WS - Chapter 23
Chapter 23
After somewhat petulantly rousing Song Shiyue to re-read the wristband manual three times, Yu Nianbing slept better that night than she had imagined.
Perhaps because the fuss had gone on rather late, or perhaps because the person beside her kept producing too many distracting antics, Yu Nianbing later fell asleep almost the moment her head touched the pillow, not sparing another thought for those stray worries.
Her dreams were utterly calm as well, free of the frights that had been surfacing from time to time lately, only some plump white ducks running around, rather noisy and amusing.
When the wristband alarm sounded at five fifty-five in the morning, Yu Nianbing, having rested well the entire night, felt decidedly refreshed and invigorated. Looking beside her at Song Shiyue, who had kicked away most of the blanket and slept entirely past the midline, the nameless embarrassment and vexation that had flared up in the middle of the night had long since dissipated.
Though, she did seem to somewhat understand what the business of being bumped in the waist several times by a fat white duck in last night's dream had really been about.
Yu Nianbing reached out, but what she gently pinched was not Song Shiyue's long-encroaching paw that had already found its way onto her own blanket, but the tender yellow pajamas embroidered with two little white ducks.
Heaven knows how she'd slept; never mind kicking most of the blanket off, so much of her waist was exposed... and she hadn't even set an alarm before six. What was this creature going to do once the hour struck and the Mosaic effect deactivated?
On the nights before, when no one was watching her, surely she hadn't also...
Yu Nianbing furrowed her brow slightly and, with a care she herself didn't register, tugged Song Shiyue's pajamas back into place properly.
Still, she ended up waiting another two minutes. When only a few dozen seconds remained before six o'clock, Yu Nianbing woke Song Shiyue, telling her to activate the privacy shield in time to change her clothes.
Daylight had fully broken by then, so Yu Nianbing didn't linger to split the bathroom. She said a word to Song Shiyue and took her things to wash up in the next room.
To have actually slept a full night through without waking once— Yu Nianbing felt her mental state had truly improved by a great deal compared to the previous few days.
Several days ago, the company had sent over a script, a horror and supernatural genre that Yu Nianbing had never dabbled in before. She'd habitually read the materials for less than two hours before her whole person was somewhat unwell. Sure enough, that night she hadn't slept at all... In the following days, she hadn't tortured herself by reading further, and although she did sleep, the sleep quality was just passable at best, a stretch to even call that.
Yu Nianbing looked at herself in the mirror. The dark circles she'd needed makeup to cover the past few days were now gone.
If I'd known...
She should have moved back to Xingzhu Garden to stay those few days. Who knew— with Song Shiyue living just a wall away, could she have steadied her nerves too?
After all, this was a person who could smash through walls. Somehow even with just one wall between them, she felt quite a sense of security.
Now, separated by that same one wall, Song Shiyue had no idea that in some people's eyes she had already been elevated to the status of a household protective charm.
Yu Nianbing glanced out the window.
Distant mountains folded in layered green, nearby grass lush as a rug.
It seemed that with good rest, the stagnant gloom in Yu Nianbing's heart had also cleared quite a bit. She suddenly even began to feel a small flicker of anticipation for this Wilderness Planet journey.
Or... when we get back from this trip, I'll just turn down that script.
Just as this thought sprouted in Yu Nianbing's mind, the wristband emitted a "beep beep beep" countdown warning. She pressed to extend the privacy shield, and in her heart, the decision was set.
Turn down that script.
Originally, Yu Nianbing had thought to part with Senxin on good terms and not stir up trouble at the end. But from The Wilderness Journey to a supernatural horror film, Senxin's intent was all too plain: within the final contract window, push Yu Nianbing into various different genres to jack up her appearance fee by capitalizing on her first foray into such subject matter, squeezing out every last bit of her value.
It was all because of that contract...
Yu Nianbing's eyes dimmed somewhat.
But no one keeps yielding forever because of a contract, especially since Yu Nianbing had never had only this one path to take.
By her calculations, by the time she finished filming The Wilderness Journey and returned, Ouyang Hui would have more or less given birth. With the excuse of pregnancy panic disorder gone, she could ignore any inhibitions about her and terminate the contract with Senxin early. There were only just over two months left on the contract anyway. Something that could be settled with money— Yu Nianbing suddenly no longer felt inclined to make things hard for herself.
As for this The Wilderness Journey, which could be said was Senxin screwing her over, she'd just treat it as honoring whatever remnant of sentiment still existed between her and Ouyang Hui from those years.
Hmm... if any such sentiment existed...
Having slept a full, satisfying night, Yu Nianbing, body and mind buoyant, firmed up a resolution she should have made long ago.
Meanwhile, Ouyang Hui, who had not slept the entire night, sank in a dazed stupor into even deeper bewilderment.
The baby came more than ten days earlier than the estimated due date.
Although when she arrived at the hospital, the delivering doctor had consoled her, saying that childbirth depended on individual constitution, that coming earlier or later than the due date happened, and as long as both mother and child were healthy it was normal, nothing to worry about. But Ouyang Hui knew full well in her heart that this early labor was less about individual constitution and more because her own emotional turmoil had been too great...
Of course, such a thing need not, and would not, be brought up.
Childbirth was more painful than Ouyang Hui had imagined. All the childbirth technique guidance materials she had read during pregnancy were flung to the farthest corners of her mind amid wave after wave of contractions.
There was little joy. Even some regret.
Lying on the delivery bed, the pain made her face, again and again, the regret she had been hiding deep inside.
I didn't actually want to have a child. Why did I come to give birth?
I didn't actually want to get pregnant. Why did I get pregnant?
But... since I married Shi Senxin, how could I not get pregnant and bear a child?
Then... why did I marry Shi Senxin in the first place?
Amid waves of pain that felt as though they would tear her entire body apart, Ouyang Hui's body somewhat numbly followed the doctor's voice, inhaling and exhaling over and over, but her soul seemed to have drifted elsewhere, sinking into a chain of self-interrogation that kept pushing further and further backward.
Thus laboring without full focus for most of the night, near dawn Ouyang Hui finally gave birth to a son.
And when her soul returned, Ouyang Hui, being wheeled out of the delivery room, actually saw Shi Senxin waiting outside.
The emotions that the grueling ordeal of childbirth had pressed down in her heart finally surged somewhat back up.
Perhaps, we do still love each other, Ouyang Hui thought.
After laboring most of the night, Ouyang Hui was pushed out of the delivery room, yet she hadn't collapsed from exhaustion into deep sleep. She even managed to sustain her spirits enough to exchange a few words with Shi Senxin.
Shi Senxin was seven years older than Ouyang Hui, only thirty-five this year. Handsome and striking, he also carried some of the mature charm of an older man, and with the backing of Senxin Entertainment, he was the very image of a domineering CEO.
Domineering CEO that he was, his speech naturally lacked any gentle tenderness.
After a few cursory words of concern for Ouyang Hui, Shi Senxin got straight to the point: "This time you went back to Beichen Planet, what exactly did you discuss with Yu Nianbing? On the video calls you always seemed quite confident, but I heard from Qiu Yishan that even up until she left for Wilderness Planet, there wasn't really any sign Yu Nianbing intended to renew with Senxin. What's going on?"
Perhaps it was because Ouyang Hui had spent that entire night remembering too much, pushing the trajectory of her life backward too far, all the way to a past where Yu Nianbing's appearance frequency was alarmingly high.
Hearing that name suddenly brought up by Shi Senxin now, Ouyang Hui felt a moment of disorientation.
"What exactly is going on? On Yu Nianbing's end, are you still capable of handling this or not?" Seeing Ouyang Hui keep silent, Shi Senxin, when he spoke again, carried a note of sternness.
"Doesn't the contract still have over two months? Even if I'm going to persuade her, I have to wait until she gets back from Wilderness Planet." Ouyang Hui also furrowed her brow, her tone growing somewhat sharp.
"You've already popped the kid out. Once she's back from Wilderness Planet, how are you still going to use pregnancy panic disorder to fool her?" Shi Senxin was the domineering CEO persona; how could he tolerate the other party's poor attitude toward him? He naturally jabbed right at her weak spot in return, completely disregarding that this other party was his wife, the mother of his child.
Ouyang Hui was indeed stunned by that one sentence, blurting out involuntarily: "How do you know I..."
She could not go on with the words that came after.
If she went on, it would be unspeakable. For instance, why it was that she already needed a medical condition to gain Yu Nianbing's attention and indulgence. Or why it was that, borrowing the name of that condition and hauling her pregnant belly onto a spaceship back to Beichen Planet, she had still failed to convince Yu Nianbing to renew the contract.
Right...
Why is that?
Everything was clearly fine before. When did things start to change?
Ouyang Hui had been asking herself this question for months already, yet never had the courage to directly ask Yu Nianbing. And all indirect probing used on Yu Nianbing had been utterly useless. It seemed that Yu Nianbing's coldness had extended onto her as well; to Yu Nianbing, she was no longer that special person.
No, how can that be.
This must not happen!
A ruthless glint flashed in Ouyang Hui's eyes, and the hand gripping the blanket tightened considerably.
Shi Senxin did not miss Ouyang Hui's change, but he did not care. When he spoke again, his tone became much more businesslike: "Alright. Without pregnancy panic disorder, there's still postpartum depression. Rest well. I'm going to go see our son."
Having delivered this last sentence, which showed a modicum of amiability, Shi Senxin finally stopped hammering at Ouyang Hui who had just given birth, and got up and left.
Watching Shi Senxin's departing back, Ouyang Hui suddenly wanted to ask: "Did you marry me just to have a child for you and to rope in your employees?"
But these words, even until Shi Senxin had left the hospital room, Ouyang Hui never voiced.
It wasn't any particular concern holding her back; it was just that Ouyang Hui suddenly felt she didn't really want to know anymore either.
Yu Nianbing...
She...
Why is it?
Everything was clearly fine before.
When did it start...
From when I got pregnant?
No... During the first few months of pregnancy, she was clearly in another star system and still took a spaceship to come see me...
Then when was it...
Ouyang Hui kept thinking, thinking, until at last exhaustion overcame her, and amidst one unanswered question after another, she fell asleep.
While some people fell asleep, others were brimming with energy.
Not long after Yu Nianbing got up in the morning, she sneezed several times in a row. By the time of assembly, she had sneezed several more.
Ni Jinghe couldn't help but come over to feel her temperature, only relaxing when she confirmed she was fine.
Thus Yu Nianbing luckily became the first person shown medical concern by the doctor right as the program officially began.
And then there was Song Shiyue, who had kicked off her blanket in the morning and exposed her soft, fair waist, now standing relaxed and perfectly straight with a pack bigger than herself on her back, looking the very picture of robust health.
"Xiao Song, isn't your pack a bit too big? We're about to start walking a very long way. Carrying that, you won't last long before you're worn out. How about taking this chance, while there's still time, to go leave some of it behind?" Zhuang Jiachuan had nearly walked headlong into Song Shiyue's backpack when coming out of the castle; one could imagine how tall that pack was.
Her strength... you have no conception of it.
Yu Nianbing glanced at Zhuang Jiachuan, suddenly struck by a lonely sense of being the sole keeper of a secret.
Song Shiyue of course shook her head.
These were all items she had handpicked from a thousand choices to bring. Though she knew it was unlikely the Production Team would let them take everything they wanted, it was always worth a try.
To be human, one must still have dreams.
Just as Guan Yongyi stepped forward, preparing to join the persuasion squad, the Production Team people also came out.
At the very front walked a dog.
"Alright, everyone's here. Now, let's hand over all food items first." Wang Daming, holding the dog's lead, smiled amicably, pointed at the large storage bin Feng Qianqian was carrying, and then gave the leash a shake. "No hiding anything, now. When this little cutie does its inspection, it won't let a single scrap of food slip by."
Great, half the pack gone. Song Shiyue suffered a critical hit and clutched her chest.
When dreams are too big, they become delusions...
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