Figuring out who should ride with whom on the way home was apparently an art in itself.
Jia Zhi Qing and Xiao Bai had both ridden over in Yan Su Ang’s car, but when it was time to leave, Yan Su Ang flatly refused to let Jia Zhi Qing ride back with them. His reason was that three people were too heavy, and on the way there he had felt the car struggling a little.
—A Lamborghini couldn’t handle the weight of three people!
Gao Qin, Lian Jue Xiu, and Jia Zhi Qing joined forces in despising his terrible excuse.
Gao Qin lived in the opposite direction from Xiao Bai, while the hotel Lian Jue Xiu was staying at was relatively close, making him the second choice.
Unexpectedly, Gao Qin volunteered. “I’ll drive him.”
Lian Jue Xiu merely looked at him with a smile and said nothing.
Holding his overstuffed stomach, Jia Zhi Qing shook his head. “No. I don’t want nightmares tonight.”
“……”
Gao Qin sneered. “Looking at me gives you nightmares?”
Rubbing his stomach, Jia Zhi Qing said, “Looking at you doesn’t, but listening to you talk definitely does!” Having a nightmare at night was not frightening. What was frightening was dreaming it at night and having it come true the next day.
Lian Jue Xiu deliberately draped an arm over Jia Zhi Qing’s shoulders and glanced at Gao Qin. “Looks like I’m the only option left.”
Jia Zhi Qing calmly brushed away his wandering paw with one hand. “As you should be.”
Lian Jue Xiu raised an eyebrow. “Has the government passed a law requiring me to provide free transportation home to anyone surnamed Jia and named Zhi Qing?”
“It’s called returning a favor,” Jia Zhi Qing said through gritted teeth. “You should be grateful my house isn’t three hundred kilometers away.”
Lian Jue Xiu sighed. “You really are petty.”
Jia Zhi Qing pointed at his own nose. “I’m petty?! I drove you six hundred kilometers round trip, and I’m petty? You have your own car. Why didn’t you drive yourself?!”
Lian Jue Xiu replied as though it were obvious, “Because driving six hundred kilometers is exhausting.”
He knows it’s exhausting. Does he think I don’t?!
Jia Zhi Qing was so furious his stomach churned.
Gao Qin said coldly from the side, “Six hundred kilometers? Excellent. You can’t reimburse the gas for those six hundred kilometers.”
Jia Zhi Qing turned an iron-blue face toward Lian Jue Xiu.
Lian Jue Xiu obediently raised his hand. “I’ll reimburse it.”
Yan Su Ang was getting impatient. “Can we leave now?”
After giving Lian Jue Xiu a meaningful look, Gao Qin answered Yan Su Ang. “You can, but no midnight snack. Go straight home. I’ll call in half an hour to check on you.”
With Xiao Bai’s personality, there was absolutely no chance he would lie. Yan Su Ang’s beautiful little plan instantly shattered all over the floor.
“I %#¥#@%!” After cursing Gao Qin out, Jia Zhi Qing turned to Yan Su Ang. “Feel better?”
“……” Yan Su Ang asked, “Was that some kind of proxy-cursing service?”
Jia Zhi Qing’s eyes lit up. “Are you paying me?”
Yan Su Ang woodenly shook his head. “No.”
Jia Zhi Qing sighed. “Then consider it solidarity against a common enemy.”
Despite how short the drive was, Yan Su Ang still felt happy.
Inside such a small, enclosed space, there was only him and Xiao Bai. It felt almost as though they belonged exclusively to each other.
Even the red lights at intersections, which normally annoyed him, suddenly became adorable. He almost wished they would stay red forever and never turn green, freezing time at this exact moment.
When acting in the past, he had spoken plenty of sweet lines like “Let time stop here” and “Let this moment become eternity.” He had always delivered them sincerely, but once filming ended, he could not help privately mocking the screenwriters for coming up with such sickeningly sentimental dialogue.
Now, though, he thought those screenwriters really must have been speaking from experience.
Just as he was thinking this, a horn sounded behind them.
Looking through the rearview mirror, he saw a Chery QQ following them, its driver hammering furiously on the horn.
Elio’s Notes: The QQ here is the Chery QQ, a small Chinese city car, not Tencent’s QQ messaging service mentioned elsewhere in the story.
The street was not particularly wide and could accommodate at most two cars side by side, so Yan Su Ang moved his car closer to the curb.
The QQ caught up. As the two cars drew level, someone suddenly shouted through its open window, “Buddy! Driving a Lamborghini at barely twenty-something kilometers an hour—you’re number one in the entire universe!”
Yan Su Ang kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and pretended he had heard nothing.
Xiao Bai suddenly exclaimed, “Ah! That’s the guy who wanted the lollipop.”
That shirtless guy who asked to borrow money? What a coincidence.
Yan Su Ang turned curiously—and saw the QQ beside them heading straight toward a utility pole.
There was no time to think. He shouted, “Brake!”
Instinctively, the shirtless lollipop guy, who had been looking over at them and laughing his head off, slammed on the brakes without hesitation.
But it was too late.
Bang!
The utility pole buried itself into the front of the QQ.
Yan Su Ang immediately drove ahead to a slightly wider section of the road, stopped, and ran back. He knocked on the man’s car door. “Are you okay? Need help?”
The shirtless lollipop guy supported his forehead with one hand, his entire face submerged in shadow. “Let me calm down for a minute, buddy.”
Xiao Bai said, “Shouldn’t we call an ambulance first, then the police?”
Yan Su Ang added, “And the insurance company.”
The shirtless lollipop guy suddenly asked, “Can I have a lollipop?”
“……”
Xiao Bai took one from his bag. “Here. This one’s strawberry.”
As the man accepted it, he said, “The lychee one you gave me last time was really good.”
Xiao Bai asked, “Then should we make those calls for you?”
“No need.” The man waved gallantly. “You two go. I’ll deal with the rest myself… Sigh. The longer you stand there staring at me, the more cursed my luck feels.”
Yan Su Ang said meaningfully, “There are advantages to driving at twenty-something kilometers an hour.”
If the shirtless man had not pulled alongside them just to mock him, he probably would not still be sitting there alive and kicking, eating a lollipop.
The man said, “Buddy, just let me have some peace and quiet. Stop peering through the window at me like you’re visiting an exhibit at the zoo.”
Yan Su Ang sighed understandingly and pulled Xiao Bai back toward the car.
Only after the Lamborghini had driven away did the shirtless man mutter gloomily, “All I did was chat someone up for a lollipop, and I ended up in a car accident. Is life easy for me?”
To spend a little more time with Xiao Bai, Yan Su Ang deliberately took the long way back.
As a result, a drive that should have taken a little over twenty minutes was forcibly stretched by Yan Su Ang into more than forty.
Sure enough, Gao Qin’s tracking call came during the journey.
Yan Su Ang deliberately honked twice to prove that he really was still on the road and had not stopped for a midnight snack.
Gao Qin’s assessment was: “You should drive a taxi. At least then you could make money from this.” Given a perfectly straight road, Yan Su Ang insisted on turning it into an arc. After meeting him, who would believe gasoline prices were going up?
Detour or not, eventually they still had to arrive.
Yan Su Ang reluctantly escorted Xiao Bai out of the car.
Xiao Bai suddenly pulled a lollipop from his bag and handed it to him. “I specially brought extras today.”
Yan Su Ang accepted it and smiled bitterly. “This really is a good way to quit smoking.”
Xiao Bai smiled faintly. “Mm. It can cheer you up too.”
Yan Su Ang waved goodbye and was just about to leave when he suddenly looked up and noticed that the apartment upstairs was completely dark. He asked, “You live on the third floor, right?”
Xiao Bai nodded. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go home early.” Yan Su Ang waved, got back into his car, and immediately called Lian Jue Xiu.
On the other end of the phone, Lian Jue Xiu lamented, “First Gao Qin checks up on me, now you do too. Do you people seriously think I’m a human trafficker?”
Yan Su Ang wasted no words. “Location. Who’s with you?”
“Changchun Street. I’m alone.”
“Reason?”
“Car broke down. Waiting for a tow truck.”
Yan Su Ang thought for a moment. “Honk twice so I can hear it.”
Lian Jue Xiu wanted to swear. “We’ve been friends this long and you still don’t trust me?”
“It’s precisely because we’ve been friends this long that I don’t.”
Lian Jue Xiu said, “Seriously? Is my character really that untrustworthy?”
“You’re human during the day, a demon when you’re filming, and a wolf at night. Right now it’s night.”
Helpless, Lian Jue Xiu honked twice, then said into the phone, “If I get accused of making noise in the middle of the night and end up in the gossip headlines, you’re paying.”
“Fine. I’ll pay your lawyer’s fees.”
Lian Jue Xiu earnestly advised, “Stop learning from Gao Qin. Keep this up and sooner or later you’ll join the Tang Sect.”
“I didn’t become like this because of Gao Qin. I became like this because I’ve filmed too many movies with you.”
Lian Jue Xiu cursed under his breath. “Where are you now?”
“Downstairs from Xiao Bai’s place.”
“Oh. Perfect. Wait until Jia Zhi Qing gets home before you leave.”
Yan Su Ang froze. “Huh?”
“I originally gave him taxi fare and told him to take a cab home, but he took the money and refused to take the taxi. Insisted on getting some post-dinner exercise and walking all the way home instead. So help me make sure he gets back.”
“Can’t you call him yourself and check?”
“You want to give me his phone number?”
Yan Su Ang considered it briefly. “Forget it. Fine, I’ll wait.”
“The tow truck’s here. Hanging up.”
Yan Su Ang ended the call, got out of the car again, and looked up at the third floor.
The living-room light came on. Against the pale streetlights, its warm orange glow looked especially inviting.
Yan Su Ang took out his cigarettes and was about to pull one free when he suddenly remembered the lollipop. After hesitating, he put the cigarettes back into his pocket, unwrapped the candy, and slipped it into his mouth.
The sweetness of lychee instantly filled his entire mouth.
He did not particularly like sweets, but the taste somehow made him think of Xiao Bai.
The lychee was pale and sweet.
Xiao Bai was fair and sweet.
Different, yet somehow remarkably alike.
He remembered the first time he had seen Xiao Bai, on GO! GO! SU… SUPER STAR. Everyone else had been rushing around in a frenzy, flustered and frantic. Xiao Bai alone had stood there perfectly calm, like a patch of snow-white against a hazy gray background, bright enough that it was difficult to look away.
It was not the dazzling radiance of a celebrity, but a light that belonged uniquely to Xiao Bai.
Perhaps it was simply the contrast, but from that first glance onward, he remembered the person named Zeng Bai.
If that had only made Xiao Bai memorable, then the comment, “More interesting than the auntie upstairs from my place,” had engraved him permanently into Yan Su Ang’s memory.
At the time, Yan Su Ang had not known that this was simply Xiao Bai’s unique way of speaking. He had thought Xiao Bai disliked him and was mocking him.
It was the first time he had ever taken a liking to someone only to believe that person disliked him in return.
And so he had begun paying attention to Xiao Bai.
Until eventually, there was no stopping it.
The slap-slap of footsteps came from the distance.
Yan Su Ang looked over.
It was Jia Zhi Qing.
Perhaps the pleasant memories of Xiao Bai had put him in such a good mood that even Jia Zhi Qing looked rather cute.
Jia Zhi Qing saw Yan Su Ang too and was just about to greet him when Yan Su Ang swiftly climbed into his car and drove off.
“……”
Jia Zhi Qing murmured, “Did Great God not see me because his eyesight is bad… or is his eyesight so good that he saw me and pretended he didn’t?”
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