Starlight Has No Past - Chapter 51 Part 1

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



Starlight Has No Past
Chapter 51 Part 1

The same tattoo table with the same lighting. Ye Qiao lifted her chin up and suddenly burst into giggles as if she had remembered something. Her bony collar bone slightly moved up and down in time with her laughter.
Zhou Tingsheng put on gloves and asked: “What are you laughing about?”
“Do you remember the last time I was here, you told me that this was something for a lifetime.”
Zhou Tingsheng’s hand, holding the needles, slightly quivered. His eyes went darker: “I remember.”
At the time, she had replied that there will be too many things happening in a lifetime and not many of them could be controlled by ourselves.
Had he expected today at the time?

Zhou Tingsheng didn’t expect that a tough guy like him would someday have trouble pushing the needle onto her skin. The machine was already on. As the needle drew closer to her skin, his heart skipped a few beats.

There was a linden flower hiding inside the vines on her chest; it was buried in between the vines.
She was born without freedom, like the vines, always confined by the things it entangled, unable to grow freely. Yet she had blossomed on his fingertips and in his heart.

Ye Qiao didn’t endure the pain in silence like last time, she moaned in pain and her eyes fogged over. Zhou Tingsheng supporting her waist, bent over to kiss her. After he finished the tattoo, he pulled off the gloves and put his hot palm on her exhausted body, caressing from her shoulder blades all the way down to her tailbone. Ye Qiao slightly shivered when his sweaty palm touched her skin. The remnant of the pain and the heat from her back made her a little hazy. The she heard him murmur: “Qiaoqiao, marry me.”
She had imagined many times of the moment when she would hear those words and now the moment had actually come. Ye Qiao had no hesitation and said with a smile: “......I’ll marry you.”

……

Ye Qiao stayed out of the public eye for three days in order to get away from all the rumors and criticism.
She was scheduled to make an official apology in public after ten days of her release. She carefully chose a black suit but was indifferent to the pressure of public opinion she would soon face. Zhou Tingsheng drove her to the location for the news conference without a word. Before Ye Qiao got out of the car, she turned her face right and left to show Zhou Tingsheng with a smile: “How about this? Is my hairdo intact?”
Zhou Tingsheng stroked her newly permed short hair all the way down to the end. The emptiness made him clench his fist: “Don’t go, Qiaoqiao. You don’t need to apologize to anyone.”

“I do.” Ye Qiao held his hand tight and let him slowly release his fist. “I acted in my own way but had disregarded and hurt others, those who trusted me, supported me, including business and film production companies that signed contracts with me. I owe them all an explanation.”
Inside the room, all the cameras were in place. Reporters were patiently waiting for Ye Qiao’s arrival. They had already prepared the headline for today’s entertainment section.

Five minutes before Ye Qiao’s arrival, shocking news reached the cell phones of all the reporters in the room-- --Zhao Mo had jumped off a building!
Zhao Mo had made her name not from her acting career but from being the center figure of several major entertainment news events. She had jumped from the 30th floor of a building this morning and died at the scene. She had left a suicide note with her family. The family had made the content public. In the note, Zhao Mo mentioned that she had been goaded by others to take on drugs to entrap Ye Qiao while under the influence of the drugs. Zhao Mo’s fiancee, Shen Yi, also went on camera to confirm that Zhao Mo was in distraught psychologically and her accusation of Ye Qiao was entirely unbelievable.

Zhou Tingsheng sat down at the audience section in the room and all he could hear was the chatter of the reporters.
“This whole thing’s been turned on its head! Is she going to apologize today or not?”
“Who knows. But if Ye Qiao is really innocent, why didn’t she say anything earlier? Why bother with an apology news conference?”

Zhou Tingsheng looked around and his eyes landed on a familiar figure-- --
The man was wearing a navy blue robe and had a very gentlemanly look. He quietly watched Ye Qiao as she leisurely sat down on the stage.
Some reporters who had covered news in the artist circle recognized him: “Isn’t that Xu Zang? I heard that he’s in poor health and only showed up for a little while at the opening ceremony of his own painting exhibition. Why is he here?”

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