After My Flash Marriage with the Movie Queen - Chapter 3

Zhao Xunyin was the kind of person who kept her word: if she said she would be home for the weekend, she would be home. Unfortunately, Shi Nanbei wasn’t especially good with remembering things. After dinner with Wu Lili that day she went back to the dorm to “cultivate” — which in her case meant half-meditating, half-leveling up in a game — and once she got into it she completely forgot she even had a wife.

As a female university student, Shi Nanbei’s life was pretty steady: classes during the day, cultivation and gaming in the dorm the rest of the time. Third-year medical school was brutal, especially for eight-year program students like her — by the time you finished, you practically attained enlightenment.

Why did Shi Nanbei study medicine? Don’t ask. The short answer was she wanted to be a good doctor who could help people. The slightly shameful addendum was that she imagined reattaching her grandmother’s leg herself if it ever got broken, yes, that’s embarrassingly humble.

After several busy days of cultivation sessions, Shi Nanbei naturally forgot all about her newlywed wife, Zhao Xunyin. So, when she received a WeChat message from Zhao at nine that Saturday morning, her phone was on silent.

Everyone knows: weekend mornings are sacred lazy-sleep time for college students — keeping a phone on full volume would ruin that. Zhao, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as irresponsible. Ever since she’d agreed to the setup and gone to meet Shi Nanbei’s grandmother for the blind date, she’d been treating herself as someone ready to return to domestic life. She rearranged her schedule, stacked all her work into a single block, and finally finished just in time to catch the 8:30 a.m. flight to Chengdu. She’d hoped to surprise her new wife — she never expected Shi Nanbei to be so scatterbrained.

The trip had been a last-minute thing: tickets booked on impulse, not through the agency. Because she used VIP lanes at the airport, no fans showed up to greet her, which saved a lot of time.

Her assistant picked her up, loaded the luggage and asked, “Do you want to go straight to the Longquan villa?”

Zhao had a detached house in Longquan. It was a bit far from the urban center, but to her it sat on a feng shui line and just looking at it made her feel luckier.

She’d been about to hum a noncommittal “hm” when, only after they were on the highway out of the airport, she suddenly remembered Shi Nanbei.

She’d almost forgotten she had a wife.

She called the assistant back. “Change direction. Go to Sichuan University.”

The assistant knew about Zhao and Shi’s marriage, so she didn’t ask questions and drove straight there.

They stopped under the dorm building of West China Medical School at Sichuan University. Zhao stayed in the car, phone already on the WeChat chat with Shi Nanbei:

Yin: Come downstairs.

No reply. She sent another message.

Yin: Come downstairs.

Still nothing.

Zhao stared at her phone expressionlessly. Thirteen minutes had passed since she sent the first message; no reply. She’d been working hard these last two days and barely slept six hours total — maybe she was getting too old to pull all-nighters, because her pulse kept fluttering.

Her head hurt.

Seeing Zhao sitting motionless, the assistant turned back and asked kindly, “Yin-jie, do you want me to go up and call Miss Shi?”

Zhao clenched her face and said nothing. For goodness’ sake — even the assistant knew she’d be embarrassed; Shi Nanbei was the only one who didn’t.

“I’ll call her.” Zhao’s face tightened as she opened her contacts — halfway through, she suddenly realized she didn’t have Shi Nanbei’s phone number saved.

She sighed, paused, scrolled to a different number, and dialed: “Grandma? It’s Xunyin, yes, I’m back in Chengdu.”

Shi Nanbei woke up close to eleven. More accurately, she hadn’t really woken up — she’d been roused by hunger.

“Up?” Her roommate Yang Shan, bent over the desk under Shi’s bed, didn’t look up. “There’s milk and bread on the table. Help yourself.”

Shi touched her stomach and burst into tears. “Waaah, Shan-shan, you’re too good to me.”

“Shut up.” Yang Shan interrupted without looking up, pen scratching furiously. “If you’re noisy I’ll throw you out.”

In high school she’d been a second-level taekwondo black belt; in the dorm she was, without question, their muscle. Once she’d kicked a pervert on the subway and made the local paper. If she said she’d toss someone out, she meant it.

So, Shi quieted down and didn’t speak.

Question: What’s the first thing modern youngsters do after waking up?

Answer: Reach for their phone.

Shi Nanbei wasn’t one to grab her phone the instant she opened her eyes, but she wasn’t going to annoy Yang Shan either — playing on her phone was the safest way to pass time. When she checked it, there were four missed calls from an unknown number; the most recent was seventeen minutes ago.

“Huh?” Could the school be calling about something?

She dialed back the number and after two rings someone picked up.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice, low and alluring, floated through the line. “You up?”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar and Shi was still half-dazed from sleep. “Ah yes. Who is this?” she asked, before the speaker on the other end barked, “Come downstairs.”

Then the line went dead: concise, cool, and decisive.

Shi stared at the ended call, bewildered. Why did she feel like she’d just met a domineering CEO?

She decided it could wait and tried to lie back down — but Yang Shan seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. “Don’t sleep. Get up and eat, and then do the cleaning.”

That snapped Shi to attention. Right — it was her turn to clean today.

“Pllleease, Shan-shan, can I sleep a little longer?” she whined.

“No.” The refusal was merciless.

Shi pouted, got out of bed, ate the bread and milk, grabbed a mop and started sweeping. Halfway through the second round, her phone buzzed again.

It was the same number. She answered, “Hello?”

“Down yet?”

“No.” Shi bit her finger, embarrassed. “Who are you? Why should I do what you say and come down? I haven’t finished cleaning yet.”

There was a faint sigh on the other end. “I’m Zhao Xunyin.”

“Oh—Zhao Xun—!” Shi snapped awake in a shock. “You’re back?”

“Can you come down now?” Zhao asked.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was you—” Shi opened the dorm door in a hurry, in her pajamas, and ran downstairs while still on the line. When she reached the ground floor she asked, “Where are you?”

“By the curb. The same black Audi as last time.”

Shi found the car exactly where Zhao said. As she approached, the rear door eased open and she slid in.

“Just woke up?” Zhao asked, looking at her from the back seat.

Zhao wore a crisp white blouse and a black A-line skirt; her dark hair curled softly over her shoulders, framing delicate, porcelain features. To Shi, who’d never cared much for looks, Zhao’s presence still stopped her in her tracks like an ink-wash painting come to life.

“Hm?” Zhao prompted.

Shi blinked and blushed. “Sorry—my phone was on silent this morning. I didn’t hear your calls.”

One hand from Zhao rested on the car’s armrest while the other toyed with her black iPhone. “You just woke up?” she repeated.

“…” Shi had no answer.

The assistant in the driver’s seat turned back and offered, with perfect timing, “Miss Shi, Yin-jie has been waiting here for almost two hours.”

Realizing how badly she’d messed up, Shi bowed her head in shame. “I’m sorry — I was wrong!”

Zhao gave a small, amused smile and ignored the apology. “Have you eaten?”

Still feeling guilty for making Zhao wait, Shi panicked at the thought that she might not have eaten at all and be making her new wife worry. “I already ate,” she said softly.

Zhao let out a long “oh,” then, half-smiling, asked, “What did you eat?”

“…” Shi’s face flushed again. “Bread.”

Zhao couldn’t help but exclaim, “Youth is wonderful.” She was envious: after staying up all night, she could hardly function without breakfast; the idea of sleeping that late and eating only bread amazed her.

Shi, wanting to salvage her image, quickly added, “It’s fine. I won’t mind that you’re older!”

The smile on Zhao’s face froze. “…”

If she had to be honest, Zhao thought, she kind of did mind — looking at Shi Nanbei’s innocent, harmless face made her almost want to toss the girl out of the car.