CH 37.2

Chapter 37.2 – Farewell Dinner

Before Shi Yuan went to the lounge, Tracy stopped him.

Tracy said, “Shi Yuan! Why don’t you take the cypress costume away?” She turned her ears, with a cat-like cunning in her eyes. “You like cypress trees very much, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Shi Yuan was a little surprised. “Is it okay?”

“Of course!”

So, the tip of Shi Yuan’s tail shook happily, he put the costume in his backpack, making it bulge into a big ball.

In the afternoon, everyone began to prepare for a farewell dinner.

The restaurants outside were closed, and they could only bring their own food. Cheng Youwen brought cakes, Wolfgang and Tracy brought noodles and the snacks they had saved before, popcorn and potato chips piled together, and even Qin Luoluo, who didn’t cook, pulled a few green onions from her balcony.

Shi Yuan didn’t know how to cook very well. After asking Lu Tinghan, he took eggs, tomatoes, potatoes, and half a piece of pork from the refrigerator.

But Xia Fang was late in showing up.

Wolfgang lived in the theater and had built a separate small kitchen in the far corner. He would usually cook vegetables and noodles. They closed the door, leaving a small space in the house, as if the peak period had never come, and they all tacitly didn’t talk about it.

Everyone did it themselves, cooked rice, tomato and egg noodles, fried pancakes and potatoes, and made a delicious stir-fried pork with colorful peppers.

There were all kinds of miscellaneous things, but it was all they could come up with.

“Ah! The taste of meat!” Qin Luoluo exclaimed. “I haven’t seen so much meat in a long time! Come, come, let me sacrifice myself to taste a bite of saltiness!”

She picked up her chopsticks and quickly sandwiched a piece, eating to her heart’s content.

“If you want to steal food, don’t make it so high-sounding, okay?” Cheng Youwen complained. “And what is that brat Xia Fang doing? He won’t flake out on us, right?”

Wolfgang said: “I sent him a message, but he didn’t reply to me.”

“Maybe he went to bed with another man again, he will be here in a while.” Qin Luoluo sighed. “What a player. I’m still waiting for his two bottles of wine.”

Now that there was no audience, they set up tables in the theater lobby and put meals and snacks on top. Wolfgang called Xia Fang, but he didn’t answer. Everyone waited for him for another ten minutes, and the food was really getting cold, so they had to start eating first.

“I’m afraid he met a scum gong and couldn’t get out of bed,” Qin Luoluo said. “Xia Fang is really the water poured out after getting married.”

Shi Yuan asked, “What is a scum gong?”

Cheng Youwen covered his face in horror, and Qin Luoluo obviously didn’t want to be the wicked person who led Shi Yuan astray, so she forcibly changed the subject: “Hey, it’s just a bad person! It’s a bad guy! Hurry up and eat! It’s going to get cold!”

Shi Yuan: ?

It turned out that scum gong meant bad guys, he silently wrote down this new word.

The lights were on and the food smelled good.

The last time they had dinner, they were still celebrating the great success of “The Martyr”, and this time, they were already saying goodbye.

Everyone was extremely talkative, talking about the past.

Qin Luoluo laughed non-stop, talking about how she secretly learned make-up when she was a child and couldn’t afford cosmetics. She put red vegetable juice on her face and was scolded by her mother for three days; Cheng Youwen cursed the newspaper editor who couldn’t appreciate his masterpiece, he only knew how to comment on it blindly; even Wolfgang talked a lot. When he was young, he talked about how he studied acting with Isabella. He was very nervous when he played for the first time and almost dropped the act. He also said that he was ready to join the army immediately to contribute to the defense of the city.

Shi Yuan and Tracy were eating potato chips and listening to a few people talking about the mountains.

Halfway through, the door of the theater was pushed open.

Everyone was taken aback, and saw Xia Fang standing at the door with two bottles of wine in his hand, his eyes were extremely red.

“You, what’s wrong with you?!” Qin Luoluo asked in surprise. “What happened?”

“…it’s okay.” Xia Fang said in a hoarse voice. “It’s okay, don’t ask, I’m sorry I’m late.”

He didn’t want to talk about a word.

“It’s that you’re here, I thought you wouldn’t come!” Tracy was very surprised. “Come and eat!”

Xia Fang sat down silently, picked up a piece of cold pancake, and gobbled it up. He swallowed too quickly, like he could suppress the churning emotion by doing this.

It was not until the meal was finished, when Tracy went upstairs to rest first and everyone started drinking, that Xia Fang was willing to speak.

He said: “You also know that I have always wanted to make money, and I have always been very stingy. The salary here is not high, and it is far inferior to how much money I could get by sleeping with a man in a bar. I told Shi Yuan that you are very kind and stupid, and that it’s really wrong to engage in art in this era, asking for trouble, which I can’t understand at all.”

With the alcohol sloshing in the glass, he held the glass and looked around the crowd: “But there is one thing I haven’t told you: I have thought about it more than once and asked myself, why don’t I just quit my job here? Why do I want to perform here again and again? I’m just a little actor in a play, no name, and no profit.”

“Now, I know the answer.” Xia Fang took a deep breath. “Because I like it here.” The hypocrisy and excitement in the bar are all fake, they are all false, no one really cares about me, no one really knows what kind of person I am – they only care about my appearance, they only care about whether I listen to them or not, and how I behave in bed. But working here, with all of you, is what really makes me feel like I’m ‘alive’.”

“On stage is a fictional character, and off stage is the real me. Shi Yuan is right, I like it here as much as you.”

Qin Luoluo’s eyes widened: you are suddenly so melodramatic, I’m not used to it.”

“People are always cheap, can’t face up to their hearts until the last moment.” Xia Fang laughed somewhat self-deprecatingly. “Only when you are about to lose it do you understand how to cherish it.”

He shook his head: “Stop talking about this, let’s toast!”

The wine glasses collided, and the clear sound echoed.

“For the Wild Rose Troupe!” they said. “Art is immortal, see you another day!”

Shi Yuan hadn’t drunk alcohol before. After tasting it, he felt that the alcohol was bitter and not very good, but he still drank half a glass in a small sip.

Then he got slightly drunk.

The world seemed dizzy after the wine went to his head. Everyone said more. He saw Cheng Youwen’s face flushed, Qin Luoluo danced with her hands and feet, Wolfgang actually said a long list of words, and Xia Fang…

Through the hazy wine, Shi Yuan saw Xia Fang smiling, but his face was full of tears.

“I like you guys so much.” His tears were wet on his face, dripping from his chin. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry… I, I really like you guys.”

‘Why are you apologizing?’

—This was Shi Yuan’s last thought before falling asleep.

His head was so dizzy after drinking, he tilted his head, leaned on the sofa, and fell into a deep sleep.

His consciousness fell into darkness.

He didn’t know how long later, he heard someone calling him: “…Shi Yuan.”

Shi Yuan’s eyelids were heavy and he couldn’t open them.

“Shi Yuan,” the man called again, stroking his cheek with his hand.

The touch was very familiar, and Shi Yuan subconsciously rubbed the hand, making a vague and contented purr. He couldn’t wake up, and the man was not in a hurry, sitting next to him, gently stroking his face and the tips of his hair.

It was a very reassuring feeling.

He knew that no matter what, that person would be with him.

His consciousness just floated like this, up and down—

A few minutes later, Shi Yuan opened his eyes.

The lights in the theater hall were only on in the corners. In the dimness, Lu Tinghan sat beside him, holding his hand, his eyes were heavy, and some emotions were flowing.

‘Lu Tinghan is back? Why did he come to the theater?’

Shi Yuan was taken aback for a while, but finally woke up completely, and sat up abruptly: “Ah, what time is it now?！”

He was still dizzy and his body swayed.

“It’s already midnight,” Lu Tinghan said. “The curfew time has long passed.”

He took Shi Yuan, who was unstable, into his arms and let him lean on his chest.

Just as Shi Yuan was about to speak, he saw everyone on the sofa and seats sleeping upside down, Wolfgang, Cheng Youwen… Qin Luoluo, who drank little, was about to wake up, rubbing her eyes, and mumbling why she had slept for so long.

“Oh, we all got drunk.” Shi Yuan looked up at Lu Tinghan, and the tip of his tail swayed unconsciously again. “But, you found me again!”

Lu Tinghan didn’t speak for a long time. He held Shi Yuan in his arms, there seemed to be dark clouds gathering in his gray-blue eyes, and the dark tide was raging.

No one had ever seen Lu Tinghan look like this.

He was really angry.

He said: “It’s not that you got drunk, it’s that your wine was drugged.”

Shi Yuan was dizzy and didn’t react.

“…where’s Xia Fang?” At this time, Qin Luoluo woke up, looked around with her hand on her forehead, and asked in a daze. “This brat, Xia Fang, didn’t even say goodbye when he left? …Ah!！F*ck!”

She saw Lu Tinghan clearly, and the effect of the medicine and the alcohol were suddenly scared away.

“Who brought these two bottles of wine?” Lu Tinghan said, “There are sleeping pills in them.”

Qin Luoluo was stunned for a full half a minute, her mouth opened and closed, and she couldn’t say what she wanted to say. She suddenly realized something, jumped up, and went to the second floor.

Shi Yuan stood up and followed awkwardly, relying on his tail and Lu Tinghan to maintain his balance.

On the second floor, the door at the end of the room opened, and Qin Luoluo slowly sat on the floor.

Shi Yuan walked over.

In front of them, the door of the safe was open, and the inside was empty. Xia Fang had taken all the money saved for Isabella.

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**TN

the water poured out – in China, they say that women who get married are like water poured out (or spilled water) because they become part of someone else’s family, that’s why they prefer sons over daughters

AAAAH! Xia Fang! (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞