My Aloof Rival Seems to Like Me - Chapter 23

Song Jin discovered that Wen Yu seemed to possess a kind of magic no matter where they were, she could always veer the conversation back toward the script.

Then again, she only had herself to blame. Wen Yu had been eating peacefully until Song Jin decided to strike up a conversation; it was only natural for the chat to drift back into Wen Yu’s field of expertise.

The freshly served poached shrimp were steaming, almost too hot to touch. Wen Yu used her chopsticks to pick up a plump shrimp and bring it to her lips. She bit off the head first, then used her teeth to deftly peel away the shell, ring by ring. Once it was cleaned, she picked up the tail with her chopsticks, swirled the meat through the dipping sauce, and finally popped it into her mouth.

The quality of the shrimp at Jiangnan An was top-tier; the firm, springy texture reached another level once coated in the secret house sauce.

Seeing a few strands of Wen Yu’s hair fall forward as she leaned down to peel the shrimp, Song Jin subconsciously reached out with her clean left hand to tuck them behind Wen Yu’s ear. As she pulled away, her fingertips accidentally brushed against Wen Yu’s slightly puffed-out cheek. Wen Yu’s chewing faltered for a moment. She looked up at Song Jin with a hint of bewilderment. The latter, clearly realizing what she had just done, pulled her hand back with forced casualness and continued the previous topic: “So, you’re saying that when playing Chu Yun, I can’t be too loose? I still need to keep a bit of tension?”

Wen Yu nodded, swallowing the shrimp she had just finished chewing.

“Why is that? Isn’t it better to be as natural as possible during a performance?” Song Jin’s hand paused as she went for a piece of meat, looking puzzled. “I mean, I get what you’re trying to say. Chu Yun seems like she’s all smiles on the surface while hiding a ton of baggage underneath, but isn’t the point of acting to not be ‘stiff’?”

Wen Yu organized her thoughts and replied, “I don’t think ‘tension’ is synonymous with being ‘stiff.’ On the contrary, if you are too relaxed while performing, you aren’t playing the character anymore—you’re just playing yourself. Over time, you’ll find that every character you play tastes exactly the same.”

Recalling her previous roles, Song Jin realized they really were all quite similar. She let out a faint “hiss” of realization; there was definitely truth to that logic.

“Sigh, I thought I had a total handle on Chu Yun. After hearing you say that, it looks like I still have a lot of room for improvement.”

Song Jin rarely felt defeated. She usually viewed herself as a “prodigy” of sorts someone who picked up everything quickly. It was on a whim that she had decided to transition into acting in the first place.

She wasn’t classically trained. Before filming her first project, she had only learned the basics, yet she performed surprisingly well. She gained a bit of fame right after the broadcast, which led her to assume that acting was just “one of those things” that came easily.

With subsequent roles, Song Jin mostly relied on her intuition. When bored, she would flip through her scripts to see if she could find a new angle. She stopped taking classes, preferring to figure things out on her own, confident that her direction was correct. The only time she sought systematic training was for action sequences.

Looks like I need a lot more practice, she thought.

Fortunately, Song Jin’s moods came and went quickly. One second she was reflecting, and the next she was back to her energetic self. She playfully placed a green pepper into Wen Yu’s bowl and asked curiously, “What about you? Do you stay tense when you’re playing Jiang Huaiyue? I feel like your chemistry with that character is so high in the later stages that even if you were playing yourself, no one would notice.”

“It’s alright. Mostly because I resonate quite a bit with her, so it’s not a struggle to play her.”

“Oh? Resonance?” Song Jin’s eyes lit up as her inner gossip-monger began to stir. “In what way? Did you want to be a police officer when you were a kid too?”

“Oh, no, not that.” Wen Yu pulled a tissue from her bag and elegantly wiped the sauce from the corner of her lips. “It’s just that, like her, I was inexplicably dumped by someone five years ago.”

Wen Yu spoke with a flat tone, as if she were merely stating that tomorrow would be a sunny day. Her voice was so steady it seemed as though she had completely moved on; thus, even when Song Jin brought up the past, she remained as calm as ever.

Song Jin swallowed hard and asked weakly, “Then your ex-boy—”

“Girlfriend,” Wen Yu interrupted. Her narrow fox-like eyes swept over Song Jin without much emotion. “I don’t like men.”

Song Jin stared back at her, swallowing again.

She had to admit, Wen Yu’s looks were exactly her “ideal type” so ideal that she wished she could look like that in her next life.

Thick eyebrows, naturally upturned eyes, a high bridge of the nose, thin lips, and that face that almost never showed much expression when she wasn’t acting. When she was silent, she carried an aura that screamed “strangers stay away, and acquaintances stay further,” looking like someone you shouldn’t mess with.

Especially when those deep pupils under her long lashes glanced your way, it created a strange illusion

The illusion of being watched by a hunter.

Song Jin suddenly felt afraid to look into Wen Yu’s deep eyes. Her mind went blank; she didn’t know if it was because of the stare or because of the sheer volume of information she had just been hit with.

“What’s wrong? Do you mind?” Seeing Song Jin’s stunned expression, a hint of emotion finally appeared in Wen Yu’s voice.

However, that emotion was playfulness.

“M-Mind what?” Song Jin stammered.

“Mind that your partner is a lesbian,” Wen Yu said with a rare bluntness, leaving no room for ambiguity. “After all, we have to sell the ‘girl-love’ chemistry on screen.”

“For at least three months.”

Song Jin’s eyes flickered as she replied, “I don’t mind at all.”

“That’s good.” Wen Yu’s brow relaxed slightly as she returned her attention to the delicacies in front of her.

Although she knew it was a bit intrusive to ask about someone’s relationship status, Song Jin, whose brain was a tangled mess, couldn’t help but blurt out: “Then… do you still like her? Wait, I didn’t mean anything by that! I just saw your WeChat profile picture the other day, and it looked like half of a couple’s set…”

“Maybe.” Wen Yu didn’t look up, focusing on peeling another shrimp.

The poached shrimp were no longer scalding. Wen Yu pulled two disposable gloves from a compartment in the table, put them on, and began peeling from the head.

“She was my first love. She appeared in my life during my most difficult time; she’s truly important to me.” Wen Yu finished peeling the shrimp and naturally placed it into Song Jin’s bowl before reaching for another.

“But later, she left without saying goodbye. She disappeared from my world completely.”

“Later, I went through a lot of trouble to appear in front of her again, but she didn’t even recognize me.”

“Ah—how could she do that?” Song Jin wrinkled her nose upon hearing this. She was completely invested in the story now, chewing her shrimp with extra force. “She sounds like a total jerk.”

Song Jin heard Wen Yu let out a small laugh.

“Yeah. She really is a jerk.”

The two didn’t talk much after that. Wen Yu returned to her habit of not speaking while eating, and Song Jin didn’t have the heart to pester her further.

After Song Jin dropped her off at Nanan Jiayuan, she floored the accelerator and drove straight to Li Hang’s place, catching Li Hang just as she was dressed up and heading out for a party.

“Eh? Didn’t you say you weren’t coming? Why the sudden change of heart?” As soon as Song Jin’s car came to a halt, Li Hang opened the door and hopped inside.

“Why the long face?” Li Hang froze for a moment after seeing Song Jin’s expression, but she quickly leaned in with a mischievous grin. “Quick, quick, what’s bothering you?”

Song Jin rolled her eyes weakly. “Wen Yu has an ex-girlfriend.”

“Ha! I knew she was one of us.” Li Hang’s eyes lit up, and she rubbed her hands together excitedly. “My gaydar was screaming the first time I saw her. My sixth sense was right!”

“That’s not the point… The point is she hasn’t moved on from her ‘white moonlight’ ex-girlfriend. Do you get what I mean?” Song Jin slumped over the steering wheel, her hair falling to cover her face like an ostrich refusing to face reality.

Li Hang didn’t get it, but she was trying to. “Are you worried that her feelings for her ex will affect the ‘progress’ between you two?”

Song Jin popped her head up. “What ‘progress’ between us?”

Li Hang: “?”

“That’s not what you’re worried about?”

“No.” Song Jin turned her head to look at her, her delicate eyebrows knitted together. “I just feel like… she hasn’t moved on from her ex, yet I’m still selling ‘shipping’ content with her. And I keep having these R-rated dreams about fanfics of us. It feels so wrong.”

When she first saw the couple’s profile picture, she had a nagging suspicion, but she had held onto a shred of hope—what if she didn’t know it was a couple’s set? What if she was just using it for herself?

At the very least, what if she just didn’t have the habit of changing her profile picture and had simply been too lazy to find a new one after the breakup?

But Wen Yu’s words had essentially slapped her in the face:

The good news: She wasn’t using it with a current partner. The bad news: She didn’t keep it out of laziness; she kept it because there was still someone in her heart.

“So what? I have people under me who are married but pretend to be single and do ‘queerbaiting’ fanservice.” Li Hang thought Song Jin was making a mountain out of a molehill. “Besides, you can’t control dreaming about fanfics. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”

“How can I not have pressure?! Look, imagine if one of your colleagues kept dating you in their dreams while knowing full well you were pining for someone else it sounds terrifying no matter how you look at it!”

Li Hang rolled her eyes toward the upper left, pondering for a moment before saying, “Actually, the way you put it… even if Wen Yu didn’t have someone she liked, the fact that you’re dreaming about doing… ahem… with her is still pretty terrifying.”

Song Jin let out a sharp, internal scream, wishing she could vanish from the Earth right then and there.

“Hang-zi, you have to believe me, I’m really not a pervert…” Before, she hadn’t thought much of it—it was just a dream, right? But today, Wen Yu’s attitude reminded her that she couldn’t keep going like this. It was wrong. Yet, she had absolutely no control over dreaming about her. This feeling of losing control was driving Song Jin to the brink of a breakdown.

“I know, I know—” Li Hang comforted her, but then her tone shifted as she gossiped, “So, what’s Wen Yu’s ex-girlfriend like? I really wonder what kind of person could pluck that ‘high mountain flower.'”

Song Jin curled her lip and spat out two words with a hint of disdain: “A jerk.”

“Why?”

“Wen Yu didn’t go into detail, but basically, the other person just vanished in the middle of the relationship.”

“Hiss, that sounds like a familiar trope.” After speaking, Li Hang suddenly remembered something and sized Song Jin up. “Holy crap, Little Jerk Song, didn’t you also break up suddenly when you were in that online relationship?”

“That’s different,” Song Jin argued. “Wen Yu and her ex had a whole ‘salvation’ plotline; their bond was deep. My situation wasn’t nearly that dramatic.”

Li Hang threw her hands up, letting her have the last word.

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