Rong Guang’s face turned bright red from Chu Feiliang’s teasing. She hemmed and hawed before finally saying, “The… the sound.”
Chu Feiliang raised an eyebrow and said with a perfectly straight face, “What sound… Hey, hey, hey, lighter, that hurts, go a little to the left…”
Rong Guang’s hand was forced to stop again. She looked like she wanted to say something but held back for a long time, her watery eyes fixed on Chu Feiliang. “That sound.”
Chu Feiliang calmly straightened her clothes, sighed, and said, “Ah, you’re no fun. The old you was more fun to tease. You haven’t been very respectful to me lately.”
Rong Guang lowered her head, not saying a word. She tested the waters a couple of times, and seeing that Chu Feiliang had finally stopped whimpering, she said, “That’s not true…”
Chu Feiliang just looked at her, smiling endlessly.
Chu Feiliang didn’t rest for long before heading up the mountain with the crew.
She still had one last scene to shoot, and only after finishing could she return to the hotel. It wouldn’t take too long, so Rong Guang decided to go along and observe.
Chacha followed beside Rong Guang, yawning. She asked curiously, “Sister Guangguang, what was that about ‘lighter’ and ‘a little to the left’… How is it crooked, you… Mmph!”
Rong Guang clamped a hand over Chacha’s mouth.
Chacha’s face was a question mark. She grabbed Rong Guang’s fingers with both hands, her big eyes blinking as she stared at her.
Rong Guang blushed. “Don’t… don’t say it, Chacha…”
Chacha pouted, her thirst for knowledge thwarted. “Can I go ask Sister Lulu then?”
“No!” Rong Guang felt a headache coming on. “This is something only adults can know. You’re still young, you can’t know about it yet!”
“I’m still young?” Chacha pointed to herself, then looked at Rong Guang and said, “But Sister Guangguang, you’re not that much older than me.”
“I’m still older,” Rong Guang muttered. “We’ll talk about this when you’re eighteen…”
“Okay,” Chacha scratched her head, her eyes twinkling slyly.
Ji Ying finally saw the head monk kneeling before a prayer mat.
She stumbled as she walked, her face deathly pale. The moment she leaned against the doorframe, Gara, who was inside, had already stood up and called out softly, “Princess.”
Ji Ying closed her eyes, her strength finally giving out. She collapsed against the doorframe, bit her pale lips, and said, “I’ve arrived. Nine hundred and ninety-nine heavenly steps, not a single one missed.”
The young monk who had followed her nodded, then entered the room and knelt on a vacant prayer mat.
Gara stood up, took a silk pouch from his sleeve, and handed it to Ji Ying. Ji Ying silently looked at the pouch, which exuded a familiar feeling from every inch. She forced a smile and said, “And her?”
Gara put his palms together. He didn’t answer directly, only letting out a long sigh. “The princess will know once she opens the pouch. Benefactor Wen Mou is truly a person of great righteousness.”
After leaving the temple, Ji Ying found her horse grazing on grass.
“Zhuifeng.” Ji Ying pressed her head against her horse’s, speaking softly to the friend who had accompanied her for years. “She calculated it so well… Only she would die, to save the world. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, but she forgot to calculate me into it.”
Zhuifeng let out a low whinny, rubbing its large head against Ji Ying.
Ji Ying gave a heavy laugh, tears welling in her eyes. “She told me that the trip to Lu Xi was a trap.”
“A trap that my own father was willing to use tens of thousands of people to be buried with me in.” Ji Ying sighed up at the sky. “Sometimes I think, Wen Mou and I, our fates are almost identical… Don’t you think? If I had died alone, the tens of thousands of commoners in Lu Xi, the tens of thousands of soldiers in the barracks, and even the elite Xiongnu troops might have been spared death.”
Zhuifeng pawed at the ground. It couldn’t speak, but it could sense its master’s low spirits.
Ji Ying couldn’t help but touch Zhuifeng’s neck with both hands, looking into its eyes. “Those eyes of yours, they look so much like hers…”
Zhuifeng nuzzled affectionately against Ji Ying’s body again.
Ji Ying took out the pouch again, clutching it in her palm. Several times she was about to throw it away, but in the end, she couldn’t bear to.
Finally, she mounted her horse and once again rode back to the Princess’s residence against the frost and snow.
Her figure was desolate, the sound of horse hooves echoing through the empty streets, startling flocks of resting birds in the forest.
On the way back with Chu Feiliang, Rong Guang couldn’t help but marvel once again.
“Sister, you’re truly amazing.” Rong Guang’s eyes were filled with admiration.
Every time she watched through a screen, although she could feel the character’s shining moments, those moments ultimately belonged more to the character than to the actor herself.
But seeing it live, hearing Chu Feiliang deliver those incredibly sad yet completely unaffected lines in her own voice, she felt waves of heartache wash over her, and goosebumps rose on her arms.
“Amazing, huh?” Chu Feiliang looked at Rong Guang. When there was no one else around, she said, “I think I saw you crying? Hmm?”
That “hmm” was so low, and when it resounded heavily in her ear, Rong Guang froze for a moment.
She covered her burning ear and said with a red face, “Yes… I, I just felt that the Eldest Princess has it so hard.”
“She has it hard, and so do you.” Chu Feiliang shrugged. “In this drama, no one has it easy.”
Rong Guang nodded, agreeing with what Chu Feiliang said, but she still wanted to add, “But I still like the Eldest Princess the most.”
Then she glanced at Chu Feiliang, held back for a moment, but couldn’t resist murmuring softly, “And I like you the most too.”
“Alright, I know you like me the most.” Chu Feiliang let out a light laugh. “You’re really… not quite like other fans.”
Rong Guang looked up and asked, “How am I different?”
“How to describe it?” Chu Feiliang fastened her seatbelt and rested her chin on her hand. “Some people, after they get to know me, start to think they can interfere with my decisions. Oh, and that includes those fans—interfering with my work, my friendships. Even if they don’t understand anything, they have to say a few words to be satisfied.”
Rong Guang wrinkled her nose and thought to herself, “That’s not a fan, that’s a toxic one.”
Chu Feiliang didn’t hear clearly and looked at Rong Guang again. “But you. You liked me from the first time we met, you still liked me after I teased you for so long, and now… you still like me?”
Rong Guang nodded. “Of course.”
It wasn’t the first time she had witnessed Chu Feiliang’s love for teasing.
In her past life, when they were filming Summer Flower, Chu Feiliang’s teasing had been even more intense.
“See, that’s the biggest difference between you and others.” Chu Feiliang’s eyes curved into crescents as she smiled. “From beginning to end, you have completely respected me as a person.”
“Isn’t that how it should be?” Rong Guang said with a serious face. “When you like someone, you should respect them even more. And… haven’t you also been respecting my decisions all along? You didn’t look down on me because of my lower status, nor did you treat me differently.”
Chu Feiliang smiled. “Isn’t that how it should be, too?”
They looked at each other and couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
After wrapping up for the day, they were truly exhausted.
Wang Lujie had found a professional masseuse for Chu Feiliang. That night, after her shower, the masseuse was treating the injuries on her knees.
After so many hours, large patches of bruises had started to appear on her knees. Some spots were a deep purple, and many areas had broken skin. Gravel and dirt had been stuck in her skin, and it had taken a long time to wash it all out. Now, they were starting to ooze blood again.
Wang Lujie frowned just watching from the side, and even the doctor treating Chu Feiliang’s wounds had a very serious expression.
However…
Wang Lujie glanced at Chu Feiliang, who was leisurely scrolling through Weibo. “I’ve been watching you smile this whole time, your mouth hasn’t closed once. What did you see that’s making you so happy?”
“I discovered a hidden gem.” Chu Feiliang smiled, not letting Wang Lujie see her phone. “I followed Rong Guang back this afternoon, and I’m looking at her Weibo… The little girl is so amusing, and the things she posts are quite interesting.”
“What did she post?” Wang Lujie raised an eyebrow and curiously craned her neck.
Chu Feiliang covered her phone, hiding it from view. “Why are you so curious? This is her private account, no one knows it’s her.”
Wang Lujie stared at the covered phone, feeling stifled for a long moment before saying, “…Fine.”
She could just ask for it herself. It was just a Weibo account, was Rong Guang not going to tell her?!
After a while, Chu Feiliang suddenly patted Wang Lujie’s leg.
Wang Lujie was helping the doctor with some things. Hearing the pat, she looked up and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Let me show you something.” Chu Feiliang picked up her phone, enlarged a picture for Wang Lujie to see, and raised an eyebrow. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
Wang Lujie paused, then said hesitantly, “What is this? A mouth?”
“Mhm.” Chu Feiliang stroked her chin. “It’s probably from some promotional shoot she did before, one that was never released. A close-up of her lips… It’s really… flawless. Not even a single pore. These moist, plump lips…”
Wang Lujie had a gut feeling that this might not be good.
She imagined a few possibilities.
First, Chu Feiliang would post on Weibo directly, saying she saw a pair of tender little lips, then get exposed by netizens, ultimately revealing Rong Guang’s identity.
Second, Chu Feiliang’s obsessive fan side would suddenly take over, and she’d start kissing the picture, smearing lipstick all over her own phone screen.
Either one would be a huge headache for her, and both were pretty disgusting.
However, she couldn’t be sure what Chu Feiliang was planning to do, so she could only brace herself and ask, “And then? What about this picture?”
“Tell me,” Chu Feiliang paused. “What do you think would happen if I set it as my lock screen?”
Wang Lujie suspected there was something wrong with her ears.
She dug at her ear and asked doubtfully, “What?”
“Look.” Chu Feiliang deftly set the picture as her lock screen and wallpaper, then studied it. “I should return the favor at least once, right? She already used my abs, so I have to give something in return. Besides…”
Chu Feiliang looked at her WeChat conversation with Rong Guang.
The records of the several video calls that had been quickly hung up earlier were still in the chat history.
She thought about the scene of Rong Guang wailing in the middle of the night, repeatedly kissing the screen to send her video calls. She narrowed her eyes and said, “Letting her off the hook so easily for that, it feels like a bit of a waste…”
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