In a national park on the American West Coast, the canyon was filled with giant sequoias and red rock formations, a magnificent sight.
Zhuang Xiao was bare-chested, with blood smeared across the armor and trousers covering his lower body.
He gazed into the distance, fitted an arrow to his bow, and drew the string into a perfect full moon. Releasing it, he sent an arrow flying toward the blood-red sun on the horizon. All around him, monsters and armored warhorses roared, blood surged, and a valiant Eastern warrior leapt into the canyon below…
“Cut!”
The director said, “Good. Bring him up.”
Heavy equipment reeled in the safety rigging. Assistants from the action team clustered at the cliff edge, hauled the man back from the predetermined landing point below, and quickly wrapped him in a thick down coat. Zhuang Xiao’s face was painted with color, ocher dirt, and blood, emphasizing the strong lines of his eyes and brows. His hairstyle resembled a noble, aloof version of a terracotta warrior. It took the stylist three hours to weave the elaborate braids, which were done once a week. He could not wash his hair whenever he liked and had to avoid messing up the style while sleeping.
His new film was an epic fantasy blockbuster. Half the collaborating crew came from Hollywood, the other half from China. They were determined to create a popcorn spectacle blending Eastern fantasy with American visual effects.
Half the footage was being shot in national parks in California and Colorado, the other half would be filmed back in China. The investors had spared no expense, recruiting a famous domestic director and stars from every style and school, seasoned veterans alongside fresh young idols, prestige acting and fan traffic together, hoping to please viewers of every kind.
His partner was an old acquaintance, Jason Banner. The two muscular men strutted around the set with bare upper bodies slick with olive oil, dressed like a pair of ancient gladiators. Before streaming hundred-foot lengths of red silk, ranks of armored cavalry shouting slogans in perfect unison, and mass-gymnastics performers waving glow sticks, they struck magnificent poses and expressions as directed, relentlessly flexing their pecs.
After half a month of filming like this, Zhuang Xiao had forgotten how to spell the word “acting.” Glaring and declaiming his lines made him feel his intelligence shrinking. It was like taking part in a grand, lively stage gala where every shot brought a crowd of backup dancers pouring into view.
This was the movie he had promised Zhang Shaochi he would appear in, the big fantasy co-production between Jiahuang and Hollywood.
Zhuang Xiao had agreed to perform without pay.
The publicity claimed his fee was ten million US dollars, but in reality he did not receive a single cent. To be fair, President Zhang had generously taken care of the tax liability on that supposed ten-million-dollar fee. That made him better than plenty of even more unscrupulous studio bosses. Some actors were assigned enormous fictional pay figures and then forced to pay income tax on the money they had never received. The stories were unbelievable.
Jason Banner stood on the cliff top, preparing to perform a stunt jump.
Zhuang Xiao rose, went over with a cigarette between his lips, and helped check the safety equipment on Jason’s back.
He patted him between the shoulder blades. “All right. Go ahead.”
Jason shot him a look over his shoulder. “Thanks, buddy. Feeling friendly today?”
Zhuang Xiao nodded. “Habit. I have to find something useful to do.”
During breaks, he wrapped himself in his padded coat, sat on the ground, stared across the brilliantly colored canyon piled with strange rocks, and quietly smoked. Whenever the evening glow filled the horizon or a bald eagle soared across a mountain peak, he turned and tapped the bulging backpack beside him. “See that? Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“This canyon goes a long way down. If you had to make that jump just now, how would you do it?”
Zhuang Xiao asked as though talking to himself.
He still inevitably thought of Mr. Pei. He could not help comparing his current partners with Pei Yan, only to discover that none was as pleasing to look at or as exhilarating to fight alongside. He would find it difficult ever again to meet a partner with that sort of chemistry or talent. Some understanding between people seemed innate.
Yanyan Bear was only allowed out of the backpack to get some air when the crew served meals. Zhuang Xiao showed the little bear his boxed lunch. “Want some? Don’t like it? Too good for you, huh?
“It’s pretty decent. Chinese food, even! Stir-fried noodles with shredded pork. Count your blessings…”
He had always been exceptionally able to endure solitude, with a tolerance for loneliness that was almost abnormal. So even now he did not find it unbearably difficult.
He had grown accustomed to poverty and barrenness in matters of the heart. What he could not handle was suddenly becoming rich overnight. He had no idea how to enjoy the wealth… Zhuang Xiao blew smoke toward the canyon.
When shooting at that location finished, the crew prepared to move to another scenic area, giving several leading actors two days off in between.
Jason Banner, an infamous lecherous bachelor, could not tolerate a moment of solitude even on a short break. He insisted on dragging Zhuang Xiao to his villa in San Diego for some overnight entertainment. Once Zhuang Xiao reached San Diego, he ditched Jason instead of joining him to “order” companions for some midnight sex party. He took a boat out to sea alone to visit that island near the border.
The pier was very quiet in the off-season, with hardly any travelers around. It was chilly by the winter sea, and the wind was strong, whipping his braids in every direction and ruining any hope of maintaining the icy elegance of his hairstyle.
The boats that had once run four times a day now made only one trip during the off-season. Zhuang Xiao leaned against the pier and waited for ages. Over and over, he saw in his mind the figure dressed in loud tropical shorts and flip-flops, jogging about in front of him for so long…
The island scenery was unchanged, except that there were fewer visitors than on his last visit. An endless expanse of white sand stretched across the quiet, lovely beach. Wearing his backpack, Zhuang Xiao ran a circuit of the shore, sweating and panting, feeling wonderfully refreshed.
He tossed his backpack onto the beach, took the little bear out, ran several steps, and hurled it high into the air.
The bear soared in a lofty arc. Zhuang Xiao took two steps forward and, as it began to fall, struck a volleyball player’s spiking pose…
But it was only a pose. He did not smack the bear away. Instead he caught it nimbly just before it hit the ground.
He could not help laughing at himself. How could he bear to slap Yanyan Bear into the sand?
Tucking the bear beneath his arm, he wandered around the island in a good mood. Even he felt richer in spirit now, with a fuller heart than before.
In the past, he often went running alone in the morning. Back then he had not even had this bear to keep him company.
Now that he had a bear with him, what right did he have to indulge in self-pity?
Returning from the beach, Zhuang Xiao reached the settlement where the island’s native residents lived. The slopes were still steep, the ramshackle houses glowing in bright colors under the sunlight. The sight made his mind wander, recalling the blood and danger that had once overwhelmed their filming location.
He also found the little path up the hill… Had he walked this route last time?
A woman was repainting her front door. Long strings of mature red and orange chilies harvested and dried in autumn hung beneath the eaves.
Zhuang Xiao saw the enormous ancient tree, the “sacred tree” revered by the island’s local people.
Its leaves had thinned a little in winter, but the branches were crowded with round carved wooden prayer tablets left by visitors. Looking upward, he could see countless little wooden plaques knocking together in the wind, clattering noisily. It was quite a spectacle.
He should make a wish.
Zhuang Xiao bought a round carved wooden plaque as well. He wrote a short message on a slip of paper, rolled it up and pushed it into a little hole in the wood, then sealed it with glue. It could no longer be opened without digging into the wood.
He had no talent for graceful writing or lyrical expression, so he hurriedly scribbled two terribly ordinary sentences. [Baby, stay lively, happy, and full of spirit! I’ll keep missing you for the next twenty years.]
According to the local custom requiring the family surname on prayer plaques, he carved the character 庄 on the front. His knife work was terrible and the strokes crooked. Fortunately, the character had few strokes. Had he attempted 啸, it would have been hopeless.
He squeezed Yanyan Bear’s cheeks and nose.
Little brat. Someday, when you’ve succeeded and conquered the film industry, won awards until your arms ache, and surpassed your elders and juniors alike, I’ll certainly be happy for you. I’ll even break my rule and drink a whole bottle of wine in celebration.
He looked up at the great tree and told the attendant, “No need to help. I can climb up and hang it myself.”
The local caretaker was a dark-complexioned, curly-haired middle-aged man chewing tobacco. He explained that the windy season had arrived, so nobody was allowed to climb the tree. They used to permit climbing, but worried that over time visitors would damage or bring down their sacred tree. Now tourists could not climb it anymore.
Then he would not climb. Zhuang Xiao circled the trunk, gazing upward. Where should he hang it? The attendant followed patiently, carrying an extra-long pole around the tree.
High in a great fork of the branches hung an especially eye-catching wooden tablet, higher than any of the others, looking down on all its rivals. It swayed smugly whenever a breeze passed.
Zhuang Xiao pointed casually. “There. The highest one. Hang mine next to it.”
The attendant raised the pole and tried to measure the reach. Much too high! He could not get to it. Why had Zhuang Xiao picked such a place?
“How did you hang that one?” Zhuang Xiao asked.
The attendant replied, “That visitor, I remember him well. He climbed up himself and hung it there. The pole couldn’t reach, so he went up the tree.”
“He climbed himself?”
“I remember him clearly. The fellow was bald and climbed like a monkey. He scrambled up right then, though we all thought he couldn’t possibly manage it…” The local man spoke rather rough English, but his meaning was perfectly clear. “He hung it up himself.”
“When was that? Do you remember?” Zhuang Xiao kept a calm expression, but colors flooded his eyes, reflecting the sky, the earth, and the white waves of the sea.
The surge came suddenly and fiercely, reaching the rims of his eyes…
“Summer, I think?” the man said. “Last summer. I remember that fellow.”
A gentle breeze abruptly became a strong gust, a strange wind sweeping across the sacred tree. The thousand-year-old tree seemed to harbor goodwill toward those who came to pray sincerely, whispering old affections to its visitor.
The plaque high in the branches had hung there all that time without ever falling. Yet this gust dislodged it, and it landed on the ground less than a foot from Zhuang Xiao’s feet.
He stooped, picked it up, and cradled it in his hands. The instant he saw it, he knew.
The front was carved with the character 裴.
The knife work was fucking terrible.
The stupid monkey had probably made a faint sketch in pencil first because the character had so many strokes, then taken his knife to it anyway, only to carve his own surname into a mess. It looked rather like 袋 or 装.
Zhuang Xiao stared at it laughing for ages. Pei Handsome had become “Pretending to be Handsome.” Wasn’t that exactly you!
The caretaker stared at him as though he were deranged. Zhuang Xiao looked up to explain. “A friend of mine wrote this… He visited last year. I came this year to fulfill his wish for him.”
He desperately wanted to know what Yanyan had written on the little slip of paper.
He wanted to pry the plaque open and look.
He held the little object for a long time, gripping it in his palm, but in the end he could not bring himself to pry it open. Instead he tied the strings of both plaques together with a firm knot. He instructed the caretaker, “Please hang these two together. Any branch is fine.”
Still uneasy, he added before leaving, “If the wind ever blows them down, please hang them both back up. Anywhere will do, as long as they stay tied together.”
Several village shops near the sacred tree sold souvenirs, but most were closed for the season. Only one little shop devoted to embroidery on human skin had half its wooden door open, admitting the damp, salty air from the sea.
An old woman in a red headscarf, her face covered in tattooed patterns, sat by the entrance. She looked extremely old, and was said to be the local tattooing “holy woman.” When she saw Zhuang Xiao stop in front of her, she rose without a word and led him inside…
What did he want tattooed? Where?
Zhuang Xiao had never had a tattoo. He had no interest in carving designs, piercing holes, or wearing rings through his body. The scars already on his skin were more than enough. He did not want anyone else’s mark left there.
The shop was dim and smelled of tropical incense. After thinking for a while, he removed his outer trousers and indicated the spot over his hip bone, below the line of his lower abdominal muscles. “Here. Tattoo someone’s name.”
* * *
Beijing Capital Airport.
On his way there, Pei Yan telephoned a delivery company and arranged a “monthly meal plan” for Old Zhuang, thirty consecutive days of meal deliveries. Then he called and booked his own flight. He did not want to waste another moment or squander any more of his life here.
What would happen if he left? He did not know and did not care.
Coincidentally, an agent representing Fat Charles’s upcoming film called just then, surprisingly to complain. What was wrong with Pei Yan’s manager? Why had his demands for pay and accommodation become so outrageous?
He wanted a fee of more than ten million dollars, triple overtime pay for night shoots, a five-star hotel within three kilometers of the set, an ocean-view presidential suite, a chauffeured stretch limousine, three meals a day from at least a two-Michelin-star kitchen, and a three-day holiday back home after every two weeks of filming… The added contract conditions were simply too many and too demanding. They could not work together on those terms. With such exorbitant demands, they would have to give up on him and find someone else.
Pei Yan was baffled. Who had proposed such deliberately offensive terms?
Johnny Wu had never acted like that before.
He called Uncle Johnny immediately. “Come here. I’ll be waiting in the airport VIP lounge. You have thirty minutes to get here. If you don’t, you’re fired. You won’t be my godfather and sweet daddy anymore!”
Johnny Wu arrived and dropped into a seat opposite Pei Yan in the VIP coffee lounge, wiping sweat with a handkerchief and gasping for breath.
Their gazes met, and both understood. Johnny Wu asked softly, “Baby, are you really leaving? You still want to go find Mr. Zhuang?”
Pei Yan rounded on him. “Who told you to give that American film company all those ridiculous conditions? What were you thinking? President Zhang told you to do it, didn’t he?”
“Ahem…” Johnny Wu adjusted his glasses with one finger. “The boss is worried about you… He doesn’t want to let you go. He doesn’t want you going to America to make that film.”
“He doesn’t want me to have a chance to see Zhuang Xiao. Right?” Pei Yan stared at him.
“To be honest, I don’t want you to leave either. I’m afraid that if you really go away, you won’t come back,” Johnny Wu said sadly.
“Right. I’m leaving on the next flight,” Pei Yan said.
“The boss doesn’t mean anything malicious. He’d never deliberately hurt you. He just wants you to stay popular for a few more years. It’s for your own good… I love you dearly too. Everybody is trying to do what’s best for you, baby!” Johnny Wu said.
For my own good?
I’ve been doing wonderfully lately. Absolutely wonderfully.
“I have to see Zhuang Xiao. I don’t want to give up on him,” Pei Yan said. “As for whether I can come back in a few days, that depends on what President Zhang wants to do, whether he’ll let me off… He can bury my career, blacklist me, or sue me for breach of contract. Whatever games he wants to play, he can play. I’m leaving.”
He spoke decisively. He had thought it all through.
His godfather swallowed an enormous cup of unsweetened coffee as though it were water, grimacing at the bitterness. He wanted to shed a few sad farewell tears, but could not squeeze any out. Suddenly he took out his phone and beckoned. “Baby, look at this photograph.”
After taking his secret photo, Liang Youhui had sent it to Fatty Bao.
Fatty Bao had then mischievously forwarded it to Johnny Wu. He did not say a word. There was nothing to say.
Finally, it went from his godfather’s phone to Pei Yan’s.
The photograph showed a man from behind, standing in the center aisle of a little shop. In his left hand he held a box of “Hazelnut Mocha” cake and quietly stared at a screen. On the screen was a bright spot like a spotlight, a human figure caught in midair while performing a leap. His face was indistinct, but the shiny bald-head styling made identification easy.
Snow whirled outside the shop window. At that moment, time seemed to have stopped for them.
Frozen in Pei Yan’s midair leap…
Frozen in Zhuang Xiao’s gaze…
In another act of impulsive forwarding, Pei Yan immediately sent the photo to the man depicted in it.
He attached another picture, the one from that night at the club. Wrapped in his down jacket, reclining on a sofa like a hibernating bear, his eyes glazed with drink and tears, his lids visibly swollen and red.
That’s you. This is me. Don’t we make a pretty pair?
Then he sent a voice message. “Zhuang Xiao, I want you to say one thing to me right now, out loud. Tell me you haven’t thought about me at all, haven’t missed me, don’t love me in the slightest, and there’s nothing left between us. Don’t type it. Say it to me yourself. I want to hear you say it. Say it now. If you don’t say it within half an hour, I’m buying a ticket and coming over. Wait there for me to slap your face!”
He had already bought the ticket. Half an hour later, boarding began.
When President Zhang emerged from his meeting room and tried to call in favors to have the airport stop the little monkey from boarding, he was already too late.
Pei Yan knew Zhang Shaochi might try to intercept him. To avoid trouble from waiting too long, he did not care which American city he flew to. He simply chose the next departure. Flights to Los Angeles were crowded with no empty seats, so he bought a direct flight to Chicago instead.
He gripped his phone, staring at its screen until his palm was sweaty.
The plane doors were about to close for takeoff. A flight attendant came over and reminded him, “Sir, you need to switch off your phone.”
Pei Yan reluctantly powered it down without getting a reply from Zhuang Xiao.
His voice message had been too arrogant, too domineering, hadn’t it? Inside, he was deeply unsure. He could not predict how Zhuang Xiao would react. That cold, difficult man might resent this endless pursuit and never reply at all.
He slept through the night on the plane, wrapped in a blanket with an eye mask over his face.
His brain was full of chaotic thoughts colliding with one another, arcs of light fighting and cutting across each other, accompanied by constant sharp ringing in his ears… He woke partway through to eat. The airline food was so awful that he made do with two cups of instant noodles, then pulled the blanket over himself and slept again.
Chicago was bitterly cold and windy.
The instant he got off the plane, he realized he had not worn enough clothing. The wind sliced across his face like blades. He hurriedly pulled up the hood of his down jacket, tucked his hands into the sleeves, and felt his nose turning red.
The terminal was packed with moving crowds, a sea of unfamiliar faces of every complexion, Black, white, Asian, streaming past like an army of zombies… The place was completely strange to him. He had never been in this airport, nobody had come to collect him, and he did not even know where to go.
He had never been particularly good at geography, but as a matter of common sense, Chicago seemed quite far from Los Angeles. On a map the cities were at least a handspan apart, roughly… from Urumqi to Beijing, maybe?
He found a wall outlet, plugged in his phone, and charged it.
A few people were crouching beside the wall too, charging their own phones in that corner. Pei Yan sat cross-legged on the floor and opened WeChat.
A single lonely voice message lay in the chat.
Just one audio message. Nothing else. No photograph, no text, no call.
Pei Yan knew that meant there was no hope.
His first instinct was to delete it.
If he deleted it, he could pretend it had never arrived, that it did not exist. I won’t listen, I won’t listen, I won’t listen! Absolutely not! It would hurt too fucking much…
Cradling his phone, he sat with his back against the wall for five minutes. His mind was blank, as though the wind had blown his very brain out of his head.
For an impatient Aries like him, those horrible five minutes exceeded the limits of his psychological and physical endurance. It was agonizing.
Should he delete it outright, or listen once and finally kill the last of his hopes?
He tapped the voice message and held the phone to his ear. The terminal was extremely noisy, and he could not make it out. He listened hard a second time.
“Yanyan, I’m sorry.” Zhuang Xiao’s voice was hoarse. Clearly he had not slept well either.
That was it. His death sentence had been pronounced aloud.
His eyes grew damp. His expression went numb. He was about ready to abandon worldly attachments altogether. Conveniently, he did not even need to shave his head. He was bald already. Put on a sackcloth robe, adopt a religious name, and he could become a monk.
Was this the first time Zhuang Xiao had addressed him so intimately?
Then Zhuang Xiao continued: “Yanyan, I love you. I miss you terribly. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, Yanyan…”