Published at 3rd of September 2019 2:23 am

Chapter 7

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Thanks to the text, Si Nian ended up not leaving home for three consecutive days.

She would be sprawled on the sofa every day, going through the information while eating melon seeds. There would be a huge pile of melon seed shells in front of her, the smaller pile belonged to Cola.

They went through the same pattern for an entire three-day, both the woman and the cat were already sick and tired of melon seeds.

Thankfully, in the end what Cheng Chen meant was that he was going to contact her to arrange for a meeting, not that he was going to contact her privately.

Li Xiao Qing was an engineering graduate, she had the habit of using numbers to analyse the script… for a humanities graduate like her, she felt tortured seeing all the numbers.

The subject of the meeting: how many female leads does this film need?

The whiteboard listed a series of women with different personalities who will have complicated and tangled relationships with the male lead. There was one who was naïve and forced the male lead to take responsibility, one who was so passionate and obsessed that she threatened to kill herself if he wouldn’t marry her, also one who had a tragic past waiting for the male lead to rescue her…

They even went as far as calculating the percentage of how all the women would be received…

She saw that the males inside the room sharing the same look of deep satisfaction.

Did they all thought of themselves as the male lead?

Sigh, people these days.

They should be more clear-headed.

She looked at Cheng Chen who was sitting across her. He seemed to be carefully considering what the analyser said. She sighed inwardly, continuing to bite her apple to replenish vitamin in her body.

She had been working hard, worried that this famous, slave-driver director would unsatisfied.

“How is it?” Li Xiao Qing asked, her head popping at the door. “How did the discussion went?”

Everyone quieted down. Their company had four branches, every day there would at least be ten films or dramas to be discussed about. As they were working with Cheng Chen this time, whom was heavily endorsed by their boss Li Xiao Qing herself, they had put in extra effort.

Cheng Chen kept on tapping the table with his pen. “Si Nian, what do you think?”

Si Nian, who was still biting her apple, absentmindedly said, “How many do you think is necessary?”

Why did it felt like they were buying groceries at the market, as if the women were from the Dreams of the Red Chamber, as if they were choosing a beauty out of a harem.

Cheng Chen simply lifted his cup. Even though it was just an ordinary action, it silenced everyone.

Li Xiao Qing, who had been standing at the door, finally found it unbearable and said, “Isn’t it just choosing a female lead? Quickly make up your mind and wrap up, it’s dinner time.” Having spoken her mind, she remained leaning on the door, waiting.

He started drinking from the cup. “I got a cold recently, allow me to drink some hot water.” After finished, he continued, “That childhood-friend female lead is not bad, I like that sort of feeling. Just use one female lead. What do you think, scriptwriter?”

Si Nian kept on eating her apple and pretended to consider it seriously. Then she casually answered, “I also like that sort of feeling.”

Everyone had discussed for almost an entire day, including every kind of feeling they got from the proposed female leads, yet they didn’t expect the director to like the childhood-friend trope. There were also people who were not satisfied with that decision, they argued that such trope was often acted out badly and was the most difficult to film with passion. But Cheng Chen seemed to be indifferent. While sipping hot water, he said, “That would have to depend on the scriptwriter.”

Si Nian were uselessly concentrated on her apple but tasted bitterness. She didn’t realize that she had been biting into the core.

Thanks to the director’s one sentence, it had been decided that the main couple would be childhood friends, innocent and sweet.

“Ha, didn’t I say so,” Li Xiao Qing said, putting a dumpling into her daughter’s bowl, “Director Cheng likes this kind of trope.”

Si Nian merely stuffed herself with the steaming hot dumpling, accompanied with ginger slices.

“Nian Nian,” Li Xiao Qing’s daughter called with familiarity. She obviously only looked like she was in her teens, the little girl actually carried herself with the air of an older sister. “Be careful you’ll burn your tongue.”

Si Nian bared her teeth at her, gently stressing, “I’m six years older than you, call me jie jie.”

Even though Li Xiao Qing heard it clearly but she was still curious. “The both of you, since when you have become so close to each other? But that’s good too. Lou Lou, after you became friends with Si Nian, your results rose sharply.”

Si Nian smiled sheepishly. It was a long story, better to keep it a secret.

“It was Si Nian jie who motivated me,” Lou Lou said, “she made me understood the phrase ‘under every person, there is another person’.”

Si Nian shot Lou Lou a resentful glare. Girl, please stop talking.

Everyone at the table had already witnessed how difficult the boss’s daughter can be. Skipping school to throw a house party, not paying attention in class, but now she actually turned over a new leaf and placed academics as her first priority.

After hearing what Lou Lou said, everyone became curious, especially Cheng Chen. He glanced at Si Nian, appearing to look very serious.

“Hurry and tell us your experience,” a middle-aged man sitting across said, his curiosity apparent. “Every now and then I would have to meet my son’s teacher, hurry and share with me your parental experience.”

Li Xiao Qing also laughed. “Si Nian, you don’t have a boyfriend right? How would you have parental experience?”

Si Nian made an noncommittal noise. Her guilt made her unable to look at Cheng Chen.

Under such pressure, she had nervously finished all her ginger slices. She turned around to order for another plate. When she looked back, she met Cheng Chen’s eyes.

Their eyes met but he didn’t look surprised at all and even kept on staring.

In contrast, it was Si Nian who felt like she was caught doing adultery and quickly looked away.

She turned away and when she was about to continue eating her dumplings, Lou Lou had already began telling her story. “Actually, each person has their own pride and dignity. When I was in primary school, my results were very good. But when I entered middle school I could not catch up, I was always scolded by my teachers. So I rebelled. Thankfully it was Si Nian who taught me a lesson by telling me her sob story.”

...

That was it, she was done.

Lou Lou purposely delayed the story and paused for dramatic effect.

“What did she say?” Cheng Chen suddenly asked.

Lou Lou immediately smiled. “She told me, ‘Results don’t mean anything. Back then in my 150-marks math paper, I only got 38. For my physics paper, I once got number two counting from the back. I have lived through all kinds of hurdle.”

After she finished her sentence, everyone was quiet for a beat. They didn’t expect their respected scriptwriter would have such bitter school days.

Si Nian was close to tears. After her past was revealed, how could she be able to show off anymore…

After an “en” sound, Cheng Chen asked, “What happened next?”

Lou Lou beamed at Si Nian and continued, “Afterwards I thought that if she managed to get into a famed university with such terrible results, it simply is too unreasonable. I mustn’t be worse than her, at worst I still need to enter Tsing Hua, isn’t it?”

Li Xiao Qing almost laughed herself to death. Coughing, she said, “Why don’t you emulate your little uncle, he entered based on recommendation, he never took any entrance exams.”

Lou Lou helplessly said, “That’s mental capability problem. Little uncle’s extraordinary feats since young has dealt me endless blows. Only Nian Nian jie’s story can be considered the proper encouragement material.”

After the young girl’s entertaining scoop, everyone at the table started gossiping about some person’s wife, successfully forgetting the topic of how Si Nian managed to get into a good university after such lacklustre result in school.

On their way back to the company after dinner, she glanced at Cheng Chen.

Because he had good results back then, she didn’t want to him to lose face.

Therefore puppy love can be considered a good thing if utilized properly. It can even be used to motivate people to establish the country and the people.

Especially when it was the person you like had good looks, good character, good results…

In the end their meeting went on till late night. Only when Cheng Chen’s voice progressively became worse until he could barely speak, did he allowed everyone to go home.

Si Nian noticed that he didn’t seem to have any plans to leave. After some hesitation, she asked him, “I asked for some ginger slices from the restaurant earlier. Originally I wanted to boil it with coke, but if you want, I will boil it for you here? It will keep you warm.”

She was completely mad for coke to the point that coke with ginger was her favourite winter drink. Others drink it to keep themselves warm but she liked it because the drink was slightly spicy and had the fragrance of ginger.

It took her a lot of courage to ask but Cheng Chen did not immediately answer.

The meeting room was completely empty except for them.

“I remember, you said you started drinking coke?” She remembered Cheng Chen said so at her home. If not she would definitely not ask because back then he said he hated coke.

“I will occasionally drink some,” he finally said.

She was actually quite curious, was he like her? When she was young, she hated long beans. When she became older, she actually became obsessed with stir-fried long beans. Was it inexplicable like that too?

In the end they went to the pantry, she turned on the water heater. When the heater was releasing slight vapour, she asked, “Why did you ended up drinking coke? Didn’t you used to say you hate it more than anything?”

Silence. The silence stretched for miles.

He wasn’t talking again?

In the first place it was already rather awkward. She kept on looking for conversation topics to fill the silence yet he was so unreceptive.

Since she was already in the thick of things, she might as well go on with thickened skin. She watched Cheng Chen drink the remainder of the coke. He looked indifferent as he gulped it down.

The problem was, he already finished half the tin.

“You already drank the cold one, can you still finish the hot ginger coke?” She turned around and saw that the water was almost ready.

She harboured some dissatisfaction but she swallowed it down. She was afraid she would end up sounding too nosy.

“I couldn’t find you then,” he suddenly said, crumpling the coke tin before tossing it into the waste bin. “I thought that you were sulking. The things that you like, I didn’t quite like. Later I tried to drink the coke that you like, play with the cat you like. Eventually it doesn’t feel like I can’t accept anymore.”

Si Nian was holding up the heater, her fingers felt weak and nearly dropped the thing.

He spoke it so calmly, but her heart felt like it was bursting from the pain listening.

When she was pondering about what to say, Cheng Chen’s phone suddenly rang.

He looked at the screen before cancelling the call. When he noticed that she was staring at him intently, he smiled and said, “What’s wrong? Is it because you feel extremely regretful that you gave up on such a fine young man?”

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