Starlight Has No Past - Chapter 32 Part 2

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.



Starlight Has No Past
Chapter 32 Part 2

The tip of Zhou Tingsheng’s nose was only a few millimeters away from the now shut door. His dull eyes refocused as he recovered from the loud slam.
He quickly turned on the knob, but found it locked. Zhou Tingsheng used both palms and repeatedly pounding on the door. “Ye Qiao, Ye Qiao, open the door.”

The rooms on the ship had poor soundproofing. The tiniest of movement could be clearly heard. Despite that, Zhou Tingsheng couldn’t hear a single sound from inside her room. He was afraid that something bad might have happened to her. The force of the pounding increased and the vibrations made Ye Qiao’s body shake. She felt like a machine composed of multiple components. She had no doubt that he would take her apart in the next minute.

The cramp in her leg finally lessened and Ye Qiao lifted her foot and struck the door with her heel.
The pounding of the door finally stopped.
There were sluggish footsteps inside the room. Ye Qiao took out her cell phone charger from her suitcase and plugged it in. Zhou Tingsheng could hear the notification sound on her cell phone and eventually stopped trying to get the door open. The sudden burst of anger had burned any patience he had left, but before it fully burned out, the anger always diminished at the last minute.
He faced the closed door. A casual act of womanizing had turned him into a stranger to himself.

After it became quiet in the hallway, Ye Qiao waited a while longer before she opened her door. There was no one outside her door, only the extinguished cigarette butt flatly laying on the  ground. She almost cursed in her mind.

Ye Qiao lay on the narrow bed listening to the waves. It was already the early morning, but she still couldn’t fall asleep on an unfamiliar bed and her stomach was rumbling. She kept cursing Zhou Tingsheng over and over in her mind. Though the one who caused her current predicament was Wen Shaoqian, the one who was being cursed was Zhou Tingsheng for unknown reasons. She had already banished the name Wen Shaoqian from her mind, but was focused on Zhou Tingsheng’s foolishness and fickleness. As for whether she was also at fault-- --Well, was it inexcusable if she was a little at fault?

She unreasonably cursed him the entire night. When she closed her eyes, his eyes seemed to float in front of her. The look in his eyes unsettled her.

The next day, when she walked out of her room to get some food, she saw that pair of eyes again.

He was sitting at a corner of the restaurant on the ship, accompanied by the comfortable sea breeze and a beautiful woman. Ye Qiao past them by, holding her plate from the buffet table, and heard the woman chatting with him about Netherlandish paintings and altarpieces using a rather proper tone of voice. Ye Qiao couldn’t help but sneer.

Zhou Tingsheng had been smoking the whole night at the bow trying to stop his endless fretting. Finally in the morning he had calmed down enough to go get breakfast, though everything tasted rather bland. The woman who Liang Ziruo had introduced to him had come by to greet him. He ate with her but couldn’t figure out which of the women in his sister’s email this woman was.
Half way through his breakfast, he suddenly heard a disdainful laugh.
Ye Qiao noticed that he had heard her and realized her blunder. She greeted him with an apologetic tone: “Good morning.”

Zhou Tingsheng couldn’t pretend as if nothing had happened. He, with a darkened face, used the fork to stir the salad which his female companion had fetched for him.
The woman looked at them and asked: “Do you know each other?”
Ye Qiao didn’t respond to her but quietly looked at his fork, then she thoughtfully said: “If I’m not mistaken, is that thin slices of raw beef with vegetables? You’re not a picky eater now? Not only do you eat meat now, but raw as well?”
The silver fork was abruptly put down on the table. The woman startled and got up: “I’m sorry. Are you a vegetarian? I’ll go get another plate of salad for you.”
The woman got up and left, Ye Qiao also was ready to go back to her seat with her plate.

Zhou Tingsheng took her plate away before she could leave.
Ye Qiao watched her pasta being taken away and smiled good naturedly: “You like cream mushroom pasta? You can ask your little beauty to get some for you. She’ll be very happy to do so.” She reached for her plate.
Zhou Tingsheng leaned against the table facing her and mockingly lifted the corner of his mouth: “What are you getting at?”

Translated by Team DHH at http://dhh-workshop.blogspot.com.