TF01 29

They had only come to the hospital to see Dong Xiao because they were the ones who saved him. Now that things had turned out like this, they just wanted to check on his condition. At first, they hadn’t thought too much about it, but after seeing how agitated he was, it became clear that seeing anyone right now was just another trigger for him.

“You remember when I asked you what you’d do if you ended up disabled one day?” As they walked out of the hospital, Ying Ming suddenly asked Shi Yi.

Shi Yi glanced at him. “Yeah, I remember.”

“For an actor, if their face is ruined, it’s basically the same as being crippled.” It didn’t mean they couldn’t go on living, but it was enough to change everything.

Shi Yi understood that logic, so he nodded. “But most of the time, it’s not about how you get past something. It’s about whether you even want to.”

“Easy to say.”

That summed it up well enough. Ying Ming didn’t continue the topic. They walked straight to the car, where Shi Yi asked where he wanted to eat.

It was mealtime, and neither of them had any plans.

“Anything’s fine.” Ying Ming never really cared about this kind of thing. Food was food.

Shi Yi shot him a look. “Is there anything you actually care about?” Ever since they met, Ying Ming’s answers had always been, ‘whatever,’ ‘doesn’t matter,’ ‘anything’s fine.’

It wasn’t like he was being perfunctory, but after a while, it felt like nothing ever truly mattered to him.

That kind of attitude could be frustrating.

Especially for someone like Shi Yi.

Ying Ming was a little surprised by the question. He paused, then shrugged. “Eating is just about filling my stomach. Food is food. As long as I’m full, I don’t care.”

“You’ve got to have at least one or two favorite foods.”

“Nope.”

Shi Yi didn’t look convinced.

Ying Ming raised an eyebrow, a little helpless. “Seriously. I don’t.”

So that day, Shi Yi dragged Ying Ming to a buffet.

On purpose.

Standing at the entrance, Ying Ming turned to look at him, his expression hovering between a smirk and a smile. “You seriously want to eat here?”

“We’re already here. What’s there to talk about?” Shi Yi pulled him inside.

The restaurant was packed at this hour. Eating at a buffet was practically a battlefield, with crowds swarming the food stations. The contrast between the two of them was obvious. One started from the very first dish, taking a little of everything until the plate was full. The other went straight for the mains, piling up chicken, duck, fish, and meat like he was stocking up for winter.

As they returned to their table, Ying Ming glanced at Shi Yi’s overloaded plate. “You eat a lot.”

“It’s all for you.” Shi Yi answered.

Ying Ming frowned. “Who the hell can eat that much?”

“Leave whatever you can’t finish.”

“The sign at the entrance says there’s a fine for wasting food.”

“Then let them fine me.”

Shi Yi lit a cigarette and bit down on it, grinning at Ying Ming with a hint of mischief. “I just want to see if you really don’t care what you eat.”

Looking around the restaurant, most of the diners were either groups of students, couples, or families. Two grown men sitting across from each other, gnawing on chicken wings, was a rare sight. On top of that, both of them stood out. A few students had already started whispering and pointing at Ying Ming, as if they recognized him.

Shi Yi took a beat to realize that, after all, Ying Ming was a public figure.

“Isn’t it a bit crowded here?”

Ying Ming was busy tackling the mountain of skewers Shi Yi had stacked on his plate. Hearing the question, he looked up with an amused expression. “You’re only noticing that now?”

Shi Yi let out a slightly awkward laugh. “I didn’t expect this many people.”

He rarely ate at buffets, except for the occasional hotel breakfast during business trips.

The whole process of grabbing a plate and going station to station reminded him too much of queuing for food in a school cafeteria. It felt awkward.

Ying Ming could probably guess what he was thinking. He chuckled but didn’t call him out on it.

He wasn’t the type to eat too slowly, but he also wasn’t in a rush. His pace was steady, almost like he was following a set plan. Shi Yi, on the other hand, barely touched his food, only occasionally stabbing at a few pieces of chicken breast with his fork.

Buffet food was never anything special.

At best, it was edible.

Shi Yi had only grabbed so much food to mess with Ying Ming a little. That nonchalant attitude of his made Shi Yi itch to knock him down a peg. Since the guy claimed he’d eat anything as long as it filled him up, Shi Yi deliberately loaded the plate with the most stomach-filling options.

But half an hour later, Ying Ming was still eating.

No complaints, no hesitation, just quietly making his way through the plate like he was finishing a work assignment.

Shi Yi watched him for a while before finally breaking the silence. “Are you full yet?”

“Yeah.”

Ying Ming responded immediately.

Shi Yi raised an eyebrow. “Are you stuffed?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re stuffed and you’re still eating?”

Or rather, the real question should be how he was still managing to eat after already being full.

Ying Ming’s casual attitude clearly got to Shi Yi. He frowned. “You ate that much and you’re not even reacting?”

Was this a stomach of steel or a bottomless pit?

Ying Ming took a bite of pizza and replied, “I don’t like wasting food.”

Truth was, he had been full for a while.

But after saying he was stuffed, another thirty minutes passed and he was still eating.

Shi Yi had already gone through two cigarettes. Watching Ying Ming eat like this felt almost disturbing. In the end, he finally reached out and grabbed his arm. “Enough. If you can’t finish it, just leave it.”

Ying Ming glanced at him. “Not used to leaving food behind.” He went right back to eating.

By the time Shi Yi finished another cigarette, he had no choice but to sigh. Giving in, he picked up his fork and joined Ying Ming in dealing with the mess he had created.

When they finally cleared the table, Shi Yi was so done with everything that he wanted to flip the damn restaurant.

He got up, looking a little worse for wear. “Let’s go.”

Ying Ming wiped his mouth, gave a small nod, took a sip of his drink, and followed Shi Yi out.

Before they even reached the car, Shi Yi suddenly stopped in his tracks. “Fuck. I’ve never eaten this much in my life. Goddamn it.”

Getting this stuffed from a buffet, what he really meant was that he had never been this embarrassed in his entire life.

Ying Ming, on the other hand, was in a great mood. “You went at it too hard.”

Eating was kind of like drinking. The more you tried to rush through it, the worse it got. Rushing only made things worse. The old saying had a point.

Shi Yi frowned. “You can even pull logic out of something like this?”

Ying Ming looked at his rare moment of distress and couldn’t help but smirk, barely holding back from laughing too openly. Leaning casually against the car behind him, he said, “Back when I was filming, we often had to shoot eating scenes. Over and over, sometimes more than ten takes, eating bite after bite. If you don’t figure out a method, you’d end up throwing up every time.”

In fact, Ying Ming had actually thrown up before.

Delivering lines while eating, retaking scenes when someone messed up, doing it again if the lighting was off or the camera angle wasn’t right. Actors had to repeat the same actions over and over. If the scene required wolfing down food, they had to stay in character, keeping up the emotions take after take, until just the sight of that meal was enough to make them nauseous.

Film directors always obsessed over the finest details.

Spending an entire morning just to capture the right feeling for a single shot wasn’t unheard of.

Ying Ming’s tone was casual as he spoke. He leaned against the car, lit a cigarette, and smiled at Shi Yi. “The worst way to die has to be from overeating.”

Under the moonlight, with a cigarette between his lips, Ying Ming leaned against the car, half his face hidden in shadow. His silhouette was just a blurred outline, as if a camera were filming him from Shi Yi’s perspective.

Life often felt like a movie, and movies often mirrored life.

Not everyone lived dramatic, soap-opera-like lives filled with constant turmoil, but Shi Yi had never really thought about how the polished glamour on screen hid struggles that outsiders couldn’t fully understand.

Ying Ming, Dong Xiao, and others in this industry weren’t the ones calling the shots.

Chasing dreams or just making a living, at the core, they weren’t any different from people outside the entertainment circle. The only difference was the way they went about it.

Shi Yi watched him for a moment, then couldn’t help but say, “You know, Ying Ming, you’re actually pretty amusing.”

Ying Ming only raised an eyebrow. “Not as amusing as you, though.”

The smoke curled around Ying Ming’s lips, softening the curve of his smile until his expression became unreadable. He simply looked at Shi Yi and said, “You’re always the one who starts things, but you never see them through. It’s not like someone in your position has to follow along with everyone else. That’s not who you are, so why put on an act?”

If Ying Ming had to say, he had long forgotten the last time he had spoken so openly with someone. He was never the type to casually close the distance. Their worlds were completely different, their environments miles apart, and by all logic, they had no reason to form this kind of connection. Yet somehow, it had happened naturally.

If he really thought about it, it was probably because of that unspoken something in Shi Yi’s eyes from time to time. That thing that got under his skin, nudging him to take that step forward when he would have otherwise hesitated.

More often than not, his words came before his thoughts. By the time he realized what he was saying, it was already out in the open.

A brief silence settled between them.

Shi Yi studied the man in front of him, unable to tell if he was smiling behind the smoke or not.

What he had just said wasn’t exactly pleasant to hear, but strangely enough, Shi Yi didn’t feel like arguing.

Ying Ming was a strange person. Always acting easygoing, never taking anything to heart. Throw a punch at him, and it was like hitting a pillow. Nothing got through. Yet just when you thought he was all jokes and no substance, he would turn around and hit you with something completely serious. Then, right when you started to believe him, he would throw in, I was just messing with you.

Truth or lie, it was up to you to figure it out.

Like that time with Liu Li. Shi Yi had made him drink as punishment, knowing full well why he was doing it. Ying Ming hadn’t said a word, just downed the glass. In the end, the only one left feeling unsettled had been Shi Yi himself.

He had never met someone he couldn’t see through.

And he had never met someone who could see right through him.

“Ying Ming, this isn’t fair.”

He suddenly stepped in closer, his posture carrying that signature arrogance. In the darkness, their faces were shadowed, but the emotions flickering in their eyes shone unmistakably bright.