Liam Liang's Battle Behind the Scenes Chapter 8

The night was dark and the streets were sparsely populated.

In Ethan Cao's opinion, Beijing is the most attractive at this time. The streets are quiet, the crowds of people have dispersed, and the city has revealed its original outline, heavy and arrogant.

Ethan Cao didn't know where he was going, so he left the car in Suzhou and planned to ask the driver to drive it back tomorrow. Before he could figure out where to go, his legs seemed to have made the decision before his brain.

He realized that he was walking towards Inn 4th Street. There was a bar he opened on that narrow and secluded street. Since it opened three years ago, it has never made a profit and has always been in a loss-making state. In fact, he didn't expect it to make money - otherwise who would be stupid enough to open an underground bar in that corner of the dead end? The location was obviously chosen because he didn't want to be noticed and disturbed by too many people.

Huang Ying, the owner of the bar, was often worried about the poor management in the past two years. After realizing that Ethan Cao didn't care how much loss it made, Huang Ying really did as Ethan Cao said and let the bar grow wildly.

Hey, you know what, after Huang Ying let go and let it lose money and play around, this bar actually unexpectedly developed a bit of a likable image.

Absurd, isolated, and self-destructive, it was loved by filmmakers and directing students who were fascinated by independent films. For a time, it was actually not losing as much money as before.

Okay, let’s go and take a look. It’s been a while since I last went there.

It was less than two kilometers away from Yinsi Street. Ethan Cao walked slowly all the way and it took him only half an hour to reach his destination.

The word "burn" made into a flame effect stands at the end of the narrow street. If a passerby accidentally stumbles into this inconspicuous dead end, he will probably feel confused.

This bar called "Shao" is built underground. You have to get close to see the entrance. If you want to enter the bar, you have to walk through a narrow, dim spiral staircase first.

In Huang Ying's words, this staircase is so long that it makes people doubt life.

As those directors would say, this staircase is damn good for long shots.

Ethan Cao heard faint music coming from the underground bar, like someone singing Cui Jian's "A Piece of Red Cloth".

"This feeling makes me feel really comfortable

It makes me forget that I have nowhere to live

You ask me where I'm going

I said I'd go your way.

He vaguely recognized the man singing these lyrics. The song was really old, but anything powerful would never go out of style.

He took out his cell phone and called Huang Ying. The beeping sounded for a long time, but the other party didn't answer. It was probably busy.

Ethan Cao lowered his head, pulled up the chat page on the screen, and sent a message to Huang Ying: "Key." Then he put the phone back in his pocket, found a wooden bench on the side of the road and sat down. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and listened to the faint melody coming from underground.

---

"Sister Huang Ying, have another drink."

"I don't want to drink anymore," Huang Ying looked down at the message on her phone that she had received half an hour ago, and jumped off the stool. "The boss wants to see me, so I have to excuse myself. Have fun, guys."

"Mr. Cao is here?" Everyone at the table looked up at her.

"Yes, do you have the key to Uto? Give it to me first, and come back to me if you need it later."

"Oh, it's here." A boy took out the key from his pocket, stood up, stretched out his arm, and handed it to Huang Ying across the table, "Why did Mr. Cao come so late tonight?"

"How would I know?" Huang Ying took the key.

"You're not unable to sleep because of the Darkest Choice incident, are you?" a boy across from me said with a smile.

The students sitting around the table laughed in agreement, and the girl next to the boy patted his arm: "You have a bad mouth."

Huang Ying had already reached the stairs. Upon hearing this, she turned back and smiled, "Go worry about your own films."

Huang Ying supported herself on the uneven wall with her hands and ran up the stairs in two steps at a time.

The ground and underground are two completely different worlds. Outside is quiet and peaceful, completely different from the noisy atmosphere in the bar. Huang Ying took a deep breath, turned out of the stairs, and saw Ethan Cao sitting on a long wooden chair with his head tilted back and sleeping.

And the homeless man sitting at the other end of the wooden chair, sleeping just as soundly as he did.

It was a truly amazing sight. Huang Ying couldn't help but laugh as she walked a few steps past.

She stood two meters away and admired the scene - under the dim street lights, the playboy who was exquisite from the inside out and the homeless man who was in shabby clothes were sitting at the two ends of the wooden bench, both of them were in the same posture, with their thighs spread apart, their arms folded on their lower abdomen, and their heads leaning back on the back of the chair. This scene actually had a strange sense of harmony.

Huang Ying chuckled, raised her phone, pointed the camera at the two of them, and pressed the camera button.

The moment the flash came on, Ethan Cao frowned slightly, then raised his hand to cover his eyes. He had just woken up and his voice was a little hoarse: "What are you doing?"

"Sh ...

"Then why are you disturbing my sweet dream?" Although there was displeasure in his tone, Ethan Cao still lowered his voice.

He stood up from the wooden bench and looked at the time on his wrist: "I just saw the message. Are you so busy tonight?"

"The group of students who filmed 'Mandala' finished their shoot today, and they insisted on dragging me along for a drink," Huang Ying walked with him to the security door a few meters away, pressed the key button, and the security door slowly rose to a height of about one meter and then stopped moving.

"This door is broken. They were filming a few days ago and accidentally hit it with a car," Huang Ying walked over, squatted down, and tried to push the door up with her palm facing up. The sound was a little out of tune because she was pushing too hard, "...the fully automatic has become semi-automatic."

"Let me do it," Ethan Cao bent down, put his palm on the bottom edge of the security door, and pushed the door up with force. He patted the dust on his hands, "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I'll ask someone to come and change it."

"Hey, why are you bothering me with such a small matter?" Huang Ying said with a smile, and followed him in. "I have already made an appointment with a maintenance technician, and he will be here in the next two days... By the way, why did you think of coming to Wutuo in the middle of the night? Are you unable to sleep because of the recent movie?"

"Yes," without Huang Ying leading the way, Ethan Cao walked straight to the small cinema at the back and pushed the door open to enter, "I am so worried that my hair is about to fall out."

"Is it true?" Huang Ying looked at the top of his head, "I didn't see it...hasn't it been rumored recently that Liam Liang might come to reshoot this film?"

"Do you believe it?" Ethan Cao said casually, raised his hand and pressed the switch on the wall to turn on the ceiling light in the room.

There was a square table in front of several rows of seats, with a dozen Blu-ray discs piled up in a mess on it. Ethan Cao picked them up and looked at them casually - "Red Man and Red Woman", "Thirteen Days", "Wild", "Looking at the River", "The Wind Rises", "A Dream of Liang Sheng"... He picked up one of them and looked at the cover: "Are those students fans of Liang Szhe's movies?"

"That's right, I like him very much," Huang Ying said with a smile, "From the director to the cameraman to the lead actor to the makeup artist, once you talk to them about Liam Liang, they can hold you and talk for a long time without stuttering."

"The ones who filmed 'Mandala'?"

"Yeah, the funniest thing is, they got a fake Liam Liang from somewhere!"

"What the hell?" Ethan Cao didn't understand and looked at Huang Ying.

"It's just a boy who looks a lot like Liam Liang from ten years ago, but that's just his looks. His temperament, acting skills and lines are far behind. They gave the most important supporting roles to that boy, letting him appear in various inconspicuous shots, saying that they wanted to pay tribute to Liam Liang!"

Ethan Cao looked at her with difficulty: ...

Huang Ying couldn't stop laughing. She took out her phone, flipped through a photo from the album and brought it to Ethan Cao: "Don't disbelieve me. Check for yourself to see if they look alike."

"How are they alike?" Ethan Cao took the phone and looked at the screen, frowning slightly. He really couldn't see any resemblance.

"It's quite similar, right? You can't expect it to be exactly the same!" Huang Ying came over to take a look.

"Not even close." Ethan Cao returned the phone to Huang Ying lacking interest.

"How can it be possible if they are exactly the same? Liam Liang's face is so valuable."

Ethan Cao didn't respond. He sat in front of the screen of the main control machine, holding the mouse in his right hand, trying to find a popcorn movie to use for hypnosis.

Huang Ying is naturally diligent and hates a messy desk. While putting the disc back into the box, she asked Ethan Cao: "Will Liam Liang help you with the movie "Darkest Choice"? You two used to have such a good relationship."

"Who knows?" Ethan Cao looked at the screen, "...Why is there no movie here?"

"By the way, the machine was infected with a virus a few days ago, so I reinstalled the system. I'll copy a few movies for you later, but if you want to watch them tonight, you can only choose from these discs."

"Virus?" Ethan Cao looked up at her, his face once again revealing an indescribable expression, "Isn't this machine disconnected from the Internet?"

"Yes, but this time it wasn't a cyber attack, it was a virus on the hard drive," Huang Ying also seemed helpless, "I don't know which student's hard drive has the virus."

"Okay, it's a virus..." Ethan Cao raised his hand and pinched his brow, "This is too unreliable. I'll ask someone to come and replace the equipment later."

Ethan Cao had no choice but to walk to the square table again and quickly messed up the discs that Huang Ying had just sorted out. He wanted to find a movie that was not starring Liam Liang, but after rummaging through them all, he found the three words "Liam Liang" on every disc.

"Why are all the roles played by Liang Sze-che?"

"Is this a disc that Liang Sze-che's fans found? Why, you don't want to watch his performance?"

Ethan Cao made up an excuse: "When I saw him, I remembered that Darkest Decision was still waiting for reshoots. How can I sleep?"

"Oh... this one isn't starring Liam Liang." Huang Ying found a disc and handed it to Ethan Cao.

Before Ethan Cao opened his mouth, she quickly added: "But it was directed by Liam Liang!"

After hearing this, Ethan Cao looked at the CD cover without any expression.

He knew this movie. After Liang Szhe won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival, almost all the audiences were waiting for him to return to the mainland Chinese film industry to show his talent. However, Liang Szhe unexpectedly rejected all the enviable film contracts and plunged into behind the scenes. He spent two years silently churning out a movie that was neither critically acclaimed nor commercially successful, which was "A Dream for Liang Sheng".

---It seems that there is no better choice besides this one at the moment.

"That's it," Ethan Cao said, holding the disc and walking to the main control machine, putting the disc in and clicking play.

The opening credits of Dragon Logo popped up on the screen, and Ethan Cao found a seat closest to the main control unit and sat down. His fingers fumbled with the button on the side of the leather chair, adjusted the backrest to the right angle, leaned back, and half-lying down to look at the screen. The leather chair was very wide and soft, and it was extremely comfortable to sink into it, making it a good place to sleep.

"Then I'll leave," Huang Ying walked to the door and touched the switch with her finger, "Have you turned off the light?"

Ethan Cao uttered a vague "hmm".

The door closed, and the screen began to show the scene. The camera zoomed out, and on a distant and blurry stage, two actors raised their voices and sang in duet:

"If you, Brother Liang, have not yet decided on a marriage, I will be your matchmaker---"

"Brother, you are here to act as a matchmaker for me, but I don't know who the daughter is?"

The song they sang was the Yue Opera "Butterfly Lovers".

The behind-the-scenes staff of the film are gradually displayed at the bottom of the screen:

Producer: Liang Sze-che Xu Yun-chu

Producer: Bai Mingze

Director: Liang Sze-che

Starring: Xu Xiaohan, Qiao Rui

Then the camera slowly zoomed in, from blurry to clear, and the distant and bright stage was shrunk into the TV screen. The camera turned around, and a woman in her forties squatted in front of the TV, staring at the screen in a trance, holding the remote control in her hand.

"Mom---" A young girl's voice came from outside the camera, "Did you wash the skirt I bought yesterday? Mom---"

"Oh," the woman came back to her senses, her expression was flustered for a moment, but she quickly calmed down, lowered her head and pressed the button on the remote control to turn off the TV screen, then stood up, "Here it comes..."

What follows are some trivial scenes of family life.

It is an art film, and its style is deeply influenced by Cao Xiuyuan.

Ethan Cao quickly set the general tone of the film in his mind.

The shadow of Cao Xiuyuan can be seen everywhere in the transition techniques and shooting techniques, so that Ethan Cao can't concentrate on the story itself at all. However, this story seems to be unremarkable, filled with a lot of trivial and mediocre details, which makes people feel irritated.

The straightforward pace of the film makes people sleepy. No wonder it had poor box office performance when it was released two years ago. Nowadays, how can the audience have the patience to watch such a film?

Ethan Cao turned his face to the side and leaned against the back of the leather chair, closed his eyes, stopped looking at the picture on the screen, slid his body down a little, made himself more comfortable, and then forced himself to fall asleep.

I have to say that the voice-over in this movie about family matters is quite suitable for hypnosis.

Sleepiness was like a slow tide, slowly covering his nerve endings. Dreams surrounded him and the closed little cinema suddenly turned into an empty theater.

The lights were dim, and the bumpy ground was still covered with dirty water left by the previous crew, reflecting the various colors of light in the theater.

Ethan Cao and Liam Liang stood back to back. Liam Liang was shirtless with shoulder-length hair tied behind her head. The ends of her hair rubbed against the back of Ethan Cao's head, making him feel a little itchy.

Not far away, Cao Xiuyuan behind the camera said: "Take off your pants too." There was no discernible tone in his words.

It should be addressed to both of them, but Ethan Cao did not move. Liam Liang bent down and took off his trousers and held them in his hand.

"Don't hold it in your hand." Cao Xiuyuan said again.

The people surrounding the camera were looking at them, but no one came forward to help Liam Liang take the pants.

I'll get it for you. Just as Ethan Cao was about to say this, Liam Liang raised his hand and threw his pants to the ground not far away. With a "pop" sound, a little dirty water splashed.

Dirty, Ethan Cao thought.

Blinding flashes of light shone upon them.

That seemed to be the beginning of it all.

No, it should start even earlier.

The journey from Yancheng to Beijing is long. We set off early in the morning, before nine o'clock, but had not arrived at our destination by two o'clock in the afternoon.

The interior of the SUV is spacious, but with four men sitting inside, the space is still a bit cramped.

There was little conversation along the way. The driver in the driver's seat was concentrating on driving, so he didn't talk much. Cao Xiuyuan's assistant Zheng Yin was sitting in the passenger seat. Except for turning his head to chat with Cao Xiuyuan about work when he first got in the car, he didn't talk for most of the rest of the time.

Liam Liang sat next to Cao Xiuyuan. He felt a little uncomfortable at first, but then he saw that Cao Xiuyuan was only concentrating on flipping through a stack of printed materials - probably a script - and had no intention of paying any attention to him. He quickly relaxed, leaned his head against the back of the chair, and stared absentmindedly at the trees rapidly receding outside the car window.

Long-distance car journeys are especially suitable for sleeping, but Liam Liang had no desire to sleep at all. He felt that the situation was unreal, as if he was dreaming.

From the first time I met Cao Xiuyuan to the time I got into the off-road vehicle with him, it was less than 24 hours.

He closed his eyes, and couldn't help but recall the scene of his first meeting with Cao Xiuyuan yesterday.

The takeaway he ordered for dinner yesterday tasted terrible, so he went downstairs in his slippers, ready to give the leftovers to the stray cats and dogs gathered downstairs. When he was about to reach the corner of the building, he saw two thugs chatting and laughing together. When he got closer, he saw clearly that one of the thugs was holding a thin willow stick and beating a pregnant female cat hard.

Liam Liang walked over and threw the lunch box in his hand on the gangster's head. The soup flowed down the gangster's forehead and nose. The gangster instantly uttered a rude curse, holding the thin willow stick in his hand, raised his hand and hit Liam Liang fiercely. Liam Liang turned his body to avoid it, and his shoulder was hit at the same time. When the gangster was about to hit him a second time, he raised his left hand to catch the thin willow stick. His palm seemed to have no pain, and he pulled it over with force, and then used the force to kick the gangster's abdomen fiercely.

What followed was, as expected, a fierce fight. The two thugs didn't gain any advantage, and Liam Liang was also injured. His shoulders were thrashed by the thin willow branches, and he didn't know where his slippers had been kicked in the melee.

When two parties fight, whoever doesn't care about his life will win. Liam Liang is such a person. When he fights, he has a kind of momentum of not caring about his life - he doesn't care about his own life, and he doesn't care about the life of the opponent. The two gangsters were scared by him in a short time. They retreated and said fiercely that they would call their brothers to come and break one of his arms tomorrow.

Liam Liang didn't take this seriously. He didn't chase the gangster when he ran away. He looked around for his slippers.

The sky had become completely dark during the melee just now, and the dim light of the street lamps spread on the concrete road in the community. He couldn't find his slippers, so he soon gave up. He wore a slipper on one foot and left the other barefoot, and returned the same way as usual.

In the past year, he has made many enemies in the neighborhood. Fights like this are commonplace to him and are not worth remembering for long. He will forget about them after a good night's sleep.

After getting on the elevator, the marble floor was a little cold. Liam Liang put his bare foot on the upper of the other slipper, leaned his left shoulder against the side wall of the elevator, and looked at the numbers jumping on the electronic screen.

His hair hadn't been cut for several months and was already shoulder-length. He had tied it behind his head with a rubber band before going out. The shoulders of his denim jacket were pulled open by thin willow twigs, and the torn fabric hung down, revealing a piece of flesh with obvious bruises. One of his slippers was missing, and his hands were stained with vegetable soup.

I walked to the door of my house in a panic, and when I looked up, I saw three people standing at the door.

One of them he recognized, who was his professional course teacher at the music middle school a year ago. Another one was a tall man in his forties, who was staring at him, not hiding the scrutiny in his eyes.

While the man was looking him up and down, Liam Liang also looked at the man without any shyness. He looked familiar, but he couldn't tell where he had seen him before. Just as he was trying to search his mind for memories of this man, the music teacher standing next to him saw him and immediately became alert. He waved at him and said, "Liam Liang!"

Liam Liang then retracted his gaze and looked at the female teacher with no expression on his face: "Why are you here?"

"Why didn't you even say hello? Didn't you recognize me?" The female teacher didn't answer his question. She came over, grabbed his arm and introduced him to him. Her tone was filled with unconcealed excitement. "Director Cao Xiuyuan! You know him, right? The director of 'Female Submission'!"

"Oh," Liam Liang turned his almost rusty brain, without showing any surprise, but slowly opened his lips and called out, "Director Cao."

The moment I called out to him, I remembered what this familiar-sounding name Cao Xiuyuan meant - a well-known domestic film director who has won countless trophies and has made several mainland newcomers famous - how could such a person appear at my doorstep?

"Hey, what's wrong here?" The vocal teacher noticed the bruise on his shoulder, "Did you have a fight?"

"It's okay," Liam Liang said, not seeming to care. "I had a fight with the dog downstairs."

"Liam Liang, you..." The vocal teacher looked at him, hesitant to speak, and finally changed the subject, kindly suggesting, "Please invite Director Cao to come in and sit down. Director Cao came here specially to see you."

Liam Liang was silent for two seconds: "My house is quite messy, why don't we talk here?"

"Open the door and take a look," the famous director Cao Xiuyuan looked at him and said, "Do you mind?"

"It's OK as long as you don't mind." Liam Liang looked up at him and said, then took out the key from his pocket with the hand that was not stained with the soup, lowered his head and unlocked the door.

Pushing open the door, Liam Liang raised his hand and turned on the ceiling light in the living room.

The room was indeed quite messy, with sofa cushions scattered all over the floor. An open violin case lay in the middle of the living room, next to it was a smashed violin, its broken neck being pulled by the strings.

The living room of dozens of square meters should be spacious and bright, but now it is so empty that there is nowhere to step.

Liam Liang did not seem embarrassed. He took off his slippers and walked barefoot in front, stepping on the delicately textured milky white tiles. He bent over and picked up things as he walked. He put the cushions back on the sofa, and packed up the violin and its case and put them against the wall, as if the broken neck had never happened: "You guys sit down." Then he went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

After washing his hands, he pushed the door open and walked out. He saw Cao Xiuyuan sitting on the single sofa in the living room facing the bathroom door. His eyes seemed to be on the smashed violin in the corner. Seeing him come out, he began to look at him undisguisedly. His eyes seemed to be penetrating, and Liam Liang felt a little uneasy when he looked at him.

He walked over and sat on the single sofa opposite Cao Xiuyuan. Although he felt uncomfortable, he still let him look at him.

"How are your fingers recovering?" Cao Xiuyuan looked at him directly and asked, his question as straightforward as his sharp gaze, "Can you still play the violin?"

In the past year, no one dared to raise this question in front of Liam Liang. Everyone thought that this question would anger him, break him down, and make him collapse at any time. The female teacher's palms were sweating, and she looked at Liam Liang anxiously.

But Liam Liang looked surprisingly calm. Even he himself did not expect that he would be so calm when facing this question, as if all thoughts about the violin had died. It was completely dead, without any ripples.

"I can't play it anymore." he said frankly.

"Have the bones grown back?"

"It's grown."

"Have you thought about your future plans during this year of absence?"

"Not yet." Liam Liang said.

It didn't feel good to be interrogated by a stranger, especially when the content of the interrogation was something he didn't want to mention, which made Liam Liang feel a little annoyed.

I originally thought that if I answered "I can't play it anymore", the director would lose interest in me, but he kept asking questions - wasn't he here to select a stuntman who could play the violin?

Cao Xiuyuan was silent for a moment, his eyes still fixed on his face. After a while, he asked again, "Have you ever thought about acting in a movie?"

"I haven't thought about it." Liam Liang said truthfully. I thought about becoming a violinist.

"If you want, you can follow me to Beijing and give it a try, since you don't have any plans for the future." Cao Xiuyuan looked at the man sitting next to him, "Zheng Yin, shall we go back tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow morning at nine o'clock." the man responded immediately.

Cao Xiuyuan got up from the sofa, stood up, looked down at Liam Liang and said, "Think about it for one night. If you want to try it, come with us tomorrow."

Liam Liang suddenly raised his head and looked at him: "Can I ask what role you play? Is it related to the violin?"

Cao Xiuyuan didn't say anything, and Zheng Yin next to him spoke for him: "Yes, a boy who studies violin."

"But I can't play the violin anymore." Liam Liang still looked at Cao Xiuyuan, waiting for his answer seriously.

Cao Xiuyuan looked at him for a few seconds before he said, "For an actor, it is not important whether he can play the violin or not."

After hearing this, the man next to him immediately turned to look at Cao Xiuyuan, as if he wanted to say something, but Cao Xiuyuan obviously did not intend to give him time to speak, and just raised his leg and walked towards the door.

So, at nine o'clock the next morning, Liam Liang followed them and got on the off-road vehicle to Beijing.

Cao Xiuyuan was right. Since we had no plans for the future, we might as well give it a try.