Chapter Fourteen
Teng Zhi's Cantonese pronunciation was so authentic, without any accent, that Ye Yin even forgot that she, like Li Tiancheng, was not a native of Guangzhou.
The document I received two months ago showed that Teng Zhi and Li Tiancheng were both from Shuishan City, a small coastal city in the province.
Starting from Guangzhou, the entire journey is on the highway, and it only takes four or five hours to get there.
Ye Yin got up early, while Teng Zhi was still asleep. He went out first to return the BYD, retrieve his own car, and then came back to pick up Teng Zhi.
For the two-day, one-night trip, the two of them only packed one set of clothes and underwear, traveling light. They washed the smelly clothes from yesterday and hung them on the balcony of the guesthouse, planning to bring them in when they returned.
The weather cleared up today, and more people went out to travel. The intercity expressway was full of cars. Once we were completely out of Guangzhou, the traffic finally thinned out, and the speed of the cars gradually increased.
"...After graduating from university, I stayed in Guangzhou and joined an advertising company as an event planner. It was then that I met Li Tiancheng, who was a year older than me. He and a few other university classmates stayed to start a business, an internet company..."
"In the beginning, his company was very small, with a group of people crammed into a tiny room. It was common for them to work four or five nights in a row, and I would bring them late-night snacks..."
"I was very tired at that time, but also very happy... Later—"
While Teng Zhi was busy editing videos on her phone, she also chatted with Ye Yin about their younger days. It took her a while to realize that Ye Yin in the driver's seat had been silent for quite some time.
She looked up and turned to look at him. The man had both hands on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the highway ahead, his face serious and his lips tightly pressed together.
She snapped her fingers near his ear: "Hey, are you even listening to me?"
Ye Yin snapped out of his daze and glanced at her sideways: "I heard it. The guy surnamed Li started from scratch, right? He's tired but happy. Now he has a car, a house, and a beautiful wife. He's pretty impressive."
Teng Zhi wrinkled her nose, ignoring his sarcastic teasing, and continued editing the video: "After that, we started dating, and like many couples, when the time came, we met each other's parents, got our marriage certificate, had a banquet, and got married."
Each step was like a button going into its corresponding eyelet, methodical and orderly.
I only recently discovered that I had buttoned the buttons wrong a long time ago, and all the way down, they were all wrong.
Ye Yin wasn't interested in the parts involving Li Tiancheng. He pursed his lips and asked, "When did you start doing this kind of work?"
"Hmm..." Teng Zhi thought for a moment, "I think I started doing this not long after Weibo came out. At first, it was just a hobby, but as more people watched, I was lucky enough to publish a few books. Li Tiancheng is in this industry, so he used his connections to get me signed with a company, labeled me, and created a persona, which turned me into a commercially valuable internet celebrity account. Actually, I just started early, and my gimmicks and tricks can't compare to many video bloggers now."
Her voice was neither loud nor soft, like plain water.
Ye Yin asked with some confusion, "You don't like what you're doing now?"
"I enjoy cooking and I can love my job, but I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed these past few years."
Teng Zhi thought for a little longer this time. She turned off her phone and continued, "I started making cooking videos before Bilibili even started buying copyrights. Before, I didn't have to show my face and I could do whatever I wanted. Later, the company would make me do whatever was trending, and I had to show my face and cultivate a gentle and intellectual image of 'three meals a day, peaceful and serene life'."
"Oh, I see, you don't like showing your face."
Ye Yin recalled the 9.9 yuan e-courses he had bought. Although Teng Zhi in the videos was always smiling, the smile didn't reach her eyes, and her words were dry and lifeless.
The Tengzhi he had seen during this time was much more expressive in her expressions and speech.
Especially last night...
With a lingering spark in his lower abdomen, Ye Yin quickly reached out and lowered the air conditioning temperature, subtly shifting his position.
"Well, I'm not the type to make a living based on my looks, I know that much about myself."
Teng Zhi adjusted her glasses and asked, "Have you seen the videos I filmed before?"
Ye Yin nodded: "I've seen some."
Teng Zhi suddenly laughed: "Then you probably watch more than Li Tiancheng. Li Tiancheng doesn't watch at all. He occasionally sees me on the platform's homepage and just says that I look fat on camera and need to lose weight."
Ye Yin suddenly gripped the steering wheel tightly with all his might, and his heart felt as if it had been pulled, a dull ache in it.
"Don't listen to his nonsense—"
Teng Zhi shook her head and interrupted him: "I don't know if you turned on the bullet comments when you watched the video. There are many comments with the same thoughts as Li Tiancheng. More and more people are not paying attention to what I cook, but are staring at whether my makeup is too heavy or whether my figure has changed."
"There's still some time left. The company wants me to learn from a wildly popular food blogger and go to the countryside to film those rustic cooking videos. But that's not something I do on a daily basis. The videos I make will look fake and unreal."
Her work, like her marriage, was buttoned up in the wrong place.
Teng Zhi shrugged and gave a simple and straightforward summary: "In short, it's gone wrong."
Ye Yin waited until two cars had passed before asking, "So, if you were to stop being a food blogger one day, what would you want to do?"
"Open a restaurant!"
Without even thinking, Teng Zhi blurted out the answer, her expression suddenly brightening.
The sound that was as bland as plain water suddenly became bubbly and bubbly, as if it had been infused with air. With the addition of some honey, it became sweet and delicious.
Ye Yin smiled and asked, "What kind of restaurant?"
"It's a bit like a late-night diner; the place doesn't need to be big. Customers sit around the counter, chatting while waiting for their food. Whatever ingredients they can buy from the market during the day, they'll make those dishes for dinner."
Tengzhi got really into it, as if the restaurant was going to open tomorrow. She could even talk about what kind of fruit wine to make and what her signature dishes were.
Gradually, images formed in my mind.
Hidden in the alley, the small restaurant is enveloped in the night. Pushing open the wooden door, the doorbell rings, and the aroma of food wafts out, along with the soft, sweet voice of the proprietress behind the counter saying "Welcome!"
"Sure, once you open, I'll patronize your business every day."
Ye Yin lightly tapped the steering wheel, his tone tentative, "Which district do you plan to open in? Jiangnan West? Tianhe Liuyun? Dongshankou?"
Teng Zhi gazed at the blue sky and white clouds at the end of the road, paused for a few seconds, then lowered her head, turned on her phone, and prepared to continue working on the video.
She sighed softly and smiled, "Oh, it's just a thought. Let's take care of things at home first."
Ye Yin stopped smiling.
There were some questions that Tengzhi didn't bring up, and he didn't ask either.
Old Cantonese songs were playing in the car, sung softly by male or female singers at a low volume, so that Teng Zhi could add subtitles to the audio recording she had made in Li Tiancheng's car.
Ye Yin didn't say much. He usually drove alone on the highway, speeding on sections without speed cameras. He would smoke when he felt the urge to snorkel, and grab a bottle of Gatorade when he needed to pee.
But not today. After driving on the highway for nearly an hour and having almost finished a whole pack of throat lozenges, Ye Yin saw a service area sign and turned around to say, "There's a service area up ahead, let's—"
Teng Zhi was asleep, her head leaning against the back of the chair, her mouth slightly open, her phone still lit up, and her glasses had slipped down to the tip of her nose, about to fall off.
Ye Yin reached out and took the phone, turned off the screen, placed it upright in the cup holder, and then gently took off her glasses.
Teng Zhi stirred but didn't wake up. Ye Yin folded up the temples of his glasses and, without thinking much, wedged them into his collar.
Finally, I turned up the air conditioning and changed the direction of the air vents.
After driving another twenty kilometers or so, he pulled into a service area, found a spot out of the sun, parked the car without turning off the engine, got out, and lit a cigarette in the shade of a tree not far from the car.
I took a few puffs, and while I was thinking about something, I saw the person in the car wake up.
She touched her face first, then squinted and looked around. Perhaps finding that she couldn't see anything clearly, she lowered her head to look for her glasses.
Ye Yin laughed out loud at his dazed look, almost choking on his cigarette. He coughed twice, stubbed out his cigarette, walked to the passenger door, and knocked on the glass.
Teng Zhi wasn't frightened. She knew the man standing next to the car was Ye Yin. Even without his glasses, she could tell he was tall and imposing.
With her eyes practically glued to the door, Teng Zhi reached for the window button and pressed it, asking in a hoarse voice, "I can't find my glasses."
"It's here with me." Ye Yin took off his glasses and fiddled with the temples of the glasses in his hands. "Are you sleepy?"
"Of course I'm sleepy, don't you know what time I went to bed last night..." Teng Zhi said sullenly.
It was still early last night, and the two of them were kissing and rubbing against each other, which sparked their passion again. In the end, Ye Yin put his T-shirt on her and pulled her to the balcony.
She was pulled close to Ye Yin, her upper body completely covered, but that thing was stuck between her buttocks.
Ye Yin asked her behind her ear, "Do you want to do it here?"
Yes, of course I want it.
Tengzhi was in her apartment, a few drive from home, gazing towards the kitchen where she usually spent half a day, when another man bumped into her from behind.
My body felt great, and I should have felt great mentally too, but in the end, there was a hint of sadness mixed in.
A silent sigh escaped, and tears flowed incessantly.
Exhausted, I fell asleep at 2 a.m.
Ye Yin waved his glasses and asked, "Shall I help you put them on?"
Teng Zhi nodded, and when the glasses came in front of her, she instinctively closed her eyes.
As the shadows loomed over, Tengzhi caught a faint smell of smoke. Before she could even open her eyes, her lips were gently touched.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes, and the man's face was inches away from hers.
He stood against the sunlight, his features sharp and his gaze intense.
Countless cicadas lived in the tree, their chirping like waves, filling the vines with their song.
It's very full and bloated.
She pursed her lips and muttered softly, "Why did you steal a kiss from me?"
Ye Yin took a step back, reverting to his usual playful and unserious demeanor: "This is the 'fee' for keeping your glasses safe."
Ye Yin clenched his fist and put his hand in his shorts pocket.
I tried to suppress the waves of excitement in my heart.
He just saw that she had closed her eyes and really wanted to kiss her.
————Author's ramblings————
I'll most likely be out for two days tomorrow (depending on how much of an impact the typhoon has).
If it comes out, we'll see each other again in three days! (Waves)
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