After Reuniting with My Aloof Movie Queen Childhood Friend - Chapter 26.2

While hesitating between directly not replying and replying with a single “no,” she read that message back and forth many times, gradually thinking that it was just listening to a phone call, which didn’t mean accepting. She wasn’t so busy that she didn’t even have time to listen to a phone call.

Just a phone call, it was nothing, just treat it as…

Just treat it as…

She thought for a long time and concluded, just treat it as her wanting to see flowers.

The words issuing the invitation were overly sincere, and her refusal shouldn’t be excessively cold, right?

The time after pushing away social engagements was empty and long. Having nothing to do, she had someone look into her recent situation in D City.

Understanding it in advance would make it easier to know how she would deceive her tonight. She explained it to herself this way.

Thus, she saw her high consumption restricted, having no choice but to take a six hours long distance bus to D City.

She saw her actor contract maliciously targeted by her company, unable to stay in the crew’s hotel, forced to find the cheapest guesthouse herself.

She saw her being scolded for no reason by the female lead’s manager on set, yet in the afternoon, for the sake of standing up for the female lead, she didn’t hesitate to offend the investors, resulting in all her scenes being deleted.

She saw her going to have barbecue with Fang Ruohan after wrapping up work.

How could she go eat barbecue? Didn’t she remember she had just had her stomach pumped?

As if triggering some kind of conditional reflex, the desire to lecture surged up almost instantly.

Just like the day of her contract termination, she had flipped through her chat records with Zhou Wenchen from beginning to end in her car. The air pressure was so low it couldn’t be ignored at all, yet she still had to force a smile at her. At that time, she couldn’t help but want to say.

“If you’re sad, don’t force a smile.”

Very fake, so fake it made one feel heartache looking at it. She didn’t need this kind of performance from her.

Or perhaps, even revealing such a smile was merely a performance.

Therefore, calm down.

In her WeChat Moments, she flipped through all the photos of her and Fang Ruohan.

Her gaze lingered for a long time, her fingertips gently pressing on that bright smiling face, she told herself she just wanted to discern the truth or falsehood of her smile.

Probably because it was through a screen, it felt quite real. So real it reminded her again of the incident where they didn’t invite her to a meal.

Sure enough, her mindset still hadn’t adjusted well, she just minded being ignored too much.

She settled her mind. Originally not wanting to look, after thinking about it, she still opened the footage of the short drama she participated in.

Just to pass the time. She thought this way.

Her acting skills were indeed very good, so good that even a thin, malicious supporting character could be acted with a touch of cuteness. It made people feel that if it were her, doing some bad things didn’t seem to matter.

But the actors in the same group kept dragging her down.

A simple shot could be NG’d more than ten times at most, and the wasted footage lined up a whole page in the folder.

Having committed no mistake yet forced to stay up all night to repeatedly match scenes with others, she wasn’t impatient or annoyed. Her first reaction upon hearing “NG” was even to flash a reassuring smile at the actress matching scenes with her.

Among them, one piece of footage cut late, she saw in the frame that she walked toward that actor who had consistently failed to enter the state, lifting her arm to pull the person into an embrace, smiling, lightly patting the other’s shoulder. “No crying, no crying, don’t worry. This kind of thing, the more anxious you are, the less you can act it out. Let me teach you, in a bit you just…”

She unknowingly finished watching all the footage.

Having also learned about the changes in their project, there was still some time before nine o’clock.

She stood before the French windows, quietly gazing at the river surface outside.

The river breeze blew, and the river surface rippled with glittering fine waves. She remembered that a long, long time ago, she had taught someone to write characters, and she told that person, this is called “Lianyi” (ripples).

“Wow! So awesome, it sounds so pretty too! Then I want to choose this one!”

The other party had seriously drawn a circle around that character in the dictionary, answering her this way.

Those memories were too distant, so distant that even no matter how hard she tried to remember firmly, she could only watch helplessly as the face in her memories grew increasingly blurred.

But when she gazed at those rings of ripples spreading out on the river surface, those distant calls of “Sister Xiao Jiu” gradually overlapped with another voice, and the blurred face actually began to clear up as well.

No. Impossible.

How could it be?

If she were still alive, if she were right here in the country, right in S City, and had even been in the entertainment circle, once separated from her by only the distance of two people… How could she not find her? How could she fail to find her!

She had searched almost half the globe to find her!

Therefore, “Calm down. Must be calm.”

“Think about her appearance in the files that is totally different from now. Think about her exquisite acting skills.”

She used her calmest state to wait for her phone call, but a series of subsequent events caused the effect of those warnings to drop again and again.

She got drunk, yet she was alone outside. She vomited blood, yet she could only tremblingly support herself against the washbasin.

Panic, fear, anxiety, anger, all emotions surged up instinctively. By the time she completely calmed down, it was already the next day.

She changed her form of address to call her “Teacher Meng,” no longer that previous name that brought its own sense of intimacy, no different from the way the vast majority of people called her.

But hearing those two words slip from her mouth, her heart controllessly let out a momentary light tremble.

Everything grew increasingly out of control.

Seeing her smile made her heart grow hot, seeing her low made her heart ache. Seeing her intimate with others left her entirely cold, seeing her living poorly, seeing her being bullied, pain would controllessly surge out, making her want to shed tears, driving her close to madness.

In the nights of insomnia, she ruminated over the past over and over again, while constantly alerting herself, and at the same time being unable to restrain herself from wanting to draw close.

Knowing she shouldn’t draw close, so, she clicked open that avatar, looking at it glance after glance, this didn’t count as drawing close, right.

She tried to clarify her feelings for her, wanting to disassemble all causes and effects, using rationality to demand of herself not to move a single step before finding sufficient evidence.

But the fact was that no matter how clear-headed she was the previous second, the moment she faced her or even just faced matters related to her, all her rationality would depart in an instant, leaving only sensibility, repeatedly engraving that absurd answer that seemed impossible to happen.

Just like that night at the Home Inn guesthouse, before receiving the call, she was still flipping through her background files, pondering a reason that could explain all points of suspicion.

But when she heard that she might have run into trouble, when she saw her being pressed against the wall by her neck, she only then suddenly realized that turns out, none of it mattered.

She could accept any absurd reason, could accept that she herself was a piece of trash, a deaf person, a blind person, so she turned the world upside down searching overseas yet let her suffer within a short distance of just dozens of kilometers from herself, could even accept that she herself was just a fool, being mocked and deceived by her exquisite acting skills.

As long as she could be well.

As long as she could be well, it was enough.

Just like tonight, no matter what Ji Youyi’s feelings actually were, no matter whether she really cared about her birthday or cared about her as a person, none of that was important, and none of it could change a fact.

When she received her blessings and gift, when she saw her dancing with joy, when after carefully managing her makeup and clothing, her little thought of absolutely wanting to step on the dot to find her was unexpectedly satisfied.

Or perhaps, simply because she was by her side…

She couldn’t avoid, and found it hard to restrain herself from, feeling incomparable, incomparable happiness.

Was this not enough?

Her heartbeat was the most powerful evidence of all.

Before her eyes, the girl was already growing anxious.

Her brilliant smile slumped a little, carrying a tiny, hard to detect grievance, but her bright eyes widened even more. She leaned her body forward, wanting to move closer to look at her, yet seemed to have some reservations, straightening her back right back up, only calling out to urge her.

“Teacher Meng, am I not right? I’m definitely the first! Is it, is it?”

Meng Xingshu slowly moved her gaze away from her face, looking at the bouquet in her hands, her long eyelashes drooping down, covering her deep eyes.

She nodded. “Yes, you are.”

You are the first.

You always have been.