2023

“I’m sorry.” That was Chi Xiaoman’s first line.

When the call came in, Chen Yue was watching The Clouds of Zhou Yun. The room was dim; the projection cast a faint blue glow on the white wall, and the little phone screen lit up.

Unknown number.

Chen Yue stared at it for a long time.

She answered just before it was about to hang up.

The person on the other end didn’t speak.

Chen Yue took off her glasses and glanced out the window. Summer nights were heavy with rain; the glass was fogged over, reflecting her own blurred face in the dark.

Thirty seconds passed.

Then she was certain the person on the other end was Chi Xiaoman.

When Chi Xiaoman wanted to cry, she usually had a habit: inhale three times, hold her breath once, then slowly let it out, and she could force the tears back. By her early twenties, she had already gone through far more suffering than most people her age; naturally, she had accumulated many tears that had been forced back down like that.

Long ago, Chen Yue thought that trick probably wasn’t very effective. So every time, she would quietly keep a packet of tissues ready.

It was also because if she merely met her eyes, or said a single sentence to her, it might not even take half a second before Chi Xiaoman lost control, her eyes going red, her mouth turning down, fresh tears spilling out one by one, squeezed from deep inside her body until there was nothing left but to let them fall.

Now, much later, Chen Yue answered this call from thousands of miles away, a call that was most likely dialed by mistake.

And found that Chi Xiaoman was still keeping that habit; inhaling three times, holding once, slowly exhaling.

Again and again, as if there were a great many tears she needed to keep from falling.

Three minutes later, Chen Yue couldn’t help but speak, asking if she was all right.

And she said to Chen Yue,

“I’m sorry.”

Her tone was normal, her enunciation clear, with no trace of fuzziness or a tear-choked voice.

As if Chen Yue’s memory had gone wrong, making her mistake the person on the phone for someone she had once known—young, full of feeling, and with so many lovely ways of loving. Maybe she had been mistaken for a very long time.

That also made Chen Yue’s hand, already reaching for tissues, stop.

Her fingers slowly curled back in.

She smiled.

“Why are you suddenly apologizing to me?”

“I…” Chi Xiaoman struggled to part her lips.

But she couldn’t manage a complete sentence. After a pause on the phone, she repeated it once more.

“I’m sorry.”

The call had been dialed by accident. But once it connected, Chi Xiaoman realized that the person she owed the deepest apology to was Chen Yue.

Because Chen Yue could have lived quietly, yet had been dragged into all these awful matters by her.

And from beginning to end, she hadn’t discussed any of it with her.

She had also said behind her back, “Chen Yue absolutely can’t.”

Even though the current Chen Yue wouldn’t lose an opportunity just because of that one sentence.

But she thought of Chen Tong.

Chen Tong had become Chen Yue. Ten years. It had not been easy.

Chi Xiaoman should have been the one most happy for her, and yet she had suddenly become the bad person out there, saying she wasn’t allowed.

“Chi Xiaoman.” Hearing her say sorry, Chen Yue instead asked softly, “After you finish crying now, will you still suddenly run out and run eight hundred meters, saying you need to sweat out all the extra useless tears inside you?”

Chi Xiaoman froze.

Chen Yue didn’t say anything either, as though this were an answer she needed to wait for patiently. The wind and rain on her end were both loud; she wasn’t sure if a window had been opened.

“No.”

After a long while, Chi Xiaoman’s emotions gradually settled, and she gave a somewhat awkward one-word reply.

“What would you do now?” Chen Yue sounded as if she had suddenly started chatting with her casually.

Chi Xiaoman was a little dazed, but she still thought about it and answered beneath the night sky,

“I might…”

She added in a small voice, “I’d put on a very expensive face mask to hydrate my skin.”

Chen Yue laughed.

Perhaps because the sound had really traveled from very far away.

Even her laughter sounded slightly distorted.

It was like one whirlpool after another, pulling anyone who heard it down with it.

And when she spoke again, her voice had softened considerably. “Then remember to put on a very expensive face mask later.”

Chi Xiaoman was stunned; she instinctively wiped at her face, then instinctively explained, “I didn’t cry.”

Chen Yue’s voice fell into the rain. “Mm. I’m just afraid you’re hiding away crying alone.”

Chi Xiaoman fell silent.

Chen Yue appropriately stopped talking, probably to give her some room to breathe.

Even though she knew Chen Yue couldn’t see her, Chi Xiaoman still covered the redness around her eyes. “Then I might need to put on two masks.”

Chen Yue laughed. “Sure, then put on two.”

Her tone was coaxing, comforting. “Anyway, you’re already a big star.”

Perhaps Chen Yue really did have some kind of magic for soothing emotions. The moment she appeared, Chi Xiaoman’s mood eased a little.

Hearing that soft, gentle “big star,” she couldn’t help but laugh.

But the moment she did, she felt uneasy because the atmosphere had turned lighter, and so she chose instead to apologize for leaving so quickly last time. “Sorry I left so fast last time.”

Chen Yue didn’t answer immediately.

Chi Xiaoman was afraid she had upset her by bringing up her own recklessness, and in her anxiety blurted out something else. “So where are you now?”

“In Hong Kong.”

“You’re back in Hong Kong again this fast?”

“Chi Xiaoman.” Chen Yue suddenly called her name.

“Ah?” Chi Xiaoman answered, and when she saw that Chen Yue still wasn’t speaking, she thought she had disturbed her peace and hurriedly apologized. “Sorry, are you busy? Then I—”

“Actually, Neon is a good story.”

Chen Yue sounded as though she no longer wanted to hear her continue, choosing her words with restraint. “It’s just not very commercial.”

Chen Yue very rarely interrupted people. Most of the time, she would patiently listen to the end; even if she disagreed, she wouldn’t insist on saying what she disliked face-to-face just to satisfy a moment of bluntness.

That made Chi Xiaoman suddenly feel a bad premonition. “What do you mean?”

Chen Yue was quiet for a moment, probably considering whether to give her time to accept it. In the end, she still chose to get straight to the point. “It means an actor recommending herself to a director.”

Chi Xiaoman still didn’t understand how the conversation had gotten here. She was completely muddled.

“Chen Yue, are you drunk?”

“I don’t drink.”

Compared with Chi Xiaoman, who had called her in a daze and was now trying to hang up in a daze, Chen Yue was extraordinarily calm.

“I’ve already had my agent read it too. She has no objections to my choice, and she doesn’t deny that Neon is a good story.”

It sounded as if she had been thinking about this for a long time; she had just been waiting for the right moment, one Chi Xiaoman could accept, to bring it up.

Chi Xiaoman finally realized she wasn’t joking. “But…”

Still, her thoughts were sluggish.

“But you just won Best Actress. If you want a good script, how could you not get one? Why are you fixated on making my film of all things?”

No matter what anyone else said, Chi Xiaoman knew this was absolutely not a good choice for Chen Yue.

The whole project was a road no one had ever walked before. The signs were already obvious from the moment it was pitched and prepared.

What Song Yingying had said wasn’t entirely wrong; for Neon to be completed smoothly, the difficulties ahead were boundless.

Chi Xiaoman had resolved to do it because she felt that if she didn’t try this year, she might never have the courage again. She was also willing to bear any related responsibility and consequences for this choice, however unorthodox it might be, as long as in the end she could film the work according to the original core of the script.

But that decision did not include Chen Yue.

She was afraid Chen Yue would misunderstand that this call had some ulterior motive; she was also afraid Chen Yue might really decide to join.

In her anxiety, Chi Xiaoman thought it over and over, and in the end could only feel that Chen Yue, now successful and accomplished, had remembered the small promise they made back when they were both unknown, and seeing her cornered, had wanted to kindly help.

But no matter what, this was the consequence of her making a wrong call.

“Whatever you’re thinking, just take it as me, an inexperienced nobody who doesn’t know the sky from the earth, rejecting you, the Best Actress, today.”

Apparently Chen Yue had long expected this reaction. She didn’t argue right away; she was quiet for a bit, then called her, “Chi Xiaoman.”

“Chen Yue.” Chi Xiaoman gripped her phone tightly. “I’ve already thought this through enough.”

“I’m sorry.”

She habitually added an apology, but it seemed to do nothing to repair the awkward situation this call had created. Chi Xiaoman fell silent. More than ten seconds later, she felt short of breath and wanted to end the call.

“Chi Xiaoman.”

And then Chen Yue, quiet for a long while, said, “You’ve already said so many ‘I’m sorries’ to me.”

She seemed to be smiling, and yet maybe not; her voice was very low and faint. “Can’t you let your guilt be used a little on this matter?”

Chi Xiaoman froze.

And on the other end, the wind was restless. Chen Yue’s tone was unusually calm, like she was making a harmless joke. “After all, by my count, you’ve broken up with me twice.”

So Chi Xiaoman’s words— I thought that in the end, we could count as having broken up peacefully too—

got stuck in her throat and couldn’t come out.

They became a swarm of tenacious mosquitoes, barely clinging to life, clogging the space between her lungs and her heart, so that every breath was filled with pain.

At that moment, the summer night was hot and oppressive, blood rushing backward through her body. Chi Xiaoman tightened her grip on her palm; her defense mechanisms made her try to smile as usual, but each syllable she forced out trembled as if her soul had been torn loose.

“Then shouldn’t you hate me?”

[Author’s Note]

Updating Little Neon on time for the fourteenth day [crying][crying][crying]

My heart is so tightly knotted it’s unbearable