Bai Lan was a stage actress.
After earning a master’s degree from a prestigious drama academy, she remained in China’s theatre world, circling its stages for more than twenty years. It wasn’t that she had never produced outstanding work, but she could never escape the fate of obscurity. A position within the state theatre troupe guaranteed her an iron rice bowl – even if a production of hers opened to a house so empty one could count the audience at a glance, she would never have to worry about starving. Still, whenever she watched more and more of her peers receive invitations from film and television, only to become overnight sensations, she couldn’t help but feel a quiet, envious ache.
The truth was, her acting ranked among the very best.
When she queued for lunch in the theatre cafeteria, everyone greeted her. Newly recruited graduates, or the occasional handsome young actor or rising actress from the entertainment industry who had been temporarily assigned to the troupe, often sought her out for acting lessons. Part of the reason, of course, was precisely because she wasn’t famous. She didn’t have many roles, so she wasn’t busy. Like a fine needle, she could be picked up by management and slipped neatly into whatever gap needed filling.
That ordinary afternoon, she stepped down from the rehearsal stage and wandered toward one corner of the circular seating, intending to slip outside for a cigarette. A shaft of light spilled through the crack beneath the emergency exit door, illuminating the man seated there in silence.
He had the air of a scholar – composed, refined. Yet the deep lines etched across his face lent him an austere severity.
She didn’t immediately recognize who he was. Nor did she know what was about to happen. And yet, her body trembled without warning, as though some instinct had already sensed destiny’s arrival.
Destiny did indeed open a narrow crack for her.
Now she stood on Li Shan’s film set, taking a slow, steadying breath before her very first scene.
She had actually joined the production at the beginning of March. After she arrived, Li Shan instructed her to do nothing but observe. This village – and the people who lived within it – was to be her natural classroom. By day, Bai Lan watched; by night, she dissected the script. She discussed scenes with Li Shan, and with Jiang Te as well. Yet even when filming officially began, she and Ying Yin had never truly sat down for a proper conversation.
The first time Bai Lan met Ying Yin was at the cast’s welcome dinner.
Though, in such an impoverished mountain village, a “banquet” amounted to little more than a round table filled with simple local dishes.
She was beautiful.
Beautiful in a way that didn’t seem compatible with being an actress celebrated for skill alone.
Under lighting so poor and unforgiving, the bridge of her nose, the curve of her cheeks, the line of her chin still shimmered with a delicate, translucent glow, as though touched by water.
People often said that true beauty lay in the bones rather than the skin.
That saying did not apply to her.
Her flesh was beautiful.
Her bones were beautiful.
Her skin was beautiful.
Bai Lan had seen Ying Yin’s performances before. It wasn’t as though she had never faltered on screen, but the spotlight – and the camera – loved her. Even when the performance collapsed, she herself never did. Wherever she went, she remained the center around which everyone revolved.
Compared to being an actress, she was perhaps even better suited to being a celebrity.
So why was her ambition so immense?
Why insist on becoming a Best Actress winner?
“Miss Bai.”
The future Best Actress extended a slender hand toward her.
Bai Lan took it lightly, her fingers closing around it for the briefest of handshakes. There was in her the measured pride of an intellectual, and the faint awkwardness of a reed standing before the morning star. Her neck felt unbearably heavy; instinct urged her to bow her head in humble deference.
But she held herself steady.
Smiling, she met Ying Yin’s eyes.
“Miss Bai, you must be exhausted. The journey here couldn’t have been easy, could it?” the actress asked with genuine concern. Yet her attention seemed strangely unfocused, as though even speaking required more strength than she possessed.
Sure enough, Ying Yin excused herself halfway through the meal.
She bid Li Shan and the producer farewell individually before giving the entire table a slight, apologetic bow.
Only later did Bai Lan learn why she had left early.
She had gone for a psychotherapy session.
Apparently, the psychiatrist had been brought onto the production by Ying Yin herself -a level of meticulous care befitting a star of her stature.
When the dinner ended, someone from the production assigned an assistant to show Bai Lan around the village and explain the practical details of daily life.
Night had already fallen. There was no one in sight, only voices drifting through the darkness.
“I heard Miss Bai resigned from her permanent position,” someone said. “Burned her bridges just to take this role…”
Bai Lan recognized the voice immediately.
Warm, mature, spoken with effortless nonchalance.
It was the Best Actress.
The production assistant was hearing this for the first time. Startled, they lowered their voice. “Miss Bai… that’s an enormous sacrifice.”
Bai Lan merely tugged at the corner of her mouth, passing it off as a smile.
What other choice had she had?
Her days had been spent teaching acting to idol stars looking to polish their résumés. Productions she had waited years to perform in had been postponed indefinitely to make room for them. Meanwhile, Li Shan’s film was financed by Hong Kong investors and hadn’t even been officially registered as a mainland production. There was no way her theatre troupe would ever approve her participation.
Even if she slipped away in secret, once the film began overseas promotion, the slightest hint of impropriety would be enough to constitute serious misconduct for an actress employed within the state system.
News of her resignation spread quickly through the theatre.
The sons and daughters of famous acting families – the “second-generation actors,” the “third-generation actors” – looked at her differently after that.
Was the Best Actress laughing at her?
Laughing at her for overestimating herself?
Or was it simply pity… sympathy?
After all, Ying Yin could remain comfortably at home and starring offers would continue arriving one after another.
Bai Lan, on the other hand, had abandoned the security of a lifetime appointment just to compete for a supporting role – third-billed, at that.
Against the effortless ease with which opportunities came to others, her own desperate stretch onto tiptoe, her all-or-nothing gamble, only made her seem all the more pathetic… all the more painfully exposed.
Other than that evening, Bai Lan never again spoke to Ying Yin face to face.
Instead, she pieced together fragments of the actress’s story from conversations around the set.
She learned that, at the beginning of filming, Ying Yin had been in terrible shape – so resistant to immersing herself in the role that production had been delayed for quite some time.
She learned that the production had originally hired an on-set psychologist, but Ying Yin had been dissatisfied, dismissed them, and brought in her own therapist instead.
And she learned that, besides the therapist, Ying Yin had also brought her boyfriend to stay by her side. He had remained with her on set for nearly a month.
Bai Lan had run into Shang Shao several times on set.
Whenever he appeared, it was for one reason only: to pick Ying Yin up after filming and accompany her on the few hundred meters’ walk to see her psychologist.
Bai Lan never had much opportunity to study his face head-on. She knew only that he possessed an exceptional figure and spoke very little. When he smoked, he would lower his gaze, tilt a single cigarette from a white porcelain case, give his wrist the slightest turn, and catch it effortlessly at the corner of his lips.
There was an unhurried grace to the movement – a composure born not of affectation, but of someone who always had time to spare.
Bai Lan was an observant woman.
A single gesture was enough for her to discern the steadiness and self-possession beneath it. It was obvious that he belonged to a world of his own. He stood at a height that he had never once needed to step down from.
So…
Was that why the Best Actress had resisted immersing herself in the role?
Because she had fallen in love with a boyfriend of such distinguished standing?
Terribly unprofessional – but it fit neatly with Bai Lan’s preconceived notions of film and television celebrities.
“All departments, stand by! Five minutes!”
The assistant director’s voice rang across the set through a loudspeaker.
Bai Lan played Nuerxiya, Ha Ying’s ex-wife.
Because Ha Ying had insisted on a divorce, the two of them became the village’s first legally divorced couple in fifty years.
Among the Kazakhs, marriage has always been treated with profound solemnity. An old proverb says, “A marriage is pledged for a hundred years; kinship, for a thousand.” Once two people marry, the union ceases to belong to them alone – it becomes a matter for both families.
Even in the twenty-first century, after decades of modernization and cultural exchange, the divorce rate among the Kazakh people remained only 0.78%, making them the only ethnic group in China whose divorce rate was still below the national average.
Traditionally, Kazakh women bore the weight of tribal authority, patriarchal authority, marital authority, and religious authority all at once. They were regarded, in many ways, as a kind of family resource.
There was once a common saying:
“If one of a woman’s legs belongs to her husband, then the other belongs to her husband’s clan.”
Under a custom known as levirate marriage, if a woman was widowed, she would be inherited by her late husband’s brother. If there was no brother, then by an uncle or another senior male relative, and so on, until the last eligible man within the clan.
Such a system, offensive to modern notions of human dignity, has long since disappeared. But changing laws is far easier than changing minds. The transformation of beliefs takes far longer.
Nuerxiya, whom Ha Ying had insisted on divorcing, became like a perfectly serviceable “resource” that had nevertheless been discarded.
She turned into a ghost within her own village – a pale, translucent shadow drifting through familiar streets.
For generations, this village had flourished. Three or four hundred households had put down roots so deeply that, beneath the earth, they were all intertwined like the branches of a single great tree.
And Nuerxiya… was the only leaf that had withered and fallen from it.
Today’s sequence consisted of several consecutive scenes centered entirely on Nuerxiya.
They filmed her drawing water from the stream at the edge of the village, carrying the wooden washbasin home in her arms, and passing by her ex-husband Ha Ying’s log cabin, her gaze clinging stubbornly to it as she walked.
Again and again, she stole glances at Ha Ying.
There were many variations of the same shot, each repeating the same obsession.
Sometimes she walked on while turning her head, her eyes reaching tentatively toward the cabin.
Sometimes she drew closer, lifting her chin slightly, her gaze more intent, as though sheer force of will might bridge the distance.
At other times, she stopped beneath the window. Her eyes slipped through the open frame like searching tendrils, wandering quietly over the room until they found the pair of trousers and leather belt draped across the back of a chair.
Her hands, stinging with cold until they almost burned, unconsciously sank into the basin of icy water, her fingers absently stirring its surface.
Whenever she encountered villagers leading their horses out to forage in the mountains, she withdrew both her gaze and her thoughts, greeting them with casual ease, exchanging a few ordinary pleasantries.
“Stop looking. He’s up in the mountains.”
The villager hunched his shoulders as he spoke, smiling as though making conversation, though the mockery beneath his words was unmistakable.
Nuerxiya smiled faintly in return. Then the smile stiffened and disappeared from her face.
Cradling the wooden basin, she rounded the corner of the house.
In the character biography Bai Lan had written for Nuerxiya, she described her this way:
“Nuerxiya’s gaze is like white adhesive tape – a white the color of a fish’s belly. The white of something lifeless. That dead white has become the white of double-sided tape. Her spirit has already died, yet in death it clings relentlessly to her husband, Ha Ying – her murderer.”
This was Bai Lan’s first official day of filming after spending so long with the production.
Although her first scene opposite Ying Yin would not come until six scenes later, she had arrived on set early all the same, taking a seat beneath the canopy to quietly watch Ying Yin perform.
Ying Yin had once said to Junyi, “Miss Bai resigned from her permanent position just to take this role. She burned her bridges completely. I really admire that kind of courage. Director Li watched thousands of stage actors before choosing her. That alone is recognition of how extraordinary she is.”
“This film has something of a theatrical quality to it,” she continued. “It’s suspended between reality and illusion, full of symbolism and metaphor. The perspective of voyeurism is everywhere, as though the audience themselves are watching a play. I think the performances should carry some of the expressive qualities of the stage as well. That’s not something I’m good at. I’ve asked Mr. Ke about it so many times, but I still don’t quite grasp it. Miss Bai is remarkable – I want to watch how she does it.”
Junyi, with the straightforward innocence that came naturally to her, looked puzzled. “But you’ve won so many awards – they weren’t handed to you for nothing. She’s been in theatre for over twenty years without making it big. Surely she can’t out-act you?”
Ying Yin laughed. “Film acting and stage acting are completely different crafts. I have virtually no experience with theatre, so in that respect, she’s the teacher.”
She paused before adding softly, “Besides, acting isn’t a race. How can there be such a thing as one actor ‘out-acting’ another?”
Two minutes before filming began, the makeup assistant stepped back after one final touch-up.
Bai Lan slipped off her down jacket and let out a quiet breath.
She had no personal assistant. A production intern had been assigned to help her temporarily, but the young woman had far too many things demanding her attention. So Bai Lan rolled up her own coat neatly and placed it on the moon chair herself.
At the assistant director’s cue, she walked before a camera for the very first time in her life.
Then, for reasons she herself couldn’t explain, she turned her head and stole a glance toward where Ying Yin was standing.
Take after take passed smoothly.
Between setups, the set was remarkably quiet. Apart from the soft rustling of crew members brushing fresh snow over footprints to restore the untouched landscape, there was almost no noise.
Ying Yin walked behind the monitor and watched the playback together with Li Shan.
She wasn’t prepared for what she saw.
Without warning, the eyes on the screen startled her. In broad daylight, they looked uncannily like the eyes of a dead fish.
Fixed.
Stagnant.
Entirely consumed by their silent act of watching.
The weathered wrinkles across Bai Lan’s face were rigid and unforgiving, as though carved from wood, utterly motionless.
Only her gaze moved – slowly, almost imperceptibly, gliding across the frame with relentless intent.
“How was it?” Li Shan asked.
Ying Yin tightened her grip around the hot water bottle. “Yin Xueqing couldn’t withstand a gaze like that.”
Li Shan nodded. “She acted very well.”
The next three takes would be scenes between Ying Yin and Bai Lan.
Li Shan called Bai Lan over. “Your eyes need to be like tentacles. The audience needs to see the layers of intrusion.”
He continued, carefully explaining, “The first time Yin Xueqing meets her gaze, she only feels uncomfortable. The second time, she begins to think: this woman is strange – is there something wrong with her mental state? But you smile at her politely, naturally, as if nothing is wrong. The third time, when you peer through the window and see Xueqing and Ha Ying whispering intimately together, Xueqing turns around and is violently startled by you.”
“On the third time, you need to release everything you’ve been holding back – your bitterness, your malice, your prejudice – all of it toward her.”
Bai Lan listened attentively. But at his final words, a flicker of hesitation and surprise crossed her face. “Director Li…”
She paused. “I heard that she’s seeing a psychologist… Should I hold back a little in my performance? I’ve watched some of her interviews. The way she immerses herself into roles seems… dangerous.”
Li Shan glanced at her. “You’re not jealous of her?”
Bai Lan froze.
“You have talent. You have an exceptional ability to observe, an acute understanding of people. But your timing was unfortunate. You lack that particular personal quality that the camera favors, so you’ve been buried for all these years.”
“She’s different from you. At seventeen, she became an overnight sensation. Fame and fortune came together. Awards, glory, everything.”
“Two completely different lives. Why?”
“Her technique isn’t necessarily more mature than yours. It’s just that this industry has always favored people who are beautiful.”
He paused. “Just like how did Yin Xueqing steal Ha Ying away from you?”
“Nothing more than this: she is beautiful. She is seductive. She knows how to flirt.”
“Ha Ying is the same as the audience. He can talk about self-awakening, spiritual connection, say all the beautiful words he wants. But at the end of the day, the reason is simple – she is beautiful, and you are not beautiful enough.”
Bai Lan fell silent. Her lips moved slightly, but no words came out. It was as though she could see a towering building collapse within her eyes.
Li Shan spoke calmly. “Go.”
Bai Lan walked away in a daze.
She failed five consecutive takes.
Then Li Shan’s voice rang across the entire set, “What happened? Weren’t you acting very well this morning?”
“Now you’re acting opposite a Best Actress, and you can’t handle it? Are you losing confidence? Are you feeling inferior?”
“There are still two hours before sunset.”
The entire set fell silent.
He was pushing her.
Using the most humiliating, unbearable kind of pressure to force her forward.
Shen Yu came outside to bask in the sun and, while he was at it, check on his patient. Hearing the commotion, he lifted the corner of his lips slightly and shook his head.
Here was a psychological scalpel even sharper than his own – except this one killed without spilling a drop of blood.
The footprints in the snow were covered over once again.
The script supervisor stepped into position.
The clapperboard snapped shut.
The shot began.
From the perspective of the window frame, the camera extended inward.
Yin Xueqing and Ha Ying were sharing an intimate moment.
Yin Xueqing had both arms wrapped around Ha Ying’s neck, whispering into his ear. Ha Ying repeatedly pressed kisses to her cheek. On his usually silent, stoic face appeared an unfamiliar tenderness and reluctance.
He was about to head back into the mountains to patrol the forest again, and the two of them would have to part for two days.
Amid such an intoxicated atmosphere, Yin Xueqing suddenly heard the crunching sound of footsteps approaching outside the window.
Someone was walking closer through the snow.
She paid no attention at first. Until, for no apparent reason, she shivered.
Instinctively, she turned her head and glanced back. And saw the face and gaze that had appeared through the window.
A neck craned forward. The corners of the mouth pulled downward. Eyes devoid of any emotion.
Yin Xueqing’s body jolted. She was genuinely frightened.
She hurriedly shoved Jiang Te away and stumbled backward under that gaze, retreating several steps before knocking over a stool inside the room.
That gaze remained fixed upon her face. It swept over her full, graceful figure from head to toe.
With contempt.
With disdain.
And with something strangely unsettling.
Then it slowly withdrew.
Nuerxiya had completed yet another act of spying.
To her, it was natural.
Logical.
She did not feel that she was invading anyone’s privacy.
Because she herself was someone who had been transformed – distorted – by a village that had once watched her, judged her, and pried into her life.
“Crazy! Crazy…”
Yin Xueqing grabbed the bottle of facial oil from the dressing table and chased after her to the window, trembling as she hurled it outside.
The bottle struck the snow and sank a deep hole into it.
Without making a sound.
When Li Shan’s “Cut!” finally rang out, Ying Yin was still trembling all over.
She didn’t know whether it was because of the cold or because she was afraid. She crossed her arms tightly over herself, her eyes empty, as though she had forgotten how to blink.
Lost and helpless, she instinctively looked toward Jiang Te for help.
Jiang Te embraced her without hesitation.
He held her until, two seconds later, he heard a voice, “Let go.”
The voice was cold. The emotion beneath it was steady. Yet it carried an overwhelming force of oppression.
Any animal that lived upon the grasslands possessed an instinctive submission toward a pride of lions.
It was a hereditary memory carved into their very genes.
Jiang Te’s hand tightened into a fist. But he had no choice except to release his embrace.
The next second, he – and everyone else on set – watched as Ying Yin was drawn into the territory of the man standing opposite her.
He gripped her arms. His gaze locked deeply with hers.
“Look at me, Ying Yin.”
Ying Yin’s gaze struggled to refocus.
The points of light before her eyes were blurred, wavering indistinctly. His warm lips pressed against the curve of her ear.
Shang Shao spoke word by word, his voice gentle, his pace steady and unhurried. “I’m right here. Just look at me.”
“Hey, wasn’t it cut? Why is the timer running again…”
The cinematographer began to speak, but before he could finish, someone made a quiet “shh” sound.
It came through the headset.
Li Shan sat behind the camera with his arms crossed, giving the order, “Keep filming. Don’t turn it off yet.”
Shang Shao stubbornly waited until Ying Yin’s gaze finally returned and focused. Only when he saw his own reflection deep within her pupils did he finally relax. Still calm, still patient, he coaxed her gently, “Let’s go find Doctor Shen, okay? Don’t be afraid.”
A second later, Ying Yin slowly nodded. “Shang Shao…”
“Shh.”
Shang Shao’s fingertip rested against her lips, gently rubbing them once with great restraint.
“You did very well today too. What do you want to eat tonight? How about your favorite Provence tomatoes?”
Junyi came forward with Ying Yin’s down jacket spread open.
Shang Shao took it from her and wrapped it around Ying Yin himself. His arm tightened firmly around Ying Yin’s shoulders.
Under the gaze of everyone on set, his other hand shielded her face, protecting her from the harsh lights as he guided her away from the filming area.
“Is Li Shan about to finish filming?” Shang Lu suddenly asked.
He had only just completed the documentary film he shot in the Himalayas and had barely rested for two days.
April in Ning City was already hot. The sunlight made his skin burn. He reclined halfway beside the swimming pool on the second floor of Yun Gui Villa and snapped the book in his hand shut.
On the silk-covered cover, the words Rashomon and Ryunosuke Akutagawa gleamed in gold embossing.
“I don’t know. Why?” Ke Yu lifted his eyes.
“I have an idea. I want to discuss it with him.”
Shang Lu had already stood up. He called toward the butler, Uncle Ming, “Uncle Ming, check the flights to Xinjiang!”
“Wait.” Ke Yu stopped him. It took him a while to sort through his thoughts before he finally said, “You and Li Shan are completely different kinds of directors. Didn’t you say before that his work was too commercial?”
One was a formalist, the other a realist. One was a master of staging and visual arrangement, the other a solid genius.
One allowed commercial appeal to overshadow artistic expression; the other did the opposite.
If there was one thing they shared, it was this: both directors were extremely demanding of their actors on set.
“Exactly.”
“So I think it would be interesting if a Rashomon-style story were divided between us -me directing the first half, and him directing the second.”
Shang Lu let out a low laugh. “Rashomon… Rashomon…”
He tasted the word thoughtfully. “Not bad.”
Uncle Ming had already come over and began reporting the available flights.
Ke Yu had already stiffened.
He coughed twice before asking, “You’re going straight to the set? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until he’s finished filming and then talk?”
“That would work. But I want to see his working methods first. That way, when I write the script, I can tailor it more closely to him.”
“He’s preparing to retire.”
Shang Lu’s response was utterly cold. “He hasn’t developed dementia yet. What is he retiring for? Didn’t he say he wanted to keep filming until he was eighty? He’s got plenty of time.”
Damn it…
Ke Yu racked his brain desperately.
Shang Shao was at the filming location too!
“Ying Yin’s scenes…” Shang Lu turned his head, his expression calm, though there was a trace of reluctance hidden beneath it. “Do you want to go visit the set?”
Ke Yu: “…”
His answer came immediately and decisively. “No.”
“Really?” Shang Lu narrowed his eyes. “I heard this film has been extremely difficult to shoot. Aren’t you going to check on her?”
Ke Yu cleared his throat, enduring Shang Lu’s scrutinizing gaze. “No need. I’m afraid of the cold. The snow there hasn’t even melted yet.”
Shang Lu: “…”
“Which mountain in the Himalayas wasn’t colder than that?”
Ke Yu replied with complete seriousness while making things up on the spot, “Exactly. That’s why I developed psychological trauma from freezing there. Seeing snow now wouldn’t be good for me.”
Considering that the trip really wouldn’t be particularly comfortable, Shang Lu didn’t insist.
He immediately told Uncle Ming to book a flight for the next day and arrange a helicopter as well, so he could be taken directly to the filming location.
Ke Yu opened his chat window with Shang Shao, intending to give him a warning.
He typed a few words.
Then stopped.
Wait. Why was he warning Shang Shao? Eventually, they would have to meet their parents anyway.
By then, everyone else would be celebrating happily together, while he alone would suffer the consequences under Shang Lu – escaping death, but not escaping punishment.
A phone screen locking sound rang out.
Ke Yu happily put his phone away.
Happily, he packed Shang Lu’s luggage. And the next morning, he happily waved goodbye as he watched him head toward the boarding gate.
Three and a half hours later, Shang Lu landed.
When he took his down jacket out of his suitcase, he discovered a string of Buddhist prayer beads wrapped carefully inside.
Shang Lu: “?”
What on earth was this?
