Jia Zhi Qing looked up at the clock. He had been talking with Mother Lian for less than ten minutes, yet he felt as though ten long, weathered years had already passed.
Seeing him look at the clock, Mother Lian said calmly, “Do you know there’s a kind of person called a clock-watcher?”
“……”
The only person he knew with a name like that was Clark Gable.
Jia Zhi Qing looked at Mother Lian’s bright, penetrating eyes and laughed dryly. “Employees at a watch company?”
“……”
Mother Lian did not seem particularly surprised by his lack of learning. “They’re people who spend their time waiting to get off work.”
Waiting to get off work?
Waiting to be released from work?
A worker waiting to be released?
Waiting and waiting until he becomes an old grandpa?
Jia Zhi Qing’s head filled with question marks.
Mother Lian said, “Don’t tell me you don’t even understand what ‘waiting to get off work’ means?”
Jia Zhi Qing smiled ingratiatingly. “I understand a little, but my stomach hurts, so I don’t understand it that well.” After saying this, he immediately began wondering what connection stomach pain could possibly have with failing to understand something. Surely he could not say he had only put the two together because the words sounded good next to each other.
Fortunately, Mother Lian did not pursue the issue. “It means someone who starts waiting for the end of the workday the moment work begins.” She paused. “Are you that sort of person?”
“Of course not.” Jia Zhi Qing quickly denied it while explaining inwardly: he was the sort who started waiting for retirement the moment work began. Looked at that way, he was actually someone with remarkable long-term vision.
Mother Lian said, “Oh. So being with me is what turned you into a clock-watcher?”
Jia Zhi Qing immediately felt an invisible arrow shooting straight toward him.
Extra money really isn’t easy to earn.
He sighed inwardly while smiling apologetically on the outside. “Auntie, you misunderstand. Actually, the reason I looked at the clock was because… because… because of… capacity issues.”
“……”
Mother Lian froze.
She had clearly never expected someone who looked as rustic and foolish as Jia Zhi Qing to produce such a formidable sentence.
Jia Zhi Qing anxiously watched her.
Did I hit her too hard just now and KO her on the spot?
Mother Lian suddenly rolled her eyes upward.
Jia Zhi Qing stared. Rolling one’s eyes was perfectly ordinary, but on someone as elegant as Mother Lian it looked extraordinarily strange. It was like turning on the seven-o’clock news and suddenly seeing the anchor sneeze, then wipe his mouth with his tie.
But Mother Lian quickly returned to normal. “Go release yourself back into nature.”
“……”
That should mean I’m allowed to go pee, right?
Jia Zhi Qing smiled politely, then immediately squeezed into the crowd at a speed that suggested bitter regret that his parents had not given him two extra legs.
Gao Qin leisurely watched Jia Zhi Qing flee from Mother Lian in the distance. “Do you think he’s coming back to cancel the deal, or ask for reinforcements?”
Lian Jue Xiu said solemnly, “Once an agreement is made, there are no returns.”
Yan Su Ang rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Considering how much he values money, maybe he’s coming back to raise the price.”
As though suddenly waking from his confusion, Xiao Bai exclaimed, “Right! Director Lian just said Zhi Qing is his lover, his sweetheart, his boyfriend, and that they’re going to spend their whole lives together. But why does Zhi Qing want to be with Director Lian when Director Lian was already eliminated?”
“……”
Lian Jue Xiu glared viciously at Yan Su Ang as though trying to burn a hole straight through his forehead.
Gao Qin watched with great interest.
Yan Su Ang ignored everyone else and stroked Xiao Bai’s head. “Because a QQ can only use QQ parts. Lamborghini parts won’t fit it.”
“……”
Lian Jue Xiu clenched his wineglass and said through his teeth, “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to dismantle that Lamborghini.”
Gao Qin said, “You could change the movie’s ending and add some blood and violence.”
“I’m making a sequel called Prison Tears.” Evil light gleamed in Lian Jue Xiu’s eyes. “First I’ll find ten men to gang-rape him, then get a hundred people to beat him up. Beat him, rape him, rape him, beat him…”
Xiao Bai asked curiously, “What is Director Lian talking about? Why does the upper half of his face look covered in black shadow while only his eyes are glowing?”
Yan Su Ang pulled Xiao Bai away as he said, “In the future, you should stay away from people whose faces mysteriously produce strange phenomena like that.”
Gao Qin walked off in the opposite direction. He had to admit that Lian Jue Xiu’s combat power in demon mode was slightly higher than his own.
After Jia Zhi Qing fought his way through the crowd with enormous difficulty, he happened to see Yan Su Ang and the others leaving. He asked strangely, “Why did they all leave as soon as they saw me?”
“Heh heh heh…” Lian Jue Xiu suddenly emitted a sinister laugh that made one’s hair stand on end.
“……”
Jia Zhi Qing immediately turned around to leave, only for Lian Jue Xiu to grab him.
Jia Zhi Qing looked miserable. “Hero, spare my life.”
Lian Jue Xiu said irritably, “You didn’t molest some respectable woman. Why are you panicking?”
Jia Zhi Qing muttered, “I’m afraid you’re the one who’s worked up.”
Lian Jue Xiu asked, “What did my mom say to you? Why did you suddenly come over?”
“She asked about all eighteen generations of my ancestors.”
“And?”
“I discovered my family only has me and Gao Qin left in our generation.”
Lian Jue Xiu sighed. “Couldn’t you make up some glorious family history?”
Jia Zhi Qing looked at him with a distressed expression. “Say I’m a descendant of Jia Baoyu?”
Elio’s Notes: Jia Baoyu is the central male character of the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. Jia Zhi Qing jokes about borrowing the famous Jia surname for a more impressive family history.
Lian Jue Xiu wiped a hand over his face. “Expecting anything from you is just looking for disappointment myself.”
Jia Zhi Qing suddenly shrank his neck and hid behind him.
Lian Jue Xiu instinctively puffed out his chest to block him. “What are you doing?”
Jia Zhi Qing lowered his voice. “I told your mom I was going to pee.”
Seeing Mother Lian looking over, Lian Jue Xiu smiled at her while grinding out through his teeth, “That’s seriously how you said it to my mother?”
“No. I only hinted that my capacity for observation was limited.”
“And?”
“So she thought I could go somewhere more natural to solve it.”
“……”
“She told you to ‘release yourself back into nature,’ didn’t she?”
“Close enough.”
“Then why aren’t you going to release yourself?” Lian Jue Xiu whispered. “Has nobody ever told you acting has to be realistic?”
Jia Zhi Qing said, “No.”
Lian Jue Xiu’s voice became threatening. “Twenty-five hundred a day.”
“……Now someone has.” Keeping close to the wall, Jia Zhi Qing crept toward the restroom.
Since this was a wrap party, the director and actors naturally had to say something sentimental about all the little moments they had shared over the past several months.
In Gao Qin’s words: “If you’ve got grudges, air them. If you don’t have the guts to air them, cry through the whole banquet.”
As director, Lian Jue Xiu was the first one pushed forward.
Before stepping out, he had already solemnly introduced his mother to everyone. That forced many people who had planned to mess with him to abandon the idea. It was like schoolchildren: no matter how much they bullied one another, they still became nervous when the other child’s parent appeared. People grew up, but fear of elders slowly transformed into respect, so the result stayed much the same.
Lian Jue Xiu said, “Brothers and sisters, you’ve suffered.”
The moment he said it, groans rose from below, followed by thunderous applause.
Yan Su Ang and Zhang Jia Jia had heard Lian Jue Xiu recycle the same routines so many times that they knew them by heart. Their only thought was that he had somehow persisted for years in opening with exactly the same line, without even changing his tone or pauses. That level of persistence was astonishing. Or should it be called laziness?
Lian Jue Xiu continued, “During filming, we all went through a great deal of hardship and exhaustion together. Fortunately, all of that is now behind us. From here on, we can happily enjoy the results those hardships have brought.”
Applause immediately rose again. But judging by the smiles on everyone’s faces, they were clearly applauding not the bright future Lian Jue Xiu described, but the dark past and their present liberation from it.
“But most importantly, although some of you may disagree, for me this truly has been a beautiful memory worth savoring and preserving. In fact, these memories have already filled half of one of my diaries. As for the remaining half, I’ll fill it with sentiment.”
Xiao Bai sighed admiringly. “I didn’t know Director Lian keeps a diary.” He went to bed late and got up early every day for filming, yet somehow still kept writing until he had filled half a diary. That was truly admirable.
Yan Su Ang said, “To this day, nobody has ever seen that diary of his that’s eternally half filled.”
Xiao Bai was not surprised. “Why would you let other people read your diary?”
“The problem is that even he has never seen it.”
“……”
After Lian Jue Xiu finished, Yan Su Ang, Zhang Jia Jia, Chen De Zhang, Tan Fei, Xiao Bai, and everyone else—from leads to supporting actors to crew—went up one after another to speak.
Lian Jue Xiu had seen scenes like this many times before, so unlike some newcomers, he did not stand there properly with reddened eyes and listen with complete seriousness. He and Gao Qin stood off to the side, outside everyone’s line of sight, talking among themselves.
“I guarantee Zhang Jia Jia lowered her head just now not to wipe away tears, but because she was afraid she’d burst out laughing,” Lian Jue Xiu commented.
Gao Qin nodded. “Yan Su Ang acted much better. If he hadn’t kept glancing at Xiao Bai while speaking, his performance would’ve been flawless.”
Lian Jue Xiu asked, “Then do you think Tan Fei was genuine just now?”
“That red stuff on her fingers was definitely chili oil.”
“……”
The two continued chatting nonsense out of boredom for a while.
Lian Jue Xiu suddenly asked, “Where’s Jia Zhi Qing?”
“Ever since he went in, he hasn’t come back out.”
“Do you think he fell in, or is he deliberately slacking off?”
Gao Qin said, “I think he has diarrhea.”
Lian Jue Xiu looked at him in surprise. “Why?”
“He gets diarrhea whenever he eats sashimi.”
A bad premonition rose inside Lian Jue Xiu. “So?”
“I saw him eating some earlier.”
“……” Lian Jue Xiu stared at him with a smile that was not a smile. “Thank you so much for telling me now.”
Gao Qin accepted the thanks calmly. “You’re welcome.”
Lian Jue Xiu rushed into the restroom and immediately heard Jia Zhi Qing’s groans coming continuously from the stall in the farthest corner.
Although air freshener had been sprayed in the restroom, a certain foul odor still drifted intermittently into his nose.
Lian Jue Xiu sighed. “Why is it that lately, every time I see you, you’re either vomiting from the top or leaking from the bottom?”
Between groans, Jia Zhi Qing ground out through his teeth, “That proves you’re a walking jinx!”
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