Chapter 17 (1/2)
Liu Qianxiu looked at her.
His gaze was calm and flat, like a blue flame—cold to the eye, yet hot enough to burn.
Mu Wan turned her eyes toward the window instead. Holding the cup, she watched the rainwater bead and slide from the sill, her voice still soft and sweet.
“It’s nothing. I’m going to drink my medicine.”
The cup in her hand was only a little warmer than the air itself, and should have been very easy to drink. Mu Wan twisted at the lid, her knuckles paling with the effort, but after two tries, she still could not get it open.
She blinked at the cup twice in faint surprise.
Before she could try again, the cup was taken gently from her hand.
As it passed between them, their fingers brushed—hers cool, his faintly warm. To her surprise, Liu Qianxiu’s hand was warmer than her own.
Moistening her lips, Mu Wan looked up at him.
Liu Qianxiu lowered his eyes. His long fingers closed around the lid and turned it lightly. The seal gave way. Steam drifted up, carrying with it the thin, faint scent of medicine.
He handed it back to her.
Mu Wan lowered her gaze, took the cup, and drank at once.
The warm liquid slid down her throat. The itch there eased almost immediately. She paused only a little, then went on drinking in small mouthfuls.
“You don’t have to finish it,” Liu Qianxiu said.
Steam rose from the rim of the cup, dampening the light in her eyes until they looked moist and glossy. She stopped, medicine shining faintly at the corner of her lips. She swept it away with the tip of her tongue and asked, “Why not?”
His eyes lowered slightly, as though it were the first time anyone had ever asked him that.
Mu Wan set her mouth lightly against the rim and bit down once. The glass made a soft little sound. Her speech came out blurred behind the cup.
“Because I like this one. It’s sweet.”
Powdered medicine was not truly bitter, but neither was it truly sweet.
And yet Mu Wan genuinely thought this one was sweet—not the sweetness of an aftertaste, but like honey melted down and poured from the tip of her tongue all the way into her heart.
Liu Qianxiu had let her stay the night before. This morning, he had made medicine for her, too. Brightness gathered at the corners of Mu Wan’s eyes, sweet and unmistakable. She drank the rest of it, fingers sliding over the warm glass as heat rose from her body.
“Do you have time tonight?” she asked. “That restaurant I told you about last time—let’s go there tonight. I’m treating.”
The medicine had warmed her. Color returned to her face and her lips. Beneath her damp black hair, the dark sweep of her brows, the black shine of her eyes, and the red of her mouth brought back her vivid radiance piece by piece.
Liu Qianxiu watched her quietly.
The corridor was busy with people coming and going, and the air was heavy with dampness.
For a moment, he did not answer.
Mu Wan bit lightly at her lip. A trace of disappointment flashed through her eyes.
“I want to go—”
“All right,” Liu Qianxiu said.
Mu Wan had finished her scenes at Wencheng Hospital that morning.
In the afternoon, she headed toward the outskirts of the city. There were large stretches of preserved Republican-era houses there, old residences that still retained the full atmosphere of the period. Besides serving as filming locations, the area also functioned as a tourist site. Mu Wan walked along the long street under her umbrella, past stalls selling snacks and small souvenirs, and entered one of the old courtyard houses.
Inside the courtyard, cameras had already been set up. Actors and crew moved through their roles and tasks. In the cold stillness of the old Republican architecture, human life had been poured back in.
The rain had not stopped.
Mu Wan had only just folded her umbrella and was about to go change and do makeup when someone clapped a hand onto her shoulder with considerable force. She had not even turned around before Gao Mei had already dragged her into a corner.
“Where were you last night?” Gao Mei demanded.
She was dressed in the rough costume of a Republican-era maid, with two braids and a round, pale face screwed into a tight knot of worry.
“I got drunk and slept at a friend’s place,” Mu Wan said lightly.
“You have friends here?” Gao Mei asked, then immediately let out a breath. Her plump hand released Mu Wan’s arm, and she sighed. “You went to that dinner and never came back last night. I thought you and Director Zhang...”
The night before going to Yingkexuan, Mu Wan had texted Gao Mei to say she had to attend a dinner and would return late. And last night, a young actress had been carried out of Zhang Chengze’s room...
Gao Mei knew perfectly well what kind of person Mu Wan was, but Mu Wan had not come back all night. Gao Mei had wanted to ask, yet had not dared. It was only now, seeing Mu Wan standing in front of her whole and unharmed, that she finally dared bring it up.
Just then, filming resumed.
Director Zhang Chengze, seated behind the camera, called out, “Action!”
In front of the camera, a Republican-era schoolgirl in a short blue jacket and black skirt stood before an ancestral hall, acting opposite two middle-aged performers.
They were playing the girl’s parents.
The father was furious, the mother grieving.
The schoolgirl herself stood expressionless, delivered her lines, and finished the scene.
“The female lead’s acting is so bad,” Gao Mei muttered to Mu Wan under her breath. “And in this scene, she was supposed to stay on her knees the whole time. She refused, and the director changed the script on the spot.”
Just as Gao Mei finished saying it, the scene ended. Zhang Chengze let out a sigh so slight it was barely audible. The female lead looked over with a questioning expression.
“Passed,” Zhang Chengze said.
“That passed?” Gao Mei nearly coughed up blood. Beside her, Mu Wan merely curved her lips and laughed.
“Life really is unfair,” Gao Mei muttered, watching a cluster of assistants rush to the female lead’s side.
She was thinking of the actress who had been carried out of Zhang Chengze’s room the previous night. She had heard it through other people, yes, but Zhang Chengze was known to like drinking, and when drunk, his methods with actresses were said to be quite vicious. The rumors did not sound baseless.
That actress, even after all that, had won only a few extra scenes in the drama.
And Mu Qing, meanwhile, had taken the female lead effortlessly and had the entire production revolving around her.
“Good fortune matters too much,” Gao Mei sighed. Then she glanced at Mu Wan and added teasingly, “Still, with acting like that, no amount of investment is going to make her a real success. She’ll just ruin her own reputation. Our Mu Wan is different—beautiful, can act, and if someone backed her, she’d go global.”
The second half was clearly a joke, and Mu Wan only smiled it away.
But the first half did make sense.
The entertainment industry had seen plenty of pretty faces sink under mountains of money and still fail to shine. Beauty without acting could only carry a person so far.
Mu Wan had no interest in what Mu Qing herself was thinking.
After saying a few more words to Gao Mei, she headed off to change and do makeup.
This old house belonged to the female lead’s character in the story, so most of the scenes here were with Mu Qing.
Mu Wan had scenes with her, too.
They were both spies.
Mu Wan’s character came to deliver a message to Mu Qing, and that meeting would eventually lead to her murder.
In Mu Qing’s boudoir, Mu Wan passed over the slip of paper in her hand. Mu Qing took it, said her lines, and the scene was done.
Mu Wan let the emotion fall away and stepped aside.
It was Mu Qing who glanced at her first.
Then, with a faint lift at the corner of her eyes, she withdrew her gaze again.
Once that scene finished, Mu Wan’s part in the old residence was done as well.
While she was in the dressing room changing back into her own clothes, she heard the female actresses outside erupt into gasps and shrieks of amazement.
She came out dressed and looked up.
Her entire vision turned red.
The whole courtyard had been transformed into a sea of roses.
The air was filled with the faint, elegant scent of them. Around that scent surged the delighted screams of women whose hearts had just exploded with envy. The whole thing felt dreamy, hazy, and absurdly romantic.
When Mu Wan came out, Gao Mei hurried over, astonishment still alive in her small eyes.
“Sent by Shen Cheng, Young Master Shen,” she said. “You didn’t see what it looked like just now—a whole line of men in black suits, each carrying armful after armful of roses in here. She got more roses in one day than I’ll probably receive in my whole life.”
Women were always sentimental about romance.
There was more than a little envy in Gao Mei’s voice.
“The crew’s paused for now,” she added. “The moment Mu Qing got the flowers, she went to her car to call him.”
Mu Wan glanced once at the red roses glowing in the courtyard. There was not even room to step between them. Red filled her eyes.
“I’m heading out,” she told Gao Mei. “I’m treating a friend to dinner tonight.”
Gao Mei squinted at her, full of disbelief.
“How do you have no reaction at all? Every woman in the crew is jealous out of her mind.”
The scent of the roses was heavy.
Mu Wan’s throat itched. She rubbed lightly at her nose and said, “I don’t like flowers.”
More than the answer, Gao Mei noticed her voice. She looked at the faint flush on Mu Wan’s face with concern.
“Are you getting sick?”
“I’m fine. I’m going.”
With that, Mu Wan patted Gao Mei on the shoulder and left the old house.
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