Chapter 109

Chapter 109 [VIP] Extra Five (Ten Years of Marriage - Part 1)

Ten years is a long time.

From eighteen to twenty-eight, they were apart, falling to rock bottom, thinking they would be buried by pain forever.

From twenty-eight to thirty-eight, they reunited, helping each other climb upwards, finally learning to appreciate the lights of the city, able to taste the simple things in life, no longer feeling lonely.

In these ten years, An Ye had fallen asleep excessively twice, stiffened from being too immersed in a role once, and the rest of the time, everything was normal.

An Ye's stiffened acting happened in the fifth year after marriage, when she took on a film about domestic violence.

The script was excellent, and the production team was top-notch. After years of doing romantic films, art films, and even comedies, she was itching to act in something more intense, and couldn't resist taking the role.

The childhood of the film’s female protagonist closely resembled her own real life: a mother who wanted her daughter to succeed, a father who was unfaithful and abusive, and even a childhood friend she grew up with.

Unlike An Ye, the female protagonist in the film did not succeed. The day before her college entrance exam, her father beat her, and she attended the exam with a low fever, failing to get into a top university. She enrolled in a third-tier school, and her childhood friend, who got into a prestigious university, drifted away from her. In order to escape her family, she started dating repeatedly, but the men she chose bore a resemblance to her father.

In her junior year, she became pregnant, got married, and five years after the marriage, she was beaten to death. A month after her death, no one cared, and the incident came to light only because her husband, unsure how to deal with the body, slowly exposed himself.

The entire story was recounted from the perspective of a lawyer, from this poor woman’s birth to her end, with the final scene showing the red-eyed female lawyer sending the protagonist’s husband to jail.

And the woman playing this lawyer was Diao Tong.

The filming initially went smoothly. Over the years, An Ye's acting skills had become increasingly proficient. The childhood portion was filmed by a child actor, while her part began when the protagonist entered college. Although it was a third-tier school, it was far from home, far enough that she thought she could escape and fly freely.

However, her already divorced father refused to leave her alone. During her first week at college, he brought his luggage and took a train to the university gate, sitting at the security post asking every student who passed by if they had seen his daughter, Zhang Qingqing, who was very beautiful and a freshman.

Zhang Qingqing's father said he was looking for a job in this city, claiming that his original work was ruined by her "debt-collecting mother" and threatening, "If you let me go back, I’ll kill her."

Zhang Qingqing agreed.

Her father was addicted to gambling.

Time and again, during classes, meals, and lights-out at the dormitory, Zhang Qingqing received phone calls from her father or the debt collectors, urging her to go out and repay the money.

At the same time, her first love, who had once pampered her, was having an affair.

The emotionally intense scenes were well performed by An Ye. However, she was a little slower to get out of character, and her mood was also not great.

Everyone thought there was nothing wrong, considering they had been filming the college scenes for a week straight. It was strange if she wasn't feeling down.

But after two consecutive nights of video calls with An Ye, Chi Lu took a week off from work and flew to the movie set.

When he arrived, Xiao Yao met him at the airport. Xiao Yao had never been through what Xiao Lan and Yi Fang had experienced, so she thought Chi Lu was being overly cautious. She even told her not to mention his arrival to An Ye.

Xiao Yao kept quiet, and An Ye, deeply immersed in the role of Zhang Qingqing, didn't notice anything unusual.

That day, they were still filming campus scenes.

The key moment came when Zhang Qingqing finally gathered the courage to refuse to repay her father’s gambling debts, blocking his number. In response, her father stormed into the school, stopped her as she was leaving class to go to the library, and in the busy, crowded avenue, he sat on the ground, grabbing Zhang Qingqing’s sleeve and crying out loud.

He repeated the same old accusations: unfilial, indifferent to her parents' well-being, thinking she could fly away because she had grown wings.

In this scene, An Ye had no lines.

She was the passive party, unable to move as her father, who had been beating her, pulled her by the arm. She lowered her head, her shoulders hunched—a posture she had learned from being beaten.

What she was really afraid of were the words her father was crying out, the family secrets she had tried so hard to bury, the humiliations that would make people look down on her, the bloody reality she couldn’t escape.The scene was filmed seven times, with four different camera angles.

An Ye made no mistakes during her part.

When the director shouted "cut," An Ye wrapped up her scene for the day.

She took the coat that Xiao Yao handed her and quickly squeezed through the crowd, head down.

For the past two days, she had been like this after filming, and the director didn’t stop her.

An Ye hurried onto the RV and quickly locked the door behind her.

Xiao Yao, following behind, was a bit surprised. An Ye didn’t even notice Chi Lu, who had been standing beside Xiao Yao.

"Give me the key," Chi Lu's voice was a bit deep.

"Oh? Oh!" Xiao Yao scrambled to find the key.

Then she saw Chi Lu open the RV door, turn around, and whisper to her, "You head back to the hotel. I’ll take care of this."

The RV door closed.

Before it shut, Xiao Yao noticed that the lights inside the RV were off, and it was completely dark inside.

An Ye curled herself into a corner, wrapped in a thin blanket, like a cocoon.

She didn’t start speaking yet. When Chi Lu entered and closed the door, she had no reaction, shrinking further at the sound.

Chi Lu didn’t say anything either. He walked over, picked her up, and held her, gently pulling her head out from the blanket so she could breathe.

He didn’t immediately use something cold to cool her down. She didn’t seem fully lost in her own world, like a balloon filled with air, so he didn’t dare to use any drastic methods, afraid it would trigger her emotions to burst without an outlet.

He just quietly held her in the darkness.

Time passed. Outside, the work had wrapped up, the daylight dimming, and everything around them gradually became quiet.

"Doesn’t it feel like Norway?" Chi Lu suddenly spoke, "The snowstorm that time."

An Ye didn’t move.

Sweat had formed on her forehead from the heat of the thin blanket. Chi Lu pulled her hand out of the blanket, leaving only her stomach wrapped up.

An Ye's fingers curled slightly. Chi Lu placed his fingers in the indent where her fingers had curled. An Ye, like a newborn baby, froze for a moment, then gently enclosed his fingers in her palm, tightly squeezing them.

Chi Lu kissed her earlobe, softly and gently encouraging her, "If you're too tired, you can take it slow. You've done really well."

An Ye relaxed her straight back and pressed her back closer into Chi Lu's chest.

More time passed.

An Ye let out a soft "mm."

Chi Lu also hummed in response, but his tone was lifted.

"How did you get here?" Her voice was a bit hoarse, and her speech was slow, as if she had just woken up from a long, uncomfortable sleep, and her brain was still slow to turn.

"I missed you." Chi Lu buried his head into her neck.He had stayed up all night to take a leave yesterday, and didn’t have time to shave in the morning, so his chin was a bit prickly.

At first, An Ye didn’t dodge, but it really started to itch, and she shrank back a bit.

Chi Lu followed her movement and lowered his head.

An Ye continued to dodge.

Back and forth, four or five times, An Ye finally slapped his head with a "pop": “It’s itchy!”

“Shave my beard,” Chi Lu’s chin was still against her neck, and when he spoke, the itchiness became even more intense.

An Ye clicked her tongue, turned around on Chi Lu’s body, and faced him.

The blanket that was wrapped around her slid off because of her movement, like shedding the outer cocoon.

Chi Lu held her waist and positioned her comfortably between them both, leaning against the RV sofa backrest and letting out a sigh.

“I thought I was past this,” An Ye sighed.

She thought she had recovered, with over five years since her last episode. Even Dr. Yang, her therapist, had said that she could consider seeing him once a season now. Her episodes of sleepiness had decreased from two or three times a year to occasionally just once.

However, this week, with the intense role of playing Zhang Qingqing and experiencing her struggle and hopelessness, An Ye realized that something wasn’t right with her.

The force pulling her back had become more tangible.

“It’s not that easy to get better,” Chi Lu’s voice was lazy as he patted her head gently, “That’s a hole buried deep inside, like an ear bone pin. Even if the outside heals, it still feels uneven when touched.”

“But it’s not a bad thing. Everyone needs some shadows in their lives,” Chi Lu continued lazily, “You’ve got me, so what’s there to be afraid of?”

An Ye gave a soft laugh.

“How did you know I was off?” she asked again. “How did you figure it out?”

When her emotions are off, there’s a very scary trait she has: she starts acting, acting like everything’s fine, completely hiding in the mirror, and when interacting with others, they’d just think she’s a little down.

Moreover, this time, she hadn’t fully broken down—she was still in the early stages. Yesterday, during the video call, she had even stared at him, telling him to stop feeding Lao Bai more; the fat on him could be used to mop the floor.

“Actually, I didn’t figure it out,” Chi Lu said. “I haven’t been sleeping well these past few days, restless. I just thought I should come over to check on you.”

“Maybe…” Chi Lu, the materialist lawyer, said, “After spending enough time together, we start to develop telepathy.”

An Ye: "…"

He’s becoming more and more shameless lately.

“Next time, I won’t take this kind of movie,” An Ye mumbled, sitting up straight, and announced, “I’m hungry.”

“You said the same thing about never taking another Yang Zhengyi movie,” Chi Lu teased, “Yet here you are, filming another one.”

An Ye: "…"

“What do you want to eat?” Chi Lu also sat up, patted her bottom to make her stand up, and got up to turn on the light.

The RV suddenly lit up.

“Only fat-reducing meals,” An Ye stood up, lifted the blanket, and placed it on the sofa. She then went over to the fridge with Chi Lu.

Her nutritionist these past few years was much better than the one before. The food wasn’t that cold boiled rice and vegetables anymore; the dishes now had better colors and flavors.But after all, it’s a fat-reducing meal. No matter how good it tastes, how good can it really be?

Chi Lu took out two boxes, opened the induction cooker, and started preparing the food.

An Ye just stood there in a daze.

Her emotions couldn't possibly recover that quickly. It was just that Chi Lu had pulled her back into the light before she completely sank in, but she was still somewhat absent-minded.

And that sense of disappointment, the feeling that she thought she was better but still experiencing setbacks, wasn’t something that could be easily suppressed.

Neither of them said anything more. The only sound in the RV was the smell of food heating up.

Chi Lu finished heating the fat-reducing meal, rummaged through the freezer, found a bag of something, and started heating it in a frying pan.

After a while, the whole RV was filled with the scent of food. It wasn’t the bland, oil-less taste of a fat-reducing meal; it had the tangy, spicy aroma of lemongrass.

An Ye finally snapped out of her daze and looked at the red soup in the frying pan: “What’s this?”

There’s such a delicious thing in the RV fridge?

“I had Xiao Yao pack some tom yum goong soup yesterday and put it in the freezer. If you want, I can heat up a bowl for you,” Chi Lu said, “Especially when you're feeling down.”

When you’re low and need some comfort.

An Ye watched as Chi Lu scooped up a spoonful of soup with a wooden spoon, blew on it to cool it down, and held it to her lips.

An Ye took a sip.

The taste of tom yum goong was incompatible with many things—sour and spicy, with the powerful flavor of lemongrass. After drinking it, all that remained in her mouth was the taste of lemongrass.

“Is it good?” He smiled at her.

“Mm.” An Ye finished the rest, feeling her stiff throat ease a little.

“I took a week off,” Chi Lu said. “What else do you want to eat? I’ll go buy it tomorrow.”

“Mm.” An Ye hugged Chi Lu’s waist, rubbing her head against his back a couple of times.

Chi Lu, with this little tail following him, set the table, then patted the little tail's shoulder: “Let’s eat first.”

It won’t get better that quickly, and that’s okay. Having psychological scars isn’t scary.

Because there are so many things that can bring An Ye back to reality. Her wishes are always so easy to fulfill—whether it's a bowl of intensely flavored tom yum goong, his unshaven face the next day, or even Lao Bai’s stinky feet.

Her reality had already nothing to do with those shadows.

In the sixth year after their marriage, Wang Shanshan, after being silent for a few years, suddenly had a new goal.

She began to push for having a child.

The mother and daughter had only gathered a few times over the years during the holidays to have a meal. An Ye sent her living expenses every month and would also buy jewelry she thought Wang Shanshan might like and send it over, but their communication was sparse.

In the third year after marriage, the case of Huan Zhou finally came to an end. Yan Wan was sentenced to six years, and Wang Shanshan’s issues ended with a fine. It seemed Wang Shanshan had finally learned her lesson and no longer interfered with An Ye’s work. Their relationship seemed to have softened a bit, so she discussed with Chi Lu about returning to Wang’s hometown a week before her birthday. She went with Chi Lu. On her birthday, there was no birthday cake, and when she opened the fridge, she found there wasn’t even a single ice cream.

The reason was still, “You need to lose weight.”

At that moment, An Ye understood that what she and her mother hoped for, and what they wanted, were ultimately different.No one could convince anyone, the best way was to let each other go.

They kept this lukewarm relationship until the sixth year, when Wang Shanshan called An Ye and said, "I got you a talisman from the temple, it's for having more children and grandchildren."

She said, "You're already over thirty, if you wait any longer, you'll be considered a high-risk pregnancy. You’re at the right age now, but you’re still acting like a little girl, because you haven’t had children. A woman who doesn’t have children isn’t complete, and it shows in her acting—it just lacks depth."

It was very strange.

Over all these years, the only thing Wang Shanshan had said that sounded like concern was because she thought An Ye's acting career could broaden if she had children.

“We don’t plan to have children,” An Ye said. This was something she specifically flew to Wang Cheng to say to Wang Shanshan face-to-face.

“I can’t give a child complete love. I still have episodes of stiffness, I still occasionally fall into deep sleep, and I still want that ice cream.”

"So, I don’t want to have children. I don’t want to be a mother like you."

"Mother." An Ye looked into Wang Shanshan’s eyes. "It took me many years to realize—I should hate you, and you should hate me too."

“I can’t bring a child into the world with this kind of hatred. I’m not mentally healthy enough, and I can’t handle healthy familial relationships. Because of you, if I had a child, I might love them in a sickly way and harm them. So, we’ll never have children in this life.”

That was the first time An Ye had seen a look of confusion on Wang Shanshan’s face. She stared at An Ye blankly, but An Ye didn’t explain anything further.

She had never learned to love in this life, never experienced the love of family. Since she couldn’t, she could only choose to give up.

This decision wasn’t difficult because her husband was in agreement with her on this matter.

Chi Lu was even more direct. He said he didn’t like children.

A lot of things have a lifelong impact, and they were both very clear about that. Wang Shanshan seemed to have only understood it at that moment.

Those things she thought An Ye would forget when she grew up—those things where Wang Shanshan believed that because An Ye was her daughter, she would always be on her side, no matter what happened—Wang Shanshan had assumed that no matter how bad things got, they were still mother and daughter, and the blood tie was there.

In fact, it was true—An Ye would still come back to see her, and financially, things hadn’t gotten worse. Even after so many years of marriage, they still came back for New Year’s Eve dinners, and it seemed like everything had improved.

But today, her daughter clearly told her that she hated her.

“Is it because I gave you that ice cream that everything will be okay?” This was Wang Shanshan’s first time softening in front of An Ye.

An Ye just looked at her and smiled.

“So you understand the meaning of the ice cream,” she said.

“It’s not going to get better. It’s too late,” she said.

That night, she returned to Wang Cheng. By the time she got home, it was already past midnight. The loft had been renovated, with off-white and warm yellow tones everywhere.

Lao Bai was sprawled out in his bed. The study light was still on. An Ye heard Chi Lu’s voice inside, speaking in English. It must have been a case with a time difference.

An Ye went into the bedroom to change, then opened the study door and poked her head inside.

Chi Lu looked up, still speaking, and waved at her.

It wasn’t a video call. An Ye pushed the door open and walked in.

Chi Lu made room for her on half of the chair, and the two of them hugged like conjoined twins.

At first, An Ye listened to Chi Lu’s phone conversation as English listening practice. After all, there were a lot of scenes in her acting that required speaking English now, and her English pronunciation wasn’t as fluent as Chi Lu’s.

As she listened, she began to get drowsy, closing her eyes and starting to nap."You're sliding down." Chi Lu's voice came faintly as he chuckled, pulling her up. "Want to sleep on the bed?"

"Are you not done yet?" She squinted, looking up at him.

"Almost there," Chi Lu replied. "It'll be done by one-thirty."

"Then I'll stay with you." An Ye stood up, grabbed a small cushion, and placed it next to Chi Lu's chair. She sat on the cushion, resting her head on his lap, finding a comfortable position and falling asleep in his embrace.

Chi Lu: "...If you do this, I'll get sleepy too."

She was already snoring.

An Ye smacked her lips, not opening her eyes or moving.

Chi Lu sighed, shifting her slightly to the side so her neck wouldn't hurt too much. His hands typing on the keyboard sped up considerably.

When she used to go back to Wang Cheng alone, he used to worry.

In the past couple of years, though, he had stopped worrying so much.

An Ye had fully settled into their small home now. She kept her boundaries with others clearly defined, and Wang Shanshan had become more of a distant figure, so her influence on An Ye had grown smaller and smaller.

It was all good.

Chi Lu thought.

When he was eighteen, sitting on a plane with his head wrapped in bandages, he looked at the blue sky above the clouds and thought about the future.

At that time, the best future he could imagine was returning home after completing his studies, staying with An Ye until she no longer needed him.

But now, this future—the one he had now—was something he never dared to dream of even at ten thousand meters above the ground.

He was content.

Author’s Note:

Why do fans know about Chi Lu's obsessive-compulsive tendencies? That’s because "Qu Xiang Xiang Tian Ge" has had Weibo for ten years, with chat logs still intact. Fans have been obsessing over it for three years with a microscope and still couldn’t figure it out—what do you call that, obsessive fans?

Also, to avoid misunderstanding that An Ye doesn’t want children because she hates her mother, let me clarify: she just feels that her mental state isn’t stable enough to responsibly take care of a life. I think this is actually a form of self-responsibility. Whether to have children or not is a choice, neither right nor wrong. An Ye simply chose not to.

The first 800 comments get red envelopes.