“Little Director Zhong…”
Only after Zhong Qing had walked out of sight did Ji Mingxin blink blankly a few times, then turn to the staff member beside her. “Is she always like that when she talks?”
“It’s fine, really,” the staff member said with a shrug. “She’s just reminding you not to be late tonight.”
Ji Mingxin wrinkled her nose.
Nothing the woman said was wrong, exactly, but something about her tone and manner just felt… off.
Then she glanced over again. Zhou Siyou was already bounding up the steps, heading straight for the third floor, and in a blink she was gone too.
Dinner was at six thirty. Zhong Qing was nowhere to be seen at the table.
Zhou Siyou trailed behind Fang Ming, going through the rounds of introductions, offering a few absent-minded greetings before casually snagging the head of the film crew’s camera department and asking, as if in passing, “Where’s Zhong Qing?”
The woman she’d snagged was Ding Ye. Single-lidded, narrow eyes, around thirty, hair cropped very short, dressed plainly and efficiently.
“You mean Teacher Zhong?” Ding Ye shot her a glance. “There was a problem with the 2D diagrams needed for tomorrow’s table read. She’s still fixing them.”
Table reads weren’t common in domestic productions, but for certain directors and screenwriters, they were an indispensable part of pre-production.
Zhou Siyou nodded, gave Ding Ye an “mm,” and asked, “Is she still coming to dinner tonight?”
“Hard to say.” Ding Ye shrugged. “Teacher Zhong takes her work very seriously. She does everything herself.”
Then she raised a hand to her lips and added in a low voice, “She’s a workaholic who forgets to eat and sleep. So don’t bother her while she’s working. She’ll blow up.”
“Thanks.” Zhou Siyou laughed lightly.
Half an hour later, Zhou Siyou stood outside the studio clutching a freshly packed takeout box, prepared to “risk it all.”
The studio sat between the guesthouse and the barren hills.
The film’s interior scenes were shot mainly in the church; the studio itself housed two other sets: the heroine’s home, and the school and music classroom from her memories.
Wandering halfway around the studio in the evening breeze, Zhou Siyou was carefully stopped by a staff member. “Teacher Zhou, no food inside the studio. Director Zhong Qing will blow up.”
Zhou Siyou: “…”
Was Zhong Qing really that easy to set off?
After a moment’s deliberation, she stashed the takeout box outside, peeled off the plush shawl that had been cooking her alive, and gently pushed the door open.
Inside the studio, the “volatile and explosive” Little Director Zhong of staff legend sat with her head down, fine-tuning a wooden music box.
On its wooden surface, a swan spread its wings, and a white-robed Madonna held her hands in prayer.
Whether or not she’d genuinely been cowed by all those warnings that “Teacher Zhong will blow up,” Zhou Siyou crept up behind her like a thief in the night.
Lost in her work, Zhong Qing was deaf to everything around her, head bent over a corner screw she held aloft.
Half a minute later.
The music box was wound, and it began to chime. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Before long, the spring wound down and the music box fell silent. Zhong Qing lifted her head thoughtfully, and in the black screen before her was reflected Zhou Siyou’s half-smiling eyes.
Caught red-handed, Zhou Siyou showed no embarrassment at all. Through the dark glass, she simply smiled at her.
“Little Director Zhong, you really can do it all.”
Zhong Qing looked away, her tone unchanged and indifferent. “Need something?”
“Nope,” Zhou Siyou said frankly. “It’s just, Teacher Zhong told us earlier not to be late for dinner, and then she doesn’t show up herself. Isn’t that a little unreasonable?”
Zhong Qing pushed the music box aside, restarted the sleeping computer, tidied the wood shavings on the desk, and sat down in front of the screen without so much as a word in reply.
Zhong Qing was always like this. She never said anything, and made people guess.
But… things hadn’t used to be this way between them.
The Zhong Qing of the past had been quiet, yes, but never this closed off. And now…
Zhou Siyou faltered, at a loss for words.
She settled against the back of Zhong Qing’s chair, one shoulder beside a row of warm yellow light.
This was Jiang Jin’s study.
Books. Carving knives. Small glass trinkets.
They said Director Zhong Qing did everything with her own hands, so presumably every item in this room had passed through them.
The seconds ticked by, and Zhou Siyou, as always, was the first to lose her patience.
After a stretch of thought, she looked at Zhong Qing again, a flicker of hesitation in her eyes, her voice tentative. “Zhong Qing, are you angry with me?”
Zhong Qing was staring at the monitor. She seemed to freeze for an instant.
But that startled look vanished as quickly as it came.
Zhou Siyou didn’t catch it.
Zhong Qing’s fingers went back to the keyboard, punctuated now and then by the tick of the mouse, and the air between them stayed stiff and awkward.
Zhou Siyou was starting to lose heart when Zhong Qing finally spoke.
“Why would you say that…”
Her voice was very soft, a sigh released into the empty room, quiet as a passing breeze. It stirred faint ripples.
Ripples on the heart.
Zhou Siyou’s eyes lit up at once.
In a few quick strides she was close, hands braced on the desk, pressing her lips together before she spoke again. “Zhong Qing, you’re not happy. I can tell.”
Zhong Qing stayed where she was, lifting her head in silence, her pitch-black eyes carrying no emotion at all.
“Three meals a day, always on time. That’s what you told me.” Zhou Siyou’s words came rapid-fire. “You used to work hard too, but when mealtime came, you went and ate. You said skipping meals ruined your health and that the body comes before everything. I used to tease you for being like an old-timer.”
“My gut says you skipped dinner not because you’re swamped with work.”
“It’s because…” Zhou Siyou’s voice faltered, fading. “It’s because you don’t want to see me.”
How could that be? Zhong Qing sighed inwardly.
She lowered her eyes and shook her head at Zhou Siyou. “Don’t overthink it. A few storyboard frames had problems. I’m fixing them.”
However many doubts remained in her heart, Zhou Siyou still went along with her. “Then… how much longer until it’s done?”
Zhong Qing only said, “Almost.”
“Give me an actual time, Little Director Zhong.” Zhou Siyou could be stubborn.
Zhong Qing glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen. “Twenty more minutes.”
“Okay.”
Zhou Siyou then sat obediently at the edge of the desk, leaning over, half draped across its surface.
She studied the person on the other side of it.
In the warm light, Zhong Qing’s profile looked soft, her expression focused.
And in that gentle glow, Zhou Siyou caught glimpses of the past everywhere.
In truth, back in school they hadn’t even been in the same class, or even the same grade. But during the last two periods of evening self-study, Zhou Siyou would always sneak off to the senior classes, coerce and bribe Zhong Qing’s deskmate into leaving, and claim the seat for herself.
The teacher supervising self-study knew her by sight and simply turned a blind eye.
Afterward, when the nine o’clock bell rang, Zhou Siyou would run back to her own class to hand in homework. Then, at a quarter past nine, sharp as clockwork, she’d meet Zhong Qing at the bike shed by the school gate.
Zhou Siyou would loudly demand that Zhong Qing give her a ride home.
“Zhou Jianian,” Zhong Qing would laugh despite herself. “You have the back seat of a luxury car at your disposal, and you come to ruin my beat-up old bike instead?”
Zhou Siyou would pretend not to hear, hug her schoolbag, and plop herself onto the rear rack.
She’d wrap her arms around Zhong Qing’s waist.
A few hundred meters in, Zhong Qing would suddenly say, “Jianian, you’re kind of heavy, you know.”
Zhou Siyou couldn’t remember how she’d answered. Some joke or other, and then Zhong Qing’s bike had abruptly swerved out of control.
“Aaaaahhh!”
In the night wind, two girls screaming their heads off.
Watching the stretch of wild grass rushing up ahead of them, Zhou Siyou’s shriek cracked. “Zhong Qing!!! HIT THE BRAKES!!!”
“The brakes? Haha.”
By comparison, Zhong Qing’s voice was absurdly calm.
And it gave Zhou Siyou a faint, ominous premonition.
Sure enough.
Zhong Qing’s next words were: “I squeezed those brakes to death ages ago.”
A few seconds later, the two of them landed in the grass, predictably and spectacularly, sprawled every which way, aching from waist to legs.
…
Zhong Qing stopped working exactly twenty minutes later, not a second more.
She shut down the computer and raised her face, about to ask something, then belatedly answered her own question. “The dinner… is it already over?”
Zhou Siyou, still half draped across the desk, answered with a sleepy “Mm-hm,” eyes nearly closed.
Zhong Qing sighed.
Then Zhou Siyou asked from the desk, “Teacher Zhong, that microwave in the studio… is it real?”
Zhong Qing blinked, mildly taken aback, then nodded. “It works if you plug it in. What are you planning?”
Zhou Siyou sprang to her feet, waved a hand with great magnanimity, then pulled Zhong Qing up and pointed outside.
“Come on, Teacher Zhong.” She drew out the syllables, smiling lazily. “I swiped all kinds of goodies from the dining hall.”
A little while later, in the guesthouse’s back courtyard.
Zhou Siyou set down two hot drinks, spread out grilled squid skewers and takoyaki across the table, and raised her chin with the grand air of someone who had cooked it all herself.
There was no one else in the courtyard, only the winter evening wind rustling through the leaves of the barren hills.
Zhong Qing sat at the table.
She swallowed a little takoyaki ball, pressed her lips together, and shot Zhou Siyou a look. “Zhou Siyou, you asked me before whether Jiang Jin had any other hobbies.” She paused. “Now I can tell you very clearly: she likes carving, reading, and tinkering with woodcraft.”
Mouth full of pastry, Zhou Siyou nodded along with an “mm-hm, mm-hm.”
Pretty close to what she’d guessed anyway.
As Zhong Qing’s soft voice continued beside her, Zhou Siyou suddenly seemed to remember something. She looked up and smacked her forehead. “Little Director Zhong, the table read is tomorrow afternoon… but there’s still one thing I don’t quite understand.”
“Ask.”
“The person, was it really Jiang Jin who killed him? Then what’s her ending?”
The script cut off right after the interrogation. Zhou Siyou had imagined plenty of endings, and none of them felt quite right.
“What do you mean? We live in a society of laws.” Zhong Qing wiped her mouth and lowered her head. “Naturally, one borrows a knife to do the kill… ahem. Naturally, one resolves matters cleanly, lawfully, and by the book.”
Zhou Siyou froze for a beat.
Then she threw her head back and laughed out loud. “Hahahaha, Zhong Qing, you…”
Zhong Qing’s eyes lifted. “I what?”
Under the night sky, Zhou Siyou wiped the tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes, doing her best to look long-suffering as she held back her giggles.
Curved eyebrows and all, she said, “You really haven’t changed one bit.”
