After Reuniting, My Beautiful Ex-Lover Fishes for Me Every Day - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Discomfort

Zhai Wo was a natural-born actor.

This was the first conclusion Wei Changli reached as he stood in the studio, watching the youth’s performance through the monitor from a directorial perspective.

The moment he entered the camera’s frame, he fell into state with incredible speed, as if endowed with an innate spiritual aura. When asked to portray “Eros,” the boy’s watery eyes filled with a glistening love—a love that was pure, full of anticipation, too precious to break, yet paradoxically carrying a sudden impulse to shatter.

It was no wonder Hexing valued Zhai Wo so highly. Even Wei Changli would fall in love with such an actor; he was like a piece of high-quality porcelain clay that could be molded into any shape. Furthermore, he was so young and had such a good image; he was essentially being hand-fed by the heavens, with a limitless future.

However, once he stepped away from the camera, Zhai Wo transformed back into that oblivious, cheerful youth.

His health didn’t seem great—or perhaps channeling emotions required more energy from him than other actors—because he needed an extraordinary amount of rest.

Everyone on set looked after him. Even the strict David turned a blind eye, as not every actor possessed the divine ability to require almost zero NGs.

Tao Youzi had prepared oatmeal early on and was waiting in the outfield, but Zhai Wo, agile as a sparrow, bypassed her and instead plopped down right next to Wei Changli.

“Xiao Li-ge,” the boy whispered in a low voice, asking stealthily, “where did you hide my box of chocolate bars?”

Before filming, Zhai Wo had “entrusted” his snacks to Wei Changli, but the latter currently had no intention of returning them. Instead, he narrowed his eyes like a cat.

Wei Changli asked, “Why doesn’t Sister Youzi let you eat snacks?”

“Ah, haha, that,” Zhai Wo’s voice stalled, “she’s afraid I’ll get fat. Artists have very strict weight limits, Xiao Li-ge, you know how it is…”

“I don’t know,” Wei Changli exposed him. “Your body fat percentage is extremely low. Right now is when you look best on camera. If you control it any further, you’ll start losing muscle.”

Zhai Wo blinked. Seeing that if he didn’t tell the truth, his snacks might be like “hitting a dog with a meat bun”—gone forever—he finally said: “Actually, it’s nothing much. I was born with a weak constitution and I’m always getting sick, so my family restricts my diet. They especially don’t let me eat snacks, saying they’re junk food…”

The boy observed Wei Changli’s reaction as he spoke. Seeing that he looked like he might be getting angry, he quickly acted spoiled: “It’s really not that serious. Look at me, I’m fine now…”

Unfortunately, Wei Changli didn’t buy it. Under Zhai Wo’s transition from an innocent gaze to one of shocked disbelief, Wei Changli said slowly: “So, do you want that box of chocolate bars, or do you want Sister Youzi to know that not only did you sneak off to an internet cafe, but you also bought tons of snacks?”

“Tons?!” Zhai Wo’s pupils shook, his eyes filled with accusation and grief over Wei Changli’s distortion of the facts.

Wei Changli made a move to raise his hand, appearing as if he were going to call Tao Youzi over from not far away.

“Haha… what chocolate bars?” Zhai Wo changed his tune very pragmatically. “No, no, how could I eat something so devoid of nutrition? Absolutely not!”

Wei Changli was first moved to an irrepressible smile by his lightning-fast change of face, but then, taking advantage of the fact that the youth was still on his break, he turned serious and asked: “Can I ask you some questions about acting?”

Zhai Wo nodded like a puppy and replied with equal ease: “Just say the word, Ge!”

Wei Changli: “For example, this ‘Eros’ theme—what was going through your mind while you were performing?”

Zhai Wo thought for a moment and casually gestured a giant circle in the air: “I was thinking about a chocolate cake this big.”

“…”

“Really,” Zhai Wo said, his eyes starting to sparkle again as he thought about it. “I don’t have any experience with love or romance, but I love eating chocolate and caramel pudding! So I imagined the perfume in my hand as a chocolate cake I was about to eat but hadn’t eaten yet, and then it just came out naturally.”

As expected, these kinds of questions couldn’t be discussed with a “talent-type” player…

Wei Changli didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He thought to himself that if this topic went any further, he’d be hungry too. Besides, if David knew that the special centennial fragrance was actually “chocolate cake flavored” in Zhai Wo’s heart, he would probably be angry enough to snap his cane.

“Then what if,” Wei Changli followed up without much hope, “you had to perform the ‘Blood Kiss’ theme? How would you act that?”

“Blood Kiss?” Zhai Wo tilted his head.

The term was somewhat abstract to Zhai Wo, and he couldn’t immediately immerse himself in a specific feeling. He puffed out his cheeks in thought.

Just then, the halftime break ended. The production director called his name from nearby. The boy stood up and said to Wei Changli: “Xiao Li-ge, let me think about it first. I’ll tell you after I finish filming.”

Wei Changli waved for him to hurry over while he remained in the outfield to continue pondering.

He remembered the words of the makeup artist again.

She told him that “Blood Kiss” represented the end of love—a tragedy that had cooled beyond salvation.

Wei Changli’s eyelashes drooped quietly. A faint, self-deprecating smile suddenly hooked at the corner of his lips.

Using the abstract “Eros” as a carrier for a specific emotion—though David’s and Zhai Wo’s modes of expression were worlds apart, their cores were largely consistent. But even he himself couldn’t tell if he was unable to immerse himself and thus couldn’t act out the feeling, or if he was resisting performing this tragedy from the bottom of his heart—resisting catching a glimpse of the end of this path of Eros.

Wei Changli crouched outside the busy workspace, carved out by light and shadow. With one arm hugging his knees and the other hanging slightly down, holding the bottle of “Eros,” he looked very lonely.

The perfume bottle reflected a bit of light, and the colorless liquid rippled slightly with the movement of his hand.

The second set Zhai Wo was filming was themed “Angel’s Poem.” The styling was heavily altered and background actors were brought in. The director also made temporary adjustments to actor movements and camera angles, so the filming progress wasn’t as fast as the previous part. Wei Changli watched from the side for a while, but still having no new inspiration, he stood up and left.

Walking out of the studio, he ducked into a restroom on the same floor. He originally wanted to wash off the blood-stain makeup on his face, but he didn’t know what kind of special pigment the makeup artist used; it was waterproof. He tried scrubbing it, but it didn’t have much effect.

Wei Changli had no choice but to head out with the residual makeup. Just as he walked out of the production base building and descended a few stone steps, a hurried set of footsteps suddenly sounded behind him, accompanied by Zhai Wo’s excited shout.

“Xiao Li-ge—”

He turned his head, confused. Into his view came Zhai Wo, dressed in an angel outfit, running toward him. He was still holding a bottle of perfume, with pure white silk wrapped around the boy’s slender waist. The sinking sun traced a dazzling golden edge around him.

Even though it was the cool autumn season, the boy had run until he sweated. Beads of sweat slid down his shapely nose and dripped onto his full lips, translucently revealing a vivid blood-red color.

“I think I’ve figured it out!” Seeing him turn around, Zhai Wo held up the perfume bottle and waved at him excitedly from the higher ground.

His voice wasn’t loud, but it was exceptionally clear in front of the empty office building. Wei Changli noticed people nearby looking over, and behind the boy, there seemed to be some panicked staff members following.

Wei Changli was just about to go up to him when he suddenly realized what the boy was about to do. His pupils constricted violently.

Zhai Wo held the bottle of “Eros” high, and in the next moment, his fingers let go—he smashed it down with pure, unreserved force!

A chorus of gasps and sharp intakes of breath rang out around them. A cold yet gentle fragrance took flight like a butterfly breaking from its cocoon. The colorless liquid gurgled down the steps, and against the backdrop of the setting sun, it looked like flowing, molten-gold blood.

Wei Changli looked up in shock. He saw an indescribable innocence in the boy’s eyes. The boy’s lips parted slightly, his voice seemingly softening, with a slight pause in his tone:

“It is… freedom.”

The end of love is freedom.

Inexplicably, after hearing those few syllables, Wei Changli felt a sudden bout of dizziness. Immediately, his world began to spin. A familiar yet strange sensation of weightlessness swept over his body. He instinctively reached out to grab something, but there was nothing to lean on on the empty stone steps. He could only fall uncontrollably, like a broken-winged butterfly in the rich fragrance—

Bang!

A loud noise echoed in Wei Changli’s ears. A second before he closed his eyes, he vaguely saw Zhai Wo’s terrified and helpless face.

…

“The patient fainted due to chronic hypoglycemia… Drinking coffee on an empty stomach? Doesn’t that just increase the burden on the stomach?… Is there no one looking after him?… Even a major family upheaval is no excuse not to eat…”

A faint human voice reached the young man’s ears.

“Beep… beep, beep-beep-beep-beep!”

After an unknown amount of time, the human voice suddenly turned into the rapid sound of a medical instrument.

“!”

Wei Changli’s chest heaved violently. He took a large gulp of air and suddenly snapped his eyes open.

The pale ceiling came into view, and the pungent scent of medical disinfectant swirled around him. After a brief moment of clarity, Wei Changli lost consciousness again for a few seconds.

In the next moment, the young man suddenly realized he was in a hospital. A physiological discomfort uncontrollably surged up again. His stomach twitched and cramped, accompanied by an indescribable pain and nausea.

“Ugh—”

Wei Changli didn’t care about anything else; he only had time to roll out of bed and run into the restroom attached to the ward. Just as he slammed the door shut, he began to vomit violently.

“OMG! The needle came out! The needle came out!”

Zhai Wo’s anxious voice suddenly came from within the ward. Immediately after, the kid stared blankly for a few seconds at the empty hospital bed stained with a few drops of blood and the dangling IV needle before realizing it wasn’t just a simple case of a patient moving around and dislodging the needle.

Wei Changli, the patient who was half-dead on the bed just a moment ago, had ripped out the IV and bolted with lightning speed!

“OMG! The person ran away! The person ran away!”

Zhai Wo let out a sharp, explosive cry. He first scrambled to press the call button on the headboard, then followed the bloodstains on the floor and sprinted to the restroom, knocking anxiously on the door:

“Xiao Li-ge, are you in there? How are you?!”