The Movie Queen And Her Rival Just Went Public! - Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Shen Luoyan woke up gently from her half-sleep, stirred by the vibration of her phone receiving a message.

Su Cancan emerged from the bathroom in clean, equally conservative pajamas, her hair still wet. Throughout junior and senior high, she had maintained long, straight hair. It was a hassle to wash and maintain, but her art examination instructor wouldn’t allow her to change the style or dye or perm it. The reason given was that beautiful hair was a bonus point. Later, the roles she took also required her to keep it. Su Cancan didn’t know if it added any points, but right now, her head felt like a heavy stone was attached.

She pressed and wiped her hair with a soft, dry, fragrant towel to absorb the moisture, applied essential oils and a hair mask, and casually wrapped it up.

Standing at the bedroom door, one step forward meant the living room. She stood still for a few seconds, gently pressed the doorknob, and carefully moved outside.

The repeatedly muted and unmuted microphone finally returned to its original position and began recording audio. Su Cancan tiptoed between the living room and the kitchen, taking a seemingly casual glance.

The sofa was empty. Had Shen Luoyan left?

She hadn’t heard of anyone in the entertainment industry being forced off a show by a collaborating guest during the first recording. It looked like she would be the first. While muttering that Shen Luoyan was too impatient and had run away after a small argument, her mouth felt dry. She planned to get a glass of water from the kitchen and then notify Liu Yimin.

As she turned around, she came face-to-face with a pair of bewildered, pure eyes.

“Hiss…”

Her body didn’t move, her torso was straight, but her upper body tilted backward. The wet towel on her head fell away, pulled by gravity.

Shen Luoyan’s pupils flickered, her expression dumbfounded: “Do you want water? The water in the kettle is warm. Should I pour you a glass?”

In the headset, the voices of Su Cancan and Shen Luoyan intertwined. The staff member released the small blanket, resting his elbows on the table and supporting his face with his hands, shaking like a dandelion and chuckling foolishly.

“N-no, thanks,” Su Cancan bent down to pick up the towel. “I’ll get it myself.”

Despite her words, Shen Luoyan put down the amaranth she was sorting, gently brushed off the dust, washed her hands, and poured her a glass of warm water.

As the glass was placed on the dining table, her hand, which had initially retreated, once again touched the cup wall: “It’s not hot this time.”

Shen Luoyan’s series of actions were so seamless that they didn’t give her any space to stop. Su Cancan picked up the glass. As her palm touched it, warmth instantly transmitted to her hand. Only the medium-rare parts still felt a faint, continuous prickling pain. She switched hands and brought the rim of the cup to her mouth, taking a sip. Without opening her lips, she acknowledged with an “Mhm.”

The dryness in her mouth subsided, and the restlessness in her heart naturally dissipated. Shen Luoyan kept her eyes lowered, letting her thick eyelashes cast two fan-shaped shadows on her cheeks, diligently sorting vegetables. Su Cancan pulled a chair over and sat across from her.

“I’ll help you.”

“Huh?” Shen Luoyan looked up at the sound, noticing Su Cancan staring at her hands, her bright eyes filled with curiosity and eagerness. She then pushed the plastic bag containing the vegetables toward her: “Alright, then these are yours. Put the sorted ones in the basket. The weather is still a bit cool, so remember to blow-dry your hair when you’re done.”

Su Cancan nodded. She wiggled her fingers, then imitated Shen Luoyan’s previous movements to “manhandle” the tender amaranth. Lacking life experience, her strength in cleaning off the dust and removing dead leaves fluctuated. When she used too much force, she damaged the leaves and stems, staining her hands with sap. When she used too little, the dirt remained stuck.

Shen Luoyan didn’t interrupt or instruct. She walked to the sink to clean the lively river prawns. As the water flowed into the small basin and came into contact with the water source, the previously sluggish prawns instantly came back to life, pushing and shoving each other, splashing water everywhere.

Hearing the commotion, Su Cancan sped up her hands. She quickly finished with a slapdash effort and carried the basket to the cooking area for inspection. She placed the small basket on the counter. Shen Luoyan glanced at it, realizing it needed rework, and silently moved the faucet away.

“Wash your hands.”

Su Cancan, who didn’t cook at home, had never touched live shrimp, let alone such lively ones. She instinctively recoiled and put her hands under the water stream. After a few seconds of rinsing, she tried to pull back, but Shen Luoyan gripped her hand before her fingertips could leave and pressed it down.

The hand gripping hers was damp. The other hand reached far away and pumped out two squirts of hand sanitizer. Su Cancan’s hand was instantly stuffed with a large ball of dense foam.

“Rinsing with water won’t clean them thoroughly. Rub again, especially the nail crevices.”

With foam in her hand, washing was unavoidable. Su Cancan bravely pushed her hands further forward, wincing and squinting her eyes. With her field of vision reduced, she occasionally had to widen her eyes to check the situation. Her back rigid, she looked over and saw Shen Luoyan’s large hand covering the basin holding the live shrimp. They were still thrashing and jumping underneath, but not a drop of water splashed out near her.

After washing her hands, Su Cancan returned to the room to blow-dry her hair.

Shen Luoyan’s movements were fast. By the time Su Cancan came out of the room, two dishes were already on the table: garlic amaranth and steamed river prawns.

“There’s lamb chop in the oven, five minutes,” Shen Luoyan said, taking out cutlery and glancing at the time display above the oven. “What kind of dipping sauce do you need for the shrimp? Vinegar or something else?”

Su Cancan sat down. Shen Luoyan placed the dishes in the center of the table. The shrimp were even plated, arranged in a circle on the dish, and the amaranth was vibrantly colored, with purplish-red cell sap seeping out after the cell structure was broken, collecting as broth at the bottom of the plate. Even without her mentioning it, Su Cancan could smell the natural aroma of the grassland in the air—the characteristic gamey freshness of lamb.

She had to admit that Shen Luoyan’s cooking really suited her taste.

Su Cancan licked her lips: “Vinegar… oh, wait, I’ll do it. I’m free anyway.”

“No need, I’m heading over there now. I’ll bring it over,” Shen Luoyan put away the cutlery and returned to the counter, taking a small dish from the cupboard and pouring her a small amount of fragrant vinegar.

“Have some soup before you eat,” she said, lifting the lid of the pot. The aroma of oil instantly filled the entire living room.

Su Cancan wasn’t surprised, but her eyes widened when she heard there was soup. She tapped her phone screen to check the time. Blowing her hair hadn’t taken long, perhaps just over twenty minutes. It was incredible that she had managed to complete three dishes and one soup in that short time.

“Oh, okay.”

Shen Luoyan walked over with the requested fragrant vinegar and a casserole. She put them down and started ladling soup and preparing a bone dish for her.

It was pork rib soup, with a few scattered oil slicks on the surface. Neat ribs, yam, and corn nestled together in the bowl, emanating steam. Su Cancan picked up the spoon, avoiding the oil, scooped a mouthful, blew on it, and brought it to her mouth.

The simplest ingredients were handled with the simplest preparation. The soup was light yet flavorful, with the aroma of pork, the sweetness of corn, and the just-right saltiness. As it went down, her appetite followed.

Tiny stars popped in Su Cancan’s eyes: “Wow, you’re really good at cooking. If you hadn’t entered the entertainment industry, opening a small restaurant to support yourself would be absolutely no problem.”

Her tone was filled with admiration. Shen Luoyan smiled. Then, as if remembering something, Su Cancan asked: “But, your major in university was computer science. Going for postgraduate studies online or directly working at a major tech company were all great career paths. Why did you suddenly switch to acting?”

Shen Luoyan picked up a shrimp. The hand suspended above the bone dish, preventing soup from dripping, froze. The soup still dripped onto the tablecloth, forming a small, round stain. Fortunately, Su Cancan was preoccupied with drinking soup and didn’t notice. Shen Luoyan put the shrimp down.

“Because of a dream?” Shen Luoyan hesitated, giving a vague answer. She was formulating the rest of her answer, repeatedly chewing on how to give a reply that Su Cancan wouldn’t doubt.

Upon receiving the answer, Su Cancan looked up in surprise: “You, too, were chasing a dream? I can’t tell. A good student actually had a dream of being a star. But it’s nothing. Which girl didn’t wrap herself in bedsheets and bath towels pretending to be a princess or a queen when they were little? You’re very successful, achieving your dream so early. Even…” She paused, the bitterness still leaking out of her feigned casual tone, “Even winning the Golden Branch Film Empress award so young.”

Su Cancan was perceptive, and so was Shen Luoyan.

She herself had no great desire for these awards. If she won, she accepted it; if not, she wouldn’t be discouraged. Her wish had always been the same: just to be a little closer to her, and then a little closer still.

But these efforts of hers had unintentionally pushed her further and further away…

Su Cancan put down her spoon, ready to indulge in the other dishes. Just as her cat’s paw reached for the river prawns, a peeled and deveined shrimp curled up in her vinegar dish.

“Your hand was injured because of me. I’ll peel them for you,” Shen Luoyan said, her hand not stopping its work despite her self-reproach and helplessness. She peeled the whole shrimp and passed them all to Su Cancan.

Su Cancan lightly scratched her skin: “No need. It was my own carelessness.”

Shen Luoyan, a rare occurrence, ignored her. She dried her hands with a tissue and then went to the kitchen to open the oven, plating the lamb chops and bringing them to the table.

As soon as the lamb chops were set down, seeing the cat’s paw eagerly trying to grab the shrimp, she directly took the entire plate of shrimp to her side, peeling them one by one and handing them over.

The Cat Princess was excited by the seafood, but one large plate was truly more than she could handle. As the tenth shrimp went down, she raised the white flag, retracting her small paws and lowering her small tail.

“Stop peeling for me, that’s enough! I can’t eat any more!”

One last shrimp landed along with her words. Su Cancan instinctively resisted, picked it up, and placed it in Shen Luoyan’s bowl.

“I really can’t eat any more. I need to save room for the other dishes.”

To look good on camera, female celebrities were all paper-thin. Su Cancan wasn’t naturally thin, so to maintain her weight, she had chosen the fastest, most effective method early on: dieting.

She ate, but only a little. She tasted everything, but never ate much, no matter how much she liked it.

Over time, her stomach shrunk, and her appetite became like that of a child before elementary school.

“Can you at least eat more of the others?” Shen Luoyan negotiated with her.

Su Cancan understood this to mean that if she ate the other dishes, she wouldn’t have to eat any more shrimp. She obediently nodded. She was busy gnawing on the lamb chop and didn’t notice Shen Luoyan picking up the shrimp with her chopsticks, bringing it toward her mouth, and then putting it down.

The staff member held his lunch box, watching the two beautiful women having a feast, and invisible, broad tears streamed down his face. He picked up a bone that only had a layer of sauce on it and sucked the flavor, his tears finally erupting uncontrollably.

What was it that made him endure the sorrow and watch two beautiful women feed each other!

Is it money?

Yes, but not entirely.

More importantly, he could ship the CP while enjoying the “sweetness.”

His tears dried. He clenched his fist under the blanket, secretly vowing that when Su Cancan and Shen Luoyan went public, he would buy a feast of fish, shrimp, and lamb and eat it all by himself!

After the meal, Su Cancan was too full to move. The hardworking Teacher Shen took on the task of cleaning up.

Watching Shen Luoyan’s busy back as she moved back and forth, she became thoughtful.

If she really were to have a life partner, she hoped that person would be like Shen Luoyan—able to cook and know how to care for others, even if it was just an act. But who was that person, and where were they? And how long could Shen Luoyan keep up the act?