Gao Qinghe sat at home, wrestling with the pearls at the bottom of her milk tea cup.
There was only one pearl left, and she refused to be defeated—she had to suck it up.
‘Use a spoon?’
‘Ha, impossible. She had been drinking milk tea for years; using a spoon would be an insult to her skills.’
After poking around the bottom of the cup for a long time, she finally managed to suck up the pearl.
She maintained the sucking position, lips slightly pursed and puckered.
She held her breath, lifted her head, and clamped down on the straw.
With a soft pop, the black pearl smacked onto a one-hundred-yuan bill on the dining table.
Gao Qinghe tossed the straw back into the cup, whose paper lid had already been torn off, and stared at the two bills in front of her: one hundred and one fifty.
Suddenly, she let out a snort of laughter.
‘Sure enough, when people feel something is absurd, they laugh.’
When the scissors fell, she had just felt her breathing ease when suddenly she was wrapped in the coat handed over by her assistant.
The shoot ended hastily. Gao Qinghe pushed away Xiang Bei, who insisted on driving her home, but couldn’t find Zhao Yuqi.
Instead, her assistant came up to settle today’s transportation fee with her.
She had thrown 200 yuan at the taxi driver for 50, leaving only this measly 150.
‘What were these people thinking? She had been posing and striking positions there, being pushed around all afternoon, and her hard work was worth more than 200 yuan, right? How could such a big-name company offer so little?’
“Come at the same time tomorrow. Director Zhao said that at this rate, you should be able to make it to the inner pages.”
The assistant’s final words sounded condescending to Gao Qinghe.
“Who knew you actually had some potential.”
‘Inner pages or potential, whatever.’
‘When Gao Qinghe took the 200 yuan, she let out a faint, absurd sigh from the back of her throat.’
‘She was speechless, raising one eyebrow, letting the assistant pat her shoulder and signal that she could go change, but she still stood there, stunned with her mouth agape.’
Her phone rang.
She swiped it open and saw a message from Xiang Bei.
“Tomorrow afternoon, pick you up at Lin Xi’s place or at the set?”
‘Uh, pick you up my ass.’
Gao Qinghe felt an unprecedented irritation.
‘What the hell did he show up for anyway? Didn’t he say himself that Lin Xi was his girlfriend? And he even said he came specifically to warn her—did he think she was some woman he could summon whenever he wanted?’
‘Any expectation she had for his so-called “surprise” had already vanished.’
Gao Qinghe snorted coldly and turned off her phone screen.
She stood up with her phone and walked to the living room, plopping down onto the sofa, bouncing twice on the soft cushion.
She sank into the sofa, tilted her head back, and unlocked her phone.
After thinking for a moment, she exited Xiang Bei’s message interface and found Li Nan’s number in her contacts.
“Is that shoot you mentioned still on the table?”
After a few seconds, she added another sentence:
“This is Gao Qinghe.”
The reply popped up immediately.
“It’s still on the table.”
“Still on, still on.”
“When are you free?”
“I’m okay anytime.”
Message after message, showing Li Nan’s eagerness.
Gao Qinghe couldn’t help but curl her lips.
She leaned back on the sofa and leisurely typed on her phone:
“Alright, but you have to do me a favor first.”
—
Gao Qinghe opened her eyes.
The sun was already high again.
Lin Xi had already gone to class.
The table was hastily littered with a snack packaging bag and a half-drunk cup of coffee.
It seemed she had been in a hurry to leave, naturally too rushed to make breakfast for her like last time.
Gao Qinghe had no idea what time she came back last night; she hadn’t even seen Lin Xi.
She reached for her phone and checked the time.
Damn, it was already eleven.
Originally, she had planned to wait for Lin Xi to come back at night, or catch her in the morning to tell her that she didn’t want to go to the shoot anymore.
But since she missed her, Gao Qinghe wasn’t in a hurry.
She sent a text to Lin Xi:
“Lin Xi, thanks for the good intention, but I don’t think fashion modeling suits me. Could you tell them for me that I won’t be going today?”
She tossed the phone back onto the sofa, got up to wash up, and casually threw Lin Xi’s empty snack wrapper into the trash.
‘She couldn’t let herself be accused of not doing housework anymore. In the past, Lin Xi would nag about her not cleaning up after eating, but she did the same thing herself.’
‘What to eat? At this hour, it had been a while since she had dim sum for breakfast.’
‘Then go shopping? No, her feet were sore from wearing high heels too long yesterday; she didn’t feel like walking around.’
‘Aromatherapy massage was a bit expensive; she should have scheduled the shoot with Li Nan for today. But she was really scared by the studio lights; every time she closed her eyes, she saw afterimages of the lights.’
After washing up, Gao Qinghe sprawled back onto the sofa.
She glanced at her phone.
Lin Xi hadn’t replied.
‘What to do? It wasn’t like she could go to the set in person to resign, right?’
‘Ha, Zhao Yuqi thought she was so important to make her resign in person.’
‘Forget it. She had tried to convey the message; if it didn’t get through, it wasn’t her fault. None of the people on set had exchanged contact info with her anyway.’
‘Besides, why did Lin Xi insist on making her a fashion model? Clearly, she and Lin Xi weren’t the same type. Why did these people have to twist her into the same style as Lin Xi? What were they thinking?’
‘The more Gao Qinghe thought about it, the angrier she got. Why did she have to put up with this? They criticized her for being bad at this, bad at that, accused her of being cold and indifferent, and most importantly, she wasn’t even getting paid!’
‘She wasn’t getting paid at all!’
‘What good was it for her to be in their magazine? Was this what Lin Xi called “a legitimate modeling path”?’
‘Then Lin Xi should just do it herself. Wasn’t she universally loved? Good family background, good temperament, strong abilities? Oh right, she forgot—Lin Xi was too proud. She wouldn’t deign to be Zhao Yuqi’s model! Your precious Lin Xi has no interest in your career, so why are you acting so high and mighty here?’
Gao Qinghe started ranting in her head again, shaking her head.
She didn’t know whether her anger was directed at Lin Xi or Zhao Yuqi, but she was just furious.
“Yeah, yeah, you all like Lin Xi. But have you considered whether Lin Xi even looks up to you?”
Gao Qinghe finally voiced her sarcasm out loud.
But the more she thought about it, the more she felt she had heard that somewhere before.
‘Oh, Xiang Bei had said something similar yesterday.’
‘Right, Xiang Bei.’
‘She had almost forgotten about his surprise.’
Gao Qinghe opened the chat with Xiang Bei.
The conversation still stopped at his message:
“Tomorrow afternoon, pick you up at Lin Xi’s place or at the set?”
‘Yeah, Xiang Bei was annoying too.’
Gao Qinghe recalled how aloof Xiang Bei had been on set, and the fire in her heart burned even brighter.
‘What made him think she would agree to meet? Did he really think of her as some secret lover or an illegitimate mistress?’
‘So what if he was a rich second generation? So what if he went to Stanford?’
Gao Qinghe pressed hard on the screen, her fingernails clicking against it as the phone swayed in her hands.
“Not going. Get lost. Not interested.”