After all those twists and turns, the anti-Japanese resistance film had finally wrapped. But nobody yet knew what kind of box office Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass, the film currently in theaters, would achieve.
For these leading actors, one film followed another through filming, production, and release. Every step affected their asking prices and even the fate of future projects. So many eyes were fixed on their box-office figures. Perhaps people were waiting for the day the two of them crashed and burned and their film flopped. Talent was plentiful, opportunities scarce. Why should every good thing go to those two? Envy of success and delight in another person’s misfortune were everywhere. The competition was merciless.
Because of internal problems, Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass had missed the summer season and been pushed back to the start of the school year. The weather cooled and cinema attendance cooled with it. This was a precarious off-season: students had returned to school, businesses were entering the final quarter and chasing annual targets. How many people had the time or inclination to visit a theater?
The Beijing premiere had nevertheless been a resounding success, with excellent first-day and first-week sales. Even setting everything else aside, the diehard fans of Zhuang, Pei, and Xing could drive ticket sales and fill online discussions. The grand wuxia epic in which Zhuang and Pei battled each other, hyped for so long, was finally in theaters.
The crew toured major cities, giving the roadshow everything they had. Several leading actors appeared at every stop and had never been so dutifully cooperative.
They had little choice. The market was fiercely competitive. An imported Hollywood blockbuster and an uproarious urban comedy had opened around the same time. Both were gaining rapidly and threatening to push Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass out of first place.
The three films were locked in a three-way struggle for the top of the chart. But for a star-studded wuxia film, drawing level with a silly comedy felt humiliating…
Ultimately, the golden age of wuxia had passed. How many people still believed in the word xia, the spirit of a heroic martial artist?
The crew rushed from appearance to appearance without a moment’s rest, even sitting together backstage to eat.
They looked glamorous and proud before the public. Behind the scenes they were under enormous pressure. The local fan meeting was coming up in a moment. They needed to drum up ticket sales, and urgently.
“Fuck. There’s definitely something wrong with that shitty movie’s box-office numbers,” someone at the lunch table suddenly burst out, saying what he’d wanted to complain about for ages.
“You can’t say that for certain. We haven’t got evidence. Maybe that’s just what audiences like now.”
“Screenings at one in the fucking morning? One show every twenty minutes? If nothing’s wrong, the cinema must be haunted! A film funded by Baiguixing and Zhiyuan Media? I’d be amazed if they weren’t faking their box-office figures!”
“The tickets are wrong too. Audiences pay discounted prices, but the printed tickets show full-price seats.”
“…”
If their competitors really were inflating box-office receipts so blatantly, they could certainly push Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass down the rankings. Du Mingjun was still nursing a grudge over that business involving the eggplant and his backside. How could President Du stand by and watch a film starring Mr. Zhuang and Mr. Pei become a smash hit?
But Jiahuang had financed Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass. Right in the opening credits, among the producers, was the name of the living King of Hell, Zhang Shaochi. Nobody dared prevent its release outright. They could only stir up trouble behind the scenes. Smaller crews had crossed industry tycoons before, only to have completed films fail their censorship reviews and die immediately. Sometimes theaters simply refused to schedule screenings. Such open and hidden struggles were everywhere.
They had neither the time to go to restaurants nor enough publicity money for elaborate meals.
Backstage they arranged a low table and some benches. Everyone sat around a heap of stacked boxed lunches.
Pei Yan took a box of fish-fragrant eggplant and discovered that Zhuang Xiao had already polished off a box of eggplant. Zhuang Xiao searched the stack for another, but there were none left.
“He loves green-pepper eggplant,” Pei Yan told the others with a smile. “He hardly even eats meat anymore.”
“Here, have mine.” He offered Brother Xiao his fish-fragrant eggplant.
“No, you eat yours.” Zhuang Xiao chewed plain rice.
“Ahem. I’ll eat anything. You can have everything you like.” Pei Yan dug out some mapo tofu instead. Young Master Pei loved tofu.
Before a whole table of colleagues, one eggplant lunchbox was passed back and forth without the least discretion or secrecy.
“No wonder you made that Three Treasures of the Earth dish at the party the other day, Yanyan!” the director said, pointing with his chopsticks. “You’d only just learned it, right? You made it for Zhuang Xiao!”
“All of A-Xiao’s favorite vegetables combined in one dish,” the production manager added, smiling without raising his eyes.
“Well, yeah. You only just figured it out?” Pei Yan was utterly shameless.
“We knew ages ago. We just don’t call you out on it!” the director said.
Everyone bowed over their meals and snickered. The two were so blatantly attentive to one another. Who couldn’t see it? But nobody said anything openly.
This stop of the tour was Chengdu, at one of the city’s big cinemas. They finished their lunches in a hurry, wiped their mouths, touched up their makeup, and waited for the fans to enter.
As usual, things opened with enthusiastic greetings, speeches, and interaction between stars and audience. All routine.
Then something completely unexpected happened, something absent from the roadshow script. Young Hero Pei, who played Eunuch Cen, had just finished speaking. He waved through the cheers and whistles, about to turn away, when someone in the audience waved back and called his name, calling him “big brother.”
An adult lifted a little boy onto the stage.
The child smiled at Pei Yan, tucked his hands behind his back, and grew bashful. He shuffled his feet for a long time before finally saying in his Sichuan accent, “Big brother, it’s me! You’re that really handsome big brother!”
Pei Yan recognized him.
Astonished, he lifted the boy into his arms. “I’m handsome, huh? Hahaha! Even more handsome than when you saw me that day, right?”
The little boy pursed his lips and smiled. “Big brother, you’re a really good person!”
Cameras had already been positioned close by and were filming the reunion furiously from carefully chosen angles…
Some time had passed since their experiences during the Chengdu disaster. Zhuang Xiao’s back injury and the blisters on the soles of his feet had healed. Nobody mentioned the incident anymore.
But at the right moment, a story like that would always come to light.
That very evening it spread all over the internet. Everyone was talking about the moving scene at the Dragon Battles Heaven’s Pass fan meeting. The news traveled rapidly: “Did you know the boy Yanyan was holding was someone he rescued during the disaster in western Sichuan?”
“Yanyan was filming in Chengdu back then. Why was there no news of him for days? Why didn’t he attend the disaster-relief charity gala in Beijing? Keyboard warriors cursed him for being stingy and not donating, and he never said a word in his defense. He didn’t publicize anything. In fact Yanyan and A-Xiao stayed in the area; they didn’t fly back! A lot of their crew personally carried supplies into the mountains…”
“Our Yanyan is a little angel! Now that’s a positive role model. He’s wonderful!”
“What little angel? Are you writing a fluffy romance upstairs? My Yan and Brother Xiao are genuine heroes of the jianghu!”
* * *
Pei Yan himself was baffled momentarily, then caught on. From the stage he looked back at his team and fixed his eyes on their mighty strategist Zhang Huan. He knew the boy hadn’t suddenly appeared onstage of his own accord. Adults had arranged it.
If they were going to make a splash, now was exactly the moment.
It was fitting that after the disaster they’d returned to peaceful, beautiful Chengdu. They’d gone full circle.
Entertainment accounts began reposting the story frantically. Photographs taken over a month earlier suddenly came out of whatever corners they’d been hidden in.
A passerby had casually photographed armed police helping evacuate disaster victims near the film studios. Nobody knew who was in the pictures at the time. Later they spotted young bald-headed Pei in one of them.
Pei Yan was covered in mud from head to toe, using a door panel as a makeshift boat to ferry a child out of danger. They met each other’s gaze peacefully, with sincere smiles. It was almost as if the wind and rain had been swept away, golden light breaking through the clouds above to bless the earth…
The photograph felt authentic precisely because it wasn’t staged. It captured a genuine moment.
It became the ugliest and most popular picture ever taken of Young Hero Pei.
The little nurse who’d treated him outside the film-studio compound posted online about dressing Yanyan’s injured hand. He’d scraped the skin from the back of it, exposing red flesh beneath, and the wound was full of mud. Her post was shared hundreds of thousands of times.
Other people posted photographs of bottled water and instant-noodle cups signed by Pei Yan and Zhuang Xiao.
Some busybodies naturally demanded authentication. Were they fakes? Every time a film opened, the crew pulled the same publicity stunt!
Then several people shared their own photographs of signed noodle cups. The plastic bottles and cups were still terribly filthy with mud. Their owners had kept them all this time. They were real…
Amid the online frenzy of praise, one small photograph became a cherished anecdote in many people’s minds, though much of the story existed only in their imaginations.
It had been taken outside a township government office, another deliberate candid shot by a passerby. Zhuang Xiao leaned exhausted against a wall. His back hurt too badly for him to bend down, but his gaze was infinitely gentle as he looked toward the person at his feet.
Pei Yan crouched beside Brother Xiao, very seriously tying his shoelace for him.
Fans, antis, casual onlookers, online performers, and keyboard warriors all reached unprecedented agreement in the comments beneath that photograph.
Everyone repeated the same line: You two should just get together already.
* * *
The publicity events ended after two days. The team was in a rush when they left, but they managed to eat fragrant, spicy shaojigong at a humble little restaurant near Shuangliu Airport.
Pei Yan fished a good chunk of meat from the pot, a piece of chicken thigh, and put it into Zhang Huan’s bowl. “Extra chicken leg for you! You deserve the whole pot! … You are one terrifyingly capable bastard.”
Zhang Huan accepted the chicken without a trace of modesty. Of course he was capable.
Pei Yan knew how Zhang Huan’s team operated: find exactly the right time, act decisively, and strike with a clear objective.
The young nurse who had bandaged his hand had actually posted on Weibo that very day, praising Yanyan and describing their meeting. Her post had received fewer than eight hundred reposts. With a marketing team behind it, the count became eight hundred thousand.
Was that good or bad? Difficult to say. In any event, the young people on the publicity team, together with all those marketing accounts they cultivated on Weibo and Tieba, were soldiers trained for a thousand days to be deployed in a single moment. They spared no effort, whipping up an uproar as feverish as a holiday celebration…
Chewing his spicy chicken, Zhang Huan shrugged. “Old Pei, I haven’t fabricated anything or lied for you, have I?
“Didn’t you two donate money locally and pay out of pocket for a convoy delivering supplies into the mountains?
“Didn’t you hurt your backs, blister your feet, and soak your legs raw?”
“Yes.” Pei Yan nodded. “Zhuang Xiao and I did help with the relief effort. But now it looks as though we’d been deliberately putting on a show, saving up some big publicity bomb to drop exactly when our film opened!”
He sounded as if he were trying to advertise his own virtue. In truth, who didn’t enjoy praise and recognition? He had his vanity and a taste for personal heroism, yet there were also things he had done from the bottom of his heart, never for the sake of earning a reputation.
“Now it looks like we’re just hyping our movie,” Pei Yan said ruefully.
He’d always despised those publicity tricks, making fun of other teams who pulled them.
“Those people broadcast every tiny bit of news, whether it’s good or bad. When nothing happens, they invent a story. No ingredients in the pan? They’ll stir-fry thin air! We have a real story and we’re supposed to sit on it? We’d be idiots!” Zhang Huan spat out a chicken bone and stabbed with his chopsticks, convinced he had just proclaimed an eternal universal truth. “Old Pei, good deeds deserve recognition. Especially when the recognition can earn you something. Why wouldn’t we talk about it?”
Nobody was being harmed, and they stood to benefit. Why pretend they were above such things?
Still, whenever people online exalted them as “heroes of the jianghu,” Pei Yan felt his cheeks grow hot with embarrassment.
“They’re manipulating box-office numbers, right? Heh. We’ll boost ours too, but this way. Let their side keep shoveling money into that hole.” Zhang Huan snorted and smiled coldly, a man who had long since seen through all the industry’s tricks.
Pei Yan clasped his fists toward him. You win. I’m impressed.
* * *
Young Brother Xing had attended this Chengdu stop of the roadshow too. During it, he quietly slipped away for an excursion.
That morning Mount Qingcheng lay under rain and mist, almost veiled in gauze, like a beauty half-hidden among deep-green leaves. The dreamlike scenery put a glow in a person’s heart…
Xing Rong had invited Xiao-Sa to climb the mountain with him.
At a small shop near the foot of the mountain, they ate two bowls of wontons in chili oil and two servings of duck-intestine and tofu-skin skewers. They wiped their mouths and started climbing.
At a neighboring table sat several local men wearing sleeveless shirts, baggy shorts, and slippers. After their wontons, they brought out the mahjong tiles they’d carried with them and began playing and chatting in their Sichuan dialect.
“Know how to play mahjong? I’ll teach you someday,” Xing Rong said.
“I know how,” Xiao-Sa replied.
“You do?” Xing Rong could barely stop himself from teasing the man. Can you even read the characters on the tiles?
“Ahem. That lot play mahjong all the time!” Xiao-Sa said. “They do it at Brother Xiao’s place too, and Brother Xiao plays with them. I’ve watched enough to learn. It’s easy.”
Xing Rong wore a sun hat to climb. It had flaps on all four sides, covering the back of his neck and completely hiding his hair and head shape. It was ugly, rather like the hats worn by Japanese officers in some films, but it was practical and hid his identity perfectly.
Every so often Xing Rong shielded his face or trotted out of range. “Don’t photograph me! My hat’s hideous. You’re so annoying. You’re not allowed to take pictures of me!”
Something had gotten into Sa Risheng lately. He’d started wanting to photograph Xing Rong. Hadn’t he always photographed nothing but landscapes, pigs, horses, cattle, and sheep?
When had he ever bothered to photograph people?
He didn’t even know how. The pictures came out hopelessly blurry. In Brother Rong’s words, “I’m so blurry I merge with the background.” So annoying…
In Xiao-Sa’s camera, Xing Rong now enjoyed the same privileged treatment as the horses and cattle. Sometimes the side or back of his head even appeared in the beautiful landscape pictures. What an honor! Xing Rong dug a simple moisturizing sheet mask out of his backpack and secretly plastered it across his face. Then he suddenly wheeled around, looking terrifying. “Want a picture? … Take one! Go on, take it!”
They broke into another fit of laughter. Xing Rong almost laughed the sheet mask off his face. He hastily stuck it back in place and continued up the mountain wearing it.
At a souvenir shop halfway up, Xing Rong bought some locally sold beads in jade green and amber. Whether they were genuine didn’t matter; they were smooth and pretty. Adding them to the stone beads he’d bought while filming a show in Yunnan, he sat on the mountainside steps in the breeze, gazing at the view and feeling almost intoxicated by the beautiful day, and made two more bracelets.
“The old red-crystal one fell off, right? Want this one?” he asked with a smile, offering a bracelet.
“Yes.” Xiao-Sa held out his wrist.
He’d woven that earlier red-crystal bracelet on impulse, as something between an apology and an overture of friendship.
This bracelet was different. He had deliberately made it for Xiao-Sa, and that invited all sorts of uncertain thoughts…
They wore matching bracelets and sat silently rubbing the beads with their fingers, both with their heads down.
Of all the men in their circle, Sa Risheng was particularly fond of wearing ornaments. Various charms hung around his neck, hands, and waist, gifts his mother and grandmother had made to bring good fortune. But the bracelet on his wrist had been made by Rongrong.
Zhuang Xiao, by contrast, never wore ornaments. He’d been dating for ages yet there wasn’t a ring on his finger. He instinctively resisted romantic ceremony. Young Master Pei also liked adornment, but in quite another form, carving marks and piercings into his skin, fitting objects into holes. His preferences ran in a very different direction.
“Hey, aren’t you running out of fingers?” Xing Rong asked, looking at the three enormous gemstone rings Xiao-Sa already wore. “If you take a wife one day, where will you put your wedding ring? Your fingers are all full.”
“We don’t use wedding rings when we marry. We exchange collars and snuff bottles. And there’s what my wife would make me… clothes, sheepskin coats, boots…” Xiao-Sa mentally listed the things. Once he married, his wife would naturally dress him from head to toe.
He blushed and smiled. His wife would also make him a bellyband, underwear, and socks.
“Heh. Is that so… How nice.” Xing Rong fell silent again and stared at his shoes. Green moss clung to their edges, damp and slippery.
He couldn’t think of what he wanted to say. Nothing seemed right, and he didn’t want to fill the silence with sentimental nonsense.
Xiao-Sa was still the same person he’d met on the vast Huitengxile Grassland, among small points of firelight beneath the night sky: one man, one knife, one horse. Simple and pure.
He still had an innocent, unspoiled nature, surely a cherished treasure in the eyes of his family. There was something remarkable about that purity.
Even twenty years later, he would still be the same. He would never be changed or contaminated by this filthy world. What a wonderful thing.
“You’ve practically hung all your money on your body. Aren’t you afraid somebody will rob you?” Xing Rong laughed.
Xiao-Sa glared at him as if he’d just said something incredibly foolish.
Then Xing Rong laughed too. “Hahaha, right! How could anyone rob you? Nobody would dare, would they?”
Xiao-Sa smiled.
Young Prince Sa always wore a knife at his waist. Wherever he went, he had it with him. Even when he entered the scenic area and passed through security, the young prince’s Mongolian knife somehow passed the inspection, and he strode right in…
They climbed to Shangqing Palace at the summit and went inside the hall to pay their respects. Outside stood stone tables and benches, and to their astonishment the exact same group of men were there, already playing mahjong again.
“How did they climb so fast?” Xiao-Sa murmured.
“They sweated and struggled all the way to the summit just so they could play mahjong!” Xing Rong almost burst out laughing. How was life full of so many funny things?
One of the players turned around, spotted them, and waved happily. “Hey, come join us! Come make up the numbers. We’re one short!”
Comrade Xiao-Sa was practically dragged into a seat to complete the table.
For the first time Xing Rong saw the standard of mahjong played by this young prince… To be entirely fair, he played mahjong about as well as he drove. He really ought never to embark on a career as a mahjong player.
When Xiao-Sa announced “eight characters” and proceeded to discard “eight bamboo,” presenting another player with the winning tile, Xing Rong finally couldn’t bear it anymore. Before the man lost all the treasures on his body, including his underpants, he chased him away from the table and took over.
Elio’s Notes: Mahjong has different tile suits. Xiao-Sa calls out the eight of characters (八万), but throws away the eight of bamboo (八条) instead. That mistake gives another player the winning tile.
His hands made a terrific clatter as he shuffled the tiles. He quickly won two hands back, then glanced at the person behind him. Watch and learn.
Pay attention. That’s how you do it.
Sa Risheng crouched on the stone steps behind Brother Rong, a cigarette butt in his mouth. He grinned shyly and murmured, “Rongrong, how are you so clever?” and “Rongrong, you always win.”
* * *