Pei Yan returned to China the next day.
He woke on the sofa in Zhuang Xiao’s living room, sunlight streaming through the glass doors to the back porch and spreading warmly across the floor, warming his mood along with it. Liang Youhui was sprawled like a sleeping pig on the long sofa opposite, a transparent bubble at his nose.
The coffee table was a mess, scattered with the plates left over from last night’s barbecue. The grill and firepit in the yard had gone cold.
There were still bits of meat and barbecue sauce stuck near Pei Yan’s mouth. He wiped them away himself.
He carefully packed away the CDs and poster Zhuang Xiao had signed for him the night before. He had nearly told Zhuang Xiao, Sign your name across my lower back and I’ll never shower again for the rest of my life!
There was movement in the backyard. The owner of the house was walking around, cleaning up the wreckage from last night’s barbecue party.
Pei Yan wandered out to the porch and said, "Hey, you really watched me fall asleep on the sofa last night?"
Zhuang Xiao looked up and greeted him. "You were sleeping pretty soundly, so I didn’t move you. I even covered you with a blanket. Satisfied?"
Pei Yan shrugged. "Oh, so you covered me? I thought Youhui secretly crawled on top of me in the middle of the night and thoughtfully tucked me in."
Zhuang Xiao burst out laughing. "Enough. You might dare, but he wouldn’t."
Pei Yan was still dissatisfied. "Leaving me alone in the same room with him, how could you? I’m afraid people will start a scandal about us."
Zhuang Xiao sneered. "You know what his partner does?"
"I know now." Pei Yan laughed. "He’s that criminal-police captain at our municipal bureau. Supposedly he’s a sanda expert too and carries a gun to and from work. Terrifying. I’m afraid Police Uncle will shoot me."
From beginning to end, it seemed they had been using Liang Youhui as a shield to cover up something hazy and uncertain, while the only person Pei Yan was really thinking about stood right in front of him…
The two cleaned the backyard, then went back and forth through a Wing Chun partner drill.
As Zhuang Xiao walked toward the glass porch doors, he changed out of his sweat-soaked white shirt. Pei Yan still had the hot-blooded energy of all that grilled lamb running through him and suddenly said, "Do that pose from the poster again. I’ll frame you beside the poster and take a picture."
Zhuang Xiao looked down and kept cleaning, ignoring him.
Pei Yan refused to let it go, staring without blinking. "Pose again?"
The smile vanished from Zhuang Xiao’s face. He quickly pulled on a clean white shirt, tugging it down over his abs, expressionless. The poster showed a half-naked studio still. There was blood and bruising on his face and body, gauze around his waist, the whole image carrying a hard, battle-blooded aura. Black hair flying, wild and sexy…
Every meeting was hurried, while the days after parting were long.
There was reluctance in both of them, a quiet melancholy. Nothing else. They simply enjoyed being together very much.
*
After Pei Yan returned to China, work continued as usual. His schedule stayed packed, every week spent shuttling between shooting locations and cities where he had appearances.
Almost nobody knew he had once turned down one of the central-trio roles in the American series Knights of the Distant Stars. He had also warned his company not to hype up something as tiny as a sesame seed and make people laugh. But news that Zhuang Xiao had withdrawn from Season Five of Knights had already spread outside and caused an uproar.
Rumors, true and false alike, seeped into every crack. Talk that "Hollywood’s dream factory is becoming whiter by the day, with producers suppressing Chinese actors through unequal pay for equal work" grew louder, and it was not entirely fiction.
"Even Xiao-ge gets bullied and has his salary crushed like that. Being too nice really doesn’t work. A-Xiao could flatten every long-haired idiot on that set by himself!"
"His publicity always makes him sound so damn impressive, fooling sweet little domestic fans. What billing does your Xiao even have in Hollywood? He’s disappeared into the group-cast corner of the poster! Can’t make it in America but still too proud to crawl back!"
"Even if he crawls back, there isn’t a place for him. Anyone seen whether this washed-up old pork actually fights on set or uses doubles?"
"Those doubles are still living human beings from the Zhuang Stunt Team, okay! Better than your precious little fresh meat using plaster dummies to play dead in action scenes, then compositing everything afterward. Such dazzling special effects!"
"Random insider gossip. The prop company making casts for the Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass set just delivered three bald body molds in exactly the same size. Guess whose little fresh-meat stand-ins those are?"
"Ugly anti-fan bitch upstairs, get lost! My Yanyan knows tai chi, baguazhang, and xingyiquan. He’s the handsomest person on any set, enough to make you weak, sick, white-haired porks die mad!"
*
Fans of the two kung-fu camps occasionally fought over popularity and billing, but those disharmonious voices were actually a small minority. These days, fans who supported both men were the real force in the consumer market. Once the American Drunken Fist entered post-production and promotion, the first and most obvious publicity strategy in mainland China was to manufacture "the coolest and wickedest brother CP in history."
After all, the production had put so much effort into talking both Zhuang Xiao and Pei Yan into playing villains precisely for this. They could not let that work go to waste.
One of the highest-selling fashion magazines released a black-and-white photo series. Zhuang Xiao and Pei Yan stood back-to-back, bare skin touching, eyes hazy and cool. Another image showed one with wet hair and the other soaked through, both taking fighting stances for a close-quarters clash. Explosively handsome.
Then it was said an entertainment-channel interview program had booked both men to appear together.
Online fans lost their minds and extracted entirely different depths and layers from one set of photographs.
One faction worshipped the chest muscles. Another loved the mature man’s weathered eyes.
One faction licked the wicked bald head. Another dug into the black-and-red tattoo half visible below a waistband.
Then there were the fanfic writers who could imagine hundreds of thousands of words from a photograph, dividing again into older-top and younger-top camps. Those who backed the restrained, deep, black-bellied gong against those backing the wicked little wolf-dog gong were locked in mortal war, both convinced their own analysis was perfect. Occasionally a mutual-switching heresy appeared, only to be rapidly crushed by all the other organizations.
In truth, their schedules had not overlapped at all. They were in different places and could not go to the studio together. The photos had been shot separately, each man "acting" toward empty air, then composited together in retouching.
While taking the magazine pictures, Pei Yan had simply posed toward the Zhuang Xiao in his imagination. Getting into character required no effort. During the shoot, he carried a full, excited emotional current, his eyes and expression naturally alive…
Even his body found the rhythm. Fuck, take one hard fashion photo and he could make himself hard too.
Later, he took an enormous stack of sample magazines from the company director.
One copy was nowhere near enough to worship. He stockpiled them for slow nighttime enjoyment, one under the pillow, one on the living-room coffee table, two more in the bathroom and shower…
His computer also held the original photographs from the shoot, plus other stills and images of Zhuang Xiao.
He did not throw those things together carelessly with his GVs or porn. They had their own encrypted folder, buried deep in a corner of the computer’s directory.
For a man, lust was lust and feeling was feeling. He separated the two very clearly. Acting was acting, work was work. But liking someone was also genuinely liking him…
Behind all the dazzling distractions, somebody began quietly planning and making moves.
Pei Yan’s agent, Johnny Wu, settled himself into an office chair, got into position, and began calling Zhuang Xiao’s agent Bao Pengzhi.
"Mr. Bao, this is Johnny! Aiya, long time no see, we miss Mr. Zhuang very much. Aiya, there’s an opportunity right now, a very good one, and we’d really like Mr. Zhuang to consider it… Yes, yes, the big-budget costume wuxia production Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass. The timing is very urgent. I don’t know whether Mr. Zhuang and your team are available lately…"
"Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass?" Fatty Bao sounded puzzled. "I remember that project was already preparing to shoot. Wasn’t the cast settled long ago?"
"Long story, cough cough. It was settled, but one lead’s schedule got pushed back, so the whole production date moved. Another lead can’t come anymore for certain reasons, so…" Johnny Wu explained. "I’ve emailed you the script and staff list. The team is excellent. You absolutely have to let Mr. Zhuang himself take a look!"
"So…? Oh, oh… I’ll have him look. Mr. Zhuang isn’t here right now. I’ll talk to him when I see him." Fatty Bao answered in the tone of routine business.
Right beside Johnny Wu, sitting on the desk, was Pei Yan. He stared unblinking at his agent making the call and kept shooting him looks and hand signals. Johnny Wu’s sticky, roundabout, slow way of never getting to the point made him deeply dissatisfied. Why are you saying so much useless shit?
This time Pei Yan did not snatch Johnny Wu’s phone. He simply dialed Zhuang Xiao himself.
The international connection was poor. It was morning in the capital and midnight over there, with noisy music and human shouting filling the receiver. Zhuang Xiao’s voice broke through the noise, mildly surprised. "Old Pei?"
"On vacation, are you? So free?" Pei Yan opened with a challenge.
"At a friend’s place," Zhuang Xiao answered.
"What friend? Who?" Pei Yan could not hold back. If he wanted to pry, he asked. He also elbowed away Uncle Johnny’s hand as Johnny frantically tried to signal him and tug at him.
"Jason Banner’s place. Friends are having a party." Zhuang Xiao was frank. There was nothing worth hiding.
Zhuang Xiao had already left Knights of the Distant Stars and fallen out with the producers, but apparently he was still close with the male lead, that old bastard Jason Banner. They were even having a midnight party… Pei Yan ground his teeth once, feeling bitter about his own single life spent sleeping alone night after night.
Actually, Zhuang Xiao was doing fine. Whatever else happened, he lacked neither money nor a bowl of food. Pei Yan had been worrying for nothing.
Pei Yan rattled off the basic information and key points directly. "I know the timing is tight. Ten days from now, yes, ten days of prep. Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass starts shooting at the Yanmen Pass film base. The production urgently needs a second male lead to save them. Are you coming?"
Pei Yan had investigated Zhuang Xiao’s schedule long ago and calculated the dates. He knew Zhuang Xiao happened to be free this month and could join a production.
"Period costume. Ming dynasty. Wuxia. The second male lead is a court fugitive and frontier hero. On the poster he’s left of the male lead. His screen time is basically equal to the protagonist’s.
"He’s righteous, heroic, tragic. Open ending. No romance, no bed scenes. It’s wuxia, it’s fighting! The script is good, adapted from a novel. They hired a Hong Kong Film Awards screenwriter. The director’s reliable, special-effects crew is strong, and the investors don’t have cash-flow problems. Seven or eight companies are investing. The biggest investor is our Jiahuang Brothers."
Pei Yan fired all the important information in one breath. I’ve done everything I can. Your move.
In the time it took him to rattle all that off without stumbling, the other end changed too. The earthquake-collapse roar of heavy metal vanished. All the noise disappeared and his ear suddenly became clear.
To hear him properly, Zhuang Xiao had walked upstairs to the second-floor study in Jason’s house and shut the door.
"You want me for this role?" Zhuang Xiao was genuinely surprised. Not by the production or character, but by Pei Yan, an actor, personally pulling this connection for him.
"Oh, I forgot the most important part. The fee will definitely be a large eight-figure RMB amount. They need somebody to rescue the production, and they know your market rate. They won’t dare lowball you. You’ll need Fatty Bao to negotiate the details with the producer, whether you want a fixed salary or an investment share in the later promotion and returns." Pei Yan paused. "I just want you to play it. The role suits you too well. There’s no second choice."
"Are you the male lead?" Zhuang Xiao asked.
"Like hell I am!" Pei Yan said disdainfully. "Haven’t you read the original novel? The protagonist is a pretty embroidered pillow who needs this frontier hero to protect him with his life. That’s literally the plot. You think I can play that useless idiot?"
"Heh. Then what are you playing?" Zhuang Xiao knew Young Hero Pei was not merely arranging a role out of pure charity.
"I’m the one on the poster holding an Embroidered Spring Saber against the useless pretty boy’s head." Pei Yan let out a wicked laugh. "I’m the villain boss. In the final fight, the hero uses an iron chain to fling me off Yanmen Pass and hang me to death. My head even comes off. You taking it?!"
"Fuck… that plot is exciting. Tempting enough that I really need to think about it," Zhuang Xiao said.
Low laughter with complicated meaning came from both ends of the call at the same time.
Zhuang Xiao frowned while laughing at him. "Are you addicted to playing villains now? Your idol-star route is dead for good?"
"I’m not an idol. I’m an anti-idol, okay? I founded my own school!" Pei Yan was shamelessly proud. "My acting’s good, that’s all. Other people want these roles and still can’t play them. Maybe I’ll even pick up a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actor."
Anti-idol…
Zhuang Xiao sat on the sofa in Jason Banner’s second-floor study. His profile stayed motionless under the lamp, a cigarette between his lips, but the mouth itself was smiling… He genuinely liked hearing Pei Yan talk wild every time, all fire and spice, obnoxious and hard. How could one person be this different from everybody else…
Then came another difficult stretch of silence, hesitation, uncertainty.
"Is this what the investors want?" Zhuang Xiao said. "Did you talk to Jiahuang’s boss?"
"You’re sure?"
Zhuang Xiao calmly confirmed again.
"Of course. I wouldn’t casually bullshit you with something that wasn’t settled," Pei Yan said. "The producer is waiting for my answer. He’s in the conference room right next to our company right now. You can talk to him on the phone this second if you want. If you nod, have your Fatty fly over. They can settle everything and sign within three days. Then you join the production with me. We’ll go together."
Pei Yan immediately struck at the weak point. "I know you’ve gone years without coming home to seriously shoot a production. Guest cameos don’t count. If somebody else asked you today and offered nine figures, you still might not give them face and accept. But today I’m asking you. I genuinely want to work with you. And I’m playing a role where I lose my head and die. My neck’s hard, other people can’t chop through it, and working with anybody else won’t satisfy me! I figure if I’m the one opening my mouth and asking, you’ll at least think about me… right?"
We’ll go together.
If I’m asking, you’ll at least think about me, right?
A double meaning.
How was Zhuang Xiao supposed to answer that?
Did Pei Yan know how to talk, or did he not?
Should Zhuang Xiao say, yes, I fucking don’t want to go back. I don’t want to return to that circle or the road I used to walk. Offer me a hundred million and I still wouldn’t take it. Or should he say, yes, I don’t give a damn about anybody else, but you asked, and I have to give you this face no matter what. We have friendship between us…
This "connection" had of course been dragged into existence through Pei Yan’s hard work. It was true that Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass had been delayed and needed someone to save the production. The producers simply would never have thought to invite Zhuang Xiao. An actor like him had a huge reputation and high price, expensive and difficult to book. Much easier to find somebody cheaper and less troublesome.
But cheap and easy could never create this cannon-blast publicity effect.
Pei Yan had told Jiahuang’s big boss and the producer, Do you know how long it’s been since Zhuang Xiao seriously came home to film? How hard he is to book? Leixing’s paparazzi have followed him forever and still can’t photograph him doing anything with his family. That proves the man simply doesn’t appear on the mainland.
But if we actually get him? The movie hasn’t even started shooting and we’ve got heat. The two characters "Zhuang Xiao" are audience anticipation all by themselves. We can save on advertising and marketing and start pouring the celebration wine now while estimating the box office.
Only about half an hour later, as if the whole thing had been organized in advance, the internet exploded like thunder. Several official accounts and entertainment feeds simultaneously released so-called insider news with a tidal wave of worshipful excitement: "Zhuang Xiao joins Jiahuang’s annual mega-budget production Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass as a male lead, returning to mainland screens after many years," and so on.
In the actor market, especially among kung-fu performers, rarity made things precious. Audiences had grown tired of familiar faces, so the one they rarely saw became the most desirable. Film fans and martial-arts fans huddled together trembling with excitement.
Historical costume. Pure wuxia. Ming imperial court and jianghu. A blockbuster web-IP adaptation. Hong Kong Film Awards screenwriter. Rising director. Major stars. Jiahuang’s deep pockets backing it all… Every high-quality ingredient had been thrown together.
"The great hero returns to Zhuang’s road, storms rise once more. Invincible Xiao-ge!!"
"IN. MY. LIFE. I actually lived long enough to see a god-tier cast and gold-standard production like this!!"
"Perfectly restores that tragic CP from the novel! Hero Yun, you miserable idiot, turn around and look at Eunuch Cen Jiang one more time! He really loves you, but you kill, him, for, the, greater, good! Nobody loves you more than Eunuch Cen, crying!!"
"Once upstairs starts imagining it, these two trying to kill each other really are painfully beautiful. Original-novel fans are blessed beyond three lifetimes!!"
"Pei-Zhuang went from brothers to a life-and-death romance between the Eastern Depot and a wandering hero in one blink. This love-hate drama is too exciting!!"
"Heretic upstairs, get out. It’s Zhuang-Pei! Does your Eunuch Cen even have a dick? Zhuang-Pei CP is irreversible!!"
*
Bao Pengzhi was still on the way over when the news outran him online and exploded ahead of his feet, leaving the agent behind.
Fatty Bao was stunned and immediately called Zhuang Xiao. "Boss, what’s going on? Online they’re saying you took Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass. I haven’t even taken it for you yet. Is this a joke?"
The other side was silent.
Zhuang Xiao said in a low voice, "I accepted it."
Bao Pengzhi: "…"
Fatty Bao said, "This is Jiahuang rushing to hype things again, right? They’ve got everything ready already? Now we can’t back out even if we want to, they’ve put us up there. Is there still time to say you aren’t doing it?"
Zhuang Xiao stayed silent.
Fatty Bao was apparently scrolling another phone at the same time. "Too late. It’s already trending. #PeiZhuangReuniteDragonBattlesHeavensPass… Boss, your buzz and traffic are still pretty impressive."
Heavy rock from downstairs pounded through the ears in wave after wave, stirring the thick substance in the blood again. Before Zhuang Xiao’s eyes ran a foaming current. The road ahead showed a little light, but what lay there remained impossible to read.
Dawn in Southern California was damp with dew, the sky turning fish-belly white…
Zhuang Xiao said, "Make a few more calls, or go back in person, and handle the concrete details for me. Negotiate the salary however you want. In principle, a friendship rate is fine. Whatever they give is fine with me."
Whatever they give is fine?
Big brother, didn’t you just blow up Season Five of Knights because of the salary…
Fatty Bao had taken too many shocks today. He had just been bombarded once by the internet and now got bombarded again by Zhuang Xiao. This was not an ordinary "friendship rate." Outsiders had nothing left to say…