Apology? Kiss Me First

The doorbell rang, and Li Xingqing opened the door in confusion. Xi Zhen had clearly told her she wouldn’t be back for another two weeks. So who was standing outside, pressing the doorbell at this hour?

A beautiful face came into view. Li Xingqing wasn’t unfamiliar with the visitor—in fact, she knew her quite well. After all, this was none other than the person she had just seen not long ago: Song Xunqing.

“Why are you here? Where’s Xi Zhen?” Seeing that the person who opened the door wasn’t Xi Zhen, Song Xunqing’s expression changed, and her tone turned even more accusatory.

“None of your business.” Knowing full well that the visitor meant trouble, Li Xingqing had no intention of wasting words on her. She was just about to close the door when Song Xunqing’s hand wedged itself against the frame.

“Just a magpie in a pigeon’s nest. Don’t tell me you really think Xi Zhen likes you?” Song Xunqing gave a cold laugh and went on as if speaking to herself. “Tell me, besides having a face that looks a little like Shi Fengyu’s, what exactly do you have?”

An unfamiliar name slipped out of Song Xunqing’s mouth. Li Xingqing’s pupils widened slightly, and the hand closing the door suddenly lost all strength.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Xi Zhen; it was that Li Xingqing suddenly realized just how little she actually knew about her. Aside from this person, she knew nothing at all—her job, her background, her life.

“What do you mean?” Li Xingqing met Song Xunqing’s eyes and said flatly.

“Only that I pity you. You don’t even know Xi Zhen’s been fooling you.” Song Xunqing’s tone was lofty, as though Li Xingqing were some pitiful thing no one cared about.

“So you came all this way just to tell me that? Ex-girlfriend?” Li Xingqing shot back with contempt. No matter what Xi Zhen was hiding from her, the truth shouldn’t come out of someone else’s mouth.

“What are you so smug about? When Shi Fengyu comes back, you’ll be dumped sooner or later.” Li Xingqing had guessed right; Song Xunqing clearly still had other intentions toward Xi Zhen. Hearing the sarcasm in Li Xingqing’s voice, her expression shifted drastically. Her originally pretty face, layered with expensive makeup, now looked powdery and heavy.

Li Xingqing no longer had the patience to listen to her nonsense. With a bang, she slammed the door shut, locking Song Xunqing outside without even leaving a crack.

After all, Song Xunqing was a rising star. Being shut out like that left her mortified. She glared viciously at the door of Xi Zhen’s home, then stomped hard on the floor; the corridor echoed with a dull thud.

Inside, Li Xingqing’s expression remained as unreadable as ever. But the soup simmering on the stove had already foamed up with countless white bubbles, surging anxiously toward the rim. Yet the person in charge of the pot only stared blankly ahead, not noticing a thing.

It wasn’t until a drop of soup fell onto the flame with a sizzle that Li Xingqing snapped back to herself. She turned off the heat and silently sat down on the sofa in the living room.

Xi Zhen’s place wasn’t very large, and the decor was minimalist; it looked rather plain. Everything about it seemed to fit Li Xingqing’s impression of Xi Zhen: simple, restrained, not someone who chased material excess. Li Xingqing truly couldn’t imagine how someone like that could have dated the dazzling Song Xunqing she saw on television.

And then there was the name Song Xunqing had mentioned today. That deep, almost splitting sense of mismatch made Li Xingqing unconsciously panic.

It was like that afternoon when she was fifteen, walking home with a certificate in her hand; her father’s betrayal, her mother’s serious illness, the strange younger brother—everything had left her feeling torn open from within, unable to believe it, yet unable not to accept it.

Was Xi Zhen lying to her too? Why had Xi Zhen liked her in the first place?

Li Xingqing racked her brains, trying to find some breathing room in the course of their relationship. But she found nothing. In the end, she could only pick up her phone and make a call.

“Help me look into someone.”

Once doubt takes root, the damage is already done.

Two weeks later, Xi Zhen returned from her business trip. She brought back a pile of gifts, especially the scented candles Li Xingqing had praised so much before.

Li Xingqing happily pulled Xi Zhen into her arms, acting as though nothing had happened, just as she had before. Xi Zhen naturally didn’t notice anything was wrong; she only thought Li Xingqing had suddenly become more affectionate. She took it all as the result of their having gone too long without seeing each other, and the guilt in her heart only deepened.

After lingering in each other’s arms for a while, the two of them lay down on the bed. Li Xingqing spoke first: “What was Sister busy with during this time?”

“...Some time ago, a few artists joined a production, and I went to take a look for a couple of days.”

Li Xingqing, who had clearly found out that Xi Zhen had gone to attend a brand signing event: ......

She ground her back teeth. As expected, this little liar Xi Zhen didn’t have a single honest word in her mouth. Still, Li Xingqing wasn’t angry; after all, her own “poor student” act was nonsense too. As long as Xi Zhen’s love for her was real, that was enough.

Among the information her friend had helped her dig up, there was indeed news about this so-called ex-girlfriend. But supposedly the two of them had broken up very early on, and they hadn’t even been together that long to begin with. Of course, Li Xingqing didn’t care about that. So what if Xi Zhen had an ex-girlfriend who looked like someone else? As long as Xi Zhen belonged to her now and would belong to her in the future, that was all that mattered.

If life could go on forever in peace and ordinary happiness, it wouldn’t be called life. Ups and downs were the natural state of all things.

By the time a long while had passed since Seal the Heart wrapped, and post-production was nearly finished too, snow was already falling all over City A.

During that time, Li Xingqing took advantage of the lull to finish her graduation thesis ahead of schedule. Xi Zhen was still often away on business trips; the only constant was that every time she came back, she would bring Li Xingqing a lot of gifts.

Because of that, Li Xingqing had tried to refuse, worried it was too much trouble for her. Business trips were tiring enough already; bringing back gifts for her only added to the workload. But Xi Zhen just smiled, agreed verbally, and the next time she returned, half her suitcase was still filled with gifts for Li Xingqing. Li Xingqing called it a sweet burden.

It was only when Seal the Heart was almost ready to air that, one evening, Xi Zhen brought the edited footage home with an air of mystery.

“I’ve got a secret to tell you.”

“?” Li Xingqing was standing by the stove in an apron. Today was Christmas; a few days ago she had seen a so-called strawberry tower online, and today she had specially bought the ingredients to recreate it.

The small kitchen was filled with the sweet scent of cream. Li Xingqing had even baked little cakes, planning to celebrate their three months together. Hearing Xi Zhen say that, she suddenly remembered that there still seemed to be an element of mutual deception between them.

“What is it, Sister?” Li Xingqing’s tone was innocent, as if she really knew nothing.

“Actually, I’m not Bai Mo’s assistant. Back then, I was on set partly because I was a producer, and partly because Bai Mo is actually my younger brother.”

Hm? Such a complicated relationship? Li Xingqing pricked up her ears and set the prepared dishes and desserts on the table. When she had asked a friend to look into Xi Zhen, aside from caring about this person’s romantic history, she had been even more curious about Xi Zhen’s life.

Just as Li Xingqing had expected, Xi Zhen really hadn’t come from a wealthy family. All she could find was that before Xi Zhen was even an adult, she had already been making a living alone on film sets; later, by some twist of fate, she met Song Xunqing, who was now a hot young actress.

Back then, Song Xunqing was just a bit-part actor running around the set for small roles. The two of them ended up together, and unexpectedly, with Xi Zhen’s eye for talent and Song Xunqing’s looks, they really did carve out a place for themselves. But good times never last long. Song Xunqing shot to fame overnight, and the small company the two of them had originally been with simply couldn’t support that kind of growth. In the end, Song Xunqing terminated her contract and went to Starlight Entertainment, one of the top companies in the industry.

Oddly enough, Xi Zhen, who could be said to have weathered everything alongside Song Xunqing, didn’t go with her. Instead, she was hauled into court by a lawsuit. The accusation was that, as Song Xunqing’s assistant and manager, Xi Zhen had signed dual contracts under Song Xunqing’s name and taken kickbacks from them.

The incident had caused quite a stir back then. Li Xingqing simply didn’t follow the entertainment industry, and at the time Yin Yi was ill, so she had no energy at all to pay attention to the news.

The final resolution of the matter was never made public, but Starlight Entertainment was indeed a powerful company; not only did it cleanly distance the newly signed Song Xunqing from the whole thing, it also managed to win public sympathy.

As for Xi Zhen, who had been dragged into the mess, she spent nearly two years tied up in that lawsuit. Although she ultimately won, she was left with nowhere to work. Anyone who went through such a massive upheaval in life could easily be knocked down for good; for the two years after the case, Xi Zhen had practically disappeared from the world.

No one knew what happened afterward, but Xi Zhen had somehow managed to stand back up. Several productions she handled became huge hits; one could say she had made a name for countless rising stars in the entertainment industry. Of course, all of this was only discovered after Li Xingqing’s friend checked through multiple channels, because Xi Zhen was extremely cautious and rarely used her real name in producer credits.

The world itself is driven by profit; no one is going to turn up their nose at money. The entertainment industry is even more so. As long as you can make money, no one cares what you did before. Although Xi Zhen and Song Xunqing had once had an ugly falling-out, the pie was big enough that they could still avoid crossing paths.

When Li Xingqing learned all this from her friend, her heart was full of pain. Xi Zhen, who always seemed so capable and composed in her eyes, had once fallen so hard and suffered such a terrible injustice. Thinking of that only made Li Xingqing dislike Song Xunqing even more.

A backstabbing ingrate who only knew how to chase wealth and glory; it must have taken all the luck from a previous life for her to meet someone as good as Xi Zhen in this one. Thinking of this, Li Xingqing grew even more regretful that she hadn’t met Xi Zhen sooner. That way, she could have rescued Xi Zhen from those early twenties, when she had been betrayed by the whole world, and protected her properly.

Xi Zhen, who had no idea her past had already been thoroughly dug up by Li Xingqing, was still feeling guilty about having lied to her back then.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to lie to you. It’s just that although I was the real producer for this film, my name couldn’t be listed officially...” Xi Zhen was still explaining when Li Xingqing took her hand. “Sister, never say sorry.” In truth, it didn’t matter whether she knew or not.

Li Xingqing was telling the truth; unfortunately, Xi Zhen didn’t quite understand her meaning right away. Taking it only as her not minding, she pulled out a USB drive. “Seal the Heart is done. Want to watch it together?”

Seal the Heart was the beginning of their story, so Li Xingqing naturally had no reason to refuse. Of course, this was also the first script she had revised in the true sense of the word, so her anticipation was no less than Li Xingqing’s.

Because of the shooting schedule back then, the drama wasn’t very long. Director Ke Wei had wracked her brains to piece together twelve episodes of plot, so watching it all at once didn’t seem like a problem. Xi Zhen set up the projector and returned to the sofa to sit with Li Xingqing.

“This story was one I personally selected at the start,” Xi Zhen said as she watched, suddenly feeling a little emotional. “It’s just that later, after it was handed over to the screenwriting team to be organized into a script, I was very dissatisfied. But the start date was already right around the corner, and there was no way to drag it out any longer.”

“So you needed to find an on-set screenwriter?” Li Xingqing fed a piece of strawberry into Xi Zhen’s mouth. Over these past days together, the intimacy between them had advanced by leaps and bounds.

Li Xingqing also gradually discovered, through living together, that Xi Zhen was actually not quite the same as the mature, steady image she projected on the outside. At home, for example, Li Xingqing really liked little gestures like feeding her as though she were a small animal, and Xi Zhen accepted them very well.

“Exactly. Then I found you, my great treasure.” Xi Zhen bit into the strawberry; sweet juice burst on her tongue, and she couldn’t help wondering why the fruit Li Xingqing bought always seemed to taste better.

“Then what was Sister’s first impression of me?”

“Kind.”

“?”