002
Qin Yinong turned her head to look back. As if the curtain of heaven unfurled; as if a galaxy of stars surged... the room was suddenly enveloped in brilliant light.
The silver moon was like a porcelain dinner plate, its soft light pouring in.
Who knows whether it was the moonlight that illuminated her face, or it was her face that illuminated the moonlight outside the window. She simply stood there, tall and tranquil, like a lone stalk of bamboo. Her bright red dress gently billowed in the night breeze.
They were obviously so far apart, yet there was a fragrance floating in the air.
In the shadow of the night, Tang Ruoyao's breath almost hitched. Her feet were rooted firmly in place. A faint hope glimmered in her eyes.
She hasn't been back for such a long time. How long will she stay this time? Will she stay forever?
She came over so late, so she would stay overnight, right?
The moment Qin Yinong saw her, both her eyes and mouth smiled, and a heart-warming grace flowed from her slender eyebrows.
She gently set the wine glass down and walked towards her.
Black hair, vermilion lips, red dress, and bare feet—her blush pink toes treaded extremely lightly as she stepped on the dark wooden floor. She was light on her feet, making almost no sound as she walked gracefully towards her. When she walked, one slender leg in front of the other, her skin peeked out from the bottom of the skirt.
The boundaries of time became blurry in this moment. The snowy silver moonlight veiled her in a layer of enchanting white mist, reminiscent of a fiend hypnotizing people in a scene from some supernatural novel.
Tang Ruoyao could not help but hold her breath and stare at her. She almost lost her composure, wanting to step forward and embrace her. But she felt this urge for just a moment, a flicker of time. Her heart shuddered and her body went cold; she remembered who she was.
She was just a little lover sponsored by Qin Yinong.
She was not at all what the outside world said about her—that she had a distinguished family background. It was Qin Yinong who secretly supported her, and led her to the status and position that she had today. It was Qin Yinong who single-handedly promoted her. In front of Qin Yinong, she couldn’t—and didn’t dare to—be presumptuous (T/N: presumptuous 放肆 is the title of the novel).
Qin Yinong emerged from the thick fog and approached her. Tang Ruoyao had already lowered her eyelashes, concealing all of her emotions.
Qin Yinong's eyes flashed with something—maybe it was frustration, or perhaps melancholy... She came very close to Tang Ruyao: so close that she needed only to lower her head to view Tang Ruyao's eyelashes, one by one. They were dense and curly, filled with the shallow pale moonlight, slender and thin, slightly fluttering like fragile cicada wings.
Qin Yinong stretched out her pale fingers, and each of her knuckles grazed the young woman's warm chin. Then the palm of her hand slowly lifted, fitting into the curve of her cheek and jaw. With her face in her palm, she caressed it softly with her thumb. Back and forth, back and forth.
This girl's skin was delicate, like fine porcelain. The smooth feeling of her skin put her in a trance; she was addicted to the touch.
Tang Ruoyao was slightly tickled by her movements. She wanted to hide away, but more so she wanted to get closer. Qin Yinong wore a peculiar fragrance, completely different from herself. It was not strong, and unlike any perfume she could identify. Her fragrance… it was distant and cold.
As she got closer and closer, the waft of the cold fragrance dispersed to the bridge of her nose. Such a cold fragrance ought to cool down her heated face a bit, but it had only done the opposite. The skin on her face sparked into a young flame.
Tang Ruoyao’s breath caught, her eyelashes lightly fanned, and quietly cried out: "Jiejie..." as if begging for mercy. The girl's voice towards someone intimate became sweet, the elongated tone coquettish, mush like cotton.
She tried to disrupt this mysterious atmosphere, but it backfired on her.
"Hmm?" Qin Yinong's heart warmed at her call of “Jiejie". Since Tang Ruyao walked in from the door, this was the first sound Qin Yinong made, although it wasn’t a word. It was just a lazy, hummed question mark, accompanied with a teasing, faint smile.
Her gaze rested on Tang Ruyao's face as if beholding an exquisite work of art. She watched her with interest, admiring this work of art that had been created with careful craftsmanship.
"You..." Tang Ruyao struggled to maintain a calm and comfortable expression as she spoke. "When did you come back?"
The neverending demands she faced from the director on set were nowhere as taxing as concealing her expressions in front of Qin Yinong.
"When I sent you the message." Qin Yinong sighed softly, like a murmur between lovers.
Her words were incredibly gentle. Tang Ruyao's heart fluttered. What kind of eyes were looking at her right now? She couldn’t help but take a look. Just as she mustered up the courage to raise her eyelids, her lips were pressed by Qin Yinong's warm and slender fingertips.
Tang Ruoyao's eyelashes trembled violently, and so did her heart.
Her fingertips gently rubbed over Tang Ruoyao's rosy thin lips.
"Today's lipstick is lovely." Qin Yinong's index finger nudged at her full lower lip.
Tang Ruoyao almost couldn't resist opening her mouth to let it inside... she swallowed hard in her throat before suppressing the impulse.
Tang Ruoyao's conscience was about to snap. She had to force herself to calm down; she was on the verge of losing control. To bring herself back to reality, and out of the misty void of Qin Yinong’s breath, she spoke.
"Jiejie..." She opened her mouth, but all she could say was just this one word! Blood rushed to her head, and her white ears were painted scarlet in an instant.
A pleasant soft laugh came from the woman in front of her.
"If you call me like this twice again, this 'Jiejie' will have to kiss you." Qin Yinong became more serious, caressed her cheek one more time, and dropped the hand touching her skin. She turned on the light and walked over to the coffee table. “I’ll stop teasing you. I brought you a gift from abroad, come see if you like it.”
The warm fingertips were removed from Tang Ruoyao's face, and her heart suddenly felt empty. She bit her lower lip, annoyed, and looked at the woman’s slender back.
Why did you... But I hadn’t called out to you twice more yet...
"Jiejie."
Qin Yinong looked back at her and smiled: "What are you doing just standing by the doorway?"
"......"
She really wasn't going to kiss her!
No gift could compare to the kiss she missed. Tang Ruoyao was extremely disappointed but still dawdled over to the coffee table. When Qin Yinong looked over, the frustration on her face was instantly swept away, replaced with a face that portrayed the right amount of curiosity: "What gift?"
Qin Yinong raised the flat square box in her hand, with the logo of a certain jewelry brand printed on it.
Tang Ruoyao was standing in front of the full length mirror in the closet. Qin Yinong stood behind her, her fingertips pinching the thin necklace. Qin Yinong was two centimeters taller than her, and when she put on the necklace, she bowed her head slightly with a gentle and focused expression.
Tang Ruoyao took this opportunity to gently turn her head sideways and gaze at her face from a close distance.
She was already twenty-nine years old, but her skin still looked the same as a young girl in her early twenties. In the dim light, her face was warm and smooth, her pores almost imperceptible.
She was very pale, but it was not the kind of frail paleness that never sees the light of day. Her skin tone looked like transparent flower petals of pink and white with a spring-like liveliness.
The first time Tang Ruyao saw Qin Yinong was on TV. When Qin Yinong debuted at the age of 18, she herself was still in elementary school. Qin Yinong starred as "Daji" in the The New Seal of the Gods. Every pinch of her eyebrows another smile, every step she took a lotus bloomed; her beauty was breathtaking. From then on, there was a tangible face to all the fiends in picture books, especially the vixen.
Some critics later on said she played her true personality in that character. This was not praise, but ridicule.
The role of "Daji" made Qin Yinong an instant hit. There were rumors that many men were hooked on her portrayal of "Daji", and that their wives hated her influence so much that they wrote letters to the authorities asking for Qin Yinong to be banned. The media, with a keen sense of smell, took advantage of the issue and put Qin Yinong in the limelight. They made up many stories about her, saying she caused endless quarrels between couples throughout the nation. Even natural and man-made disasters could be blamed on Qin Yinong! The masses love gossip. No matter how outrageous the media made it out to be, as long as they could gain attention, their goal was achieved.
In the entertainment industry, being beautiful is a must. But Qin Yinong being as beautiful as she was became a sin.
The media continuously criticized her, and the masses only fanned the flames further, so her popularity (if it can be called that) soared high beyond any of her peers. Her reputation had been extremely poor since her debut, and she endured unimaginable malice from the public. As she got more and more popular, things only got more and more severe. Writing scandals involving the love life of actresses was easily the simplest way to attract attention of the public. Such is what women had experienced for thousands of years, over and over again.
The slander in people's mouths can destroy. But children only know beauty and ugliness; they don't know good or evil. As a child, Tang Ruyao just thought "Daji" was very beautiful. Her classmates had thought the same, and had even bought her posters and stickers. However, she learned eventually that Qin Yinong was not a good person. She relied on the unspoken rules to get the upper hand, sold her body, and was despised by others.
Even after Tang Ruyao grew up and entered film school, Qin Yinong's name was burned into her memory, burned into her being. While she revered Qin Yinong's achievements, Tang Ruoyao’s initial impression of her instilled since childhood made her scornful of Qin Yinong's character.
The irony was that this person who hated unspoken rules eventually chose this path herself. Even more coincidentally, her sponsor was the one notorious for having slept with the entire film industry, the very same Qin Yinong.
She had been with Qin Yinong for three years, but just couldn’t understand: what kind of person was Qin Yinong? She was mysterious, powerful, beautiful, and dangerous. Qin Yinong emitted a fatal charm that pulled others in like a whirlpool. And with every passing minute, it got more difficult to pull away.
In these three years, Tang Ruoyao watched herself fall deeper and deeper into her gentle trap, but she never thought of pulling away, of resisting Qin Yinong.
"What are you thinking about?” The woman's voice rang in her ear, soft and charming, but with a hint of raspiness that was unique to the night.
"The necklace is very nice." Tang Ruoyao's eyes smiled gently as she gave the answer she had long since prepared. She looked at the two faces pressed together in the mirror, one warm and one cold, like a perfect match of opposites.
"It's good that you like it." Qin Yinong's soft arms came from behind, encircling Tang Ruyao's lean waist. Her warm body pressed against her back as she rested her chin on her shoulder. Her left hand was wearing a white-gold tail ring.
Tang Ruoyao turned her face sideways and took the initiative to caress her cheek gently.
Qin Yinong's breathing was slightly heavy, and her scorching breaths, one by one, rushed into Tang Ruoyao’s sensitive ears.
Tang Ruoyao did not move. After a few seconds, Qin Yinong softly pulled her shoulders to turn her around, and gently lifted her chin with her fingers.
translated by mooie, edited by mooie and melis.