Chapter 54: The Ending
Time passed day by day, and in the blink of an eye, it was the end of June.
The story finally welcomed the first person to leave.
Shen Ruoxi’s final scene was on the train back home—Bai Xiao took Liang Yongping on the train back to their hometown. She looked at the familiar yet strange small town.
She had left in the beginning for Liang Yongping to forget the past kindness, to treat her sincerely, and to live a good life with her. But as time passed, she found that these thoughts were just extravagant hopes.
Her patience was completely lost under Liang Yongping’s decade-long coldness.
She even began to hate Liang Yongping.
Until that day, she had laid her hands on Liang Yongping. After that, it was like opening Pandora’s box…
But life could always be lived with one eye open and one eye closed.
But after that woman appeared, everything changed.
She knew that even if they went back to their hometown… no matter where they went, there would be no possibility between her and Liang Yongping anymore. But even so, she had to tie Liang Yongping to her side.
Don’t people say? Hate lasts longer than love.
She looked at the world being watered by the rain outside and said quietly, “Yongping, let’s live a good life when we get back.”
Liang Yongping was also looking out the window. She was silent, but as the platform slowly disappeared, she seemed to hear a familiar voice. She looked back, but saw nothing.
Her life seemed to have ended just like that.
Liang Yongping silently prayed in her heart: Qin Shui, I hope you can live a very happy life in the future. You will never meet someone like me again.
Qin Shui.
Qin Shui.
Qin Shui.
**
Shen Ruoxi hugged Jiang Mi tightly, holding back the tears in her eyes.
“You know, I really like you,” Shen Ruoxi said. “Even after we leave the set, you can’t be a stranger to me, you know? Mimi, sob sob sob, I’m so reluctant to leave you. I’m so reluctant to leave everyone.”
Jiang Mi also wiped away her tears and patted Shen Ruoxi’s back. “I’m reluctant to leave you too. Don’t worry, we’ll get together when we have time in the future, and there will definitely be a chance to film together next time. I’ll work hard to catch up with you soon!”
There was still a difference between her and Shen Ruoxi. This drama was because she was lucky. Next time, she might not have the chance to be with these excellent actors.
So she had to work hard, to work even harder.
“Mimi, you can do it. I believe you can.” Shen Ruoxi’s view that ‘Jiang Mi will be famous one day’ had never changed.
“Okay, don’t be sad. And it’s not like we’re separating right away. We’ll see each other during promotions and on the red carpet, right? We’ll see each other a lot.”
At this time, Jiang Mi had always firmly believed this.
But as time and age changed, she suddenly understood one day later that when you meet, you should enjoy it to the fullest, and never wait for the next time.
Jiang Mi was patting Shen Ruoxi’s back when she suddenly felt a glaring gaze on her face. She looked up, and Yan Wei’s gaze came from not far away.
Her heart lurched, and she discreetly let go of the person.
After spending this time together, Jiang Mi had also roughly figured out Yan Wei’s temperament. Yan Wei really didn’t like her getting close to other people. Even when she was on the phone with Jiang Hu in front of Yan Wei, she would be unhappy.
That day, she was in Yan Wei’s room, curled up on the sofa, reading a new script. The moment her phone screen lit up, Jiang Hu’s name popped up, as if it had been timed perfectly—just as her fingertip swiped the answer button, the bathroom door lock clicked open.
She didn’t need to turn her head.
Just by catching the faint sound from the crack in the door, it was like entering a password. She instantly knew Yan Wei’s mood at this moment.
The scent of brandy in the air, mixed with the dampness of the shower, rushed towards her.
A shadow fell over her. A hand, still carrying the damp heat of the bathroom, with an irresistible force, forcefully yet somewhat anxiously held her chin, forcing her to turn her head.
Her collar was open.
A sudden softness came close to her lips, instantly blocking all the unspoken responses, including Jiang Hu’s initial few light and rising final notes, and muffled them in that wet, hot, and possessive confinement.
All she could hear was Jiang Hu’s tone changing from playful to anxious.
The oxygen in her lungs was rapidly being drained. Just as she was about to suffocate, Yan Wei let go of her.
After a few seconds of catching her breath, she could respond to Jiang Hu’s urgency.
“I, I suddenly had something to do just now.”
Jiang Hu was wary. She clearly didn’t believe it and questioned, “What was it? I’ve been calling you for a long time. Are you messing with me?”
Hearing this, Jiang Mi was really thankful. Her oxygen-deprived brain couldn’t think of such a good reason at that moment.
“What’s wrong with messing with you?” Jiang Mi’s face was flushed as she looked at Yan Wei. Seeing the other person slowly close her collar and loosely tie a knot in her bathrobe, she raised her eyes, and that gaze was full of a warning.
Her heart beat even more fiercely, and she quickly hung up on Jiang Hu.
She didn’t know if it was because of this, but Jiang Hu had been calling her much more frequently recently.
And.
Last time, because she had been dragged to the clay pot shop by Shen Ruoxi, Yan Wei had also held it against her for several days.
Jiang Mi had learned her lesson. At this moment, she gave Yan Wei a “fawning” smile.
But as she lowered her eyes, Jiang Mi’s emotions were also changing.
Because of her parting with Shen Ruoxi, she felt even more clearly that the moment of her parting with Yan Wei was also approaching.
In the following days of running lines, her tears would always uncontrollably overflow when she read the words “Qin Shui”—Jiang Mi couldn’t help but cry, and her suppressed sobs would come out in fine, broken pieces.
Yan Wei sent everyone out of the break room and gently placed her hand on Jiang Mi’s head.
“Jiang Mi, it’s fake.”
“I know,” Jiang Mi said. “I know it’s acting.”
To her, everything now, including her feelings for Qin Shui, and even the emotions of Liang Yongping that she was getting into, did not belong to her.
It was just that she realized that when the curtain call came, Liang Yongping and Qin Shui would no longer exist…
She held onto Yan Wei, her face buried in Yan Wei’s chest, crying in a low voice.
Yan Wei’s palm gently stroked her back, silent.
As someone who had been through it, she understood the weight of this emotion too well. For a newcomer to get into character, it was almost an instinct to be fully immersed. She had also had such times, sleepless all night for a character’s farewell, unable to pull herself out for a long time.
It was just that as time passed, her emotions had long since been worn down. How to accurately mobilize and restrain her emotions was what she was best at.
When a scene ended, it was a clean and neat farewell. She would no longer be moved by these emotions—sealed, ended, no more ripples.
But Jiang Mi was different.
Jiang Mi was still very young.
This wasn’t even the starting point of her life.
Looking at the trembling, crying Jiang Mi in her arms, an indescribable stuffiness suddenly accumulated and spread in Yan Wei’s chest.
The imaginary emptiness of “farewell” in Jiang Mi’s heart suddenly became incomparably real. This feeling carried a sharp, stabbing pain, as if it were a premonition that one day, this living person, nestled in her arms, would also say goodbye to her.
With this thought, Yan Wei’s breathing involuntarily became rapid.
She lowered her eyelids, her thick eyelashes barely covering the surging annoyance and deep gloom. The calmness from a moment ago was gone.
This feeling was so stuffy it made her heart panic.
A thought suddenly pierced her mind sharply: Jiang Mi’s current attachment and reluctance, that almost-total dependence and submission, those eyes that were full of emotion looking at her, and all her joy…
Could they also carry the shadow of “Qin Shui”?
Her hand paused.
She raised her hand and gently lifted Jiang Mi’s tear-stained chin. She kissed Jiang Mi.
Then she requested, “Kiss me.”
Jiang Mi’s face was still covered in tears. The tears rolled past the corners of her lips. When their lips and teeth touched, the taste on Jiang Mi’s tongue was salty.
More and more salty…
She held onto Yan Wei tightly, as if by doing so, Yan Wei would never disappear.
But the last scene between Liang Yongping and Qin Shui.
In the end, it still came.
That day, the rain was like a weave, and the cold silver threads fell densely, soaking the entire small town. The platform was wet and reflective, like a broken mirror.
It was as if from the beginning of this day, it had foreshadowed the ending of Liang Yongping and Qin Shui—
The train slowly started.
Inside the car window, Liang Yongping’s face was pressed against the cold glass. The rain trickled down, like her tears.
She didn’t know that there was still a figure outside. Her eyes were only blurry.
On the platform, Qin Shui at first just walked, her gaze tightly following the moving car window, until Yongping’s figure was embedded in the car window, gradually moving away.
Her footsteps unconsciously quickened, and she started to jog, chasing faster and faster, until she was running wildly!
In her haste, a high heel was thrown off, and it rolled pathetically to the side of the water-stained stone path.
Her other foot was bare, stepping on the rough ground. The wet sand dug deep into her flesh, and every step was imprinted on her flesh.
She didn’t care about the pain.
Her chest was heaving violently, and every breath she exhaled carried a scorching pain. The cold iron rails stretched out in front of her, and the roaring sound was mercilessly amplified.
She watched helplessly as the train carrying Yongping accelerated, was stretched…
And finally turned into a small and stubborn green dot at the end of her vision.
She knew.
She couldn’t keep her.
She couldn’t catch up.
Yongping was sitting in her seat, her head looking at the other side of the platform.
Of course, she hadn’t heard. She hadn’t heard anything.
She had thought it was just the pain of day after day, just endless loneliness. But the days back home were more terrible than she had imagined.
It was the third day that Yongping had been locked in the north-facing room.
The light that leaked in through the window was like a knife, cutting her chapped lips. For three days, she hadn’t had a drop of water, all for two words.
“Leave.”
On the fifth day.
The wooden door made a ‘creak’ sound. Her mother’s shadow wrapped around Yongping’s ankle like black silk. “I’ll let you go… but Bai Xiao said you have to wait another month.”
“Why?”
No one answered her.
But this day finally came.
She dragged her suitcase through the familiar alley. The gazes of her relatives, the whispers of the neighbors, were like a spiderweb pouncing on her.
But her footsteps were unprecedentedly firm.
Liang Yongping returned to that small town. The place where she used to live already had a new tenant. The smell of cooking smoke made her think of Qin Shui in the kitchen, wearing a long dress, holding a spatula, and smiling at her.
She looked up, and to her surprise, she heard a sound from upstairs.
She held her breath and slowly went upstairs. The smell of smoke slowly entered her nostrils, and her gaze suddenly stopped…
The woman also saw her.
She was also taken aback, and then she started smoking again.
Yongping still mustered her courage. She asked, “Is Qin Shui here?”
Hearing this, the woman was taken aback again, and then she smiled.
She extinguished the cigarette butt, and the spark almost burned into Yongping’s pupils. She was terrifyingly calm. “You don’t know? She’s dead.”
**
The pothos on the windowsill was growing at an alarming rate, its vines almost about to swallow the faded curtain.
That was a few days later.
Liang Yongping stood by the platform, listening to the approaching train. She quietly looked at the sunset in the distance. That day, Qin Shui was also looking in this direction, right?
Before long, the camera moved, and the sunlight fell into the horizon…
The world was pitch black.
The sound of a whistle sounded again in the distance.
In that instant, Liang Yongping remembered the first time she had met Qin Shui… a green silk cheongsam. The wind, wrapped in a chill, lifted a corner of the light cheongsam, and two slender, fair calves were faintly visible in the wind.
The woman smiled at her. “Hello, my name is Qin Shui.”
**
The joy of wrapping up filled the entire crew. There was an occasional sob in the crowd. Only Jiang Mi had locked herself in the break room.
Zhao Jia stood at the door, listening to the faint crying. Having worked with Jiang Mi for so long, this was the first time she had seen her have such a hard time getting out of character.
The sound of high heels came from the side. Zhao Jia turned her head to look.
Seeing Yan Wei walking over in a dark green cheongsam, in the guise of Qin Shui, she was slightly surprised—they had already wrapped up. Why was Yan Wei still wearing this?
When she came closer, she politely called out, “Teacher Yan.”
Yan Wei nodded faintly and, without saying anything, knocked on the door.
“It’s me.”
Jiang Mi’s muffled voice soon came from inside. Yan Wei then directly pushed the door open and went in.
Zhao Jia looked at the closed door, speechless. You’re not even pretending anymore, are you?
But what could she say? Should she say to Jiang Mi, There’s no future. That’s Yan Wei. Your statuses are too different. Right now, it’s just a feeling born from the drama. It’s still fresh. In a while, you’ll know that the gap between you is the sharpest sword.
You’ll also know that there are many people in this world who fall in love because of a drama. Once they get out of character, there are many who part ways sadly.
Even if you overcome all the difficulties, and you’re lucky enough to have Yan Wei really love you, to have Yan Wei always love you.
Then can you withstand the impact of the fans? At that time, it won’t be just a few hundred or a thousand negative comments. They might even affect your family… can you accept such consequences?
Can you bear it?
But would Jiang Mi listen?
Or should she tell Yan Wei, Jiang Mi is a very emotional person. Once she’s serious, her feelings run deep. If you’re not prepared for the long run, can you let her go?
But could Yan Wei let Jiang Mi go?
She wouldn’t.
Neither of them would.
Zhao Jia let out a long sigh, but… she still hoped that Jiang Mi would be a little luckier.
