Chapter 19 Part 2
There was a long line at the checkout. They passed the time by discussing
potential names for the cat.
Zhou Tingsheng was rather disinterested in the discussion, his mind seemingly
elsewhere. When they passed the counter, the array condoms on the shelf caught
his attention. He looked at the fruit flavored ones and whispered to Ye Qiao’s ears:
“Which flavor do you like?”
Ye Qiao considered slapping him, but she stopped herself since they were in public.
Zhou Tingsheng acted as if she had just hit him anyways, turning his face sideways,
and frivolously asked: “Aren’t you going to the countryside in two days? Are you sure
you won’t miss me?”
Ye Qiao cursed then giggled: “Didn’t I get a cat to keep you company. You won’t care
whether it’s a person or an animal, will you?”
They spent a passionate night together until both of them were exhausted.
Ye Qiao nestled against his arm and caught the faint smell of tobacco. The starlight
fell through the window, illuminating their tangled bodies. Suddenly, she spoke: “I
thought of a name.”
“What is it?”
“Ophelia.”
Zhou Tingsheng thought she was taking the name from some poem or literature.
He blew out a puff of smoke: “What does it mean?”
“It’s the name of the seventh moon of Uranus; it’s the name of the heroine in
<Hamlet>.” Ye Qiao added: “All the moons of Uranus are named after characters
from Shakespeare’s plays. Ophelia is my favorite one.”
She asked: “Have you seen Uranus before?”
“No.”
“It’s the most beautiful of the eight planets.” Ye Qiao was half awake and for some
reason had the desire to keep talking: “It’s a brilliant green. They all said that the
earth is blue but it’s a motley blue. The color of Uranus is pure. It’s far away from
the earth; we can’t see it with the naked eyes. It’s very quiet.”
Zhou Tingsheng had gotten used to her habit of speaking about random things
before she went to sleep. Sometimes, she would talk about the constellations,
sometimes it was the fierce animals on the African savanna.
He thought she shouldn’t be an actress since the entertainment circle was far from
the kind of “pure” or “quiet” that she was after.
He tried to keep up: “Don’t they say that Saturn is the prettiest. It has a necklace.”
“That’s its ring, not Saturn itself.” Ye Qiao continued: “When you look at Saturn in
the telescope, it’s like a scarlet eyeball, huge, like the eye of a monster.”
Zhou Tingsheng grabbed her arm and put his head on it. Her tired eyes were clear;
there was not a single distraction in her eyes, only the starry sky in her imagination.
He felt her eyes were like those glistening stars in the night, a pair of pure and limpid
stars inviting others into her own galaxy.
Ye Qiao noticed that there were scratches on the wrist of his arm. With the faint
moonlight, she could also see the many bite marks over his body.
Ye Qiao couldn’t remember what she had done earlier and asked, eyes wide:
“I did that?”
Zhou Tingsheng chuckled at her sudden bout of amnesia and coughed some smoke:
“I just slept with a cat.”
Her feeling of guilt quickly evaporated: “Then you deserve it.”
“I may very well deserve it.” He nonchalantly looked at her: “But, Ye Qiao, do you
know that you have sadistic tendency?”
Ye Qiao was stunned: “......Is that so?”
“Maybe a slight tendency.”
Zhou Tingsheng was unperturbed, but Ye Qiao was having a hard time accepting
it. She thought she had always been quite normal and didn’t even think sex was
all that important to her.
She couldn’t imagine that she would be associated as a sadist.
Chapter 19 Part 2
There was a long line at the checkout. They passed the time by discussing
potential names for the cat.
Zhou Tingsheng was rather disinterested in the discussion, his mind seemingly
elsewhere. When they passed the counter, the array condoms on the shelf caught
his attention. He looked at the fruit flavored ones and whispered to Ye Qiao’s ears:
“Which flavor do you like?”
Ye Qiao considered slapping him, but she stopped herself since they were in public.
Zhou Tingsheng acted as if she had just hit him anyways, turning his face sideways,
and frivolously asked: “Aren’t you going to the countryside in two days? Are you sure
you won’t miss me?”
Ye Qiao cursed then giggled: “Didn’t I get a cat to keep you company. You won’t care
whether it’s a person or an animal, will you?”
They spent a passionate night together until both of them were exhausted.
Ye Qiao nestled against his arm and caught the faint smell of tobacco. The starlight
fell through the window, illuminating their tangled bodies. Suddenly, she spoke: “I
thought of a name.”
“What is it?”
“Ophelia.”
Zhou Tingsheng thought she was taking the name from some poem or literature.
He blew out a puff of smoke: “What does it mean?”
“It’s the name of the seventh moon of Uranus; it’s the name of the heroine in
<Hamlet>.” Ye Qiao added: “All the moons of Uranus are named after characters
from Shakespeare’s plays. Ophelia is my favorite one.”
She asked: “Have you seen Uranus before?”
“No.”
“It’s the most beautiful of the eight planets.” Ye Qiao was half awake and for some
reason had the desire to keep talking: “It’s a brilliant green. They all said that the
earth is blue but it’s a motley blue. The color of Uranus is pure. It’s far away from
the earth; we can’t see it with the naked eyes. It’s very quiet.”
Zhou Tingsheng had gotten used to her habit of speaking about random things
before she went to sleep. Sometimes, she would talk about the constellations,
sometimes it was the fierce animals on the African savanna.
He thought she shouldn’t be an actress since the entertainment circle was far from
the kind of “pure” or “quiet” that she was after.
He tried to keep up: “Don’t they say that Saturn is the prettiest. It has a necklace.”
“That’s its ring, not Saturn itself.” Ye Qiao continued: “When you look at Saturn in
the telescope, it’s like a scarlet eyeball, huge, like the eye of a monster.”
Zhou Tingsheng grabbed her arm and put his head on it. Her tired eyes were clear;
there was not a single distraction in her eyes, only the starry sky in her imagination.
He felt her eyes were like those glistening stars in the night, a pair of pure and limpid
stars inviting others into her own galaxy.
Ye Qiao noticed that there were scratches on the wrist of his arm. With the faint
moonlight, she could also see the many bite marks over his body.
Ye Qiao couldn’t remember what she had done earlier and asked, eyes wide:
“I did that?”
Zhou Tingsheng chuckled at her sudden bout of amnesia and coughed some smoke:
“I just slept with a cat.”
Her feeling of guilt quickly evaporated: “Then you deserve it.”
“I may very well deserve it.” He nonchalantly looked at her: “But, Ye Qiao, do you
know that you have sadistic tendency?”
Ye Qiao was stunned: “......Is that so?”
“Maybe a slight tendency.”
Zhou Tingsheng was unperturbed, but Ye Qiao was having a hard time accepting
it. She thought she had always been quite normal and didn’t even think sex was
all that important to her.
She couldn’t imagine that she would be associated as a sadist.
