Among the group playing Gomoku, one of the players shouted, “Hurry up, please! What are you thinking about? It’s not like we’re Shan Fangzi, always winning!”
At the makeup table next door, the makeup artist gently reminded the female contestant getting her makeup done, “The glue for the false eyelashes is a bit irritating. It’s best not to open your eyes.”
A deliveryman poked his head in from the distant dressing room doorway, calling out with a strong voice, “Delivery for Ms. Qu, phone number ending in 331!”
A staff member replied loudly, “That’s mine, that’s mine! Just leave it on the cabinet by the door, thank you!”
Ke Huo seemed oblivious to the clamor in the dressing room. She mechanically turned her head and looked toward Jing Sicun.
A few seconds of daze.
Only then did her gaze focus.
Ke Huo gradually realized that Jing Sicun was asking her something.
She didn’t like being seen through.
Especially not in a room full of smart people, and then being seen through by another smart person.
Someone ran up from the end of the hallway, the sound of high heels striking the tiles like rapid drumbeats.
The drumbeats stopped beside Ke Huo and Jing Sicun.
The assistant who had run over said, “Contestants who are done with makeup, please come with me now.”
Across the corridor, the contestant who had just lost at Gomoku cursed under his breath as he put away his phone.
Four or five people got up together and followed the assistant inside.
Jing Sicun stared at Ke Huo, unmoving.
He seemed to be waiting for an answer.
Ke Huo looked back at Jing Sicun in silence and resistance.
The last contestant had already stepped into the hallway, but Jing Sicun still showed no intention of getting up.
Ke Huo was the first to stand.
As she adjusted her skirt, she paused, hiding her blood-streaked thumb in her palm. She clenched her fist and, almost sighing, answered, “You wouldn’t understand.”
After speaking, Ke Huo walked around Jing Sicun, chasing after the voices and footsteps ahead into the hallway.
The studio was already set up with lights, and the contestants went in one by one to have their photos taken.
The photographer was very patient, demonstrating the poses the contestants should make and telling them whether they should smile in a particular pose.
Jing Sicun arrived late, but the photographer picked him out immediately and had him go first.
The contestants joked, “What, you’re starting with the best-looking one to set the standard for us?”
The photographer laughed, “You’re all good-looking, all of you.”
While Jing Sicun was having his photo taken, Ke Huo watched from the side.
His white shirt wasn’t as open at the collar as it had been when she first saw him in the dressing room; now only the top three buttons were undone, and there were some sparkling pendants pinned to the buttonholes.
He sat under the lights, tilting his chin up as the photographer instructed, lowering his eyes toward the camera.
The waiting contestants discussed Jing Sicun’s looks.
They said he could easily rely on his face, but he insisted on relying on his brains.
The girl they’d met earlier in the hotel restaurant, the one who’d immigrated overseas as a child, said, “OMG, so charismatic!”
The girl spoke in accented Chinese:
“Why did no one ever tell me when they were introducing Jing Sicun that he was this handsome? That’s important!”
Someone next to her teased, “Zoe, did you come back for the competition, or to meet handsome guys?”
The girl instantly straightened her face: “For the competition.”
“Doesn’t look like it, hahaha.”
“You lost to me yesterday!”
Ke Huo listened as their conversation shifted from Jing Sicun’s looks to a discussion of advanced tic-tac-toe.
The loser argued, “First move always wins! If I’d gone first, I’d have won too, like Shan!”
Zoe replied seriously, “You could say the first-move has an advantage. But if you play well enough, it’ll end in a draw.”
Such a bright and brilliant group of people…
Ke Huo lowered her head to look at the bloodstain beside her thumbnail.
The wound was more wide than deep and seemed almost healed.
When did that happen?
Ke Huo looked again at Jing Sicun, who was still being photographed.
Did he see it?
Ke Huo truly wasn’t happy.
Signing up for the preliminary rounds hadn’t been her idea.
Then she participated and passed the first round, then the second…
She even signed a contract for the show, and recently, along with Lin Xirun and Feng Zi’an, had been recommended by her father to attend lectures with a professor in computer science analyzing international mind sports competitions…
None of this made Ke Huo happy.
“Why are you always unhappy?”
Jing Sicun’s words were like a kind of white tea Ke Huo had once tasted at her father’s house.
At first sip, it was bland, but gradually, a subtle sweetness lingered in her throat.
But Ke Huo still felt a kind of lonely disappointment:
Why was it Jing Sicun who was asking?
How many times had she even met Jing Sicun?
How many times had they spoken?
In their few conversations, what was left besides polite small talk?
Why was it that the person least likely to understand her was the one to see through her mood?
Why…
The photographer said, “Very good, one more shot. OK, next person, please.”
Jing Sicun left the photo set and walked over to the waiting area.
Ke Huo and Jing Sicun made eye contact for a second or even less, then quickly looked away.
She didn’t even know what she was trying to avoid.
After the promo photos were done, there was nothing else to do.
If you didn’t have anyone to wait for, you could leave directly, like He Zhi.
Jing Sicun brushed past Ke Huo and walked toward the back hallway.
Ke Huo stared aimlessly at the stands in the studio, not turning her head.
She wasn’t Song Yi, not used to deep conversations with acquaintances.
The girl named Zoe was already in front of the camera, following the photographer’s guidance, striking poses and smiling.
Then it was the two people who were close to Zoe, and after that, it was Ke Huo’s turn.
Ke Huo thought Jing Sicun must have left already.
But as she was posing, she suddenly heard someone in the hallway calling his name.
It was Zoe and the others: “Jing, eat together?”
Jing Sicun smiled and replied, “Rain check.”
The photographer snapped his fingers to remind Ke Huo, “Relax your expression, give me a smile.”
Ke Huo had a bad feeling—
Sure enough, after she finished her promo photos and left the studio, she ran into Jing Sicun leaning against the wall, looking at his phone in the hallway.
Ke Huo pretended not to see him and kept walking.
Jing Sicun’s unhurried footsteps followed her, soon blending into the noisy dressing room.
But Ke Huo knew Jing Sicun was still behind her.
She felt a little panicked.
She remembered what the psychologist had once said with a smile: Ke Huo, are you hiding a secret?
Yes.
Ke Huo was hiding a secret that could not be discovered by anyone.
Not even the psychologist.
Ke Huo avoided the busy makeup artists, stepping over the boxes and other items piled on the floor.
As she turned sideways, Ke Huo caught a glimpse of Jing Sicun walking behind her, and her urge to escape this place grew even stronger.
Every makeup mirror was surrounded by a ring of white bulbs.
From afar, they looked like rectangular “0”s.
Years ago, Ke Huo’s Aoshu Teacher used magnetic matchstick teaching aids to form the number “8008” on the whiteboard.
“Class, now I’ve formed this number with matchsticks. If you move two matchsticks, what’s the largest number you can make?”
A few weeks later, Ke Huo’s father showed her the exact same question at a bookstore.
Ke Huo lied at the time.
This matter—no one could ever find out!
Just as Ke Huo was about to leave the dressing room, Jing Sicun’s voice sounded from behind: “Ke Huo.”
Ke Huo spun around: “I already told you, you wouldn’t understand! Why do you keep asking?!”
Jing Sicun was calm, kindly giving Ke Huo two or three seconds to collect herself.
He looked at her.
“Let’s talk about that later. I called you to remind you to change clothes.”
Ke Huo had nothing to say.
She really had forgotten…
Ke Huo had no choice but to pinch her burning earlobes and go back to the changing room to get changed.
Then she remembered to fetch her canvas bag from the storage locker.
In the corner of the makeup table was still a brown paper bag, inside was the hamburger meal He Zhi had bought.
The makeup artist in charge of Ke Huo had just finished up and was browsing food delivery apps on her phone.
Ke Huo asked, “If you don’t mind, you can have this. There’s a microwave over there to heat it up.”
Ke Huo gave the hamburger meal to the makeup artist.
When she left the dressing room again, she felt much calmer.
Jing Sicun hadn’t left yet, waiting at the doorway.
Ke Huo sighed, knowing that her temper had flared for no reason.
Jing Sicun was just smart, not a mind reader.
Even if he had eyes that could see through everything, he still couldn’t easily discover her secret.
She’d overreacted.
Jing Sicun shouldn’t have become the target for her emotional outburst.
Ke Huo said, “Sorry.”
Jing Sicun looked completely unfazed. “It’s nothing.”
Losing her temper for no reason made Ke Huo feel a little guilty, so she tried to lighten the mood.
“Can you keep it a secret for me? Don’t tell He Zhi about the hamburger, okay?”
Jing Sicun replied, “Sure.”
Ke Huo hadn’t even finished saying thank you when Jing Sicun continued, “With one condition.”
“What condition?”
“Answer a question.”
Ke Huo walked into the elevator behind Jing Sicun, watching as he pressed the button for the first floor.
“If it’s the question you asked before the photoshoot, my answer is the same.”
The dressing room was on the third floor.
Ten seconds later, the elevator reached the first floor, and the metal doors slid open.
There were people waiting to go up outside.
Ke Huo was forced to step closer to Jing Sicun, brushing past his arm as she exited the elevator.
It was still raining outside.
As she used her phone to call a cab, Ke Huo heard Jing Sicun ask, “Why are you so sure I wouldn’t understand?”
She just knew.
Ke Huo remembered herself in the Aoshu Class, raising her hand high, eager to answer.
The Aoshu Teacher said, “Ke Huo has already thought of the answer. Come try it.”
She remembered walking confidently to the podium, moving two of the magnetic matchsticks.
Later, the Aoshu Teacher explained: for those whose answers stayed in the four digits, the problem was fixed thinking patterns.
At the time, Ke Huo had looked at the teacher in panic…
A driver accepted her order.
Her phone showed: the cab would arrive in three minutes.
Ke Huo put away her phone and closed her eyes for a moment. “Jing Sicun, can I ask you a dumb question?”
“Go ahead.”
Ke Huo said, “If matchsticks are arranged as 8008, and you move two sticks, what’s the largest number you can make?”
Jing Sicun gave Ke Huo a puzzled look, as if trying to guess why she was asking.
But he really was very smart. He only asked Ke Huo how many matchsticks were used to make the number 1 in her rules.
After Ke Huo replied “two,” Jing Sicun thought for a few dozen seconds, then gave his answer.
“811108.”
Even though she was prepared, Ke Huo still felt a sharp pain in her chest.
She gave a bitter laugh. “Do you know what my answer was? 9880. Not even 9988. That’s why I said you wouldn’t understand.”
The rain came down like threads. The cab Ke Huo had ordered was waiting at the intersection not far away for the light to change.
Ke Huo felt stifled and didn’t want to continue the conversation.
Jing Sicun watched Ke Huo for a while, then suddenly asked, “When did you come up with that answer?”
Ke Huo looked toward the cab. “Elementary school…”
Jing Sicun said, “So you’re comparing the you from elementary school to someone in their third year of college?”
Ke Huo turned her head in shock.
It was as if the spell that had bound her soul for years had suddenly been cracked open.