Lady By The Pillow - Chapter 1
Chapter 1
◎ “The first time without a finger cot.” ◎
Sister Qing told me that some birds can’t be caged.
So she let 97 go.
I didn’t quite understand. It’s true that birds can’t be caged, but 97 isn’t a bird. So I asked a very silly question.
What if she wanted to stay?
Sister Qing didn’t reply, she just stared at a paper crane made of cellophane. After a long, long time, she finally said, “She doesn’t want to.”
I was a little sad.
Once, Sister Qing fell asleep while waiting to go on stage and called out 97’s name in her dream.
I thought she loved 97.
But she let 97 go so decisively. And that useless 97 actually left just as decisively. It left me in a really awkward position.
Later, I thought about how long the rest of life is. What kind of love can’t I have? Nothing is more important than Sister Qing’s happiness. Since she doesn’t love 97, then goodbye 97, the next one will be more obedient.
I believed this to be the truth, and so I was put in an even more awkward position.
—Dong Ya, recorded at the wedding of Wei Jiuli and Shi Qing.
…
The bedroom window faced east.
At seven in the morning, the city had yet to awaken. The morning glow secretly tore open a seam where the sky and earth met. A flash of crimson light spilled out, painting the river a rich rouge.
There were no lights on in the room, and all the light came from the fiery glow on the river.
Shi Qing sat propped up against the headboard, naked. A thin silk blanket loosely covered her, subtly outlining the curve of her br3asts. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders, but could not hide the crimson marks on her neck.
Freshly left from the night before.
“Mm…”
Next to her, the person completely wrapped in the blanket was awakened by her internal clock. She wriggled around, groping left and right, but found no one.
She pulled back the blanket, her beautiful eyes squinting at the unfamiliar light. She scanned the room and finally spotted the person sitting thoughtfully on the headboard.
Lazily, she crawled over, burrowed into the thin blanket, wrapped her arms around Shi Qing’s slender waist, and took a deep, satisfying breath of her scent.
This past year, she woke up like this every time.
She would cling to Shi Qing like a koala, kissing her shoulder, then her collarbone, as if she could never get enough. Finally, she would bury her face in the soft crook of her neck, humming to herself and leaving a kiss on her cheek from time to time.
Sticky and lingering.
Just like a kitten that had just woken up, extremely clingy.
Shi Qing enjoyed her dependence very much. She tilted her head back, offering her neck to the girl’s mouth.
She lifted one hand, her long, slender fingers pushing aside the black hair and stroking the skin on her nape.
It was hard to tell if it was an act of comfort or a reward.
After hugging for a while, they were both a bit more awake. Wei Jiuli thought back on the night’s events, and a dimple appeared on her porcelain-white face. Her eyes were sparkling.
Shi Qing caught her smile, a grin spreading across her own lips. She lightly tapped the tip of Wei Jiuli’s nose and asked:
“What are you smiling about?”
Wei Jiuli lowered her head, intensifying her hug, and said softly, “It was our first time without a finger cot.”
Shi Qing laughed. “And it will be our last.”
Wei Jiuli’s hand on Shi Qing’s waist slowed. “You don’t like it?”
Shi Qing didn’t say anything.
Wei Jiuli compromised almost instantly, still feeling sweet inside. “Then I’ll wear one every time from now on.”
Shi Qing stopped stroking her nape and said in a slow voice, “Kitten, what I mean is, there won’t be a next time for us.”
Finally, Wei Jiuli’s expression froze. The sweet affection faded, and she got off Shi Qing. A strand of her long hair draped over her nose, making her gaze toward Shi Qing appear a little more fragile.
“What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.
Shi Qing smiled gently, just like the first time they met. Her smile was enchanting, her eyes turned up at the corners, like a cup of warm water that would never cool, always so calm.
“It’s already been a year.”
They had been in this casual relationship for a year.
Wei Jiuli was a bit at a loss.
“But we were so happy this year.”
“Mm.”
Shi Qing didn’t deny the emotional value of the past year. “But happiness has an expiration date.”
Wei Jiuli stared at her, trying to find some hint of emotion on that exquisite yet utterly calm face. She asked:
“Was it because we didn’t use the finger cot last night? I can change, A-Qing. If you don’t like it, I’ll wear one every time from now on, okay?”
Shi Qing gently pushed away her disheveled hair, her tone flat. “If I didn’t like it, I would have said so at the time.”
She didn’t push Wei Jiuli away, but simply turned in her now-loosened embrace and took a check from the bedside table drawer. It had already been written before she came back yesterday.
“I promised to support you until you graduated. You have one more month before your internship and starting your career.”
She held the check out. “This money should be enough for you to rent a place and buy a few decent clothes for your first year of auditions. Take it.”
Wei Jiuli quickly turned her head away. “I don’t want it.”
Shi Qing didn’t force her, she just placed the check on the blanket in front of her.
“Kitten, don’t be childish.”
With that, she gently patted Wei Jiuli’s shoulder, calmly slid out of the thin blanket, got out of bed, and put on a nightgown that was carelessly piled on the bay window.
The nightgown was Wei Jiuli’s. It was short, barely reaching her thighs. As she walked, a crimson mark on the back of her knee, left by Wei Jiuli last night, was clearly visible.
This was just Shi Qing’s nature.
She wasn’t into it out of love, and she wasn’t leaving out of dislike.
Like a cherry blossom petal floating down from the sky, landing in the softest part of your palm. Just as you think you’ve caught her, she’ll drift away with the breeze.
So light, yet so heartless.
Jiang City’s autumn is painted with oil. Past the Qingjiang Bridge lies a long, straight avenue of sycamore trees. Their branches are dense and their leaves overlap. The golden leaves add a touch of melancholy in the autumn sun.
Further on is the movie studio lot with its classically designed buildings. After the studio, the road climbs the mountain, covered in red maples. From a drone, you would see the emerald green of the Qingjiang River seamlessly connect to the golden sycamores and then gradually turn crimson.
Looking up, there’s only a vast blue sky.
By the river, on the balcony of a photo studio.
A sun umbrella was tilted on the ground. Underneath it, a woman in a long, dark green dress lay on a lounge chair, facing the opposite side of the river. It was unclear if she was looking at the crimson mountains or the endless blue sky.
“Sister, Sister Qing.”
Assistant Dong Ya trotted out and squatted by the lounge chair. She lowered her voice secretly, like a thief.
“We’ve been waiting for three hours. I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
They’ve been waiting to start shooting since noon after Shi Qing’s hair and makeup were done.
The magazine staff kept saying there was a problem with the equipment and kept delaying the shoot.
Dong Ya whispered, “I just checked, they haven’t called anyone to fix the equipment. The photographer has been on the phone the whole time. When they saw me, they suddenly stopped talking about whatever they were discussing and just gave me awkward smiles.”
At this point, the situation was obvious.
There was no need for Dong Ya to say it. Making an artist wait for three hours without a proper explanation made the intentions clear.
Shi Qing sat up from the lounge chair. The river breeze ruffled her hair, a strand of which fell across her eyelashes. She calmly brushed it behind her ear. She looked at the sulking Dong Ya and smiled gently, saying, “Is this your first day in the entertainment industry?”
Dong Ya saw her calm demeanor and felt even more wronged on her behalf.
“No, it’s just…” she began, her voice catching. “It just feels like, even if they wanted to replace you, they should have told us sooner. You’ve been waiting here with your makeup on for so long.”
Shi Qing remained composed. “They might have just been notified as well. Magazine shoots are paid by the job. You think they’re happy to wait with me, shoot nothing today, and have to come out again tomorrow?”
Dong Ya was indignant. “Only you would be so kind as to consider them. They’re just bullying us! ‘Broken equipment’? What a load of crap!”
Shi Qing was amused by her sudden outburst. Her shoulders shook with laughter, and her crystal earrings swayed, reflecting the autumn sunlight.
Dong Ya noticed her swollen earlobes and felt a pang of sympathy.
“Sister, let me take off your earrings. They’re so heavy, and they’re not even sterling silver. They’re all inflamed.”
Shi Qing raised her hand familiarly. “I can do it myself.”
With the earrings off, her head felt instantly lighter.
Dong Ya felt for her. She took a small bottle of povidone-iodine from her crossbody bag, sprayed it on a cotton swab, and gently dabbed it on the red earlobes.
“Let’s disinfect them now and apply more after you shower tonight. It’s a good thing you don’t have anything scheduled tomorrow, so you don’t have to wear earrings.”
Shi Qing didn’t seem to mind. “It’s fine even if I do. It’s just an earring.”
She propped her elbow on her bent knee and gazed at the vast river, sighing wistfully.
“I actually wish I did have something. My schedule is so empty, my acting skills must be getting rusty.”
Dong Ya quickly corrected her self-deprecating remarks.
“Who says? While we’re not as busy as A-listers, we still have one project a year. And the ratings are all high. I was scrolling through posts the other day, and someone called you the ‘Script Savior,’ saying that any script you star in will never be bad.”
Shi Qing smiled faintly. “Where did you see that? Such high praise.”
Dong Ya pulled out her phone. “Just a content creator who does movie and TV show roundups. I saved it, I’ll send it to you.”
She clicked on a WeChat profile, and then remembered the person who had been so closely linked to Shi Qing recently. She clicked on another profile.
“Hehe, I’ll share it with 97 too. She gets so happy whenever she sees videos praising you. She even edited a video and submitted it before. We fought the haters in the comments section for three hundred rounds, we weren’t scared at all!”
97, Wei Jiuli, was the nickname Dong Ya gave her.
Just as she was about to press “Confirm Share,” a slender hand covered the screen.
“Huh?”
Dong Ya looked up, confused. For some reason, she saw a flash of sadness in Shi Qing’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Shi Qing was as calm as before, her smile even a little wider. But her eyes were clouded with an unknown emotion, making them hard to read.
“Don’t send her anything anymore.”
“Why?”
Shi Qing pulled her hand back and turned to face the windy Qingjiang River, her voice fragmented by the wind.
“She left.”
She paused, then added, “I told her to.”
Dong Ya was momentarily stunned. “Why so sudden? You two were fine last week, weren’t you?”
Shi Qing nodded, staring at the shimmering ripples on the river’s surface. “Some birds shouldn’t stay in a cage.”
Dong Ya felt a little lost.
She looked at Shi Qing from head to toe and back, trying to see what she was truly thinking, but it was like looking into a still pond—she could only see her own reflection, nothing else.
She didn’t quite understand what Shi Qing meant by “birds” and “cages,” she just felt that humans are made of flesh and bl00d.
“Sister, are you sad?”
Shi Qing smiled. Few people had ever asked her that.
“What do you think?”
Dong Ya had no answer. “I don’t know. But 97 must be sad.”
Shi Qing shook her head slightly. “Don’t think of her as being so fragile. She’s a very mature person.”
Dong Ya didn’t reply. She always subconsciously wanted to agree with Shi Qing.
But on that day, she didn’t follow Shi Qing’s lead.
She thought about it. She couldn’t be so impulsive.
She leaned on the railing, the wind blowing over her face again and again, until the third gust of wind passed and her scalp felt completely cold.
She still felt that—
Mature people can also be sad.
She had seen the look in 97’s eyes when she looked at Shi Qing. It was not something that could be simply summarized as “mature.” It was like a vine that grew from the deepest part of her heart, wrapping around the other person, intertwining.
It was relentless.
Sometimes, a person’s intuition can be terrifyingly accurate.
For example, whenever Dong Ya thought of that look, she knew, with certainty, that 97 would show up again.