Chapter 32 p2
Qi Sijia was like an outsider, soberly watching the hot summer in this dream, and them.
After the first performance of the Hua Dan script was written and successfully performed, the club decided to organize a team-building event.
They were going to Las Vegas.
The club paid for half, and individuals had to pay for the other half.
On that trip, Qi Sijia spent all her savings. She treated Meng Jiang to raspberry ice cream at Capannari.
Someone in the club found out that even a small box of ice cream at Capannari cost a normal white-collar worker a month’s salary, so someone asked Qi Sijia in a probing tone if she had been to Las Vegas.
Qi Sijia replied that she had.
Five years ago, Wei Yunfang had brought Qi Sijia to Las Vegas to learn American English, but Wei Yunfang had left the next day, leaving a black nanny to take her to America to study.
That year, Qi Sijia was young and didn’t like to complain.
Qi Jun and Wei Yunfang’s careers were in the country. When they were busy, they were not even at home, let alone remember that they had her.
For several months, there were not even any phone calls. The black nanny was relieved. She worked four or five jobs and took Qi Sijia to various red-light districts in Las Vegas.
When she was working, she would leave Qi Sijia in a Chinese-owned hamburger restaurant.
The owner of that place liked children and agreed to help look after her. The hamburger restaurant was also very large, and backpackers from all over the world would often come for lunch. During the lunch break, they would chat about everything.
Qi Sijia was young and bored, and she liked to listen to the surrounding sounds as a game.
So although she had never been to any of the local delicacies or tourist attractions in Las Vegas, she knew all the delicious and fun places.
When her classmates mentioned it, Qi Sijia would answer them seriously.
There were very few jokes in her world, and she rarely lied.
When her classmates asked, she would answer, picking the simple answers.
As she finished, she looked up. In the light, she saw Meng Jiang’s phoenix eyes narrowed, a hint of deep empathy in them.
Their communication was limited to their eyes. The surroundings were still chaotic. A classmate teased, “Then do you know the new Louisiana hand-pulled seafood at the Ford shopping mall? I heard it’s very nice. We’re all classmates. Why don’t you take us there to eat?”
The money Qi Sijia had earned was only enough for Meng Jiang and herself.
Others were not in the budget. In fact, from the moment she stopped using Qi Jun’s living expenses, her life, although not difficult, was not as unrestrained as before.
She shook her head and refused. The female classmate standing on her left laughed. “We’re all classmates. You can’t be so biased, only treating Meng Jiang to food and not us.”
This trip to Las Vegas was originally not in Qi Sijia’s travel plans. She had only come because it was a date organized by Meng Jiang.
When she had sent a WeChat message that day, they hadn’t spoken for half a month.
Meng Jiang’s tone was harsh. “Do you still know who I am?”
Qi Sijia was curious why she always liked to play this kind of game of asking a question she already knew the answer to, but she still answered honestly, “Meng Jiang.”
“So you still remember me.”
Qi Sijia paused for a moment. “I’ll remember you even if you turn to ash.”
“Do you know why I’m calling you?”
“I don’t know.”
Meng Jiang said, “I was just checking to see if you had blocked me.”
Qi Sijia: “I thought we had already confirmed our relationship.”
The implication was that there was absolutely no possibility of blocking her.
Meng Jiang laughed in anger and directly made a voice call.
After connecting, Qi Sijia heard Meng Jiang’s accusatory tone, asking, “So?”
“What?”
A long silence. In the end, it was Meng Jiang who couldn’t hold it in anymore. She said with a mixture of joy and anger, “A month ago, I said we should try. I thought you had already given me a clear response that day.”
Qi Sijia agreed, “I kissed you.”
“Oh, it’s good that you remember that,” Meng Jiang laughed again. “Then your disappearance for half a month is your follow-up?”
Her tone was full of lively and pointed accusations. Meng Jiang said, “You kiss and then you throw away. Qi Sijia, you’re something else.”
Qi Sijia tried to figure it out for a while and realized how much of a misunderstanding her busy days had caused.
She explained the key points in less than two sentences, and Meng Jiang understood. Even though she was still a little upset, after working together for a long time and getting to know each other, she knew what a quiet person Qi Sijia was. A moment later, she said in an impatient tone, “Hurry up and come down. I’m downstairs at your house.”
The swivel chair behind her creaked. Qi Sijia jumped up from her chair, threw down her pen, and closed the video conference window from her teacher.
She tied up her sweaty long hair, got up, and opened the curtains. The sunlight shone down. She looked down and saw Meng Jiang standing in the light.
The sun was high in the sky. She was holding a small floral umbrella. Under the wide brim of the umbrella, you could only see a section of her fair arm, with a few beads of sweat.
In fact, Qi Sijia was very busy at that time. Her Hua Dan script had been seen by her teacher from M country. He was organizing a “RENAISSANCE STUDIO” workshop, and the person in charge was the screenwriter teacher Qi Sijia had mistakenly apprenticed herself to at a hamburger restaurant in Chicago.
She was short of money that year, and it coincided with the confirmation of her relationship with Meng Jiang. Love was something that required money to be romantic.
Qi Sijia didn’t necessarily need romance, but Meng Jiang deserved it.
At that age, not everyone could afford these things.
So she agreed to her teacher and joined. So in the month after confirming their relationship, she was so busy she was overwhelmed.
In one month, the script project her teacher had done had given Qi Sijia a small hundred thousand in royalties.
Qi Sijia rarely spoke of her romance. She believed that you get what you give, and it wasn’t about making verbal promises.
Just like now, when her classmates were pressing her, why didn’t she treat them?
Qi Sijia didn’t answer as she had before, but turned her head and looked straight at Meng Jiang. “Do you want to eat?”
Meng Jiang leaned her head on Qi Sijia’s shoulder, glanced at the teasing classmates, and said in a half-serious, half-joking tone, “Alright, you think I have no temper? I’m still here, and you’re trying to corner me.”
Afterwards, Meng Jiang and Qi Sijia went to the seafood house restaurant that their classmates had mentioned, hand in hand. While peeling shrimp, Qi Sijia asked Meng Jiang curiously, “Didn’t you say you didn’t want to come?”
You said you didn’t want to eat seafood, so why did you sneak over?
Meng Jiang said, “Am I a fool? They were clearly trying to get you to treat them to a seafood feast.”
The lights were charming, and Meng Jiang’s eyes were lit up. She said mischievously, “My girlfriend can only spend money on me. No one else.”
Her tone was exaggerated, emphasizing “my girlfriend,” childishly unlike her.
Qi Sijia’s lips curled slightly, with a faint smile.
After eating seafood in Las Vegas and returning to the hotel, it was Meng Jiang who took the initiative to knock on Qi Sijia’s door.
The door opened from the inside. What came into view was a pair of phoenix eyes that were not similar to the main character in Hua Dan, but they were more lazy and charming than the qingyi in the opera.
Qi Sijia was slightly stunned by these eyes.
This gave Meng Jiang an opportunity. The other person’s fingers wrapped around her waist tie.
Then Qi Sijia saw Meng Jiang push the door shut with her heel.
With a pull and a tug, they were in each other’s arms.
Qi Sijia met this person’s warm eyes. Afraid that she would hit the back of her head, she followed her movements and turned over, pressing Meng Jiang against the gray checkered wall.
A kind of ambiguity spread in the air.
Meng Jiang’s smile bloomed from her eyes. She held Qi Sijia’s ten fingers and said clearly, “Let me ask you a question.”
Qi Sijia looked up. “Go on.”
“Can’t you tell? I’ve been letting you pursue me these past few days.”
“Not the ‘try’ kind.”
…
Meng Jiang untied Qi Sijia’s tie and then stopped, waiting for Qi Sijia to take the initiative.
Qi Sijia stared at her, their eyes met…
The sun was just right, and the breeze was rustling…
That day, Qi Sijia’s gaze never left Meng Jiang’s eyes. They were a pair of charming, upturned eyes with a hint of red at the corners.
That was—
In the height of summer—
A luminous body that had once burned into Qi Sijia’s heart.
So much so that it left a mark later. When she wanted to dig out the mark, it was too painful, more painful than giving up her teenage dependence on Wei Yunfang and Qi Jun.
Qi Sijia simply sealed this mark and locked it away in her forbidden memories.
…
The music of Hua Dan played in her mind.
The golden silk embroidered clothes, the water sleeves lifted, the prelude began.
Someone was singing, “I am just an insignificant dancer in Jinling City. With long sleeves, I dance in the mortal world. I hold my pipa and play a light and slow, absurd and unrestrained melody. That day, I turned my head, and in the bustling city, I saw the unforgettable calamity of my life… She is the long princess of Jinling City, second only to one and above all.”
Jiangnan opera, Wu Nong’s little tune, a hundred twists and a thousand sorrows, and then in an instant, the country is broken, and ten thousand horses trample the land…
In this absurd opera, Qi Sijia met the gaze of the person in the stands. The stage flower dan’s thin shirt covered her face, revealing a pair of bewitching phoenix eyes. Although her eyes were emotional and pitiful, her enchanting and charming eyes held an unyielding pride. Those eyes overlapped with the eyes of the top-floor owner. They were absurd and real, becoming one person.
Qi Sijia awoke from this warm and fragrant space, as if she had picked up all the colorful fragments of her uneventful life. She had thought that a century had passed, but in fact, only five hours had passed.
Her eyes opened in an instant, without any sleepiness.
Her forehead was covered in a layer of cold sweat. Qi Sijia propped herself up with her arms, and the jacket covering her body slid to the base of the car with a “swish.” She did not immediately pick it up. She sat up from the extended nanny van, looked around, and saw that the curtains were drawn.
Qi Sijia pulled open a corner.
Dawn had not yet arrived outside the window, and the morning light was faint.
The driver in front of Meng Jiang heard the sound, pulled down the car’s partition, and perhaps after staying up all night, he looked a little listless. “Miss Qi, you’re awake.”
Qi Sijia looked up and cast her gaze over. Her eyes were as cold as they could be.
“How long have I been asleep?”
The driver smiled and said five hours, taking the initiative to explain, “Miss has been watching over your cat. It’s fine. The surgery was successful three hours ago.”
Qi Sijia was stunned for a moment, then laughed at herself.
In such a high-pressure environment of life and death, she had been forced to have a long and muddled dream.
But when she woke up, she felt that it was even more absurd than before she went to sleep.
Her mind was blank. A moment later, she opened the car door. As she got out, Qi Sijia stopped, her back to him, and hesitated for a moment. “She…”
Her face, with its hard-to-read emotion, was half-soaked in the faint morning light. Qi Sijia seemed to be talking to herself, her voice very soft. “Why didn’t you just wake me up?”
Although the voice was very small, the driver, who had been with Meng Jiang for many years, heard it.
Uncle Li was a man of few words, but he was very good at this. He quickly explained, “Miss specifically told me not to disturb your rest. She said that if anything happened to your cat tonight, she would compensate you with herself.” The driver said, “Those were Miss’s exact words.”
Qi Sijia stepped out with one long leg, then paused again.
A long line of the sky stretched to the invisible horizon.
The sky was not yet bright, and the light was still dazzling.
Qi Sijia withdrew her gaze, pursed her lips, and finally said nothing, walking towards the hospital.
…
