Chapter 3 Part3 (1/2)
To borrow Qiao Qiao's words, just who's whose love rival here?
Chapter 3.3 — Please, as a Friend (3)
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Really, each of these phone calls that she was getting today was more ludicrous than the last.
Gripping her phone, Jia He paused for several seconds before saying, ”h.e.l.lo.”
Qiao Qiao used large, exaggerated gestures and facial expressions to silently ask her who it was. Jia He set her index finger on her lips, then got off the bed.
”You didn't say anything the whole time; I thought I dialed the wrong number.” Tian Chu's tone was relaxed as she told her, ”This call is a little obtrusive. I should have let my agent contact you, but since you are Ze's friend, I was thinking it would be better if I made the call myself.”
Her voice was very pleasant to listen to. Jia He had originally thought she was like some other singers and could never leave the recording studio. However, through this one phone call, she understood now that Tian Chu's sudden upshot to popularity was not only because she had very intelligently made use of connections and the hype from rumours; she did, herself, have talent as an a.s.set.
”I'm truly sorry.” Jia He went into the bathroom and quickly locked the door. ”Teacher Yi might have told you already, my friend is trying to find a cosmetics spokesperson for her client and asked me to help. I didn't expect that we would actually be able to contact such a big-name celebrity like you, and that's why my mind wasn't able to process and react for a moment.”
Actually, the most unexpected piece was that, after having breakfast with her idol, she would receive a phone call from his ex-wife.
Unlike the fuming rage through gritted teeth that she had shown when she was in front of Weibo, Jia He was actually extremely calm. It would seem that these several years as a screenwriter were not a waste. Apart from acting relatively abnormally in front of her own idol, all celebrities, no matter how big a name they were, were just random pa.s.sersby to her.
Tian Chu pondered for a moment. ”I'll give your contact details to my agent. If we can, I hope we will have the opportunity to work together.” She suddenly said a ”sorry,” and then stopped. It appeared there was someone beside her speaking to her in a low voice, but as the phone was covered up, Jia He could not really hear what was being said.
Jia He waited patiently, looking into the large bathroom mirror, attempting to clear her mind.
The plot line that was playing out was just too absurdly cliché. Even she, a screenwriter who prided herself on writing absurd and melodramatically cliché plots, was unable to accept this…
It took some time before Tian Chu loosened her hand that covered the phone and carried on speaking. ”Originally, Mai Jie was the one who came and asked me, but then, unexpectedly, Ze personally gave me a phone call, too.” She did not keep on going with this point, merely giving a little laugh instead and continuing to say, ”I'll be making a trip to Hengdian this week. Let's have a meal together.”
Jia He answered, “Sure,” and also thanked her several times. There seemed to be some sort of urgent matter on the other end, so they did not talk anymore. When the call was hung up, she finally blew out a long breath. However, while she was pressing a hand to her chest to calm herself, she suddenly thought of a question: She was coming to Hengdian this week? Was it to see Idol? Could it be they were going to reconcile and get back together?
Question marks filled her brain, which was rather sluggish after this explosive type of conjecture. The person outside the door was already at the point where she would not wait anymore and began lazily rapping knock after knock on the door. ”Open up, open up.”
Once Jia He opened the door, Qiao Qiao's face immediately moved in close and, grinning, stared at her. ”Who was that? You even purposely hid away in the bathroom to answer.”
”Tian Chu,” Jia He reported honestly.
Qiao Qiao blinked, then blinked some more. ”She's pursuing and attack you over a thousand miles? With you two, just who's whose love rival here?”
Jia He nearly vomited blood at that. ”It's for the endors.e.m.e.nt thing. Also, she said she'll be coming to Hengdian this week.”
”Hengdian?' Qiao Qiao's eyes narrowed. ”For a film shoot? I'll ask Xiao Ou this afternoon to look into it.”
Not taking this seriously, Jia He pulled out her mobile phone and called Xiao Yu. On that end, when the news was heard, a performance of a Mainland-China version of an astonished, ear-piercing scream was instantly given, and along with it came a relentless interrogation of Jia He, asking whether she really did have a thing going with her idol. Without even waiting for Jia He to finish speaking, though, she straightaway came to her own conclusion, telling Jia He to make use of her beauty to help her get a stack of signed photographs and mail them to her. That way, she could save those and in the future, if she lost her job, she could auction them off for huge amounts of money…
Not knowing whether she should find this funny or annoying, Jia He cut her off and told her to wait for further news. Then, decisively hanging up the phone, she collapsed onto the bed. The comforter still carried warmth in it. With her head buried, she listened as Qiao Qiao fired question after question at her. All the while, Jia He tried to maintain her state of pretending to be dead to the world.
”Fine!” Qiao Qiao glowered hatefully at her. ”You're not going to say anything, right? Well, then, I won't tell you what I saw last night either.” Pulling on her clothes as she spoke, she picked up today's schedule from the crack beneath the door and looked it over carefully. ”Don't come begging me.”
Jia He pulled in a deep breath and carried on the pretense of being dead.
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Qiao Qiao soon told her, Tian Chu was indeed coming here for a film shoot. Finally, after rapidly soaring to popularity, Tian Chu was beginning to cross over to another field. Jia He only needed to think about this particularl matter and then she would be unable to restrain the urge to search Yi Wenze's face for traces of anything. In the end, though, she could do nothing but sigh with feeling that, sure enough, her idol was an idol, so composed it was extraordinary.
Due to having taken three days to return to Hong Kong, in the several days that followed, Yi Wenze's schedule was basically packed full, from morning to night.
Inside the hotel, Jia Ye took advantage of this idle time where there were no changes to be made to the script and began chatting with Director Jiang about the next screenplay. Sometimes, once the conversation started, it would last for four to five hours, and then only when she had tired would she go along in the vehicle to where the cast and crew were filming and rove around there. She would always stand behind a crowd of people and watch Yi Wenze in his acting, or else she would listen to the director explain a scene. At times, they would give their greetings to one another, but because work was so busy, there was not much interaction.
Yi Wenze would occasionally post some filming pictures on his Weibo, but most had no accompanying text.
There was only one particular instance that was relatively special. He took a photograph of one of the food items of a boxed, takeout meal, then sighed over how the chicken drumstick was the best dish of the day. As Jia He riveted her eyes on that chicken drumstick, there was constantly a feeling in her that it looked awfully familiar. She had to think for a long while before she finally remembered. That day, everyone had sat around the table together to eat that meal… And she, this fan of his, had had an advantageous position. At the time, she had been sitting in a spot 45 degrees east of that box of food and had also been munching on a chicken drumstick.
While she was thinking this, she began to right click with the mouse to save. Feeling a little elated, she saved the photo into a folder and even solemnly named it, ”The chicken drumsticks that me and Idol gnawed on together.”
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Jia He's star-chasing journey thus gradually returned to what it had been during the initial period, where she would spend more time on his Weibo than seeing him in person.