After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's "White Moonlight" - Chapter 61

“The two of you are quite a match.” Regarding the aspect of being chatterboxes, Cheng Siyu did not say the latter half of her sentence out loud.

At that moment, a commotion drifted in from outside the door, followed by a grand procession of people. Standing in the middle of the crowd, wearing a trench coat and sunglasses, Qin Xiangqing did not fade into the background; instead, she became the most unique and eye-catching figure there.

Cheng Siyu caught a glimpse from a distance. Even surrounded by beauties, Qin Xiangqing’s appearance did not blend in with the masses; rather, it highlighted her extraordinary temperament.

It made sense. Shen Moxu was an uncompromising lover of beauty; anyone she fell for wouldn’t be an ordinary person. Unfortunately…

Today, Qin Xiangqing was unexpectedly only half an hour late. Although the progress was still slightly behind, it was much better than the half-day delay the director had anticipated.

Cheng Siyu’s scenes were to be filmed first. Her character existed in a separate unit, and the first scene featured a confrontation between her and the female police officer played by Shen Moxu.

Dressed in a blouse and wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses to emphasize her status, Cheng Siyu looked a bit more scholarly.

“Xiaoyu, the way you’re dressed… I feel like I’m looking at my junior high teacher. She was the one who enlightened my longing for older sisters.”

Shen Moxu looked at Cheng Siyu, sizing her up from head to toe.

“Didn’t you say before that your ‘enlightenment’ was a handsome senior? Changed your mind again?” Cheng Siyu ignored her further, focusing on her script to prepare for the next scene.

“Well, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

Shen Moxu muttered under her breath. Dressed in her police uniform, her temperament carried a sense of imposing authority, yet she couldn’t help but glance instinctively toward the VIP dressing room where Qin Xiangqing was located.

One of the reasons she had once liked Qin Xiangqing was because of how sharp and valiant she looked in a police uniform. At this thought, a flash of bitterness flickered in her eyes.

“3, 2, 1, Action!”

At the director’s command, everyone on set entered their characters. Although this was Shen Moxu’s first time playing a lead, her months of experience as an assistant on film sets made her intimately familiar with the process.

“Where were you on the night of October 20th?” Facing the police interrogation, Wen Shu, played by Cheng Siyu, showed not a hint of panic. She replied with a calm expression:

“I went home after a gathering with colleagues.”

“I heard that the deceased, Su Sheng, confessed his feelings to you before he died. Did you have any emotional disputes?”

Xue Ao, played by Shen Moxu, leaned in closer, trying to find a single flaw, but discovered that the eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses showed no abnormality whatsoever.

“No. It’s normal for students in puberty to have their hearts stirred. I explained it to him once, and he didn’t seek me out again.” Wen Shu’s voice came through calmly. She then looked at Xue Ao and asked in return, “Officer Xue must face these kinds of problems too, right?”

“Mhm.”

Xue Ao responded in a low voice. She felt the person in front of her was not simple, but since she couldn’t find any flaws, she waved her hand to let her go.

“Cut!”

The director’s voice rang out, and the atmosphere between the two instantly relaxed.

“Siyu, did anyone ever confess to you when you were in school?”

While walking back, Shen Moxu ran to Cheng Siyu’s side to press for an answer. In her eyes, Cheng Siyu was the epitome of a gentle “girl-next-door” older sister.

“I forgot.” Cheng Siyu didn’t give a direct answer. She really had forgotten; there might have been someone, but in her memory, that was more than a decade ago. Furthermore, her family environment had made her feel inferior; the moment she received a love letter, she would feel so ashamed that she’d throw it away.

She felt she wasn’t worthy.

The next scene to be filmed was Wen Shu teaching her students and introducing herself. Cheng Siyu picked up two prop books, acclimatizing herself to the setting in advance.

When she was a child, she had dreamed of being a teacher. But that career became a thing of the past the moment she saw a teacher in school slamming the table in tears because of a few mischievous students.

“Are the injuries on your body still not healed?”

Ji Yun walked to her side at some unknown point. Today, she was playing a forensic doctor, her tall figure set off by a white lab coat.

“Take care of yourself first.” Cheng Siyu looked displeased and turned to walk away.

“3, 2, 1, Action!”

“Students, I will be your homeroom teacher for the coming year. My name is Wen Shu. You can call me Teacher Wen.”

Following the script, Cheng Siyu wrote the two large characters for “Wen Shu” on the blackboard.

In the next second, the camera panned across the numerous students, lingering for a long time on the student named Su Sheng, foreshadowing the plot to come.

After finishing this scene, Cheng Siyu looked around the set but couldn’t find Shen Moxu.

“Sister Moxu just went to the VIP lounge.”

Knowing what she was looking for, Lin Zhizhi kindly reminded her.

“She became ‘Sister Moxu’ so quickly?” Cheng Siyu looked at her with feigned disdain, only to notice that Lin Zhizhi’s face was tinged with a shy blush.

“Didn’t I call you Sister Siyu the first day I met you? It’s a respectful title,” Lin Zhizhi explained softly.

Cheng Siyu didn’t say anything more and headed toward the lounge. Before she could even reach it, she heard voices coming from inside.

“I don’t need your compensation,” it was Shen Moxu.

“Take it. Consider it payment for being my lover these past few months.” The voice that sounded flat and emotionless belonged to Qin Xiangqing.

“What do you take me for? A call girl from a brothel?” Shen Moxu’s voice gradually became agitated.

“No. I wouldn’t sleep with a call girl. Dirty,” Qin Xiangqing’s voice drifted out.

“Right.” Shen Moxu sneered. “You wouldn’t sleep with a call girl, but you’d sleep with my sister. I wish you both a long and happy life together.”

Then came the sound of a glass shattering. In the next second, Cheng Siyu saw Shen Moxu open the door and walk out.

“Siyu, she’s infuriating! She’s absolutely infuriating!”

The moment she saw Cheng Siyu, the tears Shen Moxu had been holding back finally broke through.

“My eyes must have been blinded by the grease of ten pigs to ever fancy her.”

Cheng Siyu froze. As expected of Shen Moxu, even her metaphors at a time like this were uniquely characteristic.

“Looking like this, what are you going to do when it’s time to film your scene together?” Cheng Siyu pulled Shen Moxu into the restroom to let her wipe the tears from her face.

“Then I’ll just turn the scene into a fight scene!” Shen Moxu said indignantly. Cheng Siyu promptly gave the back of her neck a light chop.

“Get a grip.”

“Fine, I’ll just act normally. I haven’t gotten close enough with her bodyguard brother yet; I won’t make a move easily.”

“Mhm.” With Shen Moxu’s guarantee, Cheng Siyu’s heart settled, but she couldn’t help but sigh, “Is there anyone in this world you can’t get close to?”

“Of course. I’m not a hundred-yuan bill. That big brother only listens to Qin Xiangqing; he doesn’t pay me any mind at all.”

…

The next scene involved Qin Xiangqing and Shen Moxu arriving at the school to investigate. The body had been soaked in sulfuric acid until only bones remained and then dumped in a trash heap near the school; it was only discovered when a stray dog dragged a bone out.

Ji Yun played the forensic doctor searching for the skeletal remains.

Cheng Siyu was also in this scene. Her role was to walk past the scene as if nothing were wrong and then exchange a few words with several other teachers who had stopped to look.

It was during this moment that Chen Yiyun, played by Qin Xiangqing, keenly sensed that something was off about her.

“3, 2, 1, Action!”

“What happened here?”

The other actors playing teachers stopped to watch when they noticed the police tape around the trash heap while heading home after work.

“I don’t know. It looks like they found a body.”

“I know! Is it that student who went missing from the second-year class?”

“Really? Only in his second year of high school… what a pity.”

Meanwhile, Chen Yiyun and Xue Ao stood to one side, waiting for the forensic doctor to recover all the bones while surveying the surroundings.

“How cruel.” Xue Ao rubbed her gloves, looking at the section of leg bone that had once been in the dog’s mouth.

“Mhm.” The cold-faced Chen Yiyun gave only a brief response.

On the surface, Shen Moxu showed nothing, but in reality, her heart was filled with regret. In this drama, her character was still a chatterbox who had to chase after Qin Xiangqing to talk; she really wanted to take that prop bone and shove it into Qin Xiangqing’s head the very next second.

“Teacher Wen, come quickly and see if that body is the missing student from your class.”

A spectator pulled the passing Wen Shu over. Wen Shu took the opportunity to glance at the scene, and it was that single glance that made Chen Yiyun remember her.

“Oh, don’t make things difficult for Teacher Wen. It’s just bones; even the biological parents wouldn’t recognize it, right?”

“That’s not necessarily true. Teacher Wen is a doctor who studied abroad in Country X. Maybe she can recognize it at a glance, right, Teacher Wen?”

“No, I haven’t reached that level yet.” Wen Shu waved her hand, then glanced at the police officers searching for evidence. After recalling her own actions and confirming she hadn’t missed any details, she lifted her foot to leave.

“Teacher Wen, why are you in such a hurry to go home? Why not stay and watch a bit longer? What if the police have questions for you later?”

“They won’t. They are professionals in their field; I’m just a layman.”

Having said that, Wen Shu carried her bag and left the scene in her flat shoes.

“As expected of someone from the big city; her temperament is different from ours.”

“What’s the use of a good temperament? I heard she and the principal…”

“Cut!”

Another scene was finished. Cheng Siyu returned to the rest area. The flat shoes provided by the production crew didn’t quite match her size, and her heels were aching from being rubbed raw.

Just as she was about to fold some tissue into small squares to pad the back of her shoes, Ji Yun somehow followed her and sat down beside her, closely followed by Shen Moxu.

“Xiao Ji, this outfit fits you quite well. You look really good in it.” Shen Moxu chatted familiarly with Ji Yun again. “Unlike mine, it’s so tight it’s suffocating.”

“It’s okay. It’s still a bit too big.”

The clothes Ji Yun wore for filming were custom-made. First, because the wounds on her body hadn’t fully healed and there was fear she might have an allergic reaction to unclean costumes; second, because Ji Wanli couldn’t bear to see his daughter suffer in the crew, so he specifically invested to ensure the prop team treated her well.

“Siyu, how is yours? It matches your temperament so well,” Shen Moxu said, looking at the white blouse Cheng Siyu was wearing.

“It’s fine.”

Whenever Ji Yun was present, Cheng Siyu would become taciturn.

“But really, Siyu, you look good in anything.” Shen Moxu squeezed Cheng Siyu’s shoulder, admiring the collarbones she envied.

“Sister Xu! We meet again!”

At that moment, a woman’s exaggerated cry of surprise rang out. It was a minor actress in the crew.

“Yes, what a coincidence.” Shen Moxu gave a fake smile. This woman was one of the few social butterflies that even she couldn’t handle, and she was also some unknown distant cousin of Qin Xiangqing.

“The last time I saw you was during the filming of ‘Fleeting Years.’ Oh, right.” He Zhi sat down beside Shen Moxu without any reservations. “You…”

As luck would have it, at that exact moment, Qin Xiangqing happened to be walking past with the screenwriter. He Zhi called out to her, and though Shen Moxu wanted to cover the girl’s mouth, it was already too late.

“Sister Qing, come sit here! Xiao Xu is here too!”