Between the mountains, above the clouds, battle flags fluttered across the land and battle cries shook the sky.
The depot chief had chased Hero Yun into a winding valley and trapped him along a narrow “plank road” beside a great river. Yet he too had been attacked from behind and lost men in the fighting. The two faced each other, their gazes full of pain and shock, eyes red with the conviction that this meeting might be their last. Neither knew if he would live to see tomorrow’s sun, yet neither would abandon what he held sacred…
The script called for an enormous backdrop and an epic scene, with masses of extras filming in the valley. By the time they were done, everyone was exhausted.
The wind was fierce, lifting dust even coarser than the sandstorms in the city. Frost was forming on the high meadows. Under the morning sunlight it looked like a delicate layer of shining snow. Their location was breathtaking.
“Fuck, this must be the older uncles and grandfathers of all the sand in the city…” Young Hero Pei shook his shoulders and wiped his face.
“Ow!” He groaned. That hurt.
“Don’t rub your face. You’re just scraping your own skin,” the man beside him told him.
Pei Yan shot the hero next to him a look. “Hey, my skin’s still pretty delicate.”
Zhuang Xiao laughed at him. “Your skin is pretty thick, all right.”
The director was roaring into his megaphone.
The assistant director was so busy directing the extras into position and arranging their marching formations that his head was spinning.
Shouts and neighing filled the air. Huge groups of extras and herds of horses moved across the grassland. Every martial-arts performer and horse trainer hired by the production had joined the action, wearing armor and costumes as they galloped across the meadows…
At the moment they weren’t in the official Huitengxile scenic area.
The proper tourist area was highly commercialized. There were tour groups everywhere and vendors hawking goods. The production hadn’t rented the tourist horses there, either. Those horses were for visitors to ride, not herding or battle. They were weak, could barely run, and plodded along with tourists bouncing on their backs, defecating as they went. Their handlers walked alongside constantly asking for more money, all the way down the trail.
But the production had expert horse trainers, and local contacts out on the grasslands. That meant it could rent much better horses.
These horses were impressive, powerful, and strong runners. They would look magnificent in mounted combat scenes, but they were far harder to ride.
From horseback, Pei Yan gave Hero Zhuang a sideways look. “How good are you on a horse?”
Zhuang Xiao returned the look. “How could people in our profession not know how to ride? How else would we film?”
“Want to compete?”
“At what? You tell me.”
“Just riding would be too easy… Let’s compete at mounted archery!”
Young Hero Pei borrowed a prop bow and arrows and galloped off. Zhuang Xiao gave chase. Their figures swept gracefully across the grassland, as quick as wind and lightning. Pei Yan looked exceptionally handsome drawing his bow. Clearly he’d been trained through years of costume dramas. But the moment he loosed an arrow, the truth came out. His shot went wildly astray and headed straight for a horse off to one side.
The horses of the grassland were precious, worth more than people. The rider instantly hauled on the reins and made his horse leap, clearing Young Hero Pei’s hurtling arrow so that it flew beneath the horse’s belly.
Pei Yan looked over. “Whoops… Little Prince!”
Sa Risheng wheeled his horse around and came galloping back, hanging sideways from the stirrup to bend down and pluck that arrow out of the grass!
Pei Yan: “…”
Zhuang Xiao couldn’t bear to watch anymore. “Idiot, run!” he shouted.
Pei Yan howled, spun his horse around, and fled.
Different trades required different skills. His horse simply wasn’t as fast as Sa Risheng’s. When he heard a bowstring twang behind him, already within range, he hugged his head, terrified that an arrow might pierce his skull. A contemptuous laugh came from behind. The arrow landed two feet away, mercifully sparing him.
Pei Yan twisted around and pointed with his whip. “Little Prince! If you’ve got the guts, get off that horse and fight me!”
Who would be stupid enough to dismount and fight you? Sa Risheng circled on horseback and narrowed his eyes coolly at Pei Yan, challenging him to come and try.
Pei Yan said, “Get down. Let’s fight on foot.”
Sa Risheng said, “We fight on horseback. Come here.”
Pei Yan said, “That’s hard on the horses. Let’s fight on the ground!”
Zhuang Xiao finally lost his patience and interrupted. “You think you’re unbeatable on the ground? Do you even know how to wrestle?”
Pei Yan: “…”
Wrestling…
Two horses faced each other about ten feet apart, with Zhuang Xiao in the middle. Pei Yan only dared challenge Xiao-Sa when Zhuang Xiao was around. Otherwise he would have fled as fast as he could. This was Xiao-Sa’s own territory. Weren’t all these horses raised at the Little Prince’s family estate?
Xing Rong could ride too. After all, it was one of the basic skills required for costume dramas. But previously he’d only ever ridden at a leisurely pace, playing noble young masters and princes along the broad, flat stone-paved streets of film cities. Galloping across the grassland amid flying arrows and weapons was an entirely different matter.
During blocking, one shot required him to fall from horseback and tumble into the grass. He dared do it when the horse was standing still. Once it started moving at a trot, he absolutely didn’t dare jump.
His management team rushed over to stop him. You can’t fall, you absolutely can’t! What if you damage your face? The contract explicitly says you’re not to film any shots that involve falling. Any shot in which some part of your body other than the soles of your feet hits the ground is off-limits.
If he couldn’t shoot anything in which another part of his body touched the ground, that meant he’d need a “kneeling double” whose legs and knees alone appeared in the frame for kneeling scenes, and a “falling double” showing only the back for scenes in which he took a tumble.
The directing team summoned Sa Risheng.
The fall itself posed no problem for him. But Comrade Xiao-Sa was rather too solidly built. When he fell, he didn’t remotely resemble the light, slim frame of Prince Zhu.
The director casually pointed Sa Risheng out to Xing Rong. “You don’t have any scenes this afternoon. Since you’re free, how about letting Xiao-Sa teach you to ride?”
Sa Risheng frowned. Huh? Was that written into my contract?
His agent smiled politely. “Well, um, is Mr. Zhuang shooting this afternoon? I don’t think he is either, is he? Why not have Mr. Zhuang teach our Rongrong to ride?”
Xing Rong’s expression changed. Embarrassed, he urgently tugged at his agent’s clothes from behind.
The director gave a slight smile and said tactfully, “Mr. Zhuang ought to be allowed to rest when he isn’t filming. He’s exhausted.”
The production manager hastened to explain too. “Xiao-Sa is an excellent rider. There isn’t a better riding instructor anywhere in this crew!”
Xing Rong’s agent glanced at Sa Risheng. Who cared how well he could ride?
The production manager complained inwardly. Good heavens, what an appetite! You want Zhuang Xiao himself to teach your actor to ride? I wouldn’t dare give him an order like that. He’s another big star we’ve paid a fortune to hire, not somebody brought in to lead horses and run errands. Besides, Zhuang Xiao isn’t nearly as good a rider as Sa Risheng. We offer your boy the best instructor there is, and you’re still being picky?
Sa Risheng tossed the reins across the horse’s back and walked off before young Xing had another chance to respond.
Who the fuck wanted to teach you riding?
I’ve got enough to be annoyed about myself.
* * *
Zhuang Xiao had been working the entire time with the mounted-combat special effects team and the stunt performers. He genuinely had no spare time to teach anyone to ride.
The team had measured distances and angles with precision for how the two men and their two horses would charge past each other, brush shoulders, and leap.
Every unit took its position. The leads, stunt doubles, extras playing corpses and everyone else were laid out across the frame. Every “corpse” had its own hole and crouched in the grass waiting for the director to wave his flag. Camera One moved onto its tracks, while an enormous jib suspended Camera Two overhead for full 360-degree coverage. Everything was ready.
Black hair flew loose in the wind. Zhuang Xiao’s real hair had been extended with a piece of false hair at the back. Realistic injury makeup concealed the tiny scratches cut by windblown grit, until it was impossible to tell actual blood from stage blood. He assumed his opening fighting stance, his presence commanding and intimidating.
Within the camera frame, battle was about to erupt.
“Hold on a moment.”
Pei Yan abruptly called to the director, still not satisfied.
For this shot, the opponent facing Zhuang Xiao wasn’t Pei Yan himself, but Pei Yan’s stunt double.
Mounted combat with real weapons was dangerous. There was an unspoken rule on sets that specialized doubles took the blows. No one dared direct hooves and blades at the stars themselves. When the camera filmed a close-up of Zhuang Xiao, the half-visible back of his opponent’s head belonged to Pei Yan’s double. When the angle reversed to show Pei Yan from the front, the man standing opposite to take the blows was a double from the Zhuang Stunt Team, usually Sa Risheng. By avoiding a genuine exchange, neither star had to win or lose, expose weaknesses, or lose face. It was entirely possible for audiences to see two martial-arts masters hacking at each other convincingly onscreen even though the stars had never actually fought each other on set.
Pei Yan called a halt, pulled off his military greatcoat to reveal his pure-black, gold-woven official costume, and said, “I’ll do it myself.”
The director was sitting inside the little cabin on top of the camera crane. He called, “Huh? What are you doing?”
The assistant director emerged from the crowd of extras with a face covered in bloody corpse makeup. “Old Pei, let’s use the double! It’s easier on everybody. Out here in the middle of nowhere, we can’t risk injuries… We can’t afford either of you getting hurt.”
“You think audiences can’t tell we’re faking the fight?” Pei Yan replied. “My fighting looks better than a double’s!”
Opposite him, Zhuang Xiao’s expression was difficult to read. Still holding the opening posture of Baguazhang, he discreetly waved a hand at Mr. Pei: Get over to the side and stay there.
Elio’s Notes: Baguazhang (Eight Trigrams Palm) is a Chinese martial art known for its circular stepping patterns and changing palm techniques.
Pei Yan gestured to the blood-covered assistant director to show him where to go: You move aside first, buddy. Otherwise you’re the one who’s really going to get hurt!
Peach-blossom makeup colored the corners of his eyes. Surrounded by the thousands of soldiers and horses of the battlefield, he looked exceptionally handsome, carrying the sinister, desperate beauty of a man fighting to the death. Slowly he drew the long saber from his waist…
Relax. Do you think I’d hurt him?
Or that he’d have the heart to hurt me?
Sand and stones whirled through the air. Dust billowed. Horses wheeled and neighed, and battle cries thundered across the valley. Pei Yan swept past on horseback, swinging his blade downward from above. The shot required him to leap into Zhuang Xiao, crash bodily into him, and knock him violently out of the saddle.
They filmed that one shot several times. It was extremely difficult. In front of the cameras, both men performed for real. If the collision wasn’t hard enough, it wouldn’t look convincing. If they hit too hard, they couldn’t withstand the momentum and both rolled off their horses. They fell again and again.
They saw stars and ended up with mouths full of grass.
At last they got a take in which the movement looked good. Zhuang Xiao studied the monitor, remained dissatisfied, and told the director he wanted another.
If Zhuang Xiao said, “One more take,” Mr. Pei would absolutely cooperate. With anyone else, he might have refused.
Zhuang Xiao gripped the back of Pei Yan’s costume and hauled him bodily up from the ground. As they passed each other, he said in a low voice, “Let the double do it.”
Pei Yan replied, “I haven’t hurt myself. It doesn’t even hurt.”
Zhuang Xiao silently shaped the words with his lips. “Watching you fall makes my expression wrong. I’d act better opposite a double.”
Pei Yan turned to look at him. It wasn’t even dark yet, but it felt as though clusters of tiny stars were twinkling in his eyes. He narrowed them and smiled. “Care about me that much, huh?”
Zhuang Xiao said, “I’m not joking. Get off the set.”
Pei Yan spat on the ground a couple of times, trying to clear out whatever he’d swallowed.
Zhuang Xiao laughed. “Why are your lips green?”
Pei Yan pursed his lips and tasted the bitterness. “Did I eat grass?”
“You did.” A dimple appeared in Zhuang Xiao’s cheek. “Keep it up and you’ll be producing milk.”
The remark sounded suggestive again, and both their expressions changed. Instinctively they avoided each other’s eyes. Zhuang Xiao lowered his head, set his face sternly, and walked away.
Something between them was slowly fermenting and changing.
The words that came out of their mouths were no longer things they’d planned or rehearsed in their heads. They didn’t even know what nonsense they were saying…
The successive dangerous mounted-battle scenes exhausted horses and people alike. The leads had thrown themselves into the work, each competing to outdo the other. Even the production manager sighed that the salaries paid to these two gentlemen had been absolutely worth it.
When they finished, Pei Yan called to the director, “We look so handsome riding horses, and the fighting looks so good. Add another mounted-battle scene for us tomorrow!”
“Haven’t you fallen enough?” the director replied. “You still want more scenes?”
“Well, the men and the horses are already here. While I’m in the mood, let me have a few more fights.”
A group of men nearby teased him. “After riding for days, isn’t your backside sore?”
“Doesn’t that hard thing banging against you hurt?”
Hahaha!
Pei Yan straightened the lower part of his official costume, glanced downward, and said, “Should I take out insurance on myself?”
Someone mocked him. “What insurance does Eunuch Cen need? You’ve got anything in those trousers?”
Pei Yan shot back, “I’m a fake eunuch! I never got castrated when I entered the palace. Mine’s the real thing, big and fully functional, bigger than a donkey’s! Just wait, I’ll find a mare to practice on…”
With an arrogant, overbearing air and a look of frustrated lust, Pei Yan headed toward a nearby warhorse as though intending to sexually harass the poor animal.
Everyone roared with laughter. Xing Rong laughed so hard that his carefully maintained idol image disintegrated. He crouched on a stool with all his gums on display. Once you put aside the secret jockeying, who was more famous than whom, and the politics of the industry, life and work on set were always supposed to be exhausting and joyful in equal measure…
Probably only Xing Rong’s agent and publicity team were sulking in the background. That scheming bastard Pei! He was playing the fool to outsmart everybody, tricking the director into giving him more scenes! Who exactly was the lead of this film? A villain listed third on the poster had such an enormous appetite and ambition, stealing every scene until he practically had more screen time than the leading man…
As evening approached, the setting sun turned everything molten gold. The last shot before they wrapped was Zhuang Xiao knocking Pei Yan’s stunt double flying with a spear.
The blow was hard and looked magnificent. As expected, with the real Pei Yan out of frame, Zhuang Xiao performed with far greater freedom and none of his earlier hesitation.
But it was precisely that last shot that produced a minor accident on set.
As the stunt performer flew backward, he pulled on the wire ropes attached to his back. Several ropes should have been attached as backup supports, so that if one snapped in midair he wouldn’t fall.
One of those wire ropes really did snap.
The stunt performer himself wasn’t hurt, but the stiff rope lashed upward through the air and struck a warhorse within the camera’s field of view.
It was like taking a tremendous whip across the neck. The skin must have broken and bled. The startled horse screamed and reared, all four hooves thrashing!
Everything happened in seconds. Hooves stamped, the set dissolved into chaos, and the horse charged straight toward the crowd. Zhuang Xiao, who had just finished his shot and was still sitting on the ground, sprang up in alarm. The horse was rushing directly toward Pei Yan, who stood beside the camera eating sunflower seeds.
Pei Yan turned and saw the maddened horse.
His eyes flickered. There wasn’t even time for surprise to register before it came smashing toward his face…
Instinctively he dropped backward, sliding to the ground beneath the space between its neck and belly, hands over his head so its hooves wouldn’t trample his face.
It was too fast for anyone around him to react. Xing Rong cried out and toppled backward off his stool, landing hard on his backside. His agent turned and ran.
The horse leaped over Pei Yan and burst through the crowd, scattering everyone in panic. But the animal was wearing a saddle and stirrups, and some part of a stirrup must have caught the depot chief’s robe. Incredibly, it dragged Pei Yan away with it.
“Aah!”
Pei Yan was being hauled across the ground by the galloping horse. He shouted once, his official hat flew off, and his hair came loose at once.
Hooves rose and fell dangerously close to his head. They tangled in his long wig, while hard rocks and potholes slammed against his shoulders, tearing his costume.
He saw a figure running toward him. Zhuang Xiao moved fast, chasing the horse. This time there was no safety wire to grab. It was a damned costume sash tangling man and horse together. Zhuang Xiao caught Pei Yan and was immediately pulled to the ground by the enormous momentum, but he didn’t let go.
With the weight dragging behind the horse suddenly doubled, the animal staggered and slowed. The sash couldn’t bear their combined weight and finally tore apart…
Pei Yan found himself cradled in Zhuang Xiao’s arms.
They stared at one another, still gasping in shock. Everything before their eyes seemed covered in dirt and dancing stars of pain, mixed with tangled hair and smudged eye and lip makeup. The sash had nearly strangled Pei Yan around the neck. His face was red, and his clothing had been scraped through at the shoulders and arms…
The maddened horse fled, galloping unrestrained toward the open wilderness.
Among the bodies of Eastern Depot guards sprawled on the set, one “corpse” who’d looked utterly lifeless suddenly flung aside his weapon and sprang upright. Agile and swift, he sprinted straight after the horse.
The runaway ignored all attempts to call it back, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
The pursuer put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Another warhorse from the nearby group instantly broke into a gallop and came straight to his call.
The pursuer was Sa Risheng.
The crew struggled up from the chaos and watched in bewilderment.
Sa Risheng had already vaulted onto the second horse and was chasing the first across the grasslands.
The sun was just touching the tips of the grass, a huge blood-red disc sinking inch by inch toward the horizon. Horse and rider streaked past against that scarlet backdrop, looking exactly like something out of a film…
The frightened horse kept running for a long time, circling the valley. Sa Risheng pursued just as long, his clothing soaked through.
He felt sorry for the horse. He didn’t want it to escape and get lost. He wanted to catch it and treat its injury. One horse fled and one pursued until the sun had set and both animals were exhausted, too tired to run any farther.
Sa Risheng repeatedly urged his horse up alongside the frightened animal, trying to catch its reins. He missed several times while it tossed its neck and resisted, but finally caught hold and rode beside it, leading it along.
As the two horses traveled side by side at a steady, gentle pace, Sa Risheng dropped from his own mount and swung himself onto the other.
He bent down to hug its sweat-drenched neck, gripped its mane, and whispered what sounded like a long string of mystical syllables into its ear. Perhaps they were spells, or perhaps he was speaking the horses’ own language. Slowly the terror faded from the horse’s eyes, the bloodshot redness cleared, and it stopped trembling. He led both horses back to camp.
* * *
That evening, they ate dinner inside the yurt of a local herding family, one of the perks of having contacts in the area.
It was freezing outdoors and there wasn’t even anywhere convenient to wash. Pei Yan’s assistant helped peel off his dirt-caked costume. Sure enough, wherever the cloth had rubbed through, the skin beneath had been scraped raw, leaving dark abrasions. The producers and production assistants were frantic, coming over repeatedly to ask whether he needed to go to a hospital for bandaging.
Pei Yan said, “Forget it. The hospital’s too far and I can’t be bothered. By the time you drive me there, these little scrapes will have scabbed over or frozen solid!”
Zhuang Xiao took the gauze from the assistant and gently wiped him down.
The gauze was still too rough, so Zhuang Xiao replaced it with cotton swabs. Sitting behind Pei Yan, he carefully dipped a swab in disinfectant and cleaned each wound, then used another to apply medicine.
He couldn’t be bothered to worry about anyone watching.
Let them think whatever they wanted.
Pei Yan sat in front of Zhuang Xiao with his face buried between his knees, his back trembling faintly…
His back was a mess. Medicine was dabbed here and there until it resembled red plum blossoms blooming over a garden wall, flower after flower, their shadows crossing and a faint fragrance drifting on the air. Each fresh touch brought another stab of pain.
Xing Rong sat down nearby to offer a few words of sympathy, then suddenly smiled. “I’ve never even suffered an injury on set. It’s almost as though I’ve never made a wuxia film… I’m ashamed.”
“What’s there to be ashamed of?” Zhuang Xiao replied without looking up at Xing Rong. “We’re different kinds of actors. Not everyone on set has to be covered in injuries.”
Xing Rong looked despondent. “Yes. Different kinds of actors.”
They were fundamentally different people, weren’t they? Why keep trying to manufacture CP chemistry and hog the spotlight, only to make a fool of himself and annoy everyone? Xing Rong smiled bitterly at his own expense, envying the kind of affection two colleagues could share.
Sa Risheng was cooking the evening’s milk tea over the stove. It wasn’t a proper meal without milk tea.
First he crushed compressed green brick tea and put it into a large iron pot. When the water and tea had boiled, he added milk.
Stars glittered above the Huitengxile Grassland, and the fragrant smell of milk tea drifted through the air. Sa Risheng sat cross-legged on a wool rug, preparing the tea quietly and working without a sound. His profile was handsome, his nose high and straight, his strong chest wrapped in a single front-opening tunic. His sweat had already dried.
“You’re such an excellent rider. You looked really handsome. Could you teach me to ride?”
It was Xing Rong who asked.
He didn’t care that the man was only a stunt performer. Because Sa Risheng wasn’t a famous star, striking up a conversation with him didn’t look like sucking up to anyone. It made Xing Rong feel much more at ease.
Right after calling someone handsome, Xing Rong lifted a silver bowl of salted milk tea to his lips. “Pfft!” He almost spat the tea out!
He hurriedly wiped his mouth, the liquid nearly running down both corners in little waterfalls. He was too embarrassed to spit in front of the Little Prince, so he forced himself to swallow and licked his lips clean. What kind of tea was this? He simply wasn’t used to that taste.