Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Actually, Chi Tuo knew himself that the last thing he said came out way too rushed. He was supposed to build up to it—after all, the last time they saw each other ten years ago, the two of them had talked about the future a lot. Looking back now, the general direction was the same, but the details were vastly different.

It was those details that kept him from coming back for ten years, and those same details that led An Jiujiu to stop talking to him about her life five years ago.

He had originally planned to properly explain those details, and only then tell An Jiujiu that he hadn’t changed—that he had always been here.

That would’ve made more sense. Not just blurting out like a kid: “I’m on your side.”

How childish. Because of their families, the two of them had never really said anything that childish when they were young.

What did he used to say as a kid?

Oh, right—he used to always say: “It’s okay, don’t be scared. I’m right here.”

Now, almost thirty, what he said was: “I’m on your side.”

...

Chi Tuo stood beside An Jiujiu’s bed, scratching his head, actually tempted to wake her back up just to say it properly.

After all, his real goal was to make An Jiujiu understand that they hadn’t changed. That even if she was sick, even if she ran into his bed in the middle of the night trying to strangle him, even if she mistook him for someone in a dream to take care of her physical needs—he wouldn’t think of her any differently.

That would’ve made it logical. Maybe he should say it again.

He raised his hand, hovering it near her face, ready to try.

But just then, An Jiujiu suddenly opened her eyes.

Chi Tuo: “……”

She grabbed his arm and used two fingers to pinch a chunk of skin, twisting it hard clockwise.

Chi Tuo: “F**k!”

He was already mentally spaced out and off-balance—her pinch almost flipped his scalp over. He jumped up in pain on the spot.

An Jiujiu curved her lips in a strange smile, hugged her pillow happily, and fell back asleep.

Chi Tuo: “……”

Sometimes the tacit understanding that comes from growing up together really isn’t a lie. While rubbing his aching arm, he understood why she did that—she was afraid it was a dream, so she pinched him to check.

Smart girl. Even sick, she knew to pinch someone else instead of herself.

Chi Tuo grabbed the little iron ornament on her nightstand and pressed it to her face. An Jiujiu shot up with a yelp from the cold shock.

“Not a dream,” he said.

Then, before she could flip out, he left and returned to the guest room along with the white cat.

It seemed An Jiujiu really had taken in what Chi Tuo said. Her symptoms of reality disassociation were strange—she was aware of the correct timeline in her head, but would sometimes feel like she wasn’t in the current one.

The next day after waking up, she wasn’t as obedient or quiet as the first day. She stared at her arranged diet meal—three perfectly aligned shrimp and a dozen asparagus spears—and coldly demanded, “I want wontons.”

“You’re about to start filming, you need to control your weight,” Chi Tuo said. “No carbs for now, or you’ll gain weight and crash-dieting again would be even worse for your body.”An Jiujiu stared at him: “I want to eat wontons that smell like alkaline water.”

Chi Tuo put down his chopsticks: “There aren’t any thin-skinned alkaline wontons around here.”

In the central district of Baihong City, where every inch of land was precious, there weren’t any places that sold small wontons made with alkaline dough wrappers. Not even takeout could get them.

An Jiujiu also put down her chopsticks. Without a word, she stood up, placed the three unseasoned shrimp into the white cat’s bowl, threw the asparagus into the trash, dumped the dirty plate into the dishwasher, turned around, went into the room, pulled the blanket over herself, and went to sleep.

All in one smooth motion.

Chi Tuo: “……”

Resigned, he pulled out his phone to search for the nearest traditional food market and hired a delivery runner to help him buy a pack of thin alkaline wonton wrappers, along with a bunch of ingredients to make wontons.

That evening, when Lan Yifang came by with the usual round of scripts and work materials sent by the company for An Ye, the first thing she saw was the star herself sitting cross-legged at the bar in a slouchy T-shirt and shorts, slurping down a bowl of tiny wontons.

Lan Yifang: “...Ah.”

That huge bowl of small wontons had at least 400 calories, most of it from carbs. This was evil.

“They’re stuffed with lean pork, handmade,” Chi Tuo preempted her. “Only twenty pieces in total, with a big bowl of vegetables. This is her only meal today, and she won’t even finish it.”

Oh. Then that was... acceptable.

Lan Yifang shuffled slowly into the living room and sat down. Chi Tuo noticed she deliberately walked around An Jiujiu. An Jiujiu, in the middle of eating, looked up at her once, said nothing, and continued eating wontons.

In fact, just a minute before Lan Yifang entered, An Jiujiu had been asking him about her English test papers. She didn’t know what time she thought she was in, but apparently believed the teacher had handed out four sets and she’d only received three.

After seeing Lan Yifang—a person who shouldn’t exist in the time she believed she was in—she paused for only a second. Her expression remained unchanged, and she continued eating one wonton after another, interspersed with greens.

Very quiet.

But the atmosphere was clearly off. Lan Yifang was too tense. Chi Tuo had originally wanted to ask her if she’d eaten and offer to share some, but ended up swallowing the words.

The white cat, though deaf, still had an animal’s instinct for sensing vibes. It had been circling An Jiujiu trying to sneak a wonton, but after seeing Lan Yifang, it let out a single meow and leapt back into its pod on the cat tower.

An Jiujiu ate quite a bit that meal. She picked out all the greens and left only a few wontons, but unlike before, she didn’t drink the soup. She wiped her mouth and went straight to her room, shutting the door behind her.

Chi Tuo had a strange feeling. An Jiujiu keeping up this “in school” act might not be because she couldn’t distinguish dream from reality—it might just be because that period in her memory had been a bit lighter, easier. She knew she was An Ye now. She wasn’t surprised to see Lan Yifang. She was still managing her calorie intake. When he told her she had to lose weight for filming soon, she didn’t react much.

It was more like, in her moments of hazy awareness, she strongly rejected the identity of “An Ye.”

Lan Yifang finally let out a breath only after An Jiujiu went into her room. It was too obvious. So she gave Chi Tuo, who was still watching her, that familiar awkward smile again.

Chi Tuo said nothing and got up to clean the bar counter.

He was actually considering buying a dining table. Ten years ago, if he’d had the financial means, he would’ve just bought one without a second thought. But now, ten years later, he didn’t dare. He figured he’d ask An Jiujiu once she was fully awake—whether she’d accept a dining table set as a combined ten-year-late birthday gift.

Because of An Jiujiu’s attitude just now, Chi Tuo wasn’t so sure anymore about her relationship with Lan Yifang. He had originally assumed that if she let Lan Yifang stay around during her narcoleptic episodes to brief him on things, then Lan Yifang must be someone she trusted. And back on the first day, Lan Yifang had indeed seemed genuinely concerned. But now... he wasn’t so sure.

So his attitude wasn’t as gentle as before. He just quietly waited for Lan Yifang to go through yesterday’s usual process again. She was supposed to check every room, leave a stack of scripts or some other documents in the study, then leave.

But today, after she did all that, she came back to the living room to find Chi Tuo, sat across from him, and said nothing for a long time.

Chi Tuo wasn’t in a rush. He had plenty of work. He hadn’t even finished some of his paperwork today because he’d spent the day making wontons. His work chat was full of people @-mentioning him.

As long as it wasn’t An Jiujiu herself sitting across from him, Chi Tuo was always patient.

“Um…” After nearly half an hour, Lan Yifang finally started nervously fidgeting with her sleeve and opened her mouth to speak.Chi Tuo looked up from his notebook and glanced at her.

“Yan-ge is about to find out,” Lan Yifang said hesitantly, afraid he wouldn’t understand, and added, “That’s Yan Wan, Sister An’s agent.”

Chi Tuo closed the notebook and took off his glasses.

Lan Yifang wasn’t someone with a deep mind—he could tell from the first time they met that she was straightforward, with all her emotions written on her face. As long as the other person stayed silent during a conversation, she’d end up spilling everything herself.

Sure enough, the next second, without getting a response, Lan Yifang spoke again: “No one was told about Sister An’s relapse this time… Her position in the company right now… isn’t very good. Yan-ge called her a few times and she didn’t answer. He said he’s coming over tomorrow.”

She fell silent again, likely not knowing how to keep talking to someone who was still, in essence, a stranger.

“She took Yang Zhengyi’s movie, didn’t she?” Chi Tuo asked.

He only found out after taking on that financing case, and he knew it hadn’t been officially announced yet.

Lan Yifang’s eyes widened in an instant. She instinctively shook her head, then cautiously stopped after two shakes, hesitating: “It’s… not officially announced yet.”

…

So easy to get it out of her.

Chi Tuo’s dissatisfaction with An Ye’s agency rose another level. He’d worked a year in entertainment law and interacted with all kinds of celebrities. In this industry, one popular star could support an entire team—so even if a company had issues with a particular artist, they would still treat them with basic care.

Someone like An Jiujiu—still very much a first-tier actress, with a high volume of events and commercial exposure each year, enough to support an entire department—yet all she had around her was one overly earnest personal assistant.

Chi Tuo stood up, went to An Jiujiu’s room, brought out her phone, unlocked it, and handed it to Lan Yifang. “Find Yan Wan’s WeChat for me.”

Lan Yifang dumbly complied.

Chi Tuo opened the chat. An Jiujiu didn’t delete her messages, so everything between her and her agent was there.

He estimated the timeline and found the conversation from right before her last film shoot, then mimicked her tone and sent a message to Yan Wan: 【In character, do not disturb.】

It wasn’t a neat multiple of three characters, which annoyed him slightly. He locked the screen in frustration.

“Tell him Jiujiu is immersed in her role and won’t be seeing anyone during this period,” Chi Tuo said.

Lan Yifang nodded blankly again.

She was thinking: this Chi Tuo really was too familiar with An Ye. The way he used her phone didn’t pause for even a second—it felt more natural than even Auntie Wang.

Yan Wan quickly called. Chi Tuo hung up.

After two calls, Yan Wan began sending messages. An Ye’s phone was on silent, so the screen just kept lighting up. All the previews showed voice messages.

Chi Tuo didn’t open any of them.

After a long pause, Lan Yifang asked, “Aren’t you going to listen?”

Chi Tuo smiled, returned the phone to An Jiujiu’s room, and sat back down.

“I want to ask you a few things,” he said.

Given that the girl herself couldn’t do anything right now, this was all he could do.

Lan Yifang straightened her posture and cooperatively replied, “Go ahead.”

She’d seen how An Ye acted earlier while eating—completely unfiltered, nothing like her usual self—so she now believed this person was trustworthy."How long does this kind of condition usually last?" Chi Tuo asked.

"If it’s short, three to five days. The longest was twenty days. But usually it's about a week," Lan Yifang answered in quite a bit of detail.

"It's the end of the year now. Do you know which jobs she absolutely must attend in person?" Chi Tuo asked again.

"I..." Lan Yifang hesitated, "Yan-ge knows more about that."

"Then tomorrow when you go to the office, ask Yan Wan for a list. Have him make a chart ranking the work by priority. Just say it’s requested by Jiujiu."

"She takes Director Yang Zhengyi’s movie very seriously. The difficulty of getting into character with dissociative identity disorder is really high. Except for jobs she absolutely has to attend, help her postpone whatever else you can."

Chi Tuo spoke slowly, making it easy for Lan Yifang to take it all in.

Lan Yifang nodded hard. "Got it, got it."

At this point, she had no doubts anymore. She figured An Ye must have told Chi Tuo about the movie herself—he knew it so clearly, he had to be one of her people.

"If she’s in a sleep-like state and there’s a mandatory appearance, how have you handled it in the past?" Chi Tuo asked.

"We just tell the organizer that Sister An isn’t feeling well." Lan Yifang thought for a moment. "A lot of people in the industry already know her mental state isn’t great."

Chi Tuo: “……”

He almost swore on the spot.

"Was it Yan Wan who spread that around?" he asked.

"Mm, because we didn’t know how else to explain the absences," Lan Yifang said. "And it doesn't happen often—twice a year at most."

An Ye had been in the industry ten years. Twice a year—there were more than enough excuses like stomach trouble, fatigue, colds, or fever to rotate through without repeating. But Yan Wan went straight to telling people her mental health wasn’t good.

Chi Tuo took a deep breath. "If there are any events this time too, just tell Yan Wan it’s gastrointestinal issues. If he presses for details, say she’s dieting for the movie and doesn’t have enough energy to attend."

Lan Yifang: "Huh?"

Chi Tuo looked at her.

Lan Yifang: "Ah!"

She must have realized something and immediately nodded again, flustered.

"Was it always her mother who took care of her when she was asleep?" Chi Tuo still avoided using the word "relapse." "Her diet and all that too?"

"It was on rotation before," Lan Yifang gave an even more detailed reply. "Before me, Sister An had two other assistants. When she… falls asleep, it was usually Auntie Wang and the assistant taking turns."

"This time it’s mainly because we’re hiding it from Yan-ge, so I…"

She finally also stopped using the word "relapse."

"Are you afraid of her?" Chi Tuo suddenly asked the core question. "Are you all scared of her in this state?"

Lan Yifang froze. The phone in her hand was bent into a weird angle from how tightly she was gripping it.