Pat Me Please

What can change in a month?

Enough for the crew to finish script reading.

Enough for Xiang Wan to recite “Ba-Bai-Biao-Bing-Ben-Bei-Po” and “Si-Shi-Si-Shi-Shi-Shi” fluently.

Enough for Xiang Wan to get along well with the elderly in the community, and become a legend in the chess and Go circles of the neighborhood with the guidance of Yu Zhou.

It’s also enough for Yu Zhou to start calling her Wanwan.

But a month was also too short for there to still be any sign of a thunderstorm in the weather forecast.

Yu Zhou opened the door while holding a watermelon, the heat nearly made her sweat. However, Xiang Wan, who was luxurious, didn’t seem to mind. She took the watermelon without changing her expression, even though her shoulder sank with its weight. Maintaining her composure, she firmly hugged the watermelon and headed towards the kitchen.

“Should I put it in the refrigerator? You said that if the watermelon is not cold, it will go bad.” Xiang Wan said gently, cleverly opening the refrigerator door. 

Very consciously, Yu Zhou was very pleased.

She took off her shoes and said, “There’s good news.”

“Please say.”

“When I came back today, I noticed that the nucleic acid testing station at the east gate had been removed. I asked the aunt in the community, and she told me that all of the stations except the one at the west gate had been removed. Since the epidemic situation is now stable, there’s no need to scan the health code.  The station at the west gate is the only one that remains to prevent the epidemic from recurring.”

“Wow.” Xiang Wan closed the refrigerator door. This reaction was learned from Yu Zhou while she was still very unfamiliar with it.

“You are so insincere.” Yu Zhou pouted.

“You should say – I can go out!” Yu Zhou said as she walked towards the bedroom to take clothes for a bath.

The slippers made a “dut dut” sound as Yu Zhou moved closer. She added, “This month, I consulted a lawyer and asked someone to inquire, but they all said that there is no other legal way to register for a household registration. I was thinking, when we can go out, I should take you to the police station and ask about the situation.”

“Okay.” Xiang Wan said loudly.

The dripping sound of water came through the wooden door. Xiang Wan closed the kitchen door and lay on the balcony to look at the sky.

She is about to go out. She doen’t know what the outside world would be like.

After a while, she saw that Yu Zhou’s phone on the sofa was shaking. She already had a basic understanding of this object, so when Yu Zhou came out with her hair wet, Xiang Wan reminded her: “Someone is looking for you.”

Bending down, Yu Zhou picked up her phone and unlocked it. There was a message from Peng Xiangzhi in the “Shrine” crew group chat: “Recording begins tomorrow at noon. The author should be present.”

Below was a shared address.

“15th floor of Building A, Dawn Recording Studio.”

Yu Zhou thought for a moment and replied: “Do I need to go? Only me?”

How about the post-production specialist and the screenwriter?

A voice message: “Post-production specialist is busy, the screenwriter is on a business trip, so you need to come. Tomorrow is the trailer recording, the audience’s first impression of the voice is very important, you are responsible for it. After all, the author knows more about the original character setting and the expectations of book fans.”

Yu Zhou was a little embarrassed: “I don’t have book fans.”

“…Then we need to respect the original work.”

It was obvious that Peng Xiangzhi had never directed an IP adaptation audio drama without book fans.

Yu Zhou sighed and typed: “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

Nervous, and a little excited.

Yuzhou glanced at Xiangwan, who was watching TV, then touched her own face, regretting not bringing an umbrella when going out today. She just checked herself in the mirror and realized her skin has become one shade darker.

She walked to the bathroom, squatted in front of the washbasin to arrange the cosmetics she had put away after leaving her job.

Did the foundation expire? Is it necessary to open a new cushion if it has been used for a long time?

The kitten Wan wan was crouching at the door, looking at her easily.

“What are you doing?” Yu Zhou opened a mask and put it on carefully in front of the mirror.

The remaining essence was also used on the neck and back of the hand.

Wearing a mask, she walked out. Xiang Wan was scared to jump, looking at Yu Zhou as if she was looking at a jumping god.

Yu Zhou combed her hair, her lips hardly moved: “Mask, skin care, your skin will be better by using it.”

She looked at Xiang Wan with a sparkle in her eye and asked, “Do you know what this mask is called?”

Xiang Wan shook her head.

“Ex-boyfriend mask. The ad said that if you use it, your skin will be revitalized, radiant so you’ll win the battle with your ex-boyfriend perfectly.”

“Ex-boyfriend… battle?” Xiang Wan furrowed her brows.

“You don’t understand, you’re still young.” Yu Zhou sat on the sofa and asked her again, “Do you think my hair looks okay? Should I get it permed to make it look more voluminous? It’s been falling out a lot lately.”

The hair was abundant, the crown was high, the face looked small and the figure looked good.

“I don’t really understand, but I think,” Xiang Wan tilted her head and looked at her seriously, “you look good no matter what.”

The sweet voice saying such sweet words was killing Yu Zhou.

Yu Zhou’s face was a little red, but luckily the mask was covering it. She silently repeated to herself three times “I’m lesbian and she’s straight”, calming herself down while chuckling with contempt in her mind. It’s a basic straight woman trick, an ordinary situation.

Then she stared blankly at the TV, thinking of which outfit to wear tomorrow.

After thinking for a full ten minutes, Yu Zhou silently sighed, there really wasn’t anything to wear.

This sentence was very vividly expressed when Yu Zhou, wearing a simple T-shirt and shorts, with slightly messy straight hair, walked to Tianyin Building. The dignified clothes in the wardrobe were rolled over by the cat fur and she was too lazy to send it for dry cleaning, because after all, she had already resigned. It was too late to send it for dry cleaning a day before they met.

If she went to the mall specially to buy a whole outfit, it would be so grand that  it would make her look cheap.

So she could only pick out a few clothes from the ordinary level that weren’t too old.

The casual outfit was good, as it made her look unhurried.

Although she had searched it on her phone before, Tianyin Building was still more magnificent than the pictures. It had a large and open lobby, the security guards and lobby manager here wore neat uniforms. The revolving door emitted an elegant fragrance. It was just meal time so the urban beauties walked out of the elevators and passed through the gate with their faces scanned.

Yu Zhou couldn’t scan her face, so she consciously walked to the service desk to register as a visitor.

Is it necessary for a recording studio to be built in this building? The rent must be expensive…

She quickly calculated the cost of this audio drama.

While waiting for the elevator, she sent a WeChat message to F: “Ms.F, I just wanted to confirm with you again: If this audio drama doesn’t make a profit, will my copyright fee be refunded or taken back?”

F quickly replied: “???”

Okay. Yu Zhou got out of the senior elevator and looked at the black and gold plaque above the doorway engraved with “5F”.

There was a directional sign, with the Three Sounds Studio on the right half of the floor. The English name was also written on the sign, very advanced.

There was no front desk, just a simple and elegant lobby, not too big, looking very comfortable with white tone. In addition to the logo with a light blue halo, there were several carefully trimmed potted plants.

Turning from the lobby, there was a reception room and a restroom. The floor-to-ceiling windows were warmly filled with sunlight, and the carpet looked like a fluffy cake. On the left, there were a row of display cabinets with trophies and celebrity photos, and a few rows of bookshelves formed a delicate reading corner. On the right hand side, there was the rest room with tables and chairs.

Peng Xiangzhi was sitting there, flipping through a book.

Yu Zhou had searched for Peng Xiangzhi on Weibo, but she didn’t like to take pictures or show her face, so she didn’t know what she looked like. But when Yu Zhou saw her for the first time, she knew the woman was Peng Xiangzhi.

The feeling of her appearance was too similar to her voice. She was wearing a white shirt and a tight-fitting skirt that emphasized her figure. Her jet-black hair was long and her eyelashes were curled. She was also wearing Armani 400 lip glaze, which was bright red and gave her a commanding presence.

Peng Xiangzhi looked up and saw her: “Hey. Here you are.”

Smiling, it was not as difficult to approach as just listening to the voice.

“How did you come here?” Peng Xiangzhi threw the book lightly on the table and nodded to indicate Yu Zhou to sit down. “Wait a minute, they haven’t come yet.”

Yu Zhou greeted her politely and sat next to Peng Xiangzhi: “I took a taxi, afraid of traffic jams, so I came early.”

“The traffic should be okay at this point today.”

“Yeah, there was no traffic jam at all, it took only 20 minutes.” After Yu Zhou finished speaking, she was a little embarrassed, so she looked for a topic, “Which staff members are coming today?”

Peng Xiangzhi handed her a script: “I printed it for you. The four lead and support voice actors are all coming. But in this trailer, Su Chang’s soliloquy is more, so I let her come first, the other three are a little later.”

Understood, it was boring to wait early.

She lowered her head to look at the script, she had already known it inside and out long ago, but reading the script seemed to give her something to do.

Reading word by word to the third line.

“Shen Bai: Some people will come from all directions, with three or four degrees of familiarity, with seven or eight degrees of strangeness, telling you, what is called – meeting.”

“Here you are.” Peng Xiangzhi stood up, “Su Chang. Come here.”