Chapter 19: Have You Seen Enough?

The RV was indeed much more comfortable than outside. The interior was beige, with a large leather sofa on the left, about two meters long. There was a small dining bar with two high stools, and a small grayish-white refrigerator in the corner.

But Li Siwei, having already taken off his clothes, only cared about where he could shower. Yu Chuan didn’t seem to want to talk to him. After glancing at him, he put his eye mask back on and continued to rest.

Li Siwei turned around and found the bathroom. He opened the built-in door and looked inside. He could indeed shower, but the space was extremely small, with no separate shower stall. He could only use the pull-out faucet above the sink.

Better than nothing. He went into the small space, closed the door, and drew the curtain. He turned the doorknob and realized there was no lock.

Soon, he heard the notification sounds of a phone from outside, even the sound of typing was clearly audible. What a crappy RV, the sound insulation was terrible.

Yu Chuan, you’re so rich, why don’t you get a bigger RV with a separate bathroom?! He grumbled inwardly.

The water from the pull-out faucet wasn’t very hot, and the water pressure was unstable. Li Siwei bent down and adjusted it for a long time before finally getting a steady stream of warm water. The sound of running water filled the small space. The person outside continued to receive messages on his phone. The two sounds overlapped, so close, it felt strange.

If it weren’t for the thin door, it would be like showering in front of the other person.

Li Siwei quickly finished showering, closed his eyes, and reached for a towel, but only grasped air.

He wiped the water from his face and then remembered that he had left the towel outside.

…

And now, he was standing naked in the one-square-meter bathroom.

He stood there in a daze for two minutes, then lightly knocked on the door and called out: “Hey.”

Silence. No response from outside.

After another half a minute, he cleared his throat and called out again: “Yu Chuan.”

Ten seconds later, slow, steady footsteps finally came from outside.

Before he could explain, the door suddenly opened, and a white towel was thrown in, covering his face. The door slammed shut again.

Li Siwei, his head covered by the towel, froze for two seconds. He pulled the towel down and saw that it wasn’t the one he had brought in. It was a new, softer towel.

Half a minute later, he dried himself, wrapped the towel around his waist, and pushed open the bathroom door, stepping out.

Yu Chuan was sitting on the sofa opposite, his eye mask removed, seemingly not looking at him.

There was no separate changing area in the RV; all the spaces were connected.

Li Siwei walked past him, grabbed his backpack, and took out a clean T-shirt to put on. Without unwrapping the towel, he put on his pants. After making sure his pants were properly on, he unwrapped the towel and hung it on the side.

There was no hairdryer in the RV, so he found a dry towel and started drying his hair. Before his hair was dry, his phone, which he had left on the table, rang.

It was past two in the morning. Who would be calling him?

Li Siwei held the towel in one hand and picked up the phone with the other. After seeing the caller ID, he paused and quickly answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Brother! You said Brother Xiaochuan is dead, but I just dreamed of him again!” Li Qingqing shouted into the phone.

He didn’t have the speakerphone on, but the voice from the receiver was deafening. Li Siwei froze for two seconds. He suddenly started to consider getting a new phone.

He glanced at the person beside him. Yu Chuan seemed to have heard nothing, looking down at his phone, seemingly replying to work messages. Yu Chuan was always busy with work. Li Siwei had heard Xiao Meng mention it twice since they started filming. He had turned down two commercial shoots, and his schedule after filming was even more packed.

Of course, these were worries Li Siwei couldn’t relate to. He lived hand to mouth.

“Brother Xiaochuan definitely isn’t dead. He told me in my dream. He said he would come back and take me to pick mulberries.” Li Qingqing’s tone was certain.

Li Siwei took a deep breath: “Dreams are the opposite of reality! Go back to sleep.”

The person opposite him finished replying to his messages and looked up at him.

Li Siwei quickly hung up the phone and put it aside.

Silence fell in the RV.

He had finished showering, but how was he supposed to sleep? He looked around. There was only one large sofa in the RV, plus the driver’s and passenger’s seats, which didn’t seem suitable for sleeping.

Li Siwei thought for a moment: “Do you have a tent?”

It wouldn’t be so bad to spend a few hours in the campsite outside. Yu Chuan gave him a cold look: “No.”

“You just sleep sitting up in this RV?”

Yu Chuan didn’t answer. He stood up, bent down, and pressed a switch on the side.

With a whirring sound, the motor ran, and the sofa suddenly unfolded, a bed board extending from below to connect with the sofa, forming a relatively large double bed.

“Sleep if you can. If not, go outside.”

It was the coldest time of the day outside, the temperature close to freezing. Li Siwei wasn’t going to suffer needlessly.

He looked around, pulled a folded blanket from the overhead compartment, unfolded it, and spread it on the side of the sofa closer to the window.

“I can sleep.” The production assistant had told him to come here, so he might as well sleep.

Yu Chuan twitched the corner of his mouth, watching him lie down. Li Siwei quickly turned to face the window.

Soon, Li Siwei felt the mattress sink slightly beside him. Someone had lain down.

But the lights in the RV were bright, and he couldn’t sleep.

“Can you turn off the lights?” He asked without turning around.

“Are you ordering me around?” The voice came from behind him.

Li Siwei didn’t want to argue. He lifted the blanket, swung his legs over Yu Chuan, his shirt falling onto Yu Chuan’s face. Yu Chuan’s hands rested on either side of his body. If he raised his hands now, he could easily grab Li Siwei’s waist.

But Yu Chuan didn’t move. Li Siwei fumbled for a moment before finding the light switch.

Click. The lights in the RV finally went off, and the compartment became dim. Li Siwei lay back down, wrapped the blanket tighter around himself, and turned away again. He hadn’t slept for almost twenty hours, and his eyelids were heavy.

His exhausted body gradually lost its ability to react.

They were close to the coast, and the sound of the waves was like a pulse, rhythmic and constant. Apart from that, there was no other sound in the RV.

However, two minutes later, a voice came from behind him.

“Did you consult other doctors later?” An out-of-the-blue question.

Li Siwei, half asleep, answered casually: “None of your business.”

Silence hung in the air for a few seconds, then a soft chuckle came from behind him: “Right, like it’s any of my business.”

Li Siwei’s sleep wasn’t deep, but perhaps because of Li Qingqing’s phone call, he dreamed of scenes from more than ten years ago.

They were fragmented images, illogical and disjointed. Sometimes it was a pair of running white sneakers, flashing past, then turning into a few crumpled pink banknotes. Then, he found himself sitting by a cold stream, his feet dangling in the clear water, and beside him, another pair of legs, swaying gently with the current.

The images were covered with a pale golden, blurry filter, but he could clearly see the texture of the skin of the person beside him.

Someone seemed to be laughing in the dream, a clear, bright laughter, and he laughed along. But as he laughed, he saw ripples spreading across the water’s surface, caused by falling drops. The ripples spread out, but the water never calmed down.

He turned his head again and found that he could no longer see the person’s face. He raised his hand and touched his cheek, feeling cold water droplets. Where did the water come from? Was it rain? But in the dream, the sky was clear, and the sun was scorching hot.

He raised his hand to wipe the water from his cheek, but he couldn’t stop the continuous flow. Until he heard himself sobbing in the dream.

Tears streamed down his face, dripping into the stream, then carried away by the current.

He turned his head again and suddenly realized that the person beside him was gone, those long legs were gone, replaced by an empty void. His arms felt light in the dream. He raised them and reached out to the side, but only touched air.

Li Siwei wanted to stand up in the dream, but his feet were trapped by the current, and he was pulled into the stream, the cold water engulfing him. He felt colder and colder, his limbs stiff and unresponsive. He gasped for air, but his lungs felt compressed, unable to take in fresh oxygen, his body temperature dropping rapidly.

The whirring sound of the drone echoed above him.

The director hadn’t called cut; filming was still ongoing.

After a few minutes, dream and reality intertwined, light flickering before his eyes. The waves lashed against him like whips.

Until a mouthful of cold seawater flooded his mouth, and his limbs went numb. He knew he should be Li Peiyun, but he couldn’t help but call out another name.

“Yu Chuan!”

He shivered from the cold, the waves growing larger, his vision blurring.

A large wave crashed over him, and in a daze, Li Siwei seemed to hear someone calling his name. He took one last breath of the cold air, and his body was suddenly lifted out of the water.