Chapter 9: The Film Empress Who Jumped Off a Building to Commit Suicide (9)

The little girl had grown up.

She used to hesitate, blushing and muttering complaints whenever she was kissed. But now her courage had swelled overnight, bold enough to actively seek out a kiss.

A strange sense of fulfillment welled up in her, like the pride of a parent watching their daughter come of age.

As usual, she raised a hand to cover her mouth, signaling her unceremonious refusal.

But in that instant, her peripheral vision caught the greasy stains on her gloves from handling the crayfish.

That brief hesitation was all it took. The girl, who seemed to have matured in the span of a single night, pounced forward and planted a firm kiss squarely on her lips.

This was the first kiss Shao Zizhi had ever initiated while fully sober.

Just half a minute earlier, her desire to kiss had brimmed with confidence. Now that she had succeeded, she deflated like a timid mouse in the blink of an eye.

Her pale earlobes flushed crimson, as if scorched by wildfire, bright enough to bleed in moments.

The girl bit her lower lip and obediently scooted back to her seat. Her head hung so low it seemed she wanted to burrow right into the floor, too embarrassed to string a sentence together. “I-I’ll… continue… continue reading the script.”

The shift in her demeanor was so abrupt that even Bai Qian was caught off guard. By the time she gathered her wits, she couldn’t help but find it amusing. She didn’t tease her for backing out midway, instead asking casually, “Want more crayfish?”

Shao Zizhi twisted her head up bashfully and shot her a soft, petulant glare. “Bai Qian, you’re not allowed to talk right now!”

The woman’s tone brimmed with indulgence. “All right, all right. Got it, little girl.”

“Don’t call me that! Bai Qian, shut up!”

Bai Qian blinked and fell obediently silent.

Shao Zizhi had been facing her before, but after this little interlude, she turned away in a self-deceiving panic, presenting her back.

No one spoke for a while, and the ambiguous atmosphere gradually dissipated with the slow passage of time.

Shao Zizhi soon lost herself in the script. Bai Qian sat quietly beside her, gloved hands deftly peeling the crayfish from their shells one by one, stacking the tender meat neatly to the side.

It took a fair amount of time, but she polished off several pounds. Bai Qian had only eaten a third of them herself. She stood, removed her gloves, and crooked a finger to rap lightly on the girl’s rigidly straight back.

“I’m going to take a shower first. Finish up and don’t forget to clean, okay?”

Shao Zizhi turned her head and eyed the plate of perfectly peeled crayfish, ready to eat with just a pair of gloves.

Bai Qian had already headed upstairs. Staring at that pile of succulent white meat, Shao Zizhi licked her lips without thinking.

—It seemed she could still taste the faint flavor of the woman’s lipstick lingering on them.

…

Bai Qian had never imagined that Shao Zizhi would one day let a role consume her to the point of disrupting everyday life.

In Autumn Chill Cold River Waters, the character Shao Zizhi was set to play—Empress Jiang—was a woman who clawed her way from the lowest palace maid to Empress Dowager through cunning schemes and ruthless machinations, ultimately ruling the realm as the emperor’s mother.

It was a classic ancient palace intrigue drama. Shao Zizhi had pored over the script countless times, and up until today, she’d never once lost control of her emotions.

So Bai Qian hadn’t anticipated that Shao Zizhi would ever get so deeply immersed in a role.

What should have been an utterly ordinary night blindsided them with the unexpected.

Bai Qian was jolted awake by a gut-wrenching wail. Dazed at first, she fully roused herself and pinpointed the source of the sound.

It was coming from just outside the room.

The cry was shrill and agonized, like the weeping of ghosts. Every word tore from her throat as if scraped across a knife’s edge.

Bai Qian reacted swiftly, scrambling out of bed to fling open the door.

One lamp burned in the living room, its dim yellow glow falling on the woman a short distance away, lending an air of profound desolation.

The woman knelt there, hair wild and disheveled. Her exquisite, beautiful face was ashen, drained of all color.

Her expression twisted in agony, tears streaking her entire face.

“Yuan’er! Yuan’er! My Yuan’er!”

The hoarse, tuneless howls spilled from her bitten, chapped lips. She stared straight ahead, as if someone truly stood there before her.

A storm of emotions churned in the woman’s eyes—obsession laced with resentment, grief intertwined with hatred. Bai Qian could barely bring herself to look before averting her gaze.

She understood at once. This had to be what they called getting too deep into the role.

There was no such scene in the original plot. It was most likely a new trial triggered by her own alterations to the story.

—If she didn’t pull the female protagonist out of this overwhelming grief in time, and Shao Zizhi truly came to believe she was Empress Jiang… the consequences weren’t something Bai Qian wanted to face.

Bai Qian approached cautiously, kneeling before her just as carefully.

She tried to summon the other woman’s reason. “Shao Zizhi, can you hear me? It’s me. Bai Qian.”

Empress Jiang heard the “man’s” gentle call. Numbly, she lifted her head and saw the false anxiety and pity etched across her face.

Her slender hand shot out and seized “his” collar. She glared at “him” with venomous hatred, her eyes brimming with such resentment and agony that it made one’s heart shudder.

“Dugu Han, you’re so heartless! Why? Why? That’s Yuan’er—my only Yuan’er! Isn’t he your son too? Why? Why are you so cruel? Dugu Han, I hate you! I hate you!”

She spat the words through gritted teeth. A surge of vital blood rushed to her heart in her fury, and she could no longer hold back the mouthful of blood welling up from her throat.

Empress Jiang forced the metallic tang back down her gullet. Her grip on the man’s hand trembled uncontrollably. “Dugu Han, you’ll get what’s coming to you. Ha! You will! I curse you—I curse you! Hahaha! I’ll curse you for eternity, leaving you childless forever! Hahaha! Hahahaha!”

The woman, devastated by the loss of her child, suddenly burst into mad laughter. Yet her grief had reached such depths that not even tears would come.

Staggering to her feet, Empress Jiang watched as the Gold Step Shaker atop her head teetered and then fell to the floor with a snap. In that moment, she felt her heart truly die.

She bent down and drew close to the weak “man” she had loved for a lifetime. With a trembling hand, she gently caressed “his” cold lips, as if transformed once more into that innocent girl standing beneath blooming peach trees, laughing amid falling petals with unbridled joy. “I loved you, Dugu Han. I loved you.”

Her parched lips replaced her fingers, kissing the person she would never dare love again—tenderly, deeply, passionately.

Pfft—

The sharp blade in her hand pierced straight through the man from behind. She looked up into his dark eyes, filled with restrained pain and affection, and smiled.

“Dugu Han, I curse you. In your next life, the life after that, and every lifetime to come—you’ll never see me again.”

With those words, the woman’s body went limp, collapsing backward in a heap.

Bai Qian reached out just in time and caught her.

The young woman’s tear-streaked face was still strikingly beautiful as she nestled in Bai Qian’s arms, her breathing steady and even. She had fallen asleep.

Bai Qian let out a quiet sigh of relief. Carefully, she rose and carried the girl back to the master bedroom.

Setting aside everything else, the Female Protagonist’s acting was explosive—nearly pulling even Bai Qian into the scene.

Once she had settled the girl comfortably, Bai Qian gazed at her peaceful sleeping face. She grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and gently wiped away the clumps of dried tears from her cheeks.

With her task complete, Bai Qian turned to leave. But a hand suddenly emerged from beneath the covers and latched tightly onto the one dangling at her side.

The girl’s voice came soft and warm, laced with innocent naivety. “Dugu Han, did you really sneak out to find me? So, where are we going to play today?”

Bai Qian felt a headache coming on. Even in sleep, she was still lost in this dream?

At least the current scene was a lighthearted one. If she started crying like before again, her throat would surely be ruined.

Bai Qian tested the waters, trying to gently withdraw her hand. But the girl seemed to sense it, and her sleepy voice shifted in an instant. “Dugu Han, are you lying to me?”

Helpless, Bai Qian abandoned her efforts to pull away. Inwardly, she prayed this act would end quickly.

But this sweet romance segment dragged on endlessly.

Trapped in place like a stone pillar, Bai Qian silently cursed the screenwriter a thousand times over.

She hadn’t read the script—only heard Shao Zizhi mention it in passing. From what she gathered, it was a big-female-lead drama focused on her career path.

So why was the romance so cloyingly sweet? And why so much of it? Did the male lead have some powerful backer who’d shoehorned in all these extra love scenes for him?

It started off fine. “Empress Jiang” was content simply holding “Dugu Han’s” hand, murmuring her lines to herself and advancing the plot.

But once that flimsy veil of mutual understanding between them was pierced, the girl was no longer satisfied with mere hand-holding. Pouting playfully, she whined, “Dugu Han, give me a hug.”

“Don’t you like me? Why won’t you hug me?”

Bai Qian, the outsider, figured she could just stand there like a wooden post. But without the proper response, “Empress Jiang” grew increasingly aggrieved, her voice taking on a pitiful lilt—until, inevitably, it edged into that familiar, headache-inducing sob.

“Dugu Han, why won’t you hug me?”

Bai Qian didn’t dare risk letting her damage her throat like that again. With a sigh, she bent down and gave a perfunctory hug over the blanket.

“That’s not it! Wuwu… I don’t want that. I want you to hug me for real!”

Bai Qian glanced up. The girl’s eyes remained closed, but her face clearly showed anxiety and petulant resentment.

—She was still deep in the scene.

Bai Qian had no choice but to serve the female protagonist now that she’d entered this world, so she pulled back the covers and climbed into bed. After lying down beside her, she helplessly drew the other woman into her arms.

In the dream, “Empress Jiang” finally got what she wanted. Content and satisfied, she snuggled closer, resting her head on Bai Qian’s chest as she murmured softly, “Dugu Han, I like you so much.”

The moment Bai Qian touched the bed, exhaustion she’d held at bay came crashing down on her like an avalanche.

She closed her eyes for a second, then forced them open again.

“Empress Jiang” kept up her tireless declarations of love.

“Dugu Han, I like you so much.”

“Dugu Han, I like you so much.”

One after another, they wove together like a hypnotic lullaby.

Bai Qian’s eyelids drooped heavier with each repetition, fluttering open more slowly until sleep seemed inevitable. Then the girl in her arms suddenly asked, “Dugu Han, do you like me?”

The “man” made no reply.

“Empress Jiang” grew frantic, pestering her like a kid on Halloween who wouldn’t leave without candy. “Dugu Han, do you like me or not?”

“Do you like me, Dugu Han?”

Finally worn down by the relentless nagging, Bai Qian gave in. “Yes, yes. I like you.”

Hearing her beloved’s confession, the innocent girl blushed and smiled shyly.

A half minute later, she lifted her head from the “man”‘s embrace and gazed at her, tense with anticipation. “Then… then I allow you to kiss me.”