Chapter 49

Chapter Forty-Nine

The sound of the heating system in the RV was a bit loud.

After Shi Tuo's question, An Ye remained silent for a long time, only lowering her head and nibbling on lettuce leaves.

Shi Tuo didn't hurry, seeing that she was having trouble swallowing the piece of meat, so he squeezed a little bit of the leftover chili sauce from the side and added it for her.

“Can’t find a trustworthy therapist?” Shi Tuo stared at her for a long time, sensing that she wasn’t particularly opposed to the topic. He pushed a little further.

An Ye sighed and put down her chopsticks.

“Can you recommend someone for me?” An Ye sighed again, “Actually, I’m not particularly trusting of Dr. Zuo, especially since there hasn’t been much progress with my condition in the past two years. Every time he sees me, he just talks about his thesis.”

Shi Tuo smiled: “Rare diseases. If you encounter one, it’s certain that he’ll write about it in his paper…”

An Ye glared at him.

Shi Tuo stopped eating and put down his chopsticks: “Would you be open to an online consultation? The video type.”

“Huh?” An Ye tilted her head.

“My therapist, he’s a Chinese from Singapore, and his Chinese is very good,” Shi Tuo said. “Both my mom and I see him. If you don’t mind, you could try talking to him once.”

After saying that, he stood up and started clearing the dishes they had finished.

An Ye stood up, twisted her stiff waist, and stood beside Shi Tuo, watching him clear the dishes and put them into the dishwasher. She grabbed a cloth to wipe the table.

It felt a bit…

Indescribably relaxing.

So, for the first time ever, she asked on her own: “Do you think just going to therapy will help with this problem?”

“You weren’t checked before? No depression, no bipolar disorder, etc.,” Shi Tuo said. “I saw that you check these things every year in your medical records.”

“Maybe try a different direction,” Shi Tuo suggested. “Just think of it as finding a tree hole to vent your frustration due to stress.”

An Ye responded with a noncommittal sound.

While saying this, Shi Tuo was busy—wiping the table, tidying up the desk, and even casually taking apart the broken side light of her RV that had been malfunctioning for almost a year. He then turned to ask her: “Do you have a spare lightbulb?”

He was capable of fixing these things.

This person was all-around capable, at least, that’s how it seemed on the surface.

An Ye squatted down and rummaged through the cabinet below, pulling out a spare lightbulb and a tester, handing them to him.

Shi Tuo smiled after receiving them: “I can’t believe you still know where these things are stored.”

“Xiao Lan has serious procrastination,” An Ye leaned against the desk. “The lightbulb was bought over a year ago, I don’t even know if it still works.”

“Let’s try,” Shi Tuo used the tester to check the connector and began dismantling the light fixture.

An Ye poured herself a glass of water, holding the cup as she leaned back on the counter, watching Shi Tuo work.

“I just...” She took a sip of water, spoke three words, then closed her mouth and took another sip.

Shi Tuo glanced back at her, first expressing his dissatisfaction with her only pouring water for herself: “Is there only one cup in your RV?”“...Hey, Shi Tuo, I’ve noticed that you’ve become eight years younger after ten years,” An Ye mumbled, pouring him another glass of water.

“That’s pretty scary,” Shi Tuo replied absentmindedly.

An Ye held the water cup, staring blankly.

Shi Tuo had disassembled the entire light fixture with a small screwdriver and then turned to look at An Ye, speaking in a casual tone: “How did it end up like this?”

An Ye didn’t respond, still holding the cup.

“Do you like acting?” Shi Tuo continued, without a clear direction.

An Ye lowered her head, thinking for a moment. She neither nodded nor shook her head.

“If the pressure really is too much,” Shi Tuo said, “leaving the industry is also an option.”

An Ye was taken aback, her brows furrowing with hesitation. She instinctively said, “If I leave the industry, won’t I be useless?”

Shi Tuo’s hand, which had been fiddling with the disassembled plastic light fixture, paused. He didn’t move, and his tone remained unchanged: “What do you mean by ‘useless’?”

An Ye put down her cup, took out her phone, and changed the subject: “Did you help me rank up again? Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

“What do you mean by ‘useless’?” Shi Tuo didn’t let her change the topic.

An Ye continued to look at her phone. “Did you really send Xiao Lan back to the hotel? She’s sent me eight hundred texts.”

Shi Tuo put down what he was holding, turned, and snatched An Ye’s phone from her, locking the screen.

An Ye pursed her lips and looked at him.

“At first, you told me that only someone with a missing limb or something could be interested in you,” Shi Tuo enunciated clearly, speaking slowly, his voice tinged with anger as he repeated what she had said after their reunion, “You said, ‘Young and talented, with a great future ahead, there’s no way I’d waste the last few years of my youth on a female star.’”

“Just now, you didn’t want my assistant to know about our relationship, thinking it wasn’t something to be proud of.”

“Now you tell me that if you leave the industry, you’ll be useless.”

“What exactly are you ‘useful’ for?” Shi Tuo raised his voice a little, “What do you want to be ‘useful’ for?!”

An Ye remained silent, her lips pressed tighter, her body starting to lean back, as if she wanted to distance herself from Shi Tuo.

Shi Tuo pinched his thumb, the plastic burr from the light fixture still stuck in it. He tried to remain calm. He should be good at handling this, after all, his mother’s situation was much worse than An Ye’s over the years. Find the problem, solve the problem, that’s just how life works.

He should have said it more calmly and gently. They had only reunited for a little over two months, and he still hadn’t completely untangled the mess around An Ye. He hadn’t even fully understood her current mental state.

But, when she subconsciously asked, “Won’t I be useless?”, the fire inside him flared up. In that moment, all the psychological knowledge he had learned for the past ten years about his mother seemed irrelevant. He only wanted to ask: What exactly do you want to be ‘useful’ for?

“The property list you gave me the other day when you were asleep, what did that mean?” Shi Tuo ignored An Ye’s body language as she leaned further back, trying to avoid him. “An Ye, you…”

He faltered, not knowing what else to say, how to ask, the plastic burr pressing even deeper into his thumb.

“Why do you keep using words like ‘useless’ to describe yourself?” Shi Tuo finally asked in a hoarse voice, without any embellishment.

An Ye looked at him expressionlessly, reached for the phone he had taken, and turned to walk towards the door.

No matter how luxurious the RV was, it was still just a vehicle. The two tall figures could walk a few steps and reach the door in an instant. As An Ye grasped the door handle, Shi Tuo had already caught up and closed the door behind her.

An Ye’s hand remained on the handle.

Shi Tuo’s hand covered hers directly.His hand was cold, and the palm was damp.

Clearly, the heater in the RV was turned on high, but even after she had taken off her jacket, the sweat from the past few hours hadn’t dissipated.

“Because I... am priced,” An Ye didn’t know why, but the cold, damp palm of Shi Tuo’s hand made her heart tighten unexpectedly.

It was a feeling she had never experienced before, like her heart suddenly lacked blood, as if someone had pinched her for no reason.

She looked down at Shi Tuo’s hand, which still hadn’t let go.

Since she had started connecting with Shi Tuo, this was the second time she felt this unfamiliar sensation. It was something she had never felt before, and it wasn’t positive—it made her feel somewhat confused and uncomfortable.

“...What?” Shi Tuo didn’t hear clearly.

“My face, my hair, my waist, my legs—all of them are insured, the big kind of insurance,” An Ye looked at Shi Tuo, “You’ve seen my agency contract; I’m a product.”

“A product that’s taken off the shelf has no value, so it’s useless,” An Ye continued, still staring at their nearly intertwined hands. “These words are neutral for me, with no derogatory meaning, just the truth.”

Then she heard Shi Tuo curse loudly, “Bullshit.”

An Ye: “...”

“So, what am I, a normal person who's not a celebrity? I haven’t bought insurance for my body parts, but at least I have some health insurance and life insurance. When I signed my employment contract with Jinding, they set a price for me, so am I a product too?” Shi Tuo asked her. “Is my value evaluated by the number of cases I handle? The more cases I handle, the more valuable I become?”

An Ye: “...Yes.”

The tightness in her chest suddenly eased.

How could she forget that this person was a lawyer with such a sharp tongue?

“So if I don’t work as a lawyer, I’m useless?” Shi Tuo continued, following her logic. “Even if I return to my country, you wouldn’t contact me?”

An Ye gritted her teeth: “You didn’t contact me for a whole year after you went back!”

Shi Tuo continued rudely: “...What the hell do you want me to do? I call you, you don’t pick up; I send you emails, you don’t read them. What else could I have done to contact you? I was desperate to bump into you at all sorts of year-end parties, and then I’d hand you my business card and introduce myself!”

An Ye: “...”

She couldn’t understand how the topic had gone back around to this. She remembered they had just argued about this once.

How did it end up like this again?

Why on earth did she end up talking to Shi Tuo about these things today, things she never even wanted to touch normally?

It felt like just half an hour ago... or maybe an hour ago, she was shivering inside the RV with Lan Yifang, just like every time she had to shoot, feeling like she was trapped inside a mirror, floating in mid-air, watching Lan Yifang scurry around like a headless fly, waiting for the day when everything would fall apart.

And now, an hour later, she was having a ridiculous, mindless argument with the person in front of her, her emotions a mess, and her head was full of question marks.

Then, for some reason, a smile started to bubble up from somewhere. At first, it was just a tiny bubble, and both she and Shi Tuo saw it in each other’s eyes. Then, suddenly, it was all bubbles. She didn’t know whether it was Shi Tuo or her who lowered their head first, but they both leaned against the door, laughing so hard that they couldn’t hold it in.

She was so neurotic.

Anyway, she had always been a neurotic.

So, she laughed aloud.

“Ah!” she heard herself shout, “If you leave me a WeChat message, I’ll just see it!”

She had been sending him red envelopes to test whether she had been blocked. Was he an idiot?“If you’re in a bad mood and don’t want to talk to me, what if you see my message and just block me on WeChat?” Shi Tuo's logic was strong.

An Ye was speechless and then laughed at him, saying “Heh heh heh.”

“This damn... it just won’t stop...” Shi Tuo mumbled, laughing so hard that he leaned against the door, tilting his head back.

An Ye’s finger seemed to have a mind of its own as it reached out and precisely pressed down on Shi Tuo’s Adam’s apple.

The laughter abruptly stopped.

Shi Tuo’s Adam’s apple moved slightly.

“In my dreams...” An Ye said, “This thing... I’ve never been able to touch it.”

“Now that you’ve touched it, what do you want to do next?” Shi Tuo heard himself ask.

As soon as he asked, he wanted to slap himself.

“I don’t know.” An Ye’s silly smile still hadn’t stopped.

Shi Tuo pulled her hand away, tugging her a step forward, closer to him.

An Ye had tears from laughing in the corners of her eyes. Her expression was still a smile, but her eyes were clear, and her face held a calm clarity.

Shi Tuo sighed, pulling her into his arms.

An Ye’s laughter stopped as well.

“You’re not useless.” Shi Tuo said, “The achievements you’ve made, even after ten years of my hard work, I would only be able to help you.”

“You’re in a terrible situation, and this mental state of yours, you’re holding it together amazingly well.”

“So, let’s go see a psychologist.”

“You’ll be fine.”

He patted her back, then rubbed her head.

An Ye also patted his back, burying her head in his chest and nodding.