At the recruit camp, a whole group of men ate and slept together. Six of them shared a barracks room with bunk beds.
The young squad leader assigned Zhuang Xiao an upper bunk, with Xing Rong directly underneath him. They had no choice in the matter. Before they moved into the room, everyone had whispered complaints and demands to one another. Hey, does anyone snore? Who’s the snorer in this room? No snorers allowed! If you snore, go and sleep with our company instructor!
Nobody admitted to snoring in his sleep.
“None of you are allowed to snore. Sleep quietly. I’m fucking exhausted…” Zhuang Xiao braced himself with both hands and, almost in slow motion, laboriously climbed toward his upper bunk like a sloth. Each movement was an enormous effort. He was so tired. Laughter rose behind him.
He had once asked Pei Yan whether he normally snored in his sleep.
According to Pei Yan, no, he’d never heard it. “But then, when I sleep with you… I sleep pretty heavily. I get so exhausted sleeping with you.”
As it turned out, from their very first night, every one of the six men snored like a thunderstorm.
Each slept like a dead pig. Nobody woke anybody else up. Only Xing Rong and Zhuang Xiao, who got up separately to use the toilet during the night, heard the extraordinary noise in the room, snoring crashing and rolling loudly enough to shake the mountains.
They really were that tired. Exhausted out of their minds.
Zhuang Xiao had originally imagined that after lights-out each night at camp he would enjoy a little private romance in the darkness, a special half hour reserved just for Mr. Pei. He would gaze wistfully at the stars, think deeply and tenderly of his lover, then make use of his powerful, agile fingers to relieve himself beneath the quilt. But once he entered the camp, every day of field training left him as exhausted as a dog. Now and then there would even be an emergency assembly before dawn, with the instructors hauling everybody out of bed for a three-thousand-meter obstacle run… Not even as a teenage boxer at his club, training and getting beaten by his martial-arts master, had he ever been this tired. Romance, my ass! Masturbation? The dearest woman in his life now was Lady Pillow!
Zhuang Xiao was no longer worried about people starting rumors about him and Xing Rong because they appeared on the same program. They saw each other every day, opened their mouths, and hung out their tongues to pant like dogs. Neither had the energy to care. Let the rumors do whatever they wanted.
At dinnertime, they carried their trays into the mess hall, sat down, and began eating.
They wolfed their food down as though they wished they could grow three mouths and six rows of teeth.
At times like this Zhuang Xiao envied the special talent possessed by Young Master Pei back home. That great big squirrel! Whenever they ate together, Pei Yan was impossibly fast, chewing more efficiently than anyone else. While another person finished one steamed bun and half a plate of food, Pei Yan could demolish two buns and a full plate, grabbing more as he went. Even shelling crabs or crayfish was quicker in his nimble hands.
Pei Yan used to tease him at the table. “Look at you eating so slowly. I’m not waiting around. That last crab is mine too!”
Why the fuck do I eat so fast? Don’t you know I grew up eating crabs? Pei Yan would boast. You people in the capital are always talking about a bowl of stir-fried liver, a basket of steamed buns, and a bowl of noodles with soybean paste, your luxurious ‘imperial city triple special.’ Where I come from we’re ignorant country bumpkins who don’t know anything fancy. We live by the sea and eat what it gives us. When we were little we’d steam two big crabs, make a plate of mussels stir-fried with garlic sauce, and pile up a whole basket of mantis shrimp. That was just one of my meals.
With a steamed bun between his teeth, Zhuang Xiao couldn’t help thinking about the young master raised on crabs. No wonder he had such a hard shell all over and dared to walk sideways wherever he went.
Lost in thought, he reached for another bun. Only then did he realize that young Xing had taken the last one. Oh, the injustice…
“Do you know how hungry we are these days?” Xing Rong whispered to Xiao-Sa during a call that evening. “I ate three and a half steamed buns for dinner today. Three and a half! And then our instructor took pity on how exhausted we were and gave us an extra dish: sliced lamb stir-fried with green peppers and scallions. I was so hungry I even ate lamb! I’ve never known lamb could taste so good! Hahaha… Give me a whole sheep right now and I could eat it all…”
Xing Rong had clearly grown more talkative too. Who was the one people used to say suffered from depression? Some people really were depressed. Others only thought they were, bottling everything up, trapping their worries inside themselves, wrapping themselves in an uncomfortable cocoon, then feeling terribly wronged, self-pitying, and convinced they were profoundly unhappy.
Happiness and unhappiness were also states of mind.
His Little Highness said, “Oh. Next time I’ll roast a whole sheep for you. My roast lamb is delicious.”
His Little Highness added, “Hey, yesterday they took me to a Western restaurant. The steak was horrible. They roasted it into a cow turd. If they’d let me cook it, I definitely wouldn’t have cooked it into a turd.”
Then he added, “So, well, my roast lamb is really good. I’ll cook it for you next time.”
Xing Rong kept laughing until his cheeks hurt. “Please stop. You’ve ruined another thing I can eat. I’ll only be able to drink milk if I keep talking to you, baby.”
His Little Highness went on, “And after the Western food we went to shoot a horseback battle. They used stunt wires, and whoosh, they dropped me onto the horse. The horse’s legs buckled under me. I told them the wire was wrong, that they’d made it too long. But they insisted I was too heavy from eating and needed to lose weight! What nonsense. I hadn’t even eaten that cow turd! Everyone else ate it, not me. How could I possibly have eaten too much?”
The poor boy sounded so aggrieved that Xing Rong’s cheeks hurt from laughing. He laughed himself silly.
Yet this was a genuinely happy, contented way to live.
* * *
In any case, Field Recruits was a hit. After only two episodes, it ranked first among weekend variety shows in the ten-p.m. slot. The actors were throwing themselves into the tasks and doing their very best, and audiences rewarded them for it.
A lot of people online said Rongrong had transformed his image. The pretty boy had finally become a man.
They used to think he was effeminate, but he wasn’t really. It was those pointless, insipid drama roles that were so effeminate. Wasn’t something wrong with the aesthetics of modern soap operas? In his soldier’s uniform and peaked cap, standing ramrod straight at attention, Rongrong looked handsome and perfectly masculine.
As for the reactions to Zhuang Xiao, words were hardly enough. Viewers were reduced to streams of exclamation marks and screams. Every time he appeared in the program with his severe expression and cropped military hair, calling out commands on the parade ground, silently running with his pack, or hauling logs through a muddy pit on a field exercise, the livestream comments exploded: AAAAH OH MY GOD, AAAAH I CAN’T TAKE IT, LET GO OF HIM, I’M COMING, I WANT TO PIN HIM DOWN, SORRY, THAT’S MY BOYFRIEND…
The hero had lost his aura of mystery too. For a celebrity, joining a reality show meant lifting the veil, stripping away that cold, noble exterior, and revealing the person underneath. Every morning, a camera caught him crawling out of bed, rough-skinned and unglamorous, rubbing sleep from his bleary eyes as he searched for his shoes beneath the bunk. He’d grab a washbasin to clean up before breakfast. Once the cameras even caught him cornering a young squad leader by a bathroom wall to ask whether he could possibly spare him a cigarette… He was simply a real, living human being.
Xing Rong continued entertaining Xiao-Sa with stories. “Do you know how hungry your boss is these days? Remember I ate three and a half buns? I got something stuck in my throat, so I had some water, and then I couldn’t finish that last half. The big steel basin was empty by then. We’d all grabbed every bun. Brother Xiao had eaten at least four, but he was still hungry. He just kept staring at the last half-bun on my tray, terrified I might give it to somebody else!
“I whispered to him, ‘Brother Xiao, you can’t eat mine. If the producers film it, they’ll get funny ideas, edit the footage into something suggestive, add captions, and start shipping us as a couple. Don’t eat it!’ And he just snatched the bun away. While the cameraman was adjusting his lens, he swallowed it in two bites. Nobody managed to film him stealing my food! Hahaha…”
Sa Risheng chuckled continuously as he listened. But there seemed to be a hint of disappointment in his voice. “Why didn’t the director invite me to eat steamed buns? I wanted to go too. I love steamed buns.”
“You eat too much, and lamb’s expensive,” Xing Rong teased Xiao-Sa. “The producers couldn’t afford to feed you. That’s why the director didn’t dare invite you.”
Xing Rong was chatting enthusiastically inside the restroom cubicle. Through the little window, he could see Zhuang Xiao crouched on the fire escape outside the building, making every second of his precious free time count as he talked on his own phone.
A trace of mysterious excitement entered Zhuang Xiao’s voice. “Hey, we filmed something today that’s probably not going to air for another two or three weeks. Want a spoiler?”
“Go on. What happened?” Pei Yan asked. “Which part of you froze and dropped off this time?”
“I met a tiger,” Zhuang Xiao said.
“Bullshit.”
“A Siberian tiger. In the border forest. Wild. Alive!”
“You’re joking, right? How far away? You were on one hill looking across at another?”
“There was a little drainage ditch beside the road, only about half a meter deep. I was standing on one side, and the tiger was on the other. I even called out a greeting, and it heard me. How far away do you think it was?” Zhuang Xiao asked.
Pei Yan yelled, “Fuuuck! I don’t believe you!”
“I’m not making it up. There were several of us. I was closest to it, maybe twenty meters away. To a Siberian tiger, twenty meters is nothing. Lift the front legs, kick off with the hind legs, and one easy sprint.”
Pei Yan roared into the video call: “A SI-BE-RI-AN TI-GER?!”
“Why would I lie? Wait until you see the show. The cameras caught it all,” Zhuang Xiao said. “I was scared out of my fucking mind, like a dog.”
“My man, afraid of a tiger?” Pei Yan laughed wildly. “It was your moment to show off! Baguazhang against a Siberian tiger, a once-in-a-lifetime match!”
“I was terrified,” Zhuang Xiao replied with a derisive laugh. “All that stuff about fighting tigers in novels is rubbish. Me, fight a tiger? I’d only dare fight you.”
That day, after the training session ended, several members of the film crew had separated from the main group. They took a short detour through the forest station because they wanted to film some scenic footage of the wild mountains. Conservation efforts must have been remarkably effective along that stretch of the border in recent years. They could take a casual drive through the trees and happen upon a tiger out for a leisurely stroll.
They had two green jeeps, parked on opposite sides of the road. Zhuang Xiao and Xing Rong climbed out and strolled along the verge, planning to pose for some beautiful scenery shots. Zhuang Xiao looked up and his face changed. He grabbed young Xing by the arm and hauled him behind him. His voice shook. “Don’t move. Up ahead. Tiger.”
There was no sound behind him. Xing Rong stood completely still, silent and so frightened he seemed to have stopped breathing.
Beside the drainage ditch at the edge of the road stood a magnificent king of beasts, its striped coat spectacularly beautiful.
In the camera vehicle not far away, everyone was too frightened to speak above a whisper. They tried to instruct the two men in low voices. “Back away. Back away…”
Zhuang Xiao stared at the tiger. The tiger looked up and stared back. Well now, a new face. Haven’t seen you before. What’re you doing here?
“Don’t turn around. Don’t run,” Zhuang Xiao whispered to Xing Rong. “Walk backward. Get back in the car, start it, get the engine running.”
The two backed away one step at a time over the slightly slippery road left by the melting snow, their expressions equally hopeless. Every second felt like a year.
The moment Xing Rong fell backward into the passenger seat, the tiger suddenly moved!
Zhuang Xiao had a thick tree branch in his hand. He gripped it tightly and roared at the tiger.
The tiger jumped too. What’s all that shouting for? Did I eat you? I’m already full! I was just checking how many pounds of meat you two have on you.
Xing Rong finally got the engine started. Zhuang Xiao sprang into the jeep. Neither dared look back. They sped away in a cloud of panic, fleeing the scene in utter defeat…
“You actually let our great Hero Zhuang get frightened off! What a coward,” Pei Yan crowed with malicious delight.
“A complete coward. I didn’t notice until I got back to camp that I was soaked in sweat,” Zhuang Xiao said. “It was only twenty meters away.”
“Know why? Because you don’t drink,” Pei Yan said. “Why did Wu Song dare fight the tiger on Jingyang Ridge? Because he’d been drinking and wanted to show off. If Wu Song had been sober, he would have run for his life too.”
“Next time we’ll send you, Young Hero Pei. You can get drunk first,” Zhuang Xiao replied.
“I heard there’s another Water Margin remake being planned at a film studio in Shandong,” Pei Yan said, wandering onto another subject. “If we acted in it, which characters should we play?”
“Water Margin has plenty of characters.”
“One hundred and eight heroes. I think you’d be Wu Song,” Pei Yan said appraisingly. “Handsome, a great fighter, well hung, and terrific in bed…”
“Who told you Wu Song was well hung and good in bed?” Zhuang Xiao burst out laughing.
“Tsk. They showed it on television. Haven’t you seen it? That particular version…” Pei Yan murmured.
Zhuang Xiao knew exactly what he meant: the treasured copy of The Plum in the Golden Vase tucked into a drawer beneath the television in his bedroom. For Young Hero Pei, that one pornography film had told him everything he needed to know about Water Margin.
“What part could you play?” Images flashed through Zhuang Xiao’s mind, too indecent to describe yet enough to make his blood run hot. He pictured the wicked, flamboyantly handsome face of a certain character. “You’d be perfect for Ximen Qing, wouldn’t you?”
“Holy fuck!” Pei Yan sputtered. “I’m such a purehearted, outstanding person, and in your eyes I look like… like Ximen Qing?!”
“With the right makeup, you really would have that sort of look,” Zhuang Xiao said with a laugh.
“If we played Wu Song and Ximen Qing, we’d have to rewrite The Plum in the Golden Vase, wouldn’t we? Pan Jinlian could bow out of the story entirely. What would we need little Jinlian for? It’d be the story of Lord Ximen and his adorable Little Song!” Pei Yan dissolved into wild laughter. “Lord Ximen would climb over the wall every night and sneak into Wu Erlang’s room, embrace that handsome, heroic Little Song, strip off his clothes, and stage a wild, bawdy two-man performance! They’d fight three hundred rounds, each drawing his thick, hard iron rod as a weapon, charging into battle before tangling up together…”
“You’re insane…” Zhuang Xiao had finally had enough of Pei Yan talking such nonsense everywhere and at all hours. But he could not help imagining the two of them performing those action scenes either.
The classical masterpiece The Plum in the Golden Vase had been adapted by these two young heroes into a modern, beastly work of gay literature.
Pei Yan breathed into the phone. “Pan, donkey, Deng, care, leisure… Does my Little Song want some?”
Elio’s Notes: 潘驴邓小闲 is a bawdy five-part formula for a successful seducer: Pan An’s beauty, a donkey’s endowment, Deng Tong’s wealth, patient attentiveness, and leisure time. Here Pei Yan is invoking Ximen Qing’s legendary appeal.
Zhuang Xiao did not feel like speaking.
There was no point going on and on when they couldn’t touch each other. They were already getting each other worked up, and with no chance to put a hand on the other person, why waste more words?
“Still training for the next few days?” Pei Yan asked.
“Yeah,” Zhuang Xiao replied. “We’re going into the mountains with the company for wilderness survival. Eating insects, drinking spring water, sleeping in tents.”
“Sounds brutal,” Pei Yan said. “Hard to get through?”
“Not really. I never experienced military life before. Now that I have, I think it’s an excellent way to train your willpower. I regret not coming a few years earlier,” Zhuang Xiao answered.
What Pei Yan actually wanted was to steer the conversation elsewhere. You’re training for the next few days, but you haven’t got any other plans?
The words rose to the tip of his tongue. He did not say them. Some things lost their meaning if he had to remind someone and ask for them. Even his fans remembered those things without needing a reminder.
It would be the middle of March soon. He was a little Aries lamb. His birthday was coming up.
Back at camp, the men finished washing and came out of the washrooms in line, carrying their basins. Once they returned to the barracks, they lined up for roll call and evening instructions. The young squad leader had another task for them.
He told them to sit down and chat about home for a while. Each of them should take a turn calling a family member and saying a few words.
Someone protested, “Didn’t we just make our calls earlier this evening?”
The squad leader asked, “During that half-hour, some of you were calling home. But weren’t a few of you playing Honor of Kings instead?”
Hahaha! Everyone laughed. “Were you playing it too, squad leader?”
The shy young man grinned. He certainly wasn’t going to tell them.
This was a last-minute arrangement by the directing team, which had instructed the squad leader to carry it out. The men sat in a row on low military stools.
They might as well make the calls. Anyone with a wife could call his wife, and those without could call their parents. Some parents answered with astonishment and delight. Who knew how long it had been since their sons last chatted with them by phone? Other wives were equally surprised, and it was obvious some married couples led completely separate lives, barely contacting one another. Suddenly they had to exchange a few words for the television program, and the resulting conversations were painfully awkward. Their own children hardly wanted to call the men “Dad.”
Xing Rong called his parents. He politely, if somewhat stiffly, greeted his mother and father and reported on how things were going. His mother talked very quickly. First she complained that the upstairs neighbor’s washing machine had leaked and flooded their apartment. The quilts and bedding were soaked, and they had nothing dry to sleep under. What were they supposed to do? And downstairs, the tenants of their street-facing shop kept cats and dogs, making the place filthy. They rented the family’s property only to dirty it up, and every day they played mahjong noisily right outside the windows. It was infuriating! The neighborhood really was no good, and the people there had no class. They had been looking at a lovely apartment in the city center recently, and she wanted to ask something. How much was Rongrong being paid for this variety show? Could he tell her?
Xing Rong’s face flickered with embarrassment in front of the camera. The moment passed, and he regained his composure. “Mom, we’re filming a program. Let’s talk about it another time. I’ll call you again later.”
“How long has it been since you last called us, Rongrong?!” Her voice was so loud that everybody in the room could hear.
“Um… I’m making a show. Staying in a military camp. I’m really busy,” Xing Rong said guiltily.
“Rongrong plays games during his half-hour phone time too, doesn’t he? Hiding in the toilet cubicle to play?” somebody teased.
Xing Rong ended the call and handed the hot potato to Hero Zhuang, breathing a sigh of relief.
Zhuang Xiao took the phone and moved his thumb over the keys. Who on earth was he supposed to call?
The director had deliberately designed a nasty little trap into this segment. There was nothing kind about the idea. They had already created some potentially juicy family gossip involving Rongrong. As for Zhuang Xiao’s well-known problems with his father… heh. The directing team was probably hoping he’d call the old man so they could watch father and son launch sixty-four Baguazhang techniques at each other through the telephone.
Zhuang Xiao keyed in the number he knew best. When the call connected, he said, “Hey, Old Pei.”
Pei Yan sounded genuinely surprised, his face evidently buried in his bedding and his voice thick and nasal. “Huh? What is it? Weren’t you just…”
Zhuang Xiao suddenly began coughing violently, as though he had choked on his own saliva.
After a long fit of coughing, he finally managed to swallow and say, “Old Pei, the show’s director has given us a special privilege. Everyone’s supposed to call someone at home and let them know we’re safe.”
“Oh. Right… So you’re calling me?” Pei Yan said. “I’m very honored.”
Scattered laughter rose around the room.
“Mm. Couldn’t think who else I should call. I don’t really have any family,” Zhuang Xiao said. The others stopped laughing. They understood the painful truth behind those words.
“No problem. Call me and chat whenever you like,” Pei Yan replied. “Isn’t that show of yours running on satellite TV right now? What’s it called again? Field… Battlefield Camp?”
“Field Recruits. It’s a positive, patriotic educational program. Have you been watching?” Zhuang Xiao asked.
“Of course! I’m your most loyal fan. I watch everything you’re in!” Pei Yan declared shamelessly.
The room erupted into laughter again.
“It’s a pity you aren’t on the show, Old Pei. It would suit you. I’ll recommend you to the producers and make sure they invite you next season.”
“Don’t! I have enormous respect for soldiers, but I’m not suited to army life. My sense of organization and discipline is terrible. I’d break a rule every day. Your instructor would have me doing push-ups, running laps, and scrubbing toilets nonstop. I’d be dead!”
“Perfect,” Zhuang Xiao said with a cold laugh. “That’s exactly what we’d like to see. If you came, the instructor wouldn’t have time to torment the rest of us. He’d spend every day dealing with someone like you.”
Everyone present chuckled. Even the young squad leader was laughing.
They chatted casually a little longer. Finally Zhuang Xiao said, “Well, I’ll leave it there. Thanks for saving me.”
“Saving you? Come on, don’t be so polite.” Pei Yan laughed. “Aren’t I your partner? Your buddy?”
“Mm. All right,” Zhuang Xiao said. “See you back in Beijing. I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Every time you say you’ll buy me dinner, you disappear! You’re so stingy,” Pei Yan complained. “Well, this time the director and the whole audience heard you promise to take me out!”
* * *
They hung up, having successfully navigated the trap.
Both were accomplished actors. Zhuang Xiao thought Old Pei deserved a Palme d’Or too.
So many words had to remain buried in his heart, where he could secretly savor them by himself.
What he really wanted was to shout it out, to tell everyone: What partner? What buddy? Stop pretending! That incredibly handsome, impossibly cool, fucking amazing Pei Handsome is our very own Yanyan Bear!
* * *
Even though Zhuang and Pei had not appeared together on this variety show, they had managed to lob a gigantic piece of candy across the distance between them.
The directing team was delighted. Once again, their unexpected arrangement had succeeded in stirring up publicity. That episode’s ratings soared, reaching a new high since the show began.
Among the trending discussions were plenty of elaborate, seemingly scientific analyses. Some people even quoted data from academic papers claiming that the way an ordinary person dialed a phone, and the gestures involved, could hint at the degree of intimacy between the caller and the recipient. The internet’s amateur detectives enlarged the footage frame by frame to study the speed, rhythm, and movements of Zhuang Xiao’s fingers as he dialed.
“Did you notice that Xiao didn’t even look at the keypad? He dialed the number blind.”
“Exactly! He just glanced quickly at the camera, and his fingers were already moving. So fast, without even thinking.”
“He obviously knows that number by heart. According to the study, to dial blind at that speed you need to call the same number at least six times a day for at least twenty consecutive days.”
“So that means Xiao calls Yanyan’s number at least six times every day. Do you believe it?! DO YOU?! I’m going insane! I’ve been knocked flat by an enormous chunk of candy!”
“Psst. If you turn up the volume on the phone call and listen carefully with headphones, you can hear something strange in Yanyan’s breathing when he first answers. Right in his very first line…”
Hands on cheeks, shocked expression. “I heard it ages ago but didn’t dare say anything. I could only imagine! AAAAAH!”
* * *
When Pei Yan picked up the phone that evening, he really was panting.
He had finished work, gone back to his hotel, and climbed into bed when Zhuang Xiao called as though checking up on him. He had to take his hand out of his pajama trousers and set aside the erection he’d been tending so he could spend several minutes helping his boyfriend put on an act.
He had thought Brother Xiao might be preparing some lovely surprise for him, that he was finally about to say something intimate…
He’d gotten carried away again. It wasn’t a birthday surprise. Zhuang Xiao had simply needed his help at short notice, someone to play along and fool the cameras for a few minutes.
His very name, Pei Yan, sounded like pei yan, “to accompany a performance.” He was the fellow in the corner of the stage waving glow sticks while somebody else performed. A lifelong, devoted fan of just one person, enthusiastically raising his arms in the crowd, perfectly satisfied and willing to stay there.