The young nurse’s piercing cry struck Pei Yan between the shoulder blades. His feet tangled in panic. He stuck both arms out and shook them for ages, then clutched his chest and fell backward, giving the performance everything he had…
Plenty of people behind him were talking and laughing at him.
“That really is Yanyan!”
“Good heavens, it really is him!!”
“He was making a movie in the compound next door. How amazing!”
Pei Yan walked back and pointed at his big face. “Little sister, I was standing in front of you, face and all, for ages. You didn’t recognize me then? I turn around and you suddenly know who I am?”
The young nurse covered her mouth and laughed like a flower in bloom. “Your face was sooo dirty! How could I recognize you? I recognized that big head of yours. It shines so bright!”
“Little sister, you’ve finally told me the truth,” Pei Yan mocked himself. “Just how ugly is this face of mine?”
The nurse laughed. “Yanyan-ge, you’re very handsome! You’re my favorite!”
Dark clouds covered the sky above Mount Qingcheng, and birds wheeled and cried overhead. Mr. Pei’s smile was always so open and sunny. Happiness seemed part of his nature, and being near him made others feel good.
Autographs were impossible now, and the circumstances were hardly right for it. He waved to the gathering crowd; his injured hand was still wrapped in gauze.
The nurse packed another bottle of wound cleanser, a bottle of anti-inflammatory medicine, and plenty of gauze and cotton swabs for him. “Tell that young assistant of yours to remember to change your medicine and dressings.”
“All right! Thanks, little sister!” Pei Yan happily accepted everything without ceremony. “You volunteers have been working so hard. Take care of yourselves too!” He glanced back at his attendant, the “assistant,” and felt a quiet warmth in his heart.
They took a few more steps and were truly about to leave when another exclamation broke out behind them. “Aiya!”
“Aiya, that’s not his assistant! He’s cut his hair and beard, and he’s covered in mud. I didn’t even recognize him! Isn’t that Xiao-ge?!!”
Now they really had to run. His “assistant” bolted first, and Pei Yan sprinted right after him.
Using the same life-or-death speed they had needed to escape the landslide, the two raced through the enormous mud pit, stepping from one wrecked car to another with the fleet-footed grace of masters of Lingbo Weibu, the Wave-Treading Steps…
The production’s shooting schedule was definitely going to be delayed. The surrounding region could continue to suffer disasters, and nobody could predict what would happen. They would probably have to find a suitable outdoor location elsewhere to finish their remaining shots.
The financial losses of pulling out and moving everything back again were too frightening even to contemplate in the accounts. The pressure of cost overruns and potential losses loomed in front of them, dragging heavily at their hearts.
The production team hurriedly gathered equipment and personal belongings, preparing to leave Sichuan for Beijing that very night, then regroup later.
They received more phone calls from local contacts. Some were about business, some were searching for family or reporting that they were safe, and some were even asking the crew for help.
“The mountain down below collapsed too?”
“Isn’t that the little farmhouse courtyard we rented to film in a couple of days ago?”
“What about the people? Did they get out?… The owners and their family? Did the whole family get out?”
Pei Yan asked urgently while a producer helped call around for news.
Nobody could reach them. Many people had lost contact.
Perhaps the disaster had blocked the roads and interfered with telephone signals. Or perhaps… He was afraid something had happened to the villagers.
Green mountains, bamboo groves, a thatched cottage by the stream, and a table of delicious frog and yellow catfish… That had been a paradise-like valley, a blessed place they had visited only days earlier. Rong-ge had dressed as Du Liniang, while Pei Yan played Chen Miaochang. The two peerless beauties, graceful and stunning, had performed a flirtatious chase of feints and misdirection with Commander Zhuang in the bamboo-grove courtyard, acting and reality mingling.
Pei Yan was the first to suggest it. “I want to go back and look around. If there’s anything we can do to help, we should help. We shouldn’t just run away, should we?”
He said this because he could see that Zhuang Xiao was thinking exactly the same thing. Zhuang Xiao certainly would not leave.
The planners and producers from his studio gathered around with solemn expressions. Yanyan, the money.
Every day of work cost a mountain of cash. Every single day added to their expenses.
Pei Yan pressed a hand to his forehead. “I know, I know. God, the money. Just thinking about how fast it’s burning gives me a headache… I just can’t get past it. It doesn’t feel right to leave without caring what happens to anybody.”
Zhuang Xiao made the decision for him. “I’ll stay with a few brothers from my stunt team. We’ll find a vehicle to help out and wait for Xiao-Sa to rejoin us. Everybody else, go back to Beijing together. Travel as a group and work out the next step. We’ll catch up with you in a few days!”
Pei Yan approved most of Xiao-ge’s plan, rejecting only one part. “I’m staying with you.”
“Young Master, you should go home first and take care of the real work… The film still needs to be made.” Zhuang Xiao could not help worrying about the kid.
“I’m not a young master. I’d rather you call me a ‘young hero,’” Pei Yan shot back. “How many wuxia and kung fu films have I acted in? On screen, I pound my chest and call myself a hero of the jianghu. Now when something real happens right in front of us, should all of us run off together with our legs going faster than anybody else’s?… What kind of heroes would that make us? Fuck that. You want people laughing at me?”
“…”
In that rainy season at the end of summer and beginning of autumn, several of them loaded a big truck with disaster-relief food and supplies they had bought themselves, then headed into the mountains…
The mountain roads were rugged, with parts of the highway collapsed and access extremely difficult. Landslides blocked the routes in and out of many villages, temporarily cutting them off from communications and leaving the outside world without news of them.
The earthquake’s magnitude and intensity had not been great. In this region it was almost an ordinary little tremor, and there had been no mass casualties. It had barely stirred a ripple online. None of the big Weibo accounts mentioned it, and many people outside the area had no idea a real disaster had occurred. Houses had collapsed, villagers were homeless, and whole stretches of farmland had become flooded mud pits…
They stopped repeatedly along the way to look and ask questions. When they found a home buried by a landslide, with devastation all around, they helped dig through the wreckage and carry the injured.
Pei Yan held one corner of a stretcher as they descended a stony hillside. Only one of his hands was usable, and his feet kept slipping. Suddenly he lost his footing and fell!
He was terrified of dropping the wounded person from the stretcher, so he could only let himself fall instead, throwing out his injured right hand to break his fall…
It hurt. He endured it, climbed back to his feet without making a sound.
“Does your hand hurt?” Zhuang Xiao asked from the back of the stretcher.
“Bumped it on something,” Pei Yan said. “The rocks around here sure are vicious.”
“Watch where you’re going!” Zhuang Xiao said.
“I can’t see clearly,” Pei Yan replied.
“How can you not see? Look down at your feet!” Zhuang Xiao shouted.
“I… I haven’t got my fucking contact lenses in!” Young Hero Pei felt rather aggrieved himself. “I’ve been practically blind for days. I can’t see a damned thing. Everything in front of me looks like a television full of snow.”
Zhuang Xiao fell silent. Only now did he understand. Pei Yan normally wore daily disposable contacts, but he had not brought his supply when he came out to help with disaster relief. Nor was there clean water in the mountains for washing; they barely had enough to brush their teeth and wash their faces… Pei Yan had spent every day half-blind, seeing the world in blurry outlines and walking as though he were floating through cloud and mist. He was too embarrassed to complain or ask for special treatment. Anyone who said they were too tired to go on would only be told to pack up and head home.
* * *
After another exhausting day, the truck’s supplies were almost gone. They slept in the truck that evening.
Pei Yan clambered into the truck bed and immediately collapsed, sprawled on his back with his limbs spread out. He did not want to stand for even another second. Every bone in his body felt loose, and he was utterly exhausted.
Several of the brothers lay stretched out in the truck already, snoring ferociously, worn out beyond consciousness.
Zhuang Xiao leaned into a corner with his eyes tightly closed, fast asleep even though he was sitting upright.
After a while, somebody draped a large, brightly flowered bed sheet over Pei Yan. It was the sort of festive, colorful pattern you might put on a holiday bed. He poked his head out, squinted toward Zhuang Xiao and asked, “What’re you doing? Cover yourself with it.”
“There’ll be loads of mosquitoes tonight. They’ll swarm all over you. Keep covered,” Zhuang Xiao said.
“You’re not afraid of mosquitoes?” Pei Yan asked.
“My skin’s thick,” Zhuang Xiao answered with his eyes shut.
Pei Yan wriggled along on his hands and knees for a while until he reached Zhuang Xiao. The two leaned together in the corner.
The big truck had a rough, semicircular canvas canopy that sheltered them from the wind and rain at night. Through the gap between the canopy and the cab, they could see a dazzling river of stars across the open heavens, so beautiful it almost hurt to look at.
Both lifted their eyes and sat together looking at the stars, needing no words. The deep blue night sky was otherworldly, and countless points of starlight reflected in their eyes.
“Sichuan’s so beautiful. I really love it. Maybe we could buy a courtyard in these mountains too, and come live here for three months every year. What do you think?” Pei Yan asked. “A life like that would be simple and comfortable, going back to nature.”
Zhuang Xiao looked up at the stars. “And how exactly are you planning to go back to nature?”
Pei Yan said, “I’m doing it right now! All that daily skincare and face-mask stuff, gone, right? I don’t even wear contact lenses. No fancy technology at all. Every morning I just rub my eyes blindly, open the door, and there are mountains right outside, everything veiled in misty rain…
“We could grow our own vegetables, go fishing, maybe even weave our own cloth. Keep a flock of chickens, ducks and geese too…”
Zhuang Xiao made fun of him. “Looking after one little cock like you wears me out enough. Now you want me to raise a whole flock?”
Pei Yan wore his shirt hanging open at the chest and used the sheet to swat mosquitoes. He laughed. “You’re awful. Always complaining about me.”
But the idea was not bad. Pei Yan had even tempted Zhuang Xiao. Who would not want a quiet, tranquil life for two, free of worldly desires and far from the bustle outside?
A local auntie knocked on the truck’s canopy from outside and passed up a steaming basket. “Dug these out of the ground today. They were still good. They’re our own sweet potatoes, roasted for you. Sooo sweet!”
“What? Thank you, Auntie! You’re so kind,” Pei Yan said happily.
“Good boys, eat up!” The auntie waved and went back. They had managed to find the farmhouse courtyard where they had filmed. The auntie’s home had completely collapsed, and her family, too, was living in a tent without a house to return to. During the day they had helped her dig through the wreckage and turn over fields washed away by the flood.
Pei Yan noticed a string of red mosquito bites along Zhuang Xiao’s neck and chest. “So they did bite you? Guess your skin isn’t thick enough.”
“Still denying it? Itches, doesn’t it? Bet you can’t stop yourself scratching!”
“Your skin’s not as thick as mine. I’ve got the thickest skin in the world. Look, the mosquitoes don’t dare bite me at all… They can’t get through it. Their little bloodsucking needles won’t pierce my skin. They’d snap their drinking straws trying!”
“I’ll scratch you. Let me see where else they’ve bitten you… No way, one got you right on your tattoo! Bet that itches like hell! Hahaha…”
That night was itchy, sticky and warm.
Rustling sounds kept coming from the covered truck, as the exhausted men found ways to enjoy themselves amid the hardship, their enthusiasm and warmth undiminished.
Zhuang Xiao got in touch with his brother Xiao-Sa, hoping to confirm that he had evacuated to somewhere safe. Instead, he discovered that Xiao-Sa had gone somewhere even more dangerous.
Sa Risheng had not evacuated the film base then, because the valley near the film city was full of horses.
Horses were sensitive creatures. They sensed changes in the sky and disturbances beneath the earth even before people did.
All day long, the horses on the set had been agitated, stretching their necks and neighing wildly. Sa Risheng had kept soothing the two horses he was meant to ride during filming. They stamped and turned in circles, shaking their heads and tossing their manes, then pulled free of their reins and tried to run.
Sa Risheng put a foot in the stirrup and mounted, gathering the reins to ride them through the planned movements. That was when the earth moved.
The horse beneath him immediately stumbled on its four legs, unable to stand steady. The ground swayed beneath it as though it were aboard a boat, and it could neither run nor get away.
Sa Risheng swung down at once and braced his shoulder against the horse. “Don’t panic. Hold steady!” The horse leaned against the Little Prince and rubbed its neck against him, eyes darting wildly with fear, practically begging for a hug. Sweat soaked its neck and dampened its mane!
The violent shaking lasted a few seconds. The surrounding mountains and ground seemed ready to split apart. Then the tremors quickly subsided. Some buildings had collapsed, and sections of road had broken open.
Members of the film crew were shouting, “Run! Hurry, run!” Everyone rushed to higher, safer ground. Panicked figures swept by on all sides, and horses shrieked. Many tore themselves free of the reins and bolted heedlessly for their lives.
It was animal instinct. In a crisis, everyone looked after themselves. The horses could not look after people, and the people had no time to worry whether the horses lived or died…
These were horses kept at the film base for shooting, rented out to different production crews. Some large historical costume productions also brought in their own fine horses.
Sa Risheng murmured soothing words to the horses around him. The frightened animals gathered against him of their own accord, pressing the sides of their bodies to him and trembling until they gradually calmed. Then he caught their reins one by one, taking two reins in each hand and speaking constantly to the horses behind him. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t run wild. Come with me. I’ll lead you out.”
He mounted again, guiding the horses behind him. Sunlight shone into the valley as he urged his mount toward the river, following the other horses that had scattered in every direction…
Along the streams.
Down in the ravines.
On either side of the twisted, broken highway…
Sa Risheng rode through the nearby valleys and riverbanks, whistling, sometimes cracking his whip or singing a line of a grassland song, calling the scattered horses back, one by one.
The herd behind him grew steadily, from a few horses to several dozen, until a magnificent column of horses followed in his wake.
Sa Risheng turned and called out with a sharp whistle. From time to time he changed mounts, leaning down to stroke a horse’s mane and murmur affectionate reassurance to each of them…
And so an entire day and night passed.
His phone had run out of power in the middle of the previous night, and nobody outside could reach him. They did not know where the Little Prince had ridden off to. Had he gone deep into the mountains? Had something happened to him? Why hadn’t he come back?
* * *
Two days later, the floodwater in the film city had receded. The Republican-era teahouses and taverns along the streets looked as though rain and mud had scoured them from top to bottom, leaving the weathered dignity of buildings that had endured for generations.
Many people were helping clean the film city, clearing fallen planks, trees and debris scattered everywhere.
The breakfast truck arrived. The cook called out as he handed out delicious Sichuan wontons and bowls of pork-intestine rice noodles.
Xing Rong held a bowl of red-chili-oil wontons, a big steamed bun clenched between his teeth and another in his hand, afraid that if he waited there would be nothing left for him.
He squatted beside the road, bent over his meal, with his feet planted on a pile of bricks to lift him above the mud. It was as though he had suddenly been transported into an era of natural disaster and hardship he had never personally known, an era when people had to scramble for food. Everything he ate tasted incredibly good!
People nearby were chatting animatedly. Someone asked him, “Young man, you can handle spicy food?”
Xing Rong had already finished his bowl of wontons and was now happily slurping pork-intestine noodles. “The spicy stuff tastes better.”
The local men laughed. “Come live with us someday! Life’s comfortable here, the food’s hot and spicy. It’s great!”
Xing Rong smiled. “Sure. I like it here too.”
On his feet was a pair of plain white rubber shoes in a decidedly rustic style, given to him by someone nearby. Otherwise he would not have had shoes at all.
* * *
Xing Rong had originally been supposed to return to Beijing with the main group two days earlier, but he had not gone.
He told his team that the local people affected by the disaster were pitiable, and with half the film city collapsed, they ought to lend a hand.
Young Master Xing took a shovel and helped dig mud from the streets. Several publicists from his team picked their way through the mire carrying big cameras. They squatted down and searched for the perfect low angle, aiming the lenses up at his face and firing off a furious burst of shots, as though competing to capture a major news event.
They had been worrying about the shortage of publicity material during the filming shutdown.
Once the photos were taken, they could pack up and leave.
If he was not staying to get photographs on the front page, why remain in a disaster area with a shovel doing filthy manual labor? What was the point? His schedule was so tight. How could a traffic star have time to waste here? There were advertisements and endorsements waiting, appearances at shopping malls. Time was traffic and money. It was just like making a film: every second you stood around was more money lost.
Xing Rong refused to leave. He was waiting.
And then, that very night, he and his agent had a fierce argument in the muddy street around a corner.
His agent blurted out the truth. “Rongrong, you think we don’t know who you’re hanging around waiting for?… It’s that stuntman! Rongrong, have you lost your mind? What exactly are you thinking? Why do you always have to be so stubborn?”
Xing Rong told the truth too. “I’m that stubborn. If you’re in such a hurry, go back without me! Stop pointing cameras at me. I’m just shoveling some mud. I don’t want my shoveling to become a headline!”
“If you don’t want headlines, what are you doing in show business? Why become a celebrity? Go home and sell sweet potatoes!” his agent shouted.
Company executives and agents often shouted things like that at their young stars. Every newcomer had been scolded the same way. If you entered the industry, you were supposed to want fame with every fiber of your being. Otherwise, you might as well hurry home, get married and have children, rather than waste the team’s time and occupy the company’s resources.
Recently, Xing Rong’s photographs dressed as “Du Liniang” had become a huge gossip sensation online, bringing him a wave of new casual fans. Even his private “dinner appearance fee” within the industry had quietly risen. Plenty of bosses had a particular taste for androgynous beauty, and a madam was acting as go-between, arranging introductions. More than one boss had invited him to honor them with a meal. Even Du Mingjun’s fresh-meat wholesale company wanted to poach him…
All it really meant was drinking with people and giving them a pleasant smile. He would sit at the side during a major boss’s business banquet and add a little prestige and glamour to the occasion. It did not necessarily involve actual sexual favors, yet it could earn a substantial appearance fee. Xing Rong had refused every invitation. He did not want to meet any of them.
“Then I’ll set up a stall right here and sell sweet potatoes. I actually like eating them,” Xing Rong said.
“You’d say that to President Zhang’s face too?” his agent demanded.
Xing Rong fell silent. So what if he did say it to President Zhang? He was hardly the only person in the company who had thought about changing employers. The trouble was that he did not have Pei Yan’s family wealth and financial backing to support such a move.
“You… You and that fellow… Are you dating? Have you gotten together with that boy?” The agent was genuinely anxious and lowered his voice as far as he could. “You have traffic and attention, tens of millions of fans watching you. What will you do if people find out? Rongrong, we’re thinking of you and your future.”
“No.” Xing Rong denied it without hesitation. “I’ve never once thought about dating anybody, and I’m not going to date in the future either. We’re just friends who’ve talked to each other a few more times. You’ve watched too many stories about demon spirits. You’re imagining things.”
“Only a fool loses time and money over a friend!” his agent lamented, pouring out well-meant but painful advice. “Rongrong, you’re too naive, giving away money, time and face to someone unrelated to you. I’m telling you the truth. This industry is full of scheming, open attacks and hidden arrows, fake kindness and people who go cold as soon as you’re out of sight… There isn’t a single genuine friend here.”
Xing Rong waved him away and turned to leave, too tired to say another word. He picked up his shovel and went back to digging mud. The enormous muddy pool in the road no longer seemed quite so filthy to him.
* * *
Morning sunlight spilled over the rooftops and the old city streets, which were gradually regaining their shape after the devastation.
Just then, the sound of hoofbeats drifted in from the distance. At the far end of the long street, a great cloud of dust rose.
Everyone instinctively lifted their heads, standing up with breakfast bowls still in their hands. From the direction where sunlight poured into the street, Sa Risheng appeared on horseback, his hair braided, leading the herd he had gathered home.
Many people cried out in astonishment.
They had assumed the horses were scattered for good, or had been killed or injured in the earthquake and landslides, never to be recovered.
“Good heavens, child! How on earth did you bring all those horses back?!”
“Wow! That kid on horseback looks soooo handsome!”
The figure was backlit, outlined in golden morning light into a tall silhouette on horseback. Emerging from the sunlight, he looked like a wandering hero come down from the horizon.
Xing Rong could not see his face clearly, but the outline alone was enough to recognize him. He was overwhelmed with relief and delight. Standing atop his little pile of bricks with a bowl of red-oil pork-intestine noodles in hand, he waved with all his might, breaking into a smile. At last he could stop worrying.
Xing Rong could not make out the rider’s face, but the rider could see him perfectly in the light, picking him out from the crowd and fixing his gaze on him.
The Little Prince raised his whip in greeting and smiled at him, every bit as happy.