Villa next door.
A pot of water was boiling on the induction cooker. Jiang Que stood in front of the refrigerator and took out a bag of noodles from the open refrigerator compartment. When he withdrew his hand, his eyes swept over the eggs on the refrigerator door, but he closed the door directly as if he had no interest.
After the group photo session in the afternoon, he went straight back to the villa and wrote a chapter for the new book he was writing. He had only just finished writing and revising it, and hadn't even had dinner.
In fact, if it weren't for the low blood sugar caused by hunger that would make people feel weak or even anxious, he would not bother to make up for this meal. So even though there were a lot of ingredients in the refrigerator, he only planned to cook a pot of noodles to fill his stomach.
Jiang Que turned around and walked back to the stove, lifted the lid of the pot that was clanging with heat, and was about to unwrap the noodles when he heard a "Ding Dong!" and the doorbell rang.
The upside-down pot lid on the table turned restlessly. Jiang Que quickly stopped it from jumping off the cliff to commit suicide. He put down the noodles in his hand in confusion and walked towards the door in his slippers.
Baimao was squatting on the cat climbing frame by the door. When he saw him coming, he looked up and meowed. Jiang Que touched his head and walked over to open the door.
"Good evening, Mr. Bai?"
Outside, Song Yecheng wore a harmless smile, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other holding a script, like a handsome young instructor. Beside him, Xu Yi, like a student being forced to do something by some mysterious force, gave a couple of dry laughs, the corners of his mouth raised with a forced smile.
Jiang Que glanced back and forth between the two of them, his eyes filled with undisguised bewilderment: "Something wrong?"
"Yes—of course."
Song Yecheng casually spun the script on his fingertips and directly copied Xu Yi's words: "We are going to start shooting tomorrow, I am a little nervous and want to rehearse the lines in advance."
nervous.
If these two words were said by someone else, they might have some credibility, but when they came out of Song Yecheng's mouth, it was as nonsense as a fisherman who has been fishing for decades saying, "I'm going on a boat tomorrow and I'm so nervous."
But Jiang Que did not raise any objection to this. What puzzled him more was that even if the two of them had to rehearse their lines because of nervousness, what did it have to do with him?
"Oh, we just feel like there's no atmosphere between the two of us, so we'd like to invite Teacher Bai to be an audience." Song Yecheng accurately grasped his doubts and answered them before he even asked, his smile still impeccable. "How about it, Teacher Bai, do you mind if we borrow the living room?"
“…”
Judging from Jiang Que's expression, he might have swallowed the complaint of "I wonder if you two are seriously ill" wholeheartedly. He stared at the two of them for a long while before finally releasing his hand on the door handle: "Do whatever you want."
Song Yecheng walked in without hesitation, casually poked the white-haired cat's chin on the cat climbing frame next to him, turned around and saw the pot on the induction cooker and the noodles next to it, and said, "You haven't eaten yet? How about I let Douzi--"
"No need." Jiang Que didn't know what he wanted to do, but he still interrupted him decisively, "I'm just going to fill my stomach, you guys get busy."
Xu Yi, who followed him into the house, still didn't understand what Song Yecheng was doing. She looked around reluctantly and saw Song Yecheng sitting on the sofa contentedly. He greeted her like the owner of the house, "Sit wherever you want."
Jiang Que returned to the induction cooker, unwrapped the noodles, pinched a handful and put them into the pot. He stirred it casually with chopsticks while listening to the movements behind him. He heard the two people sitting down on the sofa, listened to them opening the script, and listened to them rehearsing their lines amid the slight hum of the induction cooker and the gurgling of boiling water.
He wrote the script himself, and he knew every scene and every line by heart. What he was going to shoot tomorrow were some family scenes after Fang Zhi graduated from university, got married and had children. These were the foreshadowing of the main storyline, and apart from the last scene which had a slight verbal conflict, the other scenes were not difficult.
In other words, in his opinion, there was no need to rehearse the lines in advance for this kind of play, especially for the highly professional actors selected by Zhuang Yan, who were at the entry-level level. He had no idea what these two people were up to late at night.
The water in the pot began to boil again. Jiang Que casually took a bowl of cold water and added it in. After waiting for a few minutes, he turned off the power and took out a bowl from the sterilizer to take the noodles out of the pot.
In just over ten minutes, the two people behind him had already finished two rounds of rehearsals. He was just wondering if there would be a third round when he heard Xu Yi exclaim in a slightly exaggerated voice, "Ouch!" "Teacher Song, I feel a little dizzy."
Song Yecheng seemed to have completely ignored her deliberate words: "Oh, then hurry back and get some rest early, don't delay tomorrow's filming."
Xu Yi stood up from the sofa with an "hmm hmm" and hurriedly said goodbye while apologizing repeatedly.
Jiang Que watched her leave the door in confusion, and turned around to see Song Yecheng throwing away the script, leaning back on the sofa and stretching lazily, with no intention of moving at all.
Jiang Que brought the bowl to the counter and sat down beside it. He didn't want to say much, but he caught a glimpse of Song Yecheng staring at him. He had no choice but to turn around and look over: "...You're not leaving?"
Song Yecheng narrowed his eyes and smiled, then took out his cell phone under his gaze and said on voice: "Bean, send my things to No. 29 later. I won't go back."
Jiang Que: “?”
Song Yecheng put down his phone and spread his hands innocently: "Don't look at me like that, Teacher Bai, I'm just scared."
Jiang Que found it unbelievable: "...What are you afraid of?"
Song Yecheng gave him a wink, sincere yet pretentiously. "You said you hinted to me that someone was going to cause trouble, how could I just sit there and wait for death? Living here makes me feel safer. If someone comes to me late at night to do something, Teacher Bai will be here to help me prove my innocence, right?"
After hearing this, Jiang Que finally understood where all this happened tonight, and suddenly felt like he had dug a hole for himself.
"What do you think, Mr. Bai? Why don't you have pity on me and give me a guest bedroom?"
Song Yecheng had clearly conveyed the instructions to Douzi, but he was still pretending to ask for his consent. Jiang Que found it ridiculous and stared at him for a long time without saying anything.
However, in the end, he just sneered helplessly and used chopsticks to stir the base in the bowl: "As long as you are happy."
Song Yecheng stood up with satisfaction, walked to the island counter and sat across from him. When he saw the bland noodles in his bowl, he was stunned: "Why are you eating so much vegetarian food? Didn't I see you had meat, vegetables and eggs in the refrigerator yesterday?"
——Because I eat only to live.
Jiang Que silently replied in his heart, but said: "It's hard to digest if you eat too late, just eat something casually."
Song Yecheng reluctantly accepted this answer and asked, "Then why are you eating now? What did you do for dinner?"
"Writing something." Jiang Que said.
Song Yecheng keenly noticed that he said "write something" instead of "write a script" and guessed, "New book?"
Jiang Que nodded, picked up a piece of noodles with chopsticks, blew on it, and put it into his mouth.
Song Yecheng was actually quite curious about the contents of the new book, but because he didn't want to be spoiled, he didn't ask any further questions. Instead, he suddenly thought of something else: "By the way, you were only sixteen when you started writing books, so you should be in middle school, right? How did you get on this path?"
Song Yecheng had actually wanted to ask this question for a long time. Although he and Jiang Que were still not very familiar with each other, the initial sense of strangeness was gone after all, so it didn't seem abrupt to ask at this time.
But what Song Yecheng didn't expect was that this question seemed to have touched upon some kind of mechanism, just like when he mentioned that day in the mountains about learning painting, Jiang Que's lips, which were holding the chopsticks, slightly curved up, and his eyes softened very quickly - that was a state that only appeared when recalling the good old days.
Song Yecheng didn't say anything. Somehow, when his eyes fell on the connection between Jiang Que's lips and the tip of the chopsticks, he suddenly forgot to move his eyes away. He stared at him and actually pursed his lips as well.
"I was a fan when I was a kid." Jiang Que suddenly said.
The movement of his lips finally brought Song Yecheng back to his senses: "Hmm?"
"Didn't you ask me how I got here?"
Jiang Que had already taken the chopsticks out of his mouth, licked his lips, and said slowly, "When I was a kid, I was a fan of idols, and my dad found out. Coincidentally, I always loved writing at the time, so he said to me, 'Write more stories. Maybe in the future, when you're good enough, you'll have the chance to have your idol act in your book.' That's how I got started."
Song Yecheng couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in surprise: "He doesn't object to you chasing stars?"
After all, he has been in the circle for so many years, so he still has some understanding of the situation of fans——
Many fans, especially teenagers, chase stars without their parents' knowledge, because most parents think that this behavior is not only childish but also interferes with their studies. Some have even done statistics and found that the three biggest disasters in the eyes of parents of teenagers are premature love, games and star chasing.
"No objection."
Jiang Que once again displayed the same admiration and intimacy he had shown when he mentioned his adoptive father that day. That expression shook him from his cold demeanor, even his features were tinged with a gentle glow. "Not only did he not object, but he also bought me most of the peripherals I collected back then. He would immediately take me to see new movies, reserve new interview magazines for me, and watch TV series with me. He even never forgot to buy the products he endorsed."
At this point, he couldn't help but laugh: "Sometimes I can't tell whether it's him or me who's chasing the star."
It was rare for Song Yecheng to hear him talk so much on his own initiative - not counting the long discussion on WeChat about traveling through a book, the only two remaining times seemed to be because of talking about this adoptive father.
After these two narrations, Song Yecheng had almost formed the outline of the painter in his mind - he was probably a romantic, humorous, open-minded father with a bit of the childishness that is unique to artists, and he might even be a father who was on close terms with his son.
With this in mind, it's no surprise that Jiang Que always reveals that expression whenever he mentions him - having such a father, even if there is no blood relationship, is indeed something to be proud of and thankful for.
In other words, it is precisely because they are not related by blood that he is still able to give him love that is no less than that of any biological father, which makes it even more precious.
Song Yecheng's thoughts went around in circles, and he finally returned to the starting point. Then he realized the problem he had just overlooked: "Hey, who did you like when you were a child?"
Jiang Que's gaze froze for a moment, as if hesitating whether to speak or not. After hesitating for a while, he finally said, "Yes..."
——Ding Dong!
The doorbell suddenly rang again without any warning. Both of them were startled. Song Yecheng turned around impatiently with a "tsk" sound: "Who is this again?"
Jiang Que was about to get up to open the door, but Song Yecheng had already turned back and held him back: "You eat yours, I'll go take a look."
Jiang Que sat back down as he was told. Song Yecheng stood up and walked towards the door. When he got to the door, he suddenly remembered that maybe Douzi had delivered the things.
However, when he stretched out his hand to open the door and saw the person standing outside, he was stunned.
He Jingsheng?!
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