C1 Part7

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N – Chapter 1.6

N – Chapter 1.7

The night was dark and heavy, scarcely any people or cars on the streets.

In Cao Ye’s view, Beijing was at its best during this time of day. The roads were peaceful, the ever-present hordes of people had disappeared and now, the city revealed its original profile: dignified and stately, yet arrogant and lofty.

Cao Ye didn’t know where he was going. His car had been left at Susa, and he planned to have his driver pick it up tomorrow. He’d yet to answer the question of where to go in his mind, but his two legs seemed to have made the decision for him.

He became aware that he was walking towards Yinsi Street1. He’d opened a bar in that out-of-the-way, narrow street, and ever since it’d opened for business three years ago, it had yet to turn a profit. It’d been operating at a loss the entire time, even until now. To be honest, he’d never hoped for it to earn him any money — who else would be dumb enough to open an underground bar in that blind alley with so many odd twists and turns. In choosing an area like that, it was obvious he hadn’t wanted it to be noticed and frequented by too many people.

Huang Ying was the bar’s manager. Two years ago, she’d still been distressed about the bar’s bad management, but once she realised Cao Ye didn’t actually care about how much money it lost, Huang Ying had let the bar grow as wildly and uncared for as Cao Ye wanted.

Well, come to think of it, after Huang Ying fully let go and let the bar lose as much money as it wanted, the bar surprisingly actually burgeoned out a tiny, tiny tendril of a likeable atmosphere.

It was a ludicrous, isolated and abandoned place — and all those filmmaking and directing students who were captivated by independent films liked it. All of a sudden, the bar stopped wasting as much money as it used to.

All right then. Might as well go and have a look. It’d been a long time since he last visited.

There were less than two kilometres until he reached Yinsi Street. Cao Ye walked slowly and leisurely, taking only about half an hour to arrive.

The character for ‘burning’ (烧) was erected at the end of the narrow street, and it had been created with flaming effects. If someone actually found their way into this unremarkable blind alley, they would most likely be utterly confused.

The bar was named ‘Burning’ (烧), and it was built under the ground. Clues on how to get inside could only be seen after getting close; if someone wanted to enter the bar, they needed to first walk down a long and cramped set of dark revolving stairs.

To borrow Huang Ying’s words, the staircase was long enough to make someone question exactly what they were doing with their lives.

If he borrowed those directing students’ words, then the staircase was truly fucking suitable for long takes.

Cao Ye heard faint music coming from the underground bar — it sounded like someone was singing Cui Jian’s A Piece of Red Cloth.2

This feeling really made me comfortable

Made me forget I had no place to live

You asked me where I wanted to go

I said, “I want to walk on your road”

He vaguely recognised those lyrics as they left the singer’s mouth. The song was truly quite old, but things with enough power and meaning would never be outdated.

He groped out his phone and gave Huang Ying a call. The ringing lasted for a while with no one picking up; she must be currently busy.

Lowering his head, Cao Ye pulled up the chat between them and sent Huang Ying a message: Key. And then, he put his phone back into his pocket and found a long wooden bench on the side of the road — he sat down and leaned backwards against it, throwing back his head and closing his eyes. He listened to the shadowy, indistinct melody as it trickled out from underground.

–

“Huang Ying-jie, have another drink~”

“No, no, I’m not drinking anymore.” Huang Ying’s head was lowered, looking at the message she’d received half an hour ago. She jumped down from her bar stool, saying, “The boss’s looking for me. I have to leave, you guys continue having fun.”

“President Cao’s here?” The people around the table had lifted their heads to look at her.

“Yup. Don’t you guys have the key to Utopia? Give it to me. Look for me later when you guys need it again.”

“Oh, it’s with me.” Pulling out the key from his pocket, a guy stood up, stretched out his arm and handed it to Huang Ying over the table. “Why did President Cao come by so late tonight?”

“How would I know?” Huang Ying took the key.

“He wouldn’t be unable to sleep because of A Choice into the Dark, would he?” said a guy diagonally across from her, laughing.

The students around the table chimed in with their own sounds of laughter, while the girl sitting next to him smacked his arm. “Don’t jinx it.”

Huang Ying had already reached the staircase. Hearing the talk and laughter, she turned back around and smiled, saying, “Worry about your own films first.”

She went quickly up the stairs, steadying herself with her hands against the uneven walls.

It was two different worlds above and below the ground — outside was peaceful and calm, entirely distinct from the loud and noisy atmosphere in the bar. Huang Ying dragged in a deep breath and walked out of the stairs; as soon as she came outside, she saw Cao Ye sitting on the long wooden bench, sleeping with his head thrown back.

And on the other end of the bench, she also saw a hobo sleeping as soundly as Cao Ye was.

What an extraordinary sight. Huang Ying couldn’t help but want to laugh as she took those few steps over.

She stood about two metres away, admiring the shot — underneath the dim streetlights, the playboy who was rich and exquisite from inside to out was sharing a bench with a hobo who’d fallen on desperate times. The two of them even slept in the same posture, their two legs separated with their arms crossed above their lower bellies and heads leaning back against the bench. The shot was actually strangely harmonious.

Snorting with laughter, Huang Ying lifted up her phone, aimed the camera directly at the two of them and pressed the button.

Cao Ye’s eyebrows wrinkled the slightest amount the moment the camera light flashed, and he immediately covered his eyes with a hand. He’d only just woken up, so his voice was a bit raspy. “What are you doing?”

“Shh—” Huang Ying instantly lifted an index finger to her mouth, and then she pointed at the hobo next to him. She breathed out, “Don’t disturb other people’s beautiful dreams!”

“Then why’d you disturb mine?” Despite the pique threading through his voice, Cao Ye still lowered his voice.

He stood up from the bench, glancing at his watch for the time. “Did you just see my message? So busy tonight?”

“The group of students shooting Mandala3 completed filming today, and they kept pulling me to drink with them.” Huang Ying walked with him to the security gate a few metres away and pressed the button to unlock it. The security gate slowly rose up, and after going up roughly one metre, it stopped moving.

“The gate’s broken. They were location scouting a few days ago, and they accidentally bumped into it with a car.” Walking over, Huang Ying crouched down and raised up her palms, wanting to push up the gate with some effort. Her voice shifted somewhat from the strain. “…The automatic gate’s now only half-automatic.”

“Let me do it.” Cao Ye bent over and slid his palms along the lower edge of the gate. With one heave, he lifted the gate up, and he patted off the dust on his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could’ve called someone over to change it.”

“Come on, as if I’d need you to do something as small as this?” Huang Ying grinned and followed behind him. “I’ve already booked the maintenance guy, he’ll be over within the next few days… Oh yes, why’d you want to come to Utopia in the middle of the night? You wouldn’t really be unable to sleep because of the recent film business, right?”

“You’re right.” Cao Ye didn’t need Huang Ying to take him through; he walked inside and to the innermost small cinema room by himself, pushing the door and going inside. “I’m about to go bald from stress.”

“Are you serious?” Huang Ying looked at the top of his head. “I can’t tell… But aren’t they all recently saying that Liang Sizhe might agree to come reshoot it?”

“You believe the rumours?” Cao Ye asked, seemingly carelessly. He reached out and pressed the light switch on the wall, turning on the overhead lights in the room.

A square table was in front of several rows of seats. A messy pile of blu-rays was heaped on top, and Cao Ye carelessly flipped through them — Red Man, Red Woman; Thirteen Days; Wilderness; The River Looking for Hope; The Rising Wind; The Lives and Dreams of Lovers4… He grabbed one up and looked at the cover. “Are those students fans of Liang Sizhe?”

“Of course. They like him tremendously.” Huang Ying chuckled as she said, “From the director to the cameraman to the main leads to the makeup artist — as soon as you bring up Liang Sizhe in front of them, they’d be able to talk to you about him for hours without a single stammer.”

“The students who were filming Mandala?”

“Yeah. And the funniest thing is, they managed to find a fake Liang Sizhe from somewhere to cameo!”

“What?” Not understanding, Cao Ye lifted his eyes and looked at Huang Ying.

“They found a boy that looks particularly like how Liang Sizhe did ten years ago. But he only looks similar, his acting, line delivery and personality are all way too different. They gave that boy the most important cameo role and had him appear in all kinds of random shots, saying they were using this opportunity to pay their respects to senior Liang Sizhe!”

Cao Ye speechlessly looked at her: “……”

Huang Ying couldn’t stop laughing, and she pulled out her phone and flipped through the gallery to show him a photo. “If you don’t believe me, have a look yourself.”

“Where exactly does he look like Liang Sizhe?” Taking the phone, Cao Ye looked at the screen. He faintly frowned; he truly couldn’t see where the resemblance was.

“He really does, you can’t expect him to look exactly the same!” Huang Ying eased closer to glance at the photo.

“They don’t look similar at all.” Cao Ye gave the phone back to Huang Ying, completely uninterested.

“How could he possibly look just like him? Liang Sizhe’s face is worth so much money.”

Cao Ye didn’t respond. He went to sit in front of the main computer, right hand going to the mouse, and wanted to find a popcorn flick to lull him asleep.

Huang Ying had been born hard-working and diligent, and she was most unable to withstand seeing a messy table. She now returned the discs back to their cases as she asked Cao Ye, “Will Liang Sizhe help you with A Choice into the Dark? You guys used to have such a good relationship.”

“Who knows.” Cao Ye was looking at the screen. “…Why doesn’t this computer have a single movie?”

“Oh yes. That machine caught a virus a few days ago, we had to reinstall the system. I’ll move a few films over for you later, but if you want to watch something tonight, you’ll have to choose from these choices.”

“Virus?” Lifting his head, Cao Ye looked at her; a speechless expression covered his face once again. “Isn’t this computer disconnected from the internet?”

“It is, but the virus wasn’t from online. It was transmitted from a hard disk.” Huang Ying was clearly also very helpless. “I don’t know whose hard disk it was from.”

“All right, so it caught a virus…” Cao Ye kneaded the centre of his eyebrows. “That’s way too irresponsible. I’ll get someone to come by and switch the computer.”

Cao Ye was forced to walk back to that square table, rapidly messing up again the discs Huang Ying had just reorganised. He wanted to find a film that didn’t have Liang Sizhe in it, but after going through all the options, they all listed the three characters of ‘Liang Sizhe’ on their covers.

“Why is Liang Sizhe in all of them?”

“The discs are all from fans of Liang Sizhe… What, you don’t want to watch him?”

Cao Ye randomly threw out an excuse. “Whenever I see his face, I end up thinking about A Choice into the Dark. Do you think I can still sleep after that?”

“Oh… This one doesn’t have Liang Sizhe in it.” Huang Ying pulled out a film and handed it to Cao Ye.

Before he could speak, Huang Ying quickly added, “But Liang Sizhe directed it!”

Cao Ye looked at the cover of the disc after hearing her, his face blank.

He knew this film. After Liang Sizhe had been given the Best Actor award from the Cannes Film Festival, almost everyone had been waiting for him to return back to China and reveal his full abilities; no one expected Liang Sizhe to actually reject all those sought after film invitations. He’d plunged headfirst into working behind the camera. He used two years’ time and then had silently tossed out a film that received neither high reviews nor a high box-office. That film had been this one: The Lives and Dreams of Lovers.

— Other than this film, it looked like he had no other choice.

“Fine, this one then.” Cao Ye grabbed the disc as he spoke and walked to the computer. After putting it in, he clicked play.

The dragon stamp5 appeared on the screen as Cao Ye went to sit in the seat closest to the controlling computer. His fingers slid down to the button on the side of the leather seat and pressed it, shifting the back to a comfortable angle. He leaned back; he looked towards the screen while reclining. The leather seat was very wide and very soft, and it was exceedingly comfortable sinking into it. It was a good place to fall asleep.

“I’ll head out, then.” Huang Ying headed to the door, fingers touching the light switch. “Want the lights off?”

Cao Ye gave her a vague hum in agreement.

As the door closed, the film began playing on the screen. The camera pulled away. On a distant and obscure stage, two Chinese opera actors pitched high their voices and sang to each other in a duet:

“If Liang-xiong6 has still yet to decide on a marriage, xiao-di7 I can be your matchmaker—”

“My dear brother can be my matchmaker, but may I ask whose precious daughter it is?”

They were singing the Yue opera play The Butterfly Lovers8.

The bottom of the screen gradually displayed the film production crew:

Producers: Liang Sizhe, Xu Yunchu

Executive Producer: Bai Mingze

Director: Liang Sizhe

Starring: Xu Xiaohan, Qiao Rui

……..

And then, the camera slowly pulled in, the obscurity turning clear and crisp bit by bit. The stage, distant yet bright and spacious, shrunk into the square screen of a television. The camera turned — a roughly forty year old woman was kneeling in front of the television, and she was staring at the screen, absorbed. She was clutching a remote control.

“Mum—” A young girl’s voice came from outside the frame. “Did you wash the dress I bought yesterday? Mum—”

“Ah.” The woman returned back to reality, her face looking flustered for a moment. But she very quickly calmed down, and she lowered her head to press the power button on the remote, turning off the television. She stood up and said, “I’m coming, I’m coming…”

Small snippets of everyday household scenes followed closely soon after.

It was an arthouse film — and the style of it was deeply reminiscent of Cao Xiuyuan.

In his heart, Cao Ye rapidly gave the film a rough assessment.

Cao Xiuyuan’s shadow could be seen in the way the shots were cut and the way shots were filmed, to the point Cao Ye couldn’t focus on the actual storyline. But the story also seemed weak: it was flooded with a large amount of trivial and mundane details, and it made him feel edgy while watching.

The simple and straightforward rhythm of the story made him drowsy; no wonder the box office had been so poor when the film aired two years ago. In times like these, where would the audience find the patience to watch a film like this?

Cao Ye turned his face sideways and leaned back into the leather, his eyelids drooping down. He stopped watching the film on the screen. His body slipped downwards somewhat, and he snuggled in a bit more comfortably before compelling himself to sleep.

But he really had to admit, the off-screen sounds of the family living their everyday lives were rather good for sleep.

Sleep came like a heavy tide, slowly and gradually covering over his nerves. Dreams enveloped him, and the small enclosed cinema room suddenly turned into an open filming location.

It was a dimly lit place. Sewage leftover from the previous film crew was still on the rough and pitted ground, the various colours of the film crew refracting off the surface.

Cao Ye and Liang Sizhe stood back to back, Liang Sizhe’s upper body bare. His shoulder-length hair was tied up behind his head, and the ends of his ponytail poked at Cao Ye’s head, making him feel a bit itchy.

Not too far away, Cao Xiuyuan said from behind the camera, “Take off your pants too.” His voice was toneless.

He should’ve been saying that to the both of them, but Cao Ye didn’t move. Liang Sizhe bent over and pulled off his long pants, holding them in his hands.

“Don’t keep holding them,” Cao Xiuyuan then said.

The people surrounding the camera were also looking at the two of them, but no one came up to grab Liang Sizhe’s pants for him.

I’ll help you hold them, Cao Ye was just about to say, but then Liang Sizhe raised his hands and threw his pants to the ground not too far away. They landed with a plop — the water splashed.

Now they’re dirty, Cao Ye thought.

Blinding lights flashed at them.

That seemed to be the start of everything.

No — everything began even earlier.

The author has something to say:

Isn’t that bar familiar? Xiaoxiao sang there before~ (You guys don’t need to reread Rear-End Collision (追尾)9 for this, and friends who haven’t read it also don’t need to go read it specifically. There’s not much of a link between these two books, and I’ve also changed the leads in this book a lot from when I first wrote them in Rear-End Collision)

Also, the first main chapter ends here. The next chapter will be set in the past… I’ve planned for the two timelines to intersect like this from the very beginning, the timelines will go back and forth in large blocks like this.

Thank you to everyone for your comments and tips, thank you for accompanying me~ ❤

Translator has something to say:

Yinsi Street is 茵四街. ↩Cui Jian (崔健) is considered the father of Chinese rock music and is widely considered a symbol for Chinese activist youths during the Tiananmen Square time period. His songs are famous for their political meaning (whether he intended to have political meaning or not) pushing against the Communist Party’s authoritarian rule. His most famous song, Nothing to My Name (一无所有), was the students’ political anthem during the Tiananmen Square protests. The song in text, A Piece of Red Cloth (一块红布), also highly referred to the Communist Party (he performed this song with a piece of red cloth over his eyes). A really good article on him is here, along with translated lyrics to these two songs. ↩Mandala is 曼陀罗. I’m not particularly sure if it’s referring to the symbol or to the flower known as devil’s snare! ↩Thirteen Days is 十三天; Wilderness is 野生; The River Looking for Hope is 望川之川; The Rising Wind is 起风; The Lives and Dreams of Lovers is 梁生祝梦. I translated most of them rather closely to the original Chinese title except for The River Looking for Hope and The Lives and Dreams of Lovers — those two don’t quite translate into English as they’re poetic Chinese titles and also wordplay with the names of characters in their respective films and the content within those films. I’ll explain the meaning behind my choices when we get to them later in the novel! ↩The ‘dragon stamp’ looks like this. All Chinese films have this at the beginning, as it shows the film has been screened and approved to air to the public. ↩‘Xiong’ (兄) means older brother. Very similar to ‘ge’, more traditional/less modern than ge. Much more literary. ↩‘Xiao-di’ (小弟) essentially translates to ‘small younger brother’. It’s a much more humble way of referring to yourself, the younger man. ↩The Butterfly Lovers (梁山伯与祝英台, lit. tled as ‘Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai’), or more commonly referenced as 梁祝 (‘Liang Zhu’) is the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet (for ease of comparison, in terms of tragic love story). It’s a widely known Chinese legend, and comes into play later when we get into The Lives and Dreams of Lovers. I highly recommend reading up on it! ↩Xiaoxiao (full name Li Yangxiao 李杨骁) is the shou in one of Tan Shi’s previous works, Rear-End Collision (free to read on Changpei!). I don’t think there’s an English translation of the book available, but like Tan Shi said, there’s not much intersection between these two works despite happening during roughly the same time (they will show up once or twice). It’s also an entertainment industry book. All you need to know is that the couple in Rear-End Collision starts off in a sugar baby relationship (the gong, Chi Mingyao 迟明尧 being the sugar provider) LOL. ↩

P – Chapter 2.1

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