Chapter 41: “Leave a Scar” Part 2

“Teacher Kong, get some rest and change your clothes first. In about half an hour, there’ll be a meeting with the crew. Since we’ve already delayed a few days, they’ll want to go over the script changes with you. The screenwriter’s here on site this time too.”

“Later, there are video calls to make with some brand sponsors. Because of that past case where an artist disappeared due to a drug bust and the company tried to cover it up, they insist on confirming it’s you personally on the line. Even the live stream just now wasn’t enough to reassure them. Sister Xu is talking it over with them right now.”

Rong Wu’s voice came clearly from beside her. Kong Liyuan lazily closed her eyes for a moment and said, “Okay,” hiding the upper half of her face in her hood.

She tilted her head slightly to the side, then out of nowhere said, “Was I too willful this time? Making you lose two days of rest for no reason?”

Rong Wu paused, looking at Kong Liyuan’s profile peeking out from under the hood. She replied,

“No, Teacher Kong, this is part of my job anyway. It’s just that Sister Xu has been really busy these past few days. You know how things get chaotic when something like this happens.”

She ended with, “But I think, since it was an unexpected accident, you couldn’t have foreseen it. These things just happen.”

Kong Liyuan’s face drooped slightly as she leaned back lazily in the chair, saying nothing. The warm golden light washed over the lower half of her face. She seemed to still be gazing at the snow. After a long moment, when Rong Wu prompted her, she smiled and said slowly,

“I got it.”

But she still didn’t move, didn’t change out of the dusty down jacket she was wearing. She looked like an old sweater tucked away in the huge hood—exhausted and dazed, her upper face buried in it, as if trying to draw some comfort from it.

Rong Wu knew that the down jacket was probably Fu Tingli’s. She had no idea what story lay between these two women, but whenever she saw Kong Liyuan like this, she felt she understood her a little more clearly.

Holding the clothes she had picked out, she sighed quietly to herself. And right after that sigh, Kong Liyuan stood up from her seat, drew the curtains, took the clothes from her hand, and smiled warmly at her.

“I’ll change and go find the director and the others in a bit. You go rest first. I’ll come find you after the meeting.”

In an instant, the woman before her was once again that invincible Kong Liyuan, cutting through the tangled chaos of the world without a trace of sorrow or loneliness.

It was as if everything from moments ago had just been Rong Wu’s imagination.

“…Okay, Teacher Kong.” Rong Wu didn’t sigh again. She just silently handed over the clothes.

But as she lowered her eyes, she noticed Kong Liyuan’s hand—there was a faint red mark on the knuckle.

It wasn’t that red, but against Kong Liyuan’s extremely pale skin and slender bones, the mark stood out sharply.

Like a fresh red scar, though not quite that severe.

Kong Liyuan seemed to notice it too. Her outstretched hand hovered there, neither extending further nor pulling back.

That invincible aura around her seemed, in this one moment, pierced clean through by the sudden, inexplicable mark.

“This…” Rong Wu hesitated. “Did something bite you? Are there a lot of bugs over there? Should I go buy some insect repellent?”

Kong Liyuan finally withdrew her hovering hand, took the clothes, and casually covered her hand. She smiled nonchalantly and said softly,

“It was a little bird that bit me. It won’t affect filming. It’ll be gone by tomorrow. Don’t worry too much.”

Rong Wu nodded, though she sensed a hint of regret in Kong Liyuan’s tone when she said “gone by tomorrow,” as if she didn’t want the mark to fade so soon.

Still, she didn’t pry, just asked out of curiosity, “Do the little birds in the Northern Border bite people? That fierce?”

Kong Liyuan seemed surprised by the question, her brows lifting slightly. She laughed clearly and freely, then said softly,

“Some little birds are fierce. They do bite.”

~~~

Rong Wu gave a few more instructions before leaving. Once the thick door closed firmly, Kong Liyuan wearily tossed all the clean clothes onto the bed, then stood quietly under the hanging lamp for a while.

Only then did she start to change.

The red mark on her knuckle was exposed again without a trace. She stared at it slowly for a moment, suddenly recalling those moist, reddened eyes under the dim light and shadow.

It was after she noticed the towel soaking in the herbal decoction had gone cold. She had lifted it away, intending to replace it with a fresh hot one.

But she found the other woman lying slightly reclined, gazing at her with eyes brimming with misty water and redness—like in the past, that gaze so full of unspoken affection.

It was a love so intense it felt tangible, yet it only appeared in moments of complete loss of control.

Kong Liyuan paused.

On impulse, she reached out with a finger, wanting to test the temperature of those eyes, wondering if they still burned like before—even craving that love in them to burn more fiercely.

But she wasn’t good at being stared at by eyes like that, even in the dim surrounding light. Her finger hovered in the air just before touching. She closed her eyes wearily, intending to pull her hand back.

But in the next second—

A cool finger pressed over it, gripping her own. She slowly lifted her eyelids and saw the scar on the other’s knuckle again.

“Does it hurt?” she asked softly, stroking the scar.

“It hurts.”

Kong Liyuan’s fingers, wrapped around the scar, suddenly loosened, unable to exert any force.

But the woman lying there, gazing at her, narrowed her eyes and said,

“My eyes hurt.”

Hearing that, Kong Liyuan wanted to fetch a fresh hot towel for her.

But as she tried to pull her hand free from the other’s grasp, the fingers tightened.

She lowered her gaze to meet Fu Tingli’s eyes and gave a faint smile, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I’ll get you a fresh hot towel to put on it. That should ease the pain.”

“Not yet,” Fu Tingli mumbled suddenly, her words thick with drowsiness.

“Why not?” Kong Liyuan smiled. She thought Fu Tingli was just being petulant, but it didn’t annoy her in the slightest.

Fu Tingli pressed her lips together and squinted up at her, saying nothing. She endured in stubborn silence, even as tears slowly welled up and spilled from the corners of her eyes.

She didn’t let go.

Kong Liyuan held her gaze in a quiet standoff until the towel in her hand had gone completely cold. Then she let out a soft, drawn-out sigh.

Fu Tingli’s eyes remained half-lidded, as if she were trying to see Kong Liyuan more clearly. The hand gripping hers tugged downward again, pulling her closer. In the shifting play of light and shadow, Fu Tingli’s eyes widened slightly as she looked up.

Kong Liyuan dipped her head a little, letting some of her long hair fall alongside her face. She could see Fu Tingli struggling to keep her eyes open, searching Kong Liyuan’s expression for sincerity.

“Kong Liyuan,” she said softly, “were you happy tonight?”

This young woman always fixated on things like that. Kong Liyuan thought back carefully and realized there was nothing at all that had soured her mood.

So she answered patiently, “Yeah, I was pretty happy.”

“Taking care of me must be such a hassle. You were still happy? Didn’t I get on your nerves?”

“It’s no hassle at all, and I wasn’t unhappy. Sure, you’re a little restless, but that’s not a bad thing.”

“I think so too. After all, back at the owner’s place, you were smiling so brightly.”

“But weren’t you already drunk by then? How could you even see?”

“Anyway… I saw it.”

Kong Liyuan burst out laughing at that. “And what about you? Weren’t you smiling the whole time too? You looked just like one of those cheerful dolls from a New Year’s painting.”

She’d compared her to one again.

But Fu Tingli didn’t take offense. Instead, she flashed a bright, open smile. “I was pretty happy too. Felt like the happiest day I’ve had in ages.”

Then, in a daze, she blinked up at Kong Liyuan, her smile lingering.

“I just remembered what happened in California. How come my eyes didn’t hurt after I drank that day?”

Kong Liyuan found it amusing and laughed along. Her eyelashes trembled with mirth, and the shadow she cast on the wall swayed dreamily, like something out of a hazy dream.

“Yeah, why was that?”

“Maybe I didn’t drink enough,” Fu Tingli concluded, her eyes still narrowed.

“Isn’t drinking less a good thing? Unless you wanted to drink more and make your eyes hurt even worse?”

Kong Liyuan spoke casually as she tossed the towel back into the basin of hot water infused with herbs.

It was tricky managing with one hand, so she had to bend over at the waist. She didn’t have a good view to notice what Fu Tingli was doing.

Fu Tingli fell silent after that. Kong Liyuan assumed she had finally worn herself out and drifted off to sleep. But the next moment, she heard her own name.

“Kong Liyuan.”

The voice was hoarse from the alcohol, trailing off softly at the end—the distinctive way Fu Tingli always said her name.

“Yes? What is it?”

Kong Liyuan straightened up and turned around. The first thing she noticed was the two shadows flickering on the wall.

She zoned out for a second.

But in the next instant, soft, moist lips brushed against the sensitive skin on the inside of her fingers—just for a moment before pulling away.

Then a sharp, stabbing pain shot through her knuckle, quickly dulling into a lingering ache that stretched on and on, tender and unrelenting.

It wasn’t overwhelmingly intense, but it dragged out endlessly.

It felt like it was surging from someone else’s bones and sinews into her own, demanding that she shatter apart or be consumed by it.

Fu Tingli had bitten down on her finger.

Amid the abrupt pain, Kong Liyuan stayed remarkably calm. She didn’t pull away or resist.

Instead, she drifted off for a moment, her mind wandering as if her soul had slipped free of her body. A phrase she’d once said to Fu Tingli flashed through her thoughts:

Pain was the most instinctive way to etch a memory.

The first time those words had crossed her mind was on a California summer night. She’d pressed a drunken Fu Tingli to bite her hard, imprinting those slightly hazel eyes in her mind over and over.

And now, just as that phrase and memory flickered through her thoughts again…

Fu Tingli seemed to run out of strength at last. Her head lolled back onto the pillow, and she fell into a deep sleep.

Kong Liyuan remained lost in those words, her mind adrift and dissociated.

She wondered if Fu Tingli had bitten her because of that phrase—or if it was just drunken nonsense. If Fu Tingli remembered tomorrow and realized she’d bitten her in a drunken fit, would she feel awkward about it?

And if it really was because of those words, just what did Fu Tingli want her to remember?

Kong Liyuan gazed at the soundly sleeping Fu Tingli and pinched the faint bite mark on her knuckle—barely visible, without even a drop of blood. In the end, she let out a long, slow sigh.

As the pain began to fade, dawn was nearly breaking.

In the rare crimson light of early morning, she lowered her lashes and felt a sudden pang of regret.

Perhaps Fu Tingli hadn’t bitten hard enough.

For a fleeting moment, she wished Fu Tingli had sunk her teeth in deeper at the exact same spot, igniting a blaze of fresh red. Maybe ripping away flesh or cracking bone.

Just to leave her with an identical scar.