Lady By The Pillow - Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Once More (Part 2)

◎ “I can drink too.” ◎

Fan Erhua’s birthday was celebrated on set every year.

She didn’t like to make a big deal out of it. After work, she would just video chat with her family back at the hotel.

But this year, she was turning 50, a significant milestone. Her sister, Fan Qin, personally organized a party. She hired a company specializing in outdoor parties to set up a small bonfire party in the large studio that the crew had rented.

Fan Erhua rarely had a chance to let loose, so she decided to indulge her sister’s kind gesture. After wrapping up the day’s filming, she threw herself into the party preparations. To make sure everyone had a great time, she even promised a half-day off the following day.

“Ms. Shi, we’ll be filming some content of you and Ms. Wei tonight. I just wanted to let you know.”

Lu Shan Shan from the promotions team came to give them a heads-up and suggested, “After you take off your filming makeup, do you want to touch up with some party makeup?”

Shi Qing had never been particular about makeup; she only needed it to reflect her current state. Since it was an after-work party with colleagues she saw every day, a bare face was enough.

“Okay. I think I’ll be fine without makeup.”

Lu Shan Shan seemed to have guessed her answer and chuckled, “You and Ms. Wei are the same. You both said you’d go without makeup. What a telepathic connection!”

“Telepathic connection” was usually a term for lovers, which didn’t quite fit Shi Qing and Wei Jiuyi. But the crew was used to joking around, often borrowing a few phrases from the CP super topic to relieve the exhaustion of filming.

Shi Qing chatted amiably with her while Dong Ya tidied up the daily necessities they had brought for filming.

Wan Xin was cleaning up the makeup remover they had just used. She paused for a second when she heard Lu Shan Shan’s words, but only for a moment, before she went back to putting away the cotton pads.

They were going to film content with Wei Jiuyi tonight, in other words—work the “CP.”

After that night, the two of them hadn’t had a proper conversation. The subtle, unhappy end of their last encounter had become a bubble of hydrogen in their hearts, afraid to touch an open flame or cause friction. At most, they would greet each other. Their most extensive conversations were the lines they had to say for the script. At most, they would run through a scene before shooting, but those conversations were always related to the plot.

Since it was a “private party,” they had to act like they were in “private life.”

Shi Qing, you know that in plain sight, this scene can’t have an NG. There are no retakes, only one take is allowed.

“Where’s Ms. Wei?” Shi Qing asked.

“Oh, she’s already taken her makeup off and is waiting for you. I suggest you two go over together because we’ve set up a live stream at the entrance. The effect would be great if you two could enter together.”

Shi Qing looked at Wan Xin’s reflection in the mirror. She was young, so she couldn’t hide her thoughts. When she heard Lu Shan Shan’s plan for her and Wei Jiuyi to enter together, her hand movements sped up with anxiety.

“Such a thoughtful arrangement?” she said on purpose. “What if I don’t go along with it?”

She said it playfully, and Lu Shan Shan knew it. Last time, when she interviewed them for the media, she could see that Shi Qing was very happy when she was with Wei Jiuyi.

So she feigned anger, “That’s right, you can’t say no! Hahaha—”

Shi Qing nodded, showing no emotion in her eyes. “Okay, then I’ll go find Ms. Wei. Where is she waiting for me?”

Lu Shan Shan said, “Just in the basement parking lot, in the area where our crew’s cars are parked. It should be easy to find her car.”

Shi Qing got up. “Okay, then I’ll change and we can go.”

She went to the restroom to wash her face, applied some lotion, and then changed into the shirt dress she had brought in the morning and hung in the dressing room.

It was a very simple white dress with no patterns or accessories. It only had a crisscross design on the front, creating an elegant little wave on her chest. A thin denim belt with three braided strings gave it a handmade feel. When casually tied, it drew a galaxy on the pure white fabric.

Dong Ya watched, but said nothing.

She had no idea what a white shirt meant to Shi Qing and Wei Jiuyi, or that Wei Jiuyi had once torn Shi Qing’s white shirt in a moment of passion, or that Shi Qing had once bought an entire closet of almost all-white, pure-and-seductive style pajamas.

The purity of a white shirt combined with Shi Qing’s unique elegance was Wei Jiuyi’s biggest aphrodisiac.

The three of them tidied up and went downstairs. Wei Jiuyi was indeed waiting in the car.

She was wearing the black shirt and trousers Shi Qing had given her that day, but she had added a brooch on the left side of her chest—a golden woodpecker—to make the outfit less boring.

The moment she saw the flash of white coming out of the elevator, Wei Jiuyi reflexively opened the car door. Her long legs stepped out, but then she remembered the awkwardness of that night and retreated, waiting until Shi Qing got closer to ask, “All ready?”

Shi Qing nodded. “Yes, Ms. Wei, I’m hitching another ride with you.”

Dong Ya echoed, “Hehe, we’re always bothering you.”

Wan Xin, to Shi Qing’s left, politely nodded to Wei Jiuyi, whom she was meeting formally for the first time.

“Hello, Ms. Wei.”

Wei Jiuyi’s gaze left Shi Qing for a moment to fall on Wan Xin, then returned to Shi Qing, as if Shi Qing were a magnet.

“This must be the new assistant, right?”

Shi Qing nodded and introduced her with normal social etiquette.

“Yes, this is Xiao Wan. Xiao Wan, this is Ms. Wei, the new Best Actress. You know her.”

Wan Xin quickly nodded, “I do, I do. I went to the movie theater to watch your film twice!”

After a brief greeting, Zhang Yulan, who had just returned from the restroom, gasped in surprise, “Wow—Ms. Shi, you look so pretty in that dress!”

Dong Ya felt a sense of pride, as if her own family member had become a top scholar.

“Hmph, of course. Light colors suit our Sister Qing so well.”

The group got into the car. Wan Xin wisely went to the back seat with Dong Ya and Zhang Yulan, leaving the passenger seat for Shi Qing—whether for the “CP” work or because of a real relationship, she shouldn’t have taken the passenger seat at that moment.

Zhang Yulan continued to marvel, “Seriously, Ms. Shi, I used to think you looked good in ancient costumes, but your modern outfits didn’t quite hit the spot for me. But today’s white dress is really amazing!”

Every girl loves a sincere compliment, and Shi Qing was no exception.

“Then tell me, what kind of amazing?”

“It’s, how do I say it? I think what suits you isn’t just white, but also fabrics like shirts—simple, smooth, and not gaudy. It just perfectly brings out your clean and pure aura!”

She felt that wasn’t enough and added, “Yes, perfect.”

Shi Qing, seeing her go on and on, teased, “If you praise me so much, what if Ms. Wei gets jealous?”

Wei Jiuyi raised her hand, “I object. She’s been mentally disloyal for a while now.”

Zhang Yulan panicked, “I am not!”

Dong Ya added fuel to the fire, “Say what you just said again. I’m going to record it. I have a caption for my Weibo tonight.”

The four of them laughed and chatted. Even Shi Qing, who rarely showed her emotions, had her eyes curved into smiles. From Wan Xin’s angle, she could see Shi Qing’s eyes clearly in the rearview mirror—

The eyebrows show sadness, the eyes show laughter. Shi Qing was genuinely happy at this moment.

Wan Xin found it very strange. She had been at the job for a week, and Shi Qing had always been reserved. The face that could show a dozen different emotions on camera showed little change in person. She often had a gentle smile that made people feel like it was a bright spring day, but it never made people truly feel her happiness.

Instead, she always felt that Shi Qing was hiding something in her heart. That thing was both bitter and a little sweet. It made Shi Qing feel troubled yet seemed to be looking forward to it happening.

The three in the back were playing a mini-game on Dong Ya’s phone. They stared at the clues for a long time but couldn’t guess the correct answer in the box.

In the front, Wei Jiuyi drove with one hand on the steering wheel, while Shi Qing leaned back in the passenger seat. She didn’t speak or sleep, just stared blankly ahead. The orange streetlights passed through the car window, slowly moving across her pale face, and when they reached her eyes, they shone like stars.

Wei Jiuyi saw this but said nothing. She just waited for a red light to pull a small 100-milliliter bottle of mineral water from the storage compartment and hand it to Shi Qing.

“It’ll be more than ten minutes before we get there. Drink some water.”

Shi Qing’s gaze returned from the distance. She looked to her side and took the water.

“Thank you.”

Wan Xin saw it all from the back seat.

It was hard for her to define whether “giving a colleague a bottle of water” was something that went beyond a normal colleague relationship. But, what she did before handing over the water—instinctively unscrewing the cap for Shi Qing—was something a normal colleague would never do.

Just as she was thinking, Dong Ya nudged her with an elbow.

“It’s your turn.”

She quickly refocused on the puzzle on Dong Ya’s phone.

In the front, the emotions of the two had reached their peak after days of not meeting, and they were too consumed to care about Wan Xin.

Wei Jiuyi handed over the bottle of water, and Shi Qing drank from it, both thinking the same thing—

Maybe she doesn’t hate me that much.

The low-key matte car wrap didn’t reflect light in the night. Black swallowed all colors. Even when they drove through a street full of colorful lights, the vibrant neon could only cast blurry clumps on the car’s roof.

Everything was hidden on the inside.

The crew’s largest studio was far from the city center, more than ten kilometers from their usual filming location. By the time they arrived, the party had already started. The crew member in charge of checking people in saw Shi Qing and Wei Jiuyi and quickly waved them over.

“Ms. Shi! Ms. Wei! Over here—”

He pointed to the phone set up for the live stream on the side.

“Come and say hello to our friends in the live stream!”

The two of them cooperated, waving at the camera. The comments and bullet points immediately went into a frenzy.

【AHHHH, it’s my wife and my wife’s wife!】

【Did you two plan to wear black and white? You couldn’t be a more perfect match!】

【All the solo fans, come and see this! Whose colleagues would show up together if they don’t get along? Who?! Speak up, solo fans!!】

“Xiao Shi, Jiu Yi, you’re here.”

Fan Erhua’s eyes crinkled into a smile when she saw her two leads.

“We were just talking about you two. Your performance in this afternoon’s scene was exceptionally good.”

Shi Qing smiled sweetly, “Not at all. It’s because you, Director Fan, guided us so well.”

Wei Jiuyi agreed, “Right. Only with a good director can an actor’s potential be unlocked.”

Fan Erhua was about to say more, but her sister, Fan Qin, immediately interrupted, “Hey, we agreed tonight is for a birthday celebration, no talking about work.”

Fan Erhua raised her hands in surrender, “Okay, okay, no work talk.”

Shi Qing took a bottle of red wine from Dong Ya and held it in front of her.

“Director Fan, you said yesterday that no one should give you a gift on your birthday. You’d scold anyone who did. So, let me be clear, this is not a gift. I just brought it to add to the fun. Everyone, let’s have a good time.”

She didn’t violate Fan Erhua’s rule but still showed a little sincerity. Shi Qing always did things gracefully.

As expected, Fan Erhua was very pleased.

“Hahaha! Good, Xiao Shi, that’s very thoughtful of you!”

Wei Jiuyi also raised her eyebrows happily.

“Ms. Shi, this bottle of wine isn’t cheap. If I remember correctly, this is Director Fan’s favorite winery.”

Fan Erhua picked it up and looked closely.

“It really is. Xiao Qin, have someone aerate it. We’ll drink it tonight.”

Wei Jiuyi had been carrying a bag since she got out of the car. Taking Shi Qing’s lead, she proudly took it out.

“Director Fan, my bottle isn’t red wine. It’s my favorite brandy. The alcohol content is a bit high, but it’s satisfying. I thought you’d be happy tonight, Director Fan, so we might as well drink our fill. We won’t go home until we’re drunk.”

Fan Erhua had a bold personality. She usually enjoyed tasting red wine, but when it came to truly letting loose, brandy was also one of her favorites.

“Hahaha! You two came as a duo today! Looks like I have no choice but to drink!”

Brandy didn’t need to be aerated; it could be drunk right after being poured.

But high-proof distilled spirits were no joke. Fan Erhua enthusiastically poured two glasses. The amber liquid shimmered seductively under the neon lights, and the stimulating aroma of the liquor filled the air, exuding an irresistible temptation.

“Come on, consider this my toast to both of you. You work so hard on set and were so thoughtful today, bringing me two such great bottles of wine! Xiao Shi, I know your alcohol tolerance isn’t high, so let’s drink the red wine you brought separately later. Jiu Yi, you can handle it. How about we finish this glass?”

Fan Erhua was the first to pick up one of the glasses. Not to be outdone, Wei Jiuyi picked up the other.

“Okay! Then—”

Just as the two were about to drink, Shi Qing spoke up.

“Director Fan, you’re looking down on me. I can drink too.”

Wei Jiuyi was shocked—a glass of medicated wine would make Shi Qing a little tipsy. What would a glass of brandy do?!

As she spoke, Shi Qing had already poured a glass for herself. She raised both hands in front of her, facing Fan Erhua, the curve of her lips so beautiful it was almost enchanting.

“Happy Birthday, Director Fan.”

The porcelain cups made a crisp sound as they clinked. The spicy liquor flowed down her throat, searing her entire windpipe.

Some things, you only have the courage to do when you’re drunk.