Long Qi stood in place for two or three seconds.

Then she directly removed the bag from her shoulder, tossed it onto his lap, and got in the car without another word, as if he was supposed to be there all along.

Lao Ping was startled. Jin Yiken still smiled carelessly.

After Long Qi got in, neither Hao Shuai nor the female assistant followed. Lao Ping put her personal luggage in the trunk and closed the car door, while simultaneously sending a text reminder: “Be careful, don’t get photographed.”

Long Qi didn’t reply to him.

Jin Yiken was completely relaxed. This return to the country was obviously hidden from his family—he hadn’t brought much luggage. As for whether Bai Aiting knew, he didn’t say. He only said one thing: “Have you eaten dinner? I’ll take you out to eat.”

“No need, I’m on a diet.” Long Qi didn’t even glance at him. She leaned forward and said to the driver, “Help me see if there are any hotels along the way. Stop if there are.”

Apart from pretending to be energetic at the start, Jin Yiken really couldn’t keep it up now. He wanted to sleep. He grasped Long Qi’s hand and placed it on his lap. She used her other hand to scroll through her phone, not speaking to him.

The crew’s filming location was in the suburbs, where lodging wasn’t very convenient. It was past one in the morning when they finally found a good hotel. Before getting out of the car, Long Qi asked the driver for a lighter.

After arriving at the hotel, Jin Yiken collapsed into sleep. Long Qi fussed around until three or four o’clock before finally completing the entire routine of showering, blow-drying her hair, skincare, and changing clothes. Then she had no desire to sleep. She pulled out a laptop from Jin Yiken’s belongings, sat on the sofa, connected to the hotel wifi, and browsed web pages.

Jin Yiken didn’t wake up until six in the morning.

Long Qi was still looking at web pages. She wore something light and cool, her knees drawn up with the computer resting on them, one elbow propped between the sofa and her forehead, her other hand listlessly and repeatedly pressing F5 on the keyboard.

When Jin Yiken went to shower, she drank tea.

At six-thirty, Jin Yiken finished his shower and sat on the sofa behind her. The sofa bounced, and a faint, refreshing scent from his body gently dispersed. The water level in the cup in her hand also rippled. On the social media site, fans’ birthday wishes were frequently popping up. Jin Yiken rested his head on her right shoulder.

Then one hand reached across her waist and closed the laptop in front of her.

He said, “I really missed you.”

Everything that followed came naturally. Long Qi sat on his lap, removed her loose white tank top, unhooked her bra. He lifted her from the sofa and carried her to the bed.

When the two entered the main act, Jin Yiken interlaced his ten fingers with hers especially tightly, and made eye contact with her more often than usual. Perhaps absence made the heart grow fonder, or perhaps there were too many negative emotions bottled up inside that needed release. Long Qi’s entire being quickly became immersed in this state, her ears hot, her head dizzy.

The two slept until one in the afternoon.

When leaving the hotel, Long Qi wore dress pants and a white T-shirt, had her hair in a loose bun, wore a wide-brimmed hat, no makeup, and only added a face mask. Jin Yiken dressed very simply, even more stylishly than her. After completing the checkout procedures, he strolled over while pulling out cigarettes. He had called Si Bolin beforehand—in a bit, he’d go to a nearby dealership to pick up one of his cars to use temporarily.

Si Bolin’s car happened to be there for maintenance, so he could borrow it.

However, he hadn’t brought a lighter.

Long Qi watched him search for a long time, then took a lighter from her pocket and said, “Come here.”

Then she lit it for him.

As they walked out the hotel entrance, the crew sent a text message saying she had to go back tomorrow to reshoot scenes. Long Qi felt that Fan Mi was definitely targeting her. Not too pleased, she smoothly took a cigarette from Jin Yiken. He glanced at her: “Men’s cigarette.”

She didn’t care and lit it herself.

But just after taking one puff, Jin Yiken plucked the cigarette away. He’d rather smoke two himself than give her one. Long Qi said, “Then you shouldn’t smoke either.”

He shook his head.

“I’m in a bad mood.”

“I’ll take you to eat.”

With that, he hailed a taxi.

The taxi first took the two to the dealership. Jin Yiken went alone to pick up the car. Long Qi didn’t follow—she waited for him at an intersection with few people around. Later, Jin Yiken picked her up. Only after getting in the car did she remove her mask. Jin Yiken’s cigarette had by then become a lollipop, and he even asked if she wanted one.

“Yes.”

“Just one, this one.”

“Are you being cheap or not?”

He smiled cheerfully as he turned the steering wheel onto the road, his other hand pulling a second candy from his pocket for Long Qi. Long Qi didn’t take it, so he put it in her open bag.

“How has Si Bolin been lately?” Because the car was Si Bolin’s, Long Qi naturally thought of this question and asked casually.

But Jin Yiken responded, “Hm?”

Long Qi looked at his manner and spoke openly: “Him and Wuzi.”

“Oh.”

She looked at Jin Yiken for two or three seconds and pressed on: “What happened with them?”

“You can just ask Wuzi.”

“She doesn’t answer my calls, seems like she changed her number.” Long Qi said this while hitting Jin Yiken once. “What did Si Bolin do to her?”

Jin Yiken controlled the steering wheel with one hand while replying with an attitude of detachment: “The two of them have no future. You could see that from the start—they’re just companions.”

“Like the two of us?”

“We’re not. Your man is sincere and genuine toward you.”

“Then how come they are?”

The car stopped at a traffic light. Jin Yiken turned his head to look at her: “The difference between Si Bolin and me is that if I like a girl, I absolutely must sleep with her, make her wholeheartedly convinced to only sleep with me. But he’s not like that—he simply won’t fall for a girl, understand?”

“He’s gay?”

“No,” Jin Yiken laughed, “How are you so cute?”

“Then I think Si Bolin has even bigger problems in his views on relationships than you do.”

Jin Yiken neither agreed nor disagreed with this statement, saying, “He has his considerations that you haven’t seen.”

Then he changed the topic: “What do you want to eat?”

“Noodles.”

“Qi,” the red light at the intersection turned green, and the car turned into the right intersection. He said, “You’re really easy to feed.”

Jin Yiken later took her to the most famous old-brand tea restaurant in the city, requested a private room, and specified a chef with a good reputation. Before that, they went to a dessert shop to pick up a pre-ordered mango cake. Long Qi asked when he had ordered it. He said after getting off the plane last night.

While lighting candles, he muttered, “Alas, my wife has been raised another year older by me.”

Long Qi looked at him with the gaze one gives a troublesome child.

And he really was hungry. Besides the signature noodles, he ordered a large table of dishes plus two steamers of freshly made soup dumplings, as if he’d been starved in England. Long Qi, on the other hand, ate very little—two soup dumplings and a few sips of noodle soup counted as having eaten. At most, she ate a few pieces of mango and didn’t continue.

Then she watched Jin Yiken eat, while propping her calves on his lap, supporting her cheek with her hand, spacing out.

After a satisfying meal of tea and food, Jin Yiken took her away.

At this moment, it was approaching afternoon tea time. There were considerably more people in the restaurant’s main hall than when they first arrived. Long Qi wasn’t wearing a hat, only a mask, and quietly walked behind Jin Yiken. Quite a few diners looked at them, but they probably didn’t recognize her because she kept her head down looking at her phone.

Lao Ping was frequently sending messages to pacify her, hoping she’d show up at the filming site tomorrow in good spirits.

—What if I don’t come?

She replied.

Lao Ping sent her three words: My ancestor.

Lao Ping knew her temperament—those who don’t care about money fear those who don’t care about their lives. He said Long Qi’s temperament belonged to the type that didn’t care about life. It was just that now she needed to support herself, so for now she was still willing to accommodate others’ temperaments, willing to smile in front of people, willing to completely clean up that bad-girl, cold attitude. But when she really encountered someone who repeatedly offended and nitpicked, with that little explosive temper of hers, if she wasn’t held down and suppressed, she’d definitely strike at people’s sore spots in a heartbeat, then leave the industry.

And Fan Mi wanting to take back the female lead role, not going to the company or the band but specifically nitpicking at her—the reason was easy to guess. Up to now, Long Qi’s external image was still vague. Although under Lao Ping’s “discipline” she maintained proper etiquette and manners, she didn’t talk often and wasn’t very proactive with people. It was very easy to associate her with “arrogant attitude,” not to mention stirring up muddy waters like “disrespecting seniors.” Fan Mi was testing the waters. If she succeeded in the test, it would count as a breakthrough.

Lao Ping sent over the pros and cons one by one. Long Qi looked at them. By this time, she had already followed Jin Yiken to the underground parking garage. The sound of the car unlocking echoed twice in the empty space. He opened the passenger door, and as they were leaving, he glanced at her and saw the messages on the screen. He “smoothly” took the phone from her hand. Long Qi didn’t grip it firmly. When she looked at him, he was already scrolling up through the chat history, asking, “Who is Fan Mi?”

Then he scrolled to Jian Yizhen’s name and smiled a little. This smile was somewhat meaningful. Long Qi asked, “Someone you know?”

“Guess.”

Then he turned off her phone and put it in his own pants pocket, using his chin to point at the passenger seat: “Get in the car. I’ll take you somewhere.”

“Don’t try to change the subject on me,” Long Qi didn’t get in. “How do you know her? Oh, so you’re into this celebrity-chasing thing too?”

“Later I’ll send you something. Stop chatting with Lao Ping—it’s not a big deal.”

“What are you going to send me?”

“You guess,” he still said.