Chapter 19

Chapter 19 At eleven o’clock at night, Zhou Jingyu had already fallen asleep. But he had always been a light sleeper, and when a message came through, he woke up. “Good night.” It was a message from Wen Tang. After seeing this message, Zhou Jingyu frowned almost imperceptibly. These two short words didn’t seem to match her usual texting style. Before, she would either send a long paragraph or several messages in succession. But now. At eleven o’clock at night… good night? The night made people shed all their worries. Without much thought, Zhou Jingyu replied to the message. Another message came back from her side. “I can’t sleep.” “I thought you would never talk to me again.” The replies came quickly, sounding pitiful. Before, he didn’t know who was on the other end of the phone and couldn’t imagine it. Now Zhou Jingyu could almost generate an image in his mind—Wen Tang with downcast eyes and furrowed brows, in low spirits. She was truly a person of contradictions, inconsistent inside and out. On the way to the company, one could see her massive advertisements daily, running through forests without a care, like a sprite. In their few meetings, he had seen her barely holding back tears while taking a call, and seen her disheveled with red wine spilled on her clothes. These impressions of her were deep. When she saw him, she never looked him in the eye, not sparing him a glance—arrogant, refined, excessively beautiful, the way a female celebrity should be. But when chatting with him on WeChat, her messages were unexpectedly numerous—coquettish, playful, and so pitiful. If he hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, it would be hard to imagine that the person inside and outside this phone was the same person. In the darkness, the light from the phone screen illuminated Zhou Jingyu’s indifferent brows and eyes. He sat up in bed, looking at the two lines she had sent. After a moment, he replied. 【Y: I’m sorry.】【Y: It will never happen again.】 Wen Tang waited nearly two minutes before the reply came. Upon seeing it, her lips curved upward. The tears she had shed earlier had already been wiped away by her hand. She didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly she felt so aggrieved that tears fell. She had never been like this before. It was good that no one saw her, or she would have been embarrassed. 【One Candy: You said it, so you’re not allowed to do it again next time.】【Y: Mm.】 Tacitly, neither of them mentioned why they had suddenly gone silent a few days ago. He had come back, and Wen Tang only wanted to be coquettish. 【One Candy: But you have a track record, so I don’t trust you anymore.】【Y: What would it take for you to trust me?】【One Candy: Hmph, hmph, hmph.】 … That night, he kept her company chatting until one or two in the morning—something that had never happened before. Until her eyelids could no longer stay open and Wen Tang was exhausted, she said good night without waiting for a reply from the other side, and fell asleep satisfied. The next morning, when leaving the apartment for the film set, she saw Wen Haifeng at the door again. For two consecutive days, Wen Haifeng claimed to be Wen Tang’s father. The property management called to confirm, and Wen Tang simply said she didn’t know him. The second evening when she returned, Wen Haifeng was no longer there. The third morning, Wen Haifeng didn’t come again. Instead, after arriving at the film set, she heard another piece of news. Gong Yue’s variety show hadn’t finished filming yet, so he would be delayed by a week before joining the cast. He was originally supposed to arrive in three or four days. Both the director and producer were unhappy about this. Gong Yue was just an eighteenth-tier actor with no fame. For a production like “Hearing Your Heart” with such a luxurious cast, how many people were dying to get in? Yet Gong Yue was delaying his arrival because of something else. In such a situation, it was quite possible for the director and producer to simply replace him. Wen Tang didn’t know what Gong Yue was thinking. These past two days, she and Gong Yue had resumed contact, and they had more to talk about than before. Sometimes he would keep her company chatting until one or two in the morning. Her rule of sleeping at ten o’clock had been completely broken. After reconnecting, Gong Yue was extremely patient and infinitely tolerant toward her. With him, Wen Tang could always be uninhibited and laugh freely. Wen Tang’s mood had been excellent these past two days. Neither of them had discussed work matters. From his words, Wen Tang couldn’t sense at all whether there were any problems with his work. “I heard the director is already looking for other candidates,” Yangyang said after making a round of the film set following news of Gong Yue’s one-week delay, sharing the latest information with Wen Tang and Kexin.