Xiao Hua? Take a Look

By this point, the computer screen had long since gone dark from its owner’s neglect. Through the east-facing window, Li Xingqing looked outside; the streetlamp that should have been on showed not a trace of light.

She leaned closer and realized that there wasn’t even a bulb in the lamp housing.

No wonder it wasn’t lit, Li Xingqing thought with a soft sigh. She was just about to sit back down at the desk and sort through the plot of the episodes she had recently revised when she saw someone standing in the otherwise empty alley.

Worse, it was someone she knew: Xi Zhen.

Li Xingqing’s impulse to step away from the window faded. She stared at the figure, then suddenly noticed that something was off.

Xi Zhen was still wearing the same clothes she’d had on at dinner, but the way she walked was nothing like her usual posture.

One hand was braced against the wall; the other hung loosely at her side.

Her steps were cautious, one after another, with a slight stagger to them.

After watching for a moment, Li Xingqing suspected she might be injured. Without thinking any further, she turned and went out the door.

Xi Zhen had one hand on the rough wall, slowly feeling her way forward.

She couldn’t see the road at all. There were no streetlights here, and because it had rained during the day, the sky was now thick with clouds; there wasn’t even any moonlight. It was pitch-dark.

Even her phone, which should have helped her see, had run out of battery and turned into a completely useless brick.

Fortunately, Xi Zhen knew she had already reached the courtyard; once she managed to grope her way inside, everything would be fine.

She kept feeling her way forward, and because she couldn’t see, she looked rather miserable. As she walked, she suddenly sensed someone standing in front of her; on instinct alone, she guessed the person was fairly tall.

Xi Zhen’s already steady heartbeat suddenly lurched.

A little afraid, she was about to back up, but before she could move, a hand had already closed around her wrist.

“Ah!” Xi Zhen yelped, then immediately realized who was standing in front of her.

“Li Xingqing?” she asked tentatively.

A confirming answer came from the darkness. “Mm.”

Her panicked heart settled at once, and Xi Zhen inexplicably felt a rush of relief, as if she had just narrowly escaped disaster.

“Can’t sleep at night? Planning to play the villain?” Now that she knew it was someone familiar, Xi Zhen even started joking, as if the frightened person from a moment ago hadn’t been her at all.

As she spoke, Li Xingqing shifted to Xi Zhen’s left, but the hand that had been holding hers never let go.

Whether because she didn’t mind in the dark or for some other reason, Xi Zhen didn’t pull away. She simply let Li Xingqing keep holding her hand.

“Are you hurt?”

“Hm?” The question made no sense to Xi Zhen.

“You were walking with one hand on the wall just now,” Li Xingqing explained, apparently both justifying her rather abrupt action and answering the reason for her question.

“Oh, right. It’s a little dark here; I can’t see very well.” Xi Zhen said it lightly, as if this weren’t much of an inconvenience at all.

Unfortunately, that feigned ease couldn’t fool Li Xingqing. After a brief silence between them, Li Xingqing spoke. “You’re afraid of the dark.” It was a statement; she had already confirmed that Xi Zhen was afraid of the dark, even if Xi Zhen was still trying to act relaxed.

Xi Zhen: “……”

The other woman’s bluntness was almost frightening; instead, it left her at a loss for words.

As for being afraid of the dark, even if the other person knew, that shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

“Yes, so thank you, little one, for rushing out into the dark to save me in the middle of the night.”

Xi Zhen took the hand Li Xingqing had been holding and turned the grip around, even swinging it lightly, as if she were really expressing gratitude.

“You’re welcome.” Xi Zhen’s original position wasn’t far from the courtyard anyway; after only a couple of steps, Li Xingqing led her inside.

Click—the light beneath the corridor eaves came on, and Xi Zhen finally saw Li Xingqing’s face. That usual cool, indifferent expression; when she wasn’t speaking, she really did look a little intimidating.

Xi Zhen let go of her hand, then patted Li Xingqing on the shoulder. “Thanks. Go to bed early; there’s still the opening ceremony tomorrow.”

That gesture completely broke through Li Xingqing’s otherwise expressionless face. Her eyes flickered as she watched Xi Zhen hurry upstairs without stopping, saying nothing.

Li Xingqing hadn’t missed one detail when she first ran into Xi Zhen: Xi Zhen had been frightened at first, and only after confirming it was her had she looked relieved.

If she really just couldn’t see well, would she have been that terrified?

The night deepened again.

Li Xingqing slept well that night. Although this courtyard was a bit old, it was clearly lived in; it carried a subtle sense of human warmth.

The person living upstairs from her, Bai Mo, hadn’t come back all night. No one knew what he had gone off to do.

Before her alarm even rang, Li Xingqing had already opened her eyes.

She turned off the alarm and went outside to wash up.

Old houses had this one drawback: all the washing areas were in the open air. Li Xingqing pushed open the door, walked around to the sink near the stairs, and saw that Xi Zhen was already fully dressed and ready to leave.

Today Xi Zhen was dressed casually, wearing a loose light-colored shirt over a white tank top, paired with washed-effect curved-leg jeans. Her waist-length curls were left down, and she had on a baseball cap; it was a very everyday outfit.

But no matter how ordinary it looked, it still couldn’t hide the striking beauty of her features.

Li Xingqing still had a toothbrush in hand. Seeing Xi Zhen, who was already ready to head out, she suddenly felt an odd sense that she herself was far too sloppy.

They looked at each other for a while; in the end, it was Xi Zhen who spoke first. “Bai Mo already arranged for a stylist on his side. The timing’s a little tight; did I wake you just now?”

The old house wasn’t well insulated, and the washing area was outside. Xi Zhen had noticed that Li Xingqing hadn’t closed the east-facing window just now and had assumed she’d been too noisy, so she apologized.

“No, I usually get up around this time too.” Li Xingqing shook her head, saying she really hadn’t been disturbed.

“Take this; have it for breakfast. It tastes pretty good. See you on set in a bit.” Xi Zhen took a milkshake out of her tote bag, set it on the concrete ledge beside them, then waved and went downstairs.

Watching her leave, Li Xingqing glanced at the milkshake on the ledge and thought that Xi Zhen really did treat her like a child, feeding her snacks from time to time, just like she had done with Xiao Hei back then.

Speaking of Xiao Hei, she wondered how it was doing now. When she had time, she should go back and see it again.

Having made up her mind, she took the milkshake and went to wash up.

The seats for the opening ceremony had been arranged in advance, though Li Xingqing was here for the first time. In fact, she originally hadn’t needed to come at all; as someone following the production only as a scriptwriter, all she had to do was revise the script as needed.

But Ke Wei didn’t care about that. She sent out a unified address, and Li Xingqing herself didn’t have anything else going on. She had no inspiration during the day anyway, so it was better to come take a look and at least feel involved.

Seal the Heart was a low-budget project, and the actors, to put it bluntly, were all little no-name types. There weren’t many onlookers at the opening ceremony, and everything went fairly smoothly.

Bai Mo must have been off doing who knew what yesterday. Li Xingqing’s seat wasn’t far from his, and she could faintly hear a couple of things Xi Zhen said to him.

“You’ve got dark circles down to your chin, and you still want to act? I might as well go find a zoo and have you play a panda instead.”

“Enough. Stop looking so wronged. Anyone who didn’t know better would think I was bullying you.”

“This can’t happen again. Do you hear me?”

She hadn’t expected Xi Zhen to be this sharp-tongued. Li Xingqing listened and thought, That’s more like it.

She didn’t think Xi Zhen looked like Bai Mo’s overworked mom-assistant. Standing next to him, Xi Zhen clearly had more presence. Probably a manager? But since she’d previously been introduced as an assistant, maybe Xi Zhen wore multiple hats.

Li Xingqing thought it over for a while, then decided it didn’t matter.

So what if she guessed right? At most, her relationship with Xi Zhen now was just... neighbors? Or, at best, friends.

Once this scene was filmed, they probably wouldn’t have another chance to meet after this. Knowing too much about irrelevant things would only add to her troubles.

The opening ceremony proceeded smoothly, and production moved forward in an orderly fashion.

Although Ke Wei wasn’t especially famous in the industry and her previous works had all been relatively niche, she was truly a very charismatic director.

Li Xingqing liked working with people like that; meticulous at work, but laid-back to the extreme in life. Usually, when she saw Ke Wei on set, as long as Ke Wei was sitting in front of the monitor, her face was always stern. Even when she was explaining scenes to Bai Mo and the others, she was completely serious.

But if you saw Ke Wei before work had started, she seemed like a completely different person. When facing Li Xingqing, whose age was clearly still rather young, she would even pull her over and ask whether she had eaten yet.

If she didn’t get a yes, she would rummage through her bag or pockets and pull out something to give Li Xingqing. So considerate, in fact, that it made Li Xingqing feel a little bad, and she could only work even more carefully on the script, hoping that every character could make proper use of their value.

At some point, a bulb had been installed under the empty lamp housing next to the old house. It was motion-sensitive; as long as someone passed by, it would light up.

The first time Xi Zhen saw it, she was a little surprised and assumed that the light had simply broken by chance that night, only to be repaired in the next two days.

Li Xingqing, who had quietly contributed the feat without taking credit, stuffed all the tools she’d bought for installing the bulb into a corner of the room, planning to deal with them when it was time to leave.

The little rabbit that had sat by the bedside for a long time silently watched every move its owner made, as if it had already come to understand this owner’s character over the long years.

Quiet and reserved, yet very kind.

After filming started, Li Xingqing stayed with the production at all times, ready to explain the emotional state each scene required to the actors. Whenever she had a rare free moment, she often went for a walk nearby.

This area was rather remote, but there were advantages to having fewer people around.

Li Xingqing needed this kind of quiet space, somewhere she could fully relax and think about other things.

For example, her precarious lies; and the future she couldn’t quite see.

A few little flowers still bloomed by the roadside. Li Xingqing didn’t recognize the plant, but she thought the nameless blossoms were especially lovely.

She bent down, wanting to look more closely, just as a gust of wind came by. Dandelion seeds blown from somewhere not far away surged toward her.

She couldn’t dodge in time and inhaled some of the seeds, sneezing hard several times.

In her embarrassment, a hand holding a tissue appeared before her.

“Here. Wipe yourself off.”

“Thanks.”

“No need to be polite.”

Author’s Note:

I think everyone has already noticed Sister Xi’s little quirk. That’s right, it’s feeding the kid!

Li Xingqing: This one tastes good, added to the shopping list. That one tastes good too, added to the shopping list!

Xi Zhen: Do you think I’m a plant-shopping list?

Li Xingqing: .....