Chapter 12 Part1 (2/2)
”And also your boyfriend's,” her mom very kindly reminded. ”That way there can be two more accounts.”
Take Yi Wenze's ident.i.ty card number and use it to sign up for Happy Farm? Why don't you just kill me and let it be at that? … She suddenly remembered that Yi Wenze did not have a Resident Ident.i.ty Card. Finally, she had an excuse. ”He's from Hong Kong. He doesn't have an ident.i.ty card.”
Her eyes dimming, her mom muttered, ”Why did you find some Hong Kong guy? Made-in-China is better.”
She all of a sudden discovered that her mom was actually not interested in knowing about her boyfriend. Finding this a rather fascinating phenomenon, she asked, ”Mom, something's not right about you today, eh. How come you're not chasing after me and lecturing me?”
Her mom poured a cup of tea for herself. ”What else can I do? You can be cla.s.sified as a 'higher up there in age' type of young woman. If it's time to marry, just go get married. I'll be broad-minded this once.” With that, she immediately picked up her tea and went back to register some new accounts.
She had tossed her suitcase to the side and was about to head to the shower when her mom popped her head out again. ”By the way, there was a talent show these last couple of days. Someone was impersonating your idol. It was actually a lot like him.”
Watching as her mom once more went back to ”steal crops,” she gloomily realized that casually making her relations.h.i.+p with Yi Wenze known to everyone was not going to be very easy.
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
The days that followed were truly ones of stress and chaos. The detailed character outline, which had already been written, was completely overruled by the original author, and the feedback provided left people caught between amusment and annoyance. For scenes that clearly had a lot of conflict, she was constantly insisting that elements that showed inner thoughts and emotions should be added in. Inner thoughts and emotions, inner thoughts and emotions… Did she really think this was a novel, where you can dilly-dally out thousands of words of mental activity?
On the phone with Yi Wenze, Jia He, wearing her earbuds, moaned, ”You say, what viewer has the patience to sit in front of the TV for ten minutes to listen only to a voice-over monologue about someone's inner thoughts and emotions. If it were me, I'd just straight-out pick up the TV and huck it.”
Hints of fatigue were in Yi Wenze's voice, but still it was very warm and gentle. ”Why don't you think of it this way? Adaptations have the original story as a foundation, so they're a lot easier in terms of amount of work.”
Now that she thought about it, that was true. ”Forget it. It's not like I can get all the benefits. When the money is easy to make, there will be other places or things that won't be easy.”
She did not want sleep at the production company's office but her home was too far as well, so she could only continue to b.u.m a place to stay at Xiao Yu's home.
It was past midnight already but she was still the only one in the house. The surroundings were exceptionally quiet.
Neither of them spoke very frequently, yet they also did not hang up, merely saying a few words whenever they thought of something. Much time had already pa.s.sed when she finally took a quick glance at the bottom right corner of her screen, and then she unconsciously softened her voice. ”You go to bed first. It's so late already.”
Over on his side, he did not really seem to care and only said, ”It's all right. I have a lot of things, too, that I need to take care of.”
It was the deep hours of the night, when all was quiet. In this time when she was most tired, there was someone keeping her company.
Even though they could not do anything, simply his presence keeping her company like this made her heart feel warm, and even her vexation dissipated by quite a bit. With an “mm,” she asked, ”Still haven't finished dealing with all of it?”
”We're both adults. There won't be too much trouble. There are merely a few issues on some formalities regarding the company.” He paused for a moment before continuing, ”With both myself and Tian Chu returning to Hong Kong this time, there likely will be a lot of media attention on us. Tomorrow, there happens to be an event, and some people might ask some sensitive questions.”
”Mm-hmm.” Jia He answered in a relaxed tone, ”You don't need to tell me everything. There are so many chances of you getting pursued and surrounded. If you have to declare every potential thing ahead of time to me, I won't be able to remember it all either.”
Picking up her cup, she took a drink of water.
The two exchanged a few more sentences of chitchat, and then Jia He, worried that Yi Wenze would want to continue keeping her company like this, could only fib that she had made all her revisions already and was going to bed. Only then did they hang up, and she carried on with her valiant battle.
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It was noon the next day when she finally crawled out of bed and saw Xiao Yu nestled on the couch in the living room, her legs crisscrossed, surfing online. Seeing Jia He emerge from the room, Xiao Yu threw a sideways look at her. ”I didn't get back until the morning. How come you didn't even think to call and ask how I'm doing?”
Looking at her, Jia He shot back in resignation, ”Your nightlife is too exciting. I didn't want to get myself in trouble.”
Falling backwards, Xiao You lay face-up on the couch and smiled through half-closed eyes, looking truly so coquettish and gorgeous, all forms of coquettish and gorgeous.
While Jia He was still trying to make heads or tails of what this was about, Xiao Yu was already extending an arm to hand her laptop to her. ”Take a look. It's news on your boyfriend.”
Jia He took the computer from her. Multiple tabs were open in Internet Explorer. The one currently displayed was a webpage showing a series of photographs from some sort of event. The handful of sentences below were a standard news write-up for a celebrity event. The words themselves were very simple, but they were extremely eye-grabbing:
According to insider information, after their divorce, Yi Wenze and Tian Chu have both begun new relations.h.i.+ps.
This insider had also revealed with certainty that Yi Wenze had met his new girlfriend through a film project. Some speculated that it was the female lead of his new drama, Mainland China's new budding actress, Liao Jing. After the event ended, the Hong Kong media people present had all rushed back stage and bombarded Yi Wenze with questions. At first, Yi Wenze had merely expressed that he had been in this entertainment circle for more than ten years, but never did he publicly discuss any matters pertaining to his love life and relations.h.i.+p. However, when someone continued pressing him about whether it was Liao Jing, he surprisingly actually spoke up to set the facts straight, stating with a smile that that was utterly groundless.
Up to the time when the news was released, Tian Chu had not given any response to this matter.
There was a weird feeling in Jia He's heart, one that she could not put words to. This was her first time actually not feeling excited at all when reading news about him.
While she was lost in thought, Xiao Yu had already extracted the computer from her hands and patted her on the shoulder. ”Feeling low, aren't you? If you're feeling low, treat me to a meal of instant-boiled mutton hot pot. Once your wallet is skinnier, your attention will be diverted.”
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
[1]In China, all citizens are to apply for a Resident Ident.i.ty Card at the age of 16. On each card is a unique, 18-digit code, which is a.s.signed to the citizen and serves as that person's identification number for his or her entire lifetime.
[2]QQ农场. Happy Farm is an online, social networking game hosted by Tencent QQ. In the game, players own a farm, grow vegetables, and harvest them. The vegetables can be traded or sold, and players can even steal crops from friends. In later levels, players can raise animals and take care of them. The game was released in late 2008 and was extremely popular for a period of time. At the height of its popularity, there was a daily cap on newly-registered players.
[3]See footnote [2] in
[4]红烧”red-cooking,” ”red-braised,” or ”braised in brown sauce” cooking is a technique where the meat is panfried and then stewed in soy sauce that is flavored heavily with seasoning. The meat comes out tender and takes on a distinctive red-brown color.
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