CH 74

After taking off her headphones, Su Chang came out of the recording studio, her ears were red, probably because she had been wearing the headphones for a long time.

Before turning around, she bent down and covered her face with her hand, taking a few deep breaths to adjust her expression and mood. Therefore, when she came out, there was nothing unusual on her face, just some fatigue in her eyebrows and slightly swollen eyelids.

But her eyes were still clear and tender, just like when they first met.

The first time they met, she was about the same age as Yu Zhou is now.

Time flies so fast.

Yu Zhou stood up and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her eyes were red and her overall aura was weak, she didn’t look as feisty as usual.

Su Chang walked up to her as the sound of her Martin boots was light. She asked her: “Shall we go out?”

Peng Xiangzhi must still be waiting for them to eat.

“Hmm.” Yu Zhou bowed her head with a nasal voice and turned to walk outside.

Just as she touched the doorknob, her other wrist was caught, and then she was brought into a similarly light embrace by a light fragrance.

Su Chang hugged her gently and restrainedly, her chin buried in her shoulder, breathing quietly.

It’s been a long time since they listened to each other’s heartbeats like this, as if they were the only two left in the world.

Yu Zhou raised her hand to hug her back, Su Chang rested her forehead on her shoulder, rubbed it, and then straightened up and let go of Yu Zhou: “Let’s go.”

Having patched up, let’s go out.

“Mmm.” Yu Zhou said.

As expected, Su Chang did not force her, neither during the meal nor when she sent her home. The two of them were so calm that Peng Xiangzhi was confused. Her gossipy heart had nowhere to vent, making her so frustrated that she wanted to kick Su Chang. After all, the studio was borrowed from their Three Sounds studio. What’s the matter, did the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl forget about the magpie bridge after meeting?[1]

No matter how much the magpie bridge chirps, life goes on as usual.

The next day, Yu Zhou found out that Su Chang had lied to her. She hadn’t gone on a business trip at all and there were no signs of a business trip. She had just sent her little kitten to stay at Yu Zhou’s house.

And, under the pretext of caring for the kitten, she successfully chatted with Yu Zhou every morning and evening.

Missing her kitten terribly, wanting to see pictures of it, that was quite reasonable.

A week later, Yu Zhou couldn’t stand it any more and had a fit with her, saying, please take the kitten back, but Su Chang said she was too busy at work recently to take care of it.

Busy? But her WeChat message to Yu Zhou was buzzing from morning to night.

She even suspected, was Su Chang recording at all?

Su Chang was indeed not recording. Her recording work gradually decreased. She told Yu Zhou that she was considering moving behind the scenes, trying to form a voice team, doing voice-over directing work, and once the studio was on track, she would also do some training and teaching. Her own voice acting might become rare.

Because her health wasn’t too good, she also considered returning to a more normal lifestyle.

Yu Zhou was very surprised about her wanting to become a teacher. She had been a freelancer for so long, didn’t even want to sign with a studio, and now she was going to lead new apprentices.

So she asked Su Chang, “What changed you? Was it that training session with Three Sounds?”

That made her realize she had a sense of responsibility for teaching.

Su Chang smiled faintly on the other end of the phone: “Maybe, I think hearing someone call me ‘Teacher Su’ sounds very nice.”

The phrase “someone” was slightly stressed. As a voice actress, these sorts of meaningful emphases and pauses came naturally.

It was really annoying. Yu Zhou hung up the phone, not wanting to deal with her.

On an ordinary afternoon when the kitten was eating the cat food, Yu Zhou sat in front of the computer, thinking about her new novel.

It was called “Pat Me Please”.

The inspiration came from Wanwan, the kitten that she had previously fostered at her home. Seeing the kitten stretch its body and yawn with its butt raised, she remembered when Wanwan was in heat and she had to pat its buttocks. Suddenly, she had an idea.

“The story is about the main character who encounters an omega who has traveled from the future to the present. The omega enters heat, and the main character has no choice but to help the little omega pat her buttocks, using the method she used to pat the kitten, to alleviate her…uh, pain. This novel is an ABO-themed story.”

She said this to Su Chang in the video.

And the idea of time travel came from Xiang Wan.

“What’s an ABO theme?” Su Chang asked, furrowing her brows.

“You don’t know what ABO theme is?” It’s very popular, don’t voice actors voice various themes? Don’t you know it?

Su Chang shook her head. She usually voices more BG, fewer GL and has not touched this kind of themed material.

“But it sounds interesting,” she said, “will you consider making it into an audio drama after it’s done?”

“Ah, you’re asking about this even before I’ve started?” Yu Zhou feigned embarrassment, “It seems I’m really famous now.”

Su Chang chuckled softly on the other end.

Yu Zhou was just joking. In reality, she hadn’t become that popular. Her fan count was still about the same as before. It had increased a little after the second season of “Shrine” was released, but overall, it wasn’t much different from the first season. The author herself wasn’t highly recognized and she didn’t like to post on Weibo or interact with others frequently.

She enjoyed this kind of status. If she became truly famous, she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Like Su Chang or Xiang Wan.

Xiang Wan’s momentum was particularly good right now. She and Su Chang had worked on several projects together and many people in the industry looked at her with anticipation.

Yu Zhou remembered her previous agreement with Xiang Wan and asked Su Chang, “Can I approach your signature voice actress? I don’t know if it’s easy to access her.”

“Hmm?”

“I want to access Xiang Wan, I want to ask her to be the lead in my audio drama.”

Su Chang pretended to hesitate. “Hmm… that might depend on Teacher Xiang’s schedule.”

Teacher Xiang’s schedule wasn’t actually very full because she was still getting private tutoring for her cultural studies. Although she was intellectually superior and could easily outperform most people, modern exam-oriented education was different, especially when it came to English. It was almost like starting from scratch.

Even though she was smart and quick to learn, she might not be able to reach a certain level in a short period of time. Therefore, her exams might not be so soon, probably until the year after next.

Although there was still time, Xiang Wan still took her classes seriously every day, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge that even made Yu Zhou feel inferior. Occasionally, she, Su Chang, and Peng Xiangzhi would visit her in her little home and wait for her to finish her classes before taking her out for a meal.

Yu Zhou remembered that afternoon when the four of them had planned to have dinner together. She arrived at Xiang Wan’s house first, and Xiang Wan was studying in her room with the door closed. Afraid of disturbing her, Yu Zhou didn’t turn on the TV and sat in the living room playing with her phone.

After a while, the doorbell rang. Yu Zhou went to open the door and saw Peng Xiangzhi and Su Chang with their scarves wrapped around their necks and white breath visible in the air.

The two of them entered, took off their coats and scarves and sat on the sofa, as if they were in their own homes.

After about forty minutes, Xiang Wan finally came out with her private tutor. Her private tutor was a bit shocked when she saw the row of people sitting on the sofa, said goodbye and hurriedly left.

Xiang Wan looked at them and smiled, “What are you doing?”

Yu Zhou laughed like Garfield. “Waiting for you to finish class.”

Peng Xiangzhi reclined on the sofa in a seductive pose. “Waiting for you to finish class.”

Su Chang propped her legs up and put the book back on the coffee table. “Waiting for you to finish class.”

Xiang Wan chuckled with bright eyes and pearly white teeth.

“So you mean I’m treating you, right?”

“Exactly,” Yu Zhou grinned.

At the end of January, as the Chinese New Year approached, Xiang Wan was about to face her first business trip.

She had accepted an invitation to attend a comic convention in another city and needed to take a flight.

Su Chang originally wanted to accompany her, and so did Yu Zhou, but Xiang Wan politely declined.

“I’ve watched a movie, I know how to take a flight,” she said.

“What movie?” Yu Zhou asked curiously.

“Lost in Thailand.[2]“

So Yu Zhou watched with mixed feelings as Xiang Wan, holding a potted cactus like Wang Baoqiang, stood tall at the airport.

The other two stood beside her, standing under the bright lights of the airport terminal, without saying a word.

After giving Xiang Wan some instructions and getting her ticket changed and luggage checked, she was about to go through security when Yu Zhou suddenly grabbed her arm. “Xiang Wan, do you want to go to the bathroom?”

“I don’t.”

“You do.”

“…Okay.”

Handing her bag to Yu Zhou, Xiang Wan was watched by others as she went into the nearby restroom. Yu Zhou asked Su Chang, “Do you have any money?”

Su Chang furrowed her eyebrows.

“Cash,” Yu Zhou said, “I feel like we should give her some cash, just in case her phone runs out of battery or something and she can’t turn it on. What if she needs money for a taxi or a hotel?”

“I don’t have a wallet.” Her gaze clearly conveyed the message that she was asking Su Chang for money.

Su Chang swallowed before taking out her wallet from her bag. She opened it and there was only one red bill and a few coins inside.

Peng Xiangzhi also opened her wallet, flipping it over to show that it was empty except for some cards.

Yu Zhou leaned in to take a look, feeling a bit disappointed. She was just thinking that even a hundred yuan would do, but then she saw Su Chang furrowing her brows and whispering, “Wait a minute.”

She picked up her bag again and took out a square package wrapped in a newspaper. It had some thickness to it. She unwrapped it and placed a stack of red bills in front of Yu Zhou.

Yu Zhou was shocked, looking at Su Chang and then at the money.

In this day and age, do people still use newspapers to wrap cash? She has only seen this kind of scene on TV.

“Do you have some kind of illicit job?” Yu Zhou asked Su Chang with a pained expression.

Su Chang chuckled softly, “It’s the money I received as payment last month. I don’t know why they gave it to me in cash and I forgot to deposit it.”

Yu Zhou placed her hand on the outer zipper of Xiang Wan’s bag, hesitating whether to directly stuff the money inside or wait until Xiang Wan came out.

Logically, she should wait for Xiang Wan to come out, but she had seen on TV and read in novels that things like stuffing money were supposed to be done behind someone’s back, which made it seem somewhat grandiose. When the person involved discovered it, they would be touched.

She looked at Su Chang, whose eyes indicated that she didn’t think it was a good idea.

And it probably wasn’t a good idea.

Just as Yu Zhou was about to put her hand down, they heard a sweet female voice from behind, “What’s going on with you guys?”

The three of them looked at Xiang Wan coming out of the restroom with her hands still slightly wet. She furrowed her brows in confusion as she looked at them.

Meanwhile, Yu Zhou was still slightly hunched over, her hand on the zipper of Xiang Wan’s bag…

It made her feel like she was the one with some illicit job.

Feeling guilty, Yu Zhou awkwardly handed Xiang Wan her bag and apologized with a good attitude, “I was worried that you didn’t have cash and it would be inconvenient for you, so I wanted to give you some money. But then I thought it wouldn’t be right to do it behind your back, so… I’m sorry, Wanwan. I won’t do it again.”

Xiang Wan took the bag and looked at her with a smile. “You can.”

“You can touch anything of mine,” she said softly.

Those words…

Peng Xiangzhi pursed her lips and looked at Su Chang beside her.