Chapter 7: “Hamburger Combo Meal”

They met at dawn.

By noon, she had only stopped to park and buy two hamburger combo meals and a pair of Martin boots. When she got back, she was asking her . . .

Such a question.

Both combo meals had simple American cheeseburgers, but one came with cola and fries while the other had milk and popcorn chicken.

Eating together with someone meant sharing—that was a lesson she had learned from Qiao Lipan since childhood. She had always believed that half a portion of popcorn chicken and half a portion of fries added up to something far better than a full single serving.

Since childhood, she had followed this principle, always remembering that delicious things ought to be shared with others, and that things shared with others were the most delicious of all.

Of these, the highest form was memory.

The necklace she had kept in her coat pocket for hours was still ice-cold, just like Fu Tingli’s hands and feet, which never warmed up no matter how bundled she was during Shanghai’s winters.

Back in the rental apartment, she tossed the necklace onto the flying bird sculpture once more and went to boil some water.

The first time she used the old kettle the landlord had given her, cold water had splashed all over her body. Not knowing the right amount, she overfilled it. When the water boiled, it bubbled over wildly. In a panic, she reached for the kettle and scalded herself with a blister.

Too frugal to buy burn ointment—and with no patience to deal with it—the blister burst, pus drained out, and the wound became inflamed, swollen, and agonizing. In the end, it turned into a painful, itchy chilblain.

It had only started looking better a few days earlier. But after going out into the cold and then coming home to hold a pot of freshly boiled hot water, the itching started up again.

The cashmere brown gloves sat neatly on the table. Fu Tingli hesitated for a moment before deciding to slip them on.

Who could have imagined that a pair of gloves gifted by the superstar would end up being used by her to insulate against hot water?

Daylight grew fully bright, swallowing the dawn.

Yet the stark boundary line outside the window would not vanish so easily. It cut cleanly between these dilapidated alleyway buildings and the glittering expanse of high-rises beyond.

On the far side of that boundary was the ever-present Kong Liyuan—the same Kong Liyuan who once had a studio fifteen times larger than Fu Tingli’s rental apartment.

On this side of the boundary, there was only Fu Tingli.

She finished her hot water, her body warming up substantially. She removed the gloves and pulled out her phone. After the gathering the day before, she had been added to the WeChat group, and now it buzzed with the work schedules for each team that week.

She typed a silent “Received,” exited WeChat, and opened her photo album. She stared at it for a moment as a cold draft—slipping either through the door crack or the window gap—made her ears ache.

She breathed out a puff of white vapor.

She gazed at the stark, barren winter outside the window and at a certain building beyond the boundary, reduced now to a distant speck.

The album once named “California” had vanished entirely. Even the “Recently Deleted” folder had been wiped clean before she ever set foot in the garage.

/Give me thirty million, and I’ll never breathe a word about that California summer. I’ll delete every last one of those photos you left behind, clean as a whistle./

—She could never bring herself to say those words. Because long before that thought even crossed her mind, another version of her had already appeared and erased every photo.

Memory was sharing taken to its highest degree.

But some memories grew ever more uncontrollable the more they were shared. In the end, they were doomed to fade away inside isolated souls.

~~~

A hamburger combo meal was different. It was meant to be shared with others—that was what made it delicious.

On the first official day of filming, Fu Tingli hurried to the set to get to work.

Perhaps because production had only just begun, the atmosphere on set was electric with passion. After meeting so many people at the previous night’s dinner, plenty of crew members in their little vests greeted her as she passed.

Everyone carried a hamburger combo meal, wrapped in brown paper bags sealed with stickers bearing Kong Liyuan’s face—a photo of her skiing, helmet and all.

Had Kong Liyuan footed the bill?

The question had barely formed in Fu Tingli’s mind when someone nearby spotted her through bleary eyes. Their face lit up, and they waved enthusiastically, arm held high.

Fu Tingli waved back, raising her own arm high.

Grinning from ear to ear, the person jogged over and came to a panting stop beside her. “Teacher Fu!”

Without further ado, they held up the two combo meals in their hands. Squinting intently to figure out which looked tastier, they cautiously pressed what they judged the better one into her grasp.

Fu Tingli’s eyes curved unconsciously into happy crescents. “Aren’t they all the same?”

“They’re not!”

It was Xia Yue, the young supporting actress with minimal screen time. Freshly turned eighteen and barely out of the gate as a debut newbie—the newest of the new—she greeted everyone around her with equal bubbly enthusiasm, calling them all “teacher.”

She was just a little scatterbrained.

At the dinner the night before, seated right next to Fu Tingli, she had been so nervous that she never once reached for her chopsticks. Fu Tingli’s knack for small talk—passed down from the business-savvy Qiao Lipan—proved useful. Though her own appetite had failed her, she managed light chatter with everyone at the table. Afterward, she even spun the lazy Susan several times to help Xia Yue reach the food. After some thought, she picked out a hunk of stewed pork elbow for her—a greasy, fatty piece from the hotpot. She had felt apologetic about foisting it on such a pretty young girl.

But Xia Yue had accepted it with a beaming smile, no pretensions whatsoever. She took a big oily bite and beamed even wider. “Thanks, Teacher Fu!”

So it wasn’t social anxiety after all—just a slow warm-up.

Later, on her way back from the bathroom, Fu Tingli ran into her in the hallway and learned the truth: Xia Yue had gotten completely lost trying to find the private room. Spotting Fu Tingli was like sighting a lifeline. She latched on tight, whimpering, “All these rooms look identical. I can’t find my way back. What if I open a door and no one recognizes me?”

A total airhead when it came to directions.

“By the way, Teacher Fu!”

Xia Yue’s excited voice cut through her reverie, and suddenly something warm and fuzzy settled over her ears, muffling the sounds around her.

Fu Tingli reached up to touch it and pulled off a pair of ear muffs, knitted from thick brown yarn and embroidered with a little dog wagging its tail. Looking up, she saw Xia Yue grinning at her.

“My grandma knit me a ton of these ear muffs to hand out as gifts when I joined the crew. I’ve given them to all the other teachers I’m close to—you don’t need to stand on ceremony with my grandma!”

“I’ve worn these since I was little. Only the ones she makes are this cozy. They might not look as fancy as name-brand ones, but this little doggy is our family mutt! Isn’t he cute?”

Every sentence from her seemed to end on an exclamation point.

Fu Tingli slipped the ear muffs back on. Xia Yue was still chuckling gleefully.

“Then thank your grandma for me. And don’t forget to pass along my hellos to her and the little dog. I love the ear muffs—and your family pup too.”

Emphasizing her words, she couldn’t quite straighten out her crescent-moon smile. She hefted the combo meal in her hand. “And thanks for this too.”

“You don’t thank me for this one!” Xia Yue replied. “Teacher Kong’s dad treated the whole crew. He said it’s to celebrate our official first day of shooting and to thank everyone for looking after Teacher Kong!”

“Teacher Kong’s dad?” Fu Tingli asked.

“Yeah! Teacher Kong Yan!” Xia Yue said.

Kong Yan? The doting actor dad from the tabloid headlines, the one who supposedly treasured his daughter above all else?

Kong Liyuan’s father.

Only then did the name click in her mind, and Fu Tingli realized the set was littered with those Kong Liyuan-sticker-sealed combo meals. Everywhere, people chattered about “Kong Yan” and “Kong Liyuan.”

Yet Kong Liyuan herself was nowhere to be seen.

Fu Tingli glanced around at the bustling, weaving crowd. No one else seemed puzzled by her absence. As if sensing what she was after, Xia Yue pivoted with her.

“Teacher Kong got here super early this morning. She’s probably resting in her car or meeting with the director right now!”

Her words drew Fu Tingli’s gaze to a windbreak canopy pitched roadside, sheltering a sleek black extended business van.

Was Kong Liyuan inside?

The thought bubbled up unbidden. Just then, the assistant director called Xia Yue over. She waved goodbye. Fu Tingli pulled her attention away, averted her eyes, and waved back.

By the time she looked again, the black van had vanished—as if it had never been there at all.

Whether it was or wasn’t made no difference to her.

The photos were all gone. Eating one lousy hamburger combo from Kong Liyuan was hardly asking too much. Back in California, Kong Liyuan had scarfed down who knew how many of hers.

Fu Tingli mused idly. With barely any breakfast in her, she scanned for a quiet corner to eat.

Work hadn’t started yet, so the art department had gathered around a folding table and chairs, digging into their burgers and hot milk teas. One slurped a huge gulp of bubble tea, still chewing as she spoke. “Man, I envy Kong Liyuan. Born with a dad like that—no worries about food or clothes, and he paves the whole road ahead for her . . .”

“She’s the only daughter of Kong Yan and Jiang Man, born right in the lap of luxury. Kong Yan would never let his little girl suffer. That’s just how old dads are with their precious only daughters—worried sick wherever she goes. Last production, Kong Liyuan hurt her leg by accident, and Kong Yan came to stay with her for days. Wouldn’t leave till she was all healed . . .”

Rip—

The sound of packaging being torn open cut through the chatter. Fu Tingli had seated herself a little apart, steering clear of the topic. Someone leaned in to ask her, “Right?”

With the ear muffs on, the voices felt distant. She was about to reply when someone beat her to it. “She’s just back in the country. How would she know?”

The questioner muttered an “Oh, yeah” and turned away.

Interrupted once again, Fu Tingli scooted a bit farther away. She stared at the hamburger in her hand—one she’d only had time to unwrap but not bite into—suddenly at a loss for how to proceed.

Shanghai truly was a ruthlessly cold city. A gust of chill wind blew through, turning the steaming aroma of cheese and beef cold and clammy in mere seconds.

Fu Tingli let out a sigh. The wind rustled against her face and the tattered packaging bag.

But now she was squatting by the roadside at the filming site, her legs numb from the position. She was no longer the pampered young lady of old, who could devour any food without a care for its temperature. What right did she have to fuss over it being too hot or too cold?

Just then, a car slowly drove past and came to a stop not far away. The door opened, and a wave of warm air wafted toward her from inside, hitting her full in the face amid a chorus of excited chatter from those around.

In the midst of the commotion, someone with a mouthful of beef shouted with a grin, “Thanks for Teacher Kong’s burger!”

A moment of quiet followed, and then a voice—smiling yet serenely calm—drifted over from afar. “No need to thank me.”

Fu Tingli, who had been staring down at her hamburger, paused for a beat before lifting her head to peer toward the car. But her wavering gaze was pulled back by a figure nearby.

A pair of slender, tall legs clad in black jeans and long boots approached with light, unhurried steps. They came to a stop right in front of her, just a few paces away.

Then a pale, slender wrist emerged from a thin sleeve cuff, and a voice sounded from above her head, where the wind had left it feeling stark and empty.

It was Kong Liyuan.

“Hand it over to me first.”

The words sounded like a request, or perhaps a command. But delivered in that utterly nonchalant tone, they came across more like a simple statement of fact.

Fu Tingli tried to focus her gaze and found Kong Liyuan’s eyes hanging clearly in the cold air, pinning her down without room for argument.

She couldn’t even muster a retort like, “Hey, this is my burger—you already took one from me. How can you steal a second?”

Are you a bandit or something, Kong Liyuan?

Instead, she instinctively reached out and handed over the hamburger combo meal emblazoned with Kong Liyuan’s own face to the woman herself.

Kong Liyuan took it, walked a few steps, and unceremoniously tossed the entire bag into a trash can. The spot was remote, and her movements swift—no one noticed the incident unfolding in the corner.

Except Fu Tingli.

She sat there stunned for a long moment, watching Kong Liyuan’s brazen actions right in front of her, unflinchingly open. She watched the side of Kong Liyuan’s face, half-hidden beneath her long, straight black hair.

The expression was somewhat hazy, leaving Fu Tingli uncertain.

Was this the Kong Liyuan who treated the entire crew to burgers? The one who delivered coffee and gloves to the staff with a smile and a casual “no thanks needed”? The one who politely greeted every worker on set? The one who treated her public image like a full-time job?

Or was it that woman from California—the one who knew full well that California lupine was poisonous yet casually held it outstretched in the car while the wind blew through? The one whose next move was always impossible to predict, impossible to fathom, yet so masterfully concealed?

Whichever it was, why had she zeroed in on the lone Fu Tingli and thrown away her uneaten burger?

The whole thing happened so quickly and discreetly that no one else witnessed it. No one else even noticed…

Kong Liyuan stood there, facing off against the trash can—or rather, against whatever she’d just thrown inside.

The standoff was brief and isolated, like the instantaneous solidification of a liquid.

Even Fu Tingli, the other protagonist of the moment, hadn’t yet figured out if she should be mad at her when—

Kong Liyuan leisurely withdrew her hand.

Perhaps catching the gritted-teeth tension building in her, Kong Liyuan flashed a subtle smile as she turned to leave, then quickly smoothed it away.

A casual remark floated back, derailing Fu Tingli’s brewing sense of outrage.

“I’ll give you a hundred back later.”