Where Is She? Someone Help

The six of them gathered at the hotpot restaurant. After the laughter and chatter died down, Ke Wei briefly explained the situation and honestly said that the venue might no longer be available after National Day.

This was no small matter. Even though Ke Wei said it as calmly as she could, the atmosphere still cooled a little.

Zheng Yuyu was the first to ask, “Then are we still shooting according to the original plot?”

That question went straight to the point. To save costs, the *Seal the Heart* crew had already packed the schedule very tightly. Now that they had suddenly lost a week, there was no way they could stick to the original script and still finish on time.

“It’s impossible to follow the original script completely; we’ll probably need a major overhaul,” Ke Wei answered. Then she turned to Li Xingqing. “Since Xingqing is here, and you know the script best, you should also know the original content is too complicated. We’ll have to cut and revise it drastically.”

Li Xingqing nodded to show she understood. In fact, from the very beginning, she had already felt that a month of shooting was a little too short. Now that the schedule had been shortened again without warning, changes were unavoidable.

“Later, I’ll talk to you about the specific revisions,” Ke Wei said. “I brought this up today mainly so everyone can be mentally prepared. After all, if we really do cut things, the most likely parts to go will be the leads’ scenes. No other reason; the leads just have the most scenes.”

“So that means we might be doing live rewrites from now on?” Bai Mo immediately realized something was off. If there were revisions, then the lines he’d memorized...

That was truly devastating.

He shot a look at Xi Zhen, only to receive a confirming nod from her. In an instant, he felt as if an arrow had struck his chest. He promptly clutched his chest with both hands, his face twisting in exaggerated pain after the blow, while choking out, “N-no way~”

As expected of an actor, everyone was amused by his antics, and the atmosphere finally loosened up a little.

“Then let’s wish *Seal the Heart* smooth sailing and a huge hit!”

Everyone raised their glasses together, keeping one another company in the small hours of the morning as they looked ahead to a bright future.

After that, Li Xingqing experienced firsthand what it meant to be on the grind nonstop: during the day she was at the set “directing the country,” and at night she went home hugging her laptop and “writing with passion.”

After confirming with Ke Wei which portions had to be kept, the overall revisions and all the logic-chain fixes were left to Li Xingqing. Rarely, the first job she found turned out to be this challenging; it even far exceeded what she had imagined at the beginning.

Fortunately, Li Xingqing was excellent. Objectively speaking, she was excellent; whether it was the major she had never been interested in before or the screenwriting she now loved, she could digest enormous amounts of information and then absorb the nourishment to grow quickly.

Ke Wei was strict, but she was definitely not the type who liked to keep a cold face. In her exchanges with Li Xingqing, she could be said to teach everything she knew. In fact, if one wanted to be a good screenwriter, understanding production knowledge was especially important. So during this period, Li Xingqing could only be described as suffering and enjoying herself at the same time.

The weather in City D had gotten very strange this year; one moment it was blazing sunny, and the next it was raining. People said rain affected moods. Even in the afternoon, looking at the overcast sky outside would still add a few extra traces of gloom.

Hearing the slate clap on set, Li Xingqing finally got a little time to rest. She rubbed her aching neck and slowly stood up to stretch.

No one knew what was going on this year; it felt as if they had run into the plum-rain season in October, with rain falling nonstop day after day. Clothes could hardly dry, and everything felt damp and sticky to an excessive degree.

Li Xingqing was from Huicheng; that was true. But she hadn’t actually lived there for very long. Since childhood, she had followed Yin Yi to City A, and she wasn’t very used to this kind of humid weather.

The bright overhead lights inside the set were glaring. Bai Mo didn’t have a scene in this one; he was sitting in a chair scrolling on his phone.

Then, as if he had seen something extraordinary and wanted to share it, he realized there was no one around him. So the lone Li Xingqing became the best person to tell.

During this period of working together, thanks to Bai Mo’s natural ease with people and Xi Zhen’s somewhat unusual attitude toward Li Xingqing, Bai Mo had long since placed Li Xingqing in the category of “one of us.” Seeing Li Xingqing standing nearby, he immediately shouted, “Teacher Xingqing, look.”

“Hm? What is it?” Li Xingqing blinked at the sudden call and turned her head. Bai Mo was already holding up his phone screen as if he had something to say. She took two steps forward, and Bai Mo immediately began explaining, “I just saw a notice. The area where we’re staying has had a power circuit fault lately; it might be without electricity for a while.”

“A blackout? For how long?”

“The notice says it’s tentative. Probably two or three days at most.” Bai Mo curled his lip and shrugged, looking like he didn’t know much either. “If it comes to that, we may have to stay in a hotel these next couple of days. It’s just that it looks a bit far, so we’ll probably need to tell the director in advance.”

“Okay. Can you forward me that notice so I can take a look?” As she spoke, Li Xingqing was already using her phone to search for nearby hotels. Bai Mo wasn’t wrong; there were hotels nearby, but the distance really wasn’t ideal. Probably when Ke Wei chose to rent people’s houses in this area, she had considered the convenience factor too.

While she was scrolling, Bai Mo forwarded the message. The location written in the notice was a little vague, and she didn’t immediately understand exactly which area it referred to. But using the navigation map from their previous trip to the old house as a reference, she could tell that where they were staying now was indeed within the blackout zone.

In the afternoon, Ke Wei clearly received the same notice as well. Fortunately, the circuit fault covered a small area, and not many people in the crew were living there, so arrangements were still manageable. Ke Wei gave a rough explanation and then threw herself back into filming.

That night, the downpour came crashing down. The sound equipment was completely unusable. Ke Wei checked the time; it was already after ten, so she had no choice but to call wrap.

Going back to the old house would be useless anyway; it was pitch-black. Ke Wei called over the production manager and asked him to drive the people with nowhere temporary to go to the hotel.

The production manager was a burly man. After counting the people and deciding it was about right, he was ready to leave. But Li Xingqing felt something was off; where was Xi Zhen?

She asked Bai Mo beside her, but Bai Mo looked blank. “Sister Zhen told me this morning that she wasn’t feeling well, so she’d rest first.”

“And then? You never contacted her again?” Li Xingqing’s sense of unease grew stronger and stronger; her heart was pounding so fast it almost hurt.

“No. Since she wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t bother her.” Bai Mo said that much, then suddenly seemed to remember something. “So, Sister Zhen should still be at the old house?” He hurriedly pulled out his phone and called, but all he got was a busy signal.

Li Xingqing, sitting beside him, clearly heard the voice on the other end say, “Temporarily unable to connect.” At last, concern overwhelmed everything else. She immediately moved; before the production manager could drive off, she said, “I still have something to do,” and hurried out of the car.

Bai Mo originally wanted to go with her, but Li Xingqing stopped him. “You still have a scene tomorrow; don’t go over there for now.” Going wouldn’t help anyway. After saying that, she left without looking back.

The production manager suddenly realized someone was missing from the car, and it was a girl. Worried, he called out twice, “Hey, where are you going? It’s the middle of the night; don’t run into anything.” But his voice never reached Li Xingqing’s ears.

The rain grew heavier and heavier, and it wasn’t possible for everyone in the car to just sit there waiting for Li Xingqing. Bai Mo had no choice but to help explain a couple of things for her. “She really does have something to do; we’re in contact at any time, and nothing should happen.” His voice dropped slightly at the end. To be honest, he didn’t really know either.

Xi Zhen wasn’t answering her phone, and Li Xingqing had suddenly gotten out of the car in a hurry. With rain this heavy tonight, Bai Mo couldn’t make a decision on his own, so he could only keep messaging Li Xingqing.

Bai Mo: [Teacher Xingqing, are you going to find Sister Zhen?]

Bai Mo: [Make sure you let us know you’re safe at all times.]

Li Xingqing took a moment to send back a single “Mm,” then locked her phone and shoved it into her pocket.

The rain was too heavy; so heavy that the umbrella ribs bent under the pounding, and droplets splashed into a white mist on the umbrella surface. There was almost no difference between under the umbrella and outside it. Li Xingqing was in a hurry, and wind poured in from the alley entrance, carrying rain that struck her head-on. By the time she reached the old house, apart from the shoulder barely shielded by the umbrella, the rest of her was already soaked through. She closed the umbrella, and water streamed from the tip into the puddles at her feet.

She had taken the flashlight from the set just now. Holding it in her hand, she switched it on; a pale beam cut through the darkness, lighting up the shining footprints on the stairs, soaked by rain. She didn’t know who had left them; maybe Xi Zhen, maybe someone else.

Li Xingqing didn’t believe in ghosts or gods. For her, darkness had never been something frightening; sometimes it was even the best source of inspiration. But tonight was different. Tonight’s darkness was alive, sticky, pressing in from all directions with the rain and thunder.

She smelled smoke at the corner of the second floor. Strong, choking, mixed with the scent of rain and old bricks, it pulled her upward. Li Xingqing’s clenched heart loosened a little; she was there. At least she was there.

The corridor was pitch-black. When the flashlight beam swept across it, it revealed the mottled water stains on the walls and the crooked cracks in the floor.

She walked to Xi Zhen’s door and stopped, not knocking immediately. There was no light leaking from under the crack at the bottom of the door; it was dark inside, but she knew someone was in there. The smell of smoke was strongest here, dense enough to feel like an invisible wall.

She knocked three times; no response. She knocked three more times; still nothing. Li Xingqing leaned her ear against the door and heard only her own heartbeat and the muffled thunder in the distance. She called out, “Xi Zhen? Are you there? It’s me, Li Xingqing.” Her voice wasn’t loud, and much of it was swallowed by the rain, but there was finally movement inside the room.

Rustling sounds; like something being picked up from the floor, or like someone fumbling to their feet in the dark.

Li Xingqing remembered Xi Zhen’s fear of darkness last time and aimed the flashlight beam at the crack under the door.

Soon after, the door opened.

The moment the smoke rushed out, Li Xingqing almost held her breath. Not out of disgust, but because the pungent smell made her throat tighten. Yet she did not step back, nor did she frown; she simply stood there.

The face before her was completely unlike usual, so pale it was almost transparent. Her normally well-kept curls were loose now, with a few strands stuck to her cheeks and others hanging over her shoulders; the ends were messy, as if someone had grabbed them.

Xi Zhen’s eyes were half-open, bloodshot throughout. Leaning against the doorframe, she looked exhausted from head to toe.

“You...” Li Xingqing had only just said one word when she saw Xi Zhen’s lips move without sound.

Xi Zhen seemed to realize her throat was hoarse. She coughed once, then again. After that, she slightly turned her body as if to invite Li Xingqing in. But when she turned around and saw the mess inside the room, she froze there, not knowing whether to keep moving forward or retreat.

The flashlight beam landed on her profile, exposing every bit of her embarrassment with nowhere to hide.

Li Xingqing said nothing. She silently leaned her umbrella against the outside of the door and was about to go in, but before she could react, Xi Zhen, who had been standing fine a moment ago, suddenly went weak in the legs and started to collapse toward the floor.

Author’s Note:

What happens next:

A. Li Xingqing picks Xi Zhen up

B. Li Xingqing gives Xi Zhen a bath

C. Li Xingqing confesses to Xi Zhen

D. All of the above