Chapter 84
Chen Xuan said Qin Li was honest and dependable, but no matter how honest and dependable he was, Qin Li had still spent more than ten years in the entertainment industry. He had seen far more than she could piece together from half-true and half-false information. Even if she had never eaten pork, hadn’t she at least seen a pig run?
Lin Yuewei didn’t know why he’d suddenly brought it up, but she wasn’t panicking. If Qin Li really wanted to do something, he probably wouldn’t expose her outright; the more likely possibility was that he was warning her. Even if he did want to do something, as long as she didn’t admit it and he had no proof, he couldn’t just accuse her out of thin air.
Taking ten thousand steps back, even if there was no turning the matter around, she still had a marriage certificate. She hadn’t made it public for her own reasons, and that marriage certificate was her final trump card. So this wasn’t truly a major issue for her.
What mattered more to her was the reminder Qin Li had given her. It made Lin Yuewei realize ahead of time that this circle might be deeper than she had imagined, and the people in it even more scheming. Her mindset needed to adjust in time.
After Lin Yuewei went into the room, she looked at her face in the mirror and basically understood the basis for Qin Li’s guess. Her complexion really was too good; the look of someone newly in love wasn’t something a few running steps could fake. She stared at herself for a while, just about to rein in her expression, when she suddenly froze and looked at the person in the mirror, motionless and lost in thought.
Before, she hadn’t understood how to act out the feeling of being moved. Now, though, this was an excellent chance to practice.
Lin Yuewei imagined that the person standing in front of her was Gu Yanqiu; at times she was secretly in love with Gu Yanqiu, at times openly in love, at times trapped in love without being able to have her. In any case, she tried it several times, mainly to remember the feeling and store it in her brain so she could use it the next time it came in handy.
When Lin Yuewei judged that the time was about right, she called Gu Yanqiu.
“Have you gotten to the hotel?”
“I have.” Gu Yanqiu was sitting in the hotel chair, a laptop open in front of her; she was typing with one hand.
“Why didn’t you send me a message to check in?” Lin Yuewei asked. “When did you get there?”
“More than twenty minutes ago, I think. I forgot.”
“You just got back and already forgot all about me.”
“No.” Gu Yanqiu stopped typing, picked up the coffee beside her, and took a sip. “I just went to shower. I wanted to tell you before that, but I was afraid it would affect your train of thought.”
“How do you know I’m studying?”
“Aren’t you always studying around this time every night?” Gu Yanqiu answered as if it were only natural.
That certainty, born of knowing her well, somehow pleased Lin Yuewei. She made a soft sound of disapproval through her nose and asked pointedly, “It’s already past midnight. What are you drinking?”
“Coffee.” Gu Yanqiu looked down at the cup.
“And you’re not sleeping?”
“Mm. Not sleeping.”
“Are you—” Lin Yuewei had only just begun to bristle when Gu Yanqiu shut her down with a single light sentence.
“I have work,” Gu Yanqiu said.
Lin Yuewei: “...Oh.”
Gu Yanqiu stood up and took a Bluetooth earpiece from the side pocket of her bag on the desk, putting one in her ear. Only then did Lin Yuewei speak again, her voice lower than before. “You still flew over when you had work? Can you be any less reliable?”
She was tugging at the hem of her shirt, sitting on the bed, her forefinger slowly tracing circles over the fabric.
Gu Yanqiu: “Mm, I’m unreliable.”
Lin Yuewei: “...” This wasn’t the script they’d agreed on.
Gu Yanqiu asked with a smile in her voice, “Then how are you planning to punish me?”
“I don’t even dare punish you. You’re stingy and vindictive.”
“Hey...” Gu Yanqiu was genuinely speechless this time. She pinched the bridge of her nose and said, “Can that phrase come up a little less often? It really ruins the mood.”
“Then I’ll use a different one?”
“What?”
“Vindictive and stingy.”
“...”
“Hahaha.”
Gu Yanqiu said solemnly, “I’m really going to get angry.”
Only then did Lin Yuewei change tactics. “Fine, I’ve finished punishing you.”
“Punishing what?”
“Punishing you for flying over with work on your back. Done. Satisfied?”
“Not really. I’d rather you used another method; every time you bring this up, I forget what I was going to say.”
“Then remember it and say it later. No rush. You go work first; I’ll keep studying. When we’re done, send me a message and we’ll see who falls asleep first.”
Gu Yanqiu was silent for more than ten seconds. Since she really couldn’t think of what else Lin Yuewei wanted to say, she replied, “All right. Then I’ll hang up first.”
“Bye-bye.”
“Bye-bye.”
Lin Yuewei’s routine was still fairly healthy. She kept to more than six hours of sleep every day and basically never slept past midnight. Once filming officially started, the pace would be even tighter, so she was taking advantage of this time to build up her energy.
Today’s outing to meet Gu Yanqiu probably cost her about an hour, so she pushed her bedtime back by an hour too. Before saying good night, Gu Yanqiu still hadn’t sent any messages; it seemed she was still busy.
Lin Yuewei spent ten minutes choosing the prettiest one out of twenty freshly taken selfies, pasted a red lipstick kiss sticker in the upper right corner of the photo, and sent it over. Then she shut her phone off and went straight to sleep, dreaming only sweet dreams.
She didn’t check Gu Yanqiu’s reply until she got up the next morning.
【Xi Gu: ......】
【Xi Gu: Mm...】
【Xi Gu: It was taken very beautifully】
【Xi Gu: Can I use it as my wallpaper?】
【Xi Gu: [Wallpaper screenshot]】
【Xi Gu: Good night, dear】
【Xi Gu: I’m getting up to catch a flight】
【Xi Gu: I’m on the plane, arriving in two hours】
Lin Yuewei clicked open the picture. Gu Yanqiu had removed the sticker and made it her home-screen wallpaper. Looking at the intervals between each message, the last one had been sent at five-thirty that morning. The “getting up to catch a flight” message had come a little after two, the good-night message at one-thirty. She had slept half an hour; rounding up, she might as well not have slept at all.
Lin Yuewei didn’t even need to round. She knew Gu Yanqiu definitely hadn’t slept; that good-night message had just been there to soothe her.
Lin Yuewei typed a few words into the chat box: 【You’d better be ready next time we meet】
After replying, she went out.
The group finished their morning run and returned to the “office” to start their daily work. Only Qin Li was missing. The others busied themselves with their own tasks, and more than half an hour later Qin Li strolled in, lazily leaning against the doorframe with a breakfast bag hanging from one hand. “Hey, someone come here; your captain’s arm is about to fall off.”
Several members of the criminal investigation team hurried over and, with profuse thanks, took their breakfasts away.
“Thanks, Captain Qin.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“Captain Qin, you’re even more handsome today.”
“Tall and elegant, handsome and dashing; our tiny office is truly glowing with glory.”
“A second coming of our parents.”
Everyone praised their hardworking captain one after another. Captain Qin squinted and walked inside, clearly very pleased by the flattery, until he heard that last piece of bootlicking. He disdainfully flicked the speaker on the forehead. “What kind of crap are you saying? Get back to work.”
Captain Qin was still carrying two bags; one was his own, and the other was...
Qin Li set the breakfast down on the desk in the quietest corner of the whole office and smiled with a bit of ingratiation. “Want breakfast, Old Bai?”
“I’ve already eaten,” Lin Yuewei said coldly, her eyes fixed on the files in front of her.
“How could you have already eaten?” Qin Li clicked his tongue. “Eat a little more. I bought it especially for you.”
The character Qin Li played was called Qin Shi, the captain of the criminal investigation team. He was lazy, flashy, and vain, loved provoking cats and dogs, and aside from being serious when it came to actual work, his private life was extremely casual. He treated all the police station colleagues like children, a complete “bear dad”; he was a bear most of the time, but when a case came up, he became the “dad.” A character with very strong contrast appeal.
These days, the office life during the boot camp had actually been everyone rehearsing together in advance. It had to be said that Yang Xiao’s eye was truly excellent. Qin Li, with his broad brows and big eyes and his handsome, upright air, played this kind of roguish role perfectly. He was tall and long-limbed; once he took a stance, both his presence and momentum came through.
Lin Yuewei already knew from watching his previous work that he was impressive, and now that they were actually acting opposite each other, she felt even more strongly that his fundamentals were very solid. Once he entered character, his tone and posture changed completely; he could take it up and put it down with complete ease. Acting coach Teacher Chi praised him endlessly.
Faced with Qin Shi’s attempt to curry favor, the Bai Shu played by Lin Yuewei remained unmoved, her pen never stopping, not even giving him a glance.
Qin Shi lowered his voice through clenched teeth. “Wasn’t it just one pen I ruined? Sure, it was your fountain pen that you’d used for years, but didn’t I replace the nib for you? You’re still using it now. Do you really have to hold a grudge like this?”
Bai Shu ignored him completely.
“Are we still best buddies who’ve won ‘Best Partner’ four years in a row or not?” Qin Shi bumped her arm; Bai Shu’s pen tip scratched sharply across the paper, leaving a long tear.
Bai Shu: “...”
She sighed.
Qin Shi gave two awkward laughs and began backing away. “I really didn’t mean it. For the sake of our bromance...”
Bai Shu blew lightly on the paper, drying the ink on it, and continued writing.
“Hey, have you guys heard?” Xiao Jian started some gossip, and the office immediately exploded into chatter. Qin Shi took a lollipop from his drawer, the blue paper stick at the end swaying up and down as he occasionally tossed in a few comments.
Lin Yuewei was acting exactly like someone who didn’t fit in with the rest of them.
Teacher Chi followed them the entire time. Most of the time she let them improvise freely, only occasionally stepping in to offer pointers.
Teacher Chi walked up to Lin Yuewei, and Lin Yuewei set down her pen, looked up at her, and said, “Teacher Chi.”
Teacher Chi said, “Your feeling is still a little off. An ice-cold character—you young people say it like that, right? I’m seeing whether I can still keep up with the times.”
Lin Yuewei smiled.
Teacher Chi continued, “This type of role seems easy to play, but it actually isn’t, because you can’t do what Qin Li does; you can’t rely mainly on language and large, eye-catching movements to show yourself. What you can use are subtle expressions and some small-scale physical movements. If you’re a beginner, you can add a signature physical gesture for yourself. As for what gesture, you can think about that yourself.”
“As for micro-expressions, you’ll just have to practice more. The most important thing is to put real feeling into it. Only true feeling can create true experience. The people after this are your colleagues who live and work beside you; you’ve charged through gunfire and storm together. You’re comrades who’ve staked your lives on one another. Although these people are different from you, you treat them as brothers.”
Teacher Chi pointed at Qin Li, who was grinning broadly and showing all his white teeth, and said, “Look, that’s Qin Shi. In this criminal investigation team, you were the first to know him. You started out together as ordinary neighborhood cops, mediated disputes between neighbors together, caught a black cat that had leaped up into a tree for an elderly lady living alone together. He’s active by nature, a monkey who can’t sit still. When there’s something to do, he always charges ahead, except he’s afraid of cats, so that time you were the one who caught it; he was below cheering you on, ‘Old Bai is amazing, Old Bai is amazing,’ and the neighbors were laughing below...”
Teacher Chi described many details, each one vivid enough that it felt as if Lin Yuewei had really walked through all those years with Qin Li, the two of them comrades-in-arms whose lives were bound together.
Teacher Chi smiled and said, “Now look at him again.”
Qin Li was laughing so hard in his chair that he was bent over.
Teacher Chi asked, “What do you feel?”
Lin Yuewei hesitated before answering, “A little...”
Teacher Chi encouraged her, “Say it directly. Don’t worry about anything else.”
Lin Yuewei sighed and finished her thought: “A bit silly, but kind of cute.”
“Cute is the highest level of praise.” Teacher Chi laughed, patting her shoulder. “All right, just keep this mindset. Some feelings will naturally come out, and the technical stuff can be learned later.”
Teacher Chi’s words gave Lin Yuewei a great deal of inspiration. She went back and wrote each person a very, very, very long story of her own, all things not present in the script. The next day, she handed it to Teacher Chi to look over; Teacher Chi nodded with a smile. “A child can be taught.”
Although Lin Yuewei still remained “untainted by the mud” within the team, that sense of being apart from the world had disappeared. She was cold in attitude, but not indifferent; in fact, she was quietly caring for her teammates. If Lin Yuewei felt that the script wasn’t rich enough or that the lines had problems, she would go to Teacher Chi and Qin Li to discuss it first. Sometimes the two agreed with her, sometimes they argued back with solid reasoning. No matter which answer she got, Lin Yuewei benefited greatly. When the three of them reached a consensus, she would go to WeChat and discuss it further with the director, who was also very attentive and often gave precise feedback by the next day.
After that night, Qin Li never brought up the matter of a significant other again, so Lin Yuewei didn’t think about it much either, though she became more and more adept at keeping herself in check.
In the blink of an eye, two weeks passed. Lin Yuewei had spent more than ten days at the training center and felt as if she’d been reborn. They’d been locked in for more than ten days, not allowed out, and now that they were suddenly released for a day off, they all stared at each other for a while.
Da Qiao laughed. “Why do we look like we’ve been let out of prison?”
Xiao Jian pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “We do look like we’ve been let out of prison, and like we’ve been locked up for years.”
Da Wang: “I second that.”
Qin Li had a rolled-up newspaper in his hand, which he used to lightly tap each of them on the forehead in turn. He was fully in Qin Shi mode as he said, “Hey, hey, what are you talking about? The captain’s treating everyone to dinner tonight. Coming or not?”
“Coming!”
“Bai Vice-Captain, are you coming?” Da Qiao winked at Lin Yuewei.
Lin Yuewei lifted a leg and strode off in several long steps, all tall and long-limbed. Qin Li called out, “Why aren’t you keeping up? Vice-Captain Bai has volunteered to treat us.”
Lin Yuewei’s steps faltered slightly.
Qin Li instantly caved. “...I’ll pay. I’ll pay.”
A bunch of coworkers laughed and teased them:
“Vice-Captain Bai’s still the best; our captain turns into a mouse facing a cat whenever he sees the vice-captain.”
“What do you mean a mouse facing a cat? It’s more like a little mouse meeting a feline hunter and trembling all over.”
“Why don’t the two of you just get together? I represent the organization in approving it, and I can even file the report for you.”
“I’ll pay the nine yuan.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?” Qin Li grabbed the two who were talking nonsense by the back of the neck, one hand on each, lifting them up like chicks and giving them a shake to the side. “If you two get married, I’ll be the first to approve it. Old Bai and I are just good brothers; there’ll never be a future for us.”
The two shouted, “Then we’re brothers too!”
Qin Li snorted. “I don’t care about you two.”
Qin Li took three steps at a time to catch up to Lin Yuewei ahead of him. Lin Yuewei heard the noise of their antics behind her, turned her head slightly toward the trash can by the roadside, and a ripple of laughter appeared in her eyes; the corners of her mouth rose helplessly.
The group ate from noon all the way into the evening. To celebrate filming starting in two days, they drank quite a lot. By the time Lin Yuewei got back, she was so dizzy she could barely stand; she didn’t even shower before collapsing into bed, not waking until the middle of the night because her phone rang.
She groped all over above her head and couldn’t find her phone; the ringing irritated her, so she simply pulled the blanket over her face.
The phone rang until it automatically disconnected, and after a while it rang again.
Lin Yuewei was sleeping like the dead.
“Sorry, the number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later...” Gu Yanqiu put down her phone, opened WeChat, and sent Lin Yuewei a message.
【Xi Gu: Drunk? Asleep?】
【Xi Gu: Call me back when you see this】
Lin Yuewei had sent her a message in the afternoon saying she was drinking. Gu Yanqiu had reminded her not to drink too much and to be careful. Lin Yuewei had said she had an assistant with her, so there was no need to worry, and she wouldn’t drink too much.
Now that she couldn’t get in touch with her, Gu Yanqiu couldn’t help worrying. Reason told her that Lin Yuewei had an assistant with her, and that Lin Yuewei was a very measured person; nothing should be wrong. But emotionally, all the news stories she had seen, with their reports of so-and-so being harmed, flooded into her mind without permission, along with things like people being killed by falling objects from the sky, people getting hit by stray bullets on the road, people walking along, falling over, and then ending up in the hospital...
She wondered if she had developed “Lin Yuewei persecution paranoia,” or if she was just like a mother, worrying herself sick because she hadn’t seen her for only ten hours. She forced herself to shake off these exaggerated thoughts and, while browsing the E magazine photos of Lin Yuewei taken during the program, waited for Lin Yuewei to reply.
The E magazine had come out more than a month earlier. The inside spread had been shot beautifully; especially Lin Yuewei. After those images were released, aside from fans doing control comments, almost every passerby was praising how stunning her looks were and how she was simply born to eat this bowl of rice.
Even some haters who saw the photos said that they were too good-looking and changed from black fans to passersby.
Lin Yuewei’s eye shape was long but not narrow, with upturned outer corners; when she looked straight into the camera, there was a faint touch of white beneath the irises, cold and sharp. Her lips were thin, the corners turned down, but the curve of her cupid’s bow was beautiful. When those sharp brows and eyes were lit by soft light, they turned stubborn and innocent.
Not only did she not look lifeless, she instead seemed to have a mist-like glimmer in her eyes, aloof and otherworldly.
The solo shots in this spread had been commented on by several major fashion influencers. The rainbow-flavored praise was so excessive that even the fans felt embarrassed, and could only thank them in the comments and echo a few lines of their own.
Gu Yanqiu’s Weibo account finally posted its first entry.
Lin Yuewei’s fan: 【So pretty [magazine photo attached]】
She only followed one account, and she had over a dozen followers, all zombie fans. A month after the account was created, the reading count for her new posts still hadn’t exceeded double digits. But Gu Yanqiu didn’t care. She only used this account to keep a record, and occasionally she’d browse the supertopic and collect pictures.
Lin Yuewei’s fan stations had collectively been shut down for half a month, because Lin Yuewei hadn’t made any move at all.
Gu Yanqiu took a black pen and blacked out Shao Yasi’s face on the magazine spread. After thinking about it, she simply blacked out everyone except Lin Yuewei. Amid a sea of black, there was only Lin Yuewei, ethereal and radiant.
Gu Yanqiu stared at it for a few seconds, drew in a soft breath, then cut out the Lin Yuewei section with scissors and tossed the magazine into the trash. She got up and went to the study next door. In the corner of the study was a medium-sized box. Gu Yanqiu reached in and casually took out a new copy, but after only a few steps she paused, turned back, opened the top of the box all the way, and moved a chair over to sit beside it.
Back when the magazine had gone on sale, there had been an event where autographed postcards were given out at random. Not only were the autographs distributed randomly, the signer itself was also random. Fans cried out that they were being ripped off while still spending money to buy the magazine. Male celebrity fans were crazy, but no matter how crazy they got, they still couldn’t compare to this side’s Lin Yuewei fans, the reeds. The reeds all knew that some mysterious big shot, via the fan leader Jiang Congbi, had donated a large batch of magazines to the fan support club for use in giveaways and other purposes. But this mysterious big shot had brushed the dust off her sleeves and left, hiding her achievements and name in deep.
Gu Yanqiu had unpacked most of the magazine gifts and picked out all of Lin Yuewei’s signed cards. After sending out a large batch, only a small box remained at home. Gu Yanqiu had felt a bit regretful after buying them; there were too many other people on the page, and no matter how she blacked them out, she still couldn’t make herself satisfied with the result. Now she could only sit there and look at Lin Yuewei’s signed postcard. If she wanted a signature, she could have Lin Yuewei sign it for her on the spot, anywhere, and it would be fine. But these two things were not the same.
Gu Yanqiu liked this feeling of quietly paying attention to her.
One side as a fan, one side as a lover.
She wanted both.
When Lin Yuewei woke up, it was already past two in the morning. She scratched her hair, lowered her head to smell herself, and almost got knocked out by the smell of alcohol on her own body. After freeing herself from the seal of the bed, she looked at her phone to see whether she’d still sleep after showering.
That glance was enough to make her jolt. There were more than a dozen missed calls, spanning from eleven last night to one in the morning. The most recent one had been at 1:01. Lin Yuewei hurriedly called back.
Gu Yanqiu answered instantly. “Mm.”
Lin Yuewei apologized, “Sorry, I fell asleep. I drank too much tonight.”
“I guessed as much.”
Gu Yanqiu’s voice was very low, but very clear, with not the slightest hint of sleepiness. It was obviously past her bedtime. Lin Yuewei felt even more guilty. “Sorry for making you wait for me until now.”
“It’s fine as long as nothing happened.” Gu Yanqiu paused. “Are you going back to sleep?”
Lin Yuewei said, “I’m going to take a shower first. I might keep sleeping after that; you should sleep first.”
“I’ll wait until you finish showering.”
“No, it’s too late. Go to sleep quickly.”
“I’ve already waited until this late; a few more minutes won’t matter.” Before Lin Yuewei could refuse, Gu Yanqiu cut her off. “If you want me to sleep earlier, then shower faster.”
“I’m going right now. Ten minutes.”
Gu Yanqiu checked the time on her phone. Just as the minute hand moved, Lin Yuewei came back and said in a hard, commanding tone, “I’m done showering. Go to sleep.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Oh, right,” Gu Yanqiu said suddenly. “Give me your assistant’s WeChat ID tomorrow. I’ll add her. Sometimes when I can’t find you, I can ask her. Is that okay?”
“This...” Lin Yuewei hesitated.
“Is it not okay?”
Lin Yuewei explained, “It’s not that it isn’t okay, but what reason would you use to ask about my schedule? Are you going to say you’re my wife?” As she said that, Lin Yuewei remembered that Wang Yuanyuan knew she had a significant other, but if it was only a significant other, that might not be enough to make her trust her, right?
“I have my own way. Just give it to me.”
The next morning, Lin Yuewei remembered the matter and forwarded the contact card to Gu Yanqiu, while also telling Wang Yuanyuan in advance that someone would be adding her as a friend later.
Gu Yanqiu sent a verification request. Wang Yuanyuan came over holding up her phone and asked Lin Yuewei, “Is this person it? Auntie?”
Lin Yuewei thought, Where did an auntie come from? She leaned over to take a look: “...”
On the verification message, it clearly said:
I’m Lin Yuewei’s mother.
Author’s Note:
Gu-zong: hehehe