2023
At dawn, in a torrential downpour, it looked as though God had split the sky open.
Inside an observation room in the emergency department, two faint voices drifted in from the corridor.
“I heard Chi Xiaoman is going to make a movie?”
“Fake.”
“You’re that sure?”
“Of course.” The speaker sounded utterly certain. “Let me ask you this: in all the years you’ve been alive, have you ever seen a top female celebrity doing perfectly fine, with all that easy money on the table, suddenly run off to the film world and become some rookie director just to get criticized? Besides…”
“Besides what?”
“Besides, who is Chi Xiaoman, don’t you know?”
“What’s wrong with her?” The other person sounded baffled. “You don’t like her?”
“Hey— I never said that.” The first voice hurried to explain. “Anyway, I don’t like those attention-seekers who are always stirring things up. One minute this, the next minute that.”
“She’s on the hot search every day. Anything at all and people start making a fuss. Wait, let’s not talk about that first—”
“First of all, even if Chi Xiaoman really wanted to make this movie herself, would her company be that stupid? They finally managed to package up a top female celebrity, and they’d let her disappear from acting and commercials for so long just to go be a director or whatever?”
“That makes sense.” The one who had started the conversation lowered their voice, then seemed to spot something and said with interest, “Hey— but didn’t the hot search say this morning that Chen—”
“Even more fake.” The other person’s tone grew even more certain. “Forget it, don’t look. It’s garbage. More fake than Chi Xiaoman becoming a director!”
With that, the voices drifted away, their last syllables swallowed by the crashing rain.
By then, the observation room was silent.
A patient with menstrual pain, hooked up to an IV, glanced sideways without making a sound.
That was a bed by the corridor.
From the headboard to the footboard, the curtains were drawn tight, completely enclosing the person on the bed.
The person inside was very quiet; ever since being brought in, she had barely made a sound.
But those two voices had been so loud just now.
Could it be that even lying there, the big star hadn’t heard a thing?
Four hours earlier, a whole group of people had rushed in carrying a woman covered in blood and laid her on a hospital bed.
Not long after, that same group had frantically started calling people one after another before hurrying back out.
But the emergency observation room happened to be sparsely occupied. The menstrual-pain patient had sharp eyes and a quick mind, and the moment the bed rolled past her, she recognized the woman’s face.
The woman covered in blood was Chi Xiaoman!
Chi Xiaoman.
The Chi Xiaoman from the coconut water ad that had just been taken down in the hallway; the Chi Xiaoman she saw every day in the jewelry ads at Line 4 of the subway;
the Chi Xiaoman who, every year on May 22, flashed across giant screens in shopping malls and on city streets;
the Chi Xiaoman whose appearance at a single brand event could, before it even began, flood an entire mall with crowds.
The current top female celebrity in entertainment, with nearly one hundred million Weibo followers—Chi Xiaoman.
How had she ended up in a suburban emergency room in the middle of the night, her face covered in blood?
And who knew how lively the hot searches were right now.
The patient picked up her phone and glanced at it, then couldn’t help peeking again toward the tightly drawn curtain beside her.
And then.
A thin, pale wrist suddenly reached out from behind the curtain.
With a swish, it was pulled open.
Before the patient could react, her eyes met the woman on the bed’s gaze.
The woman was wearing a medical cervical collar and had been craning her neck as she stared blankly at the ceiling.
She seemed to be putting in some effort.
Only after reaching out to pull back the curtain did she slowly turn her eyes to the patient.
Then there she was, lying half-turned on the bed, smiling at her without the slightest bit of stinginess, and asking,
“I heard you’ve been hurting for a while. Do you want some hot water?”
It really was Chi Xiaoman.
The patient stared at her, wide-eyed, frozen for a moment in a daze.
Chi Xiaoman had a pair of classic, beautiful catlike eyes: round along the lids, with long, upturned outer corners.
But right now.
She was lying stiffly in bed, able only to roll her eyes around as she looked at the patient.
That made her seem unusually lively, even more like a cat.
“Did I disturb you?”
Still holding that tilted posture, and after managing eye contact with some difficulty, Chi Xiaoman let go of the curtain with a hesitant motion. Her tone was apologetic.
“Sorry—”
“No!”
The still-dazed patient snapped back to reality and waved her hands quickly, then awkwardly touched her ear.
“It’s just that you’re way prettier in real life than on my phone. I, um, I didn’t react in time…”
Besides, she had been hurting so badly earlier that she couldn’t stop herself from making little noises. She hadn’t expected the big star to actually hear her.
Chi Xiaoman froze for two or three seconds.
Then she smiled at her, those catlike eyes curving into crescents.
“Thank you.”
“If you want hot water, there’s a thermos on the cabinet next to me.”
In the sound of rain pattering against the window outside.
Her voice was clean, clear, and especially distinct.
But to be honest.
The patient hadn’t expected Chi Xiaoman to speak to her first and was still a little dazed; nothing had really sunk in.
After Chi Xiaoman said that, she deliberately waited a moment, but when no reply came, she blinked in confusion.
Then, as if she had realized something, she explained with a smile, “It’s clean. I haven’t drunk from it.”
“No, I didn’t mean that!”
The menstrual-pain patient came back to herself again, and in her panic glanced at the shared cabinet between them. Sure enough, there was a thermos on top.
“I… I’m just embarrassed…”
“It’s okay.”
Chi Xiaoman said it with a smile. Her smile was standard, pretty, soft, and without any aggressiveness; the tone of her voice put people at ease, making it impossible to feel offended. “Anyway, I can’t drink it. If your stomach hurts, hot water will help a lot.”
“Then I… will…” The patient hesitated, licking her dry lips. “Thank you?”
“Mm.”
Chi Xiaoman’s eyes were still curved. “It might be a little hot; be careful.”
There were only the two of them in the observation room. The patient stopped being shy, took the thermos over, found a disposable cup, poured some out, and took a sip. It really did feel much better than before.
But… she really hadn’t expected Chi Xiaoman to be this kind of person.
Warm-hearted, polite, willing to speak to a stranger, and seemingly without any celebrity airs.
Was this the big star putting on a show? Or…
Thinking of that, the menstrual-pain patient took small sips of the hot water Chi Xiaoman had given her while looking over at Chi Xiaoman again.
It was probably because Chi Xiaoman didn’t have much strength in her hands that the curtain had only been drawn back halfway, leaving a gap.
Still, she could see it.
Inside, Chi Xiaoman lay quietly on the hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The blood on her face was gone, but for some reason—whether the assistant had been careless or what—
there was still a little left uncleared on her pointed chin, glaringly obvious against her especially fair skin.
Her hair seemed to have been cut recently, unlike the way she had seen it at business events before.
It looked like a layered princess cut, but not stiff.
You had to look closely to realize it was a princess cut; her long chestnut-brown hair had slightly curled ends and a soft, airy crown.
She seemed to be wearing stage clothes—an ordinary oversized T-shirt, white in some places and gray in others, a mess.
But fortunately, she had the build for clothes.
Even with only a little shoulder showing, she still wore it beautifully.
A clean, stubborn kind of sexiness.
She didn’t know how long she had been looking. The patient took small sips of hot water.
When she came back to herself.
The hot water in the cup was already gone.
Even she felt a little guilty, drinking someone else’s water and staring at them for so long.
But Chi Xiaoman herself acted as if nothing was wrong. Even after being stared at for so long, she didn’t mind; perhaps she was used to being looked at. She lay there quietly, not making a sound to interrupt.
“Xiaoman.” After looking for so long, the patient also felt a little embarrassed.
“Mm?”
Chi Xiaoman gathered her thoughts, slowly turned her gaze over, and when it met the patient’s tentative eyes, she instinctively lifted the corners of her mouth in a smile. “Finished drinking?”
“Thank you for the hot water.” The pale-faced patient seemed to have made some kind of decision and said to her, “I think you’re much better than what people online say.”
Chi Xiaoman froze.
“Don’t listen to them.” The patient scratched her chin. “Anyway, I support you making movies.”
Chi Xiaoman hadn’t expected her to bring that up; after freezing for several seconds, she smiled. “Okay, thank you.”
The patient gave a quiet “Mm” and said nothing else.
Chi Xiaoman waited politely for a moment.
Then looked away.
Turning back toward the white ceiling, she heard another muffled sentence from beside her in the rain.
“Then what about Chen Yue?”
The rain seemed to stop for an instant. Chi Xiaoman closed her eyes; when she opened them again—
she realized the person beside her was still looking at her, so she patiently looked back.
Meeting that curious gaze, she still smiled with curved eyes, her tone unchanged.
“Mm? What about her?”
“Will Chen Yue really act in your movie?” the patient pressed. “You two never appear on the same stage, do you?”
Chi Xiaoman’s smile didn’t change. She paused amid the crackling rain and answered the second question first, softly, “We’re not never on the same stage.”
“Really?” The patient rolled her eyes in confusion. “Then what about the movie?”
Several flies had gotten into the room and were circling the fluorescent light, bumping into it again and again.
Chi Xiaoman stared at them blankly for a while.
Then she lowered her eyelashes, parted her lips, and was just about to answer when—
A set of hurried footsteps entered the room.
It was her assistant, Fang A-Yun.
She had finished the admission paperwork and found a wheelchair, ready to take Chi Xiaoman to the VIP observation room on the top floor.
And she interrupted their conversation.
Chi Xiaoman slowly closed her parted lips. She didn’t answer the patient’s question.
Fang A-Yun carefully helped her out of bed.
When she finally got down, Chi Xiaoman accidentally lifted her chin at the wrong moment, and the pain sent cold sweat pouring over her whole body; she stumbled into the wheelchair.
Before being pushed out.
Her face was pale, and she only had time to smile at the patient she’d met just once, then say,
“There’s still hot water in the thermos. Keep it and drink it; it’s fine.”
“Don’t I need to return it?”
The patient hadn’t reacted in time and could only watch as Chi Xiaoman was pushed away until she could no longer even see her shadow, thinking dazedly to herself—could the gossip be true?
Was the top female celebrity really going to switch careers and become a film director?
And the lead actress really was an award-winning Best Actress.
Who would believe that if it were said out loud?
The real question was: was any of this actually true?
-
From the emergency observation room to the VIP room on the top floor of the inpatient building, they had to pass through several long corridors, reach another building, and then take a stretch of elevator ride.
Fang A-Yun found a hat, a mask, and a freshly washed coat, wrapping Chi Xiaoman’s head, face, and upper body tightly before carefully pushing her out.
This afternoon.
Chi Xiaoman had flown over to reshoot a chase scene from her last drama. Over the past two weeks she had been running nonstop, sleeping less than three hours a day.
It was only two or three shots, really.
The company wanted the crew to use a stand-in and didn’t want her to make room in her schedule for it.
But for continuity’s sake, and because Chi Xiaoman didn’t like using stand-ins, she insisted on doing it herself.
Her company’s schedule was packed; after shuffling things around, they only barely cleared three hours.
During the reshoot, the prop vehicle malfunctioned.
In a moment of inattention, the car slammed into her from behind her shoulder.
Luckily, the actor in the scene reacted quickly and hit the brakes.
It wasn’t serious.
A broken left hand, and a contusion on her neck.
As for the scary-looking blood all over her face in the news photos, that was only the blood-pack prop used for the scene.
And luckily, the reshoot was finished.
It was just that the following days’ schedule would definitely be affected.
Chi Xiaoman had never liked causing trouble for other people.
She also hadn’t expected that coming over to reshoot a scene would turn into this.
Right now, with only a minor injury, she could see everyone around her growing anxious on her behalf.
She felt quite sorry about it.
At the moment, the business team was busy coordinating follow-up commercial shoot times with the brand side, so that was one thing.
As for everyone else—the company, the crew sent to apologize and accompany her to appointments—she let anyone who could take time off do so, and anyone who could go rest, she urged back to rest.
From the car crash at dusk to midnight now, after the emergency department finished the pain-relief IV and the necessary examinations, then put on a cast and had the doctor order observation, only the assistant, Fang A-Yun, was left in the hospital to look after her.
“Ding—”
The elevator doors opened, and everyone inside looked up at once.
The hot search had been trending for a long time. Chi Xiaoman was in bad shape now, and the last thing she needed was to be photographed.
Fang A-Yun tugged her hat a little lower, and in doing so also covered her already-masked face more tightly.
Once inside the elevator, Chi Xiaoman immediately felt dizzy and lightheaded. She didn’t know whether the painkiller infusion had worn off by now, but a fine, prickling ache rose from her forearm.
She endured it and let Fang A-Yun wheel her into a safer spot.
Then she heard two voices rustling from behind her.
— “Did you see the hot search? Chen Yue really won Best Actress again today.”
— “Tsk. Gotta say, she’s got talent. Since her debut she’s only made, what, five films? And she’s already won two Best Actress awards.”
Chi Xiaoman kept her face tilted up, silently staring into the darkness ahead, not moving at all.
Fang A-Yun probably thought she was uncomfortable, so she rubbed the shoulder that had gone numb with pain.
— “Chi Xiaoman’s car crash looks pretty serious. The pictures are all bloody and messy; it’s pretty scary.”
— “Let me see. Oh my god, this serious? Could she be disfigured?”
#ChiXiaomanCarCrash
#ChenYueGoldenImageBestActress
These were probably the two hottest topics on Weibo today. There was no way Chi Xiaoman didn’t hear them, and no way she didn’t want those two things placed side by side.
Even in this suburban hospital at midnight, people were still talking about it all the way here.
“Ding—”
Chi Xiaoman snapped back to herself in a daze.
The elevator had opened again.
But they still hadn’t reached the VIP floor.
Several people crowded in one after another and stood tightly packed beside her wheelchair.
One of them was moving especially fast.
They seemed to have been running for a long time; by the time they stood beside her after getting into the elevator, their breathing was still uneven.
Chi Xiaoman was in so much pain she felt dizzy. She painfully shifted her wheelchair and gave them a little more room.
The rain hadn’t stopped since dusk. She didn’t know which floor this person had gotten on from; maybe they’d been caught in the rain, because they still carried the damp heat of wet clothes. But coming to the hospital dripping water like this, it had to be an emergency.
Hospital emergencies could be big or small. Her wheelchair was blocking the middle of the elevator, and they were still heading to the top floor; she didn’t know how much she was delaying them.
Thinking of that, Chi Xiaoman worked hard to turn her wheelchair, hoping to leave as much room as possible so the person could get out easily later.
But the person who had just been breathing hard suddenly stood perfectly still as she moved, only standing alone behind her.
The people behind them did squeeze a little farther in around her wheelchair, but they were still talking about the hot search.
“Look, this marketing account even said Chi Xiaoman is going to switch to making movies, and the female lead is Chen Yue. Is that true?”
“Fake. You know how exaggerated those accounts are. Besides, all these years, one’s been a traffic star and the other a Best Actress, and they’ve never once shared a stage.”
“I even checked. They all say that even at those year-end events, one would leave just as the other arrived late. I think those two are just fundamentally at odds!”
“Yeah, I remember that post from two years ago caused quite a stir too. They said Chi Xiaoman was riding on Chen Yue’s popularity… If I were Chi Xiaoman, I’d hate Chen Yue to death by now.”
“I think you’ve got it backwards. It was obviously Chi Xiaoman who suddenly posted that nameless congratulatory Weibo; Chen Yue was already keeping a low profile after winning Best Actress, and then she got dragged into black-hot-search chaos by Chi Xiaoman’s disaster-prone constitution.”
“If I were Chen Yue, I’d hate Chi Xiaoman to death!”
As soon as that fell, there was a soft thud of something dropping at Chi Xiaoman’s feet.
The noise wasn’t loud.
But it still jolted her out of the pain, and she abruptly lifted her eyelids.
“Hey, could someone pick that up for me, thanks!” The person who had dropped it called from the back of the elevator.
Chi Xiaoman’s head was still spinning; for a moment, she didn’t even know where she was.
Her whole body went stiff, her knees pressed together.
Inside the enclosed space, she was like a cat suddenly startled and unable to move.
The person beside her therefore had a little more room.
But they also paused abruptly for a moment, then slowly crouched down, picked up the item beside her wheelchair, turned, and handed it back.
The one who had dropped it said thank you.
The person beside her didn’t answer.
They just moved back into place, once again leaving the space to Chi Xiaoman.
Chi Xiaoman kept her knees pressed together, not noticing the stranger’s thoughtfulness at all.
Her head was now dizzy and hazy; everything in her body hurt.
So she could only force herself to breathe in small, careful sips. After struggling to steady herself for a while, she exhaustedly closed her eyes again.
These past few years she had always been easily frightened, and she still hadn’t recovered from the injury.
Now, with just one scare like that.
Cold sweat burst out all at once, bead after bead dripping from her chin. And with summer about to arrive, the air-conditioning was chilly.
When she closed her eyes again and the cool air swept over her back, she only felt the world lurch, and couldn’t help shrinking her chin in.
As a result, the hat on her face shifted too.
Caught off guard—
The lower half of her face was suddenly exposed like that.
In her panic, Chi Xiaoman didn’t even realize she was still wearing a mask. Stiff-necked, she hurriedly reached up to steady it.
At the exact same time—
The shadow beside her leaned slightly and moved in front of her, blocking her completely.
She thought it was Fang A-Yun.
She instinctively reached out for her, but before she even touched anything, someone in the elevator cried out in shock,
“Holy shit!”
“Chen Yue?”
That one sentence instantly silenced the noisy elevator, and before Chi Xiaoman’s sluggish brain could catch up, something like slow, slicing panic began to spread through her.
Her hand, suspended in midair, froze and trembled faintly. In the dim light, she blinked stupidly once, her gaze slowly dropping.
And she really did catch sight of a hem fluttering at the edge of her vision—Chen Yue’s favorite dark green from years ago—
Very, very long ago, in a noisy summer, under a moldy ceiling, the dark green of a sleeveless cotton T-shirt, the dark green of a bra strap tracing a fair shoulder blade, the dark green of a headband gathering up long, straight black hair as it drifted.
She used to lie dazed on the woman’s sweat-damp knees, always feeling that the other person was the only one in the world who could wear that color without it seeming dull or monotonous; instead, it looked tender as water, haunting and unforgettable.
Every time she stared at her absentmindedly.
The woman would lower her face and ask, “What’s wrong?”
Then, smiling, she would take off those round, flat glasses she always wore and look at her with those gentle, melancholy eyes for a moment.
When she really had no choice.
She would touch the tip of Chi Xiaoman’s nose with soft fingers and ask, “Why do you always like staring at me like that?”
She would also smile at her in the old yellow-green light, her voice full of playful amusement, coaxing her,
“Big star.”
Now, nearly ten years later, that summer—the hottest summer in memory, as if of this entire century—was already long gone.
They stood one in front of the other in the same elevator.
Like two ships colliding in a crowded sea; the distance between them seemed close, yet somehow far.
The unrelated people in the elevator were still arguing over whether it was she who should hate her, or she who should hate her more.
Chi Xiaoman stared blankly at that piece of clothing just inches away.
Slowly, she withdrew the hand that had gone stiff with the cold air-conditioning and rested it lightly on the wheelchair armrest.
She clenched her fingers.
A few seconds passed.
Then, after that deathly still silence, someone in the elevator finally couldn’t hold back and spoke up.
“Is it really Chen Yue? But shouldn’t she be in Hong Kong right now, accepting her award and celebrating?”
The voice was very low, full of doubt.
“Why would she rush all the way to this suburban hospital in Beijing in the middle of the night?”
[Author’s Note]
Hahaha [glasses], here comes our little Neon, clack-clack-clack! (hands on hips)
This time it’s still a story that’s sour enough to leave a bitter aftertaste. A broken mirror patched back together has to be a little twisted and bitter to look good, right? But don’t let that scare you off! Because this is still a story full of beauty and love, a story I really love and cried over a lot [sunglasses].
Still, to make everyone’s reading experience smoother, here are a few notes!
1. Same old rules: updates every night at 9, no skipping, absolutely no disappearing. I’ve got plenty of completed stock, so don’t worry.
2. Paragraph comments are open, so please leave lots of comments!
3. I hope I can use one summer’s story to accompany everyone through this autumn.
4. Please, please, please—our little Neon is really, really pretty [begging][please][please][please], don’t leave~
TL Note:
hot search (热搜) = a trending topic on Chinese social media, especially Weibo.
Golden Image Best Actress (金像影后) is the Hong Kong Film Awards’ Best Actress prize.