Chapter 21
Qi Yaoguang and Gu Mengzhu's relationship was gradually improving, or rather, progressing steadily. For example, when he talked about the embarrassing things those tourists did at the dinner table, she would laugh uncontrollably. For example, when she cried her eyes out during a movie, he would jokingly say that her tears were free and kept flowing, to which she would reply sullenly:
"I'm just easily moved to tears, it doesn't mean anything. Crocodiles cry too."
Crocodile tears?
He looked at the crocodile thrashing wildly on the computer screen. Well, I guess that counts too.
For example, she would happily take the snacks he brought home from work and devour them in one go. Or, for instance, a joke he made could physically make her "explode." He watched the excitement, surprise, sadness, and melancholy in her eyes—so many emotions—and slowly absorbed them. This feeling was somewhat familiar, yet terrifyingly strange. He tried to understand it for a long time, but still couldn't articulate it, and was afraid to do so, so he could only let it unfold in a daze.
One day, Qi Yaoguang came home late. When he entered, Gu Mengzhu was washing vegetables at the kitchen sink. He glanced at the meatballs piled on the living room table, put down his phone, and crouched down to go into the kitchen.
"Hot pot again?"
Without looking up, she softly hummed in agreement and offered him her place to wash his hands.
"Wash the watercress, I need to chop the ginger and meat."
Tap water gushed into the pool, and Gu Mengzhu caught a faint smell of alcohol. She turned her head and glanced at him.
"Have you been drinking?"
She arranged the sliced ginger into a plate, shook off the water from the surface of the beef, and pressed it onto the cutting board to start slicing it thinly.
"I drank a little bit of the yellow one."
She nodded and didn't ask any more questions. The icy water made his fingers turn bright red, but he didn't notice, only hesitating whether to say more.
Although the dishes were plentiful, and steam rose from the boiling water in the living room, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling cast a soft, warm orange light, trying to create a cozy, hazy atmosphere. However, the dining table between the two was overly quiet. Qi Yaoguang tasted the slightly sour and spicy sauce for the beef, which stung his tongue slightly, and quickly took a sip of his ice-cold chrysanthemum drink. Gu Mengzhu, on the other hand, was enjoying her meal. The watercress was especially crisp and tender today, and with the specially prepared lemon chili sauce, even though it was so hot that she winced, she wanted to eat a whole plate with white rice.
He ate while secretly glancing at her, and hesitated for a long time before speaking:
"An acquaintance of mine quit his job today. He treated us to drinks and said he was leaving to pursue his dreams and go sing."
She looked up, still with a fish ball in her mouth.
“I asked him, ‘The environment is so bad now, why are you still making a fuss?’ He said, ‘If I don’t do what I want to do, I’ll die. Without music, I’ll die.’”
Gu Mengzhu put down her chopsticks and took a sip of the meat soup in her bowl.
"Can he guarantee that this path will allow him to support himself and become famous?"
He chuckled, his eyes fixed on the person in front of him:
"How humorous! I just happened to ask him that question."
“He said that if you want to sing to become famous, you can take off your pants and run naked in the street on live stream. Sometimes people encounter those inexplicable calls. Some people can ignore them, but some people, once they respond, are dragged down by those chains for life and can never escape.”
"Hey, are you trying to act all artsy by writing essays? You're talking in such a weird way. What are you trying to say?"
Qi Yaoguang remained silent for a while, then finally made up his mind:
Do you have a dream?
Gu Mengzhu's eyes widened:
"Dream? Buy a house, of course."
"What kind of dream is that?" He was somewhat surprised; the answer was far too down-to-earth. "And what happens after you buy a house?"
"Cooking rice, drinking tea, admiring flowers, and exploring the world."
She avoided his burning gaze, lowered her head to eat a couple of bites of rice, and finally raised her head again:
Why are you asking this?
"I want to go back."
"Where are you going? I'm not kidding, buddy, but you're not planning to just get on the train and run away, are you? And are you really not going to pay me back?"
"No, I want to go back to the entertainment industry and become an actor again."
"As for the 50,000, I will pay it back before I leave. But now that I have a direction for the first time, I want to tell you about it."
"Really? Thank you so much, I'm flattered."
Gu Mengzhu picked at the bottom of her bowl with her chopsticks, leaving a few mouthfuls of rice uneaten. Finally, she couldn't help but speak up:
"To be honest, and I'm not trying to be mean, but your acting is really terrible. Apart from the few movies and TV shows you watched at the beginning, the rest of your acting is just awful, downright appalling."
Did you have to be so harsh?
He forced a bitter smile, quickly took a sip of soup, and didn't dare to meet her gaze.
“It’s necessary. I’m afraid you’re still daydreaming.”
"You don't believe me?"
"Trust needs to be supported by real-world examples. But real-world, bloody examples tell me that you are not trustworthy."
He laughed heartily, waving his left index finger up and down in the air:
"You're really getting harsher and harsher with your words."
Gu Mengzhu's expression remained unchanged, and she coldly replied:
"Same here, I was just following suit."
She understood what he saw and heard, but she only intended to stay where she was and refused to take another step. Qi Yaoguang sensed the invisible barrier in the air and gradually understood her reservations.
I will no longer give my heart away.
The meal was rather tasteless.
The next day, Gu Mengzhu dozed off during a quiet moment when no one was around. Her eyelids drooped and then she struggled to lift them, her lifeless pupils revealing her growing drowsiness. Chen Luo was sitting there lost in thought when she spotted the familiar little electric scooter and immediately hopped over to it.
"What's that?"
"ice cream."
"Eating ice cream on such a cold day, are you crazy?"
She said that, but her hands were already tearing open the plastic bag and picking through the contents, almost burying her head in it. Huang Jiansheng originally wanted to call someone over to share it, but Chen Luo stopped him.
"She can't eat it."
He nodded, peeled off a layer of wrapper, handed her the ice cream, and then started working on his own. She watched him, holding her ice cream, and when he finished, she quickly nodded and counted:
"Three, two, one, eat!"
The two of them suddenly lowered their heads and took a big bite. Huang Jiansheng remained expressionless, but she was so cold that her teeth ached and her head throbbed, and she whimpered:
"My teeth! Ugh, my teeth are freezing!"
"I told you not to play like that. Open your mouth, let me see."
Chen Luo turned her head away haughtily and took another bite:
"It's just a small thing, what's the big deal?"
Hearing that perpetually incorrect retroflex ending, he had long since given up trying to correct them, only managing a forced smile in surrender. Gu Mengzhu, already awakened by their commotion, yawned and stared at the two childish idiots as if they were fools. Actually, she was a little envious; she had never experienced that small, childish happiness.
She had briefly glimpsed the happiness of love between a man and a woman in a dream when Qi Yaoguang moved in. He was like a lost gold ring that had fallen into her relatively clear puddle, gleaming with golden light as the sun rose, illuminating her dirty bottom. How happy she was then! She was a valuable puddle, no longer a breeding ground for mosquitoes. But people would always find that gold ring; how could such a bright thing be possessed forever by a small puddle? It would leave sooner or later, and rainwater, dirty water, saliva, and the like would continuously pour in as it left, until, after the sun rose and set, she would be forever dry. A puddle will always just be a puddle; its value will never change.
Chen Luo noticed her dazed expression and waved the ice cream in her hand:
"There's no ice cream for you."
Gu Mengzhu gave a soft "humph." Please, she didn't really want to eat it either.
I'm afraid you have a cold uterus.
"I don't have menstrual cramps."
"You're not allowed to eat ice during your period (you're not allowed to eat ice), don't you have any common sense, lady?"
A little white milk smeared on Chen Luo's lips. Huang Jiansheng smiled and quickly grabbed a tissue to wipe it away. The scene was too beautiful; she closed her eyes in despair, unable to bear looking any longer.
Huang Jiansheng didn't stay long before returning home. Chen Luo noticed that he seemed a bit listless, so she gently nudged his shoulder.
"What's wrong? It's just one less ice cream, why are you so down?"
"Is it better to be young if you want to be an actor?"
"Of course! Who's going to look at you when you're old? You'll look like a sauerkraut, smelly and sour, trying to kill someone with sullenness!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Chen Luo frowned and immediately sensed something was wrong:
"Wait a minute, something's weird. Seriously, lady? What kind of mind-altering spell has that pyramid scheme guy at your house cast on you? Can't you wake up?!"
Gu Mengzhu sat with her knees drawn up, her gaze fixed on the orange-red sunset in the distance:
"He said he wanted to go back to being an actor."
"What about the money? Aren't you going to pay it back? He's really shameless."
He said he would return it before leaving.
"Heh, at least he knows what's good for him, otherwise I would have called Brother Sheng to block him."
She chuckled and used her right hand to slightly cover her smiling mouth.
"What's he up to now, you scoundrel?"
"He said he has a direction and a dream."
"Dreams?" Chen Luo scoffed at Qi Yaoguang's nonsense. "I think he's just indulging in lustful desires when he's well-fed and clothed."
"Wow, Mr. Chen, I didn't expect you to even know idioms!"
"Thank you so much. I've managed to get a few years of schooling and know a few words, no matter what."
"Don't be silly. Living your own life well is the most important thing right now. Don't be the kind of person who's obsessed with love and gets cheated out of money, body, and heart."
Chen Luo put his arm around her shoulder and earnestly tried to persuade her. She opened her mouth, but her last words were tinged with bitterness:
"He doesn't even like me, so why would he lie to me about his body and soul? Besides, I don't even have any money left now."
Chen Luo didn't speak, but stared at the buildings in the distance with a deep and melancholy look in her eyes.
Well, let's just take it one step at a time.
She hasn't decided to leave yet.
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