Smile

At the same time, Xu Changlan arrived as well. She said she’d only come by on the way and, half-jokingly, looked toward Nie Cong as she said to everyone, “Qingyan is one of my artists. She wrapped filming today, so as her boss, I came to share in the good news. Surely there’s a place for me at the table?”

Nie Cong reacted fastest. “A big boss making time in the middle of a busy schedule to honor our little place with her presence; of course we’ll take good care of you. The food and drinks are on us.”

Everyone else chimed in.

Xu Changlan sat down with a smile. As she did, her gaze swept over everyone, lingering on Qin Qingyan for only a moment before moving on.

The lively atmosphere suddenly cooled. Everyone was still smiling, but the smiles no longer reached their eyes; it had turned into something perfunctory, an exhausting social exercise.

Su Yan didn’t understand it. Zheng Jingteng had already been exposed so badly before, practically a complete collapse, so why was Yu Qingyan, who clearly cared only about profit, still willing to stay by his side?

Perhaps her gaze was too open; Zheng Jingteng didn’t notice, but Xu Changlan did first.

“All of you know how this circle works. It’s not as if there aren’t cases where black is made to look white, or white is made to look black. Take the matter from half a year ago, when Jingteng was falsely accused…” she said, watching everyone’s reactions. “It was just a few photos, and no one even knew whether they were real, yet some people believed them completely.”

Several people at the table smiled along.

Nie Cong added, “Qingyan is a good actress, so of course she knows right from wrong. Since she’s still on such good terms with Jingteng, it just goes to show how much of the online noise was people chasing shadows.”

Those words left everyone with different thoughts.

Fortunately, Xu Changlan didn’t stay long, and Zheng Jingteng was tactful enough to leave early as well. Only then did the meal regain some liveliness, though the conversation remained noticeably more restrained.

Amid the noise of the crowded room, Qin Qingyan smiled as she watched them drink and joke and laugh. When no one was paying attention to her, she opened her phone. In the pinned messages at the top of WeChat, Yan Yue’s message from several hours earlier lay quietly waiting.

She missed her again. When she was alone, she missed her; when she was surrounded by people, she missed her even more.

After ten o’clock, they all said their goodbyes and parted at the door.

On the way back, the car stopped at a traffic light. It happened to begin raining lightly; within less than ten seconds, the rain came down hard, and the lights ahead blurred at once. Qin Qingyan spaced out for a moment. It wasn’t until Su Yan reminded her that she came back to herself and switched on the wipers.

The lights changed, and the line of cars moved off with them.

Just now, she had suddenly thought of the day she first met Yan Yue. It had also been a rainy day. So much time had passed, but when she thought of it now, she could still clearly feel the cold she had felt then. Yan Yue had given her a thin blanket; a faint fragrance clung to it, a scent she had only ever smelled on Yan Yue herself.

Back at the apartment complex, the home was empty and quiet, the light pale and cold. Qin Qingyan went through her usual routine: brushing her teeth, washing up, drying her hair. Then she lay on the sofa and watched a variety show, covered with the thin blanket Yan Yue usually draped over herself. After so long, the scent on the blanket was almost gone, but she still covered herself with it.

Half-dreaming, she finally lost to exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep.

Early the next morning, she was woken by a ringtone. Her mind still wasn’t clear; she fumbled for her phone. “Hello.”

She didn’t know what the other side said, but Qin Qingyan’s eyes cleared at once. After answering with a soft “Okay,” she closed her eyes and steadied herself for a moment, then threw off the blanket and got up.

It was already bright outside. She had actually slept on the sofa all night. Staring out at the fine weather, she fell into a daze.

That feeling had only existed in the hard days when she first arrived in Nanjing City. After finishing a part-time job and returning to her tiny rental, she would somehow fall asleep without knowing when, and wake up to find it was already the next day. Then she would have to rush to the subway, rush to another part-time job, rush to earn money.

Taking a deep breath, she thought of the filming having wrapped and decided to rest for a few months, to recover a little. Remembering the call from earlier, Qin Qingyan tidied up and soon headed out.

She waited outside the airport. Not long after, the Qin family arrived too.

Xiao Yunlian came with her daughter Qin Yu and exchanged a few brief words with Qin Qingyan. Then mother and daughter went into the terminal to check in, leaving Qin Xun alone with his daughter.

Qin Xun’s heart was full of mixed emotions. He knew he owed his daughter too much; no matter what she wanted, he would do everything he could to give it to her. Yet Qin Qingyan was as sensible as she had been when she was little; she blamed him for nothing and never resented him.

Because of that, he only felt even more indebted.

“Qingyan, Dad’s going back to Beicheng now. If you miss Dad, you can call any time…” Qin Xun suddenly stopped. He no longer had the courage to finish.

Qin Qingyan had lived on her own for so many years; he had been absent for so many years. If he had never married Xiao Yunlian, then as far as Qin Qingyan was concerned, he might have truly been her only father.

But he had married. Xiao Yunlian and Qin Yu were destined to stand between them like a barrier.

Qin Qingyan understood, and so did he.

“I will. If I’m ever filming in Beicheng, I’ll come see you,” Qin Qingyan said with an easy smile.

Her words were light, and her smile was light too. They both knew it was only a polite response.

The weight in Qin Xun’s chest finally eased, and the thing he had worried about most was at last put to rest. Father and daughter looked at each other, opened their mouths, and said nothing. It wasn’t that they had nothing to say; there was too much to say, and they didn’t know where to begin.

“Go on in. I should be leaving too,” Qin Qingyan said.

“Ah… right. Go on, then.”

Qin Qingyan gave him one last smile before turning to leave.

Qin Xun subconsciously wanted to call her back, but what could he say? The receding figure blurred before his eyes. His eyes turned red, and he hurriedly wiped them.

He remembered Qin Qingyan when she was little, with her hair in two braids, not even able to speak clearly yet but already knowing to ask him for candy. If he didn’t give it to her, she would cry. She only dared to act that way in front of him; in front of her mother, she was obedient to the point of being unbelievably well-behaved.

But at night, she always liked clinging to her mother and falling asleep in her arms. For that, he had called her a “little white-eyed wolf” more than once.

He steadied his breathing and turned toward Xiao Yunlian and Qin Yu.

After leaving the airport, Qin Qingyan sat alone on a bench in the central square. Sunlight fell on her brown baseball cap, leaving her face in shadow beneath the brim. Both hands in her pockets, she watched all kinds of people pass by in front of her.

Some were curious about her; they glanced over a few times, then left again with friends or family walking together.

She sat there all morning, but no one knew she had sat there all morning.

Just after noon, her phone rang with a video call. The ringtone surged through her like a living spring, flowing from her heart to every part of her body and filling her completely in an instant; she seemed to come back to life.

She saw that it was Yan Yue, but this time she didn’t answer right away. Instead, she placed a voice call.

The other side picked up quickly. “What is it?”

Yan Yue was asking why she hadn’t answered the video and had called instead. Qin Qingyan understood, but hearing it still made it sound like concern of the sort she had wanted to believe in.

She forced some energy into her voice. “Nothing. It’s just not convenient here.”

“Are you outside?” Yan Yue didn’t press further and changed the subject.

“Mm, just getting some sun.” She looked up; the sunlight was glaring. “The weather is especially nice today.”

Yan Yue laughed softly on the other end. “It’s nice here too. The sky is very clear.”

Qin Qingyan suddenly wanted to cry.

She didn’t know why. It came out of nowhere, completely without reason; she just wanted to cry. But she held it back, just as she didn’t want Yan Yue to see how worn out she looked.

She didn’t want Yan Yue to worry about her.

“Have you eaten?” Yan Yue asked.

“Not yet.” Qin Qingyan covered the phone and cleared her throat.

There was a brief silence on the other end. “Is there a restaurant nearby? Book a private room and eat first. I want to see you.”

Qin Qingyan agreed.

She went to the restroom to fix her makeup, covering the paleness in her face with a little foundation, adding a faint wash of eyeshadow, and putting on lipstick. She smiled at herself in the mirror; after confirming that nothing looked out of place, she went back to the private room and started the video call.

Yan Yue was also in a restaurant, also in a private room.

“Why are you still wearing a hat?” Yan Yue asked with a smile.

Qin Qingyan said, “I didn’t wash my hair. I’m hiding it.”

Yan Yue noticed the delicate makeup on her face. When the two of them had only just gotten together, Qin Qingyan had paid especially close attention to her appearance. But later, she had become much more casual.

Over the past few months, unless Qin Qingyan was on set, she rarely wore makeup when they video-called, let alone anything as noticeable as eyeshadow.

While cutting into a steak, Yan Yue asked casually, “The film’s wrapped. What did you do all morning?”

“Got some sun,” Qin Qingyan said.

“Where?”

“Central Square.”

“You were there all morning?” Yan Yue asked.

Qin Qingyan hesitated before saying, “I got up a bit late today. I actually didn’t stay there that long.”

Yan Yue nodded. “Do you have anything this afternoon or tonight? If not, I’ll video call you again later.”

“Nothing. I haven’t had much work these past few months; I’m usually just at home,” Qin Qingyan said truthfully.

After a long while with no reply, Qin Qingyan looked up at Yan Yue on the other end of the call. She was eating her salad in small bites. Qin Qingyan lowered her eyes again and picked up a piece of chicken, chewing slowly.

“Qin Qingyan,” Yan Yue said without looking up, “did something happen today?” Her clear voice rang through the private room.

Qin Qingyan froze, then said lightly, “No. The filming’s wrapped, so I suddenly have time on my hands. I’m even a little bored.”

Yan Yue looked at her for a long time and said nothing. She had no one to meet all day, no events to attend, yet she had put on such careful makeup…

She didn’t know what had happened to Qin Qingyan, but she knew for certain that something had.

“Qin Qingyan, if you’re bored, call me. I’m here,” Yan Yue said.

Qin Qingyan lowered her head, her voice slipping out from under the brim of her hat. “Okay.”

Yan Yue stared toward the other end of the screen. She couldn’t see her eyes, but she just knew that beneath the hat were a pair of red eyes.

And sure enough, in an instant, a tear dropped quickly. Yan Yue happened to catch it.

Qin Qingyan seemed to sense something; pretending it was an accident, she knocked her phone over and hurriedly wiped away the tear, making herself look normal again.

Then she pointed the camera back at herself. “I accidentally knocked it over just now.”

“What?” Yan Yue said.

“It’s nothing.” Qin Qingyan smiled, guessing that Yan Yue had been eating and hadn’t noticed.

Yan Yue led the conversation onward, talking about lighthearted things, until the smile on Qin Qingyan’s face finally lost its disguise.