Yuran was about to say something when her phone suddenly rang, cutting off the conversation between them. As Yuran took out her phone, Bo Yan’s peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the caller’s name on the screen: Qi Younian.
That name sounded somewhat familiar.
As Yuran looked over, he casually shifted his gaze as if he had never looked in her direction at all.
Yuran didn’t avoid it and answered the call directly, "Have you gotten home?"
Qi Younian said, "Not yet, but I just got a call from Xuan Ze. He said the auditions will be unified this weekend, and I’ll send you the location later. For now, I want to show you the general outline so you can mull over the character Tang Wan. If you have time right now, look up some information on Tang Wan."
"I understand," Yuran tightened her grip on her phone. "Let’s hang up then. Be careful driving."
Almost the moment she hung up the phone, the information about Qi Younian came through.
Bo Yan leaned over to take a look, "Script?"
Yuran, focused on the outline, hadn’t noticed Bo Yan’s head coming closer. When she heard him, she turned to speak and her lips brushed against the corner of Bo Yan’s lips.
This was totally unexpected and out of the blue.
Both were startled, then Yuran quickly retreated as if fleeing, her complexion nearly pale. She had a history of being overly intimate; if Bo Yan thought she did it on purpose just now...
Her thoughts were chaotic, but Bo Yan, after a moment of stunned silence, quickly regained his composure. His narrowed eyes held a fleeting glimmer of realization.
Incredibly, he didn’t find it repulsive.
His gaze rested on Yuran, scanning her for a moment. She was still the same person, but...
He couldn’t quite articulate the feeling. Looking at Yuran’s pallid and conflicted face, he was the first to break the awkward silence, "Let me have a look."
"Oh!" Yuran, without overthinking, was willing to do anything just to break the awkwardness.
Since Bo Yan seemed not to care, she didn’t make a big deal out of it either. Only this time, she sat a bit farther from Bo Yan. She had conveniently sat next to him during the phone call, not anticipating this accident.
Bo Yan took her phone and looked at the rough outline of the script. Without looking up, he said to Yuran, "Tang Wan, I know a bit about her."
"Hmm?" Yuran looked at him in surprise. Tang Wan died in the year Bo Yan would’ve been 19, and she was 39. Had the two of them worked together?
Noticing her astonishment, Bo Yan continued, "When I was nineteen, I acted in a movie called ’The Rest of Life’ that wasn’t released domestically. I had a cameo as the son of the character played by Tang Wan. That was my first and last collaboration with Tang Wan.
Do you know how old Tang Wan was when she gave birth to Xuan Che Tang?"
Yuran shook her head, "I don’t!"
In the entertainment industry, having a child at eighteen can turn an actress’s life into a disaster. Whether it’s the company or others, people will judge you through tinted glasses, never letting you escape the scrutiny.
So, hearing this information, she was still quite shocked.
"So Xuan Che Tang, he’s 28 now?"
"Yes," said Bo Yan, his emotions seemingly subdued, his voice somewhat hoarse, "Tang Wan’s life was full of highs and lows, troughs and peaks. She had been destitute as well as glorious.
But you know what? She always maintained her elegance, no matter what.
Even when fate dealt her the harshest blow, Xuan Che’s death, she never allowed herself to become disheveled, living alone with her son.
The outside world had a complex understanding of her, thinking she was a very cold and aloof person, not shedding a single tear over her husband’s death.
But no one thought that on the day her son achieved fame and success, she passed away. Very elegantly, even in death she was graceful."