Never Forget - Chapter 24

“I… I’m sorry, Teacher Qin.” Ye Zhuyi’s face flushed crimson. She looked at Qin Zhizhen with a mix of grievance and innocence, stammering as she explained, “I… I misunderstood. I’m sorry, Teacher Qin.”

This was the first time Qin Zhizhen had seen Ye Zhuyi blush so fully; usually, it was just her ears. A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes. With her pale, porcelain skin, clear, watery eyes, and long, thick lashes, her naturally full and red lips stood out. This cold and elegant beauty, now tinged with a blush, looked more delicate and charming than a peach blossom in full bloom.

“You don’t need to keep apologizing. I spoke too slowly,” Qin Zhizhen said, averting his gaze. His voice was cool and detached. “It’s my fault for letting you misunderstand.”

“No, no, no,” Ye Zhuyi denied repeatedly, taking the blame. “It’s my fault.”

Qin Zhizhen glanced at her quietly. Not wanting to argue over who was more at fault, he took the straw from Lian Rong and handed it to her. “If you want to drink, you should use a new straw.”

Ye Zhuyi didn’t take the straw. She wasn’t actually thirsty; she just wanted to bite the one he had used. Feeling like a complete creep, her face reddened even further. She handed the cup back to Lian Rong. “I’m not thirsty anymore.”

Qin Zhizhen withdrew her hand and took another long, interested look at Ye Zhuyi’s pale face, now flushed bright red.

It was the color of a ripe peach.

The script supervisor came over to clear the set, and Ye Zhuyi and Lian Rong stepped out of the frame together.

They filmed the scene again. This time, Xu Qingfeng controlled his expression perfectly, but a supporting actor messed up.

By noon, the sun was blazing. Heat waves shimmered off the ground, and the intense glare made everyone sweat profusely. This was especially true for those in suits and military uniforms. Their layers were so thick that their undershirts were soaked through, as if they’d just been in the water. Only the most professional actors could endure it; everyone else was starting to struggle.

“Cut! Let’s take a break,” Lu Buping shouted. Her voice was so parched it sounded raspy. “Someone hand out the lunch boxes! Everyone eats and rests. We’ll resume in the afternoon.”

She couldn’t believe they hadn’t nailed such a simple scene in one take. Lu Buping didn’t even stop to eat. Instead, she used the lunch break to go over the scene with each actor one by one.

Ye Zhuyi was on a diet and couldn’t eat lunch. She took three apples from Xiao Qiao, gave one to Lu Buping, and held one in each hand. Then she followed Lu Buping closely as she went over the scene with her.

When they went to Xu Qingfeng’s trailer, a woman stepped out. From her figure and the back of her head, she looked like Jin Yue. Ye Zhuyi stole a glance at Lu Buping, but Lu Buping seemed unfazed and didn’t react. So Ye Zhuyi pretended she hadn’t seen anything either.

Xu Qingfeng had been eating a boxed meal in his trailer, and the smell of food still lingered. Lu Buping didn’t like that smell, so she didn’t go inside and instead called him out. Although Xu Qingfeng’s acting still needed work, he was humble and obedient, so Lu Buping gave him extra guidance.

Since both Ye Zhuyi and Xu Qingfeng had transitioned from idols to actors and had only done melodramatic, sugary-sweet idol dramas before, Lu Buping always reminded Ye Zhuyi whenever she gave Xu Qingfeng instructions.

“We’re the special cases in this class,” Xu Qingfeng said to Ye Zhuyi half-jokingly. “Maybe we should just practice together.”

Ye Zhuyi replied bluntly, “Poor students need to be with top students to improve faster.”

“…” Xu Qingfeng choked on his words. He wasn’t sure if it was because he’d overeaten or because of Ye Zhuyi’s comment. He took a few sips of water, his gaze landing on the apple in Ye Zhuyi’s hand.

Ye Zhuyi quickly hid her hands behind her back.

Xu Qingfeng: “…” I haven’t even asked for it yet.

Lu Buping grinned and took a huge bite of the apple Ye Zhuyi had given her. She chewed loudly, the crunch echoing as if she were deliberately taunting Xu Qingfeng. “Come on, Little Bamboo. Let’s find the next one.”

Ye Zhuyi blinked at her new nickname, then smiled and agreed. “Okay,” she said, following Lu Buping.

The next person was Qin Zhizhen.

“Zhenzhen and Chen Ming are the easiest to deal with,” Lu Buping said, stopping in front of Qin Zhizhen’s RV.

Ye Zhuyi’s heart sank. She asked anxiously, “Does that mean we don’t need to go over the script?”

She had followed Lu Buping specifically, hoping to get into Qin Zhizhen’s RV while Lu Buping was discussing the script with him.

“We don’t need to go over it,” Lu Buping said, turning to walk away.

Ye Zhuyi sighed as she looked at the closed RV door. But just as she turned to follow, Lu Buping doubled back. Ye Zhuyi glanced at the trash can in the distance and realized Lu Buping had just gone to throw away the apple core.

Lu Buping knocked on the RV door and said, “I’m not here to talk about the script. I’m just here to steal some AC. It’s damn hot out here.”

“It really is too hot,” Ye Zhuyi agreed, suppressing a smile.

“Come on, let’s go steal some AC together.”

Just as Lu Buping finished speaking, Lian Rong pulled the RV door open from the inside. She turned back and said to the interior, “Teacher Qin, it’s Director Lu and Teacher Ye.”

Qin Zhizhen didn’t say anything. He must have gestured to Lian Rong, because she turned back and waved Ye Zhuyi and Lu Buping inside.

The air conditioning inside was blasting, and the scent of Qin Zhizhen’s signature perfume filled the air, a rich yet elegant fragrance. Qin Zhizhen was sitting on the sofa holding a tablet, and the sound coming from it suggested she was playing a match-three puzzle game.

Seeing Lu Buping and Ye Zhuyi board, Qin Zhizhen put down the tablet and asked, “Are you here to discuss the script?”

“You know me so well. But there’s nothing to discuss. I’m just here for the AC,” Lu Buping said as she sat down opposite Qin Zhizhen. She leaned back, taking up two seats in a lazy, sprawled-out pose, then pointed to the empty spot next to Qin Zhizhen. “You sit with Zhenzhen. Let me lounge for a bit.”

Ye Zhuyi hesitated, not moving.

Qin Zhizhen teased, “Do you want me to move over so you can sprawl out too?”

“No, no need,” Ye Zhuyi quickly denied.

Qin Zhizhen raised an eyebrow and glanced at the empty seat beside her. Ye Zhuyi’s heart hammered in her chest as she carefully sat down.

The two seats were right next to each other. Ye Zhuyi could almost feel the faint warmth radiating from Qin Zhizhen’s body through the air.

Lu Buping pulled out a tissue to wipe the sweat from her forehead and neck. She asked Ye Zhuyi, “Aren’t you going to give those precious apples to Zhenzhen?”

Ye Zhuyi looked surprised.

“Ha! I noticed you haven’t given them away the whole way here. Zhenzhen is the last one left. If they aren’t for her, why have you been carrying them all this time? It’s not like they’re heavy,” Lu Buping said, raising an eyebrow triumphantly. “Am I right?”

“You… are truly wise and perceptive,” Ye Zhuyi said as she placed both apples on the table. She admitted honestly, “They are indeed for Teacher Qin. Please, Teacher Qin, pick one.”

“Hey, I was wondering why you weren’t eating them yourself. So you were saving them for her to choose from!” Lu Buping complained. “You didn’t even let me pick one.”

“Director Lu, don’t blame me,” Ye Zhuyi said innocently. “You clearly had your chance to choose.”

“I’m not stupid. Look, you were on my right side, holding them like this.” Lu Buping gestured with her hands. “You had the one you gave me in your left hand and these two in your right. Naturally, I picked the one closest to me. Hmm… mine isn’t as red as these two!”

“…” Ye Zhuyi pursed her lips and blinked aggrievedly.

“Isn’t that childish?” Qin Zhizhen curled his lips in a mocking smile at Lu Buping.

“I was just joking,” Lu Buping huffed.

“Actually, all apples are the same.” Ye Zhuyi lowered her voice slightly. “I didn’t eat mine because I wanted to eat it with Teacher Qin.”

Qin Zhizhen turned his head to look at Ye Zhuyi. Her delicate ears, exposed to the air, looked even redder against her pale face and neck. Qin Zhizhen felt a gentle tug at his heart, a fleeting and indescribable sensation.

“You girls are really something,” Lu Buping said with a laugh. “Once you get close, you have to go to the bathroom together and eat apples together.”

“You can’t even compare those two things,” Qin Zhizhen said in disgust.

Lu Buping repeated herself, pausing for three seconds in the middle.

Qin Zhizhen: “…”

Ye Zhuyi pursed her lips and stifled a laugh.

Qin Zhizhen casually picked up an apple and toyed with it in his hand. Suddenly, he remembered to ask, “Why do you call it a ‘treasure apple’?”

“Xu Qingfeng took one look at it, and she hid it behind her back. Isn’t that treating it like a treasure?” Lu Buping explained teasingly.

Ye Zhuyi: “…”

Qin Zhizhen clicked his tongue.

Lu Buping grinned like an old fox.

Qin Zhizhen asked Lian Rong to slice the two apples and arrange them on a plate. The apple was cut into small pieces, each with a V-shaped notch that looked like rabbit ears. Lu Buping found it amusing and joined them to eat.

Three people shared two apples, and the “little rabbits” on the plate dwindled. Ye Zhuyi poked a toothpick into one of the “ears.” Almost at the same time, Qin Zhizhen’s toothpick pierced the other “ear.”

Ye Zhuyi was the first to withdraw her toothpick and said, “Teacher Qin, please go ahead and eat it.”

“Stop always using formal honorifics with me.” Qin Zhizhen speared the piece of apple and held it out to Ye Zhuyi. “We’re eating apples together now. Like Director Lu said, it means we’re close, so don’t use ‘you’ formally anymore.”

Ye Zhuyi froze for a moment. She looked down at the piece of apple, her eyes shimmering. Her long eyelashes, lowered, trembled like butterfly wings. She reached out to take the toothpick. The toothpick was short, and their hands inevitably overlapped and brushed against each other.

The warmth from her hand seeped into her pores, flowing through her veins and limbs, warming her entire body.

“Thank you, Teacher Qin,” Ye Zhuyi said softly. “Can I call you… Zhenzhen?”

Qin Zhizhen’s heart skipped a beat. It was a strange sensation. Hearing Ye Zhuyi say “Zhenzhen” felt as if she had called him that many times before, with a familiar and intimate tone.

It took Qin Zhizhen nearly a minute to recover. “You can,” he replied.

Ye Zhuyi lowered her head and bit into the apple, chewing and swallowing the indescribable sweetness of her hidden feelings along with the crisp fruit.

Lian Rong sat on a single-seater sofa behind them, her face flushed with excitement as she used her phone to post a fanfiction snippet of Qin Zhizhen and Ye Zhuyi on Weibo. Comments from other fans quickly flooded in: “Sister! Write more! I’m dying from the sweetness!”

Well, the main couple needs to give me more material first, Lian Rong thought. She rested her chin on her hand, watching the two of them with a knowing smile. Ye Zhuyi, one of the “main couple,” shivered under her gaze.

“Lian Rong, turn up the air conditioning,” Qin Zhizhen instructed.

“On it!”

After the lunch break, the actors touched up their makeup, the staff calibrated the equipment, and filming resumed.

The scene finally wrapped at 2:00 PM, just as the day hit its peak heat. But the work wasn’t over. To ensure a smooth edit later, they needed to capture the same shot from different angles and lighting. Even after a perfect take, they’d often repeat it a dozen more times.

By 5:00 PM, the sky had turned a bruised, heavy gray, with clouds so dense they looked ready to collapse. Finally, Lu Buping announced through her megaphone, “Alright! That’s a wrap for today. Good job, everyone. Pack up!”

The actors collapsed on the ground, too exhausted to even maintain their public personas. The crew dragged their weary bodies to pack up the equipment, racing to load everything onto the trucks before the rain started.

After saying goodbye to Lu Buping, Ye Zhuyi headed to the parking area to find Xiao Qiao. She found her huddled by a car, sobbing uncontrollably.

“What’s wrong?” Ye Zhuyi asked softly, crouching down beside her.

“My bag was stolen,” Xiao Qiao choked out. “The car keys were inside.”

“Is that all? Why are you crying so hard?” Ye Zhuyi pulled a tissue from her own bag and handed it to her. “I have a spare key.”

“The lock cylinder was ripped out,” Xiao Qiao said, wiping her tears. She reached behind her and produced a bag.

It was the same bag she’d brought that morning. Now, it was soaked, dripping wet, and emitting a faint, strange odor. Ye Zhuyi frowned and instinctively took a step back.

“I noticed my bag was missing and kept looking for it. Lian Rong was helping me search. We found it in the restroom,” Xiao Qiao burst into tears again. “It was like this when we found it. I washed it, but the umbrella inside was slashed, and there’s also…”

Xiao Qiao trailed off. Ye Zhuyi saw the contents of the bag: a slashed umbrella, a smashed small fan, and a tattered doll stuck full of needles.

How childish.

Ye Zhuyi sighed and asked, “You’re crying so hard because you know who did this, right?”

Ye Zhuyi had seen this kind of thing often in low-budget film crews before. Xiao Qiao had never cried like this before. She had just joined the Jing Que crew and hadn’t made enemies with anyone yet. The only person she had a grudge against was Jin Yue.

Xiao Qiao hugged her arms tightly and remained silent, which was an admission.

Ye Zhuyi threw the bag into the trash can but took out the doll with the needles and looked at it. It even had a slip of paper with a birth date and time on it.

Unfortunately, it was a fake.

“This…” Xiao Qiao stood up and walked to her side, hesitating to speak. “I’m scared… I used to see her…”

“I don’t believe in that stuff.” Ye Zhuyi took a photo of the doll, tore off the birth date slip and put it away, then pulled the needles out of the doll. After bagging the needles and the doll separately, she threw them both into the trash.

“Let’s figure out how to get back. It’s hard to find a taxi around here,” Ye Zhuyi said, glancing up at the sky. “It’s about to rain.”

Just as she spoke, Lian Rong’s voice called out from behind them.

“Teacher Ye!” Lian Rong waved an umbrella and came running over, bouncing with each step. After catching her breath, she said, “I saw Sister Xiao Qiao was shaken up this afternoon, so I want to take her out to explore nearby and cheer her up. Teacher Qin asked if you’d like to go back to the hotel with her.”

Lian Rong pointed her index finger at the phone in Ye Zhuyi’s right hand.

Ye Zhuyi unlocked her phone and glanced at the screen.

Zz: [Come to the RV and find me.]

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