Chapter 16

When Xi Zhui woke up again, the first thing he saw was a soft quilt. Lifting his gaze, he finally took in Wen Chaosheng’s sleeping face.

At that moment, faint morning light filtered through the gap in the curtains, falling across the other’s fair skin. Long lashes trembled lightly with each breath, and his slightly pursed lips held a pale pink hue.

There was something purely beautiful about Wen Chaosheng in sleep—striking, yet understated.

“…”

Xi Zhui stared at the man before him, recalling the night before for all of two seconds.

He must have fallen asleep first. And it seemed he’d once again treated Wen Chaosheng like a body pillow, spending the entire night pressed against him from a slightly lower angle.

Probably not wanting to disturb his “patient,” Wen Chaosheng had stayed on his side the whole time, his arms drawn tightly across his chest in the only space available. He looked obedient now, curled up like some small creature hunkered down in its cave.

“…”

How was this guy so oblivious, from childhood right up to now?

If he wasn’t comfortable sleeping, why hadn’t he just woken him up?

As Xi Zhui watched the still-slumbering Wen Chaosheng, a subtle warmth stirred in his chest, chasing away the last remnants of his headache.

He shifted back a little, smoothly pulling the quilt back over Wen Chaosheng.

With the “big rock” finally off his chest, Wen Chaosheng let out a contented huff in his sleep and burrowed fully under the covers.

That animal-like quality had slipped out again.

Xi Zhui eyed the tuft of curly hair peeking from the quilt and couldn’t resist reaching out to poke it. “Turtle, good morning.”

“…”

Wen Chaosheng didn’t hear a thing. He was sleeping soundly.

Not wanting to wake him, Xi Zhui didn’t rush to get up and freshen himself.

About twenty minutes later, a car horn blared from downstairs.

Beep—beep—beep—

The persistent honking was annoying. Xi Zhui frowned and reached out to cover Wen Chaosheng’s ears as he slept—but he was a step too late.

“…”

Wen Chaosheng groggily poked his head out from the covers, his eyes still heavy with sleep. “So noisy.”

His voice was thick with just-woken drowsiness, carrying a hint of nasally tone.

“Probably a traffic jam downstairs. The driver’s urging them on,” Xi Zhui guessed. The honking stopped soon after. “Want to sleep a bit more?”

“Mm.”

Wen Chaosheng closed his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again.

Now that he’d gotten a clear look at Xi Zhui in front of him, his mind sharpened, and he remembered what had happened right before bed the night before. “You feeling better?”

“Much better.”

Seeing Wen Chaosheng still lingering under the covers instead of getting up, Xi Zhui said, half-joking and half-serious, “Thanks for taking care of me last night, Director Wen. Is this the special treatment for the lead actor?”

“Hm? We’re still friends.” Wen Chaosheng gazed at Xi Zhui in front of him and muttered with a touch of selfishness, “Besides, I’m older than you. I’m your big brother.”

Even without their director-actor working relationship, given their families’ close ties, he ought to look after Xi Zhui, his “little brother,” when they were out here.

Hearing that unexpected form of address, Xi Zhui paused for a beat before leaning in with a half-smile. “What was that?”

“…”

Wen Chaosheng hadn’t expected him to close the distance so suddenly. He clutched the quilt and shrank back. “Nothing.”

Truth be told, he rather wanted to hear Xi Zhui call him “big brother.” But the other had never seen him that way, growing up. Better not to hope for it.

Xi Zhui played dumb despite knowing full well, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Wen Chaosheng.”

“Hm?”

“You know you grind your teeth in your sleep? Snore a little? And mumble dream talk?”

“…”

Wen Chaosheng’s eyes flew wide in disbelief as heat rushed to his face. “No way. You’re messing with me, right?”

There wasn’t a trace of a liar’s guilt on Xi Zhui’s face. He sidestepped the question. “What, your college roommates never told you?”

Wen Chaosheng scrambled to sit up, shaking his head in a daze. “No.”

“Oh. Well, now I have,” Xi Zhui said calmly.

“…”

Seeing Xi Zhui state it so matter-of-factly, Wen Chaosheng felt like the sky was falling! He’d always thought he was the most well-behaved, quietest sleeper!

Having successfully teased the man before him, Xi Zhui hid a smile and got out of bed first. “I’m going to wash up. You can sleep more.”

How could Wen Chaosheng possibly sleep now?

While Xi Zhui was in the bathroom, he took the opportunity to neatly fold both of their quilts. Then, full of conflict, he waited at the bathroom door.

The moment Xi Zhui opened the door, their eyes met again.

Not ready to let it go, Wen Chaosheng pressed, “Xi Zhui, for real?”

“About what?”

“Do I really grind my teeth, snore, and talk in my sleep?”

“…”

The laughter he’d suppressed minutes ago finally broke free.

Xi Zhui’s eyes and the corners of his mouth were all smiles. “No, I was just teasing you.”

Wen Chaosheng’s heart, which had been in his throat, finally settled. His accusatory tone lacked any real bite. “How could you do that? I…”

Xi Zhui added suddenly, “You sleep very well.”

Wen Chaosheng faltered, that bit of frustration instantly soothed by the compliment.

Xi Zhui took the initiative. “What’s the plan for today?”

Wen Chaosheng replied, “I’m going with Senior Sister and the others to meet the folks at the Cultural and Tourism Bureau. We need to confirm the shooting locations they’re providing, and also meet some of the local Tibetan actors. Probably won’t be back until evening.”

They only had three days until principal photography began, so their tasks were piling up.

“Since you weren’t feeling well last night, why don’t you stay at the hotel today?”

Wen Chaosheng suggested, then added instructions. “I tweaked a bit more of the script. Take a look later, get a head start memorizing lines. We can discuss the character when I get back tonight.”

“Got it. Be safe out there. WeChat if anything comes up.”

“Mm.”

…

Not long after, a packed Wen Chaosheng slung on his backpack and left.

Xi Zhui brewed himself a cup of coffee and dove back into studying the final version of Contour.

The male lead, Tang Yu, faced repeated setbacks with the inspiration and characterization for his senior thesis project. It wasn’t until his mentor offered guidance from personal experience that he found direction—

Tang Yu’s path thus far had been too smooth, leaving his young heart inevitably restless. The moment his creative work hit a bottleneck, he was prone to a frog-in-the-well mindset, stagnating in place.

“Art isn’t just about shaping one’s own inspirations as a creator. It’s a creator’s profound insight into life and the world.”

In his current state, rather than holing up alone in a classroom to puzzle it out, he might do better to venture outside—to witness all things, heaven and earth, the masses of humanity.

After his mentor’s persuasion, Tang Yu embarked on his journey with a mix of skepticism and hope. He skipped the popular tourist spots and headed for Gannan instead.

One day, while hiking alone in the high mountains of Zhagana, Tang Yu accidentally twisted his left ankle. Dusk was falling, but luckily some Tibetan herders passed by and kindly took him to a nearby village.

It was in the home of the village’s Tibetan doctor that Tang Yu met a Tibetan girl named Yangjin Ram.

Yangjin Ram was ten years older than Tang Yu and strikingly beautiful, though fate loved to play cruel tricks on the lovely. A high fever at age three had left her blind.

From then on, Yangjin Ram’s world was forever shrouded in darkness, confined to this one patch of earth. The farthest she could navigate on her own was the village entrance.

Her only income as an adult came from helping the village doctor grind medicinal powders.

Perhaps spared the world’s filth, Yangjin Ram carried a pure, innocent kindness untouched by worldly ways.

Tang Yu’s arrival cracked open her understanding of the outside world. She always asked question after question in her unpracticed Mandarin, curiosity lighting her up.

In turn, Yangjin Ram shared her inner little world with him—tales of the highland winds, the chill of the lake waters, the healing herbs, her seasons year-round.

Her dust-veiled eyes might have been dull and lifeless, but her expressions brimmed with vivid radiance.

Tang Yu originally had no set itinerary. With his sprained ankle, he decided to pay for lodging in the village. In the days that followed, a subtle affection quietly blossomed between him and Yangjin.

But time waited for no one. Tang Yu had to return to school to finish his thesis.

The night before their parting, Yangjin Ram gathered her courage for the first and only time to touch Tang Yu’s face. A faint glimmer welled in those otherwise dim eyes.

“I want to remember your contour. I want to remember what you look like forever.”

“Okay.”

Neither spoke their love aloud.

Separated from this corner of Gannan, they were people from two different worlds, after all.

Real-life romance was a game for the bold. One was too young, the other too burdened by circumstance—neither had the means to carry that feeling forward across such disparate lives.

What Tang Yu didn’t know was that Yangjin’s father had long tired of shouldering his daughter’s joyless existence.

Driven by reality and self-interest, he’d forced an unwanted marriage on her the very weekend after Tang Yu left.

From start to finish, Yangjin never pinned her hopes for freedom on Tang Yu.

She’d fallen for this young man so near at hand, yet never truly seen—fallen for the vibrant dreams of distant places he’d woven for her. She knew, too, that his youthful soul shouldn’t be weighed down by her.

The night before the wedding, Yangjin—who could usually only make it to the village entrance—somehow found her way alone to a high mountain lake on the village outskirts.

A highland gust swept through, smoothing the ripples on the lake’s surface. After that, no one knew what became of Yangjin Ram.

Three months later, Tang Yu’s graduation piece claimed the center spot at the exhibition.

It was a nearly flawless, lifelike mud sculpture of a radiantly beautiful Tibetan girl, her eyes veiled by a band of Gesang flowers fluttering in the breeze.

—Yangjin Ram

No one knew what that seemingly ordinary Tibetan name truly meant to its creator.

The brief artist’s statement below read only:

“This is the contour of her, etched in my heart.”

…

Wen Chaosheng had left Yangjin’s ending open to interpretation.

For the final mud sculpture description, he’d drawn inspiration from Xi Zhui’s audition performance and made changes.

Those eyes that Tang Yu had once smoothed over now bore a more vibrant band of Gesang flowers, fluttering as the sole link between their two souls.

Ding-dong.

The room’s doorbell chimed suddenly.

Xi Zhui pulled his thoughts from the script and rose to answer it.

The hotel manager stood at the door. Meeting Xi Zhui’s gaze, he politely explained his visit.

“Good day, sir. The plumbing in the other king room has been repaired. Would you like to switch back now, based on your original booking dates?”

“…”

Wen Chaosheng’s sleeping face floated in Xi Zhui’s mind. His grip tightened on the script. “No need.”

Sharing a room like this… wasn’t so bad.

He didn’t explain the real reason but came up with an excuse instead. “We’re a university student film crew shooting here. We figured we’d save a little money—could you refund that room fee to the original account? Thanks.”

“Sure. This time, it really was our hotel’s fault. We hope it didn’t spoil your stay.”

“Yeah, appreciate it.”

…

Thanks to the university’s application getting involved, the local authorities provided filming support for Wen Chaosheng and the others. Three days later, all the pre-production work was finally wrapped up.

It was just an artistic short film on a small scale, but the crew still put together a modest opening ceremony.

—Bang!

The red cloth draped over the camera equipment was yanked away, and at the same moment, everyone’s party poppers exploded in a festive crackle of confetti.

“Good luck on the shoot!”

“Smooth filming ahead!”

“Our crew’s off to a great start! This film’s gonna win awards and go viral!”

Sun Xuan was the eternal optimist with a booming voice—one shout wasn’t enough; he had to holler right at Wen Chaosheng too. “Self-written and self-directed—Director Wen, you’re the man!”

“…”

Wen Chaosheng was already a social recluse at heart. That yell turned his face beet red on the spot.

Unable to rein in Sun Xuan’s enthusiasm, he ducked his head into his backpack and pulled out a stack of red envelopes he’d prepared in advance.

Lin Keyang blinked in surprise. “Chaosheng, you even made opening red envelopes yourself?”

Sun Xuan beamed. “No way—a real hundred-yuan bill! Thanks, director!”

“I-it’s the least I could do.” Wen Chaosheng, still flushed, passed them out one by one to the key cast and crew. “Everyone, thanks for your hard work ahead.”

Song Xuelan had specifically told him about this: no matter how small the production, always hand out red envelopes for good luck.

Folks in the film world tended to be a little superstitious, and as the son of a renowned director and famous screenwriter, Wen Chaosheng wasn’t about to buck the tradition.

“…”

Xi Zhui, the lead actor, didn’t join in the cheering. His eyes simply tracked Wen Chaosheng’s movements around the group.

Until Wen Chaosheng circled back to him and held out the very last red envelope. “Xi Zhui, this one’s for you. Good luck on the shoot.”

The light in Wen Chaosheng’s eyes, peeking from behind his glasses, shone bright. He was clearly thrilled in the moment.

Xi Zhui accepted it with a smile. “Thanks. Good luck on the shoot—did you slip me a hundred too?”

The words had barely left his mouth when his fingers brushed something off about the envelope’s contents. “Hm?”

“…”

Wen Chaosheng had shown a touch of secret favoritism in this. He coughed awkwardly, heart guilty.

He snuck several glances around, making sure no one was watching for the moment, before murmuring in the tiniest whisper, “Shh. Keep it quiet—yours is special.”