Chapter 13 (1/2)
Each word had been spoken clearly, evenly, the tone as calm as a pendulum swinging back and forth against Mu Wan’s eardrums.
And when the hour struck—dong—her heart lurched.
The night was utterly still.
From the kitten room around the corner came a single meow.
Her red lips parted once, twice. Beside her, the man rose to his feet. Mu Wan’s gaze followed upward as she tipped her head back. Light rippled in her eyes, and within that shimmer, Liu Qianxiu’s figure was reflected.
“They’re awake,” Liu Qianxiu said, looking down at her.
His throat moved once. Her heartbeat had not yet settled.
Mu Wan smiled, the smile full and pleased, like someone who had secretly stolen a piece of candy and gotten away with it.
She stood too, her red dress spilling down around her, and crossed the room on two pale, slender legs.
“Let me see whether Ertong’s eyes have opened yet,” she said as she walked toward the kitten room.
Liu Qianxiu watched her go in.
Then his gaze dropped to the Tao Te Ching she had just set aside.
Ertong’s eyes had opened, too.
They were pale gold, just like Datou’s and Zhongfen’s.
The other two had already fully opened theirs. Ertong’s and Zhongfen’s were rounder, while Datou’s had that slightly drooping look. Just a tiny ball of fur, eyes newly open, meowing for milk with a droopy little expression that made it heartbreakingly cute.
Once Ertong’s eyes were open, Mu Wan prepared to leave.
Standing in the entryway, one hand against the cool wall for balance, she slipped off the oversized slippers. The narrow arch of her foot lifted slightly, leading into the white line of her calf beneath the hem of her red dress.
She stepped into her heels. The heel struck the floor with a crisp tok—
and then made no sound at all, because of what the man said next.
“How are you getting home?”
His gaze skimmed, almost without meaning to, over her legs beneath the red dress. The clock now showed half past nine. Liu Qianxiu’s expression remained calm as he asked it.
Mu Wan stood at the entrance.
The living room lights were still off. Only the lamp on the low table cast its faint circle of light. Backlit, Liu Qianxiu looked tall and straight, his features sharply cut and quietly elegant.
“Taxi,” Mu Wan answered.
She took out her phone and checked the time. The glow of the screen lit her face, and the small crease between her brows showed faint trouble.
“It’ll be hard to get one now,” she said.
Before she could say more, a figure moved in front of her and shadowed her completely.
Mu Wan looked up.
Her phone screen lit his face.
He had already changed shoes.
“I’ll drive you.”
The next day, Mu Wan dropped down under the city wall and sat in the shade, opening the paper folding fan from her costume to fan herself.
She was still wearing her costume, and though the sleeves were wide, the waist was tightly fitted and the collar layered so thickly it trapped heat. The temperature was at least thirty-five degrees. Mu Wan was drenched in sweat. She had just finished a fight scene, but the assistant director would not let her change yet, saying the director had to check the footage first. If the shot could not be used, they would have to film it again.
“Oh my God, oh my God, you’re amazing, Mu Wan,” Lin Wei said excitedly over the phone. “So? How was Taoist Liu in bed—”
“Nothing happened,” Mu Wan said.
She snapped the fan shut, wiped sweat off with the sleeve of her costume, and, remembering last night, let the corner of her mouth lift.
“He just drove me home.”
“He drove you home and that was it?” Lin Wei asked, struggling to contain herself. “You didn’t ask him upstairs?”
“No,” Mu Wan said. “He rests at ten. Once he got me home, I let him go.”
Lin Wei: “...”
Single by sheer talent.
Still, Lin Wei did understand her. She and Mu Wan were not the same. Mu Wan cared more about emotional connection. Physical closeness, for her, was something that came naturally only after that emotional intimacy had reached a certain point.
“All right then,” Lin Wei said, changing tack. “Did anything else happen between you two? Did you get any clearer sense of whether Taoist Liu likes you?”
Mu Wan lifted the fan again. The breeze pushed her bangs back and loosened some of the heat clinging to her face. Thinking of Liu Qianxiu sitting beneath the lamp, she said, “Last night I asked him whether he liked living alone. He asked why I was asking. I told him it was because he had always lived alone.”
She paused there, smiling faintly.
Lin Wei was about to die of impatience.
“So what did he say?”
“Oh.” Coming back to herself, Mu Wan felt the tips of her ears warm. “He said: Now, in this moment, there are two people.”
Just hearing Mu Wan repeat the words—and pairing them with Liu Qianxiu’s cool, remote, almost unearthly face—was enough to give Lin Wei goosebumps.
“Mu Wan! Come reshoot the scene!” the assistant director shouted.
“Coming!”
Mu Wan pushed herself up from the ground, dusted off the dirt, and said into the phone, “I don’t know what he meant, but I think I like him even more now. I have to go film.”
Then she hung up.
Lin Wei remained stunned for a long while after the call ended.
She could practically picture the whole scene in her mind: one lamp, one man, one woman. The man aloof and ethereal, the woman vivid and soft and alive.
One immortal.
One spirit.
No matter how fierce the spirit was, how was she ever supposed to escape the immortal’s grasp?
In the end, Mu Wan—who had fallen first—would absolutely end up being the one seduced in return by Taoist Liu.
Now, in this moment, there are two people.
Lin Wei clicked her tongue twice.
So the Taoist had it in him after all. All that abstinence, that severe expression, that face full of self-restraint—and when it came to speaking lines that could shake a heart, he apparently knew exactly what he was doing.
This, now, was what true restraint looked like.
After a reshoot, Mu Wan finally got a short break.
Fan in hand, she went to the rest area. The production’s rest area was nothing more than one large open room, crowded with supporting actors and extras. The assistant director was shouting scene and shot numbers, calling people to get ready, while the makeup artists yelled for touch-ups. It was chaos in the liveliest possible way.
It was a little after two in the afternoon.
Mu Wan still had one last scene to shoot. Once that was done, she could leave—probably around a little after four. She found a quiet corner, sat down with both elbows on her knees, and took out her phone.
She had not contacted Liu Qianxiu since leaving his place the night before. Over the past several days, the only thing she usually did was ask what time he got off work after her own filming ended—then go pick him up.
When she was on set, Mu Wan hardly ever played with her phone. Only when she was bored would she open a few rounds of Plants vs. Zombies, and once she had paid her way through all the levels, even that lost its charm. There were very few apps on her phone. She opened her contacts and found Liu Qianxiu’s number.
She had saved him as Taoist Liu.
Liu Qianxiu made too strong an impression. Even his phone number seemed to carry some trace of that otherworldly quality of his—faintly cool, faintly detached.
And yet Mu Wan liked it.
Even this string of digits, she liked.
She was smiling to herself so intently that she did not notice Gao Mei approach until it felt as though a small mountain had toppled into her personal space. Mu Wan turned and saw Gao Mei’s round shape and smiling slit eyes.
“In love?” Gao Mei asked, face full of gossip.
Mu Wan locked her phone. The screen briefly reflected her own smiling face back at her. With her high ponytail tied up, all of her features were exposed, showing both her glamour and a hint of sharpness.
She put the phone away.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Oh?” Gao Mei’s voice rose at once. “What does that mean? You’re in the ambiguous stage?”
Gao Mei blocked the wind when she came over, and Mu Wan felt warm again. She opened her fan to cool her flushed cheeks, then admitted it openly.
“Yeah.”
“So that’s why you’ve been going to see the cats every day,” Gao Mei said knowingly, tapping Mu Wan with the script in her hand. “You’re not going to see the cats. You’re going to see the one you like.”
The tap of the script sent a little breeze toward her. Mu Wan laughed and glanced at the cover.
“You got cast in this one too?”
The title Red Embroidery was written there. Apparently, Gao Mei would once again be in the same production as her. That was good news. At least they would not be too bored while waiting around for scenes.
“Yeah,” Gao Mei said. “They start on the thirtieth. Wait—today’s Friday. Doesn’t that mean next Monday?”
Then she did the math and declared, “You and your beloved are about to go long-distance.”
The fan in Mu Wan’s hand paused.
Heat rose abruptly over her face.
She started fanning again, thinking it through. Wencheng was not far, but if there were night shoots, she definitely would not be able to come back. She did not want to be apart from Liu Qianxiu—but her part was small; she could probably finish her scenes in a week...
“Oh, right,” Gao Mei said. “Do you know who the female lead is? Top billing. They announced it today. Same surname as yours.”
The heat in Mu Wan’s chest settled at once. What Aunt Wu had said came back to her—Mu Qing had found herself a boyfriend from the Shen family.
Turning to Gao Mei, Mu Wan asked, “What’s her name?”
“Mu Qing.”
Mu Wan’s lips closed.
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