Chapter 36: Scammer Decides to Be a Good Person 11 – As If I’d Believe That

When lovers had been apart for a long time, their embraces were always burning hot.

Shi Lan felt like a piece of candy, melting from the sweetness under his blazing gaze.

“How long are you staying this time after coming back?”

“Including the audition, three days total.”

Only three days?

The train ride one way took over thirty hours. A round trip would eat up three or four days, and in this day and age, riding the train was practically no different from serving time in jail.

Just thinking about it made Shi Lan tired on his behalf.

Remembering how he had just spent so long on the train packed into the crowd like pickled cabbage in a jar, she suddenly leaned in cautiously and sniffed him. He didn’t seem to smell like anything, though.

Du Heng caught her by the neck and pulled Shi Lan back. “Don’t worry. I went home first, took a shower, and changed clothes before coming over.”

Only then did Shi Lan relax and hug his arm tightly. Rising on tiptoe, she planted a fragrant kiss on his cheek. “You knew to wash up before coming to see me, so that’s your reward.”

It was obvious he had just shaved too, though his chin still had a rough layer of stubble.

Du Heng’s brows and eyes were full of laughter, yet he still put on a reserved, stern face. “Quit it. We’re outside.”

“What are you scared of? It’s pitch-black out.” Shi Lan argued, “Li Xia told me that at night, People’s Park and the riverside are full of lovey-dovey couples. She even saw some making out right in the back row of a bus, and it was the really loud kind of kissing too…”

The rest of her words were cut off when Du Heng covered her mouth with his hand.

Helpless, he lectured her, “Read a few more books when you’ve got time. Stop paying attention to all that nonsense.”

Shi Lan blinked to show she agreed. Only then was the restraint on her mouth removed.

Back in the little courtyard, the room Du Heng used to sleep in was now occupied by Li Xia and another salesgirl. When they moved in, Shi Lan had packed up all of Du Heng’s personal belongings and moved them into her own room.

Now Du Heng had no bed to sleep in, and he stood in the courtyard hesitating.

Shi Lan instantly understood his dilemma and deliberately teased him. “Oh no, I totally forgot you don’t have a room anymore. At this hour, we can’t exactly make two girls go out and look for another place to stay. Besides, you’re the one who asked them to move in back then. What are we supposed to do now…”

Du Heng shot her a resentful look.

“I’ll keep you company and talk for a while. Once you fall asleep, I’ll go stay at the guesthouse next door.”

“There’s a guesthouse nearby? I never noticed.” Shi Lan put on an exaggerated expression. “Well, that is one solution.”

“I’ll leave in a bit.” Du Heng sighed. “I brought you some things. Take a look first.”

At least this time, the local specialties he brought back were relatively normal. They were all food items: dried chicken, dried duck, dried fish, lotus root starch, lotus seeds…

Du Heng said, “The crew moved around and ended up in Hubei. I came straight here from Hubei.”

Shi Lan cupped a handful of lotus seeds in her palms. Each one was plump and round.

“We still have the lily bulbs you mailed back last time. Tomorrow morning, let’s have lotus seed and lily porridge.”

“You like them?” Du Heng asked.

“Of course I do.”

What Shi Lan liked was not these things themselves, but the thought that wherever Du Heng went, he always remembered to bring her something.

Du Heng’s eyes lit up. “I’ll bring you more next time.”

“Okay, then I’ll wait for our Mr. Du to become famous all across the country and bring me specialties from every corner of China.”

Du Heng had originally wanted to say that this drama hadn’t even finished filming yet. He had wanted to say that he had never thought about becoming famous, only that acting really did pay better than construction work. He had wanted to say not to place so much hope on him… But faced with the girl’s confident expression, her eyes brimming with expectation, all those thousand words turned into just one sentence: “Okay. I’ll work hard.”

At that moment, all he wanted was to truly become what she hoped for, so long as she would always look at him like that.

At that, Du Heng pulled a cloth bag out of his luggage and handed it to Shi Lan. “Open it and see.”

It was just an ordinary floral cloth bag rolled into a small bundle, with the bag’s own string wrapped around it several times and tied securely. The moment Shi Lan touched it, she had a guess. She peeled it open layer by layer like an onion and found a stack of money.

Judging by the thickness, it had to be several thousand yuan. That was a huge sum of money!

Du Heng liked watching her stunned little expression.

“This is part of my pay,” he explained.

“That much?”

Du Heng gave a mysterious smile. “Guess what role I played?”

“Wasn’t it Yin Liting?”

“At first, yes. But during filming, the director wasn’t satisfied with the actor playing Yang Xiao, so he switched the role of Yang Xiao to me. We signed a new contract at fifteen hundred per episode, and Yang Xiao has a total of thirty episodes.”

Even as Du Heng said it, he was still excited. It was money he couldn’t have saved after several years on a construction site, and even now it still felt like a dream.

Shi Lan didn’t know the salary standards for actors in this era, but judging by the filming period and total income, a monthly income of ten thousand was already absurdly high.

She was especially thrilled. This proved that Du Heng had taken a steady first step on the path of acting.

“Isn’t that way too much?”

Du Heng explained, “I heard ordinary actors don’t get paid this much either. But we’re a wuxia production, with lots of action scenes. It’s impossible to avoid bumps and injuries. The producer said this is hardship pay…”

Not wanting Shi Lan to worry, he changed the subject and started talking about the others. “The highest-paid person in our crew is a senior actor playing Zhang Sanfeng¹. He has a professional title, a First-Class National Actor. Just based on that, even though he doesn’t have many scenes, he still gets five thousand yuan per episode. That’s what’s really impressive… Lanlan, why aren’t you saying anything?”

When Shi Lan had first seen Du Heng, she had been so overwhelmed by the joy of reunion that she hadn’t even thought about the fight scenes. Now that she heard him let it slip himself, she felt awful inside.

Du Heng was a country boy and had worked construction. Ordinary hardship would never make him casually say the words “hardship pay.” If he said that, then he must have suffered badly.

“Where are you hurt? Let me see.”

“I was just saying it. And you took it seriously.” Du Heng stood up and turned around in front of her. “Aren’t I perfectly fine? I can run, I can jump. Carrying you on my back or in my arms wouldn’t be a problem.”

He reached out to scoop Shi Lan up. Shi Lan refused to let him smooth it over. She simply widened her eyes and stared at him without saying a word.

Until he was the one who gave in first.

Du Heng slowly lifted his shirt, still muttering, “It’s really nothing. Just a few minor injuries.”

There was bruising all around his waist, and in many places the skin had already been scraped open, raw and split.

Shi Lan felt her heart seize at the sight, and tears the size of beans immediately welled up and spilled over.

“And you call this a minor injury?!”

Du Heng still grinned as he reassured her, “It’s really nothing. It doesn’t even hurt. Lots of people in the crew have it. It’s just aftereffects from using the wire rig wrong the first time because I didn’t have experience. Hey, why are you crying now?”

As he spoke, he started to lower his shirt and come over to hug Shi Lan, but she barked at him, “Stand right there. Stand properly!”

Du Heng had only been lifting the hem of his shirt a little, which made it obvious he still had injuries elsewhere and was trying to hide them.

Shi Lan didn’t listen to his nonsense. She wiped away the tears blocking her vision and reached out to tug at his clothes herself.

“Lanlan, hey, don’t use your hands. What are you doing? Trying to take advantage of me? If you keep this up, I’m going to yell.”

Shi Lan gave a cold laugh. “Go ahead and yell. Li Xia and the others are right next door. Let’s see if they come save you.”

Du Heng: “…”

Seeing that his arm couldn’t win against her thigh, he loosened his grip while trying to protect his shirt.

Shi Lan didn’t stop. In a few quick moves, she stripped the shirt right off him.

After one look, she finally couldn’t hold back any longer. Covering her mouth, she turned away, crouched on the ground, and began to sob.

Really, aside from his face still being fit to look at, every place hidden under his clothes was covered in injuries. One patch was red and swollen, another deep blue with bruising. His whole body looked mottled like a calico cat.

Anyone who knew would know he had gone off to film a drama. Anyone who didn’t would think he had just escaped from some torture chamber.

No wonder actors all have stunt doubles. Shi Lan used to think it was just because they were big stars… turns out action scenes really aren’t something just anyone can jump into.

She had been too impatient, pushing him into this industry ahead of time. She had always looked at him through the halo and filter of the Film Emperor, assuming he was a future big shot mowing through a beginner village.

But in reality, Du Heng simply wasn’t ready yet. If she hadn’t encouraged and interfered, if he’d just followed the normal path and waited for a talent scout to discover this diamond, then gotten an agent and a team and slowly built up acting experience, he wouldn’t have had to suffer like this at all.

Du Heng crouched in front of Shi Lan and hurriedly explained, “How can this be your fault, Lanlan? If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t even know I could work as an actor. Now I think this job is incredibly interesting. Laugh if you want, but I even feel like I was born to do this. Every day on set feels fulfilling and makes me really happy. Compared to that, a little hardship is nothing.”

He stressed again, “I’m telling the truth! Besides, these injuries only look scary because the blood spread out. They actually don’t hurt anymore.”

Yeah, right!

Shi Lan didn’t bother arguing with him over whether it hurt or not and asked directly, “You should at least put some medicine on it, right? Why didn’t you?”

Under her gaze, Du Heng felt guilty.

He stood up awkwardly, not daring to look at Shi Lan. His voice was nowhere near as impassioned as before as he said slowly, “I did put some on at first, but I was afraid you’d smell the medicine, so before I went to pick you up, I washed it off…”

Shi Lan pointed at the patch of scraped skin near his waist.

“So this waterlogged-looking mess was caused by washing too?”

“The broken skin was oozing a little, and I was worried you’d think it smelled bad, so I scrubbed it a few extra times with a towel.”

Du Heng’s voice grew quieter and quieter.

“You!”

If he weren’t covered in injuries, Shi Lan would have wanted to beat him up again.

She had never seen anyone so clueless about priorities, so careless with his own body.

“Did you bring the medicine or not?”

“Yes, yes, I did.”

He hurriedly rummaged through his luggage and found it.

Shi Lan silently took it, sorted out which one was for cleaning wounds and which one was for rubbing bruises… then pressed the infuriating man who was making her blood pressure rise onto a stool and started applying medicine.

She was angry, so her hands naturally weren’t very gentle.

Even when Du Heng was hurt by it, all he could do was grit his teeth and keep quiet.

After treating the injuries on his body, Shi Lan asked with a dark expression, “What about your legs?”

When he just stood there in a daze without moving, Shi Lan reached out herself, only to have Du Heng raise a hand to stop her.

Protecting his belt, Du Heng backed far away from Shi Lan.

“Th-th-th… this really isn’t something you can just take off whenever you want!”

Shi Lan simply looked at him.

Du Heng said, “I-I-I… I’ll d-do… do it myself.”

Shi Lan set the medicine on the table, turned around, and walked out.

After quite a while, she heard Du Heng call from inside, “I’m done.”

Shi Lan went back in. The whole room smelled of medicine.

Du Heng picked up a few things and walked to the door. “You should sleep. I’ll go to the guesthouse.”

Shi Lan strode over in a few steps, reached past him, shut the door tightly, and stood in front of it, blocking his way.

“You’re covered in injuries, so where do you think you’re going? You’re sleeping here tonight.”

“Oh…”

When his girlfriend got forceful, Du Heng simply couldn’t say no. He could only agree meekly…

Wait, no!

He should’ve been happy that his girlfriend was letting him stay the night, but somehow something about this felt off.

What was with this weird sense of being bullied by brute force and coerced into submission?

Translator’s Notes