Starlight Descends - 18

Undercurrent

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Bang, bang, bang.

The doorbell and frantic knocking overlapped in a relentless assault on her peaceful sleep.

Qi Yao was jolted awake for the second time that day. She sat up in bed, eyes still shut, and sat there in a daze for a long moment before shuffling out to open the door.

"It's eleven already. I've practically crossed half the country to get here, and you're still sleeping?"

Ye Qingman pushed her sunglasses down her nose with her index and middle fingers, revealing a pair of almond-shaped eyes. She gave Qi Yao a deeply suspicious once-over.

"Look at those dark circles. Were you up all night binge-watching dramas?"

"No." Qi Yao yawned and stepped aside to let her in. "I just couldn't sleep."

Ye Qingman had barely dragged her suitcase inside when the German Shepherd's barking nearly shattered the sound barrier. He launched himself at her in a frenzy of pure excitement.

Hot, eager paws scrabbled at her trousers. His tongue lolled as he kept leaping up at her, desperate to be held.

"Okay, okay, baby." Ye Qingman bent down and scooped him up. "You almost scratched me."

She fussed over the dog with rapturous delight. "Why are you so fat now? Your godmother's been feeding you well, huh? Did you miss me? Did you?”

Qi Yao ducked into the bathroom to wash up. "There's bread and milk in the fridge if you're hungry."

"No way. I want hot pot for lunch."

Cradling the dog in her arms, Ye Qingman leaned against the bathroom doorframe and studied her closely. "I thought you'd be all relaxed on your break. How do you look even more tired than I do?"

Qi Yao paused for two seconds, rinsing the foam from her face. "Being too idle is exhausting."

"Qiao Nian called me this morning. Said someone from Fengxing contacted her."

"Really?" Ye Qingman's eyes went wide with excitement. "That means you got it, right?"

"I don't know. Could just be to talk about something else.” Qi Yao pressed a face cloth to her skin, blotting away the moisture, lowered it and looked at Ye Qingman.

"I'm in the same group as Zhao Min."

Ye Qingman's mouth opened, then closed. She looked like she wanted to say a thousand things, but in the end, all she managed was: "...That's some rotten luck."

"It'll be fine." Two seconds later, inspiration struck her. She cleared her throat, put on a solemn face, and began chanting in the exaggerated rhythm of a fan slogan: "You are Gorgeous Qi Xiao Yao! Unparalleled Beauty Qi Xiao Yao!"

Qi Yao was speechless. She brandished a menacing fist at her. "Go to hell!"

Ye Qingman howled with laughter for a solid minute before she could finally straighten up. "Let's just eat at home today."

The two of them bundled up, masks and hats firmly in place, and drove to the supermarket to buy a massive haul of ingredients.

The German Shepherd was unusually hyper today. The moment they stepped outside, he tore off at full speed, dragging Ye Qingman behind him.

"Slow down! Son!"

 The dog ignored her completely.

"Husband?"

Ye Qingman cycled through a dozen different forms of address, but the dog refused to react to a single one. 

"...What's wrong with him?" She frowned. "I leave for two weeks and he forgets his own name?"

Qi Yao fell silent for a moment and smoothly changed the subject, "Do you want beef? We could grab more of that spicy beef."

Even bundled up beyond recognition, a female celebrity's figure management still made her stand out in a crowd.

Standing by the refrigerated section, Qi Yao bent slightly, picking through ingredients. She was wearing a white fitted top and wide-leg pink trousers, her long hair falling smooth and straight. Slender, elegant, beautiful.

"Um... excuse me?"

Qi Yao turned at the voice. A boyish-looking young man stood there clutching his phone, face flushed bright red as he awkwardly tried to strike up a conversation.

"Getting hit on when you're bundled up like that." Ye Qingman clicked her tongue all the way back from the underground parking garage to the elevator.

 "Some people are just born with natural magnetism."

"Oh, please." Qi Yao reached up to press the button for the eighteenth floor.

"Hey." Ye Qingman suddenly remembered something, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Doesn't your White Moonlight live right across the hall? What does he look like? Take me to see him later."

"..." Qi Yao went silent for a moment. "And how exactly am I supposed to do that? Peer through his peephole?"

Ye Qingman looked at her with all the despair of a coach watching a player miss an open goal. “Go knock on his door! Invite him over for hot pot!”

The words had barely left her mouth when the elevator gave a soft jolt and stopped at the first floor. Both women instinctively stepped back, their conversation snipping off clean.

The moment the doors slid open, the German Shepherd immediately exploded into barking and lunged forward. 

"Yo, Lai Fu! Running into you again." Zhou Qi stood there with a bag of snacks, visibly surprised.

The dog barked at him perfunctorily, quickly abandoned him and threw himself at the trouser leg of the man standing behind him, tail whipping into a frenzy.

Inside the elevator, Ye Qingman was silent for a long, long beat. Then she slowly turned her head to stare at Qi Yao. "Lai. Fu?" she repeated through gritted teeth.

 

Qi Yao: "..."

No, wait, let me explain.

Unfortunately, she wasn't remotely in the position to explain anything right now. Her mind was still full of the image from last night: the man sitting in the car, that casual, teasing smile, asking if she'd wanted another look.

"Our next focus will be licensing our proprietary IP, specifically high-speed communication interfaces and RF-related technologies."

Yu Jiashu strode into the elevator. His gaze swept over the two woman, pausing for a few seconds on Qi Yao.

He didn't speak, only raised one eyebrow slightly in greeting.

"...What a coincidence," Qi Yao managed. Her fingers tightened unconsciously around her cap.

Thank god she still had her mask on, it was her last shred of cover.

Damn.

From beneath her own cap, Ye Qingman silently observed the entire exchange, her eyes narrowing dangerously. The subtle undercurrent in the air was impossible to miss.

Under her mask, she mouthed a silent curse.

He's gorgeous.

The man was tall. His posture straight and commanding. She and Qi Yao were each tucked into opposite corners of the elevator. From her angle, she could see the sharp bridge of his nose and the hard line of his brow bone. Even the tilt of his chin carried an easy, almost arrogant confidence.

The entertainment industry wasn't lacking in handsome men.

But Yu Jiashu was different.

He looked like God's personal prototype, shaped by a privileged upbringing and an overwhelmingly strong sense of self, nothing like the manufactured "pretty boys" flooding the internet. It was as though he had been born a favored son of heaven, with his good looks merely an incidental embellishment rather than a defining feature.

Ye Qingman had always wondered how a high school crush could possibly be worth remembering for so many years. By now, the guy was probably balding, paunchy, someone’s husband, someone’s father—shuffling through life in a dull plaid shirt.

But seeing him in person now, she finally understood. 

Some people only need one glance.

And you never forget them again.

No matter how far away you were from them, no matter how many years stood between you, they would never simply fade into the crowd, never become someone you could brush past without knowing.

This God's prototype was on a phone call right now. Inside the enclosed elevator, he kept his voice low and brief out of courtesy, answering mostly in short, calm syllables.

Casual, but completely in control.

"Mm."

"That works."

The person on the other end suggested they find a time to talk next week. He agreed and hung up.

The entire time, Zhou Qi remained half-crouched beside the dog, seemingly completely absorbed in playing with it. Or perhaps not entirely.

Qi Yao caught him sneaking several glances toward Ye Qingman. She couldn't tell whether he'd recognized her yet.

Ye Qingman was completely oblivious to it all, continuing to elbow Qi Yao in the waist with what she clearly believed was stealth, while throwing her increasingly frantic, meaningful looks.

Hot pot! Invite him for hot pot!

Qi Yao kept her eyes fixed straight ahead and played dead. She heard absolutely nothing.

A few more residents stepped into the elevator after that, making conversation even more impossible.

The building didn't actually have that many occupants. Normally you'd ride the elevator alone. God only knew what kind of auspicious hour had brought everyone crammed inside it together now.

"Damn it! You! You just—!" The second they got inside the apartment, Ye Qingman exploded. She pointed at Qi Yao, so outraged she could barely form words. "You, you, you! How could you just waste an opportunity like that!"

"...I wasn't particularly keen to seize it."

Qi Yao looked at her with perfect sincerity. "I spent all night dreaming about his abs. I don't have the face to look at him today. Maybe another time."

Ye Qingman: "..."

???

"Here I thought you were all pure and innocent, and you've been off having filthy dreams this whole time?”

"Don't." Qi Yao waved a hand.

Where do you think these dark circles came from?

She turned and headed into the kitchen, dragging out the electric hot pot and rinsing it under the tap. Then she remembered something.

"Hey, can you tell Lizi she doesn't need to buy groceries today? And if she hasn't eaten yet, tell her to come up and join us."

"Sure." Still grieving the lost opportunity, Ye Qingman let out a dramatic sigh and grabbed Qi Yao's phone from the coffee table. "What's your password again?"

Qi Yao paused for two seconds. "1224."

Water streamed over the back of her hand, slipping through her fingers. Impossible to stop. Impossible to catch.

"Worshipping foreign gods, are we?" Ye Qingman clicked her tongue. "Who even loves Christmas Eve this much in this day and age?"

Qi Yao said nothing. She squeezed the soup base into the pot, added water, and waited for it to boil. The enticing, savory aroma began to suffuse the air.

"What's Lizi's name saved as?"

Ye Qingman had scrolled halfway through the contact list and still hadn't found anything remotely close to ‘Lizi’. She gaped in disbelief. "Do you seriously have OCD? Why is every single person saved under their full legal name?"

"Yang Li." Qi Yao pulled two bottles of orange soda from the fridge.

Ye Qingman’s fingers flew across the screen. A long, long list of contacts scrolled past—industry professionals she knew, directors, even makeup artists—every single one saved under a proper, formal name.

"With this many people, you seriously never mix anyone up?"

Qi Yao: "Mind your own business."

"Found her. Sent."

Just as Ye Qingman put the phone down, a red notification dot suddenly leapt to the very top of the screen.

Not a previous conversation moving up in the order. A completely new, entirely unheralded contact. As if it had been dredged up from some long-forgotten, dusty corner.

"Someone messaged you," Ye Qingman said, handing the phone over.

"Oh." Qi Yao set it aside without looking.

She was hungry, waiting for the chili-laden, red soup base to bubble and roil so she could start dropping ingredients into the pot.

"So, you're not that obsessive, after all. There's actually someone in your contacts without a saved name." Ye Qingman's mouth was watering in anticipation. She generously dumped an entire plate of fatty beef into the broth.

Qi Yao's chopsticks paused mid-air. "Hm?"

"Don't tell me you forgot? The person who just texted you doesn't have a name saved."

Ye Qingman found it mildly amusing. She grabbed the bottle opener and efficiently popped the cap off the orange soda.

A crisp, sweet fragrance bloomed in the air, almost overpowering even the scent of the boiling, spicy broth. Qi Yao froze.

...No name saved.

Over all these years, there had only ever been one person in her contact list without a name saved.

Seven or eight years ago, it had been "木又寸," the embarrassing, flamboyant pretension of youth screaming from the screen. The year he left for San Francisco, he'd changed it, and it had never been touched again since.

Qi Yao's lashes fluttered lightly. Her fingertip hovered above the screen, suspended there without daring to fall.

What was this called again?

She stared at the glowing screen, a strange, indescribable feeling washed over her.

The closer you are to home, the more timid you become.

The desire inside her was screaming, howling, for her to look, to just look at it. But the last shreds of reason held firm, warning her not to hope too much. It could be someone else. Someone she'd forgotten. Anyone.

After all these years, haven't she learned her lesson yet?

Random promotional accounts pushing advertisements. Unknown friend requests. Forgotten contacts she had never bothered to label suddenly sending messages.

It could be anything.

Qi Yao let out the softest, quietest breath. Even the touch of her fingertip landing on the screen was the lightest, gentlest thing.

She unlocked the phone. The message list opened before her eyes.

Yang Li, Qiao Nian, Ye Qingman, Qiu Lang, Ren Dandan, and a few industry contacts and directors she was currently in talks with. A whole row of full legal names, lined up like background scenery.

One account with a black profile picture had risen silently from the very bottom, bypassing every single one of them, vaulting across nearly a decade of silence—to perch at the very top of her unread messages.

[S]: So when do I get my signed photo?

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