Chapter 54: Roman Holiday (Part Two)

When they came out of the rice bowl restaurant, it was around 6:20 PM.

Zhang Shutong had always been casual about his meals; he ordered the shredded pork with green peppers, and as expected, Gu Qiumian chose the sweet and sour pork tenderloin.

He could not imagine what kind of taste the sweet and sour sauce would impart when poured over rice.

Surprisingly, their appetites were almost the same—another astonishing detail, considering she had complained about feeling uncomfortably full that afternoon, yet she went ahead and ordered an extra chicken leg with her meal. Of course, she left some rice behind, but she ate every single piece of the meat.

For some inexplicable reason, Zhang Shutong felt that such a vibrant and spirited girl must surely be a carnivore.

"Let's go watch a movie," he suggested.

Gu Qiumian was carefully blotting her lips. "Where is there a movie?"

"At the school."

"You want to watch it on a projector?"

"Mmm."

Zhang Shutong felt that he had truly wronged this young lady today. He was not a very competent sidekick; after following him through a meal that barely counted as lunch, fishing away half the afternoon, taking a nap at a nail salon, she had to end up having her most important dinner at a modest rice bowl joint.

Moreover, the sweet and sour pork tenderloin was poorly made; the crust had long lost its crispness, turning soggy once drenched in the sauce.

Zhang Shutong was not particularly romantic, but on a subconscious level, he felt that on this isolated little island devoid of night life—where one could find neither KTVs, bars, nor movie theaters—a Saturday holiday should end on a better note.

Only then would it feel complete.

And so, he led Gu Qiumian toward the school. However, Gu Qiumian insisted on buying some snacks along the way, arguing that watching a movie without popcorn and soda was unthinkable.

Zhang Shutong was sorely tempted to point out three things: first, there was no place near their school that sold popcorn; second, did she really think they were going to a proper cinema?; and third, didn't she just finish eating?

He analyzed these three points from a rational perspective, but if the young lady listened to logic, she wouldn't be a young lady—or rather, if a sidekick started offering strategy, he should just become the military adviser.

Gu Qiumian argued that it added to the atmosphere; since the school facilities were already pitiful enough, wouldn't she be allowed to make up for it a little from elsewhere?

Very well, he actually found her logic quite sound.

Yet, there truly was no popcorn for sale near the school. He glanced at his phone, which was on the verge of dying, and advised Gu Qiumian not to waste her effort. She, however, insisted that she could definitely find some, and asked if he wanted to make a bet.

Zhang Shutong was not much of a gambling man—unless victory was certain—so he nodded indifferently and accepted the wager.

After that, Gu Qiumian never mentioned buying anything again.

At the time, he was puzzled, wondering if she intended to lose to him on purpose.

They entered the campus. There was no gatekeeper at night; the motorized electric gate could be pushed wide open just enough for a person to squeeze through.

Gu Qiumian slipped through the entrance effortlessly, but instead of heading for the classrooms, she marched straight toward the library.

Thus, Zhang Shutong stood there in a daze as she dug out a backup hidden energy source from the library's locked cabinet—which turned out to be a massive stash of snacks.

"Who doesn't have a secret base?" she hummed.

Zhang Shutong had miscalculated by one step and lost.

On the way back to the teaching building, she kept chanting about how he had lost and must not forget he owed her a favor.

Zhang Shutong did not remember ever owing anyone a favor, so he simply pretended not to hear.

The classroom door was unlocked, which was not surprising. He told Gu Qiumian to sit down while he went to set up the projector. The computer was terribly laggy and still ran on the XP system. When he clicked into the folders, they were filled with ancient movies pre-downloaded by Old Song, meant for them to watch more foreign blockbusters to develop a "sense of language."

Zhang Shutong found a copy of *Godzilla* and spent a long time trying to figure out how listening to this lizard roar was supposed to help cultivate language skills—were they supposed to learn Godzilla-speak? Or perhaps their head teacher just wanted to watch it himself.

He asked Gu Qiumian if this one would do, but she refused flatly. Having finished her meal and regained her strength, she began glaring at him with those vibrant, beautiful eyes of hers.

It was just a pity that the classroom lights were off, making it a bit difficult for Zhang Shutong to clearly read her gaze.

Understandably so, girls were rarely interested in monster flicks, so he browsed for something a bit more artistic. He first asked if *Gone with the Wind* would work.

"Too long, it's four hours."

"Then *Forrest Gump*?"

"No way, who wants to watch a dummy."

"How about *Titanic*?"

"Can you stop always picking tragedies?"

At that, Zhang Shutong was out of ideas.

Finding him useless, the young lady took matters into her own hands. She walked over to the projector, the faint glow of the computer screen reflecting on her face and making her eyes sparkle:

"This one!"

Without a second's hesitation, she pointed her finger and settled the matter with finality.

Zhang Shutong looked closely and saw, to his surprise, *Roman Holiday*.

"Isn't this one also a tragedy?"

He hadn't watched it, but back when he did translation work, he had learned the plot summary. It was roughly about an authentic princess and her sidekick who cross paths and experience an encounter lasting a single day in Rome.

The male protagonist was a penniless young reporter who accidentally found the princess sleeping on a bench. Initially thinking she was just an ordinary girl, he kindly took her home.

However, upon learning her identity and hoping to secure an exclusive scoop to make a fortune, he once again feigned a chance encounter and, harboring ulterior motives, acted as her tour guide—or rather, her sidekick.

For an entire day, the two wandered through the city of Rome, and having never met before, they gradually fell for each other. The ending was a classic as well: true lovers ultimately part ways, for how could a poor boy ever end up with a real princess?

Therefore, the film concludes with the eloping princess returning to her palace, while the male protagonist stands below the stage as a reporter, attending a press conference alongside a massive crowd of peers.

Yet by then, the sidekick knew the girl before him was no longer the little lass who needed his company, but an authentic princess.

In the end, he returned the candid photographs he had taken, walked slowly out of the palace, and waited in vain for the princess to call out to him.

Zhang Shutong had never seen the movie, but he was generally familiar with it. He reminded Gu Qiumian that the ending wouldn't be very pleasant, but she just rolled her eyes and declared that this was the one.

The two returned to their seats to wait for the movie to start. He originally wanted to pick a random spot near the front, but Gu Qiumian insisted on returning to her own window-side seat, pulling Zhang Shutong down right beside her. He was deeply puzzled. Ordinarily it might be fine, but tonight with no one else around, wasn't the middle seat the optimal viewing position? Why insist on returning to the exact original spot?

Yet his current identity was that of a sidekick, and the second tenet of the Goddess of Fate who ruled over the future young lady's destiny was to protect her mood. For today, at least, he had to follow her wishes.

The main feature began shortly.

The pacing of older movies was typically slow, sometimes inevitably making it hard to concentrate. At times, Zhang Shutong glanced out the window, feeling a sense of surrealism himself.

He never would have imagined spending this night in such a manner. They were in a silent classroom deep in the night with the lights off, while the projector cast a colorful beam of light onto the screen.

Yet their school's equipment was truly wretched. Despite having prepared himself mentally, Zhang Shutong had not expected the film to be so blurry. Come to think of it, even on a sunny day it was a struggle to see slides clearly; how could it compare to a real cinema, let alone a private home theater in a villa? Having spoken with absolute certainty about going to "see a movie," he now felt a slight flush of heat on his face.

Turning his head, he saw the girl beside him resting quietly on her desk, staring at the screen without blinking.

She really did love watching movies.

Zhang Shutong admired this hobby to some extent; he himself struggled to stay focused on such vintage cinema. *Roman Holiday* was released in 1953, and now it was 2012. Doing the math, it was celebrating its fifty-ninth birthday, older than both of their parents.

Yet a classic is a classic. Resting his chin in his hand, he watched absentmindedly, noticing that the filming locations in the movie were the actual city of Rome: the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Mouth of Truth, Castel Sant'Angelo... Even with the abysmal quality of the projector, the pervasive romance and elegance could still be felt through the black-and-white screen.

In contrast, his own itinerary for the day seemed so crude as to make him feel ashamed:

A large supermarket that dared call itself a mall despite having only three floors; a clothing store on the third floor selling outdated apparel; a desolate commercial street with instant milk tea; a spine-chillingly quiet wilderness with compressed biscuits... Even their mode of transportation fell short. At least the princess in the movie rode a pretty little motor scooter, whereas the two of them rode bicycles that rattled their bones. By comparison, standing next to the movie's protagonists, he was truly a sub-par sidekick.

Perhaps this was an implicit warning from the young lady? Zhang Shutong thought jokingly. He felt that the thoughts swirling in his mind were becoming a bit cluttered, while Gu Qiumian watched with utter concentration from beginning to end, without uttering a single word.

After roughly ten minutes or so, the two protagonists visited the Mouth of Truth—which was actually a wall bearing a relief of Neptune, the sea god. Legend had it that if one placed their hand inside, the hand of a liar would be bitten off.

The princess felt a twinge of guilt because she had concealed her identity from her sidekick, though the male protagonist had lied as well, having known all along that the girl was a princess and acting as her sidekick with hidden motives.

Fortunately, thought Zhang Shutong, the island had no such annoying places. In a sense, he too had lied today, deceiving this girl for an entire day while accompanying her wandering around. Though he had done his best, he couldn't be sure if she had seen through it, but she never asked.

Much like the princess in the movie, perhaps the vast majority of girls knew fairy tales were fake, yet they were willing to believe they were real.

You weave an illusory dream for her, and even if it seems full of loopholes, as long as you don't puncture it yourself, she will willingly jump right in.

Zhang Shutong felt he had heard a similar sentiment somewhere before. Upon reflection, it was what Old Song had said. That rainy night, as they sat in the Fox sedan, the man—a master at pursuing girls—had spoken with absolute confidence:

"You think they didn't know? Wrong, it's that they wanted to."

The reason?

Because they were foolish.

Zhang Shutong couldn't help glancing at Gu Qiumian, secretly wondering whether she was foolish or not, when the girl suddenly asked:

"Do you think they'll end up together?"

The advantage of watching a movie here was that they could chat freely without worrying about disturbing others.

"You already know the ending."

"I want to hear you say it."

Before he could speak, Gu Qiumian added:

"Think carefully before you answer."

"Probably not," Zhang Shutong pondered.

"Because a princess and a poor boy can't be together?" Though she herself was a young lady of wealth, she said somewhat gloomily, "You're so realistic."

"It's not about being realistic."

Zhang Shutong turned his head. At that moment, the scene in the movie shifted to a ballroom dance, both characters wearing hypocritical masks:

"It's because neither of them is particularly pure. Look, one is obviously a princess and refuses to say so, while the other wants to trade a scandal for fame and fortune."

"What if there was a reason she couldn't speak?" she asked, staring at the screen. "If the princess told the reporter that she was actually a princess, what if he reacted differently? She didn't know his attitude either. Actually... she just didn't want to be disappointed."

Hearing this, Zhang Shutong fell somewhat silent. He wanted to say that if she didn't speak, how could anyone know, but wasn't this precisely a story born of crossed wires?

In truth, both protagonists knew that this single day would inevitably come to an end.

This Oscar-winning film was fundamentally about one single thing from start to finish:

If you know something is bound to reach its end and the outcome cannot be changed, what would you do?

Had they not spent this day together, the thought of confessing to each other wouldn't even have arisen.

Yet precisely because of this day spent together, they devoted their most precious time entirely to it, and by the time they wished to confess, it was already too late. By then, the princess had returned to her palace, and the brief Roman holiday was over.

The sidekick was no longer a sidekick; he returned to his post, remaining the same impoverished reporter.

Zhang Shutong was won over by *Roman Holiday*, though he couldn't be sure whether Gu Qiumian's cleverness or the film itself was more remarkable. The former managed to find a thought-provoking movie within a single second, while the latter spanned fifty-nine years to tell you:

Perhaps some words, once spoken, are wrong; yet if those words are never spoken, you will never have the chance again.

"So there's something I want to tell you..." Gu Qiumian murmured softly.

Zhang Shutong nodded to show he was listening, but she trailed off, only to say a moment later, "Let's wait until the movie is over..."

"Mmm."

Zhang Shutong did not press her.

He checked his phone once more. It was just past seven o'clock. Ordinarily, movie runtimes were kept around two hours, and they hadn't even passed the halfway mark.

At that moment, the iPhone was down to its last one percent of battery life. He verified the time one final time, turned the phone off completely, cast aside all distracting thoughts, and watched the movie in silence.

Time ticked away second by second. On this quiet night, beneath the teaching building, a figure appeared across the empty sports ground.

Zhang Shutong spotted that figure.

This movie would never be finished.

And that was something he had known all along.

...

And so, Zhang Shutong gently nudged Gu Qiumian, signaling her to keep watching.

The sky had grown pitch black. A few small buildings in the distance glowed with lights, and further out lay the dark silhouettes of mountains. Night gradually bled into the classroom as well, swallowing everything in its embrace. The girl in the dark asked:

"That's him, right?"

"Mmm, that's him."

At this moment, she seemed like a smart girl again, not panicking to ask who it was, but immediately guessing the mastermind behind the entire plot.

"We spent the whole day waiting for him?"

"Pretty much."

Yet Zhang Shutong thought to himself that waiting for him was actually secondary; the main point was not letting her die today, which was why he had taken her out to roam around.

Zhang Shutong would have liked to say that—before he had watched *Roman Holiday*—but now he realized that his qualifications as a tour guide were truly lacking.

"Will you be in danger?" Gu Qiumian asked with concern.

Her eyes had originally reflected the black-and-white film, but when she turned her head to ask earnestly in the dim light, they seemed to mirror something else entirely.

The two exchanged a gaze, and Zhang Shutong assured her that he could guarantee nothing would happen.

"Without a hitch?"

"Not even a scare."

"You're being mysterious again..."

Zhang Shutong led her out of the classroom. Their footsteps were unhurried. Too lazy to turn off the projector, he left it playing away inside; the dialogue of the lead characters could still be heard echoing down the corridor. Perhaps it had just reached a slow-paced segment where the princess and the male protagonist chatted softly and gently, their articulation crisp, carrying a surging emotion hidden beneath gentleness—the epitome of a gentleman and a lady, flowing like a subterranean dark river.

There were no voice-activated lights overhead, so they walked through the dark, narrow corridor as if gently propelled forward by that underground river.

Thus, Zhang Shutong was not particularly hurried. He brought Gu Qiumian out to the corridor, stopped before a glass window, watched the figure downstairs, exhaled a breath on the glass, and casually sketched a ghostly face. "Look, the sheep is coming."

Yet he really lacked any sense of humor; the girl was not amused, wrinkling her nose instead. "You're the one who looks like a ghost face!"

Then, however, she could not help asking:

"Can you tell me now? I want to know."

Zhang Shutong nodded. Continuing to keep secrets from her was pointless; they had a final sliver of time left, and it was meant for this exact purpose.

...

And so, he simply began recounting the events chronologically, starting with the anomalies noticed while washing dishes that morning, leading up to the sudden absence of the arsonist.

"Letting Dukang ride his bike to your place was precisely because I was worried that guy would run straight over and keep watch."

"Going to the commercial street was to find the mastermind behind the scenes."

"Qingyi and Ruoping returning to the supermarket was to confirm the suspicions of the man who sold deli meats."

"No wonder you suddenly said the plan had changed, and bought face masks and caps..." Gu Qiumian quickly connected the dots.

"But how did you suspect Aunt Wu, and even smash the building blocks I made?" She pouted. "Forget it, I forgive you."

"You're only forgiving me now?"

"I want to hear your deduction. Hurry up and tell me, or I won't forgive you!"

Zhang Shutong tapped the window pane:

"Do you know why he didn't show up last night?"

"Why?"

"He wanted to distance himself from it. Think about it: he gathered the others together, but when push came to shove, he was the only one who didn't go. That way, he could..." Using the word *revenge* now would ruin the mood completely, so Zhang Shutong rephrased it, "...he could do bad things while avoiding being discovered by the police or your old man afterward, remaining hidden behind the scenes to fan the flames. Don't you think he's wicked?"

"Wicked!"

"But wickedness is useless. His rhythm was completely disrupted starting last night, because he didn't expect one thing." Zhang Shutong pointed once more at the tiny black shadow downstairs; the person was about to enter the teaching building. "Those five arsonists were packed away by me before they could even make a move."

"So that's why he took such a desperate gamble today?"

"Not necessarily, but the possibility of wanting to make a move was high. Of course, the biggest variable was still you—who told you to crave pork liver, right where he could see you?"

Gu Qiumian glared at him again, drawing a new pattern on the glass. This time, it wasn't a sheep or a ghost face, but a pig's head, silently registering her protest.

Zhang Shutong didn't know why she would describe herself that way:

"Still, thanks to him seeing it, in his eyes it was as if all the elements—heaven's timing, advantageous terrain, and human harmony—had converged. So I had Qingyi go back to confirm; when we left, he followed. At that moment, I knew he was definitely going to make a move."

"And then?"

Zhang Shutong said that what happened afterward wasn't particularly worth telling; what was most interesting was his overarching scheme. This person was far more formidable than he had imagined.

"You remember Liyipeng's mother, right? Even that matter was instigated by him."

"Even that?" Gu Qiumian was astonished.

"Calling it instigated isn't entirely accurate. Like I said just now, he had an accomplice, and that matter was carried out through the accomplice. To understand you, one could only look in three places: the mall, the villa, and the school. He couldn't infiltrate the villa, and he was right there in the mall, so it had to be from the school."

Gu Qiumian proved to be the best listener. No matter what Zhang Shutong said, she held her breath, listening intently and nodding with conviction.

"Now, let's trace it back from the beginning," Zhang Shutong drew a line on the glass. "At the very beginning, wasn't there someone who smashed your building blocks? Wasn't it because the blocks were smashed that Liyipeng was exposed? And then didn't his mother show up? And didn't his mother let slip something that caused the arsonist to act prematurely? It seemed like a series of endless accidents, but in reality..."

He sighed softly:

"Once you trace it from the beginning, everything is completely wrong."

He wiped away the line on the glass:

"This matter has to be viewed backward."

"The most crucial point is one thing. If you can figure it out, everything suddenly becomes crystal clear—why didn't that person show up last night?

"Think about it. Since he was the ringleader, it couldn't be that he suddenly got scared—that doesn't fit his profile. Urgent business? Unlikely, that's too ridiculous."

Zhang Shutong made a joke. "Do you think there's any chance he drank cold water and suddenly got diarrhea?"

Gu Qiumian shoved him playfully. "Hey, how can you be like this? Hurry up and tell me!"

"Like I said, he never intended to come in the first place. To the other five, the incident with Liyipeng's mother was an unexpected turn of events, but to him alone, it was a... provocation he had arranged in advance."

Zhang Shutong then began working backward from Liyipeng's affair—the scarf, the castle, the name on the partition wall... The more Gu Qiumian listened, the more astonished she became, eventually patting her chest in lingering fear. She was really getting immersed in the drama.

Zhang Shutong asked her if she had ever read *Sherlock Holmes*.

Of course she had, she replied.

Zhang Shutong continued, asking if she knew about "The Final Problem," where Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty engage in a life-or-death struggle by a waterfall, ultimately plunging into the river together and perishing mutually.

Gu Qiumian anxiously demanded to know what he was getting at. Didn't he say everything was fine? What mutual destruction?

"I'm just giving an example. I mean, while I'm no Sherlock Holmes, this guy certainly isn't Moriarty."

He added casually:

"What that means is, whether he's selling pork liver or duck liver doesn't matter. Who cares what kind of liver he's selling? I figured out what was going on inside his head long ago."

"Then what *is* important?" Gu Qiumian asked, proving quite adept at grabbing the main point.

Right, what *was* important?

That sentence had been a casual remark of his, meant to show that the killer wasn't particularly dangerous and she shouldn't worry too much.

Under normal circumstances, Zhang Shutong would have been stumped by such a tricky question.

Yet he felt that tonight's *Roman Holiday* had truly not been watched in vain. As a sidekick, you might fail to take the young lady to the most bustling mall, to eat the finest food, or to play the most entertaining games—whether shabby or luxurious, there was one thing you could never fail to do.

And that was to make the other person smile.

The so-called princess was, after all, just a foolish girl easily coaxed into a daze.

Question—

If you already anticipated that an event would reach its end and the outcome could not be changed, what would you do?

Zhang Shutong had known all along that tonight's movie couldn't be watched to the end, thanks to Gu Qiumian having happily caught up on her sleep at the nail salon and delayed their schedule, though it wasn't polite to point out that it was her fault.

So Zhang Shutong now had his answer.

He murmured a few words softly into Gu Qiumian's ear, feeling momentarily puzzled as to why the skin around the girl's ear felt a bit warm. But that wasn't the main point; the main point was that after listening, she stared at him in utter bewilderment for a long while before squeezing out a sentence:

"You're so bad!"

Zhang Shutong rolled his eyes at her, deciding this person was truly difficult to please.

Originally, he hadn't intended to tell Gu Qiumian about his preparations. Tricking both her and the killer, only to reveal the truth at the very last moment so they could share a double dose of shock—that would have been two portions of astonishment.

"But I like it." The young lady chuckled softly, her bright eyes shining with curiosity as she asked, "So how are you going to deliver your lines?"

She was asking about his script. Zhang Shutong did find it somewhat tricky. As everyone knows, entrance and exit lines require careful deliberation, much like a Kamen Rider's transformation. For a man, the most important thing is naturally to look cool. When someone does good deeds neither for fame, fortune, nor beauty, what they are truly after is looking dashing.

He had happened to come up with a dashing set of lines while fishing. Although his double astonishment was now reduced to a single portion, Zhang Shutong was well-versed in the craft; a single portion wouldn't hinder him from looking cool in the slightest.

Just as he was about to speak, Gu Qiumian preempted him:

"Listen to me. Since you lost the bet, you owe me a favor."

Zhang Shutong wanted to argue that he never owed her a favor in the first place, and even if he did, shouldn't it be saved for something more important? Did the young lady really want to waste it on "tampering" with his entrance lines?

He said no, but Gu Qiumian said yes.

Zhang Shutong felt she was being unreasonable, at which point Gu Qiumian played her trump card, declaring that if he didn't listen, she would tell Auntie about him writing her name on his scratch paper—since she knew her now anyway... Zhang Shutong truly hadn't expected his mother and a piece of scratch paper to ambush him from behind like this. He sighed:

"Then how do you think it should be said?"

"I want to hear something more humorous." Gu Qiumian blinked those vibrant, pretty eyes of hers.

"I don't have a humorous bone in my body," he muttered, feeling he was better suited to a cold and aloof style, and attempted to bargain. "Can we go with something dashing, or maybe a bit serious?"

Relentless, she insisted that no, they couldn't, she wanted to hear something fun. "Lean your ear over, I'll teach you what to say..."

Zhang Shutong bit the inside of his cheek, and pulled out the flashlight he had prepared long ago.