1RomanceEB Chapter 6 "Best Friends"
Chapter 6 "Best Friends"
Liu Haochun was amused by him and threw the beanbag with even more energy.
After playing for about an hour, everyone was a little tired, sweat beaded on their foreheads, and they sat down on the steps by the playground, panting.
Tian Xiwei took out a tissue from her pocket, handed one to Liu Haochun, and wiped her own sweat. Her hair was all messed up, but she didn't care at all.
"Are you tired?" she asked Liu Haochun.
Liu Haochun nodded, then shook her head: "It's alright, it's quite interesting." This was the first time she had played so wildly. In the past, even when she practiced dancing, there were still rules to follow, unlike now, where she was running so fast that she was out of breath.
"Of course! Playing games with me is definitely fun!" Tian Xi said with a hint of pride. "Shall we play again tomorrow?"
"Yes!" Liu Haochun nodded vigorously, his eyes filled with excitement.
The two girls huddled together, chatting about who had been hit the hardest and who had dodged the most awkwardly. They chattered away like two sparrows just released from their cage. Tian's mother and Liu's mother looked at them, exchanged a smile, and the worry in their eyes vanished.
He stood to the side, looking at the smiling faces of the two little girls under the streetlight, and knew in his heart that this hour of playing had not been in vain.
"Alright, it's getting late, let's go back and rest. We have filming tomorrow." He clapped his hands and gestured for everyone to head back.
On the way to the hotel, Tian Xiwei held Liu Haochun's hand and told her how much it hurt when she hit her head.
As they approached the hotel entrance, he quickened his pace and patted Tian Xiwei on the shoulder: "Weiwei, wait a minute."
Tian Xi turned around slightly: "What's wrong, Brother Feng?"
Liu Haochun and his two mothers went inside first. He pulled her to a stop on the hotel steps and said, "You see, did you have a good time today? Haochun seemed more relaxed than this afternoon, didn't she?"
"Hmm!" Tian Xi nodded slightly. "She has a pretty smile, but she's usually too quiet."
"So, when you two aren't filming during the day, you can play around a lot. You don't have to play something as strenuous as beanbag toss. Just play the games you used to play as kids, like cat's cradle, jump rope, or shuttlecock. Girls get used to these games easily, and it'll make your scenes together more natural when you're filming."
Tian Xi's eyes lit up: "I can play cat's cradle! And I can play shuttlecock! When I was little, I could kick a shuttlecock over a hundred times!"
"That's good. Take her out more often; she might not have played this before, so you can teach her."
"Leave it to me!" Tian Xi patted her chest confidently. "I guarantee she'll be as crazy as me in three days!"
"Don't go too crazy, don't forget you still have winter break homework." He tapped her on the head.
Mentioning homework, Tian Xi's face fell: "Oh, let's not talk about that! By the way, Feng-ge, can I borrow your room? I don't understand a lot of my math homework, can you help me with it?"
"Can't I use my own room?"
"My mom keeps nagging me, saying I'm not making the most of my time." She tugged at his arm and shook it. "Just for a little while, I promise I won't disturb your sleep!"
Unable to resist her persistent pestering, he had no choice but to agree: "Just half an hour."
"Okay!" Tian Xiwei immediately grabbed him and ran towards the elevator.
Once inside his room, she dumped her schoolbag on the table, and a pile of exercise books rolled out, with the math workbooks spread out the most, covered with several question marks.
"Look at this problem," she said, pointing to a function problem. "I've been calculating it for ages, but the answer doesn't match. I don't know where I went wrong."
I picked up my pen and patiently looked at her solution steps. I quickly pointed out: "Here, the sign is wrong when you move terms. It should be 'add,' but you wrote 'subtract.'"
"Oh? Really?" Tian Xi leaned closer to look. "No wonder, I was wondering why the more I calculated it, the more wrong it seemed."
He picked up his pen and reworked the calculations on the draft paper: "Look, let's do it step by step, first calculate what's in the parentheses, then combine like terms..."
He spoke slowly, and Tian Xiwei listened fairly attentively, occasionally interjecting with a question: "Why do we need to take the square root here?"
"Because this is a quadratic function, the quadratic formula requires taking the square root..."
"Do you understand?" He stopped writing.
"Got it, got it!" Tian Xiwei picked up her pen and quickly wrote in her workbook. "Feng-ge, you're amazing! You explain it even more clearly than our math teacher!"
"Stop flattering me and hurry up and write." He handed the pen back to her. "Finish this and go back to sleep. You have filming tomorrow."
"Okay." Tian Xiwei didn't even look up, the pen scratching softly on the paper.
After she finished that problem, she kept asking me two more word problems. Before I knew it, almost an hour had passed. I glanced at my watch and said, "Alright, it's time to go back. We'll talk about the rest tomorrow."
"Oh." Tian Xiwei stuffed the workbook back into her bag, stood up, and stretched. "Then I'll come find you tomorrow when I don't have any shows?"
"No," he quickly waved his hand, "Go play with Haochun, or do your homework in your room. If there's anything you don't understand, we can talk about it tonight."
"Okay." She slung her backpack over her shoulder, walked to the door, then turned back. "Thanks, Feng-ge."
"Let's go quickly."
Tian Xi stuck out her tongue, closed the door, and left.
The filming began the next morning, and when the clapperboard slammed down, he clearly sensed a change.
Liu Haochun stood in front of the camera, and although she still seemed a little concerned about the camera, she was much more relaxed as they filmed a scene where she and Tian Xiwei shared snacks in the classroom.
Tian Xiwei placed a piece of chocolate in her hand. When she took it, the corners of her mouth naturally curved up, and she whispered "thank you." Her voice was not loud, but it carried a hint of genuine joy.
"Cut! Great!" He shouted, holding up a megaphone, and gestured to the two of them. "That's the feeling, just a little more natural."
Tian Xi raised an eyebrow at Liu Haochun with a smug look, and the latter secretly returned the smile.
During the break between scenes, when there were no scenes for the two of them, Tian Xiwei took out a colorful rope from her pocket and waved it at Liu Haochun: "Want to play cat's cradle? I'll teach you."
Liu Haochun curiously leaned closer: "How do you play?"
"Watch me." Tian Xi skillfully hooked the rope with her fingers, quickly turning it into the shape of a "noodle." "Try it, hook it like this..."
She taught her step by step. Liu Haochun was slow to learn, and her fingers kept getting tangled in the rope. Tian Xiwei didn't rush her and patiently helped her untangle it: "Don't rush, I practiced many times when I was a child before I learned it."
The stagehand, watching the two young women intently studying the rope, couldn't help but laugh: "These two kids are just like real sisters."
During the lunch break, after eating, Tian Xiwei dragged Liu Haochun to find the two senior female students she had played beanbag games with the day before: "Senior sisters, senior sisters, want to play jump rope? I brought jump rope!"
She pulled a colorful rubber band from her bag; it was one of those old-fashioned elastic bands, all twisted together in various colors. The two senior female students laughed as soon as they saw it: "Wow, we haven't touched this in ages!"
"Come on, come on!" Tian Xiwei said without waiting for a reply, pulling Liu Haochun and a senior female student to stand opposite each other. She put rubber bands around their ankles. "Let's start from the bottom. I'll teach you how to dance 'Malan Blossoms'!"
She stood in the middle, chanting a mantra: "Malan flowers bloom twenty-one, two five six, two five seven, two eight two nine thirty-one..." Her feet moved in rhythm, sometimes crossing, sometimes tiptoeing.
When it was Liu Haochun's turn, he tripped over the rubber band as soon as he stepped in and almost fell.
"It's alright, it's alright!" Tian Xiwei quickly helped her up. "Lift your feet up a little, and repeat the incantation with me, just make sure the rhythm is right."
Two senior female students chimed in, "That's right, no need to rush. We always tripped over things when we were kids."
Liu Haochun took a deep breath and slowly followed Tian Xiwei's rhythm. At first, she kept making mistakes, either missing the beat or getting her feet caught on the rubber band, but Tian Xiwei and her senior sisters always smiled and encouraged her.
She wasn't discouraged; if she made a mistake, she would start over. Her face was flushed, and fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, but her eyes shone with a defiant spirit.
After several attempts, she gradually found her rhythm. Although her movements were still a bit clumsy, she was finally able to complete a section of "Malan Blossoms." Tian Xiwei immediately clapped her hands: "Amazing, Haochun! Much better than my first time!"
Liu Haochun was a little embarrassed by the praise and smiled with his lips pursed.
Sunlight streamed through the windows of the teaching building, illuminating them. The rubber bands were stretched taut, their colorful patterns casting swaying shadows on the ground.
He stood not far away, holding his lunchbox, watching this scene as he slowly chewed his food.
"Xiaofeng, everything's ready for the afternoon's scene." Zhou Ming walked over, followed his gaze, and smiled, "These two girls are becoming more and more like the real thing."
"Um."
In the distance, Tian Xiwei was pulling Liu Haochun along, teaching her to jump on the more difficult "little rubber ball". The rubber band was raised to her knees, and Liu Haochun was having some trouble jumping. Tian Xiwei deliberately slowed down to wait for her. The two shadows were very close on the ground, like a pair of real "best friends".