Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Little Goose: [I forgot to ask you earlier, would using ice cubes as a stimulus solve this problem? What's the principle behind it?]

Shi Tuo: [I tried it when you were asleep, and you had a big reaction to the ice.]

After Shi Tuo dropped An Ye off at the hotel outside the film set and got home, Lao Bai was lying on the entryway cabinet, staring at him with that “why did you take so long?” look. He casually took a video and sent it to An Ye.

Shi Tuo: [It's called Lao Bai, but lately, its temperament has been getting stranger.]

Little Goose: [… Be a bit materialistic, Lawyer Shi, it can’t hear!]

Shi Tuo: [Here’s the business card.]

Shi Tuo: [The psychologist’s name is Yang. You can try chatting with him first.]

Little Goose: [Mm.]

Shi Tuo: [Mm? Is that a yes or a no?]

Little Goose: [… After the New Year, I’ll make an appointment! Is that enough?]

Shi Tuo smiled and put down his phone, then went to prepare food for Lao Bai. His apartment was only about half the size of An Ye’s large apartment, a two-house per floor layout. The neighbors were a newlywed couple, still adjusting to each other, and sometimes in the middle of the night, you could hear them arguing and slamming tables. Lao Bai couldn’t hear it, but probably felt the vibrations from the walls, and every time, it scared him so much that he would hunch his back and jump a couple of times.

The downgrade in living conditions made Lao Bai really resentful. He even had to pick his own cans of food and always managed to pick the more expensive ones.

Shi Tuo squatted in front of the cat bowl, watching Lao Bai eat from a can. The cat, while eating, would even look at him with its white eyeballs. This personality is truly miraculous, as stray cats with that behavior usually get beaten to death.

After cleaning the cat bowl, he leaned against the sink and pushed out the plastic splinter stuck in his finger. His movements were rough, so a little blood came out. Lao Bai smelled it and came over to give him several stares, probably thinking that this big animal couldn’t even take care of his own injury. It looked very dumb.

His heart was in a mess.

He had thought that An Ye might be going through a rough time, but he could feel that she truly enjoyed acting. In the early years, when they still kept in touch, whenever she mentioned new roles she had taken on, the sparkle in her eyes was the only motivation that kept him going through the toughest times.

She had always been doing what she loved and even achieved great results, signed with the largest domestic agency, and her manager, Yan Wan, was a top-tier one. Everything on the surface seemed perfect, so he thought, An Ye couldn’t possibly be having a worse life than she did ten years ago.

There were even times during that year when An Ye cut contact with him completely, when he couldn’t help but wonder: Did An Ye, after signing with Huan Zhou, not want to stay in touch with old friends anymore?

After all, she had skyrocketed in her career.

At that time, he was still a poor student, staying up late and working hard, but he still couldn’t reach An Ye’s social standing today.

When he realized that her agency wasn’t treating her fairly, the most he thought about was that it was the general environment. Many entertainment companies were starting to shift, and if Huan Zhou were to change directions, An Ye, as a traditional star, would definitely be affected.

So he hurried back to the country, thinking that even if she had already reached her peak and didn’t need him anymore, when she started to fall, he could still help her up.

What he wanted was actually very simple.

His crush from his youth had never expected any response. Back then, he was so poor that he never considered confessing. He didn’t want to taint his only pure emotion with the bitterness of the world. Even after ten years apart, he didn’t think it was necessary to make his feelings known. An Ye had become someone many people liked. He was just one of those people and nothing special.

And for him, there was probably nothing else he sought in life. Just standing where she could see him, being there to lend a hand when she needed it.

His only pursuit was companionship, and nothing else had crossed his mind.

But now, it seemed that he hadn’t even done that well.

An Ye’s situation was so bad that it scared him.

When things lose their balance, there’s no way to restore it.Some things, once the mindset changes, the actions do as well.

Because An Ye's situation was so bad, he had been treading the line of friendship for a while. Now, after completely crossing that line, he didn’t have any intention of going back.

He was very averse to love. There had been tragedies related to love in his family. His mother remarried because the man was a good person, honest and kind, but the marriage had nothing to do with love. However, in the two years after their marriage, things had gone very well.

In his eyes, love was an unnecessary, fragile, and hollow thing.

So, what was he doing now in An Ye's already terrible situation?

Did he hope that An Ye would develop the "suspension bridge effect," becoming so dependent on him that she would never be able to leave him?

Was he hoping to take advantage of her vulnerability and completely monopolize her?

After Lao Bai finished eating the rabbit meat can he had selected, he swished his tail and went to the bathroom. As a stray cat, he didn’t know how to use the litter box provided by humans. Every time he went to the bathroom, he would, with the perseverance of an old man moving a mountain, toss the cat litter out of the box and pile it on the floor. Shi Tuo watched the mound of expanded soil with irritation, pointing at Lao Bai.

Lao Bai stared back at him.

Probably thinking that Shi Tuo was really angry, Lao Bai thought for a moment and calmly scooped some of the litter back into the box with one paw.

Mission accomplished.

Proud of himself, he went back to his cat tower to wash up.

Shi Tuo: "…"

He rolled up his sleeves and decided to do a major cleaning at 10:30 PM.

His 160-square-meter three-bedroom apartment had a total of 401 tiles. Whenever he couldn’t sleep or felt agitated, he would wipe each one. Recently, he hadn’t been able to sleep much, so the robot vacuum in his house had become a bit lonely, often working hard for an hour but not finding a single speck of dust.

He didn’t know how to control his emotions when he saw An Ye’s terrible situation. He also didn’t know how to pull back the feelings that had already spilled out.

An Ye didn’t have any feelings for him beyond friendship. When they first reunited, she had even been very distant with him.

An Ye was not in a state suitable for romance right now. Over the past ten years, under the control of Wang Shanshan and Yan Wan, she had hypnotized herself into a commodity. To preserve herself, she had already given everything she had.

He didn’t want her to have to consider his feelings in this state.

If their relationship turned into love, it would be very bad.

Damn.

He had been thinking about love this whole time.

When he was wiping the 50th tile, he heard a notification sound from his phone.

It wasn’t from his work email; it was from his personal email, with a soft goose-like notification tone.

Shi Tuo’s hand froze on the 51st tile.

This was the notification sound he had been hoping to hear every day for the past five years.

That private email account, which was only for An Ye, had been the account he sent at least two emails to An Ye each month for the past five years.

After the first notification sound, a minute later, another one came.

Shi Tuo’s hand was trembling.

Lao Bai jumped down, raised his butt, and tugged at the rag Shi Tuo had left on the ground, ready for a tug-of-war. Shi Tuo released his grip, and Lao Bai, with a yowl, dragged the rag a meter away.Shi Tuo was also thrown a meter away, grabbing his phone that he had tossed onto the couch.

Another notification sound.

He opened his email, and there were already three read receipts quietly waiting at the top. These were the ones Shi Tuo had set up after An Ye stopped replying to his emails.

An Ye finally opened the emails he sent her, starting from the first one five years ago.

Every minute or two, he would hear another soft "goose call."

His emails weren’t long. When he sent them, he thought An Ye wouldn’t have the patience to read long messages, so he usually just briefly described what had happened to him recently, asked how she was doing, reminded her to reach out if she needed anything, and told her she could reply to him anytime—he was always waiting.

Each one was similar.

He thought that An Ye would probably lose interest after reading a few, but in the end, she spent over an hour reading all of the more than one hundred emails sent over five years.

His phone beeped frequently, filling several pages with read receipts.

Shi Tuo sat still, the emotions swirling inside him, leaving him temporarily paralyzed and unable to move.

After all the emails were marked as read, five minutes later, another "goose call" came.

An Ye had sent him an email.

There was no subject, only four words: "Thank you, good night."

Shi Tuo: "…"

In the previous second, he was calmly thinking about what to do next, and in the next second, he was dialing the number of the superstar An Ye. He blurted out, "Why are there only four words?"

"...Do you sit in front of your inbox every day?" An Ye answered quickly, sounding a bit speechless. "Your reaction is way too fast."

"I set a notification sound." Shi Tuo lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling, persistently asking, "Why only four words?"

"...Wait a second." There was the sound of typing on the other end. After a while, Shi Tuo heard another "goose call."

An Ye: "…"

An Ye: "Your notification sound... has character."

"Goose, goose, goose." Shi Tuo put the call on speaker, opened the email, and finished saying the remaining three words, "Goose, goose, goose."

An Ye: "…"

The reply email contained six words: "Shi Tuo, thank you, good night."

Shi Tuo: "…"

An Ye: "Feeling better now?"

Shi Tuo: "…Mm."

An Ye: "Well, good night. I have a shoot early tomorrow."

Shi Tuo: "Mm, good night."

An Ye quickly hung up the phone.

From the sound of her voice, her mood seemed good. She really was a simple person. After such a bad situation in the afternoon, just having a lousy fat-free meal with her, making some jokes, and getting into an argument—her mood had already turned around.Shi Tuo lay completely still.

At least, An Ye hadn’t noticed that something was off with him.

He just had to put on his steady, unshakable mask—something he was very good at. Ten years ago, he had secretly liked her for years without her ever noticing. He should be able to do the same ten years later.

He closed his eyes.

He could never forget the way An Ye had locked herself in the RV, rigidly mumbling. She was the one he had promised to protect, the source of his happiness from childhood to adulthood. Every photo, every video of her as a star over the years had given him the courage to keep moving forward.

But in places where there was no light, she had already been wounded beyond repair.

An Ye was indeed in a great mood. When she called Lan Yifang after returning to the hotel, Lan Yifang was startled by her.

She had even lost herself in the role. To get back into character, she dragged Lan Yifang out in the middle of the night to the gate of the Ninth Hospital and hid in the car, unable to get back into the mood for a long time. Then, she thought of Shi Tuo, thought of the five years she had been avoiding him, and thought of the emails.

When she opened them, she discovered that this pervert, Shi Tuo, had set up read receipts for every single email. Every time she opened them, her laptop would ask if she wanted to send a read receipt.

He probably cursed her every time he sent an email.

So, she patiently clicked to send the receipts for each one.

There was a bit of emotion.

Maybe more than just a bit.

And it was accompanied by the same flutter in her heart from when Shi Tuo had held her hand in the RV.

A very unfamiliar feeling.

But it really wasn’t comfortable—palpitations, uncontrollable.

"Let’s go back," An Ye said to the driver after hanging up with Shi Tuo.

At her current state, getting into character seemed impossible. She could only return to the hotel and write some character backstory. Luckily, tomorrow’s shoot was for the gambler part, which didn’t require much emotional investment. She could rely purely on technique to perform well.

She ignored Lan Yifang’s wide-eyed stare.

Lan Yifang probably thought that Shi Tuo was some kind of miracle doctor...

An Ye didn’t know why, but this thought popped into her mind—a miracle doctor who says “goose, goose, goose” every day.

She snorted, and Lan Yifang next to her stiffened.

An Ye patted her on the back, stopped paying attention to her, and closed her eyes.

It would be okay.

She thought.

It should be.