Letter from Hong Kong Chapter 66

Ying Yin rarely had time off during New Year’s. Ying Fan was delighted and took charge of the cooking, even opening two new jars of wine early on. Junyi had also come over from Ning City to spend the holiday with them.

To make the filming schedule for the tribute project, production would start the day after tomorrow, and Ying Yin had to fly to the studio lot early tomorrow morning. Ying Fan couldn’t stop worrying – she grabbed Junyi’s hand and went on and on about taking care of Ying Yin’s daily needs.

“When you’re working late nights, you still need to nourish yourself properly. I’ve written down a few soup recipes for you – make sure to follow them according to her schedule. The red ginseng I bought this year is especially good, so take plenty with you, and then…”

Ying Fan paused here, giving Ying Yin a sideways look. “What are you grinning about all by yourself?”

Ying Yin had the tip of her chopsticks between her teeth, her other hand propping up her chin, a vague, inexplicable smile spreading across her face. She hadn’t been listening to what Ying Fan was saying to Junyi.

“Are you in a relationship?” Ying Fan immediately went on high alert.

“No, no I’m not.” Ying Yin sat up straight, guilty. “I’m just getting into character.”

“A revolutionary drama, and you’re getting into it like a sweet romance?”

“…” Ying Yin coughed twice. “What are you talking about? I have another project too – a love story.”

“You’re juggling roles?” Ying Fan seemed quite knowledgeable.

In the old days of the Hong Kong entertainment industry, actors juggling multiple productions at once was the norm – never mind artistry or reputation. Shooting seven or eight films a year was standard; for the more hardworking ones, ten or twenty wasn’t out of the question either, since the studios were all close by. Not anymore. Now the expectation is to devote yourself wholly to one project and one character. Taking on two productions at the same time will draw backlash from both the public and fans alike.

Ying Yin didn’t have the nerve to lie, so she came clean. “I’ll shoot this one first, then move straight into the next production without a break.”

Zhuang Tiwen’s initial funding had already come through. She had drawn up over a dozen names and submitted them to a feng shui master, who selected “Ning Ji.” And so, Ning Ji Film was registered in Hong Kong as the production house for When Snow Melts It Turns Green. With the funds in place, the two split the work: one party handled the project filing and registration in Hong Kong, while the other raced to assemble the production team and expedite the filming permits for the mainland.

The goal was to start shooting before the Lunar New Year. Since the film was set in winter, the snow on the grasslands would only last until March at the latest – any later, and they’d have to wait for the next winter.

Li Shan’s production crew had been working together for years. The core creative team enjoyed an almost untouchable status in the industry, thanks to being “Li Shan’s regulars.” Though asking them to start filming just before the New Year was a bit demanding, since it was Li Shan’s request, they pulled out all the stops to make it happen.

“Starting right around the New Year? So you’ll be spending the holiday on set?” Ying Fan counted on her fingers.

This year, the Lunar New Year fell late – on February 25th, about two months away.

“Honestly, it’s not unusual. Mr. Li probably has everything ready for this film – just waiting for the funding. Now that the money’s come through, he doesn’t want to drag it out any longer, so he’s getting started as soon as possible.” Ying Yin used a small pair of pincers to crack open a lobster claw. “Besides, you’ll be on vacation for the New Year anyway – it doesn’t matter if I’m there or not.”

“Are you sure you’re not in a relationship?” Ying Fan suddenly circled back with a surprise attack.

“Really, I’m not.” Ying Yin blinked, looking perfectly open and innocent.

She didn’t want to tell Ying Fan because Ying Fan had a tendency to let her imagination run wild – even more prone than Ying Yin herself to dreaming of marrying into high society. What was the point of getting her hopes up over something that wasn’t even close to happening?

The next morning at five o’clock, Ying Yin set off for the airport with Junyi.

Zhuang Tiwen met her after they landed. The production crew’s business van picked them up and took them straight to the hotel. That evening, all the key creatives had gathered, and they shared a meal together. Ying Yin introduced Zhuang Tiwen to everyone, presenting her as her agent and boss – giving the young woman ample face and making sure she wouldn’t face unnecessary difficulties when carrying out her work later on.

After the meal, Zhuang Tiwen flew back to Hong Kong that same night. There was no helping it – to keep up with Li Shan’s pace, she had to push forward and keep a close eye on all the approval processes.

The city where the studio lot was located was far to the north, and the temperatures there were nothing like those in Ning City. Every exhalation turned into a puff of white mist. At the production start ceremony, Ying Yin wore a thick black down jacket and posed for photos with all the lead actors, each holding a red lucky envelope.

This was an ensemble drama, depicting the story of Chinese Communists during the historical period following the April 12th Incident. The title, Undercover, set the tone for everything.

After April 12th, Shanghai was shrouded in white terror. Spies lurked everywhere, shadowing and tailing people, while patrol officers with batons conducted random searches and interrogations at every turn. Deep in the alleyways, tightly shut doors and windows bore scrawled warnings like “No visitors without family.” An oppressive tension hung over every revolutionary.

Ying Yin’s character, Ying Yuhua, was an editor and liaison officer for a major propaganda publication of the Shanghai General Trade Union. After narrowly escaping another manhunt, she was forced to flee north and go into hiding in the countryside. Four months later, she ultimately fell in the Kuomintang’s renewed round of party purges.

Ying Yin was not the leading star, and Li Shan had arranged her shooting schedule well in advance, concentrating her scenes together. In total, her filming time was no more than two weeks. During the first week, she mainly shot her Shanghai scenes on the studio lot. She wore a half-new, half-worn straight-cut blue cotton changshan, carried a small cloth bag with a butterfly-shaped buckle, and had her hair cut short and permed, with a pair of silver oval-framed glasses. The overall look gave off an ambiguous air – neither entirely Chinese nor entirely Western, intellectual yet also streetwise.

This was a character design deliberately altered by the styling team per Li Shan’s requirements. A beautiful woman engaged in revolution would be far too conspicuous, making undercover work too risky. This more common, unremarkable appearance became the very thing that allowed Ying Yuhua to slip past interrogations and searches time and again.

But no matter what, Shanghai was simply too perilous for a revolutionary. The number of comrades still holding their ground in the city dwindled by the day – either arrested or persecuted. Finally, after yet another delivery of propaganda materials to a secret printing point, Ying Yuhua returned to the alleyway and found a bowl turned upside down on the eight-treasure table, with a hastily scrawled note beneath it: You’ve been exposed. Leave the city tonight. Do not linger.

On the ninth day of filming, Ying Yin transferred to the site of a former Red revolutionary base further north, where she would shoot her rural scenes for Group B.

What had been a smooth production up to that point began to run into problems starting that day. According to the film’s aesthetic design, the rural scenes were supposed to be tranquil and warm – the wintertime mother river, its sediment settled, flowed gently and clearly across the plains; egrets rose and descended; the wind wound through the reeds along the banks, warm and lingering.

But the weather clearly had other plans. First, Ying Yin’s flight was delayed repeatedly due to dust storms and thunderstorms, eventually being forced to divert to a neighboring city two hundred kilometers away. To avoid holding up the production, the crew arranged a vehicle to drive her to the set overnight. But in the latter half of the night, a sudden downpour hit, and news came that a short stretch of the main road ahead had collapsed. They had no choice but to take a detour along a gravel road.

That road passed through a mining area, normally used only by large engineering vehicles and freight trains, which had long since left it pitted and rough. Halfway through, the hastily arranged business van indeed broke down. After two hours of repairs in the rain, they set off again and finally arrived at the set at five in the morning.

The Group B production manager was a familiar face – his name was Du Ruotang, known in the industry as Old Du. Slippery as an eel, he was skilled at playing up to some and stepping on others, always reading the room. When he saw how much Ying Yin had been through, he started hollering from a mile away. “Miss Ying! Miss Ying – oh my dear Miss Ying! I mean, it’s only a three-hour drive on the main road – nobody could have predicted the landslide – achoo! You’re sneezing? Where’s the towel? Why hasn’t anyone brought Miss Ying a warm towel? Let me take you to your room – lean on me, please…”

Ying Yin sneezed several times in a row. The moment her white sneakers touched the ground, they were caked in mud.

“It’s still raining here? I thought this area was short on water?” Junyi asked from behind.

“Yeah,” Old Du answered, even picking up Junyi’s question, “isn’t it? Even our guide said it’s unusual.”

It was a modest scenic spot – essentially a natural village. Hardly anyone came here normally, except during spring when the pear blossoms bloomed, attracting a few visitors from afar. The set was in the village, while the crew stayed at the only hotel in the area, just outside it. Under these conditions, there was no point in fussing over five-star ratings or single rooms – everyone was treated equally and put up in standard doubles. Some of the crew workers simply bunked with the villagers.

Old Du reported the accommodation conditions in a straightforward, by-the-book manner, then offered some reassurance. “Still, there are some perks – hot water comes fast, there are electric blankets, and plenty of wool blankets. And you’re only here for a few days anyway, so you can rough it a bit.”

Who knew that “a few days” would turn into a week, and from a week stretch on indefinitely into the void –

Because the sky just wouldn’t clear up. The sun just wouldn’t come out. It remained overcast all day long, which was nothing short of a disaster for outdoor scenes that required natural light.

Group B’s cinematographic style was set in stone – only through the flow of light and shadow, through the tranquility of passing time, could the cruel unpredictability of blood-soaked sacrifice be truly highlighted. A revolutionary – on the day she dies, perhaps the sky is blue, the wind warm, the birds singing, the reeds scattering their fluff in the air. Everything in nature is beautiful. But she still dies, bidding farewell to all that beauty.

This was Li Shan’s signature aesthetic of death. Though he only served as executive producer, his style clearly exerted a strong influence over the entire film. So, aside from waiting for the sun, Group B truly had no other choice.

The producer overseeing this unit got up every night in the middle of the night to read the stars – he might as well have been kneeling on the ground casting hexagrams. Sometimes, they’d get a rare sunny hour, and the entire crew would scramble into a frenzy of frantic activity – only for the clouds to roll back in before they’d even finished adjusting the lighting.

Ying Yin caught a chill that night. The first few days she was groggy with a cold; later on, the other symptoms faded, but she couldn’t stop coughing whenever she lay down to sleep – hacking until her chest ached.

With poor sleep, she still had to get up early for makeup the next day, then doze off during the long wait for sunlight.

Shang Shao asked her every day how the shoot was going. Ying Yin didn’t want to worry him, so she always said “fine.” After six days past schedule, she couldn’t hide it anymore and confessed. “We’ve been waiting for the sun…”

“Waiting for the sun?”

“Yeah, without sunlight, there’s no feeling the director wants.” Ying Yin sat on a small folding stool. As she answered, she felt a cough coming on, so she made an excuse that the director was calling for her, hung up in a hurry – and then broke into a violent, tearing cough.

Junyi patted her back while handing her a cup of eight-treasure tea to soothe her throat. Thoughtful as always, she had picked out the sesame seeds and added a few extra slices of dried apple.

“I borrowed the kitchen and made you some rock sugar pear. You can’t keep coughing like this.”

“Filming… like this… cough cough… won’t work either!” Junyi was patting her so hard that Ying Yin felt like her lungs were about to be pounded out. “It hurts – cough cough cough! …Stop, stop patting!”

Cheng Junyi quickly withdrew her hand. “You haven’t been secretly throwing away your medicine, have you?” She frowned. She’d been feeding her the proper dosage three times a day, but it just wasn’t working.

“Do I look like I have nothing better to do…” Ying Yin’s face was pale from coughing.

The crew members and scene partners waiting on standby were all concerned about her – but after days of the same concern, they’d run out of things to say. Hearing it again, everyone just took it in stride.

“Let me ask Auntie if she has any good dietary remedies,” Junyi said.

“Don’t.” Ying Yin pressed down on her hand.

On the seventh day of the stalled production, the executive producer, Li Shan, and one of the producers from Hong Kong who had come to visit the set all arrived on site.

Although Ying Yin had long guessed that Liu Zong was one of the producers, her heart still sank when she saw him appear – and her illness felt even more unpleasant –

Because behind Liu Zong was Yu Shasha.

Or rather, of that group she’d seen at Song Shizhang’s company last time, only Yu Shasha had been permitted to accompany him this time.

With the lead actress ill and the shoot running so far over schedule, she should have been the first to receive attention. The executive producer brought medicine and expressed concern, but all the responses were handled by Old Du, the production manager, on her behalf.

“Why hasn’t Miss Ying been arranged to see a doctor at the provincial capital hospital?” the executive producer asked.

The collapsed road had long since been repaired – it was barely over a hundred kilometers away now. Old Du hemmed and hawed, unable to answer, so Ying Yin spoke up herself, “There’s barely any sunlight each day. If I left, it would delay the shoot even more. I’m fine – I don’t cough during the day, only at night when I sleep.”

Li Shan patted her shoulder. “Don’t be too dedicated.”

The group went off to review the filming progress – clearly, they couldn’t win a battle of attrition against the weather – and see if there was any way to revise the scenes.

“Fancy seeing you again.” Yu Shasha stopped in front of Ying Yin and greeted her casually.

Ying Yin ignored her, focusing intently on studying the script.

Yu Shasha was quiet for a moment, not showing any sign of embarrassment. “I said the wrong thing last time. Don’t take it to heart. Maybe you’ve misunderstood something, because…”

Ying Yin stood up, casting a cold glance down at her. “Miss, no one is interested in your life story. If you love talking so much, why not tell your fiancé instead?”

At dinner that evening, she had little appetite. After a couple of sips of soup, she excused herself and left the table.

Moonlight shattered into cold fragments beneath the old pear tree. Junyi accompanied her as they walked toward the village entrance, where they ran into the elderly woman from whom Ying Yin always bought red dates. The old lady invited them into her main room for tea.

Economic conditions here were poor – earthen walls, small flat-roofed houses of bare yellow mud, a few chipped clay pots with pickled vegetables held down by stones. In one pot alone stood a single whimsical wild pear blossom branch – perhaps from last spring, now long withered.

In her courtyard was a large earthen basin, with a small jujube tree planted in it – likely waiting to grow a bit bigger before being transplanted to the field ridge.

Ying Yin sat in the main room drinking tea – from a chipped coarse earthenware bowl, brewed with water drawn from the Yellow River underground – gazing out at the courtyard and the moonlight in a daze.

After a while, she pushed back the bench and stood up, asking the old lady for a coin.

Junyi transferred a hundred yuan to the grandmother in exchange for the coin, then watched as Ying Yin walked to the yard and buried the coin beneath the jujube tree.

Moonlight draped over her like a cloak. Jun Yi captured a photo of her side profile as she bent to bury it – her jade-like nose translucent in the silver light.

She looked reverent and focused.

“Done.”

After covering it, she let out a breath of relief, her whole body relaxing.

“Making a wish?” Junyi asked.

“What wish? Just being silly.” Ying Yin smiled, hugging her down jacket tighter. “My grandmother taught me – on New Year’s Eve, if you bury a silver coin under a tree, the person you want to see will return from afar the next year. But today isn’t New Year’s Eve, and I didn’t bury a silver coin either. I just thought of it and wanted to play around.”

“You miss Mr. Shang.”

“Oh, come on.” Ying Yin rubbed her nose. “Before, I never missed anyone when I was filming. This feels pretty fresh.”

She said it casually, her eyes lowered, her chin looking noticeably thinner from all the coughing.

Junyi posted a moment on her social feed – but she didn’t dare let Shang Shao see it, afraid he’d think she was passing along a message. So she steeled herself and blocked him, along with anyone related to him, from that post.

Ke Yu returned from Nepal. After handling a pile of paperwork, standing in for a bunch of overdue brand endorsement events, and barely getting two days of rest, he suddenly announced that he was going to visit Ying Yin on set.

Shang Lu was very displeased. “What? You’re going to visit Ying Yin? Why are you so concerned about her?”

“…” Ke Yu coughed. “Filming in the middle of nowhere is tough. And we haven’t seen each other in a while.”

“So, you miss her and you care about her.” Shang Lu let out a cold snort. “When I was filming in the middle of nowhere, you never came to visit me.”

Ke Yu couldn’t hold back anymore. “Every single day you were in the middle of nowhere, I was right there with you!”

“…”

Shang Lu reluctantly agreed. With no one around, the first person he thought of was his big brother – he wanted to go have a drink with him. But then he found out that he, along with his plane, had vanished.

Ke Yu sat inside the fully loaded Gulfstream business jet, fidgeting uncomfortably.

It took some skill to make him this uneasy – because he was usually composed and at ease in any situation. But clearly, both Shang Shao and Shang Qingye had that ability.

“Actually, Leo, you don’t need this much fruit for a set visit.” He said something utterly useless.

The entire cargo hold of the plane was packed with top-tier imported fruit – grapes priced by the hundred each, enough to feed the whole crew for ten days to half a month. Lin Cunkang had arranged it all, of course, after seeing Junyi’s social media posts complaining about the lack of fruit and how her lips were cracking from the dry weather.

“Too much?” Shang Shao flipped through a financial magazine.

“Too much. It’ll go bad before they can eat it all.”

Shang Shao nodded, his eyes still scanning a new article, and said casually, “Then send over a few refrigerators as well.”

Ke Yu stared wide-eyed in bewilderment for a long moment, then replied calmly, “No, that’s not what I meant. Refrigerators need electricity too.”

“Put them in the villagers’ homes and give them away.”

“They can’t afford the electricity bills!”

Shang Shao frowned and glanced at Ke Yu. “Can’t we just prepay a few years’ worth of electricity for them directly?”

“…”

A faint smile curved at the corner of Shang Shao’s lips. “Does Lulu still not know now?”

“No.”

“Who is he guessing now?”

“He’s dead set on Rita. He’s convinced she’s your heaven-sent match.”

Shang Shao let out a soft laugh. “He doesn’t want to guess Ying Yin. Otherwise, with all the clues pointing that way, he should have figured it out by now.”

“Maybe he already has the right answer instinctively, but his rational mind refuses to believe it.” Ke Yu ratted him out. “He said he’d rather knock on a wooden fish for ten years than have Ying Yin as her sister-in-law.”

Shang Shao pressed a hand to his lips, pondering for a moment. The white shirt cuffs beneath his suit sleeve were impeccably crisp.

“Is an electronic wooden fish better, or a real one?”

Ke Yu nearly dropped to his knees.

The business jet landed at the provincial capital airport, where a refrigerated box truck and loading crew were already waiting. After loading an entire truck’s worth of fruit, the Land Rover carried the two men to the small set by the Yellow River.

Shang Shao must have been very busy – Ke Yu dozed off and woke up repeatedly during the drive, while Shang Shao spent the time either on phone calls or reviewing documents. Two hours later, they reached their destination. He took off his coat and put on a low-key black windbreaker over his suit.

“Later, just introduce me to everyone as your personal assistant.”

Ke Yu felt that his friend had a serious misunderstanding about his own aura.

But no matter how clumsy or full of holes the plan was – here they were, after all.

Old Du heard that someone had shipped a whole truckload of stuff out to this godforsaken wilderness and came out to take a look first. When he saw Ke Yu, his eyes lit up and his steps doubled in agility. “Mr. Ke!”

Ke Yu, as always, gave him a smile, pulled two cigarettes from his pack, and handed one to Du Ruotang. “Going smoothly?”

“Don’t even mention it!” Old Du bit down on the cigarette. “It’s both a nightmare and a circus – Director Li is here too! You’re here to see Miss Ying as well?”

“Yeah.” Ke Yu squinted at the mountains, the sky, and the river, exhaled a puff of smoke, and gestured with the hand holding his cigarette. “Lead the way.”

Du Ruotang was sharp-eyed. He stole a few glances at Shang Shao from the corner of his vision and lowered his voice to ask, “And this is…”

“My assistant.” Ke Yu answered lazily. “Pretty good, isn’t he?”

“Yes, yes, very good.” Old Du thought to himself, You’re pretty pleased, aren’t you? But this kid of yours has no social awareness – can’t even say a proper Mr. Du.’

Ke Yu realized too that there would be plenty of greetings to go around, and it wouldn’t do if the man wouldn’t address people properly. So he tilted his chin toward Shang Shao. “Say hello to Mr. Du.”

Shang Shao gave a slight nod, his expression neutral, and called out in a low, measured tone.

Old Du felt himself floating up to the clouds. What a voice. What a tone. When he said it, the words “Mr. Du” sounded as weighty as if they were about to walk onto the podium at an economic cooperation forum.

There was a bit of sun today. They had just wrapped one take and were now waiting for the clouds to drift away, when Old Du bellowed, “Mr. Ke is here for a visit!” – causing an immediate stir. Quite a few people on the crew were old acquaintances of Ke Yu, but ever since he won the Cannes Best Actor award, he had been anchored to Shang Lu’s production team and rarely acted in anyone else’s films anymore. So his appearance drew a full-on crowd.

Amid the noisy commotion, there was a clang – a covered bowl of eight-treasure tea hit the ground, unnoticed by anyone.

Hot tea splashed across the floor, mingling with red dates, longan, tea leaves, and apple slices, all scattered lively over the yellow earth. The bowl, nudged by someone’s unconscious forward step, clattered and rolled away.

That step came from a pair of black padded cotton shoes. Upward: dark blue cotton pants, a light blue cross-collared cotton jacket with fabric buttons, and mid-length hair neatly tucked behind the ears, revealing a delicate face.

Just then, the clouds parted, and the sunlight fell clear and bright, exposing Ying Yin’s eyes as they locked with Shang Shao’s across the crowd – nowhere to hide.