Lao Ping said this because what he valued was precisely that “impulsiveness” in her bones—she knew that.
So she only half-listened to his words. As for Xu Yifen’s matter, Lao Ping guaranteed he could handle it, saying the girl was sensible and wouldn’t get involved in what was clearly a couple’s internal squabble.
After they dispersed, at eight o’clock sharp, she returned to Lu Zimu’s residential complex. Walking while looking at the schedule Lao Ping had sent, the two fashion shows and one audition were all arranged for next week. She calculated the credits for this semester and the money these activities would bring in, weighing the options in her mind, thinking quite intently. She didn’t look up the whole way. Reaching the electronic door on the first floor, she inserted the key and pulled the door open. Behind her was a delivery person carrying two bags of food, presumably delivering a meal upstairs. Only then did she turn her head to glance. The delivery person also looked at her. Their gazes met at a distance of less than half a meter—a brief eye contact. Then immediately, the door Long Qi had pulled halfway open was swiftly pushed shut with a bang. Gu Mingdong’s footsteps halted, solidly blocked outside. He looked at her again.
“Lingering like a ghost.”
“Fuck.”
The first sentence was hers, the second was Gu Mingdong’s curse. Sweat slid from his forehead toward his chin. He raised his hand to wipe it, the plastic bags in his hands rustling.
“Si Bolin didn’t kill you?”
She followed up immediately. Gu Mingdong laughed—somewhat scornful yet somewhat defiant—lifting his chin. “Still alive. What about it?”
“Why act tough?”
Then her gaze moved down to look at the delivery uniform he wore. Gu Mingdong also scanned her. “You’re the one lingering like a ghost. I run deliveries to such a remote place and still bump into you. What, not living in Jin Yiken’s villa district anymore?”
“Don’t rush to question me. Not doing the job Jin Yiken’s family found for you?”
“None of your business.”
“Then me being here is none of your business.”
“I don’t want my business to care about your matters, but right now you’re blocking this master’s path.”
“Am I blocking your path or did you pull some trick to stalk me again?”
“Who the fuck is idle enough to still stalk you? I’d rather avoid you if I could, okay? Open the door!”
Long Qi just wouldn’t open it, just stood with hands in pockets leaning against the door with him. Gu Mingdong eventually got annoyed and pressed the intercom button on the electronic door. Someone responded, asking who it was. He said, “Delivery’s here.”
The door opened with a click.
Gu Mingdong used his shoulder to pry open the door and went in carrying the two bags of food.
…
Five minutes later, he came down. Long Qi was still waiting at the entrance. He said, “Oh, still waiting for me?”
“Waiting for you, yeah. Got to watch you leave to feel at ease. Who knows if you’ll act like a pervert and crouch inside all night? After all, you’ve always liked crouching around stalking people.”
“Long Qi,” he walked toward his electric bike while turning back to say, “enough, okay? I never want to touch anyone from your circle for the rest of my life. All I want now is to make money. I can’t play with you second-generation celebrities.”
He lifted his leg onto the electric bike, putting on his helmet.
He continued, “I was foolish before, overestimating myself trying to force my way into the circle, learning from Si Bolin to run some school business, almost landing myself in jail. Although Jin Yiken expelled me from the circle, he also pulled me back. I’ve figured it all out now. You should stop chasing after me to bite too. What I did before was a bit shabby—I apologize to you.”
After hearing this, Long Qi pondered the sincerity in his words, not rushing to respond. Gu Mingdong gripped the handlebars, looking at her. “We at least liked each other once. Let’s part on good terms.”
“Who ever liked you? That was your one-sided crush—don’t pin it on me.”
“To be honest, I probably won’t ever date a girlfriend prettier than you.”
“You’re even joking about sexual harassment now, huh?”
Gu Mingdong twisted the throttle, the electric bike sliding forward. Long Qi rolled her eyes and turned to enter the building. But Gu Mingdong remembered something, braked, and turned back to shout, “By the way!”
She looked out impatiently.
“Bai Aiting’s back. I’ve seen her staying at Jin Yiken’s place these past few days. Haven’t you three sorted things out yet?”
…
This shit-stirrer, fearing the world wasn’t chaotic enough, had tossed another grenade at her.
The heart that had been slightly softened by Long Ziyi’s analysis and a week’s buffer time now suddenly sparked with a sizzling electric current again. Someone she’d never paid attention to before—now she especially couldn’t stand hearing even the slightest mention of her having any connection with Jin Yiken. She asked, “The place at Langzhu Mansion?”
“Yeah.”
“You still go there?”
“Don’t believe me, huh?” His elbow rested on the handlebars. “I deliver lunch to my dad every day. I’ve even run into Dong Xi. Unlike you, she doesn’t even look at me.”
After a slight rise and fall in her chest, she replied, “Then if you see Jin Yiken, give him a message from me. Say I wish him and Bai Aiting an early marriage, may they have children soon, and enjoy sexual—I mean the character with the vertical heart radical—bliss. Complete happiness.”
Gu Mingdong was quite efficient—clearly he delivered the message that very day. That evening after ten o’clock, Jin Yiken finally broke a week’s silence and sent her a message.
—You even know the vertical heart radical.
Just like that time in high school when he marked her physics test paper, marking until the entire page was covered in red, deliberately provoking her by drawing a bolded zero. She typed on the screen, a belly full of profanity ready to spew at him. But when she reached the final exclamation mark, a breath released from her chest. She thought, why should he be acknowledged just because he sent a message? She deleted all the words she’d typed and exited the chat window.
And her cold-shoulder behavior quickly invited even stronger retaliatory strikes from Jin Yiken. One of her commercials was replaced, and the opening model slots for two fashion shows were also withdrawn. She didn’t know where this ability came from—perhaps he really was burning money and connections. And the person taking her place was still: Xu Yifen.
Lao Ping didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, but he was anxious to death. There was small-scale discussion online, and the fan circles were also getting restless. Why were their idol’s resources being occupied again and again by a small newcomer without enough clout? The originally planned fan activities were also disrupted, so they organized group protests in long comments under Lao Ping’s Weibo.
Everyone thought she was being treated differently by her own studio due to the impact of the childbirth scandal.
Lao Ping called, asking her to have a good talk with Jin Yiken. She replied, “Just consider it giving me a few days off. At least the benefits aren’t flowing to outsiders’ fields.”
“You mean to wage a long-term war?”
“No, I was just thinking of going back to school for a few days of classes. Aren’t there still one movie and one TV series audition? I’ll look at the scripts these few days.”
“Oh…” Lao Ping hesitated but still said, “For these two auditions, you don’t need to go either. The actors have already been finalized over there.”
She was pouring water in the kitchen. “Xu Yifen?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t speak. Water gurgled as it poured into the cup. Lao Ping continued, “Anyway, think about it. It’s not good to continue like this. Quantitative changes will lead to qualitative changes. I’m going to Japan on a business trip these next few days to discuss a project. Before I return, if you can resolve it, resolve it quickly, ancestors.”
“Okay.”
After responding, she hung up. From the window came the distant sound of car horns from the road. The phone slid with a whoosh across the kitchen counter. She braced her hands on the table edge, long hair sliding from her shoulders, hanging down.
Breathing.
After three or four seconds of silence like this, she stood up, took the teacup, and entered the living room.
Fine, just continue this head-on collision. She didn’t believe his money wouldn’t run dry.
But Jin Yiken really was a person with abundant energy, watching her very closely. Over the next half month, a newly accepted variety show fell through, a music festival performance was also withdrawn, and several endorsements—those endorsements that had originally been discussed well—the partners all suddenly became evasive, contracts delayed again and again. During this period, she either wandered around school or wandered around Lu Zimu’s place. Long Ziyi mocked her, “Can your current prospects really afford fifty thousand a month in rent?”
The two twins were locked in the study doing homework. Lu Zimu held a laptop typing on the side. Long Qi sat in a beanbag chair near the balcony, ice cream eaten halfway, cream dripping down. Only then did she withdraw her gaze from the phone screen and lick it. Long Ziyi was mopping the floor. When she mopped to her feet, she told her to lift her legs.
“After work every day, cooking, washing, and making meals for you big and small ones, raising you this big and you can’t do a bit of housework. Fine, just exhaust me to death.”
“You didn’t raise me. Aunt raised me.”
“Didn’t I give you living expenses? You ate mine and used mine.”
“Haven’t used yours since high school.”
“But this face of yours that makes money—I gave birth to it. It came out after eating ten months of nutritional fluid from my womb!”
“Why did you fall for this kind of shrew?”
Long Qi turned to ask Lu Zimu, but was slapped on the back of the head by Long Ziyi. She braced herself on the chair arm. “What!”
Lu Zimu didn’t even look at them, just smiled, typing away rapidly. The phone rang at this moment. Long Ziyi was about to hit her again when she took the phone and headed to the living room, closing the balcony door behind her. She answered, “Hello?”
“Long Qi.”
Wu’er.
She smoothed her breath, ignoring Long Ziyi, pacing toward the coffee table. “Wu’er, how’s your movie?”
“I’m calling about this matter. Do you know Xu Yifen is preparing to sign the contract?”
Her steps stopped, eyelashes lifting slightly.
Her fingers ran through the hair at the top of her head, brushing it back. She listened to Wu’er continue, “She called the day before yesterday to confirm. The contract will be signed next week. But Teacher Zang suggested I ask your thoughts first.”
…
“Wait, I’ll call you back later.”
She said.
Immediately after hanging up, she called Lao Ping. Lao Ping answered. She got straight to the point. “Arrange for Xu Yifen to meet with me. I have something to discuss with her.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s taking Wu’er’s film.”
“What?” Lao Ping didn’t hear clearly.
She raised her voice. “She’s taking my film!”
Particularly loud, mixed with some suppressed emotion. Both Lu Zimu and Long Ziyi at the balcony entrance looked at her. She continued pacing in front of the coffee table. Lao Ping replied, “That can’t be right?”
Then she heard him shouting from that end, “Yifen! Yifen, come over here.”
Long Qi crossed her arms, waiting a full five minutes before the person on the other end finally switched. Xu Yifen’s soft voice emerged. “Qiqi?”
She asked, “What were you thinking? Wu’er’s script.”
Xu Yifen didn’t immediately respond, but clearly heard her meaning. Long Qi continued, “If you were going to act in it, you should have told me. Don’t you think it’s inappropriate to silently go sign a contract? I’ve been waiting for your reply for so long.”
“I,” she finally replied, “was just afraid you’d have opinions. Maybe our ways of handling things are different.”
“You speak, I’ll listen.”
“I never explicitly promised anything before. I said I wanted to look at the script first.”
“You like it?”
“I really like it. I want to shoot it.”
“If you like it, you shoot it. Then what do you think I was looking for you to discuss before? After signing, when were you planning to tell me?”
“This film, emotionally speaking, I should yield to you, but logically speaking, I don’t have this obligation.”
“What did you say?”
Not believing she’d heard such a reason, she asked almost with a cold laugh. Xu Yifen said, “You were the initially designated female lead, but it’s true that it didn’t reach the contract-signing stage. Before that, anyone interested in this script has the right to fight for it. It’s also very hard for me to encounter a script I like this much. No one has ever given me the chance to choose. Not notifying you beforehand was a bit excessive, but for me, the opportunity comes only once. Because it fell randomly, I want to try harder.”
“Have you noticed that there seem to be a bit too many opportunities randomly falling on you lately? Are you planning to swallow them all in one gulp and not return any to me?”
“If I don’t take them, people outside the studio will take them. If I take them, it’s a more damage-controlling result.”
…
Before, when facing Bai Aiting, facing Gao Ningning, even facing Wu Jiakui—no matter how much personality they had, she had the ability to spew words at them in layers. But right now, she was choked speechless. Three seconds later, suppressing her anger, “Put Lao Ping on the phone.”
Xu Yifen paused.
Then complied. Lao Ping received the phone and asked, “How did the chat go?”
“Lao Ping.”
“Mm?”
She asked flatly, “Didn’t you say you were on a business trip in Japan?”
Silence on the other end.
“When Xu Yifen was eating up my resources one by one, you were managing her, right?”
“Qiqi…”
“I’m not angry. I already knew before, just didn’t say it. I understand why you did this. I’m just letting you know—I know now. From now on, manage her openly and honestly. Don’t sneak around. Don’t feel guilty.”
After speaking, she hung up.
She dialed Wu’er again. Wu’er answered. She asked, “Teacher Zang asked you to inquire about my thoughts. Can my thoughts interfere with the result?”
Wu’er thought for a moment and replied, “Teacher Zang has been helping pull in investment recently. Although it’s not certain whether he can secure it, you can first tell me your thoughts.”
“Don’t normal procedures all have auditions?”
“Yes.”
“At least let me audition once. Call everyone together, including the one throwing money around. Let’s see who convinces whom.”
Wu’er thought for another moment and said, “That’s also possible. But I’m about to go abroad and will probably return in mid-May. We’ll schedule it for then. I’ll hold off on Xu Yifen’s contract for now.”
Quickly running through the few commercial activities she had in her mind, she replied, “Mid-May—the film ‘Cold Cicada’ that Teacher Zang and I shot last year will be entering pre-release promotion.”
“No problem. We can coordinate with your schedule over there. I also don’t want to rashly finalize the actor.”