The Martial Arts Stunt Double of the Entertainment Circle – Chapter 19
by Little PandaFilming ran until well past one in the afternoon before Fei Dong finally released everyone for lunch. He seemed to have drawn some new inspiration from the scenes just shot and went off to discuss script revisions with the screenwriter; accordingly, the shooting schedule was adjusted on the spot. The two scenes slated for tonight would keep their original times, the afternoon shoot was cancelled, and everyone could rest until 5:30—eat an early dinner, then return to the set.
When Tuoba Yan heard the production was covering meals, she was quietly delighted.
She had a big appetite. Qiao Chunyi had to cook three people’s worth of food every meal before Tuoba Yan felt barely full. It was nearly 1:30 now; by the time she rode home it would be past two, and today was Qiao Chunyi’s hard-won day off—if she went back, her mother would certainly abandon any thought of resting. A free meal on the production’s tab suited her fine.
She was quick on her feet. In a blink she had sidled up beside the catering truck, staring eagerly as she waited for the food to be dished out.
Zhang Huaye and Chen Wanwan caught up with her one after the other. Barely containing her excitement, Tuoba Yan asked Zhang Huaye, “Zhang-jie, if one portion isn’t enough, can I come back for seconds? Plain rice is fine!”
The crew howled with laughter, and Zhang Huaye hardly knew whether to laugh or cry—how was this kid so utterly, disarmingly sincere?
Chen Wanwan, hair half-dismantled from its bun, snapped huffily, “Eat, eat, eat—that’s all you ever think about!”
Tuoba Yan felt deeply wronged. She’d had a single bowl of noodles that morning, and her stomach was about to cave in on itself.
“Come here.” Chen Wanwan rolled her eyes and, hair tumbling loose, seized Tuoba Yan’s wrist and hauled her away from the catering truck, wearing an air of total nonchalance. “Look at you, practically drooling on the spot! I can’t even watch. Jiejie will take you out for something good.”
“Eh…” Tuoba Yan blinked, hesitant. Freeloading off people constantly wasn’t right—first Zhang-jie, now Chen Wanwan. The debt of gratitude kept snowballing. How was she ever supposed to repay it?
“What are you hesitating for? It won’t poison you!” A faint flush touched the tips of Chen Wanwan’s ears as she clamped Tuoba Yan’s arm, brooking no argument lest the girl bolt. “You just did me an enormous favor back there—shouldn’t I get to show a little thanks?”
Tuoba Yan: “Didn’t you say you were going to teach me acting…”
Chen Wanwan nearly collapsed on the spot. “Lessons after you’ve eaten. Work and rest in balance—ever heard of it?” Offering one meal, and the girl agonized like this.
The moment Chen Wanwan agreed to teach her, Tuoba Yan trotted happily at her heels, waiting in the makeup room while Chen Wanwan had her hair and face seen to, and then the two set off in search of good food.
Chen Wanwan’s family had deep connections—a personal makeup artist assigned to her alone was a trivial matter.
Said makeup artist was a big, burly, plain-featured man, but his hands moved with gentle, practiced speed, and he soon had Chen Wanwan’s long hair combed smooth. A simple restyle, and since her facial makeup had been light to begin with, there was no need to strip it and start over—just patch the worn spots and done.
Chen Wanwan changed into her regular clothes and swept for the door, bustling Tuoba Yan along.
Tuoba Yan felt today had been well worth the trip. She’d made a friend in Chen Wanwan—not ill-meaning, if a bit brash—and could learn acting from her besides, which solved at one stroke the worry of having nowhere to find a good teacher.
Chen Wanwan’s assistant Zhao Mi came trailing behind, hugging an entire mountain of belongings and scrambling desperately to keep up, her face scrunched in misery. A few steps on, Chen Wanwan sensed something off and looked back—Tuoba Yan was relieving Zhao Mi of the bags, clothes, and assorted clutter, and Zhao Mi gazed up at her with a face full of gratitude, as though beholding Guanyin1 herself, savior of all suffering.
Chen Wanwan’s lips pursed. She gave a little hmph and stuffed her own small handbag into Tuoba Yan’s arms.
“You love hauling things so much? Fine. Take my bag too.”
And Tuoba Yan really did walk off cradling the entire pile. Chen Wanwan, irritated beyond all reason, rose on tiptoe, hooked her arms around Tuoba Yan’s neck, and shamelessly held on. “You’re strong. Carry me!”
Tuoba Yan gave a soft laugh. “Hold tight.” A slight dip of the knees, then, together—
Bags in both hands, clothes gathered in one arm, Tuoba Yan bore Chen Wanwan on her back at a flying stride, steady as bedrock, without so much as a flicker of her eyebrows.
It was Zhao Mi and Chen Wanwan who had never imagined her strength could be so monstrous; they shrieked like country cousins setting foot in the big city for the first time.
“Wanwan. What are you doing.”
Chen Wanwan craned her head around and lit up. “Eldest Cousin!”
Tuoba Yan didn’t find Chen Wanwan heavy, exactly, but the chit was a nonstop racket that had her head pounding; this counted as deliverance. She set down everything about to tumble out of her arms, then looked up at this ‘Eldest Cousin’—and straightened to her full height before she knew it.
The woman looked oddly familiar, yet for the life of her Tuoba Yan couldn’t place where they’d met.
Li Yanrao was no less surprised to run into Tuoba Yan. She recognized her almost instantly: the frail, sickly girl who’d exercised and practiced her boxing forms alongside her old rascal of a grandfather at Yuchuan Hospital. The last time around, Liu Wenjing had dug into Tuoba Yan’s background from top to bottom, and apart from the drastic change in temperament following her suicide attempt, nothing suspicious had surfaced. By Li Yanrao’s next visit, the girl had already been discharged; in time, the matter had slipped to the back of her mind.
Even then, Li Yanrao had thought this girl was something special—looks, figure, temperament, all of them a cut above. But seen now, the girl of that time had clearly been no more than a bud on the branch.
Now no trace of illness remained on Tuoba Yan’s face. Her skin was a healthy white suffused with pink, and her smiling, vivid beauty shone like a flower in first bloom—magnificent, dazzling. Only that proud, resolute, self-assured bearing remained unchanged, lending her looks another three degrees of luster, so that even her own starlet of a little cousin, praised as a beauty since childhood, came out a shade dimmer by comparison.
As for Li Yanrao: black from head to toe as ever. The cut was ordinary, but every last piece she wore was haute couture.
Tuoba Yan, who had after all once been mother and exemplar of all under heaven2, could naturally tell: that simply styled black shirt was silk; the tailored black suit and trousers flattered the woman’s scorching, alluring figure at every seam. She was already tall, yet she still wore slim black stiletto heels, her red lips hot and unapologetic—nothing short of a vixen made flesh.
Though such adjectives would never have occurred to Tuoba Yan. She merely felt the woman’s gaze and getup were a little hard on the eyes, though she couldn’t have said what was strange about them. Later, she came across a joke phrase online and decided it fit Li Yanrao to a T:
Whoever she looks at gets pregnant.3The crossing of their gazes lasted only an instant. Not a flicker of expression escaped Li Yanrao. Her barefoot height topped Tuoba Yan’s own, and with those punishing shoes added, she overtopped a good many men.
She was like a sleek, unhurried black panther, closing in on measured, rhythmical steps. She showed no posture of attack, yet her presence was impossible to ignore, and she studied Tuoba Yan with keen interest.
Chen Wanwan noticed nothing unusual about her cousin. Her goddess-like Eldest Cousin went around radiating hormones like this all day long; in truth her private life was as disciplined as an ascetic’s, and no one could guess what expression lay beneath that faintly smiling mask.
She introduced them with sparkling enthusiasm. “This is my Eldest Cousin, Li Yanrao. Cousin, this is my friend—”
“Tuoba Yan.” Li Yanrao finished for her, smiling at Tuoba Yan, hand extended first. “You and I have met before.”
What did it feel like to be watched by a black panther that might erupt and maul you at any moment?
Hah. The great striped tiger pelt spread across the Grand General of the Northern Pacification’s command seat had been a man-killing beast brought down by General Tuoba’s own hand, its hide flayed and cured by craftsmen into a cushion. Why would she fear one cunning she-panther?
Tuoba Yan’s own aura surged upward to meet it. Neither woman willing to be first to bow, soften, or offer warmth, their palms met—and so, hands clasped, they locked gazes, holding that handshake a good six or seven seconds before releasing in the same instant.
Chen Wanwan, silly girl that she was, was rather put out that her brand-new friend and her Eldest Cousin seemed to have hit it off on sight, leaving her sidelined. She said loudly, “Little Mop4, not hungry anymore?”
Tuoba Yan: “…” Disagree with her once, and out came the nicknames.
Chen Wanwan, mightily pleased at having shattered the inexplicable stillness, was about to say something more when Tuoba Yan asked in genuine confusion, “This—Miss Li… when exactly have we met?”
It was, in truth, a perfectly simple question, but it struck Chen Wanwan squarely in the funny bone. “Hahahaha—Eldest Cousin, look at you, claiming a connection with just anyone! Well played, Little Mop!”
Li Yanrao dearly wanted to sew that big mouth of Chen Wanwan’s shut, but for now she could only ignore her. She stepped forward and gave Tuoba Yan a bewitching smile. “Miss Tuoba has forgotten? I, for one, have never once put that day at the hospital out of my mind.”
Tuoba Yan, racking her memory, suddenly caught on to something. “The hospital?”
Li Yanrao draped her arms lazily over Tuoba Yan’s shoulders and drew General Tuoba in against her, speaking with her body and face pressed close. “So it’s coming back to you? Truly heartless.”
Chen Wanwan’s inner self was on the verge of collapse. Eldest Cousin… and Little Mop… what exactly was the relationship here?
She looked at Li Yanrao’s ambiguously intimate posture, all but coiled around the other woman, then at Tuoba Yan’s expression of ‘steadfast, unbending virtue’—and in a single instant her brain drafted an entire saga of domineering CEO and penniless girl: love carved out through anguish, seized by force, the whole torrid epic.
To think you were this kind of Eldest Cousin all along!
Her Imperial Majesty of Head-Canons, Chen Wanwan, declared that her Eldest Cousin could not be allowed to devour an innocent maiden before her very eyes. Screwing up her courage, she pried the two of them apart. “Whatever this is, save it for later. Little Mop is coming to eat with me.”
With that, she didn’t even dare look back at Li Yanrao; she seized Tuoba Yan’s hand and bolted, abandoning even Zhao Mi.
The two of them ran a long way off before Chen Wanwan stopped, panting, and gripped Tuoba Yan’s hands with great gravity. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but this Eldest Cousin of mine… sure, she’s very good-looking, great figure, no complicated romantic history, rich and powerful—and she’s already come out to the family—but… but…”
Tuoba Yan’s face was pure blank incomprehension. “But… what?”
Right. But what? Chen Wanwan froze. Her Eldest Cousin had money where money should be and looks where looks should be; domineering and mercurial, perhaps, but she’d never done anything wicked, and the family had accepted her orientation ages ago… If Eldest Cousin was serious about Little Mop, hadn’t she just wrecked a perfectly good match?
Her Eldest Cousin was going to kill her, wasn’t she?!
Tuoba Yan simply watched Chen Wanwan stand rooted and dazed, who knew what churning through that head, and wondered herself—what fit of madness had just come over Chen Wanwan?
And that Li Yanrao—never mind the strange getup, but why did the woman speak in that odd lilt? Exactly like she was flirting with a man. Surely she, Tuoba Yan, wasn’t so masculine-looking that Li Yanrao had mistaken her for one… right?
It was enough to make a person believe in ghosts. There wasn’t a normal one in the bunch.
The author has something to say:
Running late… finally got it done! Here’s the President Li you all wanted =w=
Footnotes
- 观世音菩萨 | Guānshìyīn Púsà | Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, the most beloved savior figure of Chinese folk religion; those in dire straits traditionally pray to her for deliverance.
- 母仪天下 | mǔ yí tiānxià | Classical epithet for an empress, 'mother and exemplar to all under heaven', asserting the empress as moral mother of the realm.
- 看谁谁怀孕 | kàn shéi shéi huáiyùn | Internet joke about someone so potently attractive that their gaze alone could impregnate; used to tease overwhelming, almost hazardous sex appeal.
- 小拖把 | xiǎo tuōbǎ | Pun nickname: 'mop' (tuōbǎ) is a near-homophone of the surname Tuoba; Chen Wanwan's teasing pet name for Tuoba Yan.
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