Chapter 25: Have You Taken Your Medicine?

Download

The doorbell rang in a rather puzzling manner. More than an hour had passed since they wrapped up filming. Those who had gone out for late-night snacks shouldn’t be back yet, and those who stayed in should be sprawled out on their beds, resting.

They hadn’t ordered any hotel services either.

A Cha leaned her lazy bones against the back of her chair, playing a match-3 game on her phone. She caught just the tail end of the first doorbell ring and thought she’d imagined it. A moment later, the second ring sounded, and she grabbed Zhong Jia’s hot phone before hurrying to the entrance. The video intercom screen lit up. It was Xie Yingnian.

Half of another person’s arm was visible in the frame too. It had to be Jujiu.

“Teacher Xie.” A Cha opened the door. “You’re back?”

Xie Yingnian kept her head lowered. The voice streaming from her phone gradually merged with the voices coming from inside the room. “Thanks for Chen Shier’s battleship—uh, another one? Chen Kuang, don’t blow your money like that. I know it’s you.”

The woman closed the app and slipped her darkened phone into her pocket. She looked travel-worn, even though her own room was right next door. Her luggage still sat at Jujiu’s feet. A single-strand earring hid amid her wavy hair, flashing a liquid silver gleam when she raised her head.

“Mind if we come in?” Xie Yingnian asked.

A Cha replied, “Tiantian’s live streaming. You can just stay out of the camera shot.”

With that, she turned to follow Xie Yingnian inside and carry out her assistant duties. Suddenly, Jujiu’s hand seized her arm. A Cha’s upper body jerked backward uncontrollably, her legs stumbling after it. Jujiu used her other hand to pull the door shut.

“What are you doing?” A Cha steadied herself and snapped at Jujiu.

Jujiu bent down to grab the luggage from the floor and slung her arm over the puffed-up little assistant’s shoulder, steering her toward the adjacent room. “Don’t you have any common sense?”

“They’re two single girls alone together…”

“That’s exactly why two single girls should room together alone. They’re acting opposite each other—they need to build some chemistry. Why are you horning in?” Jujiu noticed A Cha craning her neck to look back and swiped the keycard. As the door beeped open, she added, “Relax. Teacher Xie doesn’t have that kind of interest in your artist right now.”

A Cha rolled her eyes. She didn’t catch Jujiu’s subtle choice of words and just figured the other woman had shipping brain. Gritting her teeth, she said, “I’m still on the job, sis!”

Jujiu shot back, “You going back won’t accomplish much. Teacher Xie might actually be more helpful there than you.”

“But we’re two single girls too…”

“You’re basically wearing a ‘straight girl’ sign on your forehead, okay?”

The two guest rooms had nearly identical layouts. Past the entrance lay a living room equipped with a sofa, coffee table, air conditioner, and television. The bedroom door was to the left. Zhong Jia sat at the far end straight ahead, her back to Xie Yingnian. A floor-to-ceiling window stretched before her, framing Chongxiang’s nightscape—its neon lights lending a touch of glamour to the scene.

Xie Yingnian crept along the wall, muffling her footsteps as she positioned herself behind Zhong Jia. Her gray suit pants draped beautifully, the cuffs brushing the tops of her black canvas shoes and concealing the white laces. She stood in silence, her right hand hanging naturally at her side while clutching something. Her gaze paused for a few seconds on the pale earlobe peeking through Zhong Jia’s hair before shifting to the phone on its stand.

She had gone through something similar back in the day. Stepping into this industry meant surrendering your privacy; the less you displayed openly, the more it fueled outsiders’ curiosity. Everyone harbored a bit of voyeurism.

But Zhong Jia’s situation differed from hers. With parents so prominent in the arts and business worlds, and a marriage that had ended so disgracefully, the fallout had turned everyone involved into tabloid fodder. Dodging the topic didn’t fix anything—it just invited wild labels.

The screen still showed only Zhong Jia, utterly unaware of Xie Yingnian’s presence. Zhong Jia’s hands lay clasped on the table, her posture as formal as if she were at a genuine press conference. Gazing into the camera, she continued the speech she had prepared over the past few days. “Ms. Qiao Yingqiu is my mother. Mr. Zhong Kefei is my biological father…”

Xie Yingnian found the subtle distinction amusing.

“…So, to be precise, I grew up with my grandmother. He Lifu and I only lived together for less than a year, and that ended the day Ms. Qiao gave birth.”

Zhong Jia chuckled at her own script and cleared her throat. “The clothes I wear and the things I use are all my own. There’s no intentional bid for attention. If you all like them, I can share links—even put together a shopping guide…”

“This one?” Zhong Jia glanced down at her hoodie. “I like this rabbit pattern. I even bought a yellow version. As for the price…”

She twisted the hoodie’s red tassel into a braid around her finger. Zhong Jia had relaxed considerably, leaning back in her chair. Xie Yingnian soundlessly retreated half a step but remained undiscovered.

Zhong Jia let out a sigh, her tone troubled. “I’m afraid that if I say it, people will accuse me of playing the pity card. I don’t know what ‘pitiful’ means to everyone—it’s probably different for each person. Aside from turning sixteen, I’ve had it pretty good the rest of the time. I don’t see it as pitiful, and I don’t want anyone else to either.”

“I’ve got no money, so I’m busting my ass to earn it, right? My socks even have a gold ingot printed on them. My birthday wish was to strike it rich.” Gifts flooded in, battleships slicing through the screen periodically, clusters of fireworks blooming amid whooshes and bangs.

The comments scrolled by at breakneck speed. She had to repeat questions to keep them from getting buried. Zhong Jia read one that kept popping up. “What happened when you were sixteen?”

The hoodie’s sleeves remained bunched at her elbows, baring her slender white arms. Lipstick test swatches streaked them—red and purple lines like fresh scars.

Zhong Jia lowered her gaze, her long lashes half-veiling her eyes. She fell silent for several seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was strained. “My grandmother passed away.”

She said no more, unwilling to embellish it.

Yet the stark contrast in her mood made her subsequent smile look forced. Plenty of viewers, raised by their own grandparents, felt a deep resonance.

-Graduate of Clear Origin First Middle School? I think I found you on the forum

-Good person card. Clicked through, so Zhong Jia repeated her sophomore year because she dropped out midway to earn medical bills for her grandma?

-Her classmates were awesome too—posted on the school forum to fundraise. Wonder if it helped her.

-So Zhong Kefei really ignores his daughter and ex-mother-in-law? Other people get status through their kids via the mom; he does it via the dad, treating his ex-wife’s womb like a tool. So gross. Typical man.

-He Lifu isn’t any better, right? Playboy kid. Just got exposed for hiring escorts and not paying. All that education wasted.

In contrast to Zhong Jia’s quiet growth, He Lifu had matured squarely in the spotlight. Tabloids and online media churned out stories on him every so often—always alongside Zhong Kefei and his conglomerate wife, parading their son at high-society venues.

Groomed as the family conglomerate’s heir, He Lifu naturally looked down on the entertainment world. But his handsome features and stylish flair rivaled any male idol. He held top spot as the poster boy in rich-kid ranking threads and even inspired fan girls to create accounts spinning marriage fantasies about him.

Unfortunately, ever since the He Family patriarch fell gravely ill and was hospitalized, He Lifu had grown even more wayward. Every few days brought a new scandal—detailed accounts that didn’t sound fabricated.

Zhong Jia knew next to nothing about He Lifu firsthand. What little she grasped came from occasional web pop-ups: the latest involved escorts, the one before that had Zhong Kefei gifting his son an Aston Martin as an adult coming-of-age present.

Sharing the same birthday, Zhong Jia had anticipated her own eighteenth would pass as blandly as plain water. After some thought, she booked the cheapest art photoshoot package—one that required sharing the results online for promotion. She went for it.

After evening self-study, the school’s cake shop had already closed. Zhong Jia detoured to the campus store for a passable soft cake, but the card reader was busted. Her phone was dead too, so she couldn’t pay via mobile. She set the cake down and returned to her dorm to rest. A few days later, she donated blood. And that was how she marked her birthday.

She took a leave from her sophomore year of high school before returning. Her classmates were all people she’d met midway, and since she was on the arts exam track, their paths diverged. Even by senior year, she remained acquaintances at best—otherwise, she might have snuck out to wander and bask in the moonlight.

Born to the same parents, the two siblings led lives as disparate as parallel worlds.

Most of the time, Zhong Jia truly didn’t consider herself pitiful. But occasions like this inevitably stirred ripples in her heart. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t choose to be strong. But she had no choice. She had drawn the exact opposite script from He Lifu’s.

“You really okay?” Shi Heng called right on cue after her session ended, nagging on for a good while.

Zhong Jia replied, “Keep yapping, and I won’t be.”

“Fair enough. You sound like you’re in good shape—the effect was solid today.” Shi Heng continued, “That’s it for now. Get some rest early. Don’t burn the midnight oil just because you’re young.”

Zhong Jia nodded distractedly. Realizing it was voice only, not video, she added a verbal “mm-hmm.”

She set the phone back on the table and glanced around lazily, too indolent to look over her shoulder even once. Her reconnaissance was utterly perfunctory. Xie Yingnian gave up hiding and stood openly a short distance behind her.

Laying herself bare to the entire internet for vindication was tantamount to a deep dissection. It had inevitably pierced the softest, most aggrieved corners of her heart.

She had no idea where A Cha had gone. The room felt eerily empty. Confirming she was alone, Zhong Jia bowed her head and let a few quiet tears fall.

She rarely cried. Qiao Yingqiu despised tears, and her grandmother had always said crying solved nothing.

The kindly old lady knew her health situation all too well. For Zhong Jia, she imagined a lonely, muddy road ahead, so she was patient and gentle with the children who came to the house for music lessons. Yet she turned right around and treated her granddaughter, who was about the same age as them, with unyielding strictness.

Zhong Jia saw tears as her reward, the emotional release that came after surviving each grueling phase.

Even so, she refused to let herself fall apart.

When the girl’s soft sobs reached her ears, Xie Yingnian felt even less regret. After stepping off the high-speed train, she had only paused briefly at the cake shop before rushing straight back to the hotel.

She hadn’t even had time for a proper meal.

They were two hearts residing in separate bodies—no matter how intimately they touched, they could never truly sense each other’s thoughts. And yet, for no logical reason, she was convinced she knew exactly what Zhong Jia needed right now. If pressed for an explanation…

Perhaps some rare convergence of circumstances had drawn her own state of mind infinitely close to true empathy.

What Xie Yingnian understood went beyond Zhong Jia; it encompassed her own past self in countless similar scenes.

That resemblance made her disregard the other’s apparent plea for solitude. She stayed silent, waiting until the pretense crumbled and the raw grief—beginning with choked sobs—laid itself bare.

The plush carpet muffled her footsteps as she paced from her spot to the coffee table and back. The moment Zhong Jia rose and turned, Xie Yingnian offered the tissue box. What met her eyes was a face frozen in a daze for several long seconds.

Overlooking those red, tear-soaked eyes and the streaks marring her cheeks, that daze deserved a descriptor on either side: beautiful.

The sight stirred something in Xie Yingnian she hadn’t even considered before—pity.

But pity alone didn’t quite capture it. As Zhong Jia blinked in disbelief, her damp lashes seemed to flutter across Xie Yingnian’s heart, stirring memories from not long ago.

The curve at the corner of her eye hinted at barely contained longing, that pleasing voice… Zhong Jia had tilted her head back without thinking, baring the delicate, fragile line of her neck right to her lips.

Zhong Jia wasn’t the only one who hadn’t fully lost herself in the scene.

Xie Yingnian admitted her own mindset had shifted subtly that day during the intimate scene. But she’d hurried back to Yanjing without a moment to sit with the feeling.

Only now, faced with Zhong Jia’s eerily similar expression, did those dormant stirrings bloom anew—unfamiliar yearnings taking root. She found herself distracted, questioning whether she’d simply forgotten in the rush… or deliberately buried it amid the busyness. It even made her second-guess the true purpose of this trip.

“You… what’s wrong?” Zhong Jia waved a hand in front of Xie Yingnian’s face.

How odd. She was the one who’d been startled, so why did Xie Yingnian look like her soul had wandered off?

That gentle call snapped Xie Yingnian back to the present. Her gaze lingered on Zhong Jia’s reddened eyes for a few seconds before she carefully dabbed away the heart-wrenching traces with a tissue.

The calm words filtered through her medical mask into Zhong Jia’s ears: “I’m wondering if I took my medicine today.”