way, she would not be rushing shamefully at the last minute and causing herself to suffer.
Qiao Qiao suddenly nudged her. “Oh my god, look who it is. Tian Chu.”
She reflexively lifted her head. The song had just switched over to the next one.
In the brilliant sunshine, a woman with long, fluttering hair was running along an empty highway toward the camera, happiness evident in her expression. This was Tian Chu’s famous song that had spread like wildfire across the lands two years ago. This song was precisely what had elevated her status solidly up into the first-tier.
As Jia He stared at the glaringly bright, large screen, she suddenly remembered the marriage date exposed by the media. That was around when this wildly popular song took off. Back then, she had only known that Yi Wenze had written the lyrics to it so she paid special attention to it but had not guessed the story behind it all…
At one time, this song had been one she would definitely belt out with all her might whenever she went singing.
Yi Wenze’s lyrics were simple and unadorned yet were able instill in people a subtle feeling of happiness. Every time she sang this song, she never needed to look at the lyrics on screen because she had long ago memorized them to perfection… As Jia He picked up the popcorn bucket from the table, listening to the lengthy prelude, she started feeling glad that Yi Wenze was currently in Hong Kong. Otherwise, who knew what sort of situation this would have become.
However, even if he truly had come, people surely would not have been so insensitive.
She had just grabbed a handful, preparing to toss them into her mouth, when the private, karaoke room door was suddenly shoved open. The singing noises from the room across the hallway came blaring in. She could hear a woman basically screaming out the song “Still Loving You Even in Death” at the top of her lungs. Because she was sitting closest to the door, Jia He gave a violent shudder from the ear-piercing vocals that came rushing in. She was just about to jump up and kick the door shut when she noticed, to her astonishment, the person who had come in was A Qing.
Yi Wenze’s assistant, A Qing.
“I finally found you guys,” A Qing made a helpless expression. “Qiao Qiao, why didn’t you check your phone? I had to poke through every room trying to find you and nearly got mobbed.” Both of A Qing’s hands were red from the cold and she kept rubbing them together to warm herself.
The man behind her blocked the light from outside the door. His casual clothes included a baseball cap with the brim partially obscuring his upper face so that no one could see his beautiful eyes. But everyone knew who he was… In that instant, Jia He’s first reaction was to rush over there to switch the song, but she happened not to anticipate that Cheng Hao, who had his back to the door, would have the audacity to call out, “How come no one’s singing Tian Chu’s song?” Oblivious to the sudden awkward atmosphere, he even added, “Should we change it?”
“I’ll sing, I’ll sing,” Qiao Qiao instantly went along with his lead. If they were to switch songs now, that truly would have been unbearably awkward.
But right after Qiao Qiao picked up the microphone, she instantly choked up. Qiao Qiao was straightforward by nature and totally disliked Tian Chu’s pure, innocent style to begin with. Hence, unfortunately, she truly did not know how to sing this.
Thankfully, her mind spun rapidly, and she instantly shoved the microphone into Jia He’s hands, hurriedly whispering by her ear, “I don’t know her songs. Quickly sing it. Don’t let your idol feel too uncomfortable.”
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