The Martial Arts Stunt Double of the Entertainment Circle – Chapter 34
by Little PandaChen Wanwan stood at the outer edge of the set with a face like a funeral, a bottle of water in one hand and a towel in the other, waiting like a wilted quail for Tuoba Yan to come down — so she could rehydrate her and wipe off her sweat while she was at it.
Li Yanrao’s gaze bored into her back from behind. Chen Wanwan didn’t dare slack for a second. Never mind cracking sunflower seeds or snacking — if she so much as took out her phone to check the time, her utterly heartless Eldest Cousin would absolutely sit her down for another thorough ‘lesson.’
The costume Tuoba Yan wore was leading-lady grade: a crisp cyan men’s-cut close-fitting short jacket as the inner layer, a black back-plate over it, and a woven silk sash of the same cyan cinched at her waist, framing the girl’s lovely, slender figure. She was the female lead, after all, so her fabric and tailoring were far finer in the details than the ordinary constables’ — a layer of black gauze even floated over the back-plate, and set against that crowd of grizzled men, the difference in class showed at a glance.
She ran nimbly across the rooftops, effortless as a gliding bird. When the take wrapped, Fei Dong grinned so wide his teeth outshone his face, praising her moves without pause. Chen Wanwan watched Fei Dong’s hand drift, all unawares, toward Tuoba Yan’s shoulder — every hair on her body stood on end. She darted forward in one bound, pressed the water bottle into Tuoba Yan’s hand, and used the momentum to steer her out of Fei Dong’s reach.
“Little Mop, hurry, drink some water.” She toweled Tuoba Yan’s sweat off as she spoke.
Tuoba Yan was puzzled by the behavior. “Finished your sunflower seeds already? Why aren’t you off resting? I’m fine — you’re the one who needs to rest, you’ve got scenes coming up.”
Chen Wanwan shook her head with vehemence.
Something clicked for Tuoba Yan. She looked up past the cleared set area — and sure enough, spotted Li Yanrao’s figure. Li Yanrao stood at the outer edge; seeing her look over, she waved with perfect calm.
Tuoba Yan laughed despite herself. No wonder the devil king of chaos had gone suddenly, unnaturally sweet. She gulped some water, took the towel from Chen Wanwan’s hand, and said, “Go rest. Your cousin — I’ll handle her.”
Chen Wanwan sagged with relief and made herself scarce.
During the chase scene earlier, Tuoba Yan had felt two unusually burning gazes fixed on her. One of them, she now knew, had to be Li Yanrao. The other…
She cast a keen glance in a certain direction: a grave-faced old man with hair half gone to white. He gave Tuoba Yan a slight nod, then turned and walked away.
Tuoba Yan thought nothing more of it and headed straight for Li Yanrao. “President Li, finding leisure time again today?”
Li Yanrao herself couldn’t have said what she was thinking. The company had mountains of business waiting on her desk, but if she didn’t make a trip out here, her mind simply wouldn’t settle.
Tuoba Yan looked at her with smiling eyes — bright, spirited almonds curving, red lips hooking up to reveal a pair of cute, playful little tiger teeth1. Li Yanrao felt her soul hooked clean away by that youthful, brilliant smile; her eyes refused to pull free, and she could only wish to drown in the dimple on the girl’s right cheek.
She coughed once, reminding herself not to lose her composure. She dearly wanted to seize every chance to grow closer to the one she liked — but with this many eyes about, open intimacy would do Tuoba Yan no good. As things stood, Tuoba Yan was an unremarkable stunt double with few chances at the spotlight; she blocked no one’s path yet, and the true gossip and scheming of the industry had not yet descended. Since Li Yanrao had made up her mind to court the girl as her future beloved, she naturally had to plan for the girl’s future.
Yesterday’s gesture had been a touch too conspicuous. She’d gone home and reflected on it, and resolved to keep a certain distance from the girl in public. She crushed the urge to reach out and pinch that dewy-fresh cheek, and asked instead:
“Did you like the pastries yesterday?”
Watching the woman look faintly awkward and forcibly change the subject, Tuoba Yan found herself in inexplicably good spirits. “I did. But don’t send anything that expensive again — I’m a poor woman, you know. I can’t return the favor.”
“I gave them to you of my own free will. No return is needed.”
“Feelings are something you build by spending time together,” Tuoba Yan said, “but they also need a certain careful tending to stay in balance. Right now you like me, and you give me things willingly — in your eyes, they’re tokens of your affection. Later, if you stop liking me, I suspect you’ll look at those same gifts with rather different feelings.”
The girl’s overly pessimistic take on love surprised Li Yanrao a little. She thought about it, then said:
“No one can predict the future. But there’s no need to reject sincere affection outright just because you’re afraid of being hurt. I don’t take you for a fool who’d give up eating for fear of choking. I only hope you’ll truly open your heart, and stop sealing yourself off. Tuoba Yan — right now, I’m the one pursuing you, one-sided. You don’t have to think so much, so far ahead. Just enjoy it. And of course, if overly expensive gifts upset you, I’ll respect that. Money was never the measure of what we feel, after all.”
Not even at her grand wedding to the Emperor in her last life had Tuoba Yan heard sweet words this plain-spoken, and her cheeks burned without her permission.
She had suffered too much betrayal and persecution before; her shadows over love — over marriage itself — ran deep. But General Tuoba was not so stubborn and self-conceited as to be deaf to another’s counsel. She lowered her head and thought it over, cheeks flying red — so sweet and earnest a sight that Li Yanrao’s fingers itched into open rebellion. Just as Li Yanrao was all but drooling, hand already reaching out to take a bite of General Tuoba’s tender tofu, the latter snapped her head up:
“You’re right.”
Li Yanrao returned her raised hand to its station as unobtrusively as she could manage.
“You’re right.” Tuoba Yan laced her ten fingers together and called softly, “Thank you, Yan-jiejie.”
Li Yanrao felt the blood in her whole body about to catch fire. The girl’s shy, blushing look was altogether too lovely — and that one soft-voiced ‘Yan-jiejie’ was, without question, a flying leap forward in their relationship. The era of ‘Miss Li’ was over!
She was about to press her advantage, lean in, and murmur a few more private words, when Director Fei came bustling over at full volume:
“Aiya, President Li honors us with her presence — forgive the poor welcome!”
Li Yanrao snapped back to form in an instant and extended a polite hand. “Hello, Director Fei.”
Fei Dong traded a few pleasantries, then glanced at Tuoba Yan. “So Xiao Yan and President Li know each other. Ah, that’s right — I’ve a piece of good news for Xiao Yan.”
“Good news?” Tuoba Yan said, puzzled.
Fei Dong rubbed his hands together, all mystery. “Xiao Yan’s schedule is still open these days, I trust?”
“Just this production’s work for the near future, nothing else — I’m idle as can be.” What schedule did Tuoba Yan have to juggle? She spent her days hanging about the Female Constable Wu Zhen’er set running errands. “Director Fei’s found me work?” Her eyes lit up at once.
Fei Dong chuckled. “Can’t call it finding work — I’m just the messenger. My mentor came by the set a little while ago looking for me. One look, and he picked out you and Chen Wanwan, and asked me to find out whether the two of you have time to audition for him.”
“Audition?” Tuoba Yan pressed. “Me included? Or as Wanwan’s stunt double?”
“Not a stunt double,” Fei Dong said, waving his hand. “A proper supporting role.”
Tuoba Yan felt a great pie drop out of the sky and land squarely on her head. “A supporting role where I show my face?”
Fei Dong found that funny. “What, you thought there were faceless ones?”
Li Yanrao cut through the two of them circling the point. “What production?”
“The Emperor of a Dynasty production.”
That startled even Li Yanrao. She looked the chubby Fei Dong up and down — the very image of a Maitreya Buddha2. “Director Fei’s mentor — don’t tell me it’s Director Fang Zhengqin?”
Fei Dong preened a little as he enjoined them: “Xiao Yan, President Li — not a word outside this circle. My mentor’s rules are strict.”
Fortunately, Tuoba Yan had crammed herself full of entertainment-industry knowledge, so she knew roughly who Fang Zhengqin was, and what Emperor of a Dynasty was.
Fang Zhengqin was the foremost veteran historical-drama director in the country. Every work of his was canonized as a classic; some even said that so long as Fang Zhengqin was attached, the nation’s major television awards were basically his to sweep — an exaggeration, but not by much.
Beyond that, he was the acknowledged master at training his actors, and he loved launching newcomers. Today’s blazing-hot movie queens Xu Huizhen and Zhang Xueyi, movie king Lin Mao — all of them had risen to fame in his dramas. Heaven knew how many artists kept a round-the-clock watch on his productions’ movements, ready to break their heads squeezing in.
But as Fei Dong said, Fang Zhengqin’s rules were iron. Actors scolded to tears was a daily household occurrence — you cried, then you walked back on set and kept acting, and if that still didn’t work, you were replaced. No mercy, no exceptions.
That grim, dour old Fang — mentor to this chubby little Fei Dong?
Just then, Chen Wanwan came swanning back from wherever she’d run off to. Fei Dong pounced on her and delivered the heaven-sized good news.
“Director Fang? Emperor of a Dynasty?” Chen Wanwan’s mouth hung wide open, her face vacant, a hair’s breadth from drooling.
Li Yanrao couldn’t stand watching her cousin make a spectacle of herself in public. She patted Chen Wanwan on her silly noggin. “Stop being an idiot.”
Chen Wanwan jolted awake, clapped a hand over her mouth, and whimpered, “Fei-ge, you’re not tricking me, are you? This isn’t something you joke about.”
Fei Dong had to explain the whole thing all over again. Chen Wanwan danced for joy on the spot. Li Yanrao said coolly, “Don’t celebrate early. It’s an audition opportunity, nothing more. Everything still depends on your own ability.”
Tuoba Yan was equal parts delighted and anxious. “But I don’t have any experience at all…”
“Don’t worry,” Fei Dong said. “Zhang Xueyi was a pure newcomer back in the day, and now look at her — a movie queen of real substance. My mentor knows you work as a stunt double; he had me tell you and Wanwan in advance which characters he thinks suit the two of you. Read the original novel of Emperor of a Dynasty, put in the hard graft, and it’ll be nine parts in the bag already.”
Chen Wanwan couldn’t wait. “What roles?”
Fei Dong finally shook out the whole punchline: “Tuoba Yan will play Empress Yang. Chen Wanwan will play Talented Lady Guan, Biyu’er.”
The corner went quiet for a moment. Tuoba Yan had no idea who these two were. Chen Wanwan’s expression turned strange. Li Yanrao’s face went dark and ugly. Fei Dong, having braced for delighted shrieks and meeting instead an instant frost, said awkwardly, “That’s… more or less it. Do with it what you will.” He stuffed a business card into Chen Wanwan’s hand and bolted like a wisp of smoke.
Tuoba Yan was at sea. “Empress Yang? Biyu’er?”
Chen Wanwan said, dry as chalk, “In the story’s history, Yang Xiujin and Guan Biyu — they’re a pair.”
Tuoba Yan went stiff too. “They’re lovers?”
Li Yanrao wrestled with herself for a long moment and finally squeezed out one sentence: “This is Xiao Yan’s first proper production. Wanwan — look after her.”
Chen Wanwan stole shifty-eyed glances at Li Yanrao’s expression; seeing displeasure but no actual anger, she let out a breath and promised with her whole chest, “Relax, Eldest Cousin. I won’t take advantage of Little Mop.”
Once Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan wrapped the day’s scenes, Fei Dong thumped his chest and swore he could shuffle the shooting schedule — three days for the two of them to work over their characters, then the audition on the third morning, at the appointed place.
The two of them walked along side by side. Tuoba Yan spoke up, in a rare state of nerves. “I’m under a lot of pressure here.”
Chen Wanwan sighed. “Honestly, I could barely breathe back there. An opportunity this good — if we don’t land it…”
A silence. Then Chen Wanwan went on: “I debuted as a child star. I’ve been acting all these years — but lately I feel hollower and hollower, and I can’t pin down what’s wrong. I just feel… adrift. I’m terrified that ten years from now I’ll still be exactly this lukewarm. Maybe other people think I’ve already done well enough. But it’s not enough. My goal was never to be some second- or third-tier celebrity coasting along, banking cash toward a comfy retirement.”
“Whenever there’s a chance, so long as I don’t betray my own principles, I’ll claw upward with everything I have,” Tuoba Yan said. “Whatever trade, whatever line — I intend to be the one standing highest, the very best.”
Chen Wanwan stared at her, astonished. “And here I took you for the modest, contented sort. A little comfort and you’d be at peace.”
“I only think — if it’s something I can do, a road lying right in front of me, why not walk it? If I can be the best, why choose an ordinary life? A person should live blazing and loud, because nobody spares the brainpower to remember that an ordinary person ever existed. These are peaceful times — if they weren’t, I’d have joined the army without a second thought. Fighting on a battlefield is what I crave most.”
“So you picked the entertainment industry — same endless strife, different battlefield?” Chen Wanwan decided she truly needed to recalibrate her whole assessment of this girl.
Tuoba Yan shook her head. “I’m not sure. Maybe that’s part of it. But in my heart, I honestly do love this profession.”
Chen Wanwan looked at her quietly. “I love being an actor too. I love acting.”
Tuoba Yan smiled, brilliant. “So we’re kindred spirits.”
Zhao Mi drove up in Chen Wanwan’s little Beetle; the window slid down and she leaned her head out. “Wan-jie, hop in.”
Chen Wanwan grabbed Tuoba Yan by the wrist. “Come on, come on — forget the bus, I’ll drive you home.”
Tuoba Yan didn’t refuse, and got in.
At the gates of the old residential compound she thanked Chen Wanwan and walked briskly for home. She’d just reached the second floor and was fishing out her key when the door creaked open — Tuoba Jiao had already pulled it. Tuoba Yan gave a start, then laughed. “Don’t tell me Jiaojiao was hanging out the window waiting for me.”
Tuoba Jiao’s small face went red. “As if! The soundproofing in this building is terrible — I heard the downstairs gate and knew it had to be my jiejie coming back. I rushed to open the door for you, and you tease me for it.”
Tuoba Yan fondly ruffled the top of her head. “I’ve a piece of good news for you later.”
Inside, the house was spotless. Gu Min, aproned, was scrubbing the range hood in the kitchen; Qiao Chunyi was out — at work, most likely. Tuoba Yan asked, “Aunt Gu, do you know Emperor of a Dynasty?”
Gu Min was wringing out a rag in the basin. “Of course I do — Ri Yue Guang Hui’s breakout work. I heard it’s being made into a television drama?”
Tuoba Yan nodded. “That’s right. They’re casting it now.”
Gu Min looked up, puzzled. “Yanyan’s entering the open casting?”
“More or less. Someone recommended Chen Wanwan and me for an audition.” She left out that it was Fang Zhengqin’s own idea — nothing was set in stone yet.
“Chen Wanwan?” Gu Min was abruptly electrified. “Yanyan knows Chen Wanwan?”
Tuoba Yan: “…” So Chen Wanwan was this popular with the aunties.
Hearing that Chen Wanwan herself had driven Tuoba Yan home, Gu Min was full of regret. “Aiya, what a shame. When I was in university, Chen Wanwan was at the very peak — such an adorable little thing, and such a natural, luminous performer. Heaven knew how many people were mad for her back then. Chunyi was just bragging to me the other day that she has a photo with Wanwan.” Envy bloomed openly across her face as she spoke.
Tuoba Yan hastened to soothe her. “Wanwan’s coming by the house tomorrow to find me. You’ll get to meet her then.”
That was a mistake. The moment Chen Wanwan’s visit to the Qiao home was confirmed, the fangirl fire in Gu Min’s heart roared into a blaze. She returned to the kitchen and scrubbed as if her life depended on it, humming nameless little tunes, full of drive.
The two sisters looked at each other. After a moment, Tuoba Jiao asked, “Jiejie, which role are you auditioning for?”
“Empress Yang.”
The original author of Emperor of a Dynasty was the writer Wang Lu under the pen name Ri Yue Guang Hui; the book was his breakout work, chronicling the life of Emperor Shuncheng of Great Xia, from his enthronement to his final, despairing suicide.
Emperor Shuncheng was the late emperor’s seventh son — a famous wastrel even in his days as the Seventh Prince. From childhood he could not have cared less about affairs of state; he spent his days drifting through the streets with a birdcage in hand, cricket fighting3 and bankrolling opera singers, and his whole circle was good-for-nothing lowlifes.
The late emperor berated him for his absurdity time and again. The Seventh Prince let it go in one ear and out the other, nodding and murmuring agreement — and when the scolding cut too deep, he would wipe his eyes and howl for his late empress mother, throwing himself on the floor and rolling about, demanding to be taken to her.
In the late emperor’s final years, all six of his other sons fought like wolves to prove themselves and angle for the throne. But the late emperor, old yet unclouded, watched coldly as his sons performed the full repertoire — song, speech, gesture, combat — attacking one another by every means available. Even the First Prince, the heir he favored most in his heart, couldn’t resist building factions, courting ministers to memorialize the throne in his favor.
When even his most cherished son proved that unfilial — itching to drag him down off the throne — how could the late emperor’s heart not go cold? He began, by word and by silence, to slight the First Prince. The others, naturally, were delighted to pile onto the fallen: the Third and Fifth Princes, nominally of the First Prince’s own faction, turned treacherous and laid a trap, luring the First Prince to a brothel on the late empress’s death anniversary — and he earned the emperor’s utter loathing.
Cornered at last by his younger brothers, the First Prince attempted a palace coup. It failed, and the late emperor decreed him stripped of his princely rank and honors and confined under guard. No one dreamed that days later the First Prince would be found drowned. That was the final straw that crushed the late emperor: at news of his son’s death he collapsed, never to leave his bed again — and the testament he left behind, against all expectation, bore the Seventh Prince’s name.
At sixteen, the Seventh Prince muddled his way onto the throne, taking the era name Shuncheng. The late emperor’s edict named several trusted, unaligned ministers as regents to assist him, and Emperor Shuncheng gladly handed everything over to them, slipping out of the palace incognito to roam and play at every opportunity. It was then that he met the woman he would love all his life — the future Noble Imperial Consort Yi, Qin Xiang’er.
Emperor Shuncheng found his escorting guards a nuisance, and eight times out of ten he would dart into a crowd and shake them loose. His Majesty, having slipped his guards as usual, had the rotten luck to be taken for a fat sheep and mugged in an alley. Qin Xiang’er — a beautiful maiden performing martial arts in the jianghu — descended as if from the sky and thrashed the thugs crowding around the emperor until they howled for their daddies and mommies. And Emperor Shuncheng fell, at first sight, for the maiden radiant as a goddess.
In the contact that followed, he came to see her kindness and her code of honor, and all of it drew him in. He was a wild, untrammeled soul and cared nothing for her origins. The court cared a very great deal.
The moment word spread that the emperor meant to install a woman of no name and no origins as his empress, the court exploded: there were those who wept and wailed, those who beat their heads against walls, those who pleaded through gritted teeth, and those who watched the show with folded arms. Emperor Shuncheng was, after all, only a boy in his teens; he panicked. In the end a balance was struck between the two sides: the emperor wed Yang Xiujin, daughter of Grand General Yang She, as his empress, took the commoner Qin Xiang’er as Lady of Bright Deportment Yi, and replenished the harem by selection — and only then did the storm subside.
Emperor Shuncheng felt nothing for Empress Yang. He had never even heard of the woman before the wedding — what talk could there be of devotion between husband and wife? He married her for one purpose only: to bring the woman he loved into the palace. At this stage, Shuncheng regarded his lawful wife as a stepping stone and an obstacle — he used her to achieve his ends, and resented that her existence kept Lady of Bright Deportment Yi from ever being his wife in name and truth.
Indeed, across the decades that followed, Emperor Shuncheng never once graced Empress Yang’s bed.
Yang Xiujin sat quietly on the wedding bed in her phoenix crown and rosy cape4. Before her marriage she had imagined her husband’s face a thousand times. Her mother said the emperor was a handsome man — wild in his youth, yes, but the road proves a horse’s strength and time reveals a heart; he would settle, eventually.
She waited until midnight. The emperor never came.
A maiden’s shy hope settled, in the dark, into resentment. Her dowry maid Biyu’er said, ever so carefully, that the emperor was resting in Lady of Bright Deportment Yi’s palace — Empress should sleep early.
A general’s daughter, Empress Yang had never in her life suffered such humiliation. She held back her tears and lifted her own bridal veil5; she had Biyu’er help her change and remove her makeup, and swept the longan and red dates6 off the bed. She lay beneath the great red mandarin-duck quilt that marked the lawful wife, and only when Biyu’er had let down the bed curtains did she finally break into muffled, aggrieved sobs.
Biyu’er sat at the foot of the bed and wept along with her mistress — silently, for she dared not make a sound — thinking only that her young lady should never have come to this palace to suffer.
From that day, Empress Yang hated Lady of Bright Deportment Yi and opposed her at every turn. But the Lady of Bright Deportment Yi had come up out of the jianghu, all fire and edge, and she was no easy mark either. Unable to defy the empress to her face, she turned around and carried her grievances to Emperor Shuncheng — and so he loathed Yang Xiujin all the more. He lodged with Qin Xiang’er night after night; the woman’s every provision was the empress’s equal, as if the lamplit, blazing Yikun Palace were the true seat of the principal wife.
Empress Yang grew from a bright, innocent girl into a bitter woman of the deep palace. For a time, her whole purpose in living was to make life miserable for Lady of Bright Deportment Yi and Emperor Shuncheng. And when she slapped the Lady of Bright Deportment Yi hard across the face — and the emperor could do no more than hop about, threatening her — Empress Yang suddenly understood: her father was a first-rank grand general with military power in his fist. The emperor could not depose her. The emperor dared not depose her.
Yang Xiujin was a villain, in the end. In the later chapters she unleashed plenty of ruthless, unhinged schemes against the heroine Qin Xiang’er and the First Prince Qin Xiang’er bore. But only Biyu’er knew how lonely, how helpless, the domineering, high-profile empress looked sitting frozen before her dressing mirror in the night.
To protect the woman and the child he loved, Emperor Shuncheng grew up fast. When he first took up personal rule he was completely in the dark — to a wastrel bred to idleness, those memorials might as well have been written in heaven’s own script. But there was no help for it: he had to take the country into his own hands, so that one day Xiang’er might be his empress in name as well as in truth.
By the time Emperor Shuncheng truly grasped the weight on his shoulders, it was already too late. Beacon smoke rose on every front of Great Xia. His princely brothers had never given up; while he lolled away his days, they had been lying low in the shadows, and now they had grown into a true force.
Years on years of war — rebellion within, enemies without — left Emperor Shuncheng scorched and staggering. And into the bargain, Yang Xiujin kept making trouble for him. In a fit of rage, he favored Biyu’er — the dowry maid serving in Empress Yang’s palace — and titled her Talented Lady, purely to sicken the empress.
Empress Yang’s attention did indeed swing wholly onto Biyu’er, who had ‘betrayed’ her — much to the relief of Emperor Shuncheng and the by-then Noble Imperial Consort Yi.
Biyu’er hanged herself. When she woke, she had become a simpleton.
When she saw Biyu’er hanging from the beam, Yang Xiujin truly panicked. Biyu’er had served her since she was a child — closer to her than the concubine-born sisters of her own house. Biyu’er lay unconscious a day and a night; Yang Xiujin kept vigil a day and a night without once closing her eyes, terrified that if she slept, her Biyu’er would stop breathing.
All their old days rose before her eyes. Yang Xiujin gripped Biyu’er’s hand and, for the first time since entering the palace, wept for someone other than Emperor Shuncheng.
The gates of Kunning Palace shut fast. The empress seemed all at once to have gone quiet and obedient, rising and resting each day alongside the simpleminded Talented Lady Guan. But Emperor Shuncheng’s days were not easy ones — the rebel army had already fought its way to the capital’s outskirts.
The climax of the novel is the assault on the city: Emperor Shuncheng, in his palace, takes his own life in despair, begging only that his beloved Qin Xiang’er and their son Baoping be spared.
At that same hour, Yang Xiujin — a general’s daughter to the bone — receives word that her father has fallen in battle.
She does not weep. Her tears ran dry long ago. Calmly, she has Biyu’er dress her in armor, takes up her long spear, mounts, and rides out to fight the rebels to the death — to avenge her father.
Two women on horseback became the last line of defense of the imperial city. They died beneath ten thousand arrows.
Tuoba Yan closed the webpage and let out a long breath, her heart still heaving from the story.
Empress Yang — a tragic role like this, played well, would win people over. She clenched her fist, eyes sharp. This chance, she would seize with both hands.
Tuoba Yan shut her eyes and sketched Empress Yang in her mind: the maiden shyness before entering the palace; the transformation after the emperor’s humiliation — the mad persecution of the heroine Qin Xiang’er; the despairing fury when the person closest to her betrayed her; the tangle of feeling keeping vigil at Biyu’er’s bedside…
She sat still in the chair, her expression flickering from joy to rage and back, until it settled into stillness.
Tuoba Jiao knocked on the door. “Jiejie, dinner’s ready.”
“Coming!”
For two full days, Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan did nothing but work over their roles. The two were bound together — one Empress Yang, one Biyu’er — so their understandings of the characters had to move in lockstep, or a mishap on the day would turn them into a farce.
The Emperor of a Dynasty casting audition was held at Yuying. Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan, Zhao Mi in tow, arrived at the venue more than an hour early — and even so, the area outside the soundstage was already packed, people clustered in threes and fives.
The three of them waited quietly. Before long, staff opened the great doors from inside; everyone filed in, queued to fill out the actor registration forms, and once the forms were collected, were grouped by the roles they’d come to audition for and handed their audition scripts.
The script in Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan’s hands was the same scene: Empress Yang, on her wedding night, forsaken and never visited by Emperor Shuncheng.
The two exchanged a look and immediately bent their heads to run lines.
Group after group of actors went in and came out. At last it was their turn. Truth be told, Tuoba Yan was a little nervous; Chen Wanwan squeezed her fingers in reassurance, and Tuoba Yan drew a deep breath and stilled her heart.
Everything rode on this.
Inside the inner room, the old man from that day sat with two middle-aged men behind the table. Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan bowed and greeted them. Chen Wanwan had looked composed enough at the door — favor and disgrace alike unable to ruffle her — but now, actually laying eyes on Fang Zhengqin, a tremor crept into her voice all the same. Tuoba Yan, oddly, went calm.
Round after round of auditioning actors came and went. Fang Zhengqin had circled no more than a couple of undemanding minor roles; Empress Yang, Biyu’er, and one other weighty figure, Dongfang Ning, that he meant to settle today remained unlanded. Fang Zhengqin’s face was black as a stormfront, and the actors went in trembling, their performances shackled hand and foot.
Fang Zhengqin said to the associate director Zhang Zheng at his side, “Nerves like that — and they call themselves actors.”
“You won’t necessarily find ones that perfect,” Zhang Zheng said, helpless. “Quit dragging that face around. The last girl twisted her ankle because you frightened her.”
“Coming to a period-drama audition in high heels.”
The tag-along investor Fei Yin laughed like a Maitreya Buddha made flesh, his tongue as venomous as ever: “It was already magnanimous of Zhengqin not to have her thrown out on the spot.”
Zhang Zheng choked. “Fine, fine, fine. I’ll play the mute.”
As the three of them idled and bickered, the next pair of girls came in, and Zhang Zheng’s eyes lit up at once.
The tall one was a new face — striking looks, poise to match, and above all a certain inexpressible self-possession, an aristocratic air in her every gesture, dazzling to the point of searing.
The other he recognized on sight as Chen Wanwan. He laughed. “Haha — if it isn’t Xiao Qianwei.”
Chen Wanwan gave a shy smile.
Fang Zhengqin said, flat as unsalted soup, “And who was it just now playing the mute?”
That shut Zhang Zheng’s mouth for good. Fang Zhengqin lifted his eyes to Chen Wanwan and Tuoba Yan. “You’ve both read the script. Begin.”
Chen Wanwan had long since braced herself; Tuoba Yan too was strung tight. Without a heartbeat’s hesitation — Tuoba Yan marked the plastic stool on the floor, closed her eyes, let the psychology of Empress Yang, turned over and over through rehearsal after rehearsal, settle at its opening note — then she opened her eyes and moved forward on lotus steps7.
Every step was placed with beauty. She wore nothing but ordinary jeans and a hoodie, yet she seemed bowed beneath layer upon layer of heavy brocade, bearing without complaint the whole crimson shackle of a wedding, holding the pride and dignity of a newly wedded wife. Her slender fingers gathered together, cradling an apple that did not exist — an emblem of peace and smooth fortune — the fingertips gliding unconsciously over its skin, reining in the feelings that surged in her chest.
Fang Zhengqin gave a nod almost too small to see.
Tuoba Yan turned her body slightly, swept an unseen skirt train aside, and slowly sat, knees together, on the stool — spine still straight, only her lashes lowered. That poised, noble bearing made one forget the soundstage and the plastic stool entirely: it was the most exalted woman in all the world sitting in her bridal chamber, shyly awaiting the husband who would lift her veil.
But he never came.
Her dowry maid stood a few steps from her mistress, head bowed, hands folded in respect. Fang Zhengqin seemed to hear the crackle of the dragon-and-phoenix candles8. The empress’s face dimmed and paled; the hand cradling the apple tightened; her shoulders rose and fell faintly; the long, dense lashes trembled.
Chen Wanwan glanced suddenly at the door. She crossed to it in small, quick steps, opened it gently, and listened to the word from outside — shock breaking across her pretty face, and then a thread of resentment and dread.
Biyu’er bit her lip, again and again on the verge of speech and swallowing it, and at last knelt at the empress’s knee. “The emperor is resting in Lady of Bright Deportment Yi’s palace tonight. Empress, you should sleep early…”
Empress Yang’s hand flew up to dash the apple to the floor — then, a moment later, her raised arm sank in defeat, and she passed the fruit to Biyu’er, who received it and looked up at her with concern.
Tuoba Yan lifted her own veil. The lowered lashes rose at last; those bright, lovely almond eyes were already brimming, and at the instant the veil came away the tears rolled down like beads, sliding over cheeks rouged red, cutting two gash-like tracks through the paint.
“Empress!” Biyu’er’s tears fell too. “Empress, don’t grieve,” she said between sobs. “The emperor is still young — he’s only infatuated with Lady of Bright Deportment Yi for the moment. Your beauty, your birth — you surpass her a thousand times over. The days are long. We have all the time in the world…”
And it was Empress Yang, of all people, who ended up comforting her. “You’re right. This palace is the rightful empress. That vixen will never climb over me.”
The audition script ended there. Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan were still half in their characters’ skins when Zhang Zheng — who had forgotten he was a mute — applauded without stinting. “Excellent. Old Fang — satisfied now?”
Fang Zhengqin watched Tuoba Yan already gathering her emotions back in, and said, stiff-necked, “Passable.”
Fei Yin applauded along with Zhang Zheng, perfectly straight-faced. “Heroes are born of the young. You two are very good indeed.”
Tuoba Yan’s eyes shone. “Thank you, Teacher Fei.” Then she turned an expectant face to Fang Zhengqin.
Fang Zhengqin was silent a while. Then he drew a circle on the paper. “You two, then. Go home and wait for word. And keep your mouths shut — nothing about this production gets out.”
Tuoba Yan and Chen Wanwan traded looks of pure joy. “Thank you, Director Fang!”
Their faces were still streaked with tears, and they were straining with everything they had to hold their joy down — so the auditioners waiting outside assumed they’d been scolded to tears, and pointed and murmured as the two came out. Zhao Mi asked carefully, “Did it not go well?”
Chen Wanwan leaned to her ear and whispered a sentence. Zhao Mi said, “Really?”
Chen Wanwan lifted one brow, insufferably smug. “Would I lie?”
The three of them covered their mouths and giggled their way out the door.
“Aiyo, Director Fang is such a stern man — my heart just quivers at the sight of him.” Chen Wanwan stretched. “Word is he demands a frightful lot from his actors on set. We’d best brace ourselves.”
Tuoba Yan, who in her last life had weathered no telling how many tongue-lashings traveling the land to study under masters, feared no such thing. “We ought to be heading back to Wu Zhen’er’s set this afternoon, no?”
Chen Wanwan sighed and groaned. “All this stewing over Emperor of a Dynasty these past few days — my hair keeps falling out. I must be losing brain cells by the battalion. What I wouldn’t give for a long vacation I could take whenever I pleased.”
Talk was talk. They still had to report back to the set. Fei Dong’s willingness to grant three days’ leave was mostly a courtesy to Fang Zhengqin’s face; the audition was over, so the sooner they returned to make up the scenes these days had pushed back, the better — and it would spare them the crew’s tongues into the bargain.
Footnotes
- 虎牙 | hǔyá | 'Tiger teeth' — prominent, slightly pointed canine teeth; in China, Japan, and Korea they are considered a cute, youthful feature, especially on girls.
- 弥勒佛 | Mílè Fó | Maitreya, the future Buddha of Chinese tradition, conventionally depicted as a corpulent, grinning, bare-bellied monk; a standing simile for a plump, jovial man.
- 斗蛐蛐 | dòu qūqū | Cricket fighting — a gambling pastime dating to the Tang dynasty in which two male crickets are pitted against each other in a clay pot; long the emblem of idlers and wastrels.
- 凤冠霞帔 | fèngguān xiápèi | The traditional Chinese bridal regalia: a gilded phoenix crown paired with an embroidered rosy cape, historically the wedding attire of noblewomen.
- 盖头 | gàitou | A square of red silk draped over a traditional bride's head; only the groom may lift it, first revealing her face to him alone, ideally on the wedding night.
- 桂圆红枣 | guìyuán hóngzǎo | Longan and red dates scattered over the wedding bed; the custom puns on the blessing 'may you soon bear a noble son,' the word for date (zǎo) sounding like 'early.'
- 莲步 | liánbù | 'Lotus steps' — a classical phrase praising a woman's light, graceful, mincing gait, alluding to bound feet, which were poetically called 'golden lotuses.'
- 龙凤红烛 | lóngfèng hóngzhú | Paired red wedding candles carved with dragon and phoenix motifs, kept burning through the wedding night; their crackling 'candle blooms' was read as an auspicious omen.
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