Chapter 12: Just Out for a Walk

"Sister, it's almost eleven. It's pitch black out there. Can we not go?" Zhou Dao hugged the equipment to her chest, refusing to let it go.

"Absolutely not. We promised the fans a stream today, and the late wrap was my fault. Paying a price for it is only fair."

"Forget prices and fairness—safety comes first! You work tomorrow. Shouldn't you be running lines?"

Qin Ting tried to haul her assistant out of the doorway, but the girl had her beat on strength; she couldn't budge her and only wore herself out. "We just blocked that scene five times, did you forget? Let me out—the later it gets, the worse it'll be!"

"No, no, and no! How about this—we stream from the room?"

"Who watches an indoor stream? A cat in a hotel room—what's there to see?"

Half convinced, half not, Qin Ting let Assistant Zhou steer her back inside. Director Qin's productions always spent lavishly; the hotel had put the whole crew up in executive suites, and on the high floors the privacy was excellent.

"Sure there's something to see! Come on, Sister—I'll set up the phone stand. No Insta360 today. A little indoor stream now and then keeps things fresh."

Qin Ting went into the bedroom, and within moments a cat emerged, tail held high. Zhou Dao set up the rig in the living room and gave her an OK sign.

"Good evening, dear fans! I'm away on a last-minute business trip, and it's too late to let Tingting out to play, so she's having fun in the room tonight."

Zhou Dao switched on the wide angle, which made Tingting look tiny and even cuter. However grand the executive suite, an indoor stream never drew the crowds of an outdoor first-person stream—but tonight was purely about keeping a promise, so it hardly mattered if only a few hundred people were watching.

Meanwhile, mute in her human form, Qin Ting rehearsed her blocking among the sofas with a stream of meows, sending a wall of so cute! scrolling across the chat—and landing the stream on the city's local trending list.

Zou Songpu, fresh from the shower, picked up his phone and habitually logged into his alt account. The one account he followed was live; he tapped in right as Tingting was crying her head off.

On screen, Tingting had her head tilted back, mewing nonstop, sprinting from one end of the sofa to the other, on an endless loop.

"What's wrong with Tingting today? She keeps running back and forth."

Zou Songpu's gifts came so often and were so expensive that even his comments stood apart from everyone else's; Zhou Dao spotted his question at once.

"She can't go out to play today, so the only option was letting her run around the room."

This time Zou Songpu answered with an airplane gift, then hid the chat and devoted himself wholly to petting a cat through a screen—towel still on his head, in no hurry to dry it, water dripping down his neck and into his collar.

In his eyes, Tingting's eyes were perfectly round; the long tufts above them—the smart hairs and the stubborn ones both—marked her a decisive, clever little cat; when her paw pads dented the sofa cushion, he genuinely couldn't say which was more adorable; and every time she cried, the corners of his own mouth lifted without permission. Though—why did the hotel Tingting's owner was staying in look so much like his own?

The doubt planted itself, and he began to watch more closely.

Comparing the stream against his own room, the resemblance grew more uncanny with every glance, as if cast from the same mold. At first he thought nothing of it—until a drop of water falling from his hair struck the screen, tapped the phone by accident, and knocked him out of the stream. When he tried to reopen it, the app's front page was showing the local trending list, and curiosity got the better of him.

As far as he knew, this was the only hotel nearby with executive suites, and the production had booked them all. So whose cat, among this crew, was Tingting?

The executive suites occupied floors thirty-two through thirty-nine, four rooms to a floor. He himself was on thirty-four, nearest the elevator; the other three rooms on his floor belonged to Cheng Hexi, Teacher Han, and Director Qin. Director Zhang had the floor's only deluxe room.

Judging by the distance on the stream's location tag, it wasn't his floor—and he had never heard any of these people so much as mention a cat. That left the floor above or below.

Floor thirty-five held the second male lead and the second female lead who had flubbed take after take all day—one he barely knew, the other he had no wish to get closer to—so rule them out first. The floor below, he had no idea about.

The short-video apps' location tags were pinpoint-precise these days; the slightest movement changed the distance. Zou Songpu slipped out of his room and down one floor through the fire stairs. The distance grew. The thing he had least wanted to see was what he saw.

He didn't want to eavesdrop. But the last time he had seen Tingting up close, he had caught a glimmer of why his fans cried at the sight of him. Perhaps he really had made this cat his new emotional anchor—just seeing her made everything sit easier in his chest.

Just to touch her once would be enough. Or even just to see her once more, up close...

"Dear fans, Tingting's about tired out. We're going to bed—remember to sleep early and stay healthy~"

Tingting trotted over, meowed once, and placed a paw pad on the end-stream button. All of the day's work was officially over.

"Sister, what were you going on about just now? People kept asking in the chat and I had no idea what to say." Zhou Dao brought her pajamas to the bedroom door and waited for her to change.

"I was running lines. Ran my mouth dry."

The words were barely out before a cup of water was pressed into her hand. Zhou Dao watched her drink and said, "You work this hard, I'm starting to suspect you've become a master of time management."

"I have always been organized, thank you very much."

"Oh really? Then who was it that read a midnight flight as the next day's? And who tried to arrange her own schedule once and booked a sponsored stream right after wrap, nearly costing us a penalty?" Zhou Dao took the empty cup and poured her a fresh one. "So hard to guess."

Qin Ting swatted at her lightly. "All right, all right, I get it. Stop laughing at me."

The two were nearly the same age, and Zhou Dao looked after her so well—Qin Ting being no grande dame, without airs—that sometimes they were less boss and assistant than friends.

Zou Songpu stood at the stairwell on the thirty-fifth floor, looking at the ended stream on his phone, feeling as if he had just gone briefly insane.

Even if he found her—then what? What would he say to a cat? Different species entirely, every channel of communication blocked. It wasn't as if she knew Shuohua, and however similar their temperaments, she was not his cat. And with her owner there was naturally even less to say. The second male lead was named something like Yu, he thought—seemed half-witted at the table read; probably couldn't keep a cat alive. And the other one he would rather not discuss at all. Looked smart enough ordinarily, but come the first day of shooting, who knew what had happened to her: stiff all over, arms and legs like borrowed equipment. Thank heaven she hadn't forgotten her lines.

If not for her, his throat wouldn't hurt like this today.

His search came up empty; he returned to his own floor and ran into Xiao Chen just outside the elevator.

"Brother, where did you go? I knocked and you weren't in; I was about to call you."

"I was just walking around. Go on in."

Zou Songpu opened the door and the assistant followed him in, carrying the medicine. The sleepless Zou Songpu, waiting for Tingting's stream, had been waiting for this too.

"Brother, this is the special one. They say after you take it you can use your voice freely for ten hours with no pain at all." He pulled another packet from the bag. "But after those ten hours you must drink this second packet, or you won't manage a single word for three days. Sister Zhuang told me to tell you: absolutely no taking it unless it's necessary."

"Dawdling. Understood. Now go back to sleep."

"Got it, Brother—don't take it casually!" The words were barely out before Zou Songpu evicted him on grounds of sleepiness, and the door shut with a thud.