C2 Part9

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P – Chapter 2.8

P – Chapter 2.9

Liang Sizhe found a noodle restaurant and sat down on a wooden table outside. He ordered a bowl of beef noodles and then unhurriedly started to eat.

The sky was slowly darkening, and all different kinds of stall owners came out one by one to set up their night market stalls. It was as though someone lit a fire underneath the noise of human voices — in just a short while, the boisterous sounds rapidly boiled over.

When the waiter had just served him his noodles, Liang Sizhe saw Cao Xiuyuan come out from Lan Yan. He’d gone down the steps with anger on his face and had pulled open the car door, sitting inside. Just as Liang Sizhe finished half of his bowl of noodles, Zheng Yin also came down; not long after, the off-road car that’d carried him here to Beijing two weeks ago drove off.

Looked like this visit of Cao Xiuyuan’s had nothing to do with him.

Over these last few days, he’d kept thinking about a question when he’d had too much time on his hands, and now, Liang Sizhe couldn’t help but start mulling over it again: why had Cao Ye, Cao Xiuyuan’s son, been sent to live here together with him?

The answer to that question seemed to be crystal clear. Cao Xiuyuan had left Liang Sizhe here in order to get him to observe, and get used to, this kind of environment. Then the purpose behind them leaving Cao Ye here was clearly the same — if it weren’t for acting, there was no need for Cao Xiuyuan to get his pampered and privileged son to endure staying here.

Maybe… he was going to act in a film together with Cao Ye?

Liang Sizhe still couldn’t think of an answer even after finishing his bowl of noodles.

After paying, he didn’t immediately go back to Lan Yan and slowly strolled down the alley. He bought two ham sausages in the convenience store and then crouched down to feed that stray dog at the street corner. The dog was a white domestic breed, and because it slinked around on this street every day, its white fur had already turned unbelievably filthy; it looked like it was covered in dirt.

But the dog’s personality was quite meek and docile — after eating the two sausages, it lowered its head and sniffed the bottom of Liang Sizhe’s pants. When Liang Sizhe reached out and stroked its head, it obediently lay down on its stomach, settling itself onto his shoes.

Liang Sizhe had fed it every day these last two weeks, and affection had grown between this one human and one dog. As soon as he stood up, the dog followed along; it stayed with him as he ran for over an hour around the back streets.

Sweat covered his body from the run, and so Liang Sizhe returned back to Lan Yan to shower. He’d originally assumed Cao Ye would’ve left again; he didn’t expect to see Cao Ye still inside as soon as he pushed open the door.

It had been a bit past 7pm when Liang Sizhe initially went out, the sky only just dimming. The room hadn’t really needed any lights. He’d stayed outside a bit longer tonight, and now, it was already past 10pm — but the lights inside the room had still yet to be turned on.

Some of Lan Yan’s flashing neon lights leaked in through the window, so it wasn’t as though the room was absolutely pitch-black. There was just enough of a glow for someone inside to see. Cao Ye was on his stomach, not moving at all, and Liang Sizhe didn’t turn on the lights, thinking he was asleep. He groped through the dark to find a clean set of clothes and then went to shower.

Cao Ye wasn’t actually asleep. Ever since Zheng Yin left, he’d been in the same position on the bed.

At first, he’d been indignant. Later, he’d been dissatisfied and defiant, and then, in the very end, he’d felt aggrieved for no reason at all.

That ‘Liu Adou who could not hold anything up’ from Cao Xiuyuan had circled around his brain for at least a couple hundred times.

Cao Ye rebelliously wondered: what did Cao Xiuyuan mean by ‘Liu Adou who could not hold anything up’? Was Cao Xiuyuan boasting that he himself was Liu Bei1?! But that kind of thinking didn’t last for long before he felt a wave of discouragement. All right then — in the current Chinese film industry, when it came to being considered as one of its main pillars2, Cao Xiuyuan truly was someone like Liu Bei.

That was where everything fell apart. It would’ve been fine if Cao Ye simply hadn’t been convinced of Cao Xiuyuan’s ability — Cao Ye entirely could’ve taken those harsh words of his tonight as a puff of wind passing by his ear and ignored them. But unfortunately, he was quite aware of Cao Xiuyuan’s skills. Cao Xiuyuan had a terrible temper and couldn’t be considered as an adequate father, but no one could deny his position in the Chinese film industry.

In the film industry, Cao Xiuyuan was a widely recognised genius, his ability to pick actors uniquely precise. No one could deny this, and it was exactly this point that made Cao Ye greatly doubt himself. Was he really like how Cao Xiuyuan had said — was he really just a Liu Adou who couldn’t hold anything up? That sentence hurt his self-esteem too fucking much.

Cao Ye fought with that sentence the entire night. He had yet to finish his fight with it when Liang Sizhe pushed open the door and came inside.

Cao Ye found it quite embarrassing; Liang Sizhe must’ve definitely seen the entire scene of Cao Xiuyuan scolding him. Who knew what Liang Sizhe thought of him now…

Remembering that cold ‘piss off’ that’d come through the phone that other night, Cao Ye thought perhaps Liang Sizhe saw the entire matter as him having brought the trouble onto himself… And in reality, it really did seem that way.

Gurgling sounds of water came from the bathroom, and Cao Ye’s phone vibrated. Fumbling it out, he glanced at it. It was a message from Lin Yan: Are you sleeping at my place tonight?

In low spirits, Cao Ye typed and sent back a word: Nah.

A few seconds later, Lin Yan sent another message: The little beauty’s not angry at you anymore?

What little beauty. He’s not little, okay?

Send over a pic then.

Cao Ye wasn’t in the mood to joke around, so he ignored Lin Yan, throwing his phone to the side and continuing to sullenly lie there.

He thought: he wasn’t going to go back tonight, so maybe he should stay here for a few days. He’d had enough of staying around Lin Yan anyway. Lin Yan was busy being lovey-dovey with that young boyfriend of his all day, and at any given moment, when there was no one else around, he was likely to start making out with that boyfriend. After staying with them for so long, Cao Ye found it particularly tiring and particularly eye-burning.

It really was comfortable staying at Lin Yan’s place, but even though his body was treated well, he suffered through twice as much mental torture…

And besides, just because Cao Xiuyuan said he was Liu Adou, did that really mean he couldn’t hold anything up? He was going to stay here and read through the script thoroughly tomorrow. Why the hell couldn’t he act for the script that’d been inspired by him? He was determined to make Cao Xiuyuan personally admit he’d been wrong, to admit he’d made a wrong judgement. He was definitely going to prove himself this way. Even though he didn’t really have any specific interest in being an actor, what was that saying… Wasn’t it ‘instead of steaming buns, you’re just trying to make a showing’3?

Inside the bathroom, Liang Sizhe pondered as he showered. Was Cao Ye still leaving tonight? When was he leaving?

After his biological clock had adjusted to Lan Yan’s hours, he’d been quite at ease living here by himself. Cao Ye’s sudden return and the abrupt addition of one more person in the room actually made him feel a bit strange.

When Liang Sizhe came out of the bathroom, Cao Ye was still on the bed in the same position as before.

It was past 10pm, and it was the busiest time of day for the small food stalls downstairs. Liang Sizhe had just cleaned up, so he didn’t want to go down and get stained by the scents of oil and smoke. With light movements, he got into bed and lay down, facing directly across from that wooden guitar he’d left against the wall earlier that night. As he stared at its contours, an inexplicable itch grew in his heart.

The not quite nimble middle and ring fingers on his left hand subconsciously twitched. Actually, when he’d first touched that guitar, he’d wanted to see how it felt to have his fingers strum over strings.

It was so strange. While at home, he’d faced his violin every day and hadn’t dared to touch it. But after arriving in Beijing, he’d actually had the urge to do so after seeing an old guitar.

Except he hadn’t been willing to lay his hands on something with strings in front of anyone else. He’d wanted to quietly, without anyone knowing, give it a try within the silence of the night just by himself.

Why did Cao Ye have to come back tonight? On the night he brought back the guitar? Liang Sizhe sighed and pulled out his earphones, putting them in.

The music from Lan Yan’s second floor came through again. Almost every night, there would be someone tone-deaf monopolising the entire floor.

The person last night had been a bass singer, his voice as deep and heavy as a dull bell. As soon as he started roaring, the entire building had seemed to follow along and tremble. The person today was different; he was a courageous tenor with breathtaking lung capacity, his elevated voice seeming to fly up and beyond the highest clouds. He didn’t pause to breathe for the longest time, and for the people listening, it made them worry that he might faint dead away before stopping. Listening to his voice made people anxious — they couldn’t help but pull in air for him.

Liang Sizhe’s earphones couldn’t block the voice with such penetrating power. He was a bit in awe of Cao Ye; that young master looked spoiled and pampered, but he unexpectedly could endure so well, able to peacefully fall asleep in an environment with such terrible voices. He hadn’t even flipped over in a long while.

Lying in bed, Liang Sizhe listened to music with his earphones. He wasn’t sleepy at all — he’d yet to reach his usual sleeping time. Usually, after running and after cleaning up, he would either watch a film for a while or would flip through a reference book for a few pages, but there was an addition of a sleeping Cao Ye next to him today. Liang Sizhe couldn’t do anything.

After lying there in boredom for who knew how long, he still wasn’t sleepy. Liang Sizhe pushed away his covers, sat up and then softly got off the bed.

By this point, both of Cao Ye’s arms were numb from lying on his stomach. He’d been so focused on fighting with himself that he didn’t even notice his arms had gone numb. But when Liang Sizhe stirred and got up from the other bed, creating some minute noises, he’d been pulled out of his thoughts — and now, he realised not only had he lost all feeling in his arms, half of his body had also gone numb.

He attempted to turn over, but his body was like cotton, completely unable to move. It was as though the numbed half of his body didn’t belong to him.

Oh no… He really couldn’t flip over… For an instant, Cao Ye panicked: he couldn’t be paralysed, could he?!

Liang Sizhe picked up that guitar. Its previous owner had installed a black strap on it, perfect for slinging it over his body. He walked to the window, judged the height of the window against the height of the guitar and felt it should be easier to first crawl through the window before he took out the guitar and tugged it over his body. Just as he was about to raise the window, Cao Ye spoke from his bed about one metre away. “Hey, bro…”

Movements pausing, Liang Sizhe turned to look at him.

“Uh…” Cao Ye found it hard to say, but thinking about how his life was more important, he still continued to speak. “Half my body’s gone numb so I can’t turn over. Can you help…”

“……” For a short while, Liang Sizhe actually didn’t know what to say. This request was truly so quaint it was almost unheard of — were there actually people who could sleep until they couldn’t turn over?

Placing the guitar back against the wall, he headed towards Cao Ye’s bed. He grabbed one of his arms, helping him roll over, and then supported him up into a seating position as though he was a patient. Liang Sizhe even shoved a pillow behind his waist, his whole chain of movements appearing rather professional.

Cao Ye hissed out a breath, painfully moving around his arms. “Thanks.”

Liang Sizhe stood by the bed and watched him. “Need help off the bed for a little walk?”

“I don’t think I do…” Cao Ye thought like he’d already lost all the face he should’ve lost since being born today. Besides, it felt like only the upper half of his body had lost all of its feeling; his legs felt okay.

“Then I’m heading out,” Liang Sizhe said.

“Oh.” Cao Ye casually asked, “Where you going?”

Liang Sizhe didn’t respond, putting the guitar onto the window ledge and pushing open the window. With his hands holding onto the window edge, he raised his legs and climbed onto the ledge, his entire person squished as he crouched onto it. He crawled out from that window and then poked a hand back in, taking away that guitar. He didn’t forget to close the window from outside.

He had been quite agile about it — Cao Ye, as he sat in bed, dumbly watched on. Where was he going?

Cao Ye got out of bed and walked to the window in bare feet. After pushing up the window, he looked up. With the guitar on shoulders, Liang Sizhe grasped onto the building’s water pipe with one hand; his other hand was holding onto the bottom of the window ledge one floor above. He used the thin iron plate connecting the water pipe to the building to push himself up, and he climbed up methodically. It was as though he was a professional at committing crimes — it didn’t take long before he successfully stepped onto the fourth floor’s window ledge.

Cao Ye actually really wanted to shout something up at him and give him a startle, but he was also worried about Liang Sizhe falling down if he missed a step. The building might not be that high, but someone falling from the fourth floor would still end up half-paralysed. And so he held back, simply watching as Liang Sizhe used the same method to climb up to the fifth floor. A long leg finally curved in a neat arc in the air, and then, Liang Sizhe’s entire person climbed up to the top of the building and disappeared.

Translator has something to say:

Continuing on from last chapter’s Liu Adou, Liu Bei (刘备) was Liu Adou’s father and the emperor before him. His courtesy name is Xuande, and he was the one who established the Shu kingdom in 219. He’s widely considered as the ideal benevolent and humane ruler who cared for his people and is one of the main pillars of China’s Three Kingdom era. ↩The line here is more literally translated as: ‘when it came to being one of the main supports that kept a three-legged cauldron upright’ (若论起三足鼎立的局面). A ‘three-legged cauldron’ (鼎) is a term that also means ‘the symbol of a dynasty’, so what it’s saying here is that CXY could be considered as one of those three legs keeping the Chinese film industry going. ↩This is a saying (不蒸馒头争口气). The entire saying goes: ‘you sold your wheat and bought a bamboo steamer, so instead of steaming buns, you’re just making a showing.’ The pun here is that now that you’ve sold your wheat, you don’t have anything to steam — so there’s no reason for you to buy a bamboo steamer other than to make yourself look good since you’re just steaming air. The way you say ‘steaming air’ (蒸气, zhēng qì) is the same as ‘make yourself look good’/’to make a showing’ (争气, zhēng qì). This saying is used to tell others to have a backbone and to have belief in yourself. The more someone says you can’t do anything, the more you need to prove yourself and show them they’re wrong and that you can do it — and do it really well. ↩

P – Chapter 2.10

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