Growing curious, she skipped the kitchen and rambled to the living room only to find it, too, completely deprived of any human presence. The room was solely dancing in tranquillity.
"Mom? You are not here?"
No reply came.
The apartment Zhao Yuhui had bought wasn't so big that her mother couldn't even hear her voice. It was a two-room apartment with attached washrooms, a living room and a kitchen. Her mother can not even be in the kitchen because had that been the case, Zhao Yuhui would have heard the sound of utensils as soon as she was out of her room.
Could she have gone to the neighbour's place? Maybe, remembering how they were acting like best friends on the day they first met, it was possible.
Zhao Yuhui shrugged after standing still for a few seconds. Her mother wasn't a child that she needed to be worried about. After all, she knew the way around this locality way better than her.
With another grumble inside her stomach, Zhao Yuhui sighed and went to the kitchen.
Not a single thing good enough to be eaten. This was what came to her mind after scanning through each section inside the fridge. No juice, no eggs, no milk...on top of that no leftovers. Her mother couldn't be so heartless to have left her with nothing on purpose, right?
Zhao Yuhui was going to turn around but stopped the moment she noticed something with her peripheral vision. A paper was stuck on the door of the fridge, specifically a note.
'Nothing is left in there so am going out to buy some groceries. I might get late since am going to roam around too so eat snacks or whatever you have kept hidden all these months to fill up your stomach. It's your home, you must know where which snack is kept buried.'
Zhao Yuhui read it and nonchalantly stuck it back on the fridge. Snacks were buried...let's see. She rummaged through upper cupboards to find all sorts of junk food except for something that could really erase her hunger. There should be something else over here as well. Where was it?
Ah, it was here! At last, she did find instant cup noodles hiding behind a few packets of chips, smothered with the dust.
She took it out and casually wiped the outer pack before checking the expiry date.
Gladly, it hadn't been that long since it was manufactured though even she can't remember when she bought it. Zhao Yuhui slightly opened the upper lid, took out all the ingredients, unwrapped and added them in. She boiled the water and poured it in the cup before quickly closing back the lid.
Taking the chopsticks, a cup of noodles and a bottle of water, she made her way to the dining table which was placed in the living room beside a floor-to-ceiling window.
As she saw the sky getting coloured in different shades of orange by the sun setting at the far end, Zhao Yuhui thought about her life.
It had been three years since she entered this industry yet there seemed to be no major outbreak in her career. Even if she was performing the main female lead's role in the drama 'A Mystery', it was still not what would take her to get among A-list actors.
In the last three years, she had met several rejections, failures, step backs and on top of that countless tricks.
It was only earlier this year when the movie in which she had acted as a second lead unexpectedly went hit, causing her popularity to rose to the extent that she came under the eye of one of the representatives of Glimmer Entertainment.
Since it was Glimmer Entertainment she had thought things would improve for her from here on but who would have thought that after entering it days would be just like the days when she had first debuted.
Zhao Yuhui had always heard that Glimmer Entertainment functioned differently than all the other entertainment companies and that, she understood now.
Zhao Yuhui herself didn't have any doubt that one day she would be counted among the top artists in the industry but when? She wasn't sure. It might take her a year, two or maybe three more years for that to happen. Would she be able to hold till then?
It was so exhausting to keep on continuously waiting for something to happen while having only 'hope' as support.
After she slurped the remaining soup, Zhao Yuhui stood up and dumped the cup in the dustbin after cleaning the table. It was more than enough self-introspection for the day about her life.
Seeing that it hadn't gotten dark yet and her mother wasn't still back, Zhao Yuhui yawned and went back to her room. She set the alarm on her phone for two hours from than before hitting back the sack.
"Zhao Yuhui!!!"
Zhao Yuhui woke up with a start due to the random loud yell of her mother. She swept her eyes over the room and at the window to find it completely dark outside. What's the time right now? Hadn't she closed her eyes just two minutes back?
In a hurry, Zhao Yuhui brought over her phone to check the time only to get shocked to see it more than what she had planned. Instead of two hours she overslept for four hours.
On another yell of her mother, she staggered to the kitchen and witnessed her mother bringing the dinner out. "Mom? When did you arrive?"
"When you were sleeping like there is no tomorrow." Mother Zhao placed the bowl on the table.
"I had set the alarm but for some reason, it didn't ring. Maybe I forgot to turn it on after setting the time." Zhao Yuhui was confused. She had purposely set the alarm for two hours so she could be up on time to help her mother with cooking.
"Didn't ring? I could hear the sound of it right from the doorway. Maybe if you wouldn't be sleeping like a pig, you could have heard it." Mother Zhao threw a strange look at her daughter and went to the kitchen to bring the plates out. Zhao Yuhui was speechless. Why did it feel as if her mother was taunting her reason?
Anyway, all these years, Zhao Yuhui had grown used to her mother's taunts and was aware that if she made any comments, the replies would come even insulting. Tacitly, she grabbed the plates from her mother's hands and carried them to the dining table.
Mother Zhao shooked her head at the silent way of pleasing while wiping her hands with an apron. She removed the apron and also came to the dining.
"You are going to University tomorrow?" Mother Zhao asked as soon as she sat down and put a piece of meat in her daughter's bowl.
"I think so. Attendance is also important so I need to go." Zhao Yuhui ate the rice before giving a response.