Hard to Escape

Chapter 30

After all these days, this was the first time I saw him straight on. He always seemed to have this special aura; one could always pick him out from the crowd. I was squeezed in the midst of an excited group of dancers, and took a glance at him from a distance.

Yin Xuan was clearly very happy to see Yin Li. She pulled his hand and was cheerfully saying something. However, Yin Li seemed to be absent-minded. His gaze swept across the crowd of dancers and finally landed on me.

He then smiled at me. It was a shallow, imperceptible smile that seemed to disappear as quickly as it had appeared. Yet I still was able to catch it.

Afterwards, Yin Li frequently came to see us rehearse. The cast and crew all called him the perfect brother. But only I knew that his gaze wasn't on Yin Xuan. What's more, Yin Xuan knew all this yet didn't expose the matter. Dancing occupied all her focus. She liked this script.

Because I had become a supporting actress, the crew had assigned me an individual dance coach and choreographer. Every day, I would practice the choreography alone.

Yin Li's gaze followed me all along. His gaze was polite. It tenderly stopped at the appropriate distance. There was no sense of encroachment. His gaze was warm and kind.

We never exchanged words, yet I felt at ease.

Soon, my scenes would begin shooting. The first time I acted with Yin Xuan, she wore patched-up clothes, pushed my wheelchair and spun around gleefully. As she danced, she twirled my wheelchair around too, letting me experience the joy of dancing.

I looked at her with pure gratitude and joy.

I thought that we would bicker and be unable to act out our parts, but that never happened. Yin Xuan quickly became immersed in her role. Her face brimmed with a bumpkin girl's innocent smile. She looked at me with the same clear gaze. It was as if she was really looking at her younger sister, whom she tenderly loved.

"I will be your legs!" she said to me. Then, she started dancing on the dusty road. The uneven, pothole-ridden road was unable to stop her passion for ballet.

"As long as this ground is made for standing, this ground is made for dancing!"

I looked at her and shouted in excitement: "You're flying! You're flying!"

She turned and looked at me. The backlighting traced out her gorgeous silhouette. "I will fly. I will fly out of this village, and fly with you together to see the world."

We shot these scenes all in one take. The director was very satisfied. Yet once the cameras stopped rolling, Yin Xuan and I exchanged a fleeting glance and then turned and walked away from each other. I looked at Yin Li, who was sitting to the side. His expression, which he did not hide fast enough, was yearning yet clearly disappointed at the same time.

Every scene afterwards, he would always sit there with a calm demeanor and complicated expression. When he looked at the love between Yin Xuan and I, he really hoped that reality would reflect our acting.

But that was not meant to be. In the end, the relationship between Yin Xuan and I would only worsen, and our on-screen relationship was no exception.

Finally, it came to the dance between just the two of us.

I was eager, and I could sense that Yin Xuan had also waited for this moment for a long time.

Currently, the female lead was already a world-famous young dancer. In the streets of Europe, one could see her large, blown-up advertisements. She was no longer the bumpkin girl with the patched-up clothes. She had become a ballet goddess and appeared on the covers of all sorts of fashion magazines.