C2 Part4

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P – Chapter 2.3

P – Chapter 2.4

Zheng Yin was relaxed, and he drove the car over to the main road in a flash.

He thought that should be able to control Cao Ye for a few days — without any money, that child wouldn’t be able to play his away over to somewhere else.

He understood Cao Ye. That child loved to play and found trouble easily, but he also had plenty of good points. For example, he wasn’t pretentious; he was someone who took things as they came and was able to be joked around with. Having him live in Lan Yan for a period of time — he would most likely just complain a few times and wouldn’t truly get angry at you. The next time Zheng Yin saw him, he was likely to have forgotten about it completely already.

Cao Xiuyuan’s son wouldn’t be a wrong choice, Zheng Yin thought.

Zheng Yin treated Cao Ye much more meticulously than Cao Xiuyuan did, Cao Ye’s actual true father. Ever since he started working for Cao Xiuyuan ten years ago as both his assistant and his production manager, he’d yet to be absent from Cao Ye’s yearly birthday celebration.

Zheng Yin devoted himself without exception to all of Cao Xiuyuan’s works — no matter if it was the films he made, or his only child Cao Ye.

It was the same this time, too. The script Cao Xiuyuan wanted to film was centred around a youth who lived in the slums; the story was the unfolding of his committing a crime. The script was an original work from their old partner, Zhou Ru, and even though it was difficult to believe, the birth of the story truly couldn’t be separated from Cao Ye.

That night, Zhou Ru had been sitting at the table with Cao Xiuyuan and the rest of them, drinking, and when she’d heard Cao Xiuyuan’s son, Cao Ye, was coming back from overseas within the next few days, she’d become fascinated and said she wanted to see how he looked.

And so Zheng Yin found a photo of Cao Ye from within his phone and showed it to her. It was a photo taken during Cao Ye’s birthday last year, and Cao Ye had played an entire afternoon of outdoor laser tag that day with his friends — his team had lost particularly badly, and his clothes had been torn in quite a few places. His pants and sleeves had been dirty from the soil; he’d looked utterly dusty. When Zheng Yin went over to coax him into taking a photo, Cao Ye had been in a bad mood, his face sullen, and he’d still been carrying the birthday present Zheng Yin had gifted him just a few minutes ago: a very costly violin.

During that time, Zhou Ru had been suffering from a lack of inspiration for two straight years, and she hadn’t written anything new. But unexpectedly, after seeing that photo, she’d had a flash of brilliance. She’d gone home and typed out the main storyline that very night.

“A youth, living in the slums, who couldn’t breathe from the pressure of the valuable violin on his back.” Zhou Ru had said she wanted to write the kind of story in which privilege and poverty interwove with each other, in which back alleys and urban city collided with each other — a story about a lifestyle that couldn’t be left behind and an inescapable destiny.

Logically speaking, when it came to a character that had been born because of Cao Ye, there would be no one else more suitable to act out that character than Cao Ye himself. But Cao Xiuyuan kept refusing to make up his mind.

Two days ago, when they’d gone to Yan City to scout locations, Cao Xiuyuan had been hit by a sudden impulse and had said he wanted to go to the nearby music school to look around. It was precisely because of that abrupt impulse that they’d ended up bringing Liang Sizhe to Beijing from the far away Yan City.

And as for deciding whether Liang Sizhe would act in the main character role, Cao Xiuyuan still remained uncertain. He only told Zheng Yin to leave Liang Sizhe in a similar environment to wait.

After working with Cao Xiuyuan for many years, Zheng Yin obviously understood the meaning behind him doing so. Liang Sizhe didn’t have any acting experience, so if they really were to cast him as the main character, then all of his acting would essentially come from instinct — as well as the life experience he’d had so far. But so far, their current situation after seeing Liang Sizhe’s living conditions was thus: he’d grown up in an environment that was too superior. He actually might not know how it was like to grow up in the slums, so he needed to place himself in someone else’s shoes to observe, to experience and then to integrate himself into that kind of surrounding.

“Then what about Cao Ye?” Zheng Yin had asked Cao Xiuyuan. “Should I take him over together?”

“If you can get him to go, then take him too,” Cao Xiuyuan had said.

When the car stopped at the lights, Zheng Yin pulled himself out of his thoughts and took out his phone, calling Cao Xiuyuan. “Yuan-ge, I’ve dropped Xiao Ye off… He was pretty obedient. Yes, don’t worry…”

—

Cao Ye walked back unhappily, holding back his annoyance as he searched around for that one hundred RMB bill he’d just casually thrown away.

He planned on using that one hundred RMB to hire a taxi nearby and head to a friend’s place.

And yet he couldn’t find it.

That one hundred RMB bill disappeared without a single trace, gone as cleanly as though it’d never existed.

Cao Ye had a moment of irritation and then raised his head to sweep his eyes over the men and women and elderly and young who were busying themselves around the alley. At this very moment, they were all uniformly watching this ‘unfortunate young master’ search everywhere for money. They watched this strange sight as if they were watching a show.

The looks on their faces were too identical, to the point Cao Ye couldn’t tell who took his money. He stood there and then opened his mouth, using a voice at normal volume to ask someone — even he didn’t know who — “Who picked up my one hundred RMB?”

Of course no one responded to him. Anyone who admitted they took his money would probably be an idiot.

Pausing for two seconds, Cao Ye also thought his question was pretty dumb. He lifted a hand and ruffled his hair, listlessly continuing to walk back.

When he arrived at Lan Yan, Liang Sizhe was still standing at the entrance. Cao Ye didn’t know what exactly about these dirty and old-fashioned shopfronts that were worth investigating — was he judging the age of each shop based on the thickness of the grease and dirt covering those shopfronts?

“Hey,” he called out, standing below the curb and slightly lifting up his chin. Liang Sizhe was standing on the steps.

Liang Sizhe was just then pondering what he should have for dinner later. After hearing that voice calling out to him, he slowly moved his gaze from the row of shopfronts over to Cao Ye’s face.

“Did you see who picked up my one hundred RMB?”

Liang Sizhe’s eyes paused for a moment on his face and then, as though each word was as precious as gold, said, “No.”

“What terrible… forget it.” Cao Ye felt he most likely had no more luck with that bill, so he asked another question. “Then do you know where’s the closest ATM?”

“No.”

Just as Cao Ye was about to open his mouth again, the store owner hurriedly jogged out from the store. Her voice was naturally loud, and it arrived before she did. “Are you tired from waiting? Has Boss Zheng left?”

Cao Ye gloomily responded with a ‘mn’.

After working in this area of business for so many years, the store owner’s ability to understand what someone was thinking from their face and behaviour had already permeated into every single one of her cells. She easily noticed his reluctance to stay here, so she went up to him and nicely coaxed, “Don’t be convinced by how bad the first floor looks, I’ve actually left our best room for the two of you. You’ll be satisfied as soon as you go upstairs and look at it. Let’s go, you two handsome boys…” Her eyes saw the luggage left not too far away. “Eh? Is that your luggage?” She walked over while she spoke, intending to pull it up.

Cao Ye took a step over before she could, his mood not having been improved by the store owner in the least. There was still no excitement or interest in his voice. “It’s mine, I can bring it up myself.” He then headed over and bent his body over to grab the handle, lifting it up as he walked up the steps.

The ageing wooden staircase creaked as they went up. Cao Ye was in front while Liang Sizhe was behind him by two steps, carrying his own luggage. The store owner was behind both of them, and she shouted up to the two youths, “Third floor, the room at the very end.”

The third floor was a secluded hostel, price cheap and conditions terrible. The people who lived here asked only for an inexpensive stay; some tenants lived here for quite a few years after moving in.

There was no sunlight in the corridor, and they relied only on the weak glow emanating from the sparse and dim lights over their heads. Looking into the corridor, the old timber doors, all of the same colour, appeared dark and pitch-black — for no reason at all, they looked a bit scary.

Dull and muffled sounds came from the two of them as they pulled their luggages over the artificial marble floor. Cao Ye lifted a hand to push open the door at the very end of the corridor, but it didn’t move; the door was locked.

“I have the key.” The store owner quickened her footsteps and chased after them, groping out a key from her pocket. “The room was just cleaned today,” she said, turning the key inside the lock. She turned the handle and pushed the door open. “Why don’t you come inside and have a look?”

The room was quite large, and it faced south. It was already near 7pm, yet the room was still bright with light. The furniture might’ve been a bit simple and crude, but the room truly was clean and tidy, completely out of place from the environment downstairs. If they didn’t personally open the door and come inside for a look, no one would expect this room to be so light and spacious just from how the corridor looked.

Cao Ye stopped at the threshold. Liang Sizhe turned sideways and went inside, leaning his luggage against the wall before wandering around the room. There were two double beds covered with spotlessly white sheets, and a medium-sized TV hung on the wall, facing the gap between the two beds. One metre next to it, a four door lacquered wardrobe stood against the wall, looking like it was somewhat poor quality. A moderately-sized wooden square table was placed near the window. Other than these furnishings, there was nothing else in the room.

It was okay, Liang Sizhe thought. It was much better than what he’d imagined before walking in here.

But he raised his head and looked at Cao Ye, who was standing at the door. He was slightly frowning, just slightly away from having the words ‘what the hell is this’ written onto his face.

Cao Ye really did want to say that out loud, but the store owner in front of him was too enthusiastic; it made him not want to disappoint her, so he choked back those words that’d arrived at the tip of his tongue and switched to saying something a tiny bit more tactful. “Double room? Both of us are living here?”

“Yup.” Faced with Cao Xiuyuan’s precious young son, the store owner said with a smile, “Little ancestor, this is our only good room in this place. Where can I find you another one of these? You don’t believe me, do you? I’ll take you to look at next door. The lighting in that one is much worse than this room’s, and it’s also much smaller. If you’re willing to live there by yourself, I won’t stop you.”

Zheng Yin had actually been the one to bring up placing the two of them together in one room. He truly was scared of Cao Ye being led astray; if Cao Ye one day impulsively brought a girl back to his room, or even started living together with her, Zheng Yin wouldn’t be able to explain it to Cao Xiuyuan. Just by the simple fact of having Cao Ye live in one room with Liang Sizhe, it would prevent Cao Ye from bringing a girl back to his room — leaving aside whether Liang Sizhe was willing to watch over him or not.

And as for the store owner, she naturally hadn’t lied. Zheng Yin honestly had been generous with money, but she truly had limited options to work with — she really couldn’t empty out and find another respectable looking room. The room in front of them had been quickly changed from an eight-person bunk bed room.

Cao Ye actually did follow her and look into the room next door. With only just a glance, he gave up his intention to live in a single room.

The store owner had spoken truthfully: next door was seriously small, roughly only around ten square metres in size. The bed in the middle took up over half of the space, and the bathroom curled into the corner of the room was pitifully cramped. Whoever showered in there might not be able to even turn their body around.

“I didn’t lie to you, did I?” She was following behind him. “I know you guys are important people, so I specifically vacated out our best room. Little ancestor, just live together. I’m going to go downstairs and work, you guys unpack yourself.”

Once she finished speaking, she brought Cao Ye out and closed the door. She then handed two sets of keys to them, and without much delay, she went downstairs to work.

P – Chapter 2.5

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