After the Agreement, the Aloof Movie Queen is Chasing Me All Over the Internet - Chapter 61

Du Yaozhi couldn’t.

She couldn’t do it at all.

Of course, Miss Shen Qing was largely to blame for this. Years ago, Yaozhi had possessed a very limited understanding of desire. In the dead of night, she would feel their breathing intertwine and intensify inch by inch, until she’d instinctively tilt her head back, her jawline tightening into a strained, involuntary curve.

Yaozhi would be seized by a sudden, inexplicable urge to overpower the other woman. Her lashes would flutter frantically, her fingers clutching Shen Qing’s collar with a desperate force, And then, she’d pathetically end up on her back.

One day, Miss Shen Qing had suggested gently, “You could try being on top.”

Yaozhi had been over the moon. She’d meticulously selected a whole host of playful little trinkets, ready to put them into practice. But the moment the lights went out and the door was shut, and the “tools” were brought out… well, she sat on top, certainly. But it ended with… hmm, Shen Qing doing the “doing.”

Specifically, she’d been “done” by those little trinkets in turns.

Thinking back on it now, Yaozhi was fuming. Is THAT why Shen Qing isn’t afraid of me? It wasn’t because she looked fragile or incapable; it was because Shen Qing knew perfectly well that Yaozhi didn’t have a clue what she was doing.

Yaozhi didn’t let any of this show on her face. She simply paused for a moment, wearing a look of utter disdain. Shen Qing didn’t look down on her, but she saw right through her.

Hah!

Shen Qing leaned against the pillow, carefully brushing her hair to one side before speaking softly. “I guessed as much.”

Yaozhi was far more casual with her hair, letting it rest loosely and messily against her neck. “Isn’t Teacher Shen afraid I’ll just teach myself?”

“Fine,” Shen Qing replied. “I’ll wait for you.”

“Stop trying to play me,” Yaozhi shot back.

She was sharp; she wasn’t falling for it. She slowly folded her arms and said abruptly, “Wait for what? We aren’t even ‘kiss-buddies’ yet.”

Shen Qing gave a faint smile. Someone keeps letting that word slip out unconsciously; what am I to do with her? She toyed with a strand of her hair, her voice as light as the night wind brushing against the canvas of the tent. “Go to sleep.”

They had much to do.

Yaozhi stared up at the roof of the tent. The thin fabric swayed gently in the wind. Outside, the sky was a pale, misty grey-blue, and a hint of a chill seeped through the layers. Shen Qing switched off the small lamp, and Yaozhi tucked half of her face under the duvet, lost in thought in the darkness.

She’d seen a post on Weibo a few days ago about a rare, once-in-a-century meteor shower that was due to happen, the kind of event that only happens once in a lifetime. The clickbait accounts claimed that couples who kissed under the shooting stars would stay together forever. Yaozhi had given it a cursory glance, having little interest in such beautiful lies.

A lifetime was so long, yet so short. So long that Yaozhi couldn’t see the end of it; so short that, in the blink of an eye, she’d already spent twenty-six years living a displaced, unsettled life. Yaozhi had no home. she’d experienced very few stable days and couldn’t even begin to imagine what her life would look like when it was all over.

She turned over restlessly. professionally, the situation with Xu Wanxin was playing on her mind. She still had scenes to film, and she had no idea how the audience would react or if she’d ever get another role after this. All she could do was grit her teeth and keep moving forward.

Emotionally… lying next to her was a woman she had once dreamt of day and night, yet who still wouldn’t tell her the truth.

Yaozhi let out a soft sigh. Shen Qing lay beside her, keeping her company in the quiet stillness. In the silence, every sound was amplified, triggering a flood of fragmented thoughts.

“What do you think about… that thing with Rong’er?” Yaozhi asked, her voice muffled as she clutched the duvet, her nose turned toward the curve of Shen Qing’s shoulder.

Her fingertips brushed against Shen Qing’s cool hand. Shen Qing always ran cold; instinctively, Yaozhi tucked the duvet closer to her, covering her bare wrist. Since she’d confessed her feelings the other day, it felt as though a loose thread deep inside her had been pulled taut again. Caring for Shen Qing had become a habit once more.

Shen Qing’s gaze fell on Yaozhi’s shoulder, which was wrapped tight in the duvet. “You noticed it too, then.”

“She’s an actress, just like us. When someone gets too deep into a role, the character’s shadow often bleeds into their real life.”

Yaozhi had noticed. It was an occupational hazard; play a character long enough and it becomes difficult to shake off. You start subconsciously adopting their speech patterns and mannerisms, though it usually fades once the shoot wraps. Yaozhi had auditioned for Lianlan; she knew the character well. When Rong’er had apologised so loudly that day, Yaozhi had caught a whiff of Lianlan in her. At the time, she’d been too embarrassed to think straight, and Rong’er’s outburst had drowned out her suspicions.

Looking back, Yaozhi wondered if Rong’er was actually asking for help. Why else would she go to such lengths to call her “Sister” and try to get close to her?

“Then why didn’t you call her out on it?” Yaozhi asked, the duvet rustling as she shifted.

“If it were you,” Shen Qing countered, “would you have chosen to call her out?”

Yaozhi thought about it for a moment and shook her head. She’d already proven she wouldn’t through her actions. No matter how awkward things got, she hadn’t made a scene; instead, she’d tried to soothe Rong’er’s emotions. Shen Qing was the same. She wouldn’t spell things out too clearly, but she would quietly provide a way out for the other person to save face.

Yaozhi thought this was quite endearing of Shen Qing, scaring the poor girl with a gift, only to secretly swap it for something else.

“How are things… on your end?” Yaozhi asked, changing the subject. “With your mother?”

She vaguely remembered that the “contract couple” arrangement was tied to Shen Qing’s mother.

“The cancer cells have spread,” Shen Qing said. “From the lungs to the lymph nodes. She was moved to a hospital in Haicheng last week for palliative chemotherapy.”

Yaozhi’s heart sank. She reached out and lightly patted Shen Qing’s arm. “Things will get better.”

Shen Qing parted her lips as if to speak, then stopped and quietly lowered her gaze. They sat in silence for a while. Things had been going too smoothly lately; it felt like the calm before a storm.

Yaozhi tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

“Do you want me to sing you to sleep?” that cool voice whispered in the dark.

Yaozhi laughed. “Playing the nostalgia card again, are we?”

“Is it?”

“You told me before that you didn’t like my songs because they were all old,” Shen Qing said. “I’ve learned a new one this time.”

“Do you want to hear it?”

“If you like,” Yaozhi replied, though she leaned her shoulder against Shen Qing’s with a casual air.

Shen Qing had a beautiful singing voice. And when she sang, her lashes would droop and flutter with her breath, it was a stunning sight. Yaozhi listened as Shen Qing began to hum.

Shen Qing’s voice carried the chill of the tent, her clear tones drifting from her throat and winding through the air. Yaozhi held her breath.

“Staring at stars, watching the moon,” she sang softly. “Hoping that one day they’ll lead me to you.” “Wait every night.” “Cause if a star falls,” “I’ll wish to go back to the times that I loved.”

Shen Qing sang quietly, patting Yaozhi’s shoulder as she would a child’s, the warmth of her palm seeping through the thin fabric of Yaozhi’s clothes. The lyrics asked why the stars shone so brightly while most people were drifting off to sleep. The melancholy tune made Yaozhi’s nose sting; there were no stars here, only a lingering bitterness in the back of her throat.

Her heart felt as if it were being pricked by a thousand tiny needles—heavy and aching.

Damn it. Since when could this enchantress sing like that? She’d never been this good before. Yaozhi bit her lip and buried her face in Shen Qing’s shoulder, her nose brushing against those soft strands of hair as she fought back the urge to cry.

Eventually, she managed to steady her emotions and drift off. Listening to Yaozhi’s steady breathing, Shen Qing’s heart softened. She quietly tucked the duvet back in, preparing to sleep herself.

She reached for a pill bottle, her movements steady as she unscrewed the cap and took out her sleeping pills from the nearly empty container.

Then, there was a slight movement on the mattress. Shen Qing turned to find that the “fast asleep” Yaozhi was staring at her, her eyes wide and alert. She sat up, pinning Shen Qing’s movements with her gaze.

Shen Qing instinctively pulled her wrist back into the shadows, trying to hide the bottle. “Not asleep yet?”

Yaozhi’s eyes were filled with a surging emotion. She had seen everything. “I was faking it, obviously.”

Shen Qing is doing it again. Always coaxing me, never caring about herself. Shen Qing was a living, breathing human being; why did she always treat herself this way?

“Don’t move,” Yaozhi said, feeling a mix of fury and a desire to cry.

She grabbed Shen Qing’s collar, gave her a quick, sharp peck on the lips, and immediately dived back under the duvet without a word.

The kiss was so sudden that Shen Qing was left with only the lingering, soft sensation on her lips. A flash of bewilderment crossed her eyes; she froze for a full two seconds before slowly blinking.

Had she… just been kissed?

“Shen Qing.”

“I’m listening.”

“If I’m going to be your ‘kiss-buddy,’ you aren’t allowed to sing such miserable songs anymore.” Yaozhi’s voice came from beneath the covers, sounding strangely stubborn. It felt like a lifetime since she’d cried over her feelings, but Shen Qing’s singing made her want to weep.

“And another thing”

Yaozhi peered out from under the duvet, looking at Shen Qing. “You can’t take that many sleeping pills.”

Three of them. It was too many.

After they headed back down the mountain, Yaozhi was busy filming again, pushing through the final stretch before the New Year. She found time to have a video call with Zhou Yue.

Her first question was how Zhou Yue was doing; her second was about An Dongling.

“I’m great!” Zhou Yue replied. “Living the dream. An Dongling seems to be doing better too, she’s been having dinner with me lately and the trembling has stopped.”

“Apart from staring at her phone and looking lost in thought, she’s fine. I reckon she’s just worried about her contract now that Huasheng is on its last legs.”

Yaozhi frowned and shook her head. “Huasheng won’t go down that easily. The evidence isn’t strong enough; a bit of public backlash won’t sink them.”

Yaozhi still had the recording of Sheng Xiao and Li Rongjin—her final ace. Huasheng didn’t dare touch her, but that single piece of evidence wasn’t enough to take them down either. She had to take it one step at a time.

“Who has An Dongling been contacting? Xu Wanxin?”

“Not Xu Wanxin,” Zhou Yue said. “And I asked Sister Lin; Xu Wanxin only turned up once. She said something about an abandoned factory in Nancheng, and An Dongling looked at her like she wanted to kill her. Xu Wanxin just left after that.”

An abandoned factory in Nancheng. That was not a good place. As far as Yaozhi knew, Li Rongjin held absolute power in that area.

She bit her lip, twisting the red string around her hand tighter. Her evidence was insufficient, and she was stuck on set. If Xu Wanxin was moving her focus onto someone else because she couldn’t get to Yaozhi, that was a major problem. She immediately told Zhou Yue to stay as close to An Dongling as possible.

“Of course, I’m with her all the time,” Zhou Yue said, before her attention shifted to something else. “Hang on… what’s with your hand?”

She noticed the string being wound and unwound around Yaozhi’s fingers.

“A prop for my ‘kiss-buddy’ scenes,” Yaozhi replied coolly. “Just getting some practice in.”

After the sudden peck last night, she’d filmed two more kissing scenes this morning. It was exactly what the fans had predicted: she and Shen Qing were kissing as if their lives depended on it.

Zhou Yue was stunned. “What on earth? What ‘kiss-buddy’ thing?!”

Yaozhi had said the name so many times she was practically desensitised to it. “Shen Qing.”

“Oh,” Zhou Yue said meaningfully. “You’re in love again.”

“Is it that intense? You look a bit… off.” Zhou Yue’s mischievous side took over, her tone turning teasing. “Is there some ‘bondage’ involved in these scenes?”

But Yaozhi wasn’t falling for it this time. She let out a cold snort.

She turned to Shen Qing, who had been kissed all day, and said, “Hear that, ‘kiss-buddy’? I’m about to tie you up.”

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