Chapter 35

Chapter 35

An Ye stared at the man jogging through the cold, dense morning fog, pursing her lips and taking a step back.

Chi Tuo, with two still-hot bottles of milk in the pockets of his down jacket, stopped when he saw An Ye take a step back.

His first thought was that someone was taking photos, but it was so early in the morning, still dark, at the small park entrance of the mental hospital’s inpatient department, where even birds were nowhere to be seen, and the fog was so thick.

So he ran forward a couple of steps. When he saw An Ye furrow her brow and take another small step back, he quickened his pace and ran straight to her, standing right in front of her.

“What’s going on?” he asked, speeding up his pace. “Don’t recognize me?”

It had only been two days apart, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

“It’s not that,” An Ye stretched out her hand and slid it into the gap between Chi Tuo's neck and his scarf, giving it a tug. She stood on tiptoe and glanced inside his down jacket.

Chi Tuo immediately jumped back a large step, partly because her cold fingers had suddenly touched his neck, freezing him, and partly because he was startled. He lightly yelled, “What are you doing?”

“…You’re really agile,” An Ye remarked disdainfully, “Your sweater and thermal underwear are also black…”

Black down jacket, black pants, black shoes, black scarf, black socks, black sweater, black thermal underwear.

What about the underwear?

She had seen it the last time she pulled his waistband—also black.

Tsk.

“…Black,” Chi Tuo muttered, taking the milk bottles out of the bag and handing them to An Ye. “Skimmed milk. It’s hot, warm your hands up before you drink it.”

He had bought two bottles, originally planning to give one to her and one to Lan Yifang, but now, she was the only one standing outside.

“Where’s your assistant?” he asked.

“Is the underwear still black?” she asked.

They both said it at the same time.

Chi Tuo: “…Black.”

An Ye: “…She went over there to have breakfast.”

“You’re not eating?” Chi Tuo looked at her bare face, without any glitter or makeup; even her cheeks seemed a little hollow.

“I asked her to bring me a bottle of milk.” An Ye pressed the two bottles of milk against her cheek. She winced as the repeated face wash had caused a raw spot on her left cheek. She shifted her position and squinted her eyes.

“The milk’s only half-drunk. The character I’m playing is supposed to be really thin. After filming starts, I still have to lose five more pounds.” An Ye saw Lan Yifang running out of the convenience store nearby. She waved the two bottles of milk in her hand at her.

Her intention was to tell Lan Yifang that she already had milk and that she should return her bottle if she couldn’t drink it, so it wouldn’t go to waste.

But Lan Yifang, being the peculiar person she was, froze for a second when she saw it and then excitedly waved the milk she had just bought, shouting across at An Ye, “Same kind!”

Chi Tuo: “…”

An Ye burst out laughing, sighed, and handed one of the milk bottles to Chi Tuo. “Exactly three bottles, warm your hands.”

She thought for a moment, then took off her gray-green plaid scarf from around her neck. “You should change scarves with me.”

Chi Tuo, while taking off his scarf, looked confused. “What’s going on?”"Too ugly," An Ye sighed. "If someone takes a photo, I wouldn’t know how to introduce you."

"...I'm not a celebrity." Chi Tuo frowned, but didn’t stop the motion of taking off his scarf. "And this isn’t ugly."

Black is the easiest to match.

"Heh," An Ye responded with a single word, holding up her scarf and gesturing for him to bend down. "Did you get taller after you went to Singapore?"

"Maybe," Chi Tuo bent down, feeling a bit uneasy because he was so close to An Ye, and gave a perfunctory reply. "Seems like I grow a bit every year."

"...Do you think you're sugarcane?" An Ye muttered. She was wrapping the scarf around him, doing it in a complicated manner, wrapping one side around, then the other, taking her time.

Chi Tuo just stood there, bending slightly, letting her wrap his neck with the scarf, not saying anything.

Lan Yifang, who had run over in a hurry, stood by silently.

She was thinking that these two really were different. Fortunately, An Ye had fallen asleep the last time, so she didn’t make things difficult for Chi Tuo. By the way, Chi Tuo’s guarantee letter was still with her, she needed to remember to tell An Ye about it.

After having interacted a few times, she really liked this lawyer, Chi.

But he was always so dark, and tall, looking a bit scary.

The Ninth People’s Hospital in Baigang City had another name, the Ninth Psychiatric Hospital. The area they visited today was the old campus, a building from the Republican era, with marks of wartime damage still visible on the walls.

Outside the inpatient department, there was a rather large garden. Due to its long history, the plants and statues in the garden had undergone over a century of weathering, and in the darkest hours of the morning, through the faint light from the garden's streetlamps and the thick fog, the shadows formed eerie shapes.

There were also people in the garden, wearing heavy coats with white and blue-striped hospital gowns peeking through, slowly walking like ghosts. Standing next to them were yawning nurses.

Yang Zhengyi had been here before and had told An Ye about this situation in advance. Some patients with severe sleep disorders would be allowed to walk in the garden with a companion. He felt that the atmosphere was extraordinary and wanted An Ye to see it for herself.

So, An Ye didn’t feel much, but Lan Yifang seemed a little scared, standing close to An Ye. A few times, An Ye tried to take out her camera to take pictures, but each time, Lan Yifang grabbed her arm, making the shot blurry. Finally, An Ye got annoyed and waved her off, telling her to wait in the convenience store. Lan Yifang hurried off.

Chi Tuo waited until Lan Yifang was far enough away and couldn’t be seen before saying, "Your assistant is quite good."

An Ye glanced at him and took a full shot of the garden. "I thought you were going to say she couldn’t be an assistant."

She was timid, inexperienced, her mouth wasn’t firm and she could easily be manipulated, and sometimes she was a bit impulsive. Yan Wan had asked her to change assistants hundreds of times. In the end, the company was even reluctant to give her an assistant contract, and An Ye had to cover all the expenses herself.

Her mom had said many times that An Ye was too soft-hearted and that in the end, it would only be herself who would suffer.

"She’s quite suitable for you," Chi Tuo said.

If the assistant were calm, smart, and efficient, An Ye wouldn’t be so relaxed, so Lan Yifang was actually just right.

An Ye glanced at Chi Tuo again, smiled, and said nothing.

Chi Tuo didn’t say anything more either, standing half a meter away from An Ye, waiting.

Half of his face was wrapped in the scarf An Ye had put on him. If he lifted his head, his mouth would be exposed, but he didn’t.

The scarf smelled of An Ye—of the lemon and vanilla scent from her bedroom. He lowered his head slightly, burying his face deeper into it.

A patient approached, with graying hair scattered over their shoulders, their face blank as they walked past them.

An Ye didn’t take a photo of the person directly, but when the patient had mostly disappeared into the thick fog, she took a picture of their fading silhouette.

She wasn’t wearing sunglasses or a mask, her bare face exposed in the open. Her hair flowed smoothly, and she wore a black and green color-blocked puffer coat, with a light gray knitted hat, and around her neck was the black scarf she had swapped with Chi Tuo.In the early morning, she came for material collection, accompanied by a silly assistant.

The patients who were allowed to walk around in the garden weren't very serious cases, so some could recognize An Ye. They would stare at her with wide eyes, or greet her with a smile.

An Ye would nod back at them.

Then, the patients continued to walk around the garden, and she followed, occasionally taking a photo, but most of the time, she held the camera and stared at the patients in a daze.

This version of An Ye was something Chi Tuo had never seen at the fan club. In fact, An Ye’s promotional work was very formulaic. Most of her promotional efforts were tied to movie projects, and she rarely had promotions solely for herself.

An Ye didn’t seem like a real person in the entertainment industry. Even when she was on reality shows, she always had a persona, always elusive.

People knew she debuted young, had a natural talent for acting, won many awards, and that was it—very official.

So, when Chi Tuo suddenly saw An Ye like this, it felt fresh, almost like going back to ten years ago, when she was holding that piece of paper, troubled over why Lin Luo killed someone. After that movie was released, the young Lin Luo stood in front of Wang Can’s corpse and said, "I still like you like this." Chi Tuo had watched that scene thousands of times, even remembering the direction of the wind.

He would always think back to the time An Ye tried to suppress her laughter while facing his ear, or when she pretended to be a riverbank using whatever random stuff she could find at home.

It was very much like what he saw now.

An Ye stared at the patients, observing their walking posture, their eyes, expressions, and overall demeanor.

It didn’t take long before she became one of the wandering souls in the garden, quietly blending into the environment, silent and calm.

Chi Tuo also quietly followed beside her, suppressing the panic that rose when he saw her eyes go blank and her face expressionless.

She was collecting material, possibly feeling the atmosphere, and he didn’t dare disturb her.

"I don’t know if I’ve killed someone," An Ye suddenly spoke after walking in circles for some time.

Her voice was hoarse, drifting, tinged with a strange confusion.

Chi Tuo froze and stopped in his tracks, staring at her. "What?"

"I don’t know if I’ve killed someone," An Ye repeated, stopping as well and looking at Chi Tuo.

Chi Tuo looked at her, and in that instant, he felt a chilling cold rush from head to toe, freezing him in place.

It was still An Ye’s face, just minutes ago, she had been pointing at him with disdain, asking him to bend down and tie her scarf. There was even a slight redness on her face, left from pressing the milk bottle to her skin.

But she wasn’t An Ye.

She looked like someone who had suddenly wasted away in the thick fog, her cheeks hollow, her hair yellowed, her lips pale. This was clearly her appearance, but in Chi Tuo’s mind, An Ye’s image turned into this form.

She was gravely ill, and calmly, yet confusedly, told him that she didn’t know if she had killed someone.

"You know," she stared into his eyes, a barely perceptible smile on her lips, "My body is crowded. It doesn’t just house me."

Chi Tuo held his breath.

He had watched every movie An Ye had ever made. Except for her debut film Lin Luo, he had watched all her other movies countless times. He had seen her play all sorts of characters—killing people, being killed, lying, being deceived, smoking, drinking, even dying.

But the An Ye in front of him now shocked him more than any version of An Ye he had ever seen on screen.

She was less than half a meter away from him, her eyes—slightly round, with cat-like upward slants at the corners—staring at him. Her expression was innocent and confused, yet her gaze carried a mocking tone.

"Is this what you all want me to say?" she asked. "Because I have a split personality, because I can’t provide an alibi, so you want me to tell you that I don’t know where I was at that time, that I don’t know who was in control of my body at that moment."

An Ye smiled, her eyes curving into crescents. A chilling grayish-blue hue seeped from her thin cheeks. She stared at Chi Tuo, speaking every word carefully: "But what should I do? On the evening of April 26th at 7:40 PM, I was A Lin. I remember everything I did, and I remember I didn’t kill anyone."Her speaking speed gradually quickened, and her voice became lighter. The last sentence was said while she stood on tiptoe, close to Chi Tuo’s ear.

She said, “I’ve been so crazy, so clueless, right?”

Silence.

Chi Tuo stood frozen, not moving.

Rationality told him that An Ye was just rehearsing. She probably felt that the atmosphere was perfect and decided to recite a line, but emotionally, he couldn't shake the feeling that An Ye was being possessed by someone named A Lin.

The aura and scent of a person doesn’t change, but what An Ye had just said wasn’t her at all. Her eyes, actions, expressions, and even the speed of her speech were completely different from the usual An Ye.

Someone walked by again, this time a nurse who seemed both curious and a bit gossipy. She glanced at them several times as she passed.

An Ye exhaled near his ear and sighed, “Ah, the teacher who played the cop is shorter than you. I shouldn’t have stood on tiptoe just now.”

Chi Tuo: “...”

He suddenly relaxed, unable to stop himself from exclaiming, “Damn.”

An Ye stepped back half a meter, smiling as she watched him.

“So it was a rehearsal?” Chi Tuo really relaxed this time, “You scared me...”

This state of hers made sense now. No wonder people said her mental health wasn’t great. If this had happened in front of Lan Yifang, she’d probably have cried and run away.

“Scary?” An Ye continued to smile, “Actually, this scene shouldn’t be too scary, but I wasn’t fully in character yet, so I could only rely on the atmosphere to create it.”

“It’s not that your acting was scary.” Chi Tuo took a moment to detach himself from the thick fog of confusion, “Could you give me a signal next time before you rehearse...”

“…Like how you do it on set when you call ‘action’,” Chi Tuo gestured, “Maybe snap your fingers or something.”

He was definitely startled. When he gets angry, scared, or emotionally stirred up, he talks a lot. After ten years, it seems like he hasn’t changed much.

“You acted well,” he continued, “but it’s just...”

An Ye looked at him.

Chi Tuo glanced at the gradually brightening sky and said, “Next time, eat something before acting.”

“Your emotional fluctuations are so intense; if you don’t eat, you might get hypoglycemia.”