CH 4

In the end, Ye Kehuan sent a simple “Goodnight”.

She stared at the unchanging phone screen, thought for a while, then laid on her back, staring at the ceiling motionlessly.

She couldn’t sleep. Even with her phone off and eyes closed, she still just couldn’t fall asleep. Once her eyes shut, random thoughts would involuntarily appear in her mind.

For a moment, Ye Kehuan rolled over and opened her eyes again silently, staring at the calendar placed on the bedside table.

Time really flies. She was twenty-five in a blink of an eye. Other people had already accomplished much at this age, but she only just got started.

In fact, it was her childhood dream to be an actor. She loved to pose in front of a mirror to imitate the actions and speech of various characters.

At the time, Jiang Laien would always cooperate with her performances and play-acted along with her. When Ye Kehuan played as Spongebob, Jiang Laien would play as Patrick; when Ye Kehuan played as Guo Jing, Jiang Laien would play as Huang Rong1.

However, because they were too unprofessional then, the two novices would always laugh at the scenes and continued to work to improve.

So, it could be said that becoming on an actor was a long-cherished wish that had been rooted in her blood since she was a child.

Unfortunately, her family was never supportive of this dream and even adamantly opposed to her entering the circle, which stumbled her. She worked in her father’s company for the past few years.

It wasn’t until last year that she resolutely gave up all the achievements she had worked for so far and decidedly entered the circle to pursue her dreams. After all, it wasn’t too late, since if it really was, she really wouldn’t be able to break into the market.  

However, after entering the circle, she became a peer of Jiang Laien’s.

Honestly, she never thought that Jiang Laien would be an actor with her past social difficulties.

Thinking of the entertainment circle and thinking of Jian Laien, she inexplicably remembered many things…

Ye Kehuan took the quilt and covered her head for a while then slowly breathed out a sigh.  

Maybe she had lied down for too long and was inattentive to her body before, but she suddenly felt a bit hungry.

…

On the other side

…

After Jian Laien finished filming a toothpaste advertisement, it was already past two o’clock in the morning and everyone had started feeling sluggish.

Even if advertisements were only a few minutes long, the process of making them was tormenting. Jiang Laien spent two hours just on styling and makeup, not to mention that the shooting process itself takes a while.

This was only a small portion of Jiang Laien’s work.

After she finished filming, she changed back into her clothes, took her phone, and incomprehensibly opened the message interface for Ye Kehuan and looked at the emotes that Ye Kehuan had sent by mistake.

Does Ye Kehuan often chat with others? Otherwise, how could she have collected so many messy emotes? She should be considered a master of messaging others, though it wasn’t known who she often messages.

However, at first glance, it seemed like it wasn’t a serious way of chatting, and those emotes were really hopelessly ugly.

So, did Ye Kehuan actually go to sleep just now, or did she just started talking with others after saying goodnight to her?

Thinking of this, Jiang Laien slowly let out a long sigh.

Speaking of, the weather had been a bit strange today. It was hot enough to turn on the AC, but once it was on, it was too cold. Jiang Laien couldn’t tell how she was feeling, but she felt that this alternation between hot and cold was very uncomfortable. Her eyes were a bit read, her throat was a bit sore, and her nose was a bit itchy.

“Sister Laien,” The assistant Li Yingying walked over to Jiang Laien. “What’s wrong? Your eyes are so red.”

When she heard this, Jaing Laien looked at her with a small smile. “Nothing. I probably have a cold.”

“Yeah, it’s really easy to catch colds in this weather. Several of my friends caught them already, so you should really pay attention! I’ll give you some of my hometown’s magic cold remedy tomorrow.” Li Yingying smiled sweetly.

“Thank you,” Jiang Laien smiled and looked at her. “But it’s alright, there’s no need. You should also pay attention to your own health and not catch a cold.”

“Mhm!” Yingying enthusiastically nodded.

After a moment, Jaing Laien turned her head to look at her again, and said thoughtfully: “If two people used to be good friends, but then turn their faces for some reason, do you think they could continue to be friends in the future?

After a while, Jiang Laien turned his head to look at her again, thoughtfully: “If two people used to be good friends, but then fell out for some reason, how likely is it for them to continue being friends in the future? If one of the friends were willing to be the bigger person and seek reconciliation?”

“I think…” Li Yingying raised her hand in the air and then slowly traced a finger down.

“100?” Jiang Laien said, confused.

“Zero.” Li Yingying said, drawing a complete circle.

After hearing that, Jiang Laien felt that her head started hurting even more. She didn’t know what she was thinking of, but she knew that she felt that her whole brain was about to explode.

Li Yingying hurriedly took Jiang Laien’s arm. “Sister Laien, what’s the matter? Do you have a fever?!”

Jiang Laien shook her hand.

“Hey, it might not be so,” Yingying spoke again.

“Hmm?” Jiang Laien looked up.

“As the saying goes, you can’t speak too fully2. For some people, the chance of making up after a big fight is zero, but for others, this might not necessarily be so, because after all, aren’t most things like this? There are no two identical leaves in the world, and this is the same for people and even souls3!” Yingying suddenly transformed into a philosopher.

After listening, Jiang Laien stared at a random spot listless and finally let out a long sigh.

Ten minutes later, Jaing Laien left the studio, go into the nanny car, and had the driver take her back to the small villa.

Ye Kehuan had just finished cooking a bowl of noodles in the kitchen.

The noodles were steaming, as if a layer of mist had shrouded it. Covered with a fried egg, the dish looked perfectly delicious.

“I really am a chef.” After clapping her hands, Ye Kehuan raised her eyebrows and finally sprinkled some chopped scallions on the noodles. She took the noodles, walked out of the kitchen, and went to the small dining area in the living room to start eating.

Unexpectedly, just when she had put the noodles down, the door was pushed open.

Jaing Laien appeared with very delicate makeup. Probably because it was quite late at night, Jiand Laien looked a bit tired, and her eyes seemed red.

At once, the eyes of the two met, and they both stiffened. After stumbling for a moment, they both continued to do their own thing.

Ye Kehuan sat down to eat the noodles while Jiang Laien bent over to change her shoes.

They were quiet the entire process, each thinking their own thoughts. Ye Kehuan ate her noodles and tapped on her phone, staring hard enough to bore a hole in it; Jiang Laien sat on the sofa and flipped through her script a bit impatiently. The air seemed to be frozen.

“Are you just now having dinner?” Jiang Laien couldn’t help but take the initiative to ask a question after a while.

Ye Kehuan listened while picking up a bunch of noodles. “Well, I was hungry, so I got up to make a snack.”

The fragrance of noodles was unbearable to Jiang Lain, who was naturally hungry after having a small dinner and had been working until now.

So, at this moment, her stomach decided to growl.

“Hungry?” Ye Kehuan raised her head when she heard it and asked hesitantly.

“I’m fine.” Jiang Laien swallowed her saliva. She took the glass of water and gulped a large mouthful.

Growl~ However, her stomach rumbled again.

Seeing this, Ye Kehuan held up the chopsticks and asked, “Did you not have enough for dinner?”

Ye Kehuan probably didn’t even realize that her words sounded a bit sour.

“Qi Li?” Jiang Laien looked at her.

Ye Kehuan continued to stare at her phone for a long time before nodding. “Yeah.”

Jiang Laien combed her fingers through her hair. “I didn’t ask her in the end.”

Ye Kehuan froze for a second when she heard this and raised her eyes. She looked at her awkwardly: “She had no time?”

“I didn’t make the appointment,” Jiang Laien finished, then looked at her, thinking for a while before she spoke again. “I wanted to ask if you wanted to go together to eat, but you left before I spoke, so I ended up eating only a bit of bread.”

When Ye Kehuan heard this, her brain buzzed. It turned out to be so… Ye Kehuan wanted to say something, but when Jiang Laien turned over another page of the script and looked at it seriously, she stopped herself.

But after that, Ye Kehuan saw Jiang Laien take a few candies out from her bag and watched her frown and put it back in, seemingly unsatisfied.

After two or three minutes passed, Ye Kehuan finished the noodles, cleaned up the tableware, and turned around to go into the kitchen. She poured out the noodle water in the pot, cleaned the residue, and began to scrub.

When she finished washing, she suddenly remembered what Jiang Laien said, and when the rumbling of her stomach could be heard again, Ye Kehuan paused. After a while, she turned around again, looked in the direction where Jiang Laien was sitting, and lowered her eyes.

At the moment, Jiang Laien was in the living room inattentively looking through her WeChat instead of the script and clicked on Ye Kehuan’s Moments page.

Ye Kehuan’s Moments page was quite interesting. It was completely filled with reposts of game content. It was full of things like “please come help unlock this” or “come and see the new themes!” There was basically nothing on it that had to do with her daily life.

After looking for a while, Jiang Laien finally saw a rare post related to Ye Kehuan’s life. The photo was of a bracelet woven with red rope with lucky beads strung on it.

The caption reads: “Sure enough, there are few things in this world that don’t fade.”

The post was sent out by Ye Kehuan a year before. Jiang Laien could help but bite down gently on her lower lip when she saw it. It was the bracelet that she herself had made and given to Ye Kehuan.

She didn’t expect that Ye Kehuan had kept it since. She thought she surely would have thrown it away by now.

Raising her head, Jaing Laien rubbed her temples and pressed on the bridge of her nose, which was a little sore. She turned her head and looked to the side with a feeling of not being able to breathe.

Thinking of this, Jiang Laien reached out and pressed on her lower eyelids again, but at this moment, a slender white hand suddenly placed a bowl of noodles in front of her. The egg on top was fried to a beautiful golden yellow, and there was a small star of oil floating on top of the soup.

Jiang Laien’s gaze followed the arm and looked up, seeing Ye Kehuan put her hands in her pants pocket again, her expression a little awkward, as if she wanted to look at her but didn’t dare. “Here, I added your favorite fried egg.”

Footnotes:

1: Guo Jing and Huang Rong, a husband and wife pair from Condor Heroes, a classic Wuxia series that has been widely adapted and is widely popular. As a full time banana, I had to google since I’ve only heard of it in passing

2: Speak with complete certainty.

3: I couldn’t properly translate this part.

Translator’s Corner:

Here, I added your favorite sksksjsjskf girlll you’re so awkward

I finished my summer classes! Sorry for the long wait, but I’ll probably have a bit of time now before college starts again in the autumn. I didn’t do a second read through for this chapter after correcting the MTL, so if you catch any mistakes or odd phrasing, just leave a comment and I’ll get that fixed.