The Martial Arts Stunt Double of the Entertainment Circle – Chapter 33
by Little PandaJiang Guilan was thoroughly puzzled. “How did the four of them end up together?”
Butler Gu shook his head, indicating he didn’t know either.
Jiang Guilan set down her nail file, thought it over for a moment, then suddenly sneered. “Fine. If they’ve come to the door, they’re after something. It just so happens I’ve been meaning to have a word with Qiao Chunyi myself — let’s see how much she’s improved after all these years.”
Tuoba Yan and the others had taken their time over lunch before catching the bus, so they arrived more than half an hour behind Tuoba Xiu. The security guards at the Tuoba family’s residential compound recognized Gu Min and Tuoba Jiao and let them through without any fuss.
The closer they drew to the Tuoba residence, the more nervous mother and daughter grew. Neither of them was built for confrontation — gentle souls, poor with words — and their earlier standoff with Tuoba Xiu had already been a performance beyond their nature. Seeing her little sister’s face drained white, head bowed and lost in who knew what thoughts, Tuoba Yan said gently:
“Don’t be afraid. With your sister here, no one dares touch you.”
Tuoba Jiao nodded trustingly and quietly brushed her fingertips against Tuoba Yan’s hand. Tuoba Yan at once caught her fingers and gave a reassuring squeeze. Her sister’s palm was warm and strong, and suddenly Tuoba Jiao felt not quite so alone in the world after all.
Tuoba Jiao had gotten off lightly — Jiang Guilan and her son might despise her as a girl who could never carry on the family line, but they had never treated her cruelly. Gu Min was another matter entirely. All these years she had served as Jiang Guilan’s punching bag within the Tuoba household — pouring tea and waiting on her hand and foot like a daughter-in-law of the old society serving her mother-in-law, enduring every excuse Jiang Guilan could invent to mock and curse her — until a perfectly good woman had been worn down into someone timid, cowed, and haggard, all the less to Tuoba Xiu’s taste. And so the vicious cycle turned.
Yet Gu Min privately counted herself lucky that Tuoba Xiu never touched her. She was sick to death of that shameless man — never mind contact with him; the mere sight of him, the mere thought of the filthy things he had done to her back then, made her want to vomit. The reason she had endured all these years, the reason she had rehearsed how to kill him in her mind countless times without ever once acting on it, was her daughter, Tuoba Jiao.
But the fear of Tuoba Xiu and Jiang Guilan was carved deep into Gu Min’s bones. Her steps grew slower and slower; a fine sweat beaded her forehead; her expression was one of raw dread. Qiao Chunyi slipped an arm around her thin shoulders, her heart aching beyond words, remembering her own years in the Tuoba house. Two women who had suffered the same illness leaned on each other as they walked on.
When the group reached the front gate of the Tuoba residence, Gu Min keyed in the door code — only to find the password had been changed. She rang the bell instead.
An old man with his hair combed meticulously into place appeared at the gate, started at the sight of them, and hurried back inside. The four of them waited a good ten-odd minutes before Jiang Guilan finally made her way across the garden, arriving at her leisure.
She held her head high, haughty, not sparing so much as a glance for Qiao Chunyi or Tuoba Jiao, and asked Gu Min in a voice dripping with contempt:
“Back, are you? How have these past few days treated you? Had time to reflect on yourself?”
Gu Min held off Qiao Chunyi, who had moved to speak for her, and stepped forward on her own. “Very well. I’ve had a place to stay and food to eat — thank you for your concern, Madam.”
Jiang Guilan sniffed, the very picture of loftiness. “Stray dogs on the street have a place to stay and food to eat too. That cheap life of yours is hardy indeed — you actually survived out there. But getting back through this family’s gate won’t be nearly so easy now.”
“I’ve no wish to re-enter the Tuoba family’s gate either,” Gu Min said, holding Jiang Guilan’s gaze. “I’ve come to collect my own personal belongings, and then to go to the Civil Affairs Bureau1 with Mr. Tuoba and divorce him.”
Jiang Guilan was startled. “What did you say?”
Gu Min repeated her words, word by word, then added, “Didn’t Mr. Tuoba tell you?”
Jiang Guilan studied this daughter-in-law who had always been silent and submissive. She had long wanted to sweep the woman out the door the way she’d once swept Qiao Chunyi out, but Gu Min had simply planted herself in the seat of Young Madam of the Tuoba family and refused to budge, saying not a word no matter how Jiang Guilan humiliated and bullied her. Now that she was truly leaving of her own accord, Jiang Guilan grew suspicious instead. What scheme was this woman playing at?
Only then did she turn her gaze on the two sisters standing close together, her eyes regarding them the way one regards a pile of garbage. Tuoba Jiao shrank under that look. Tuoba Yan stepped in front of her sister and said with a smile, “Good day, Old Madam. It’s been years — still hale and hearty, are we?”
Jiang Guilan bristled at the neither-warm-nor-cold greeting and shot back, “Why put on this meek and dutiful act, Eldest Miss? Spare yourself the effort. This old woman could drop dead tomorrow and still not leave one cent to you and that cast-off2 mother of yours.”
Tuoba Yan laughed. “I only asked after your health, and you go cursing yourself to death? Besides, this is the twenty-first century — enough with ‘Madams’ and ‘Misses’ and who’s been cast off. Do you think it’s still the Republican era? Wake up. Stop daydreaming with your eyes wide open about being the old matriarch of some grand old family compound3. And I’ve no interest whatsoever in your little private savings — keep them for yourself, to have your coffin built and your burial trappings prepared.”
Jiang Guilan shook with fury, jabbing a finger at Tuoba Yan. “Sharp-tongued! What a sharp-tongued little wretch! Qiao Chunyi — is this how you raise your daughter? Has she no upbringing at all?”
Qiao Chunyi couldn’t be bothered to waste another word on her. “Call your son out. Return Gu Min’s documents and personal belongings to her. From here on, well water won’t trespass on river water4 — we’re going back to a society ruled by law, and you’re welcome to find your son as many concubines as you please. Jiang Guilan, stop your tantrum. I’m under no obligation to coddle you. For what you and Tuoba Xiu have done, eight or ten years in prison would be getting off lightly.”
Tuoba Xiu hurried over. He had at last recovered his reason, and he said to Jiang Guilan:
“Mom, save your breath. I’ve already called Lawyer Fang. I’m severing the father-daughter bond with these two unworthy daughters5. We’ll talk over the surrogacy you’ve arranged later.”
The moment Jiang Guilan heard that her son had agreed to the surrogacy, she was overjoyed. She opened the gate to let Gu Min and the others in, then trailed at Gu Min’s heels as she packed her things, terrified the woman might make off with so much as a blade of the Tuoba family’s grass.
Tuoba Yan helped Tuoba Jiao pack up her books and clothes. Tuoba Xiu was not yet so shameless as to forbid his daughter from taking the clothes and goods he had bought her, but Tuoba Jiao made her position plain: the valuable things he had given her — laptop, tablet, and the rest — she wanted none of them. Before long she came out of the room dragging her suitcase.
Tuoba Xiu drove off ahead with Jiang Guilan. Qiao Chunyi told the two girls to take everything home; she would accompany Gu Min to see the divorce through.
The two sisters took the bus home. Tuoba Jiao was listless, drained of all spirit. Tuoba Yan held her sister’s hand. “What’s wrong?”
Tuoba Jiao leaned against her sister’s shoulder and said in a small voice, “Am I dreaming? Mom is really divorcing that scum? We’ve really left the Tuoba house for good?”
Tuoba Yan rubbed the top of her head and said steadily, “It’s not a dream. You and Aunt Gu are free now. From now on you’ll live at your sister’s home, and we’ll be a family, just like one. Aunt Gu has her degrees — she’ll have no trouble finding work. My filming income isn’t bad these days either. Your job is to study hard. You skipped two grades, didn’t you? When I go back to school next year, with any luck we’ll land in the same class. Wouldn’t that be something…”
Listening to her lay out the future, Tuoba Jiao finally felt she had something to hope for, something to aim at, and a smile at last found its way onto her face. The two of them chattered and giggled, trading confidences, until Tuoba Jiao asked:
“Sister — that person who’s pursuing you. Can you tell me who she is?”
“Her name is Li Yanrao,” Tuoba Yan said. “She’s my friend Chen Wanwan’s cousin.”
Tuoba Jiao’s head snapped up. “Li Yanrao?”
Only then did Tuoba Yan learn from Tuoba Jiao’s lips just how legendary a woman Li Yanrao was.
Li Yanrao — the flower on a high peak6 of today’s elite circles, without rival. Her pedigree, her orientation, her fortune, her beauty — all of it was fodder for endless gossip. She had come out at eighteen, yet had never grown close to anyone or drawn a single whiff of scandal. Her orientation had sent her grandfather to the hospital in a rage and nearly gotten her thrown out of the family; everyone had pronounced her finished. Li Yanrao had instead built a business empire of her own from nothing.
Who now dared make an issue of the Female God of Wealth7‘s orientation?
You might envy someone surpassingly brilliant. But once that “person” has become a “god,” everyone chooses to worship — because the gulf is simply too wide, too far, for jealousy to even kindle.
Tuoba Jiao’s face was pure dreaminess. “She’s my idol… Sister, just say yes to her!”
Tuoba Yan: “…”
The sisters got off at the bus stop by the entrance of the Old Residential Compound and came home to a genuinely “small” home of barely seventy-odd square meters. Still, the moment they walked through the door, both of them let out a breath at last — they were on their own turf now.
Tuoba Yan’s bed wasn’t large; two sisters on it was a squeeze. Fine as a stopgap, awkward as a long-term arrangement. Tuoba Yan made a mental note to buy a folding bed at the wholesale market as she helped Tuoba Jiao put her things in order.
The mirror on the wall had already been curtained off by Tuoba Yan with a cloth nailed up over it — when it was needed, one simply lifted the drape. The two of them had just finished tidying when the front door sounded: Qiao Chunyi and Gu Min were back.
Tuoba Yan hurried to ask, “How did it go? No hiccups?”
Qiao Chunyi looked a little worn, but her spirits were high. “What hiccups could there possibly be? You underestimate your mom. It’s done!”
All four of them laughed with joy. Tuoba Yan said, “I’m due on set this afternoon, and it’s already eleven. Let’s get cooking — plenty of dishes, to celebrate Jiaojiao and Aunt Gu escaping the sea of bitterness!”
They ate lunch amid laughter and chatter, and then Tuoba Yan set out for the film set. In truth she was rarely needed, but she insisted on going whenever she had the time — lending the unit production manager and the crew a hand, watching the actors work. Tuoba Yan found it genuinely enjoyable, and there was a great deal to learn.
Chen Wanwan helped coach her, but Tuoba Yan had no wish to keep monopolizing her private time. As the saying goes, the master leads you through the door; the cultivation is your own8 — one’s own effort is the most fundamental thing, and the most important.
Chen Wanwan was somewhat afraid of heights. One shot in the drama — Wu Zhen’er tracking the male lead Gu Qing’an, running and vaulting across the rooftops with qinggong9 — was beyond her, so the front-facing shots were filmed first, and the rest left for Tuoba Yan to complete after changing into Wu Zhen’er’s costume.
When Li Yanrao arrived, she found her cousin Wanwan standing below cracking melon seeds — while Tuoba Yan leapt and sprinted across the high rooftops, chasing down her partner Qi Bin, dressed in the male lead’s costume.
Footnotes
- 民政局 | Mínzhèngjú | The Civil Affairs Bureau, the Chinese government office that administers civil registration, including marriage and divorce; uncontested divorces are finalized there in person.
- 下堂 | xià táng | Literally 'dismissed from the hall'; in traditional China, a wife cast out or divorced by her husband, stripped of all standing in his household.
- 大宅门 | dà zháimén | Literally 'great family compound gate'; also the title of a celebrated 2001 Chinese television drama about a traditional medicine-merchant dynasty ruled by an iron-fisted matriarch.
- 井水不犯河水 | jǐng shuǐ bù fàn hé shuǐ | Literally 'well water does not trespass on river water'; a classic proverb for parties keeping strictly to their own affairs and leaving each other alone.
- 不肖女 | bùxiào nǚ | Literally 'daughters unlike their forebears'; a classical term of condemnation for descendants deemed to have failed or betrayed their parents' line.
- 高岭之花 | gāolǐng zhī huā | Literally 'flower on a high peak'; borrowed from the Japanese phrase takane no hana, denoting an aloof, peerless beauty far beyond the reach of ordinary admirers.
- 女财神 | nǚ cáishén | 'Female God of Wealth'; Caishen is the deity of wealth in Chinese folk religion, widely invoked at Lunar New Year, and the epithet hails a woman of extraordinary money-making power.
- 师傅领进门，修行在个人 | shīfu lǐng jìn mén, xiūxíng zài gèrén | Literally 'the master leads you in through the door; the practice is up to the individual'; a proverb stressing that instruction only opens the way, while progress depends on one's own effort.
- 轻功 | qīnggōng | Literally 'skill of lightness'; a wuxia genre convention in which trained martial artists bound across rooftops, scale walls, and leap vast distances.
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