Chapter 66

Gu Yanqiu sprinted all the way through the building. Fortunately, the floor where her office was located was already empty; no one saw her racing down the dark corridor. By the time she stepped out of the first-floor elevator, she was once again the proper, polished Manager Gu.

The front desk and security guard in the lobby were still on duty. Gu Yanqiu greeted them with a courteous nod; the receptionist smiled back and said, “See you tomorrow.”

This particular security guard happened to be the one who had been called over last time when she single-handedly caught a thief and had to ask him to call the police. After escorting that thief to the police station, he hadn’t “run into” her again—sometimes their shifts didn’t line up, and most of the time Gu Yanqiu took the underground parking route directly, so there was no chance of an encounter.

The guard called out to thank her again in person. Gu Yanqiu exchanged a few polite words with him, but the man was talkative; once she gave him the opening, he launched into a full conversation, and the topic kept branching outward. Gu Yanqiu’s heart was in a hurry, so she simply cut him off. “Um... sorry, I’m in a hurry.”

Only then did she finally slip past him and hurry out through the revolving doors.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Gu Yanqiu recognized the license plate number, pulled open the car door, and got into the passenger seat. “My apologies.”

“It’s nothing; I just got here too.”

“Did you forget you called me? I still know what time you arrived.” Gu Yanqiu smiled.

She lowered her head to fasten her seat belt. The hair behind her ear slipped loose, revealing the pale, snow-white skin at the nape of her neck, tinted with a faint flush. It wasn’t shyness; it was the natural rosy color left behind by exercise.

Lin Yuewei turned her head and looked at her for a while. When Gu Yanqiu finished fastening her seat belt and looked up, she withdrew her gaze.

“Even so, it wasn’t more than a few minutes. It’s not even been ten minutes since you came downstairs.”

“I’m not used to making people wait for me.”

“Then do you wait for other people?”

“That depends on who it is.” Gu Yanqiu adjusted the seat belt a little and said after a pause, “For someone like you, I can wait a bit.”

“...”

Lin Yuewei frowned, one hand on the steering wheel, not knowing how to reply. Her usual quick tongue in front of Jiang Congbi turned clumsy and stiff here; she couldn’t even catch the lines Gu Yanqiu was giving her.

“What do you want to eat?” Gu Yanqiu asked.

That one she knew. Lin Yuewei smiled. “Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”

“Is there some rule about who gets to treat whom?”

“Not really. I just don’t eat dinner.” The car hadn’t started yet. Lin Yuewei rested one elbow on the steering wheel and braced her other hand against the seat back, asking with a smile, “So what do you want for dinner?”

Warm light from above fell over her, making her look exceptionally beautiful.

“Then I’ll just go home and eat something simple, maybe noodles. Going out to eat is such a hassle.” Gu Yanqiu didn’t especially like eating out. Since Lin Yuewei couldn’t keep her company, forget it.

“So I’m taking you home?” Lin Yuewei confirmed.

“Mm.”

Lin Yuewei turned on the navigation app. At first Gu Yanqiu was lost in thought, but after listening for a while she realized the voice guidance was Guo Degang. This time, unlike the last, Lin Yuewei wore a faint smile all the way home.

“You like Guo Degang?” Gu Yanqiu couldn’t help asking.

“Pretty much.” Lin Yuewei thought about it. Wasn’t that the voice you used last time in the car?

“Oh.” Gu Yanqiu thought: so that means she likes him. She must have just been in a bad mood last time.

“You don’t like him?” Lin Yuewei asked back. She personally liked listening to crosstalk, though at home she listened more often to the old masters of the art. She could listen to newer stuff too, just not to the point of choosing a voice as her phone’s navigation prompt.

Gu Yanqiu liked her, but she also didn’t want to lie to her. In a soft voice, she said, “I usually use the system voice. If I had to choose one, I prefer Lin Chi-ling.”

“Then switch it to Lin Chi-ling.”

“Huh?”

Lin Yuewei kept her eyes on the road and gestured toward her phone. “Switch it to Lin Chi-ling. Do you know how to set it?”

“...I do.” Gu Yanqiu was slightly dazed. She fiddled with the phone in the mount twice, but couldn’t get it out smoothly. Lin Yuewei steadied the steering wheel with one hand, leaned slightly to the right, and casually covered the back of Gu Yanqiu’s hand with her own. With a deft press of her fingers, the phone popped free.

“Okay.” Lin Yuewei withdrew her hand as if nothing had happened.

Gu Yanqiu’s fingers curled inward. She sat there dazed for a moment before exiting the navigation settings and resetting it. Only after the system displayed “Lin Chi-ling voice setting successful” did she press her thumb against her index finger and put the phone back in place. “Done.”

The two of them then made their way home to the soft, gentle cadence of Sister Lin Chi-ling’s voice announcements.

Lin Yuewei sat on the sofa massaging her calves while Gu Yanqiu prepared dinner in the kitchen. They each occupied their own corner, not disturbing the other.

When Gu Yanqiu brought the noodles to the dining table, Lin Yuewei realized that the stomach she had long since gotten used to and nearly stopped noticing slowly stirred. A clear thought ran through the chain of reactions in her gut and surfaced in her brain—hungry.

What a sin. Why did the house have such a good cook in it, not a roommate.

The smell was unbearable. Lin Yuewei stood up and said, “I’m going back to my room to shower first.”

Gu Yanqiu still had an apron on. She looked up. “Huh?”

Lin Yuewei and Gu Yanqiu were several meters apart. She strode upstairs so fast she at least didn’t have to let her hear her stomach growl.

Gu Yanqiu quietly finished the hand-pulled noodles—not handmade by her, but bought from the supermarket; there were so many kinds of noodles, and she often switched them up. Halfway through, she narrowed her eyes a little and roughly understood why Lin Yuewei had fled so quickly. Eating in front of a starving person was a little too cruel.

Gu Yanqiu couldn’t help laughing. Eating alone was never as fragrant as eating with someone else. Barely a day had passed, and she was already a little nostalgic for how Lin Yuewei had played and joked with her while eating that morning. Did other celebrities also skip dinner?

“I’m losing weight,” Lin Yuewei said after showering, sitting on the bed with the earphones she had just taken off in both hands when Gu Yanqiu asked her about it.

“Losing weight?”

Gu Yanqiu glanced at Lin Yuewei under the covers. Lin Yuewei simply flipped the blanket back, stretched out her slender arms and legs to show her. Gu Yanqiu: “...” She was already this thin and still needed to lose weight?

Lin Yuewei understood her expression and covered herself again. “It still looks a little heavy on camera. I’m just losing a little bit, not much.”

“How tall are you?”

“Last time I measured barefoot, I was 168. With shoes on, maybe 170.”

“Wouldn’t being too thin be unhealthy?”

Lin Yuewei showed her the muscle lines on her arms. Gu Yanqiu had nothing to say. She had no standing or qualifications to say anything either; this industry was different from most others.

“How did today’s audition go?” Gu Yanqiu set the copy of Shakespeare she had brought with her on the bedside table. This was the easiest topic for the two of them to talk about.

“Great. I’m guessing the director has already called my agent.” Ever since Lin Yuewei found out about the audition, she had prepared for the role for quite a long time, betting everything on this one shot. The director couldn’t possibly not be moved; as long as he wavered, going to Chen Xuan meant half the battle was won.

“Will your agent be switched out for you? If so, that means she still hasn’t been deliberately suppressing you.”

“I’m guessing it won’t be long before this role is officially announced, with Fang Xiaoxiao from Guoshi Entertainment playing the second female lead.”

“If that’s really the case..."

Lin Yuewei sighed. “Then your more than one million will be thrown into the water.”

“Using more than one million to buy a role—how is that calculated in the industry? But I feel like it’s probably still worth it.” Gu Yanqiu smiled. She didn’t know about the industry, but in Gu Yanqiu’s world, the rule was simple: let alone one million; even ten million would be worth it if it made Lin Yuewei happy for a moment.

Lin Yuewei replied, “Whether it’s worth it depends on what the role means. If I don’t become famous, then it won’t be worth it.”

“It will.” Gu Yanqiu said without hesitation.

Lin Yuewei looked at her. “There’s one thing I’ve always found really strange. Where does your mysterious confidence in me come from? I don’t even dare say I’ll definitely succeed. I’m just trying to increase my chances as much as possible. But every time you speak, you’re so certain.”

Gu Yanqiu smiled, a hint of playfulness in it. “I just believe in you. Maybe it’s intuition. When you become famous in the future, I’ll hire you to advertise for my company, and you can give me a discount.”

Lin Yuewei: “...........”

Gu Yanqiu could be this funny too?

Seeing her speechless expression, Gu Yanqiu laughed for a while before turning serious. “We investors have to bear the risk of failure too; but you can’t start off by assuming your investment will fail, right? Of course you still have to go in with the determination to win.”

“What if it fails?”

“Do not, for one repulse, give up the purpose that you resolved to effect. Shakespeare said that you shouldn’t give up the goal you originally resolved to achieve just because of one failure. If it fails, then try again. I can naturally bear the loss. Besides, I didn’t give you that much money anyway—just three million.” Gu Yanqiu shrugged, utterly unconcerned.

Three million... just...

Before entering the entertainment industry, when Lin Yuewei was still the Lin family’s young lady, she could easily say such a thing too. But now... she was only short on cash. She suddenly became curious about how much wealth Gu Yanqiu actually had. Clearly she was still fighting for the Gu family inheritance, so how could she seem like she had inexhaustible money?

But that touched on privacy, so she only thought about it and didn’t ask. As for why Gu Yanqiu still clung to the Gu family despite having such substantial private assets, that was easy to understand. Gu Huai had done something like that; anyone with even a shred of backbone would never hand the family fortune over to an illegitimate child. If it were Lin Yuewei, she would rather destroy the Gu family than let anyone else take a single cent.

That thought happened to be in perfect alignment with the newly returned Gu Yanqiu’s own ideas. At first, Gu Yanqiu had planned to investigate everything thoroughly and, if she confirmed that Gu Huai and He Songjun were the ones who had killed her mother, then even if she had to fight Gu Huai to the end, she would destroy the Gu family. She was still young; no matter what happened, she could always rise again. It was only later, when the situation developed far beyond what she had expected, that she slowly set aside her original plan.

Most of Gu Yanqiu’s private assets were in real estate. The rest of her money was either overseas or in the stock market; she didn’t have much liquid capital. The last time she hired a PR company to guide public opinion for Lin Yuewei, and now the three million she gave her, were basically everything she could currently mobilize.

Gu Yanqiu suddenly asked, “By the way, do you have a professional PR company? This has to stay confidential; your agent absolutely cannot find out it was you who did it.”

Lin Yuewei answered, “Yes. I had Jiang Congbi hire one for me during my competition before; they were pretty reliable.”

“That’s good.” Gu Yanqiu felt the last one she had hired was pretty good too, and the price was reasonable.

Lin Yuewei read her expression and quietly drew in a breath, thinking: Don’t tell me you’re planning to recommend one to me?

Then she thought better of it. Someone like Gu Yanqiu probably wouldn’t even know about that sort of thing, so she dismissed the idea.

Lin Yuewei said, “Don’t worry. Even if she suspects me, she won’t have evidence proving it. By then she won’t have anyone to use anyway; what’s the use of suspicion?”

Gu Yanqiu gave a soft “Mm.”

Everything that needed to be said had been said; their conversation was pretty much over. Lin Yuewei lifted the earphones in her hand toward her, and Gu Yanqiu nodded, picked up the English original of Shakespeare beside her, removed the bookmark, and continued reading from where she had left off last time.

Lin Yuewei, meanwhile, was reading some acting advice provided by industry veterans. She would occasionally stop to think and make notes in her notebook.

The sound of pages turning and the smooth scratch of the fountain pen across paper intertwined. The two of them sat a person’s width apart, the atmosphere quiet and lovely.

Gu Yanqiu glanced at the time on the bedside table; it was already twelve. She still had to get up early tomorrow, so she closed the book and put it back.

Lin Yuewei felt the tug on the edge of the blanket and glanced to her side. Gu Yanqiu had already lain down. She removed the earphone closest to Gu Yanqiu, lowered her lashes, and smiled warmly. “Good night.”

“Good night.” Gu Yanqiu reminded her, “Remember to hold onto my hand when you sleep.”

“If I don’t hold on to you, are you going to run away?” Lin Yuewei rarely teased her.

“Who knows?” Gu Yanqiu laughed.

“Then I’d better hold on tight.” Lin Yuewei also smiled.

Gu Yanqiu’s heart stirred. She looked at her without blinking, but Lin Yuewei had already looked away. Through the blanket, she patted the place where Gu Yanqiu’s shoulder and arm connected. “Alright, go to sleep. I’ll hold onto you.”

“Good night.”

Lin Yuewei put on her earphones.

Gu Yanqiu stared at her profile for a while, then closed her eyes and turned on her side to sleep facing her.

Lin Yuewei heard a line that was extremely striking to her. This actress was also a non-conservatory graduate, and by now she was a regular at major film festivals, taking home international and domestic awards. What she said was that whether someone had formal training or not wasn’t important; some non-conservatory actors instead carried a powerful, wild kind of upward-growing force, and that was very precious. After thinking carefully for a moment, Lin Yuewei’s pen flew across the page, and soon the notebook was filled with dense notes. Just as she turned to a new page and was about to begin, the fountain pen in her hand suddenly trembled.

She straightened up slowly and lowered her head to look at Gu Yanqiu, who was fast asleep with her face pressed against Lin Yuewei’s waist and one hand draped over her leg.

Lin Yuewei: “...”

Case solved. The force she had felt last night suddenly pulling her into an embrace had been Gu Yanqiu doing this in her sleep. Did she like sleeping while holding onto something, like a large plush toy or something? The way she was hugging looked so practiced.

Lin Yuewei looked at the time and decided it was about time to sleep too. Since Gu Yanqiu had interrupted her, her train of thought had already broken anyway. She simply turned off the light and lay down, taking the initiative first by pulling Gu Yanqiu into her arms.

As for whether Gu Yanqiu had the habit of hugging plush toys, Lin Yuewei didn’t know. She used to; there was still a life-sized rabbit plush on the bed at home. She was quite practiced at holding Gu Yanqiu now. Since Gu Yanqiu said she was thin, she probably didn’t weigh much more than that either. Lin Yuewei rested her arm behind Gu Yanqiu’s neck and fell asleep quickly.

It was thanks to how tightly she was holding her that when Gu Yanqiu sat up in the middle of the night, she noticed right away. Lin Yuewei woke groggily, called out to her a couple of times with no response, and confirmed that she was sleepwalking again.

Gu Yanqiu still hadn’t gotten out of bed, so Lin Yuewei simply refused to let her go to the floor. She locked one arm around her arm and pressed one leg over her ankle, firmly confining her within a tiny patch of space while repeatedly calling her name by her ear.

She even harbored a little private motive and, since Gu Yanqiu couldn’t hear her while sleepwalking, randomly called her “Gu Yanqiu,” “Gu Kawaii,” “Little Cutie,” and “Pikaqiu” in a jumble. She had originally wanted to call her “wife,” but then thought that if Gu Yanqiu woke up from hearing it, she might face unprecedented embarrassment and might not be able to smooth it over. So she swallowed the word back after it circled her tongue a few times.

Strangely enough, when Gu Yanqiu had used rope to tie herself up, she had struggled fiercely. But now that Lin Yuewei was holding her, she actually didn’t struggle much at all; she was obedient. Lin Yuewei estimated that she had mistaken her for her mother again. Mother Lin Yuewei kissed her “good daughter” several times and coaxed her back to sleep.

The next morning, when she opened her eyes, she felt a warm breath against her forehead, followed by soreness in her neck, as if she had maintained one stiff posture all night. Once her vision cleared, Gu Yanqiu made out the scene in front of her.

Gu Yanqiu: “...”

The situation from yesterday morning had been reversed, and even closer than before. She was completely trapped in Lin Yuewei’s arms and unable to move; the other girl’s nose was pressed against her forehead, and that was where her breathing was coming from.

The moment Gu Yanqiu moved, Lin Yuewei woke too. She had been bothered by Gu Yanqiu last night, so she hadn’t woken early today.

“Good morning.” Lin Yuewei pulled her arm out from under Gu Yanqiu’s neck and calmly drew it back under the blanket, pretending the faint numb soreness from having been used as a pillow all night didn’t exist.

“Good morning.”

“You sleepwalked last night, so I just...” Lin Yuewei looked down at their current position. The meaning spoke for itself.

“Thank you.” Gu Yanqiu was a little embarrassed.

“You’re welcome. What time are you leaving?” Lin Yuewei remembered that she had said she was going on a long trip Saturday.

“My flight is at ten.”

Lin Yuewei turned naturally toward the bedside table on her side, widening the distance between them. “It’s already seven. You should get up, have breakfast, and head out. Time’s a little tight.”

“Right, I’m going to wash up now.”

“I’ll take you to the airport later.”

“...Thank you.”

Gu Yanqiu never looked Lin Yuewei directly in the eye the entire time; after she went out, she pulled the bedroom door shut softly behind her.

Lin Yuewei sat up in bed, picked up the copy of Shakespeare Gu Yanqiu had left in her room, turned to the page marked by the bookmark, lifted the bookmark to her lips, and kissed it lightly before placing it back inside.

It was too late to make porridge. After asking Lin Yuewei’s opinion, Gu Yanqiu made a Western-style breakfast instead. She fried eggs in a skillet while Lin Yuewei warmed milk in a small saucepan; they finished at the same time, with identical breakfasts in two separate servings. At the dining table, neither of them spoke much, and the silence continued all the way until Lin Yuewei parked the car at the entrance to the terminal.

“Be careful on the way. Message me when you land so I know you’re safe.”

“Okay.” Gu Yanqiu’s hand rested on the inner door handle.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

“What do you want for dinner tomorrow night?”

“It’s not tomorrow night yet.”

“You can think about it first.”

“I may not be back on time tomorrow. If I can’t make it back, I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.”

Lin Yuewei really couldn’t think of anything else to say. The car in front had already left, and the car behind was honking at her to move. She said, “See you.”

“See you.” Gu Yanqiu opened the door and got out.

Lin Yuewei drove away from the airport.

Not long after she had gone, her phone vibrated. Lin Yuewei glanced at the caller ID; it was Gu Yanqiu. She slid to answer.

“You already got there that fast?” Lin Yuewei said with a smile.

“My suitcase is still in your car.”

“...”

Lin Yuewei made a huge detour outside before seeing Gu Yanqiu again. Gu Yanqiu took the small suitcase out of the trunk and waved at Lin Yuewei through the car window. This time, she really did walk into the terminal, her back disappearing from view, and of course she didn’t call again the moment Lin Yuewei had gone only a short distance.

It wasn’t until one or two in the afternoon that Gu Yanqiu sent her a message saying the plane had landed and she had already met up with relatives here, so Lin Yuewei didn’t need to worry.

Lin Yuewei replied, “Okay, remember to eat lunch.”

Gu Yanqiu didn’t reply again.

Gu Yanqiu raised her eyes to look at the “relative” standing before her. The “relative” was a lean man a little over 170 centimeters tall, in his thirties. Over the past half year or so, the wind and sun had darkened his skin, making him look older, but his eyes were still bright. He extended a hand to Gu Yanqiu. “President Gu.” Then he flashed a set of white teeth in a grin. “I haven’t failed you.”

Gu Yanqiu shook his hand. “Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Liu.”

Mr. Liu was a private investigator. This wasn’t the hardest job he had ever taken, but it was certainly one of the most exhausting. If Gu Yanqiu hadn’t offered enough money, he absolutely would never have accepted it. After wandering all over for so long, he had finally found a lead.

Mr. Liu reached out to take Gu Yanqiu’s suitcase, but Gu Yanqiu pulled it back, refusing his help. He didn’t mind at all and instead smiled as he led the way, saying as they walked, “Your mother’s hometown is very far from here. We still have to transfer to a high-speed train after leaving the airport. I’ve already booked the earliest train, but there aren’t many departures, so by the time we arrive it’ll probably be evening. We can only go look tomorrow daytime.”

“Okay.”

“Your mother’s father has already passed away. Only her mother is left now, and she’s living in a retirement home in the county seat. Her condition isn’t very good. I didn’t dare stimulate her, so everything will have to wait until you get there.”

“I know. You already told me that in the email.”

“I’ve also found several of your family’s old neighbors. If you want to meet them, I can arrange it for tomorrow afternoon.”

“Please do.”

Mr. Liu led her to the parking lot, opened the trunk, watched her put her suitcase in, then opened the back door for her and invited her to sit before driving toward the train station.

Gu Yanqiu sat in the back seat and opened her wallet. Inside the wallet, tucked into an inner slot, was a photograph. Gu Yanqiu rubbed the nonexistent dust off its surface with her fingertip through the plastic. The woman in the photo had phoenix-like eyes and bright, clear pupils; Gu Yanqiu looked about four or five parts like her. Separated by a long stretch of time, they gazed at each other in silence.

Gu Yanqiu stopped moving the Buddhist beads in her hand. Her fingers tightened, and she gripped them hard in her palm.

Author’s Note:

To test exactly where the nose is if you breathe on someone’s forehead, I specially hugged my girlfriend to try it out and see whether it was actually workable. Everyone should thank Pomegranate’s girlfriend for her wholehearted contribution to Pomegranate’s writing, and also thank Pomegranate for her earnest, evidence-based attitude, okay?

Actually, in that position the lips are even closer; at night, as long as Miss Lin lifts her chin just a little, she can kiss right on through. Heh, scheming Lin.