“No way! You must go to this dinner. That’s Director Zhang, the most outstanding female director in the country! She’s preparing to shoot her new film.”
The only response to the anxious voice on the phone was a steady clack, clack, clack, the sound of wooden clogs stepping rhythmically against the floorboards.
Inside the dimly lit room, the sole source of light was the subtle glow of a cell phone screen. Tracing that faint light, one could spot a hand resting nearby. The fingers were well-defined with clear knuckles and neatly trimmed white fingernails.
Sensing that something was amiss, the woman on the other end of the line asked with sharp vigilance, “Where are you right now? You didn’t run off abroad again, did you?!”
On this end of the line, Jiang Nianzhi didn’t bother to answer.
Outside in the hallway, the footsteps of the server gradually faded away, leaving the person on the phone growing increasingly frantic.
Hearing Sun Lin’s mounting panic on the other end, Jiang Nianzhi knew her manager was already jumping to wild conclusions, probably guessing she was currently in the United States preparing to board a rocket and flee Earth at any moment.
Sun Lin could hardly be blamed for her wild imagination; the person answering the call was a total misanthrope.
If the world’s most misanthropic person had decided to live atop the tallest eucalyptus tree in the North American forests to stay far away from humanity, Jiang Nianzhi’s misanthropy was severe enough to make her pack up and move to Mars.
For all these years, the moment Jiang Nianzhi finished a schedule, she would immediately catch a flight abroad.
One day, out of a sudden whim, her manager Sun Lin decided to tally up the total cost of all the plane tickets Jiang Nianzhi had bought over the years. It was fine before she calculated it, but once she did, the combined price of those plane tickets was enough to purchase a luxury flat within East City’s Third Ring Road.
Listening to Sun Lin’s continuous nagging over the phone, Jiang Nianzhi soaked her feet in the hot spring. Her entire body felt delightfully lazy, as if sweet honey were seeping straight out of her bones. She felt like a balloon that might float up into the sky at any second. A gentle warmth welled up from deep within her marrow, slowly spreading across her skin.
Prompted by the phone call, Jiang Nianzhi lazily propped herself up and sat up straight. As she moved, a streak of pale yellow light flashed across her eyes. She raised her gaze to look for its source and happened to catch sight of the moon in the sky, big, bright, and round.
Today was the fifteenth day of the lunar month, the night of the full moon.
In the tranquil courtyard, small birds chirped occasionally from the trees. Warm places always attracted living creatures, whether human beings or tiny animals.
After a long pause, just as the person on the other end was on the verge of going crazy with her voice soaring straight toward a high note, Jiang Nianzhi finally said lazily, “No, I’m still in the country. I just went to a hot spring. I heard what you said.”
“Did they reveal what the plot of this movie is about?”
Jiang Nianzhi stood up, pulled a towel from the side, and gently wiped the water droplets off her calves. Her calves looked a bit red and wrinkled, slightly pale from the prolonged soak, though it hardly counted as a flaw on her long, slender, and toned legs.
Jiang Nianzhi placed her phone aside and turned on the speakerphone.
Opening her carry-on bag, she pulled out a small bottle of body lotion, squeezed out a dollop, and rubbed it slowly between her hands until it turned creamy white before applying it to her legs. A soft, subtle scent of jasmine gradually floated into the air.
Hearing her question, the person on the other end instantly perked up. Even though Jiang Nianzhi hated dealing with people, her saving grace was her absolute professionalism and genuine passion for acting. For years, everyone in the industry claimed no female actor of her generation possessed better acting skills than Jiang Nianzhi. However, she was extremely picky about scripts, and since her debut, she had never accepted a romantic role.
“This movie heavily features a romance line, but the character you’d be playing is just a princess of a fallen state. Don’t worry, there aren’t any intense emotional shifts or physical contact required.”
Hearing this, Jiang Nianzhi’s hand paused. She shifted her posture, placed her feet back onto the wooden floor, and switched to her other leg. The wooden floor let out a soft creak under her weight.
Inside the small courtyard, the gentle gurgling of the flowing hot spring water resounded alongside the bird calls hidden in the trees. The entire space was quiet and serene, leaving only the solitary silhouette of a woman bowing her head.
The person on the other end of the line seemed to sense Jiang Nianzhi’s aversion. She hurriedly added, “It’s mainly just a subtle, ambiguous sentiment between characters; it’s not actual romantic acting. Not only will you not have to interact with that character, but they can even set up a separate Second Unit just to shoot your scenes!”
Hearing this, Jiang Nianzhi seemed to snap back to reality. She finished rubbing the body lotion onto her leg and pulled down her pant legs, covering her long, fair, and smooth calves under her pajama pants. Then, she picked up her phone again.
After a long pause, just when manager Sun Lin thought there was no hope left, Jiang Nianzhi spoke up. “Got it. I’ll go.”
Sun Lin was overjoyed. She knew Jiang Nianzhi disliked taking roles that involved romantic feelings. Sun Lin had been curious about this for a long time and had even tried to pry into it when she first signed her, but over all these years, she had never gotten a clear answer.
Jiang Nianzhi closed her eyes again. In her mind, she recalled what her psychiatrist had told her a few days ago:
“Your condition is, tsk, indescribable. But if you keep refusing the treatment plan, I think your only option left is to pray to a priestess for a miracle cure.”
Jiang Nianzhi recalled how utterly defeated the doctor looked when he said those words. What had her reaction been back then?
She seemed to have just sat there with a cold expression, staring blankly at the cabinet behind the doctor out of habit, without uttering a single word. She had been coming to that consultation room for far too long; it felt like she had been going there since she was thirteen.
Yet, Jiang Nianzhi didn’t care. To her, trying to find emotional connection was merely a task assigned to her by others.
Jiang Nianzhi packed all her belongings into her handbag and looked back to scan the bathhouse. Seeing nothing left behind, she turned and walked out of the room.
This hot spring inn specialized in authentic Japanese styling, from its building structure down to its household items.
Dim, warm yellow light swept across the hallway, while the solid wood beneath her feet and around her radiated faint steam. Already drowsy, she half-closed her eyes and drifted forward lazily.
Jiang Nianzhi was doing just that. The layout of this inn was overly familiar to her; she kept her eyes closed, navigating by the turning points stored in her memory.
She turned the corner and opened her eyes briefly: perfect, no mistake.
Continuing forward, ten more steps would lead to her usual room.
Nine, eight, seven, six.
In her heart, Jiang Nianzhi counted the next number: five.
Suddenly, a sharp pain struck her nose, sending a sting up to her eyes that forced tears to pour out uncontrollably.
Her nose had collided with a rock-hard shoulder.
Realizing she was far too close to someone, Jiang Nianzhi’s body instinctively made her dodge before she could even open her eyes. However, someone had left a puddle of water on the floor, and her back heel stepped right onto it.
Her pink slipper landed right in the puddle. Her feet slipped forward abruptly, and gravity forced her body to sit backward instinctively.
In that split second, time seemed to slow down. Jiang Nianzhi registered every single movement of her own body, yet she hadn’t even clearly seen whether the person she bumped into was a man or a woman.
The only thought in her mind was: Don’t touch me.
Contrary to her wishes, a strong, powerful hand suddenly wrapped around her waist.
As she was pulled closer, the physical distance between them shrank, and a rush of warm air scented with white tea brushed against her face.
Jiang Nianzhi froze for a moment. It was a completely unfamiliar sensation. With an arm clasped firmly around her waist, its presence was so overwhelming that it left her dazed for a few seconds. In her entire life, this kind of physical contact with a stranger had never occurred before.
Snapping out of her daze, Jiang Nianzhi pushed hard against the person approaching her as if waking from a dream. Unbeknownst to her, the puddle of water was still there, causing her feet to slip once again.
No matter how strongly Jiang Nianzhi’s willpower rejected contact with others, at the moment of falling, she still instinctively grabbed hold of the person nearest to her.
With a loud thud, she heard a robust, forceful voice exclaim, “Holy crap!”
The next moment, an even louder THUD echoed down the hallway!
Jiang Nianzhi felt pain in her head, her shoulder, and her butt.
Her head hurt because the person on top of her had slammed their forehead directly into hers, making her see stars while tears streamed uncontrollably from her eyes.
Her shoulder hurt because just seconds ago, the person had grabbed both of Jiang Nianzhi’s shoulders and instinctively pinned her to the floor, just like a police officer tackling a suspect. With her shoulder blades pressed against the ground, her entire back throbbed with pain.
Her butt hurt because there was zero buffer before she landed squarely on her tailbone.
Jiang Nianzhi’s entire face crumpled in pain. Her eyebrows and eyes were tightly squeezed shut, overwhelmed by agony. If it weren’t for her pride as a famous celebrity, she would have definitely clutched her rear and cried aloud on the floor.
Just as Jiang Nianzhi curled up into a ball, the person on top of her began groaning, “Ouch, ouch!” before complaining, “Hey, beautiful, what are you doing? I tried to catch you, so why did you drag me down with you?”
The person’s tone was entirely improper, sounding just like a scam artist trying to play the victim.
And it was a woman’s voice.
That was the last sentence Jiang Nianzhi heard before her blood rushed to her head, because right after that, her vision went black, and she fainted on the spot.
Before passing out, the single thought that flashed through Jiang Nianzhi’s mind was that she absolutely had to track down this person on top of her and beat her to a pulp.
“Has this pretty patient woken up yet?”
“She’s so gorgeous. Why was she admitted to the hospital?”
“They said she got heatstroke while taking a bath. But getting heatstroke in the dead of winter is pretty bizarre. At first, the chief suspected foul play and wanted to call the police, but then they saw she didn’t have any injuries. It’s probably just low blood sugar.”
“No wonder. But don’t you think this patient looks really familiar?”
“Are you talking about that famous female star? Probably not. She just looks a bit like her. After all, that actress is so glamorous, whereas this patient was dressed so cutely when she arrived.”
“True, it’s probably not her.”
In her dreamlike state, Jiang Nianzhi heard people talking endlessly in her ear, making noise non-stop. Occasionally, she felt a prick of pain on the back of her hand. Yet these sounds felt separated by a thick veil, like looking at the sky through fog or viewing the moon through clouds.
She just couldn’t grasp the real world.
Jiang Nianzhi found it annoying whenever people talked, let alone when someone kept talking inside her dream. Frowning, she rolled over.
A loud creak echoed.
The sudden noise caused her to snap her eyes wide open. Before her vision could even focus on the world around her, Jiang Nianzhi’s body sprang up from whatever she was lying on. Without turning to see what she was sitting on, she frantically began slapping her hands all over her body in a frenzy.
She couldn’t wait to pat away every invisible “skin flake left behind by strangers on the bed.”
Then, with lightning speed, she dashed toward the nearest restroom.
Wait, this wasn’t her home.
As her eyes gradually focused, Jiang Nianzhi finally took in her surroundings: a stark white room filled with the faint scent of disinfectant in the air, with the occasional voices of medical staff asking questions outside in the hallway.
Where was she?
Just as this thought surfaced, the scene from before flashed in her mind.
Before fainting, she had only caught a glimpse of the woman’s chin and lips. The woman had a small, delicate chin, and her red lips looked naturally pigmented. The lower lip was slightly full and plump, which, combined with its tender pink shade, resembled a fresh lychee.
At that moment, a fleeting thought had crossed Jiang Nianzhi’s mind: Those lips would be perfect for a lip model; they look delicious.
With a creak, Jiang Nianzhi turned and took a few steps back just as a nurse pushed open the door and walked in. The nurse froze for a second upon seeing Jiang Nianzhi standing at the doorway, before breaking into a faint smile. “You’re finally awake!”
“Are you feeling uncomfortable anywhere?”
Jiang Nianzhi frowned, instinctively raising her arms and moving her legs. Sensing no physical discomfort, she smacked her lips to speak, only to instantly be hit by a wave of bitter, spicy taste rising in her mouth. “My mouth tastes a bit bitter.”
Hearing this, the nurse lowered her head to write on her care log and remarked casually, “It’s nothing. That’s probably the taste of the Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid the person who brought you in forced down your throat when you had heatstroke.”
“???”
Jiang Nianzhi’s eyes widened in disbelief. She turned to look out the window: outside, feather-like snowflakes were floating down, coating everything in sight in a blanket of pure white.
Heatstroke?
And she was forced to drink Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid?!
Just what kind of weirdo was the person who bumped into her? To actually think someone could suffer from heatstroke in this season!
Unable to bear the absurdity, Jiang Nianzhi rubbed her face, trying to regain her usual composed demeanor to continue talking to the nurse, and hopefully extract the identity of the person who knocked her out so she could carry out her plan to beat her up.
However, just as Jiang Nianzhi’s hand touched her face, something suddenly dangling from her sleeve slapped against her cheek.
She reached out and lowered her gaze in disbelief.
It was a pink plush cat paw pad attached to a mitten-style design fixed right onto her clothes.
When the nurse raised her head, she happened to catch Jiang Nianzhi staring down at her outfit and added, “By the way, next time you take a bath, make sure to mind the time. Also, don’t put on such stifling coral fleece pajamas right after coming out. Since there’s heating, transition slowly first.”
Hearing these words, Jiang Nianzhi’s vision went black. She couldn’t even hear the nurse’s voice clearly anymore; her mind was completely consumed by the pink cat-paw pajama outfit on her body.
Pajamas! Pajamas! PAJAMAS!
That person not only poured Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid down her throat and claimed she had heatstroke, but they had even stripped off her clothes and changed her into these pajamas!
Trembling, Jiang Nianzhi reached out, pulled open the loose pajama collar, and looked down.
There was nothing underneath but a patch of snow-white skin.
Jiang Nianzhi felt so overwhelmed that she wished she could just faint onto the floor.
Yet, thinking that the floor was dirty, she quickly held herself back.
Just which weirdo was it?!
Who on earth was it?!
Which rival had sent someone to torment her like this?!
Furious, Jiang Nianzhi felt her vision darken repeatedly. A fire burned inside her chest, making her throat, head, and eyes throb with pain. She pressed both hands against the wall and clenched them into fists, her long fingernails digging into her palms to leave crescent-shaped marks.
Unnoticed by her, the nurse had already left the room.
Propping herself up, Jiang Nianzhi swung her fists, throwing wild punches into thin air as she swore fiercely in her heart.
That person had better pray she never crossed paths with Jiang Nianzhi again. Otherwise, even if she couldn’t tear her limb from limb, she would definitely charge forward and land two solid punches right on her face!