Chapter 57

After May rolled in and summer took hold, concert preparations entered their final stages. The overall flow was mostly set, with only Shen Juanyi’s portion still needing discussion.

He happened to be returning for a brand endorsement launch event anyway, so he bundled his rehearsal time with that trip and flew back to Beijing. The cherry blossoms had long since fallen, but the foliage was lush and green. The air conditioning in the rehearsal room hummed away, and even though it was only May, the air already carried the feel of high summer.

The two of them had been in more frequent contact during this period than ever before. When Zhao Yu saw him again after more than a month apart, she felt no awkwardness at all — after all, just two days earlier they’d been arguing over who should buy oranges for whom.

Sure enough, the bastard walked in carrying a bag of oranges, cheerfully handing them out to the staff.

When he saw Zhao Yu standing there glaring at him, he pulled out an orange and waved it at her. “You just stand right there and don’t move. I’ll peel one for you right away.”

Zhao Yu shot back, “Your father doesn’t eat tributes from unfilial descendants!”

The early summer cicadas chirped sparsely.

The rehearsal room was filled with the fresh scent of oranges. Zhao Yu stubbornly refused to eat even a single segment. Shen Juanyi came over holding a peeled, deveined orange slice, coaxing her in a soft voice. “I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong. Just have one — I bought them from all the way over there, they’re really sweet.”

He lifted a slice to her lips and poked the corner of her mouth with it. “Open up, ah—”

Flustered and annoyed, Zhao Yu snatched the orange from him. “Who asked you to feed me?!”

She tossed it into her mouth and chewed it down. Shen Juanyi watched her with a grin. “Sweet?”

Zhao Yu turned her head away, ignoring him. She raised her hands to gather her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, looping a black elastic band around it to pull the long tresses into a single束. Shen Juanyi’s gaze landed on the long, fair curve of her nape. The ends of her hair swayed and brushed against it lightly, like a fine, tentative caress.

Suddenly, Xia Yuan’s words came back to him — no brother wants to touch his sister’s waist.

Well, then no brother should be staring at his sister’s nape either!

He quickly averted his eyes.

After the fooling around, rehearsals officially began. This session was much more relaxed than the last — the overall structure was mostly finalized, and only certain moves and details needed tweaking.

In the afternoon, someone knocked on the door. It was the choreographer Shen Juanyi had brought in.

He explained with a smile, “Teacher Ah K specializes in duet choreography. That section of ours always felt off, so I thought we’d have him take a look and offer some suggestions.”

Zhao Yu had no objections. After all, they’d both been solo dancers all these years and lacked experience with duets.

They ran through the routine once. Ah K watched and pondered for a long time before speaking. “You two are undeniably top-tier — textbook-level stage presence in the industry. But as a duet, don’t you feel like something’s missing between you?”

Shen Juanyi and Zhao Yu asked in unison, “What’s missing?”

“Intimacy — and chemistry,” Ah K said. “You’ve designed plenty of interactive moves, but there’s too much distance. The appeal of a duet lies in breaking down the barriers between a man and a woman. Right now, there’s a wall between you, which is why no matter how you arrange it, it never feels quite right.”

He walked over to Shen Juanyi and demonstrated Zhao Yu’s interaction with him from earlier. “Move closer here. Watch the distance on this face-to-face move. Then bring your hand down — imagine there’s a tie here — and tug it like this. Juanyi, lower your head. What’s the theme of this song? It’s KO, right? You want to convey the feeling of a woman using her allure to take down a man. Then push him away, throw a sharp look, and turn around with flair.”

He was a pro, no doubt — with his interpretation, the emotional texture of the dance immediately became richer. Both of them took their stagecraft seriously, and since the teacher had pointed out issues, they needed to correct them. Following Ah K’s advice, they adjusted all the interactive sections of the entire song to be more “intimate and chemistry-filled.”

By evening, the full choreography had been reworked. What remained was practicing the emotional delivery.

Before leaving, Ah K made sure to add, “Dancing is like acting — both need performance skills. Emotion is one of the most crucial parts of a dance. You two are both good actors. Just give half of that to your dancing, and it’ll be more than enough.”

Shen Juanyi zeroed in on the key point. “He just complimented my acting.”

Zhao Yu gave him a deadpan look. “Let’s practice.”

The revised choreography had many more physical and eye-contact interactions. For precision, Zhao Yu had her assistant find a tie and hang it loosely on Shen Juanyi’s T-shirt to make rehearsing easier.

Good-looking people looked good in anything — even a bizarre combo like a T-shirt with a tie looked roguishly handsome on Shen Juanyi.

Zhao Yu mulled over Teacher Ah K’s advice. That look — alluring yet dangerous — actually reminded her of her character in The Cage. In that film, the enchantress used her charm to kill.

The pounding drumbeat filled the space. In the pause between beats, the enchantress stepped forward and grabbed her prey by the tie.

She curved her lips into a smile — the smile spreading like a vine climbing up the corners of her mouth, every branch blooming with bewitching flowers.

Her prey had no choice but to lower his head, drawn in by her temptation, inch by inch. Distance lost all meaning in that moment. One more inch down, and he could have kissed her smiling lips.

Her gaze was intoxicating yet perilous, fervent yet lucid. Just when he was on the verge of losing himself to obsession, she pushed him away without mercy.

The collar loosened — she had let go. Air rushed back into the space that had been momentarily trapped, leaving only the lingering fragrance of those bewitching blossoms. Even her back view was effortlessly elegant.

For a brief moment, Shen Juanyi forgot he was rehearsing.

He’d often heard people say that the earthly enchantress was at her most seductive on stage — that she was born for it, that no one could resist the soul-stealing charm of her dancing.

Shen Juanyi used to think people were laying on the flattery way too thick. He knew that awkward kid — how could she be anything like that?

It was only at this moment that he finally understood what they meant by “soul-stealing.”

Zhao Yu turned back. “Your expression is off. You’re not in character. Again.”

So they went through it again and again. He experienced the ebb and flow of sinking into temptation only to be jolted awake. The bewitching blossoms bloomed before his eyes over and over, each time more radiant than the last, until finally the dense fragrance seemed to materialize into gossamer veils that wrapped around him.

By the time darkness had fully fallen, the perfectionist Zhao Yu finally seemed somewhat satisfied with his performance. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and waved a hand. “Let’s take a break.”

She took a sip of water, then thought of something and turned to mock him. “You know what they’d call this kind of performance in acting?”

Shen Juanyi asked, “What?”

“Not keeping up with me,” she said, her expression full of disdain. “Trash acting.”

Shen Juanyi stiffened his neck defensively. “I wasn’t used to it! I haven’t found my footing yet!”

Zhao Yu made a tch sound. “What footing?”

“My footing as a man!”

Zhao Yu seemed done with him. After finishing her water, she leaned back against the wall with her arms crossed, eyes closed, resting. Incorporating acting into dance was a first for her — it felt fresh and effective, and it had sparked a serious interest in musical theater. She was already thinking about whether to try out a new musical format after the concert.

Shen Juanyi stood by the window admiring the night scene for a while. After finishing his water, he turned back, about to say something — but when he saw her leaning against the wall with her eyes shut, he closed his mouth and tiptoed over.

Her sleeping demeanor was completely different from her dancing one. Her beauty, stripped of its aggression, was like a rose blooming quietly in the night. Shen Juanyi caught that same pleasant, soothing faint fragrance again. Her lashes trembled slightly, casting tiny shadows beneath her eyes like fluttering butterfly wings.

He remembered how they’d felt last time.

Soft.

Unable to resist, he slowly crouched down and stealthily reached out a hand. As he drew closer, her shallow breaths ghosted across his palm — warm and soft, like reeds tickling his skin.

Closer and closer. He knelt half-before her like a thief, barely breathing. Just as his fingertip was about to brush her lashes — Zhao Yu’s eyes snapped open.

Shen Juanyi nearly jabbed his finger straight into her eyeball from the shock.

Even the sound of the air conditioning seemed to quiet down, making their breathing, so close to each other, startlingly clear. Zhao Yu was frozen as if struck by a pressure point, staring at him without moving.

Shen Juanyi swallowed. Slowly, he parted his lips and called her name in a very soft, low voice. “Zhao Yu—”

Zhao Yu didn’t move, but her breathing grew quicker, her pupils seeming to burn.

They were so close that they could see the fine hairs on each other’s skin. A slight dip of the head and it would be a kissing position.

He looked into her eyes, his expression focused and serious, as if afraid of startling something. In a barely audible whisper, he said, “There’s a mosquito on your face. Don’t move. I’ll kill it for you.”

Zhao Yu: “………………”

Furious, she shoved him away. “GET LOST!!!”

She suddenly regretted asking him to be her guest.

This bastard never played by the rules — and he kept trying to ripple the calm, placid surface of her heart.

This rehearsal went smoothly, so there was no need to stay until late like last time. Zhao Yu called it a night around nine. They hadn’t eaten dinner. According to Zhao Yu’s usual routine, she definitely wouldn’t eat this late — but Shen Juanyi was whining about being hungry, so she reluctantly agreed to keep the fool company.

She picked a few good restaurants nearby and sent them to him. His response: “I want to eat at your place.”

Zhao Yu said, “I don’t have anything at home. I rarely cook.”

Shen Juanyi gave her a sly, knowing look. “I saw the picture Xia Yuan posted last time. You cooked for him!”

Zhao Yu: “…I just boiled some frozen dumplings for him.”

Shen Juanyi’s tone turned sarcastic. “So Xia Yuan gets dumplings, and I get nothing. Got it.”

Zhao Yu: “???”

Shen Juanyi: “It’s always been like this! You’d chat with him all animatedly and leave me out cold. You’d sneak off to QQ zone to play games with him. You were so close to him on the show, but with me you have to ‘avoid suspicion’—”

Zhao Yu: “???”

Why was he playing the victim here???

Zhao Yu quickly held up a hand in a “stop” gesture to cut off his trip down memory lane. “Fine, fine! Let’s go to my place!”

It was just a bowl of frozen dumplings, for crying out loud!

Was it really necessary?!