AD | Chapter 3

The next day, I called Chen Hao.

“I can’t do this job. Come take the material back.”

“Can’t do it?” His voice on the other end sounded as if he wanted to eat me alive. “Can’t do it? Wait there. I’m coming over.”

He arrived at my place twenty minutes later by taxi. The fact that Beijing’s Third, Fourth, and Fifth Ring Roads hadn’t swallowed him alive was frankly infuriating.

“Why?” he demanded.

I threw the manuscript pages down in front of him.

“Look at this. A family of scholars. A great-grandfather who was supposedly ennobled. Reading poetry at three, learning the qin at four. Degrees from prestigious universities. Why not just say she’s the Princess of Monaco while you’re at it? Is this supposed to be a human being? Even a made-up story has to have some limits!”

Chen Hao stared at me, mouth hanging open.

“Made up?” he repeated incredulously. “You do realize the whole thing is supposed to be made up, right? What difference does it make whether we embellish it a little or a lot?”

“It makes a difference.” I stood my ground. “Even when you’re inventing a story, it has to make sense. Even a novel needs a believable plot. This character is so blatantly fake she has no credibility whatsoever. I can’t write her.”

Chen Hao was losing patience.

“Enough. I’ll give you three seconds. Are you doing it or not?”

I didn’t need even one second.

“No.”

He was furious.

“You’re impossible, Zhuang Xiao Qin! You’re so damn stubborn!”

I ignored him, shoved the papers into his arms, and practically pushed and kicked him out the door.

He left.

At first, I felt fantastic.

Then, little by little, the triumph faded into melancholy.

I lay on my bed, thinking I might as well take a nap. But the showerhead in my bathroom kept dripping. Drip. Drip. Drip.

It has been doing that for two weeks now. I kept meaning to buy a new one.

I also wanted a bathtub.

Nothing fancy. It didn’t have to be some Italian or French designer brand. Ordinary white ceramic would do just fine. Something clean and simple that I could collapse into after an all-night writing session. I wouldn’t mind drowning there, peacefully, in a little tub of domestic bliss.

The afternoon was hot and stifling, so I turned on the air conditioner.

My ancient air conditioner protested reluctantly. It was almost out of refrigerant, so it would run for a while, then shut itself off. Just when I got used to the silence, it would roar back to life.

Maybe I needed a new air conditioner, too.

I fell asleep sweating.

Somewhere in the haze of sleep, I heard the telephone ring.

It was Chen Hao!

He must have called to ask if I’d changed my mind!

I rolled over and lunged for the phone. I grabbed the receiver and said hello.

Nothing.

Then came a soft little click, followed by a sweet female voice, calm and unhurried:

“Your Internet service charges for April and May remain unpaid. Please visit your local service center as soon as possible to avoid suspension of service and any inconvenience this may cause…”

I hung up.

For a moment, I just lay there in stunned silence.

Summer had arrived with brutal efficiency, wrapping itself around me from every direction. There was nowhere to escape.

Suddenly I felt utterly miserable.

Zhuang Xiao Qin was in Beijing.

Zhuang Xiao Qin was completely alone.

Zhuang Xiao Qin was a stubborn idiot with only two hundred yuan left in her bank account.

What was Zhuang Xiao Qin supposed to do?

The phone rang again.

Probably the gas company this time.

Enough was enough.

I picked it up anyway.

This time it was a man.

“Is this Miss Zhuang Xiao Qin?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes.” I was in no mood for pleasantries. “How much do I owe you?”

There was a pause.

“Miss Zhuang…I think you’ve misunderstood.”

You’re the one who’s misunderstood. Your whole family has misunderstood, I cursed silently.

Out loud, I maintained the bare minimum of civility.

“What is it?”

“This is Lin Zhian.”

“Oh. Right.”

I answered vaguely, while frantically rummaging through my memory.

Lin Zhian…

He continued, his voice earnest.

“Miss Zhuang, I wanted to say that I really admire your attitude toward your work. I also think your concerns are reasonable. So, if you have some time, would you mind meeting with me again? I’d still very much like you to take on this project.”

He had the tone of a seasoned negotiator, as though he’d prepared thirty thousand words of arguments to persuade me.

It was unnecessary.

My noble contempt for money had always been extremely short-lived.

“I have time,” I said.

Then, completely shamelessly, I added, “Anytime.”

The moment I hung up, I startled myself.

I stared at my phone, then tossed it into the corner of the bed.

And then I started getting ready.

I washed my face, did my hair, and tried on dress after dress.

In the end, I put on the same dress I’d worn the night before.

I sat on the edge of my bed with an urge to cry.

I wasn’t eighteen anymore.

Back then, all it took was a little smile to leave boys completely spellbound.

Not that I actually went through with the crying.

I went to meet him, of course.

We met at the same place where we’d parted the night before.

His car was waiting there, as if it had never left.

For a moment, I felt a strange flutter of panic.

Calm down, I told myself.

Once again, I opened the car door myself and got in.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll know when we get there,” he said mysteriously.

I had always hated that kind of attitude.

But he was handsome, so I merely snorted and decided not to jump out of the moving car.

“Miss Zhuang,” he began after a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Mr. Chen passed along what you said. He told me you felt that…”

“I think inventing such a ridiculous family history for her is completely unnecessary. And I don’t understand why she needs an autobiography in the first place. Nobody cares where a hero comes from. If she’s famous, she’s famous. So what if she was raised picking through garbage?”

I thought I saw the corner of Lin Zhian’s mouth lift in an amused, meaningful smile.

I ignored it.

“And even if you insist on making things up—Mr. Lin, forgive me for being blunt—but at least make them believable. That material you gave me is full of nonsense. The dates contradict each other. Which member of your staff put that thing together? They deserve a beating.”

He smiled.

“Mr. Chen certainly didn’t recommend the wrong person. You’re a very good writer.”

“Can you tell me where we’re actually going now?” I asked.

“Xiaohui has a performance at the Capital Gymnasium tonight at eight,” he said. “I’d like you to see it.”

As it turned out, Beijing traffic decided to make a special effort that night.

We got stuck.

And stuck again.

By the time we arrived, we were late.

Personally, I didn’t think it mattered much. He was an assistant, after all. Not her bodyguard. The lights onstage weren’t going to stop working just because he was late.

Lin Zhian deposited me in the VIP section and disappeared.

I settled down and watched Lin Jiahui perform.

By the end, I had reached one conclusion:

That girl really had been born to be a star.

I couldn’t say she had the most beautiful voice, the most graceful figure, or the prettiest face.

But there was definitely something different about her.

Onstage, she seemed tireless, running from one end to the other, throwing her arms into the air. Every time she stamped her foot, the audience erupted in a wave of screaming fans.

Then, finally, she became still and began to sing a slow song.

Her voice was slightly husky.

And somehow, it broke my heart.

The last rose of summer

blooms beside a lonely glass

in an empty room.

I know it will wither in the end,

just as our love

has gone beyond return.

I watch your long hair

lifting softly in the wind.

I watch our beautiful memories

fall into the fire of remembrance.

I watch someone play the piano,

singing of someone’s seventeenth year.

I watch the promises of youth

flow away like water

Heading east.

Some things become beautiful

simply because they have passed.

The sweet words we once whispered—

every one of them

was comfort for the growing pains of youth.

Some people love with such purity

that even a wounded heart

refuses to retreat.

They plant their loneliness

and wait for it to bloom into spring.

Though you and I

will never face each other again,

there is still the last rose of summer,

blooming in the most beautiful way—

with a broken heart.

Some indefinable kind of charisma seemed to surround her.

I suppose this was what people meant when they talked about having star quality.

Lin Jiahui was born with it.

So perhaps, I thought suddenly, it wasn’t entirely absurd to say she was the Princess of Monaco after all.

Yes.

Sometimes a beautiful dream needs a fool to make it come true.

Why was I being so stubborn about principles?

By the end of the concert, the entire audience was screaming for an encore.

Lin Jiahui didn’t come back out.

The roof was practically about to be blown off.

Then Lin Zhian suddenly appeared and grabbed me.

“The show is over,” he said. “I’m taking you backstage to meet her.”

“But there’s still the encore,” I reminded him.

His answer was wonderfully cool.

“Real stars don’t do encores.”

Lin Zhian was a remarkable man.

In a crowd packed shoulder to shoulder, he somehow carved a path straight through it. Twenty minutes later, we were standing outside Lin Jiahui’s dressing room.

“Where’s Lin Zhian?”

A woman’s voice came from inside.

I knew immediately that it was Lin Jiahui.

But I could hardly believe it.

The voice sounded nothing like the one I had just heard singing onstage.

Lin Zhian gave me a helpless smile and went inside.

I had no idea what kind of conversation they were having. I only heard a woman shouting:

“Write it exactly the way I told you! Tell her to stop wasting time. If she won’t do it, there are plenty of people waiting to take the job!”

I couldn’t hear Lin Zhian’s reply.

He was probably trying to explain something, his voice too low to make out.

Then came another murmur of voices.

I assumed he was still trying to reason with her.

Suddenly—

Crash!

Something hit the floor and shattered.

I shuddered.

What a temper.

Finally, Lin Zhian came out.

He gave me an embarrassed smile.

There was a dark bruise forming on his temple.

He noticed me looking and pretended it was nothing.

“She threw a vase at me,” he said.

“Why was she so angry with you?” I asked.

He smiled bitterly.

“I’m sorry. She’s not in a good mood today. She doesn’t want to see anyone.”

I said nothing.

I simply turned and walked away.

Lin Zhian caught up with me at the exit.

“Miss Zhuang, let me drive you home.”

“You’re going to make me throw up all over your car again,” I reminded him.

He completely ignored my provocation.

He brought the car around, gestured for me to get in, and I obediently climbed inside.

There was no resisting the charms of a handsome man.

“Miss Zhuang,” he said, “the reason I brought you here tonight was so you could see the real Xiaohui. The person you saw onstage is the real her. As for everything else…I hope you won’t take it to heart.”

“Hmm.”

That was all I said.

Lin Zhian suddenly let out a heavy sigh.

“Actually, I don’t know why she became like this either.”

At that moment, I was almost certain there was a story between the two of them.

A star and her assistant.

There must have been a hundred romance novels with exactly that setup.

Only, there was no mention of Lin Zhian anywhere in the material I’d been given for her autobiography. He was simply the invisible pair of wings behind her life.

Thinking about it that way, it seemed almost a shame.

“Miss Zhuang,” Lin Zhian said. “I need your answer.”

“Oh. Sure.”

I looked at him.

Somehow, I’d completely drifted off.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Take the car-washing bill out of my fee,” I said.

He smiled.

That smile was practically invincible.

“What was the song she sang called?” I asked.

“Which one?”

“The one about the last rose of summer. ‘The last rose of summer, blooming beside a lonely glass in an empty room…’”

“Right. It’s called The Last Rose of Summer.”

Lin Zhian paused.

“No matter how beautiful a flower is, it will eventually wither. Having a book record some of her past for her…maybe that’s a good thing.”

He sighed.

Even his sighs were beautiful.

I was grateful that I was immune to love.

Otherwise, I would have died a truly humiliating death.