CH 33

“Ha?” Peng Xiangzhi’s mind was blown.

Even though she clearly knew what Su Chang meant, she still asked with a wooden face, “Oh, is she the kind of ex-girlfriend that calls you ‘wife’ while daydreaming at home?”

“No, not that kind.”

“Then what kind?”

“Holding hands, hugging, kissing, um, that kind of ex-girlfriend.”

One “um” was worth a thousand words, heavier than the table Peng Xiangzhi was going to eat.

Su Chang! Ex-girlfriend! Peng Xiangzhi felt like there was a little person running circles in her smoke-filled mind after the explosion, from left to right, from right to left, still unable to connect these two words together.

As the little person ran, there was a mole standing next to it, opening its mouth wide while constantly shouting, “Ah——”

Just like Tsukushi Makino, who was shocked by Tsukasa Domyouji hundreds of times.[1]

Peng Xiangzhi’s expression was colorful, switching emojis like a PowerPoint slide.

Su Chang rolled up her sleeves above her elbow, waiting for her emoticon show to end.

Peng Xiangzhi’s final thought process was that she had finally known such a big gossip, all thanks to her own keen insight, making Su Chang confess. She was inexplicably touched, her chest swelling wave after wave as if she had read a piece that she couldn’t resist, the protagonist finally kissed, feeling a bit sour in her heart, but also very refreshing.

But she acted very appropriately, trying to control her volume while asking Su Chang, “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“You didn’t ask.” Su Chang answered as if it was only natural.

“Holy shit, ask? Does this kind of gossip require people to ask?” Peng Xiangzhi raised her voice with an octave, “Are you even human? If you had a girlfriend, shouldn’t you say something like ‘Hey, my girlfriend and I also blablabla’ when someone talks about their girlfriend, or set your girlfriend’s picture as your chat background, then we’d naturally be curious, and you’d go along with it and say ‘this is my girlfriend’?” 

“You act so standoffishly everyday as if you want to hang a ‘no strangers allowed’ sign on your face. How do people ask? How do they ask? Should they pull a question out of thin air? One morning, jump in front of you and ask, ‘Hello Su Chang, do you have a girlfriend?’ If you don’t throw them off the 30th floor, I’ll consider it a loss.”

Peng Xiangzhi couldn’t help but laugh.

Su Chang held her phone sideways, gently sliding it on the table.

“Su Chang!” Peng Xiangzhi’s temper flared, “Are you listening to me? Don’t scrape the table, my ears can’t stand it!”

“I just wanted to help you.” Su Chang said softly, with a hint of tenderness.

“Help me with what?”

“Testing the hardness of the table.”

Peng Xiangzhi gritted her teeth, “Don’t force me to strangle you.”

Su Chang’s nostrils twitched as she laughed softly, “Okay.”

A gentle stop, just enough to get the point across.

Peng Xiangzhi calmed down, not so angry anymore, but the feeling of excitement and joy hadn’t faded. She asked Su Chang, “How long were you together? Why did you break up? Who initiated the breakup? Hiss… So when you asked me to direct this show, were there still lingering feelings?”

“Almost four years, her, yes.”

One by one, the last “yes” was very low, but Peng Xiangzhi suddenly found it extremely sexy.

Su Chang admitted that she had lingering feelings. How did that popular phrase go? – That’s Su Chang.

“Ah.” Peng Xiangzhi was instantly delighted, trying to sigh with pity, but couldn’t hide the joy in her tone. Her emotions were too complex, making it sound strange.

“So what was the reason for the breakup?”

“She… didn’t like me anymore.” Su Chang said quietly.

“Ah.” Peng Xiangzhi wanted to sympathize with her again, but the corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably.

She really wanted to laugh, but isn’t schadenfreude supposed to be punished?

She thought about how Yu Zhou acted obediently in front of Su Chang in the studio, lowering her head like a quail. Peng Xiangzhi propped her face with her hand, frowning, “I don’t think that’s the case.”

Su Chang looked up at her.

Peng Xiangzhi stuck her finger into her long curly hair and scratched, “I think, she quite likes you.”

Su Chang stared at her, slowly blinking her eyes.

“… My feelings might not be accurate.” Peng Xiangzhi was no longer confident.

Su Chang sighed, looking at the phone in her hand.

With that sigh, Peng Xiangzhi felt a bit of pity for her. After thinking for a moment, she suddenly said, “I’m done.”

“?”

“I can’t keep secrets. Once you tell me, I’m afraid I’ll accidentally spread it out in excitement.”

Actually, she knew what was important and what wasn’t. She was just testing Su Chang to see if she could talk to others about it. Because she was a little frustrated, such a big gossip, if she couldn’t spread it but to hold it in, that would be very uncomfortable. It would be better not to let her know from the beginning.

She wanted Su Chang to remind her once, so she could feel better about “keeping the secret for Su Chang”.

Unexpectedly, Su Chang said, “I don’t mind.”

“Huh?”

“But she might mind.” Su Chang seemed to hesitate, as if thinking about something.

Peng Xiangzhi understood, “Oh, I see. You’re afraid it’ll be bad for her, especially since she’s an ex now.”

Seeing Su Chang’s eyes falter for a moment, she realized that the last sentence might not have been necessary. She wasn’t intentionally rubbing salt in the wound.

But now that Su Chang had said it, she understood that she should keep her mouth shut, like with a locked zipper.

“I really didn’t see anything…” She interjected with a sigh, leaning on the table while scrolling through her chat history with Yu Zhou, looking at it over and over again.

She exited the chat and then opened Yu Zhou’s Weibo, looking at it again and again.

It was amazing, she thought, to break up with Su Chang, and the reason was that she didn’t like her anymore.

Suddenly, she felt that Yu Zhou was extraordinary, even the cat avatar on Weibo seemed impressive.

She really wanted to ask Su Chang what she liked about Yu Zhou, but she thought it was a silly question, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Love is mysterious, and when two people click, they like everything about each other.

“Has she deleted any Weibo posts?” After browsing through Yu Zhou’s not-so-many Weibo posts, Peng Xiangzhi changed several keywords and searched without finding any clues.

“No.”

“Wow… I’m thinking she might really dislike you, huh?” Peng Xiangzhi continued to browse through Yu Zhou’s likes, “There’s not a single post about you here, and the topics and gossip she follows have nothing to do with the voice acting circle.”

Su Chang took a light breath and said, “She’s just not interested in this area.”

She didn’t listen to her shows much and never expressed any interest in her work or environment.

“Really? It seems that she found it quite interesting this time she came, and she’s quite dedicated,” Peng Xiangzhi said.

It was a bit hurtful, as if she was insinuating that Yu Zhou disliked Su Chang. Peng Xiangzhi shut her mouth.

After going through Weibo, she found the situation a bit tricky.

“What do you plan to do about this?” She felt a bit sympathetic.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to help you?”

Su Chang glanced at her.

“I don’t have a plan yet.” Peng Xiangzhi rested her chin on her hand, tapping her cheek with her finger.

“Let’s do this,” she took out her phone, “I’ll mention in the crew’s group chat that my schedule has moved up, asking if they can accommodate me by writing the script for the second season earlier. Then we can start recording the second season sooner.”

“Then, haha, you can consider my suggestion about being a lecturer in the training class. I’ll work on Xiang Wan, and bring her over.”

Peng Xiangzhi laughed, clearly having ulterior motives, but it was an open scheme, and she didn’t need to hide it.

“Bring Xiang Wan?”

“Yes, the problem now is that, apart from recording dramas, you two probably won’t have a chance to meet, right? But if we start attending training classes together and have meals with Xiang Wan, it would make more sense to invite your Zhou to join us, wouldn’t it?”

She thought that the term “your Zhou” was well-used and that Su Chang should appreciate it.

But Su Chang didn’t seem to approve of her “bring Wan to pull Zhou” strategy.[2]

She shook her head, rejecting all of Peng Xiangzhi’s arrangements.

Her relationship with Yu Zhou was not as simple as outsiders thought. Over three years of emotions, they had experienced everything together, had endless conversations, and gradually became silent. She knew better than anyone that the problem lay within both of them. Yu Zhou’s statement, “I don’t like you anymore,” had shaken the foundation of her love and hurt her self-esteem. But she had to admit that it was the result of Yu Zhou’s careful consideration.

Su Chang understood her so well that she saw the end of their relationship as soon as Yu Zhou began to speak. 

Therefore, she couldn’t take any further action to question her.

Life is not an idol drama, and this kind of chasing and acting won’t work for her and Yu Zhou.

Su Chang didn’t want to use it either.

“We’ll see,” she said, looking at the clean table nearby.