Chapter 64: Devotion

She was truly drunk.

Not that anyone had seriously tried to pressure her with drinks; of the two bottles of Xifeng liquor, Lin Jianlu had downed about a pound and three or four ounces, while she had consumed at most six or seven ounces. Yet, it had been enough to flush her cheeks a peach-blossom pink and give her eyes a watery, captivating allure.

He escorted her back to her hotel.

She stumbled and swayed, leaning heavily against him as Lin Jianlu half-carried, half-supported her all the way to her room.

"Well now, can you manage a shower by yourself? If you want me to wash you, I'm going to have to get hands-on!"

She burst into laughter, acting spoiled. "Then carry me in and wash me!"

She began patting around for her handbag everywhere, finally locating her cigarettes and lighter. "I was suffocating!" she declared, lighting one up right then and there, and even offering it to Lin Jianlu. "Smoke! Have a puff! Plenty of singers smoke; don't give me that nonsense about protecting your vocal cords—it's all a lie! Leslie Cheung smokes like a chimney, and your good friend Faye Wong smokes loads of them."

Lin Jianlu waved his hand in refusal.

"People always love to joke about Chinese men: trying to drag respectable women into the mire while urging prostitutes to turn over a new leaf. I reckon women are just the same. Offering cigarettes to non-smokers and trying to get smokers to quit."

She burst into laughter once more, but stubbornly pushed herself up, leaned close to Lin Jianlu, and jammed the cigarette she had been smoking straight into his mouth, acting willful. "No! I want to see you smoke just once today!"

"Hah!"

Unable to win against her, Lin Jianlu took it and drew a puff. She looked immensely pleased, taking it back to continue smoking herself, only to freeze a moment later as she glanced down—Lin Jianlu's hand was sliding up her thigh.

Bare leg, silky and tender.

"So white, so tender, so smooth!"

Brigitte Lin was startled, then chuckled, swatting his hand away. "Cravings acting up? Don't you have a girlfriend back on the mainland?"

"What kind of question is that? Do I have to come equipped with a girlfriend no matter where I go?"

"Ha, don't go telling that to me, go tell the media! Do you need me to name-drop them for you? Mavis Hee, Winnie Hsin, Rene Liu, Gigi Leung, Rosamund Kwan..."

"Hai..."

Lin Jianlu waved a hand, though he still gave her thigh a few lingering, reluctant fondles before finally and regretfully pulling his claws back. He asked her instead, "By the way, you said you wanted to reel in a rich guy—did you catch one yet?"

She shrugged, exhaling a plume of smoke. "Not yet. Still working hard on it."

Lin Jianlu gave a light chuckle. "Come on, look at you, you're not even truly drunk! I'm off then! I'll come knocking on your door tomorrow morning and take you to see the flag-raising ceremony! Time for some patriotic education!"

Just as he stood up, however, Brigitte Lin grabbed his wrist and yanked hard, pulling him right back down onto the sofa. Smiling, she said, "Where do you think you're going? You promised to carry me to the shower in a bit!"

"Cut the act! I'm a twenty-year-old guy, I can't handle this kind of thing!"

She threw her head back and laughed triumphantly.

***

Afterward, however, a mouthful of smoke was puffed straight into Lin Jianlu's face.

Seeing Lin Jianlu unhappily wave a hand to fan away the smoke, she grew even more pleased, though she eventually looked around, located the mini-bar with her eyes, and stood up, saying, "You sit tight, I'll boil some water! Are you thirsty?"

Suddenly, though, Lin Jianlu reached out and grabbed her hand in return.

With a gentle tug, she found herself dropping straight down into his lap.

She paused, slightly startled.

Even after drinks, and even with two or three layers of fabric between them, she could clearly feel the hard contours—especially the volume and the heat. She couldn't help but laugh softly, mixed with surprise. "Are you serious? Or are your cravings really acting up?"

They had bantered and flirted with each other numerous times, but no matter how breathtakingly gorgeous she had been in her youth, Brigitte Lin at forty-two had never dared to imagine that she could genuinely sweep a twenty-year-old, handsome, and wildly popular Asian superstar off his feet. Her current ideal partner was a well-off middle-aged man under fifty, preferably not too ugly, which would satisfy her just fine.

Normally, she was just teasing a big boy like Lin Jianlu for fun.

It served as a kind of psychological compensation for her vanishing youth. If she could roll back the clock to when she was twenty—unmatched in elegance and peerless in grace—she might have felt worthy of matching him.

Lin Jianlu said nothing, lifting a hand to slide her dress right up.

She let out a soft laugh, instinctively raising the hand holding her cigarette, but immediately let out a soft moan as she clamped her hand down over his, smiling. "My fault, my fault! I won't tease you anymore! I'm old, I can't afford to play games with you like this."

Lin Jianlu looked up at her, smiled, and suddenly snatched the cigarette from her hand. Holding it in one hand, he used the strength of his other arm to hoist her straight up onto his shoulder, carrying her fireman-style.

Passing the mini-bar, he casually stubbed out the cigarette.

As they headed straight for the bedroom, Brigitte Lin froze for a second, then suddenly chuckled. "We need to get this straight beforehand, though—just this once, otherwise you'll ruin my chances of getting married!"

The bedroom door of the suite was then firmly kicked shut by Lin Jianlu's foot.

***

"All day long you talk big and tease me, and where did all that wild charm of yours go? Is that it already?"

"Pfft..."

Brigitte Lin no longer had the strength to laugh out loud, but she still curled up in his arms, shaking with soft laughter. "Big boss, I'm forty! You still expect to play with me like I'm some little girl? Besides, I haven't had a boyfriend in years, you have to let me warm up to it! Tomorrow, how about tomorrow?"

"You kept saying that drinking some alcohol makes you feel warmer inside, and I actually believed you! Look at you instead—before it even started, you sprayed me all over! And it wasn't even hot water either!"

"Pfft..."

She shook with laughter all over again, finally unable to help herself as she reached out to cover Lin Jianlu's mouth, putting on a show of coquettish annoyance. "Shut your mouth!" But she quickly softened up, coaxing him in a gentle tone, "Big boss, I'm begging you, stop talking! I'll make it up to you tomorrow! I definitely will! I really am past forty, and honestly, I didn't expect I'd become this sensitive... Hahaha, seriously, it feels like my bones turned to jelly all at once, I really can't summon any more energy right now!"

Ignoring her, Lin Jianlu reached out to tease her further, startling her into shrinking back and using one hand to block him. "Please! I'm begging you! Just give me a whole night to recover!"

Sigh... I should have just gone home instead!

***

The next morning, Lin Jianlu was drinking tea with Han Shanping and Zhang Heping.

To his slight surprise, Feng Xiaogang and Xu Fan were shut out and didn't show up.

Of course, since Han Shanping was playing host today, it wasn't really Lin Jianlu's place to comment on whom he chose to invite or exclude.

Today, Brigitte Lin was radiant with energy and sparkling with witty remarks.

The two old codgers were quite captivated by her.

Yet as the conversation went on, these two veterans quickly grasped the subtle dynamics of the room; the topics began to lean more and more toward Lin Jianlu. Even Brigitte Lin gradually spoke less, listening attentively to their discussion.

Truth be told, Lin Jianlu didn't have any profoundly deep insights to offer.

They were talking about movies, and since that wasn't his actual profession, he was mostly just tossing out the same old cliches he'd heard in later generations and spouting nonsense—he tended to do that in many of his conversations.

It wasn't that he wanted to show off, nor was it that he deliberately avoided it; as someone born in the late nineties, he had simply grown up in that kind of environment. With the internet wide open, everyone could pontificate and ramble nonsense. Through endless online discussions, a vast consensus of widely accepted viewpoints had gradually formed—and those were simply the things he happened to know.

What he didn't realize, however, was that whether in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or earlier among the circle of Beijing musicians and filmmakers, and now with Han Shanping and Zhang Heping, the reason he was so universally welcomed, accepted, and even revered by many who quickly took him into their inner circle—while undoubtedly aided by his early fame and mature demeanor—was precisely because of the things he had picked up secondhand from the internet of the future, topped off with a modest amount of his own casual BS.

To Han Shanping and Zhang Heping at this particular moment, many of his "insights" sounded deeply thought-provoking.

How did Jackie Chan make his money? What were the formulas of commercial filmmaking? Why was domestic cinema currently starved of film capital? But at the same time, film capital was by no means a philanthropist, and once it developed, it had to be kept under control.

Such topics were tossed about casually in conversation.

As noon approached, Han Shanping pressed them warmly to continue, so the group relocated. Teapots were swapped for wine carafes, and pastries and melon seeds for braised beef and mutton soups. They ate, drank, and chatted all the while.

Halfway through the drinks, as the atmosphere grew increasingly cordial, Han Shanping extended a sincere invitation. "Recently, Heping and I have been discussing exploring private production models alongside state-run studios like Beijing Film Studio and Xi'an Film Studio. Since you, Jianlu, invested in *Spicy Love Soup* and Guoli's television drama project successively, you must have an interest in this sector. Our long chat earlier only confirmed that suspicion even more. What do you say, shall we all do this together?"