Qi Yan drove on the way back, with Song Zhuchen in the passenger seat, a cardboard box holding the little kitten resting on his lap.
The person and cat in the passenger seat appeared perfectly quiet on the surface, but in truth they shared the same seat while dreaming different dreams, each inwardly seething. Song Zhuchen was stunned that he had somehow lost his mind and agreed to keep this dirty lump of coal, while Fang Ye was stunned that Zhong Jianli had just let him walk away like that. He must have other cats now. He definitely must!
Fang Ye, fuming, flipped over again inside the cardboard box.
Qi Yan, meanwhile, drove with an excited face, chattering nonstop: “Let me tell you, cats are super easy to take care of. And if it’s hard, you can just ask me! I’m basically your professional cat-raising consultant—I’m a man with three cat sons!”
“Don’t be fooled by how dirty this little coal ball is—he’s a Blue Gold, and he’s adorable! When we get home I’ll tell you how to play with him.”
“I have a dinner engagement.”
“Oh right, then what about the cat? You can’t just bring him home and leave him all alone, right? Leaving a cat by himself in an unfamiliar environment is just not cat-decent.”
“Meow~” [Isn’t that the truth!] Fang Ye eagerly joined the discussion. Hehehe, maybe he’d get to eat a long-missed proper meal!
“I’ll take him with me.” Song Zhuchen glanced at the dirty little furball blinking up at him.
“Meow~” [You said it!]
“Hey? Sure, then I’ll go get everything the kitty needs and set it all up for you.”
The two people and one cat quickly reached a consensus on this arrangement.
There wasn’t much time. After Qi Yan drove to Song Zhuchen’s home, the two parted ways.
Compared to Qi Yan, who was thrilled at having acquired (well, acquired on someone else’s behalf) a little kitten, Song Zhuchen had been silent the whole ride. He had clearly forgotten there was even a living creature in his car. The troublesome matters his manager Zhou Che had mentioned over the phone didn’t stir his mood in the slightest, it was the dinner engagement coming up that left him thoroughly irritated.
It was a dinner with Director Xie Cheng, to tell him that the other lead role in Unfettered, the film Xie had promised to shoot, had finally been cast.
Unfettered told the story of a young military officer and a little painter. The painter was extraordinarily gifted, he could paint with perfect precision every person he had ever seen, and could even paint the true face of someone in disguise. Because this talent was perfectly suited for intelligence work, the officer was ordered to send the painter undercover behind enemy lines. The two went from being at odds with each other to knowing and loving each other, until the painter was exposed and sacrificed himself. After the officer won the war using the intelligence bought with his beloved’s life, he grew old alone, keeping only one of the painter’s brushes.
When Song Zhuchen first finished reading the script, the first person he thought of was Fang Ye. Fang Ye was beautiful and lively, the very image of the mischievous little painter in the story. Even Director Xie himself had said the role was tailor-made for Fang Ye, that he absolutely had to have Fang Ye play it, and asked Song Zhuchen whether he minded.
Mind? Song Zhuchen had agreed without a second thought.
Of course, there was another reason Song Zhuchen agreed to act in this film: in the story, the officer and the painter pretended to be a couple as cover along the way, and the pretense eventually became real while Fang Ye was extremely averse to homosexuality, believing it was all nothing but filthy desire. Though he had no idea where Fang Ye’s prejudice came from, he very much wanted, through this film, to make Fang Ye understand that even love from someone of the same sex wasn’t always about desire. Love was simply love, and had nothing to do with gender.
…trying to use the film to change Fang Ye’s mindset and eventually make him accept him. Song Zhuchen had planned it all out perfectly.
In the countless nights that followed, as Song Zhuchen read the script, he would fantasize about borrowing the character’s identity to be with Fang Ye every scene, every fragment, every shift of the eyes. The film hadn’t even officially entered pre-production, yet in his head he had already acted out his scenes with Fang Ye to the fullest, and every time it ended with Song Zhuchen unable to bear it any longer and rushing into the bathroom for a cold shower.
Yes, in a certain sense, Fang Ye was actually right. His desire for Fang Ye was like magma with no outlet, churning and surging beneath that layer of cold, dead, frozen earth on the surface so violently that it frightened even Song Zhuchen himself. He was certain that a single look from Fang Ye would be enough for the scalding magma to burst through the frozen ground and erupt, burning everything normal to ashes.
But now, the film was still there, the role was still there and Fang Ye was gone.
Everything had returned to nothingness.
Traffic was jammed in the city, a line of red lights stretching endlessly ahead. Song Zhuchen lit a cigarette menthol tobacco, its spiciness laced with a thread of coolness that rushed straight to his head, temporarily suppressing the restlessness churning in his chest.
As he remembered it, Fang Ye hated the smell of smoke, so Song Zhuchen had quit for him. But after Fang Ye’s accident, the craving had come back with a vengeance. He needed something to comfort himself, even if it was just drinking poison to quench a thirst.
Song Zhuchen believed that everything in his life had been preparation for welcoming Fang Ye like a flower that drew up nutrients and grew diligently, all so it could bloom before the one it loved most and be plucked by him. Now that his beloved had vanished without a trace, Song Zhuchen’s blooming season had been cut short, and this flower would never see the moment of its opening.
Pale gray smoke curled through the dark car, wreathing Song Zhuchen’s handsome profile. The shifting glow of an advertising screen outside the window cast an illusory tint over his face, an otherworldly allure.
There was a widely circulated clip of Song Zhuchen from one of his films online: a cornered warlord striking a match in the darkness, tilting his head with a furrowed brow as he lit a cigarette. The match’s faint glow made Song Zhuchen’s amber eyes smolder with ambiguity, the swirling smoke veiling his exquisite features in a fine gauze, and his tousled hair gave this beauty of the night a decadent, sensual air. Countless people had rushed to the theaters on the strength of that one fleeting glimpse, howling “husband! husband!” in unison.
Fang Ye had seen that clip too. Now the real thing was right in front of him, recreating the classic scene and even though Fang Ye was his rival, he had to admit the Creator had shown Song Zhuchen extraordinary favor.
“Achoo!” Fang Ye, curled up in the cardboard box, sneezed. He was, after all, just a little cat, a single sneeze could knock him head over heels.
Apparently, when it came to hating smoke, Fang Ye would never change, whether in human form or cat form.
“Meow, meow!” Fang Ye lay at the edge of the box, staring at Song Zhuchen, sternly demanding that the beautiful bully put out his cigarette.
Hearing the faint mewing, Song Zhuchen finally remembered the little creature beside him. He turned his head to look at the kitten clinging to the edge of the cardboard box, mewing delicately up at him, and the corner of his mouth curved. He reached over and ruffled the fluffy little cat head. “You don’t like the smell of smoke either, huh?”
The tone could even be called gentle.
“Meow!” [Don’t just go around patting people’s heads, it’ll stunt their growth!] Fang Ye swatted Song Zhuchen’s hand away with one paw, not even bothering to think about what that “too” meant.
“I’m quitting.” Song Zhuchen looked at the little guy puffing up with anger and turning his round little butt toward him, and stubbed out his cigarette.
Director Xie’s dinner was at a private kitchen restaurant he was fond of, the restaurant even had a room permanently reserved for Director Xie. Song Zhuchen had followed Director Xie there several times, and this time, without troubling anyone, he carried the cat and made his way there with practiced ease.
Song Zhuchen pushed open the door. Director Xie sat at the head of the table, the empty seat to his left clearly reserved for Song Zhuchen. To his right sat a very young boy, face turned sideways, listening attentively as Xie Cheng spoke. From that angle, his features were hard to make out, beneath his smooth black hair, only a stretch of fair, clean neck was visible.
“Zhuchen, you’re here!” Hearing the door, Director Xie looked up, saw Song Zhuchen come in, and immediately patted the empty seat beside him, beckoning happily. “Come sit!”
The boy also looked up in the direction of Director Xie’s voice, and his gaze happened to meet Song Zhuchen’s.
Song Zhuchen paused for a moment. This boy looked a bit like Fang Ye, but because he was so young and so eager to climb his way up, his eyes were full of simple, artless scheming, pretty in a way that was too straightforward, lacking Fang Ye’s… wildness.
The moment the boy’s eyes met the Best Actor’s, he shrank back for just an instant before immediately, with impressive social awareness, breaking into a sweet smile at Song Zhuchen like a blooming white jasmine and greeted him sweetly: “Hello, Zhu Chen gege!”
Song Zhuchen nodded and walked over with the little cat, sitting down beside Director Xie.
“Wow, this kitty is so cute! It’s a Blue Gold, right? Adorable. Zhu Chen gege, can I hold it?” The boy was clever, seeing Song Zhuchen come in holding the cat, he immediately knew to use the cat to break the ice.
“No idea what breed it is. Picked it up on the road.” Song Zhuchen handed the cat over casually, and the boy received it with a look of delighted surprise.
Fang Ye, Diplomatic Gift · Bridge of Friendship · Icebreaker Extraordinaire finally understood what Zhong the Fraud had meant by “expensive breed.” But what was that supposed to mean, calling me a stray cat picked up off the street?!
The instant the boy took him, Fang Ye, quick of eye and limb, gave Song Zhuchen a hard kick to teach him a lesson.
“Wow, he’s so lively! Zhu Chen gege, does he have a name?”
“No.”
“Oh…” The boy looked a little disappointed, but with good sense didn’t press further, instead turning his attention to playing with the cat in his arms.
Director Xie watched the two of them interact with a smile all over his face, and quite a bit of the weight lifted from his heart. Everyone knew what caliber of star Song Zhuchen was, and what caliber his co-star should be they were all abacus spirits incarnate. You don’t go into show business to do charity, so why would Song, the Best Actor, prop up a newcomer’s role?
But Director Xie had no choice. The script itself had been written with Fang Ye in mind, and Fang Ye himself had said he loved it and would definitely star in it. Only, Fang Ye’s car accident had thrown all the plans into disarray, no one knew when Fang Ye would return to the public eye, yet the film couldn’t afford to delay shooting. In the end, the open casting call had produced this newcomer boy, whose looks most resembled Fang Ye’s. And besides, a newcomer was like uncut jade there was a natural, unpolished beauty to it.
Director Xie felt that using a newcomer was no problem there might even be a pleasant surprise. The one most likely to be a problem was still Song Zhuchen. Fortunately, the kid was clever and had managed to strike up a conversation with this famous ice mountain thanks to the cat.
“Xiao Ruan, why don’t you introduce yourself?” Director Xie lightly tapped the table in front of the kid as a reminder.
“Oh, right,” the kid stopped petting the cat and shyly introduced himself to Song Zhuchen. “Zhu Chen-ge, my name is Ruan Zhuyin. I’m 21 years old this year, a third-year student in the Acting Department at Fu University. I hope Song-senpai will kindly guide me in the future!”
With that, still holding the cat, he gave an exaggerated bow to Director Xie and Song Zhuchen one after the other. It was a good thing that the kid took acting seriously, so Song Zhuchen nodded. “Looking forward to working with you, Xiao Ruan.”