In the hotel room, Pei Yan came out of the bathroom without any clothes on, a large bath towel wrapped around his waist and only just covering what it needed to. Water streamed from the top of his head, running freely down his neck and chest, droplets gleaming on his lashes.
He had taken an unusually long shower. He did not come out for more than an hour, and a fine layer of sweat beaded over his philtrum.
Johnny Wu sat on the sofa bouncing one leg as he studied this troublesome kid of his. “Hey, I was starting to think the hot steam had knocked you unconscious in there!”
Pei Yan’s gaze was lazy. He rubbed his face. “That felt good. Sleep, sleep!”
Johnny Wu looked sideways at him. “How many times did you jack off?”
Pei Yan shot back, “You have to ask that too? What, you keep records? Are you from the Imperial Bedchamber Office?”
Uncle Johnny shrugged. “Even the Imperial Bedchamber Office wouldn’t register you going to an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
Elio’s Notes: 敬事房 (Jingshifang) was a Qing imperial household office under the Imperial Household Department, chiefly involved in eunuch administration and other palace affairs. Later popular portrayals often associate it with keeping records of imperial bedchamber visits, which is the angle Pei Yan is joking about here; Johnny’s “all-you-can-eat buffet” comeback turns Pei Yan’s masturbation into a mock “repeat servings” joke.
Pei Yan muttered, “What, you take a twenty-percent commission on this too? Why the hell are you asking?”
Johnny Wu was so exasperated he laughed.
Without the slightest shame, Pei Yan confessed outright, “Twice. That’s enough for tonight. Going to sleep!”
Johnny Wu immediately switched into nagging-parent mode. If filming was going badly, Pei Yan had to tell him. If anyone bullied him, he had to tell him. If anything was troubling him emotionally, he had to tell him. If he started dating too young, he had to tell his parent…
“You’re insane…” Pei Yan was annoyed enough to laugh. “Nobody bullied me, and I’m not dating too young. I’m twenty-three. Stop fucking worrying about me.”
The assistant cracked open the door, poked his head in, and very thoughtfully shoved two boxes of takeout through the gap.
He glanced at Pei Yan. “Who needs some nourishment? Late-night snack is here.”
Pei Yan glared sideways at him. “I don’t.”
The assistant curled his lip and shot back, “Bought it in Chinatown. Cantonese cured-meat platter with three selections, including crispy braised duck… Sir, are you eating or not? If you’re not, we are.”
Pei Yan immediately snatched the box over and tore into the crispy duck with his fingers. This was infinitely better than raw minced beef.
Once the room was down to the two of them again, Johnny Wu gave Pei Yan a sympathetic look born of experience. “Hey… got a crush on someone? You like you-know-who, don’t you?”
Pei Yan turned his face away and licked the grease clean from his lips. Only after a long moment did he say, “No.”
Johnny Wu shook his head and sighed. “Come on, admit it to your daddy. Who understands you better than I do? Your actual father doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
“You’re so fucking annoying…” Pei Yan had no defense left against him. “My actual dad understands me pretty well too. It’s not like I hide anything.”
Uncle Johnny had been his manager for more than two years. Pei Yan himself was frank and straightforward, and little by little they had come to know each other inside and out. A manager was the person who carried and supported your career. There were certain things he simply had to know clearly.
“So… Old Pei?” Johnny Wu quietly sidled over from the other end of the sofa, leaning forward to peer at him with a worried expression. “Does it have anything to do with that person or not?”
“No.” Pei Yan denied it without hesitation. “It has nothing to do with him.
“I don’t touch straight men.
“That’s one line I still know not to cross. I don’t get involved.”
*
Johnny Wu spread both hands and silently mouthed, WOW. “You’re sure? You haven’t even slept with him. How do you know for certain whether he’s straight or gay?”
“Fuck, you think I can’t even tell that?” Pei Yan’s eyes were a little red. “It’s easy to test. I’m not that stupid.”
“Oh? So you could tell with me back then?” Johnny Wu pursed his lips.
“Daddy! Fine, I’ll call you Daddy!” Pei Yan finally broke into laughter and said with disgust, “If I’m not sexually interested in someone, I can’t tell.”
Johnny Wu made an exaggerated face. “So?”
Pei Yan lowered his voice. “He’s different from you. I think he’s pretty… proper.”
Then he casually asked, “You and that architect boyfriend of yours broke up a bunch of times, right? What’s going on with you two now?”
The expression on Johnny Wu’s face held the wisdom and tolerance of someone who had weathered enough storms. “We’re doing fine now. We’ve both played around enough. At our age, we can’t even be bothered to cheat anymore. Who doesn’t want stability? In two weeks I’ll fly to Taipei to see him, then two weeks after that he’ll fly over to see me. Maybe one day soon we’ll suddenly decide we want to get married and go get married in America.”
“…”
“That’s nice.” Pei Yan gave him the vicious look only a single dog could produce. “May you and your architect grow old together and die together someday, two piles of flesh buried in the same hole.”
Johnny Wu indignantly grabbed a sofa cushion and hurled it at his face!
Clutching the cushion, Pei Yan bolted into the bedroom. His bath towel dropped to the floor.
He kicked the door shut behind him, dove naked onto the big bed, and buried his face deep in the cushion…
The next day, members of the production arrived in San Diego one after another, then took boats out to the island.
They were heading to a scenic spot in the Pacific near the U.S.-Mexico border to shoot on location. The island was surrounded on all sides by sea and sky, seabirds wheeling everywhere.
Before boarding, while standing on the pier in the wind, Pei Yan was still taking calls and making calls.
Then everyone else watched him, in a pair of flip-flops, stride over to Zhuang Xiao at a near run. Pei Yan pulled Zhuang Xiao aside and said quietly, “That specialist said the injured man is showing very obvious muscular responses. His hands and legs can move on their own.”
“Seriously?” Even Zhuang Xiao found that hard to believe. “Move on their own? Without anyone manipulating his legs?”
There was real encouragement and joy in Pei Yan’s eyes. “When we finish filming, let’s go back and take a look. At least it’s better than before… They said his hand keeps clenching into a fist and twitching, and his heel rubs against the bed.”
“He used to do combat sports and boxing. Maybe clenching his fist is instinctive.” Zhuang Xiao looked at him, some light in his own eyes too. “Maybe he really can wake up.”
The two put their heads together and spoke in whispers. Zhuang Xiao had not even told the younger men in the Zhuang Stunt Team that Pei Yan had hired doctors to treat the injured man. Pei Yan smiled, happiness on his face while a tangle of feelings surged through him. He was grateful to Zhuang Xiao for giving him this chance to do one good thing that let his conscience rest a little easier.
The boat they were waiting for arrived. Pei Yan took a long stride and jumped into the cabin, striking a decidedly showy pose. The hem of his shirt whipped wildly in the wind, while his oversized shorts ballooned out in front, which looked ridiculous.
Zhuang Xiao wore a broad-brimmed straw hat. A sudden gust tried to snatch it away, but Zhuang Xiao reacted quickly and caught it before it could fly off. Both men wore sunglasses beneath the dazzling sun. Their gazes met through dark blue and dark brown lenses, and each seemed to glimpse the light in the other man’s eyes.
At first Pei Yan laughed and chatted idly with a group of Americans. Before long, though, his face began to look bad. The wind was high and the waves rough. He gripped the side panel beside his seat, bracing himself against the violent pitching.
“Can’t take it?” Zhuang Xiao asked.
“Dizzy.” Pei Yan looked miserable.
“You get seasick?” Zhuang Xiao asked.
“This boat is way too shitty. It’s not a sightseeing boat, is it? It’s just a fishing boat…” Pei Yan said.
“It is a fishing boat. The locals use it to go out and net fish,” Zhuang Xiao said. “So there are things even you can’t handle?”
“Fuck…” Feeling awful, Pei Yan made a dry-heaving face toward the sea. Zhuang Xiao pulled a motion-sickness patch and an anti-nausea wristband from his backpack.
Pei Yan frowned. “Isn’t that a wrist guard? This thing actually stops nausea?!”
“It works. Try it,” Zhuang Xiao said. “You’re already sick anyway!”
Then Zhuang Xiao lifted Pei Yan’s shirt and reached to stick the patch over his navel. Pei Yan immediately covered his abs with both hands, refusing to let the other man see.
“Move your hands. You don’t want the patch?” Zhuang Xiao looked at him.
“Give it to me. I’ll do it myself.”
“Your face is white and your hands are shaking. You sure you can find your own belly button?” Zhuang Xiao looked at him, smiling happily too.
“Quit messing around. I can find it!… Give it to me!” For reasons he could not explain, Pei Yan became a little agitated. He simply would not let Zhuang Xiao touch his abs or his navel. He stuck on the patch himself, straightened his shirt, then turned his face toward the vast, rolling ocean, letting the sea wind blow over him while his eyes tracked the silhouettes of seabirds.
Zhuang Xiao’s fingertips had brushed one of his eight abdominal muscles, he had no idea which one, and it instantly set an entire continent ablaze. His skin went hot with a boom. Thank fuck the sea wind had already puffed out his loose shorts, making the front bulge, because suddenly every part of his body felt wrong…
Zhuang Xiao seemed to tell him that tropical islands had all kinds of insects and mosquitoes, and that Thai green balm worked well. Then he stuffed an unopened bottle into Pei Yan’s hand. He had brought it especially for him, knowing Pei Yan was careless and would forget to prepare anything.
Pei Yan took the balm quickly, carefully keeping his fingers from touching Zhuang Xiao’s, and hurriedly said, “Thanks.”
*
And it was not only the insects. At this time of year, the island was brutally hot.
The script called for fight scenes drenched in sweat, as well as combat sequences in the water. Once this season passed, the Pacific water temperature would drop rapidly, and they would no longer be able to film in the sea.
They had only been on the island for a few days when several people from various departments went down with heatstroke.
Fat Charles had stripped off his shirt, baring his thick, heavy body, the skin on his shoulders already peeling from the sun. Standing on the bow deck, he directed everything with a walkie-talkie in hand and roared, “That boat over there, go, go, go!”
Pei Yan had a red triangular kerchief wrapped around his head. Bare-chested and barefoot, he was the most conspicuous person on the beach.
Across his lower back, an entire black-and-red tattoo was suddenly exposed.
A short distance away on the beach, Zhuang Xiao was listening to the assistant director explain blocking when he looked over. Mr. Pei had never exposed this much before. The tattoo showed a beast in the striding posture of an ascending tiger, with sharp claws, long horns, and a pair of wings. Fierce. Beautiful.
Pei Yan bounded high through the surf, splashing water back and forth with a camera assistant. Whenever he scored a hit, he burst into wild laughter. He was pure animal energy.
Once filming began, five or six Jet Skis launched at the same time, throwing high white wakes across the sea as foam churned and rolled.
The iron boat pitched violently. The male lead, “Tang Yi,” fought a whole rabble of men across the deck…
No Drunken Fist sequence had ever looked more authentic. Pei Yan’s vision was swimming, everything before his eyes a blur of white foam. Huge waves seemed to be raging inside his stomach, every drop of fluid in his body roaring and overturning.
The deck rocked three ways forward and four ways back beneath his feet. His footing was unstable, yet it happened to suit the character’s movement pattern and rhythm perfectly. One punch slammed into a thug’s jaw, then a flying kick sent another thug overboard…
Several speedboats waited beside the ship to catch people. Every time he kicked one man into the sea, someone immediately hauled that man back out.
It was extremely hard to shoot.
After one take, he had to fall once, then climb back up from the deck.
After another, his shoulder struck the ship’s rail, blooming into a large bruise. The medical crew pulled open his clothes and sprayed him furiously. They emptied an entire can of muscle-pain spray in no time.
A single minute of spectacular fight footage in a movie was assembled from dozens of shots filmed from different angles. By the time they finished this one minute, he had fallen more than thirty times on the ship and was nearly concussed stupid…
His brains felt shaken loose. He had forgotten the fight routine Sha Yunfei had designed for him and was moving entirely on training and instinct.
And even after that minute of footage, all he had completed were the stunt actions required as the male lead’s double.
Next came the exact same minute of story time, but now he had to change styling and makeup completely, switch to a different shooting angle, use an entirely different set of movements, and fall all over again for the minor boss “Deng Yun.”
Both roles were on the same boat. This time he really was attacking and taking it from himself. But the script had already been revised, so this was no longer his final boss battle with Zhuang Xiao.
His face was covered in fake blood. His mouth and even the spaces between his teeth were full of stage blood.
His stomach felt awful. The moment the director shouted CUT, he bent over the rail and vomited…
Lunch had come up long ago. After that, all he vomited was stomach acid and fake blood. The stage blood was made from syrup and coloring, and the taste made him dizzy with nausea. Afterward he chewed a few sugar tablets and drank electrolyte water.
A crowd gathered around Pei Yan, handing him towels and water, kneading his shoulders and thumping his back, asking whether he wanted to go ashore and rest for a while. Right now he was the production’s precious baby. They absolutely could not let him collapse.
His older brother, “Deng Bai,” was not on the boat. He was waiting on a speedboat farther away, watching from a distance and following the director’s instructions for his expressions and movements. That way, when the helicopter took the wide aerial shot, the entire cast would be in frame.
He seemed to hear Zhuang Xiao shouting at him through the walkie-talkie, “Hey! Go ashore and rest before you keep shooting!!!”
Pei Yan did not even have enough strength to shout back. Panting, he said, “I never want to get on this shitty boat again. I’m so fucking seasick, I’m dying… Let’s just finish it in one go so I never have to come back.”
Defeated step by step and beaten into the sea, “Deng Yun” was wounded and fell into the water on camera.
Pei Yan plunged headfirst into the sea, his vision instantly filled with white foam. The water was dark blue-green, visibility terrible. The island climate was scorching, yet underwater it was cold. The violent shift between heat and cold made every muscle in his body stiffen, his movements heavy.
A lot of people were already waiting for him underwater, everything arranged in advance, shadowy figures all around. Underwater cameras recorded every difficult expression and movement. He swam beneath a speedboat and overturned it from below…
Of course there were mechanical devices helping him flip the boat, but he still had to perform the exertion convincingly himself. Movements like this were extremely difficult underwater. They filmed the sequence seven or eight times, rising and sinking again and again. He himself had no idea whether they had gotten it, or whether he would have to go back into the sea and reshoot tomorrow.
When he surfaced for air, someone from the stunt team immediately shoved an oxygen mask over his face. He gulped air in huge breaths and coughed violently.
The speedboat carrying Zhuang Xiao came over. Zhuang Xiao stood aboard, already prepared to enter the shot, and gave Pei Yan a thumbs-up in the water: You still good?
Pei Yan returned the thumbs-up: No problem. Keep going.
At the command, the stunt team floating on the surface and Pei Yan all submerged again. At the same time, above the water, the camera on the huge crane swung toward Zhuang Xiao as the older brother dove into the sea, plunging into the already blood-red water to save his younger brother!
What followed was a long underwater take focused on the minor boss, a solo death-dance sequence…
Pei Yan had specifically told the director earlier, “Since you gave Zhuang Xiao the final battle, you have to let me die in a spectacular way here. Make it look good.”
Fat Charles hooked an arm around his neck and held him with an indulgent expression. “How else do you want to die, you little bastard? What would make dying look cooler?!”
“It’s underwater, right?” Pei Yan said. “Give me a long take. Shoot a few cool close-ups from every angle. Use extra buckets of blood. Don’t skimp on stage blood with me.”
Fat Charles punched him in the chest, laughing. “Ian, you’re already handsome. You’re fucking handsome the moment you move, the moment you fight! Aren’t you stealing the lead’s scene?”
Pei Yan snorted. “The lead is me too. Same level of handsome.”
He was this strong, this handsome, and working himself this hard. Outsiders did not understand, but some of that strength was being put on for Mr. Zhuang to see. Either way, Zhuang Xiao saw it.
He turned his body with difficulty underwater. His shirt caught on a net beside him and tore into strips that drifted in the water, making him look embarrassingly like a huge piece of seaweed. The broad tattoo across his bare back was exposed.
The tattoo extended all the way down to the rising curve of his buttocks before finally disappearing beneath his trousers…
The black pants clung tightly to his legs, outlining every line of his body…
In the dark green underwater footage, everything was smeared with blood. It would certainly look tragic enough, the colors strange and eerie.
He was the villain, and the criminal organization was about to collapse. Under the combined attack of the heroic trio on the righteous side, he was already at death’s door, his neck and chest scored with multiple bloody lines. Stage blood blossomed into crimson flowers, one after another, then dissolved into the surrounding seawater…
A stunt performer charged at him holding a shark spear. Underwater movements were slow but full of tension. Every technique looked like a Spartan warrior throwing his arms wide and drawing a bow, each motion driven to its visual extreme. The terrifying triangular steel spear stabbed viciously into Pei Yan’s chest!
Back on shore, the stunt crew had already joked with him about it. “Why the hell did you choose such a heroic way to die?! A shark spear? That hurts just looking at it. We don’t even want to stab you!”
The packet of stage blood burst open underwater…
The crew truly had not skimped on blood for him. The sugar concentration in the nearby sea must have risen sharply. Pei Yan’s nose was full of something that smelled like ketchup, and while holding his breath he wanted badly to complain that these buckets of fake blood had actually been tinted with tomato sauce. At least it was not real blood, so it was not going to attract sharks.
The blood spread through the water into a picture.
Pei Yan’s battered, badly wounded body floated in the sea, the spear still attached to a steel cable. Facing the camera, he gave an eerie, ambiguous smile at the corner of his mouth while blood kept spilling from his lips.
Through the poor visibility, he vaguely saw his “older brother” swimming toward him.
It was Zhuang Xiao’s face. Zhuang Xiao opened his mouth underwater as if shouting his name, his expression filled with the agony of brotherly devotion, shock and grief. He fought desperately to reach him, to grab him and haul him back, but he could no longer reach…
Zhuang Xiao acted it as though it were real, as though he were genuinely terrified for Pei Yan, his heart breaking with worry.
He was an award-winning actor after all. First-rate acting. Pei Yan might as well pretend it was real…
The boat began to move. The steel cable pulled the spear, dragging him toward deeper water. Pei Yan opened both arms and sank into the darker depths…
That was the breathtaking underwater dance of death.