Qu Tianyao took some time to move. She didn’t bring much this trip, just a few sets of men’s and women’s clothes and some essential daily items, but Qu Tianci thought it was too sparse and transferred her some extra money to buy more things.
Whatever Qu Tianci asked of her, Qu Tianyao agreed to it all with a nod, and only after repeatedly promising to take good care of herself did she manage to send him off. Only then did the matter come to a close.
After seeing Qu Tianci off, the first thing Qu Tianyao did was shower and change clothes, then lounge around her room in a loose T-shirt with the air conditioning on.
His memory was decent, so memorizing the script wasn’t too hard. What was hard was getting into character, especially for a role like this one, where everything hinged on expressions and body language. That was truly difficult.
At one point, Chen Danman called to ask how he was progressing. When he assured her there’d be no problem, it only made her more worried, and she kept telling him not to push himself too hard, which left Qu Tianyao rather exasperated.
Qu Tianci, worried about him, came by a few times as well, once even bringing Qu Tiange along. When Qu Tiange arrived, she planted herself at the doorway and absolutely refused to go in, convinced that Qu Tianyao’s place had to be filthy, maybe even smelly. When Qu Tianci finally dragged her through the door, she let out a shriek like a goose being strangled.
Then, upon seeing how neat and tidy the place was, she gasped in admiration, and together with Qu Tianci, stared at Qu Tianyao as if he were some kind of freak.
Only later did he learn that the two of them had actually brought a housekeeper along that day, just one phone call, and someone would come up to clean his place at any time.
Qu Tianyao hadn’t come from a privileged background, so he had no “prince syndrome,” and since he was also a bit territorial, even after his life improved, he handled most things himself.
Laundry got hung in the closet in a set order, to avoid the awkwardness of hunting for clothes in the morning and to make sleeping in easier. The kitchen got cleaned after every use, to avoid getting sick from unsanitary cooking next time, which would affect work and force him to “work overtime.” He could rattle off a whole laundry list of reasons like this. Though people had teased him about being a bit OCD, Qu Tianyao himself figured he was simply lazy.
On the day he was due at the set, Chen Danman came to pick him up in person. Having braced herself to deal with a little princess’s morning grumpiness, she was utterly astonished to find him already waiting downstairs, so much so that she couldn’t help glancing at the horizon.
The sun had indeed risen from the east, all right.
Seeing Chen Danman staring at the sky for a good long while, Qu Tianyao asked, “Sis Danman, what’s wrong?”
“N-nothing… it’s just, the sky today.” Chen Danman trailed off, then suddenly whipped her head toward him. “What did you just call me?”
Qu Tianyao looked puzzled. “Sis Danman is there a problem?”
Chen Danman: “…” A huge problem!
This little princess usually wouldn’t even call her by name, it was always “hey” or “that whoever.” Had he turned over a new leaf?!
Qu Tianyao, for his part, hadn’t thought much of it. He just felt that since Chen Danman was older than him, calling her “sis” was only proper, that’s how he’d always addressed his previous agent, too.
Chen Danman had heard from Qu Tianci before that Qu Tianyao was a bit odd, though not in a bad way. Now she was starting to understand he really was strange.
And that strangeness peaked, almost to the point of horror, when she saw Qu Tianyao flipping through the script himself.
The little princess had brought his own script. And he was actually reading it!