C1 Part4

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N – Chapter 1.3

N – Chapter 1.4

Exactly as Liang Sizhe said, he unsurprisingly became the top trending topic a few hours later.

The top few Weibo hot searches were all related to Liang Sizhe, and at first, it looked quite impressive.

“Liang Sizhe A Choice into the Dark”; “Liang Sizhe reshoot”; “Liang Sizhe debt repayment”; “Liang Sizhe airport appearance early in the morning” — a video of him at the airport was also included with those topics, a single shot without any cuts.

Perhaps the editor who’d uploaded the video was one of Liang Sizhe’s fans. The frame used for the video thumbnail looked particularly like a nostalgic Hong Kong film: Liang Sizhe was leaning sideways on top of a lowered car window under dim yellow streetlights, the shadows created from the mixture of night and lights carefully outlining the contours of his face.

Within the field of voices guessing to whom Liang Sizhe was indebted, a completely unrelated comment was pushed to a position near the top: “I suddenly remembered what Cao Xiuyuan had said a few years ago. ‘Look, light and shadow both treat him very tenderly.’”

— “This would be considered him personally leaking the news, right? Fans, don’t keep your hopes up anymore. Since Film Emperor Liang’s already said the film’s related to a debt, then it looks like it’s almost a 80, 90% chance he’s going to take it.”

— “I’m so curious exactly who Liang Sizhe has a debt to? I had a look through information related to the film, and I didn’t see anything about Cao Xiuyuan…”

— “Liang Sizhe definitely doesn’t owe only one Cao Xiuyuan. During his film emperor speech at 17, he said thank you to at least a dozen people.”

— “Supporting role + reshoot, repaying his debt to the point he’s lowering his own value so much. The grade of this particular debt should at least reach Cao Xiuyuan’s level, right?”

The public opinion that day circled mainly around Liang Sizhe’s ‘debt’. Less than two hours later, fast-moving entertainment bloggers listed out the industry people Liang Sizhe was indebted to over these few years.

The list was arranged from high to low, according to just how much each person had assisted Liang Sizhe. Cao Xiuyuan, as the talent scout who’d personally delivered Liang Sizhe to the position of film emperor, deservedly ranked at the top. Xu Yunchu, who’d stayed with Liang Sizhe over all these stormy years, ranked second as expected. Afterwards, scriptwriters, cinematographers, film editors… All of them were big names within the country’s film industry.

Except, as soon as that list was compared to A Choice into Dark’s production crew, no one dared to assert exactly who Liang Sizhe was indebted to.

–

They were meeting thirty minutes from the city for dinner, at a private restaurant specialising in Subang cuisine1.

At 8pm, an ash brown sports car slowly came to a stop in front of the entrance to a private restaurant on the outskirts of the city.

Cao Ye came out of the car and threw his keys to the doorman jogging over.

Lin Yan was standing at the door, idly chatting with Su Tang, the restaurant’s owner. He grinned as soon as he saw Cao Ye and said, “This guy. Can you even drive faster than 30 miles an hour within the 6th Ring? You must die from the amount of fun you have with that manual Aston Martin.”

“You know what’s even better than the fun I have with that car?” Walking over, Cao Ye threw an arm around Lin Yan’s neck and quietly said next to his ear, “La petite mort.”

Lin Yan guffawed, handing him a cigarette. “All right, all right. I’m willing to guarantee that out of the millions of people in the city of Beijing, no one else can have as much fun as you. But you should’ve used another car when coming over, it’s the city’s busiest time right now… Oh.” His eyes slipped past Cao Ye’s shoulder. “Liang Sizhe’s here.”

Following Lin Yan’s gaze, Cao Ye turned around.

Liang Sizhe was just getting out of the driver seat, dressed fairly casually, and he held a jacket in one of his hands. He headed towards them.

“The two of you arriving less than two minutes apart — what’s that called? It’s called being destined by fate.” Lin Yan smirked as he said, “Sizhe, if you don’t take on this film, then you’ll be going against fate.”

Arriving in front of them, Liang Sizhe shook Lin Yan’s stretched out hand and said, smiling, “That’s too exaggerated. It would merely be not meant to be at the most.”

Su Tang also reached out her hand to him. “Sizhe, it’s been a while.”

“Yes it has, Boss Su,” Liang Sizhe replied.

Usually, he would shake hands with Cao Ye as well, considering Cao Ye was the main investor into A Choice into the Dark, but Cao Ye held a cigarette in one hand while his other hand was stuffed into his pockets. Cao Ye stood there, calm and composed, and didn’t look like he intended to offer a hand. It was as though he wasn’t the main person in charge tonight, merely here just to observe.

“Is this ‘we know each other too well, so there’s no need to shake hands’?” Liang Sizhe’s gaze switched to him, a bit of playfulness in his eyes.

Their heights were very similar, their eyes almost level as they looked at each other. Cao Ye pulled his hand out of his pocket only after Liang Sizhe’s words, and he assumed a handshaking posture, his voice in its usual careless and languid tone. “Shaking hands usually requires a few preliminary words. I still haven’t thought of what to say yet.”

“Then how about…” Liang Sizhe lightly clasped his hand. “‘Let’s work well together, President Cao’?”

“Sure,” Cao Ye said.

“Let’s talk inside, I’ve already booked a private room.” Lin Yan offered Liang Sizhe a cigarette, and when he rejected it with a wave of his hand, Lin Yan said with some surprise, “You don’t smoke?”

“I’m trying to quit,” Liang Sizhe said.

“No wonder,” Lin Yan said in understanding. “I was about to say, news about you smoking were on the front pages of entertainment papers a few years ago.” And then, he turned to look at Su Tang. “Su Tang, do you remember how Beijing Morning Post spent half a page talking about it? Just the headline itself took up a quarter of the page. Media really liked making a massive fuss about the tiniest things back in the day. We were still studying then, and we thought, ooh, this bro’s so cool.”

At that time, Liang Sizhe’s hair had been shoulder-length, and he’d tied it up behind his head. Random wisps of hair on his forehead, slightly curly, had come free. He’d crouched next to the snarling stone lion statues at the front of a theatre, and he’d been smoking, staring into the distance with vacant eyes.

No one knew if the paparazzi had done it on purpose or if the angle of the sneakily taken photo had been just right, but when the photo landed on the front page news, the young film emperor had looked both melancholy and rebellious. Media loved that conflicting dichotomy, and the public also loved to gossip about it.

“Hey, look,” Liang Sizhe chuckled. “I had actually long realised the paparazzi were there. I posed like that on purpose.”

“Ah?” Lin Yan was taken aback. “Really?”

“Really. It was mainly because they’d already taken a lot of photos when I finally noticed there were paparazzi around. It wasn’t like I could snatch their cameras from them in a situation like that, so I could only get them take better photos of me. So there was nothing ‘cool’ about it — the photos were all staged. Don’t believe what you see.”

“Wait, Sizhe,” Lin Yan was staring at him, dumbfounded. “You saying that you tricked the paps on purpose is even cooler than the original photos.”

Now, Liang Sizhe turned to look at him. He suddenly laughed, saying, “President Lin, you actually believed me?”

Lin Yan immediately realised he’d been the one to be tricked. As the next head of the Dongsheng Group, Lin Yan had never been so deceived before, and for a moment, he couldn’t quite keep his face straight. If it was another person in front of him, his face might’ve already darkened — but right now, he was facing Liang Sizhe. He could only hold back his anger, force a smile and say, “So were you lying or not?”

“Have a guess,” Liang Sizhe said, smiling at him.

Seeing how utterly humiliated Lin Yan looked, Cao Ye couldn’t help but curl up his lips in a smile as he stood behind them. Lin Yan’s sly and devious personality — really, only Liang Sizhe could control him.

When they were still over ten steps away from their private room, Cao Ye’s phone suddenly rang. He pulled it out for a look; it was a call from Cheng Duan. He wouldn’t casually call — if he called, it would usually be about something urgent. After letting Lin Yan know, Cao Ye walked to a window and picked up. “What is it?”

“Cao Ye, are you having dinner with Liang Sizhe tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Xu Yunchu just called, and she immediately started yelling at me as soon as I picked up, saying they hadn’t even decided whether they were accepting A Choice into the Dark yet so it was foul play for us to leak the news so early… But the thing is, I didn’t tell anyone about Liang Sizhe reading through the script. I didn’t even tell Xu Anqiao. How could the news have been leaked by us?”

Cao Ye thought for a bit and then said, “It would either be Lin Yan or Zhao Chengdong. He Fangwen probably wouldn’t have done it.”

“I thought so too. Lin Yan’s company did things like this quite often last time we worked with them… Cao Ye, in any case, I think you need to explain this directly to Liang Sizhe. It’s best to not have these kinds of misunderstandings, and it wouldn’t reflect well on us either if this spreads.”

“We shouldn’t be the ones explaining. It should be Lin Yan.”

“Ah?”

Thinking of what’d just happened in the hallway, Cao Ye laughed. “I was wondering why he was annoying Lin Yan.”

“What?”

Cao Ye stopped laughing. “Nothing. You don’t have to worry about Liang Sizhe, just explain to Xu Yunchu.”

Cheng Duan was helpless. “I’ve already sworn on my life that we didn’t, but she — maybe she’s not in a good mood…”

“Just tell her that it would be better for her if she stopped investigating who leaked the news and instead, controlled her own actor and got him to stop blabbing to the media.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea either,” Cheng Duan said wryly. “Liang Sizhe could be considered as having helped us out already — if it wasn’t for him, A Choice into the Dark would be dead to the world by now. How would there be so much discussion around it?”

“Don’t worry,” Cao Ye said, “I’ll thank him well.”

Cao Ye walked towards the private room once he hung up.

As soon as he pushed open the door, he saw Lin Yan urging Liang Sizhe to drink. “You’re really quitting? You just said you were giving up smoking, and now you say you’re quitting alcohol? I don’t believe you. Sizhe, I understand you now. People can’t take what you say seriously, if we take you seriously then we’re treating you as an outsider — am I right?”

“You have to believe me, I’m really giving up alcohol.” Liang Sizhe, in seeming earnest, showed Lin Yan the back of his arm. “I’ve gotten a naltrexone shot, look, the injection hole’s still there. I’ll get in trouble if I drink. President Lin, it’s fine if it’s just me, but maybe we should be a bit more cautious considering this has to do with the film reshoot.”

“You really are a film emperor, Sizhe. I don’t know what to believe anymore, out of all the things that come out of your mouth.” Seeing Cao Ye come in, Lin Yan raised his head and looked at him. “Come come come, Cao Ye, good thing you’re here. Sizhe said he’s quitting alcohol. Do you think we should believe him?”

Cao Ye didn’t say yes or no, only walking over and dragging the chair across from Liang Sizhe away from the table to sit in. Cao Ye said, looking at him, “Quitting smoking and now quitting alcohol. Are you becoming a monk? Then have you also quit sex?”

“Of course,” Liang Sizhe said. “Can’t you tell I’ve been pure and free from worldly desires lately? To be honest with you, after the airport video was uploaded online this morning, the crew for the new Journey to the West2 adaptation immediately sent over an invitation and strongly requested for me to take on the role of Tang Sanzang. What does that tell you?”

Cao Ye was amused. “That tells me you’re good at talking nonsense. What kind of production crew would link you to Tang Sanzang?”

“I’m serious. But that’s nothing,” Liang Sizhe said, all seriously and very much in earnest. “Last year, someone wanted to make a Chinese remake of King Kong. The producer desperately wanted me to grace them with the honour of acting as King Kong after seeing me.”

No one would link Liang Sizhe with that enormous gorilla, and so Cao Ye chuckled, too lazy to bother with him. “You go ahead and keep babbling.”

Holding onto a half-filled wine glass, Liang Sizhe gently swirled the red wine inside and gazed at Cao Ye. “The Beauty and the Beast. Guess who they wanted to play the female lead?”

Cao Ye didn’t indulge him with a response. “Not interested.”

Instead, it was Lin Yan who excitedly asked, “Who?”

Liang Sizhe placed the wine glass back on the table and pushed it towards Lin Yan. Doing unto him what Lin Yan had done to him, he said, “I’ll tell you if you finish this glass of wine.”

Lin Yan clearly knew that the Chinese version of King Kong was utter nonsense, but Liang Sizhe simply had the ability to tantalise others people’s curiosity. Lin Yan picked up the half glass of wine he’d personally poured just earlier.

Liang Sizhe gestured to him — after you.

When it came to drinking, Lin Yan had always been quick and easy. He now lifted high the glass and finished the wine in one go, and then he pointed the rim of the glass towards Liang Sizhe. “Now tell me.”

Deliberately acting mysterious, Liang Sizhe raised his index finger to his lips. In a lowered voice he said, “Shh. It was Lin Huan.”

As soon as he heard, Lin Yan broke into loud laughter.

Fine, since this joke was pointed directly at Cao Ye, the glass of wine was well worth it. Everyone in their industry knew about Lin Huan and Cao Ye and Liang Sizhe — roughly a few years ago, Cao Ye had fiercely chased after Lin Huan. He had just been about to succeed when abruptly, the media exposed a photo of Liang Sizhe and Lin Huan holding and kissing each other at the corner of a street.

It would’ve been fine if the matter had been that simple, but the thing was: two weeks before A Choice into the Dark got into trouble, Liang Sizhe and Lin Huan had been deemed by a famous magazine in the industry as the ‘Entertainment Industry’s #1 Most Bittersweet CP’3. A few days after that, Lin Huan had been papped entering a hotel with a mystery man in the middle of night — and that ‘mystery man’ had been Cao Ye.

The particular news source that’d leaked the video had unstintingly praised, “The man was tall and looked like a male model. From the back, he looked quite young — a downright ‘little wolf-dog’4.”

Despite all the speculation on the internet, Cao Ye had rarely ever appeared in the public eye, and so the pageantry of the suspected man never landed on his head. But this wasn’t a secret in Cao Ye’s circle of friends; for a period of time, a few of his friends kept joking around and calling him ‘little wolf-dog’, only for Cao Ye to curse back at them with a ‘fuck off’, his face dark.

Since the joke had been meant for him, Cao Ye returned fire. “I don’t care about the beauty. I just want to know if you were really going to climb all the way to the top of the Empire State Building and smack down planes5.”

He was talking about a classic scene in King Kong, but there was a double entendre in his words — and everyone burst into laughter.

Liang Sizhe laughed as well, unhurriedly responding only after he’d laughed enough. “Now that… Since they need to localise the film, they plan on having me climb up a local Beijing landmark. I may as well try Luomeng’s building. It would be an honour if President Cao would be willing to lend us the place.”

Cao Ye smiled. “Sure, no problem.”

Lin Yan was enjoying the fun, and he poured some wine for Cao Ye, grinning. “Sizhe, you’re fantastic at needling others. Cao Ye’s mouth is usually particularly sharp, we usually never get to see him so goaded. Come, Cao Ye — you’ve met your match today. Have a drink.”

“What match, he’s known as the ‘King of Provocation’. Lin Yan, you think too highly of me,” Cao Ye said, but he still accepted the glass of wine Lin Yan handed over, taking a sip.

Liang Sizhe had ordered a glass of ice water, and it now arrived. He drank some of it and then said, “That’s true. In fact, I can be considered as Cao Ye’s teacher when it comes to provoking others. He was such an obedient boy when I first met him.”

“Obedient?” Lin Yan glanced at Cao Ye, thinking that description was rather new. “When has he ever been obedient?”

“Ten years ago?” Liang Sizhe looked towards Cao Ye. “Wasn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” Cao Ye absentmindedly said, placing some food in his bowl.

Translator has something to say:

Subang cuisine comes from Suzhou. It comes from Suxi cuisine, which then originated from Jiangsu cuisine. (Suzhou is west of Shanghai, where Suxi cuisine is from, and Jiangsu is the province where both Suzhou is in). ↩Journey to the West is one of the four great classical Chinese literature novels, and is the quintessential hero’s journey (and Tang Sanzang is the Buddhist monk protagonist). Its endless adaptations have their own Wikipedia page. LSZ here is saying he’s been so clean he’s being asked to play a monk. ↩The characters I translated as ‘bittersweet’ for the ‘Entertainment Industry’s #1 Most Bittersweet CP’ is 意难平. There’s no direct translation for that, and it comes from poetry. Essentially, saying something is 意难平 means it’s unforgettable, tinged with sadness/pain. It’s not used to refer to something in the future; it’s used only to refer to something in the past. So when a CP (a couple) is described as 意难平, then it’s kind of like saying people dearly loved them together, and now that they’ve separated, people still look wistfully back at them and wish for what could’ve been. ↩‘Little wolf-dog’ is 小狼狗, one of those random descriptions Chinese netizens like to think up 🙂 Used to refer to a man who appears super fierce/dominant/determined to chase after a woman (hence, wolf dog) but is younger (‘little’). The opposite of a 小狼狗 is ‘little milk dog’ (小奶狗), which is more the sweet, puppy-eyed kind of man 🙂 ↩‘Smack down planes’ is 打飞机 (literally translated as ‘to hit planes’) and is slang for masturbating/playing with your own (or someone else’s) dick. Cos, you know. Dicks and airplanes… whirling around… etc. etc. ↩

N – Chapter 1.5

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