At thirty, Yin Xueqing came out of the hospital, tore up a stack of square diagnostic reports, and tossed them into the trash bin.
She had a guest that evening – a semi-regular, someone neither new nor familiar. Downstairs was a mahjong parlor, its lights on twenty-four hours a day, always hazy with cigarette smoke. The guest would often spend hours playing mahjong down there, working up his spirits, before coming upstairs to “play” with her.
Yin Xueqing kept her room clean and warm, filled with the little comforts of everyday life. She grew some trendy houseplants with tiger-striped green leaves and added a few girlish knickknacks here and there, giving guests the illusion of visiting a lover rather than conducting a transaction. That night, she received the guest as she always did. As the bed curtains swayed in a steady rhythm, two streams of tears rolled down her eyes, which remained wide open throughout.
The guest stopped moving and asked, “What are you crying about?”
She wiped her face with the tips of her fingers, painted with scarlet nail polish, her eyes lifeless. “You’re so great. It hurts.”
The guest was satisfied. He no longer minded her tears spoiling the mood – instead, he took them as a tribute. He threw himself into it with even greater vigor, his dirty talk laced with the self-satisfied swagger of a middle-aged man.
After that job was done, Yin Xueqing packed her bags, transferred her rent money to a fellow countrywoman who had taken over the room, and boarded the train alone.
The train rumbled across the vast Chinese countryside, and with a deft cinematic transition, the view outside the window shifted from lush riverbanks to snow-laden spruce forests.
There were few winter tourists. The train gave way to a minibus, and inside, she was the only woman among the passengers. She climbed aboard, threading her way through the scattered men’s gazes, and took a seat in the back row. In the rearview mirror above the driver’s seat, the driver’s eyes watched her too. He was looking at her as well. But these stares carried no real substance or meaning – just men sizing up a woman. They were, after all, far too accustomed to sizing up women.
But Yin Xueqing was also a woman accustomed to being sized up. She pulled out a handful of sunflower seeds, cracked them between her teeth, and with a light pfft spat out the shells, casting a flirtatious glance toward the rearview mirror hanging overhead. That single look sent the driver’s gaze scattering away.
This was the ferocity the world had gifted her – with charm as her blade.
The minibus was thick with a stuffy, warm odor – unpleasant and drowsy-making. Yin Xueqing slept for five hours, until the bus reached its destination. The county station was old and bleak. She stepped out and boarded an even older van. The camera, mounted on a crane, swept across from a cliffside on one side – the world was white all around, the gravel roads where snow had melted looking like pencil sketch lines.
“There’s nothing here. People only come in summer.”
The camera cut to a close-up over Yin Xueqing’s shoulder, catching the driver’s profile as he spoke. He kept his hands on the steering wheel, his gaze fixed ahead. It was a composition of severe imbalance – the driver’s face took up two-thirds of the frame, his relaxed, chatty profile dominating the shot, while Yin Xueqing’s small half-face was trapped between the frame’s edge and the driver himself.
Zhuang Tiwen stood beside Li Shan, watching the monitor with him. As a woman, she instinctively felt a kind of suffocation, a pressure so tangible that she held her breath.
The spatial composition within the frame was a subtle cinematic language, revealing the psychology of the characters and the power dynamics between them.
Space is power. In real life, the more powerful a person is, the more space they command. The podium versus the audience, the head of the conference table versus the side seats, the villa versus the apartment – people unconsciously step back and yield their space to those above them. Clearly, in this film, Yin Xueqing, as a woman, is constantly subjected to male surveillance and encroachment. Even if the men are unconscious or casual in their actions, the woman on screen still feels trapped and helpless.
Yin Xueqing leaned her body against the door, as far from the center console as she could get. She gave a vague “Mm” in response, offering a clumsy lie. “Going to see a friend.”
The van arrived at the village at six in the evening. There was only one scheduled bus here, departing early each morning – and in winter, it ran every three days. The blue bus stop sign stood tall and solitary in the fresh snow. Yin Xueqing got off here and paid the fare in cash. As she handed over the money, she turned her body slightly, shielding the driver’s view of her wallet.
Li Shan’s film was heavy with symbolism. He wanted to sweep the room clean, stripping away overly mundane or era-specific details – like QR-code payments – to create a pure, uncluttered space for the story.
The village Yin Xueqing arrived at was small, nestled at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, deep in the wilderness. Thanks to backpackers passing through, it had gradually become known as a summer paradise. Half the households in the village had turned their homes into inns, hostels, restaurants, and small shops. But even at peak season, the village never saw more than ten visitors a day. In winter, it was all but deserted.
Yin Xueqing walked in the opposite direction from the van driver and settled in upstream along the creek.
The wooden cabin used for filming had been rented from a local herder and renovated into a standard room, its interior coated with clear varnish that revealed the natural grain of the pinewood. The bathroom was at the end of the hallway – a squat toilet with a flush tank, though the tank was purely for show, as no pipes were actually connected. After using it, one still had to scoop water manually from a bucket.
After dinner, the hostess asked her about her plans for the next day. She didn’t say. In truth, she had decided to go hiking into the mountains tomorrow – and if possible, to die there.
The terrain here was vast and open, the rolling curves of the wilderness offering no distinguishing features. Even in summer, anyone wanting to hike needed a guide. Many of the village’s young herders took this on as a side gig. According to travel guides, if you followed the path from the back of the village, past a dense forest of fir and pine, you’d eventually climb to higher-altitude grasslands. There, nestled in the meadows, lay a lake that reflected the snowy peaks above. In the folklore of the ethnic minorities, the lake was always the snow mountain’s wife – even if they stood far apart.
Yin Xueqing’s primary goal was to see this wife in winter, to see if her heart had frozen over. And if it had, she was ready to lie down on the ice and die. If she got lost and froze to death before ever finding the lake, or if she was devoured by wild animals scavenging in the snow – that wouldn’t be so bad either.
She did get lost. She never found the lake. Instead, she found a man.
She had underestimated the cold here – or rather, overestimated her own will to die. By the time she was numb with cold and spotted a wooden cabin, she crawled toward it on hands and knees.
She tried to push the door open, but it was bolted from the inside.
Such cabins were usually temporary shelters for herders grazing their livestock in the high mountains during summer. In winter, they were naturally empty. Yin Xueqing assumed the door wasn’t really bolted – just frozen shut by frost and snow. She threw her weight against it, pushing with both hands. When the door gave way, she stumbled and half-collapsed forward, falling into the arms of a man who was bending down to meet her. The snow was knee-deep; he pulled her up from its merciless grip.
“Woman? Or demon?” he asked. His hand, which had been bracing her arm, slid down her sleeve to her palm. In one swift motion, he stripped off her glove, squeezed her reddened fingertips, and clamped his other hand around her wrist.
His hands were rough, his knuckles prominent. Hers were soft and tender, like solidified mutton fat.
The whole sequence happened in the blink of an eye – then everything went still. He focused for a moment, feeling her pulse and her warmth. Looking into her eyes, he said, “You’re alive.”
A beautiful living woman – more beautiful than any face he had ever seen. Lovelier than a fawn in the mountains, than a lamb kneeling to nurse, than the freshly melted waters of a lake.
Yin Xueqing’s lips trembled, and her eyes wouldn’t blink. He lifted her into his arms and set her down on a wooden bed by the stove, covering her with two layers of quilts.
“Were you trying to die?” he asked seriously – not rhetorically.
Yin Xueqing shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again.
Because of her final, repeated shaking, he didn’t throw her out into the snow. Instead, he poured her a cup of hot tea.
His name was Haying. He was a herder and also a forest ranger. In summer, he worked fifteen days a month and spent the other fifteen tending his livestock. In winter, he worked only one day a month – up the mountain today, back down tomorrow.
“And if I did want to die?” Yin Xueqing asked, after she had regained her senses.
“Then go outside.”
Yin Xueqing smiled at those four words. She had taken off her down jacket and was wearing a form-fitting knit top in a striking rose-red, which hugged her figure beautifully – her chest full and prominent, her waist slender. She was dressed modestly enough, but the moment she smiled, that years-deep seductiveness seeped out from her very bones.
At this point in the scene, Li Shan called cut.
As soon as they broke, Junyi rushed over with a thermos cup and a towel blanket that had been kept warm, wrapping it around Ying Yin.
“Wrong.” He rose from behind the monitor and walked onto the set: “What kind of seductiveness?” he asked Ying Yin.
Ying Yin, sipping her goji berry water, was stumped by his question. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
She had acted well – the flirtatious charm at the corners of her eyes and brows was soft and alluring, yet cheap, carrying a touch of worldly shrewdness.
“Yin Xueqing is inherently seductive – but that seductiveness has been conditioned by her profession and by men, becoming her instinct and her aura. But with Ha Ying, it’s different. That’s not the seductiveness of a prostitute toward a client – it’s the seductiveness of a woman toward a man.” Li Shan softened his tone slightly: “What do I mean by ‘a woman’s seductiveness toward a man’? She’s taken a liking to him – drawn by his hormones and his looks, and intrigued by his manner and way of doing things. She’s fond of him, so she unconsciously flirts, releasing her sexual appeal toward him. This process is actually quite pure – it’s biological, far purer than her motives and methods when seducing clients. But because she’s a prostitute, her cheapness and her wantonness are etched into her bones, and they come out procedurally, automatically.”
Tiwen whispered to Junyi, “I don’t understand a word of this.”
Junyi thought for a moment. “Her heart sees him as a man, but her body sees him as a client.”
“In your performance, your eyes and body language need to be alluring, but also a little uneasy – that’s the shyness of being alone in a room with a handsome man. The woman and the prostitute inside her are at war. Right now, the woman’s part is losing. When we get to the scene where she rubs herself clean with snow, the woman’s part will gain the upper hand – she’s been shattered, reduced to only half of herself, so her soul is purer. But the ferocity the world gave her has also been washed away, so she can no longer withstand the gazes and malice that come her way, accelerating her death.”
Before this scene, Ying Yin had barely had any NG’s – so this was the first time she’d heard Li Shan explain a scene in depth.
The more precise his explanation, the higher his standards proved to be – like a ruler marked with exacting measurements.
This single NG ended up stalling production for three full days.
On the surface, the set was quiet, but behind the scenes, various group chats were buzzing:
[This is only the first scene between the male and female leads.]
[No kidding. I really thought Jiang Te would be the one who couldn’t keep up.]
[Who would’ve thought?]
[A double-star Best Actress at this level… I’m having a hard time understanding.]
[Come on, her skill is still there. Director Li just has crazy high standards. I can’t even see what’s wrong.]
[lmao, if this keeps up, Jiang Te’s gonna lose it for sure.]
[What kind of “lose it”? [doge]]
[The way Jiang Te looks at her is way too natural.]
[This guy might be a genius or something.]
On the third day, when filming wrapped, the scene still hadn’t been nailed. Li Shan sat behind the monitor for a long time without moving, reviewing every take Ying Yin had done over the past three days.
Ying Yin apologized, “I’m sorry. I’ll find my way back into the right state.”
“Have you ever had feelings for anyone?” Li Shan posed it as a question wrapped in a statement. “You played Li Meijian brilliantly – but that same quality in Yin Xueqing’s soul, the thing she shares with Li Meijian, you’ve closed off. You’re resisting Jiang Te. Why?”
Jiang Te, who had been sitting silently on the edge of the bed, lifted his eyes to look at her. He wasn’t exactly surprised, but he wanted to hear Ying Yin’s answer.
“I haven’t.” Yin Yin gave a half-smile. “You had us spend so much time getting familiar with each other, walking around the village for half a month.”
“You’re not drawn to him. There’s a voice inside you, stopping you from getting into character.”
“I really haven’t.” Yin Yin clutched her hot water bottle, her lips pressed tightly together after she spoke.
“Come on. Look Jiang Te in the eyes, in front of the camera.” Li Shan ordered, “Camera!”
At Camera One, the operator Cai Si gave an OK sign.
Jiang Te cooperatively stood up. He was very tall, looking down at Ying Yin with lowered eyes.
“Close-up.” Li Shan’s direction was concise: “Get ready – 3, 2, 1 – no, no, no, we don’t need a clapper for this. Everyone not needed, clear out.” He cleared away the extras. “Alright, get ready – eye contact, action!”
Ying Yin’s eyes met Jiang Te’s, and she began silently counting the seconds in her mind.
One second, two seconds, three seconds… Gradually, time lost itself in the exchange of their gazes.
The voice at the bottom of her heart began to blur.
“Don’t look away.” Li Shan gripped his megaphone.
Ying Yin had just been about to avert her gaze, but she had no choice but to return it to Jiang Te’s line of sight. His eyes were naturally deep and affectionate, looking down at her from above – a dense, inescapable net.
One of the most basic tenets of an actor’s professionalism – as long as the camera is rolling and the director hasn’t called cut, the performance must continue.
In the silence, Yin Yin’s heart gradually became tinged with restlessness.
Who was it that said – if eye contact lasts more than thirty seconds, one person will fall in love with the other? Even if not love, the heart will race, the pulse will quicken, the breath will turn shallow. Perhaps it was just the suspension bridge effect, giving people the illusion of infatuation.
She looked away. This time, Li Shan didn’t remind her not to.
But he still hadn’t called cut, and Jiang Te was still watching her. She couldn’t look away for long – she could only return, once more, to meet his gaze.
Before the close-up lens, her eyelashes trembled like a butterfly’s wings. Her gaze was flustered, panicked – she had no choice but to look at him. Amidst her resolve, there was a hint of pitiful helplessness, with nowhere left to run.
“Kiss her,” Li Shan said.
Both actors in front of the lens were shaken.
They did have a few kissing scenes – but those were later, not now.
But this was the director’s command. If not now, then eventually.
Li Shan crossed his legs, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his fingers propped under his chin. His gaze was stern, unblinking as he examined their states through the crisp close-up shot.
Jiang Te looked at the face before him and slowly lowered his head. He didn’t know how to kiss – had never done it before. He wasn’t sure whether to rest his hands on her shoulders or wrap them around her waist. He didn’t dare make any rash moves; his hands remained in his pockets as he leaned in, uncertain even whether to close his eyes.
Yin Yin stepped back – half a step, perhaps. The ingrained professionalism of an actress stopped her from retreating further.
But she was so nervous, her gaze tense, her breathing rapid – she had no choice but to close her eyes.
Just as their lips were about to meet, Li Shan finally called, “Cut.”
The set had been like frozen water – and with that life-saving “cut,” it began to flow again. Everyone’s hearts settled back into place, and they found their breath again. But before anyone could even catch a proper breath, Li Shan clapped his hands. “Alright, all camera units and lighting, get ready – script supervisor!”
The operators at Camera Two and Camera Three returned behind their lenses, and the script supervisor scurried back in front of the camera, updated the slate, and raised it. The clapperboard snapped down with an “action,” and the first scene between Yin Xueqing and Jiang Te was rolling once more.
This time, she nailed it in one take.
Zhuang Tiwen had witnessed everything from behind the monitor. When Li Shan stood up and clapped, she turned and walked out, faster and faster, until tears suddenly came flooding. Out in the slushy snow, she tilted her head back and took deep, shuddering breaths.
She didn’t know who she was grieving for.
After that take, there was an endless stream of scenes between Ying Yin and Jiang Te.
This was, after all, a two-character film. Bai Lan, who played Ha Ying’s ex-wife, had less than twenty minutes of screen time total and wouldn’t join the production until after the New Year.
Ha Ying took her horseback riding. The tall Kazakh black horse trod through snow and forded streams. His forearm crossed in front of her, his large hand gripping her slender side to steady and protect her. As the horse jostled, her softness was half-pinned by his firm hold. Yin Xueqing gripped the reins with both hands, while Ha Ying’s other hand wrapped around her small fists, murmuring close to her ear, teaching her how to ride.
He took her up the mountain to look at the trees. “This is a Schrenk’s spruce,” he said. “When it was transplanted here, it was only two or three meters tall. You know, a sapling takes three years to take root, and a single growth ring takes six years to form. This one here – forty centimeters across – it’s eighty years old.”
“Older than both of us,” Yin Xueqing said.
“Older than us put together.”
But just because Ying Yin had found her way into the character didn’t mean the shooting became easy. Li Shan’s scenes were never a breeze – these understated, everyday conversations were laced with subtle, suggestive nuances, and they often had to be done seven or eight times over.
The first intimate scene was scheduled to shoot before the 26th of December, taking place in Ha Ying’s house – which was, in fact, Jiang Te’s house.
Before shooting began, Li Shan gave meticulous directions. “Her clothes are tight, so you push them up using the base of your palm and your thumb.” He demonstrated the precise motion. “This is your first time, but in Ha Ying’s mind, it’s the hundredth. He’s held back for a long time. That night, in Yin Xueqing’s gaze, he knows he doesn’t have to wait anymore – so there’s an urgency to it, but it’s not lecherous. There’s a fierceness in that urgency, a rawness bred into him by the rugged mountains. Once the clothes are pushed up, your left hand moves to knead – but it’s just one motion. The lens will cut to your face right after, though your hand will still be in frame, so you can’t do it a second time, or it becomes pornographic. Understood?”
Jiang Te had never even kissed anyone before; by all logic, he shouldn’t have understood.
But he did. Every word Li Shan said, he understood.
“Ying Yin,” Li Shan turned to her, “you have experience, so I probably don’t need to say much. At this point, the weight of the prostitute is still pulling on her soul. You need to balance that carefully – the more skilled her physical movements, the better, and the more anticipation in her expression, the better. It’s a state of fragmentation. But when he tries to kiss you, you turn your face away and offer him your neck. This is actually an act of desperate self-loathing – it comes quickly. The tears need to fall precisely at the second he kisses your neck. Before that, the candlelight should be reflected in your eyes – your eyes can be moist or not, that’s up to you – but no tears should fall.”
Ying Yin nodded.
Li Shan’s gaze swept across both of their faces, and finally he said, “I’ll clear the set.”
“I can’t leave,” Tiwen said.
She was a woman and also Yin Yin’s agent, so Li Shan agreed.
Three camera positions: one close-up each for the male and female leads. The male lead’s camera was on a dolly track, capturing breathing, fluid movement; the female lead’s was a static fixed shot – because her life was draining away, she was to be frozen into a specimen. The remaining camera was a medium side-angle, shot from a low position, its composition tilted slightly downward, catching a sliver of darkness beneath the bed – this was the voyeuristic metaphor that had been present from the very beginning of the film, ensuring that even during moments of passion, the audience would feel a stark, unsettling unease.
Apart from the three camera operators, everyone else was cleared from the room.
The candle by the bedside burned straight and steady, with five other off-screen candlelight sources already positioned and tested.
Before the official shoot began, Li Shan gave them two minutes to prepare.
Ying Yin breathed deeply, over and over. Jiang Te clenched his fists at his sides. “Sorry for the intrusion,” he said.
“This is just how acting is.” Ying Yin smiled, lowering her gaze to avoid his eyes.
But such a complex scene was far too difficult for Jiang Te – not only beyond his acting experience, but beyond his life experience as well. His gaze was there, yet not quite there – because he was nervous, shy, his Adam’s apple bobbing – a far cry from Ha Ying’s command and certainty. He pushed up Yin Xueqing’s clothes, but what he saw was Ying Yin’s face. Usually, Ying Yin’s face was Yin Xueqing’s face – but in that instant, in his eyes, she bore her own name.
Li Shan called cut four times – each time before his left hand even made the kneading motion. That meant Jiang Te’s performance had been off from the very start.
“Ying Yin, you lead him,” Li Shan signaled.
When an actor opposite you lacks experience, the energy of the more seasoned performer is needed to carry them into the scene. Ying Yin was an actor with tremendous presence in front of the camera – but where did her energy come from? It wasn’t inexhaustible.
She looked into his eyes, but what she saw was another pair of eyes – heavy as mountain mist.
He looked back at her, and the restlessness in his heart came to a halt – tensed at the edge of a volcano, solidifying into a cold, dangerous question. “Who are you looking at?”
He narrowed his eyes, as if offended.
The three camera operators had never stopped filming, and Li Shan’s positional directions came through their earpieces.
He pushed up her rose-red knit top, his lips pressed tight, his jawline cold and sharp. As his left hand moved to knead, his breath caught in an instant, his pupils suddenly widening.
Yin Yin’s gaze held his. Her slender, bare arm reached out from under the covers and wrapped expertly around his neck. Just as he was about to break out of character, she pulled him back in. He leaned down to kiss her. Yin Xueqing gritted her teeth and turned her face away. As she closed her eyes, Ying Yin thought of that absurd night at Cape Collinson Qili Hotel.
Who was it that said – when the time comes to shoot an intimate scene, she should carry what he left inside her into the performance.
What he had left inside her was only pain.
Ha Ying’s kiss reached her neck, and Yin Yin’s tears slid down from beneath her closed eyes.
Mr. Shang, my life can no longer be saved.
Junyi was pacing back and forth outside the set, clutching Ying Yin’s down jacket. The moonlight cast a blue glow over the snow. She was waiting for Ying Yin to finish filming – it was too cold, so she hugged the coat tightly to herself.
Underneath the coat, there was something round.
Junyi reached in and pinched it. That couldn’t be right – it wasn’t near a pocket, but at the hem.
Round, like some kind of bottle.
At that moment, Junyi’s body went still. It wasn’t that she couldn’t guess the answer – it was precisely because she could that her eyes widened and her breath caught. After a moment, her fingers trembling, she reached into the pocket of the black down jacket.
There was an inconspicuous tear in the inner lining of the pocket. Cheng Junyi supported the bottle from the outside through the fabric, slipping one finger through the hole to dig it out.
She could recite the name on the label with her eyes closed.
Paroxetine.
For severe depression and anxiety.
The bottle fell silently into the snow, and Junyi picked it up again. She stayed crouched there, tears falling as she mechanically brushed the snow and dirt off the bottle.
