After a stretch of hot weather, the rain began.
The rain came and went. Almost every day, a sudden, torrential downpour caught everyone off guard. The whole sky looked like an earthen-colored pot turned upside down over their heads, gloomy and wet, with an unnatural cast to the light.
The air was thick with moisture and the rich scent of soil from the nearby mountains…
At noon, the production crew enjoyed an authentic Sichuan banquet in a restaurant, courtesy of Master Pei, who was treating the crew’s big-name Best Actor, Sir Zhuang, to a birthday celebration.
Zhuang Xiao had finally had his birthday too. The past six months had flown by, each day slipping past his eyes.
Full of food and drink, the group walked down the street in one long, imposing line, drawing plenty of attention. But ankle-deep water sloshed around their feet, leaving them looking rather miserable… The rain had suddenly grown fierce lately.
A big truck that had brought melons in from elsewhere had overturned at the roadside. Countless watermelons had fallen into the floodwater and were floating down the submerged street.
Right before the group, as far as they could see, was a great expanse of bright green, bobbing along the road…
The vendor was a man in his fifties. He stood helplessly in the middle of the water, staring at the melons that were destined to float away and never return. His expression was blank, as if he wanted to cry but had no tears left. Making a living was hard; the poor man was genuinely pitiful.
Pei Yan, pleasantly tipsy, stopped in his tracks, the rims of his eyes rosy and moist. “Hey, how much is this whole truckload worth?”
He turned and shouted to the others, “Anybody thirsty? Does everyone on the crew want watermelon today?”
* * *
So that day, Young Hero Pei was in an excellent mood. Upon encountering someone in trouble on the road, he finally had his chance to play the chivalrous hero. He paid for the entire truckload of watermelons that had already fallen into the flood.
The crew formed one long relay line, passing watermelons from person to person, carrying them off the street and into the film studio compound.
Pei Yan was the one splashing about in the street, competing to fish the melons out. His lively, capable figure darted around as he recovered plenty of big, undamaged watermelons before they could float away.
Back on the set, it was time to share them out. Master Pei smacked the back of a knife hard against the table. “Everybody over here! Your daddy’s going to cut the watermelons!”
But he did not use the watermelon knife. Instead, he raised his palm, using it as a blade. Pa! He split a big watermelon in two with one clean movement, the cut surfaces almost perfectly even.
Pei Yan turned to find Zhuang Xiao, showing off to the great hero and challenging him: Can you do that?
Zhuang Xiao shook his head, helpless against this impossible brat. He had no choice but to come over and raise his own palm. With his body half-turned, he combined chopping and slicing movements to split another watermelon neatly in two. The exposed flesh looked as though an axe or sharp knife had cut it.
The birthday boy then curled his fingers at Sa Risheng and pointed at the watermelon before him. Come on. Join the fun.
Sa Risheng came over too, raised the blade of his hand and, pa, cut into a watermelon with one strike…
But the Little Prince was a little too strong. He used excessive force, leaving an uneven cut and nearly smashing the watermelon flesh to pieces.
Sa Risheng grinned sheepishly. “Oh. Didn’t cut it very well.”
“They’re cutting watermelons. You’re smashing them, aren’t you?” Xing Rong said, taking away the mangled pieces and eating them. He did not touch the neatly sliced ones; he only ate those the Little Prince had smashed.
They cut up that entire mountain of watermelons without using a single knife.
The men took off their shirts, laughing with their chests bare. Each held half a watermelon and buried his face in it to eat. By the time they raised their heads again, all the flesh was gone from those half-bowls, leaving nothing but rind. Juice streamed down everyone’s face…
Pei Yan squatted there, happily devouring his watermelon. As Xiao-ge walked behind him, he bent and whispered into Pei Yan’s ear, “I can even pry open a hard walnut with a stick. You think a watermelon could defeat me?”
“You…” Pei Yan had only begun turning to argue when half a watermelon rind landed over his head!
Master Pei angrily flung off the rind and sprang up in pursuit. The two put on a fine show of one chasing and the other fleeing around the set.
Of course, the longer the chase went on, the further they disappeared. During the lunch break, both men vanished for about an hour and a half.
In private, Mr. Pei had arranged a special birthday “program” for Mr. Zhuang. The birthday boy pinned him against a wall in some secluded corner and fucked him hard twice, until they were both thoroughly satisfied… Naturally, they did not let anyone else see this heroic, self-sacrificing act of throwing oneself into a lover’s arms.
To walk side by side through a life like this was sheer exhilaration.
* * *
Green mountains stretched away beneath veils of mist and rain. A thin haze lay over the fields approaching harvest season, and beautiful faces seemed to appear and disappear in the drizzle.
At that moment, an old-fashioned iron train came rumbling slowly and heavily out of the distance. It passed beneath the high bridge and through a culvert, then poked its head out again, sounding its whistle and belching billows of white steam.
As the train passed under the culvert, someone lying in wait above lowered himself on a rope, landed lightly on the carriage roof, and moved cautiously along with the train toward his target car…
Inside the iron carriage, there was none of the expected alertness or defense. Instead there was an uncanny, deathly stillness, the final quiet before the murderous ambush.
Crouching atop the carriage, Pei Yan raised his head. On the roof of another car a short way ahead, the man staring back at him was Commander Zhuang.
A vicious fight was about to erupt.
* * *
Filming was drawing close to the final stages. This was the movie’s most dangerous fight scene: the two male leads battling to the death on the roof of a moving train.
One was carrying a mission, the other a burden of responsibility. One had nowhere left to retreat and was ready to risk his life; the other, his heart torn apart, was prepared to spill his blood on the spot. Love and duty collided. Both men fought with bloodshot eyes, while the headlong speed and deafening whistle threatened to smash both their bodies and souls to pieces…
They filmed on a stretch of railway near the film base, where an old Republican-era train stood as a major prop for different productions to use.
Most of the shots were filmed with the carriages stationary, then composited with footage of a speeding train using post-production effects. In a few shots, though, the train really moved, and the two men clung to it for dear life.
If you were not willing to risk your life making this sort of film, you had no business calling yourself a kung fu film actor.
Safety lines were secured around their lower backs, their faces drawn taut against the fierce wind, their expressions bristling with confrontation. As he had done countless times before, Zhuang Xiao checked every fastening of Pei Yan’s safety harness to make absolutely sure it was secure, then said quietly, “All good. You can do this.”
Pei Yan in turn pulled hard on every part of Zhuang Xiao’s safety line. It would not come apart; it was solid. Only then did he relax and give the other man an elegant OK gesture.
Zhuang Xiao signaled to the distant directing crew: both of them were ready!
When the two men collided in midair at high speed, the whole carriage seemed to tremble.
Even the distant mountains seemed to move. Dark clouds massed over their peaks.
Only a few feet beneath their boots was the camera, seemingly jolted by the sheer force of their movements. The cinematographer was shooting from a camera trolley traveling quickly along a track almost parallel to the carriage, capturing the fight close up. Every fist struck flesh, every kick stirred the wind. When Zhuang Xiao lashed out with one kick, the world seemed to lose its color…
The fight’s short, fast, sharp bursts laid bare hearts shattered into fragments. The fire of love was smashed apart, punch by punch… But the filming itself consisted of a few seconds of fighting at a time, take after take, refining the details down to individual seconds before weaving countless shots together.
Pei Yan rolled off the carriage roof with a faint grunt, clenching his teeth as he desperately gripped a narrow seam, nearly flung clear of the train.
Commander Zhuang slammed his boot down on his hand. The sharp pain made his whole body tremble, his eyes turning blood-red in an instant. Yet he refused to yield, and not one cry escaped his lips.
Zhuang Xiao brought his foot down viciously, but did not actually step on Pei Yan’s hand. He struck hard and landed lightly, his boot coming down beside it in the end.
After watching the take on the monitor, Pei Yan rejected it. “If you don’t step on me, it doesn’t hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, I can’t make it look real.”
Zhuang Xiao stood on set with his hands on his hips and looked at him. “You want me to really step on it?”
Pei Yan was panting, his own hands on his hips. “Step.”
“It’s acting. You don’t have to do absolutely everything for real,” Zhuang Xiao said. “What will you do when the scene calls for you to be beheaded or shot?”
“We’ll worry about the beheading and execution when we get there,” Pei Yan said breezily. “Nobody’s executing me in this shot. Just step on it. Step!”
On the second take, they wasted no more words. Zhuang Xiao stamped down for real, and Pei Yan’s fingers struggled beneath the sole of his military boot! Pei Yan’s eyes really did redden, his facial muscles quivering. The details captured by the camera were utterly convincing.
Xing Rong also appeared in the shot.
His character was sitting inside the speeding carriage at that moment. Realizing a deadly fight was taking place on the roof, he stuck his head out of the window and discovered, terrified, that those two men were fighting.
Pei Yan swung himself back onto the carriage, counterattacked, and fought on with desperate fury.
Commander Zhuang’s uniform was torn open, the fabric ripped across his chest, a deep bloody gash slashed across his thigh. The two grappled and rolled back and forth along the carriage roof. Neither would let go or compromise, yet neither could bear to push the other into the bottomless abyss…
The engine accidentally struck a crossbar. A huge wooden beam suddenly tilted and fell toward them, just as Commander Zhuang’s back was turned and he was completely unprepared!
This was part of the scripted action.
Suspended on steel cables, the wooden beam swept toward them along a carefully calculated arc. It looked terrifyingly dangerous! At the critical instant, Pei Yan shouted, threw himself forward, gathered his opponent’s head into his arms, and rolled away with Commander Zhuang, avoiding the seemingly fatal accident. He kicked the log aside, and the two nearly tumbled off the moving train…
At that moment, Xing Baihe sat inside the carriage. A fine bone-china teacup toppled before his eyes. A trace of grim resolve entered his gaze: in that instant he had made his decision, clutching a shard of porcelain so tightly it cut his palm.
A squad of military police was already running up from the cars behind, raising their rifles as they searched for the suspect. There was no time left…
Pei Yan once again hung over the edge of the carriage, about to fall. This time it was Commander Zhuang who caught his bloodied, mangled hand and pulled him up, little by little…
Birds flew shrieking across the sky, their cries splintering into fear.
The fields lay empty and open as clouds churned at the horizon.
“Cut!”
The director called a halt. Everyone was tense, their expressions still marked by terror and the sense that the moment was not quite over. They had been so immersed in the scene that they were still caught up in that rescue, that pain, that inability to let go.
The take passed. The director did not smile; he simply raised a very solemn thumb.
The two sat on the carriage roof, breathing raggedly. Zhuang Xiao pulled Pei Yan’s hand toward him. “Go get some medicine on that and have it bandaged… Go!”
A layer of skin had come off Pei Yan’s right hand, exposing bright red flesh. “My fingernail’s turning purple… You’re really something.”
Zhuang Xiao knew himself that he had used too much strength. The stomp had looked absolutely real, the facial details perfect. His heart ached for Pei Yan, but he was proud of him too.
“Go get the wound dressed. Rest for a while this afternoon before filming again,” he urged gently.
“The weather’s so damp and hot that it’ll heal worse if I bandage it. I know from experience!” Pei Yan said.
What experience do you have? Zhuang Xiao patted his back and pressed him. “At least wash it and disinfect it first. Be good. Go on.”
With the fighting successfully filmed, they only needed to shoot Xing Baihe’s heroic leap from the train that afternoon and pick up a few small details before this long, major sequence would be complete. Every passing day brought them closer to wrapping the film. Everyone was nervous and excited.
Young Master Xing was still sitting in the carriage, drinking tea. The props department had supplied real tea, which was just what he needed to quench his thirst. He did not have many shots, but to cooperate with the two leads, he had spent the entire morning inside the carriage, waiting for the director’s instructions.
“Excellent! Thanks for all the hard work. Everyone, we’ll carry on this afternoon!”
Standing beside the tracks, the director said, “This damned weather is perfect for this scene. A downpour about to hit, the whole place oppressed, just the atmosphere we need. This is exactly the sky we wanted!”
A distant mountainside shivered almost imperceptibly.
Pei Yan happened to look up. Surprised, he called out to Zhuang Xiao.
Neither of them had yet climbed down from the carriage roof.
It was at precisely that moment that genuine danger arrived. There was no script, no rehearsal, and certainly no safety harness that could protect them from it. The entire production was taken completely by surprise.
The ground beneath them suddenly began to shake. For several seconds, the tremors were violent enough to rock Pei Yan and Zhuang Xiao where they sat on the train roof. They swayed together as though in a cradle, not yet understanding what was happening.
“…”
“What was that just now?… An earthquake?” someone shouted.
Right before their eyes, a large section of the distant mountain suddenly sank, as though somebody had knocked the corner off a structure made of building blocks. Then, slowly, it tilted and collapsed.
Rock and earth poured downhill with a rumble and instantly buried the culvert the train had just passed through.
The culvert vanished.
Everyone stared, stunned by the sight.
“Ahhh!!!”
“…”
“Run, run! Get out, hurry! Everybody away from here!” people screamed, running for their lives, desperate to retreat.
A small earthquake had just lasted several seconds. Tremors were not uncommon in this area, which lay along an earthquake fault zone. But days of rain had loosened the surrounding steep mountain slopes. Before their eyes, an entire hillside had given way in a landslide and mudflow.
Amid screams and shouts, everyone ran in the opposite direction, not knowing whether their legs could carry them faster than the collapsing slope.
The sliding mass of rock and earth buried part of the railway and bore down on the rearmost carriage. Nature’s immense force overturned the last two cars as easily as someone flicking over two toy blocks…
The unending rain of recent days, the heavy moisture in the air and the rich scent of the soil had all been faint warnings.
The rushing earth chased the direction in which the people fled. It could swallow a person in an instant.
Zhuang Xiao grabbed Pei Yan and pulled him toward the edge of the train.
This time their eyes really were red. Gripping the edge of the carriage, Zhuang Xiao found his footholds and climbed down quickly, dragging Pei Yan after him before pulling him away at a run.
Pei Yan turned, broke free of Zhuang Xiao’s grasp, and his first instinct was to look for the camera!
The director and cinematographers could not bear to flee either. They all went for the cameras. In the chaos of earth and stones flying past their eyes, several people hoisted the equipment onto their shoulders and ran together. The footage was still inside; they had not even had time to copy the day’s data. If they lost it, it was gone forever. It represented the entire crew’s blood and sweat…
The train tilted in the direction the sliding earth was pushing it. Everything inside jolted and tumbled wildly, crashing to the floor.
Xing Rong crawled out of a carriage window, terrified. Zhuang Xiao seized him from outside and hauled him bodily through the opening. They fled together…
In peacetime, people rarely had a chance to experience such a moment between life and death. The group reached higher ground, and when they finally looked back, a terrible, magnificent spectacle lay before them.
It was just like being inside a film. They were so absorbed in their roles that they had not yet stepped out of the scene.
They seemed still to inhabit that war-torn era, when Japanese bombers circled and roared overhead, tearing people’s homes and homeland apart overnight.
The sky held the uncanny sight of a blood-red sun, the mountains and rivers transformed. The slope opposite had collapsed, burying the culvert and part of the railway. A cloud of dust enveloped the ground on which they had been standing only twenty minutes earlier…
Still badly shaken, everyone had dirt all over their faces. Their hair stood up like nests of straw, dyed yellow with earth, and they looked thoroughly bedraggled. They were grateful to have survived the disaster. Whether good fortune would follow was another question.
The crew counted heads. Thankfully, nobody was missing. When the emergency came, everyone had proved capable of running like hell.
After a moment of silence, Pei Yan was the first to shout loudly, “It’s okay! Everyone’s all right! As long as everybody’s here, that’s what matters!”
He glanced down. “Holy fuck, it’s like I’m wearing boots made of mud!”
Zhuang Xiao looked at the state of his hand, but it was so caked with grime that even its color was impossible to tell. Pei Yan said, “I’m fine.”
How could that not hurt like hell?
“No time to notice the pain.” Panting hard, Pei Yan shook his head and burst into laughter. “That scared the shit out of me. I was scared witless too! I’m still young, haven’t seen much of the world. Never seen anything this terrifying…”
“Is a camera worth more than your life?” Zhuang Xiao shot back, glaring at him without a smile. He had been scared to death.
“Sure. Money’s worth more than my life,” Pei Yan said.
One or two cameras were not all that expensive by themselves, but they had lost plenty of other equipment and props on site. More important was the delay to the entire production’s schedule and shooting dates…
At that moment, Pei Yan’s mind was a mass of confusion. Mountains had shifted before his eyes, roads had collapsed, and they might not even be able to get back into the film base. Their film was unfinished and every day was costing money. Anxiety burned through him. He had never imagined a disaster like this.
Xing Rong had lost his shoes in the scramble. Or perhaps they had not fallen off while he ran: once Zhuang Xiao pulled him through the carriage window, he simply had no idea where they had gone.
His phone was lost inside a carriage caught in the mudflow too. Xing Rong borrowed a phone from a producer and, without hesitating, called Sa Risheng. “Are you still inside the film city? Where are you? Did you hear the mountain collapsed beside the road? There’s a mudslide!”
Amazingly, Xiao-Sa picked up immediately. Just hearing that he was all right let everybody breathe easier.
Xiao-Sa said, “I know. Even the horses knew there was an earthquake. The horses told me. Some buildings collapsed in the base too.”
Who had any patience left to worry about horses? Xing Rong shouted into the phone, “Where’s your crew? Did all of you manage to get out? Hurry back!”
Pei Yan said too, “I wish we hadn’t lent the Little Prince to another production. It’s making me worry. Tell him to come back immediately!”
Xiao-Sa said into the phone, “I’m fine. I’m keeping an eye on the horses.”
Xing Rong must have been on the verge of passing out from anger, desperately wanting to ask the fellow whether his head was made of papaya and full of mudslide debris. Stop watching the horses. We’ll only relax once we can watch you!
Zhuang Xiao took the phone. “Xiao-Sa, get out of there right away. Your ge is telling you to look after yourself, all right?”
* * *
News soon broke online that a low-intensity earthquake in the area had triggered localized landslides and mudflows.
But people outside the area had no idea that the production of Sleeping with the Enemy, currently filming at the movie base, had witnessed the natural disaster firsthand and barely escaped.
Pei Yan posted on his Moments feed to tell everyone he was safe. It would almost have been better if he had not.
Without that post, nobody would even have known he was in the area. Ms. Xu called only seconds later. A mother’s heart was always connected to her son’s. Pei Yan hurried to reassure her. “Reporting to Your Majesty: your crown prince is fine. I’m doing great.”
Xu Qishang sighed in relief and laughed. “I’m just asking on behalf of your imperial father. You really are all right, sweetheart?”
“Greetings to you two honored elders.” Master Pei sounded so cocky and relaxed that he might have been strutting across a stage. “How the hell would anything happen to me? I’m bouncing around perfectly fine. Don’t worry, we’ll be home in a few days.”
After he hung up, he looked back across the area. The land around the film base was a vast mud pit. Houses had toppled. People were rescuing others and trying to save themselves, while cars and crowds gradually evacuated…
He looked at Zhuang Xiao.
Zhuang Xiao set a hand on his shoulder. “You all find some cars and get out. I’m going down there to take a look.”
“What are you planning to do?” Pei Yan asked. “I’m going with you.”
So the production team and cinematographers stayed behind to organize the equipment and supplies, find transport and direct the evacuation, while Pei Yan, Zhuang Xiao and a group of strong young men from the stunt team rushed back into the film base to rescue people…
The roads were nothing but mud, and there was still a risk of more slopes collapsing.
Shoes were scarcely more useful than going barefoot. Walk a little and one shoe would sink into the mud and part company with its owner.
A sea of muddy water spread ahead. Cars lay jammed at odd angles in streets whose routes were no longer visible, all stranded and useless in the rivers of mud. They practically walked over car roofs, jumping from one vehicle to the next, struggling forward this way before climbing over a wall into the film base compound.
Several century-old residences, mansions and theaters dating from the Republican era had sadly collapsed in the earthquake, leaving devastation everywhere. Whenever they saw someone in need, they stopped to help. Some people were calling for help salvaging equipment and supplies. Women with children were fleeing…
Pei Yan floated a door panel on the muddy water, with a small child sitting on top, helping the rescuers bring elderly, weak, sick and disabled people out.
The little boy sat obediently on the panel without moving about, staring at the surrounding chaos with eyes like two black beans.
“Don’t be scared,” Pei Yan reassured him. “A brave big brother is protecting you. Nothing to be afraid of!”
The child suddenly spoke. “Big brother, how come you’re so pretty?”
Pei Yan laughed aloud. “Good boy! Your big brother’s handsome, right?”
The child nodded solemnly. “Big brother, you’re sooo handsome!”
Pei Yan grinned so widely his white teeth flashed. Carelessly, he even swallowed some of the mud on his lips. I’m the most handsome man alive, the guy who could fuck the heavens, the earth, the whole planet!
His face was plastered with mud. Apart from the conspicuous bald head that marked him wherever he went, nothing about him was recognizable anymore. Even Zhuang Xiao needed to look for that shining beacon in the crowd to find him. Every passerby’s clothes had become the same color: mud.
At the gates of the film city, they finally encountered ambulances and medical staff dispatched by a nearby hospital.
Zhuang Xiao immediately hauled Pei Yan over, took his hand and made him get it treated and bandaged.
“It’s no big deal… Really, nothing much,” Pei Yan insisted again and again.
“Your hand’s practically rotting,” Zhuang Xiao said. “Don’t let it touch any more water.”
“It’s not that bad,” Pei Yan murmured.
Of all days, he had injured his hand while filming, seriously impairing his fighting ability and his heroic image. He was annoyed with himself. Otherwise he could have looked even cooler…
One of the young nurses took a look at Pei Yan’s hand and scolded him. “Looking like that, how can I put medicine on it? Wash all that mud off first!”
Wash his hand. But where could they find water to wash it?
Zhuang Xiao glanced around and fixed his eyes on several crates of bottled water somebody had carried over. He went to take a few bottles, but someone objected. “That’s drinking water for disaster relief! So many people need it!”
The water was meant for people to drink during the rescue, not for somebody to waste washing his hands.
“I’m going to drink it,” Zhuang Xiao said.
He opened a bottle of mineral water and took a big mouthful. Then he pulled Pei Yan’s injured hand toward himself and sprayed the water from his mouth over it first, carefully loosening grass and mud.
Another mouthful, another rinse. That was how he washed the hand. Once the larger clods came away, fine particles of grit remained embedded in the raw skin beneath the muddy water. Pei Yan could hardly bear to look at his own mangled hand. It might actually be inflamed. The sight was appalling.
When he could not get it clean, Zhuang Xiao used his tongue. Holding a little water in his mouth, he worked at the wound with his tongue and spat out the grit-laden saliva, repeating it until the injury was clean.
Both men’s hands and clothes were filthy, and he was afraid of introducing infection. The cleanest thing either had left was a tongue. Saliva, too, could disinfect, or so they believed.
Finally, the nurse applied a wound-cleaning solution and anti-inflammatory medicine, then dressed the injury. That damaged hand could not get wet again.
As she poured and spread the medicine, Pei Yan’s hand shook continuously. He hissed through his teeth over and over. Any remaining heroic dignity had long since washed away.
Afterward, when they left the temporary medical station by the ambulance, Zhuang Xiao asked, “So you do know what pain feels like?”
“I know now. Hurts like fucking hell.” Pei Yan caught his wrist. “When your right hand was injured, did it hurt this much too?… I only lost a layer of skin. Your wound was cut so deep, sliced into the flesh and across your palm. How badly did that hurt you?”
Ahem.
Zhuang Xiao said nothing. He turned his palm to catch Mr. Pei’s wrist and gave it a little shake. Bringing up something so trivial between the two of them was being far too formal, wasn’t it?
They had already walked away when the young nurse looked up and caught sight of that big, shining bulb gradually receding into the distance. “Hey, who are you? You look so much like that… Wait, are you Yanyan?!”
* * *