C2 Part1

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N – Chapter 1.7

P – Chapter 2.1

It was a long journey from Yan City1 to Beijing. They had set out early that morning before 9am, and they’d still yet to reach their destination by 2pm that afternoon.

It was large and roomy inside the off-road car, but with four men sitting inside, it was still slightly cramped.

Very few conversations occurred while they drove. The person in the driver’s seat was solely focused on driving, and so he naturally didn’t speak much. Cao Xiuyuan’s assistant, Zheng Yin, sat in the passenger seat, and other than the initial short conversation he’d had with Cao Xiuyuan about work at the beginning of the drive, he too kept mostly silent.

Liang Sizhe sat next to Cao Xiuyuan. He had felt somewhat uncomfortable at the start, but after seeing how Cao Xiuyuan had kept his head down, flipping through a stack of printouts that was most likely a script, Liang Sizhe had relaxed very quickly. Since Cao Xiuyuan didn’t seem to be interested in interacting with him at all, Liang Sizhe turned his head and leaned back into the seat. He gazed outwards at the trees rapidly flying by, slightly spellbound.

A long drive was especially suitable for sleeping, but Liang Sizhe wasn’t drowsy in the least. He thought this current moment didn’t feel quite real — it felt like he was dreaming.

It had been less than 24 hours from the moment he’d first seen Cao Xiuyuan to when he’d gotten into this off-road car with him.

Closing his eyes, the memory of his meeting Cao Xiuyuan yesterday couldn’t help but rise up in his mind.

The takeout he’d ordered last night for dinner had been really hard to eat. He’d walked downstairs in slippers, prepared to pour out the leftover rice and dishes for the stray cats and dogs that gathered downstairs. When he was almost at the corner of the building, he saw two gangsters together, laughing and chatting; after walking closer, he saw clearly that one of those gangsters was holding a thin willow twig, and that gangster was forcefully whipping a pregnant cat with it.

Liang Sizhe headed over. His arm raised, and he smacked the boxes of food in his hand onto that gangster’s head. Vegetable soup flowed down that gangster’s forehead and nose, and he instantaneously cursed loudly and obscenely. Holding the willow twig, that gangster lifted his hand and violently swung it across to Liang Sizhe. Liang Sizhe dodged away, but the twig reached his shoulders the moment he turned sideways. When the gangster was about to hit him for the second time, Liang Sizhe grabbed the twig with his left hand — it was as though his hand couldn’t feel any pain. He stole the twig from the gangster with a burst of force, and then he leveraged himself, giving the gangster’s stomach a vicious kick.

It was a fierce battle afterwards, unsurprisingly. Those two gangsters didn’t have much of an advantage, but Liang Sizhe was also decorated with wounds. His shoulders burned with pain from the willow twig, and he didn’t know where he ended up kicking one of his slippers during the fight.

In a two-party fight, whoever cared less about his life would win. Liang Sizhe was that type of person exactly: whenever he fought, he fought with an almost suicidal attitude. He didn’t care about his own life — and so the other party’s life also didn’t matter. The two gangsters were frightened by him not long after they started fighting, and they left behind tough words as they retreated, saying they were going to bring their brothers over tomorrow and remove one of his arms.

Liang Sizhe didn’t take their words seriously. He didn’t chase after those gangsters as they ran off either, looking around for his slipper instead.

The night had fallen completely during that fight; the dusky yellow of the streetlights spread along the cement roads of the small neighbourhood. He couldn’t find his slipper, and he gave up searching for it very soon, walking back with a normal look on his face and wearing only one slipper with the other foot bare.

Within the last year, he’d gained quite a few enemies around the neighbourhood. A fight like that, to him, was essentially a regular occurrence; it wasn’t worth thinking about for long. He would forget about it after sleeping.

He got into the elevator, the marble floor a bit chilly. His bare foot rested on top of the foot with a slipper, and his left shoulder pressed against the elevator wall. Liang Sizhe watched as the number on the electronic screen kept jumping upwards.

It’d been several months since he last cut his hair. It already reached his shoulders, and he’d casually tied it up behind his head with a rubber band. The shoulders of his denim jacket had been slashed with the twig, and the ripped pieces of cloth dangled downwards, revealing flesh with obvious bruises. He’d lost one of his slippers, and his hands were still stained with soup.

He arrived at the entrance of his home looking exactly that unkempt. He raised his eyes; he saw three people standing in front of his door.

He knew one of them — she had been his teacher for his specialised course classes last year at his music secondary school2. There was also a tall man roughly around forty years old, and he was staring directly at Liang Sizhe, not hiding how he looking him up and down at this very moment.

Just as that person was sizing him up from his head to his feet, Liang Sizhe was also openly appraising the man — he looked familiar, but Liang Sizhe couldn’t immediately say where he’d seen him before. Right as he was attempting to search for memories about that person in his mind, his music teacher, standing by the side, saw him. It was as though she was suddenly filled with energy, and she waved at him, saying, “Liang Sizhe!”

Only then did Liang Sizhe pull back his gaze, looking at his teacher. With not much of a look on his face, he said, “Why are you here?”

“Why aren’t you even greeting us? Do you not recognise him?” The teacher didn’t answer his question, coming over to grab his arm and give him an introduction. Her voice was overflowing with excitement, unable to be covered. “Director Cao Xiuyuan! You know him, don’t you? The director who filmed Give Way3!”

“Oh.” Liang Sizhe spun that mind of his that was about to rust. He didn’t show much astonishment, simply opening his mouth slowly and calling out, “Director Cao.”

He only remembered what that familiar name symbolised the instant it left his mouth — Cao Xiuyuan was a famous film director within the country with countless numbers of awards, and he’d raised several newcomers to fame. Why would someone like that appear in front of his own house door?

“Ah, what happened here?” The music teacher noticed the bruise on his shoulders. “Were you fighting with someone?”

“It’s fine.” Liang Sizhe didn’t look like he cared. “I fought with some of the dogs downstairs.”

“Sizhe, you…” She looked at him, about to speak, but she still ended up changing the topic of conversation. With good intentions, she suggested, “Hurry up and invite Director Cao inside, he specifically came over to meet you.”

Liang Sizhe was quiet for two seconds. “My places’s quite messy. Why don’t we just talk here.”

“Open the door and let’s have a look.” That well-known Cao Xiuyuan opened his mouth now and spoke, looking at him. “Do you mind?”

“It’s fine as long as you don’t mind,” Liang Sizhe said, raising his eyes back to him, and then he pulled out his keys from his pocket with that soup-stained hand, unlocking the door with his head lowered.

Pushing open the door, Liang Sizhe moved to switch on the overhead light in the living room.

It truly was quite messy inside his place, the sofa cushions scattered across the ground. An open violin case was in the middle of the living room, and a smashed violin was next to it, its broken and separated neck hanging onto the body only by the strings.

The living room was several dozens of metres wide, and it should be quite wide and spacious — and yet right now, there was no space for anyone to stand.

But Liang Sizhe didn’t appear embarrassed at all. He took out that one slipper and walked inside with his feet bare, stepping onto those delicately veined ivory tiles and bending over to pick things up as he went. He returned the cushions back onto the sofa and also tidied up the violin and its case, placing them next to the wall as though the neck of the violin hadn’t been broken. “Have a seat.” And then, he went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

When he came back out afterwards, he saw Cao Xiuyuan sitting in the single seater sofa directly facing the bathroom; his eyes seemed to have landed on that shattered violin by the corner. Seeing Liang Sizhe come out, Cao Xiuyuan once again started to carefully look over him, not making any attempts to hide it. His gaze seemed to be able to penetrate things — Liang Sizhe could feel his heart prickling from his stare.

He strode over and sat in the single seater sofa across from Cao Xiuyuan. Even though he didn’t feel quite comfortable inwardly, he still let Cao Xiuyuan look at him as much as he wanted.

“How are your fingers recovering?” Cao Xiuyuan bluntly asked, continuing to study him. His straightforward question was no different from his sharp gaze. “Can you still play the violin?”

No one had dared to ask Liang Sizhe that question over the past year, everyone thinking it would enrage him, devastate him, make him liable to collapse at any given moment. The music teacher’s hands were sweating, and she looked uneasily at Liang Sizhe.

But Liang Sizhe appeared unusually calm. Even he himself hadn’t thought he would be so calm when faced with that question — it was like all of his thoughts and wants towards the violin had already died. It was as though they’d died completely and thoroughly, no waves rippling at the question.

“I can’t play anymore,” he stoically said.

“Have the bones healed?”

“Yes.”

“You suspended your studies. Have you thought about your future plans over the past year?”

“Not yet,” Liang Sizhe said.

It didn’t feel nice to be interrogated by a stranger, let alone the fact he was being interrogated about things he himself didn’t want to talk about. This made Liang Sizhe feel somewhat irritable.

He’d originally thought the director in front of him would lose all interest in him after replying ‘I can’t play anymore’. He didn’t expect the questions to continue without end — was he not here for a body double who could play violin?

Cao Xiuyuan was quiet for a few moments, his eyes on Liang Sizhe’s face the entire time. He spoke only after a little while had passed, asking, “Have you thought about acting in films before?”

“No,” Liang Sizhe truthfully said. He’d only thought about being a professional violinist.

“If you’re willing, you can come with me to Beijing for a try. Since you don’t have much plans for the future anyway.” Cao Xiuyuan looked at the person sitting by the side. “Zheng Yin, are we heading back tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow at 9am,” that person immediately responded.

Cao Xiuyuan got up from the sofa and stood up, looking at Liang Sizhe from up high as he said, “Think about it tonight. If you want to try, leave with us tomorrow.”

Liang Sizhe abruptly tilted up his head to look at him. “May I ask what kind of role is it? Does it have something to do with violins?”

Cao Xiuyuan didn’t reply, so Zheng Yin spoke for him. “Yes, the role is a boy learning how to play the violin.”

“But I can’t play it anymore.” Liang Sizhe remained looking at Cao Xiuyuan, seriously waiting for his answer.

After studying him again for a few seconds, Cao Xiuyuan finally spoke, saying, “When it comes to being an actor, it’s not important whether or not he knows how to play.”

The person next to him, after hearing those words, promptly turned and looked at him as though wanting to say something, but Cao Xiuyuan clearly wasn’t planning on leaving him any time to talk — he started walking towards the door.

And just like that — the next day at 9am, Liang Sizhe followed them along and sat into that off-road car heading towards Beijing.

Cao Xiuyuan was right. Since he didn’t really have any plans for the future anyway, he might as well give it a try.

The author has something to say:

Young President Cao will appear in the next part…

Translator has something to say:

Yan City is 岩城. The character for ‘yan’ stands for ‘rock’ or ‘cliff’. ↩The term used to describe LSZ’s secondary school is the term used to refer to a secondary school system attached to a university — essentially an elevator school that also offers university courses. ↩The title is 雌伏, which is also another title that doesn’t have a strict English translation! Baidu says the term refers to someone retreating and giving way (as in, giving way to another person to take their spot) and then not doing anything. Hence, I chose Give Way. ↩

P – Chapter 2.2

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