CH 1 & 2

BUZZ!

The girl who was all over the table writing in deep concentration looked up. Her hair cascaded down her slender shoulder and revealed her delicate and pretty face. She looked over at her cellphone sitting at the corner of her desk.

There was a text message.

Gu Nian closed up her dark brown softcover notebook and, before she could even put it away properly into her drawer, a call came in after the text.

It was the rushing curse from Lin Nantian.

Gu Nian sighed, placed her notebook on the upper left-hand corner of her desk and answered the call. Her voice was languid

“Hello?”

“Why aren’t you here yet?”

“I thought I still have,” Gu Nian turned her head and looked. “Another half an hour.”

The person on the other side of the phone gritted her teeth. “You are here for an arranged date. Have you mistaken it for being on time for a class or something?”

“……” Gu Nian rested her face on her desk. Her side profile curved listlessly. “Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

Gu Nian placed the greeting card that she had just completed carefully on top of the handwritten notebook before she casually pulled out a floral dress, put it on, and walked out of her bedroom.

Inside of the living room, Jiang Xiaoqing and Qin Yuanyuan, the two other girls on her screenwriting team were happily chatting with each other.

“Eh, heading out to your arranged date?” asked Jiang Xiaoqing as she looked up.

“Yeah, my package that needs to be sent out tonight…”

“I know. I know. The gifts for your precious son. You mean those two large boxes, right?”

“And the greeting card and the notebook on the table.”

“Okay. Okay.”

Gu Nian felt reassured and a slight sign of energy was finally injected into her eyes. Her lips always curved a little bit upward. Walking over to the foyer, she sat on the stool to put on her shoes.

She had just put one of her shoes on when she heard Jiang Xiaoqing’s voice, sounding like it was spoken through gritted teeth, came from the direction of the living room. “Fine. We’ll have Gu Nian be the judge!”

“?”

A few seconds later, the two women stood in front of her. “Alright, Gu Nian. If it was you, which one of the Luo’s two young masters would you vote for?”

Gu Nian, her shoe in one hand, was baffled. “What Luo’s? What young masters?”

Dumbfounded, Jiang Xiaoqing turned around. “How do you not know about the Luo’s? Have you been living in a cave in a mountain?”

Qin Yuanyuan reminded her softly, “That’s the one that I’ve mentioned to you a while ago. The Luo’s in City K is the one I’d always use as my reference when I write about prestigious family in my screenplays.”

“Oh, I vaguely remember it then.” Gu Nian bent down nonchalantly and put on her other shoe. “What about them?”

“Oh my gosh! You!”

Jiang Xiaoqing sat down next to Gu Nian’s stool and said, “We’ve always thought that the two brothers were fighting internally over which one of them is to succeed the family’s fortune. Turned out that neither one of them wants to succeed the family’s fortune and that’s what they were fighting over!”

“And?”

Looking at Gu Nian’s what-does-that-have-to-do-with-me weary look, Jiang Xiaoqing wiped her face in defeat. Resigned, she said, “Yuanyuan and I were arguing about which one of them would win out in the battle and we want you to be the judge.”

Gu Nian turned and looked at Qin Yuanyuan.

Qin Yuanyuan said, “I vote for second young master Luo. He graduated from the elite class of K University and is the up and coming in the AI field. That and he is handsome too!”

Jiang Xiaoqing looked very decisive. “I vote for the mysterious first young master Luo. Mystery always makes a man charming.”

“?”

Jiang Xiaoqing couldn’t maintain her straight face for over three seconds. She rolled into Gu Nian’s arms. “None of the media had ever captured an image of first young master Luo. No way he’s an ordinary person being the oldest grandson of the Luo’s and whatnot. The more mysterious a man is, the mightier he is. That’s how it goes in all scripts!”

Qin Yuanyuan rebutted, “You read too many scripts.”

“Hrm! Even Old Mister Luo said he is reticent!”

“His exact words were: he’s distant, deep-minded, and wantless. That’s not exactly a compliment.”

“I don’t care!”

Gu Nian did not let the two’s bickering bother her. Finished putting on her shoes, she stood up and said casually, “If he was truly wantless, why didn’t he go and become a Taoist priest?”

“Eh? How did you know?”

Gu Nian turned around.

Jiang Xiaoqing looked like she was in distress. “Words had it that first young master Luo didn’t care about materialistic goods or beautiful women and only wants to become a Taoist priest.”

Gu Nian, “…...”

Gu Nian patted her on her shoulder. “My condolences.”

Gu Nian turned and was about to leave when Jiang Xiaoqing grabbed her and asked, “Wait a minute. You haven’t told us who you are voting for yet!”

“Hmm.” Gu Nian thought about it for a little bit and said, “I vote for Luo Xiu.”

Jiang Xiaoqing was dumbfounded. “Who’s that?”

A sadness that could only belonged to an old mother replaced Gu Nian’s original nonchalant look. “My poor precious son who happened to share the same last name but was way less lucky.”

And that was when it dawned on Jiang Xiaoqing. “Oh, that 180th-tier who didn’t even have a wiki entry….”

Gu Nian, “?”

The-death-stare.jpg

Jiang Xiaoqing suddenly realized that that was that last thing one could say to Gu Nian and quickly shut up.

Gu Nian knew full well that what Jiang Xiaoqing said was true. Dispirited, she started heading out expressionlessly. “I’m going to my arranged date. Don’t forget about my son’s gift.”

“I promise I’ll take care of it!”

Shortly after Gu Nian left, the delivery person from X-Feng came to pick up the package.

After weighing the package, the delivery person rested his hand on top of the two boxes of nutrition products and said, “Are these it?”

“Yes… oh, wait, wait.” Jiang Xiaoqing smacked herself on her forehead. “I almost forgot about the notebook and the greeting card.”

She quickly turned and ran inside of Gu Nian’s bedroom. The first thing she saw when she walked inside was the greeting card that had fallen onto the floor.

She bent over and picked it up. “Eh? Did it get blown off? And the notebook…” She scanned over the table and spotted the dark brown softcover notebook sitting on the upper left-hand corner of the desk.

Jiang Xiaoqing’s eyes beamed. She picked up the notebook and patted it with confident.

“This must be it!”

***

The sun seemed to never last more than three seconds in the summer time.

A large grey cloud had crept above the city and Gu Nian had just gotten into the car when it started to pour.

The rain drops fell onto the ground and turned into round wet spots. Outside the car window was a foggy and bizarre world.

A cappella in a deep and sad female voice was playing from an unknown radio station.

Gu Nian was sleepy. Leaning against the car window, the lyrics went in from her left ear and out the her right.

[……]

[If you have become buddha, why didn’t you enlighten me?]

[Anything in this world is but a dream, as is love and hatred. A thousand years are but a waste of time]

[……]

[Under the bluish light, the old buddha said]*

[In the end, it was all for naught]

When the song was finished, the lady driver seemed to not have enough of it. She initiated a conversation with Gu Nian and said, “Little girl, have you heard this song before?”

Gu Nian suppressed her desire to yawn and forced open her sleepy eyes. “Yes, I have.”

“That makes sense. Enlighten me was the top song online from two years ago. Everybody must have heard it before.”

“Mmm.”

“I’ve always liked this song. I’ve heard that the song writer and singer was someone by the name of Mang Zhi.* I’ve also heard that when this song rocked the country, the song writer was not even 20 years old yet. Why do you think she retired after that?”

Not being able to hold out anymore, Gu Nian finally let out a big yawn and her eyes became teary. She said casually, “Perhaps something happened to her.”

The driver paused for a little, frowned, and said, “What are you talking about, little girl? What do you mean by ‘something happened to her’? Meng Zhi was talented and famed. I’m sure she had become famous under a different alias in a different area!”

“……”

No.

She could also be a little-heard-of, pathetic screenwriter who had to write till 4 AM all the time.

Gu Nian swallowed up her third yawn and, along with it, the cruel truth.

The taxi delivered her to XingYue Hotel. After she got out of the car, Gu Nian opened up the umbrella that she had brought with her in her purse and walked toward the front of the hotel, stepping on one puddle after another.

By the time she put away her umbrella at the entrance, the rain had more or less stopped.

Looking at the sky who seemed to be toying with her, Gu Nian looked up expressionlessly and asked.

“Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn’t have come?”

“Did you think that I want to be here?”

“I can’t disobey my mother, you know?”

“Oh, never mind. You don’t have a mother so you won’t understand.”

“Speaking of mother, I hope that my precious son brought an umbrella with him today.”

Under the handsome security guard’s she’s-so-young-too-bad-she’s-crazy pathetic look, Gu Nian resigned to her fate, turned, and walked inside of the hotel.