The Martial Arts Stunt Double of the Entertainment Circle – Chapter 37
by Little PandaLi Yanrao had vaguely sensed she was different from everyone else ever since junior high.
While the girls around her were busy ranking the best-looking boys at their school, she found it all unbearably dull. Even the school hunk1 who topped the list was, in Li Yanrao’s eyes, merely a fellow with regular, mild features.
She simply couldn’t understand why those girls would get up early on freezing winter mornings to wait by the roadside, pretending to bump into the school hunk by chance as he cycled past—just to say hello to him, even if he might well do no more than nod out of politeness.
“The cool guy from Class 4 smiled at me this morning! His skin looks amazing up close, eee!”
“I still think the school hunk’s face does more for me.”
“Heh, did you all notice that long-legged cutie from ninth grade at the flag-raising ceremony today? His vibe absolutely crushes that sissy school hunk and that posturing prick!”
“Sissy? He’s a flower boy2!”
Girls in the throes of adolescence could happily spend an entire day on these mindless topics, never tiring of them. With everyone around her like that, Li Yanrao felt a peculiar loneliness—as if all the world were drunk while she alone was sober3.
Compared with the opposite sex, Li Yanrao was far better able to appreciate the beauty of girls.
The Chinese class representative had delicate, pretty features, her moist eyes especially lively, like a sprightly little doe; the short-haired girl seated diagonally in front of her was shy by nature and round as pearls, smooth as jade4—the other girls all laughed at her for being fat, but Li Yanrao once ran into her on the street in casual clothes, and her waist was unbelievably slim; once her figure and features fully filled out, she’d be a devastatingly voluptuous beauty. And the freshly graduated young geography teacher had a clean, lovely look—on her first class, when the students talked and fooled around without restraint, she cleared half the class out of the room, earning herself the nickname “Tigress,” and Li Yanrao was the only one in the whole class who thought her truly beautiful and utterly magnificent in her fierceness…
Back then Li Yanrao was quite fond of a female pop star. Her room was plastered with the star’s posters, and she could sing every one of her songs. The summer of Li Yanrao’s second year of junior high, that pop star did something that shocked the entire nation: in the middle of a concert, she publicly proposed to her female assistant and openly came out of the closet.
For the first time, Li Yanrao clearly sensed that she and her idol might be the same kind of person.
But over the ten-odd years that followed, she never met anyone who truly moved her. True, Li Yanrao liked looking at beautiful women—when she came across one, she couldn’t help paying a little extra attention, and in later years she’d even tease them a couple of times for her own amusement—but appreciation and adoration were two entirely different things.
During her student years and the years spent building her company, she had no headspace for romance; and once her career had stabilized, most of the people circling her came with agendas of their own. No joke—Li Yanrao had seen every trick of throwing themselves at her: outright physical come-ons, bare-faced girls darting out in front of her car, coffee ‘accidentally’ spilled down her front, ‘drunken confessions’ of true feeling—more than she could count.
Li Yanrao had a particular fondness for young women with clear, clean eyes—provided that ‘clarity’ wasn’t manufactured.
She’d seen too many fakes, fish eyes passed off as pearls5. So when her gaze met Tuoba Yan’s across the distance, she was genuinely snagged by that girl’s sharp, clean look—a tickle in her heart, like something she’d thought lost forever turning up by accident, more radiant than ever, except that ownership didn’t rest in her hands.
At long last the clouds had parted to reveal the bright moon, and the smile at the corner of Li Yanrao’s lips hadn’t faded since.
Tuoba Yan asked Li Yanrao, “So what should I get your grandfather? I didn’t bring much money today.”
Li Yanrao said, “No need to buy anything. He doesn’t lack for things.”
Tuoba Yan deflated. “Ugh, that’s true, but showing up completely empty-handed would be rude. Pull over at that supermarket up ahead—I’ll buy a crate of milk or something.”
They parked in the supermarket lot and headed straight for the entrance. The first thing inside was a row of promotional tables piled with thermal underwear. Tuoba Yan darted over and rummaged through them for a good while, then returned to Li Yanrao’s side, defeated: “Your grandfather definitely wouldn’t deign to touch this cheap stuff.”
Li Yanrao rarely got to watch Tuoba Yan squirm and strike out, and she laughed. “It’s the thought that counts. Just pick whatever looks right.”
There were plenty of young couples in the supermarket, walking hand in hand, arm in arm. Tuoba Yan glanced around, then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, looped her arm through Li Yanrao’s. Li Yanrao, for her part, calmly hooked Tuoba Yan in close, and the two of them walked into the store pressed together, sweet as could be.
Tuoba Yan loaded the most expensive whole milk into the cart, thought a moment, then added a crate of yogurt, after which she made a beeline for several kinds of pricey imported fruit, sorted, plastic-wrapped, and labeled—figuring the cash she had on her would just about cover that much. The two of them pushed the cart toward the checkout.
They were just queuing to pay when someone called out: “Tuoba Yan?”
The girl hailing her was dressed very fashionably. Though her hair wasn’t dyed, it was woven into an exquisite style. Tuoba Yan recognized her at a glance: “Chen Qing?”
It was none other than the Chen Qing who, along with Fu Shuya, had visited her at the hospital earlier.
Tuoba Yan asked, “No school today?”
Chen Qing sized up the woman linked arm-in-arm with Tuoba Yan, and explained, “School’s on break. I live nearby—came out for some air and to pick up food. Are your injuries better? Class Monitor and I went to the hospital to see you, but the nurse said you’d been discharged.”
“All healed,” Tuoba Yan said. “My body’s fully recovered too. How’s the class been lately?”
Chen Qing shrugged. “Same as ever. Pretty intense—it’s senior year, after all. And this sister is?” She glanced at Li Yanrao.
Tuoba Yan didn’t blink: “My eldest cousin.”
The eldest cousin carried the bag of fruit while the Grand General herself hauled a crate of milk in each hand. They stowed everything in the trunk and got in the car, and Li Yanrao said sourly, “You’re awfully close with that little schoolgirl.”
“Jealous over that? She’s just a classmate.”
“Oh. Just a classmate.”
With someone you loved, even idle chatter felt light and pleasant, and the dozen-odd-minute drive passed in a blink. When Tuoba Yan saw Li Yanrao pull into the Yuchuan Hospital parking lot, she said in surprise, “Is your grandfather sick?”
Li Yanrao answered with deliberate ambiguity: “He’s staying here as a patient.”
At first Tuoba Yan suspected nothing and followed behind her, but the route looked more and more familiar—it was, every step of the way, the route she used to walk when she was hospitalized. The holly in the greenery beds was the same as ever, though the flowers that had bloomed so riotously in midsummer were gone, leaving only bare branches and sparse half-green, half-yellow leaves.
Beneath an old tree that hadn’t yet shed its leaves, two old men were playing xiangqi6. Tuoba Yan’s eyes lit up. She set down the crate of milk and said to Li Yanrao, “I’ve run into people I know—let me go say hello.” And off she trotted, eager as anything.
Lin Yutang was glaring at Li Dingchen, that old rascal: “A true gentleman never takes back a move—understand?!”
“My hand slipped. I put the piece in the wrong spot by accident. Why are you so stingy?” Li Dingchen blustered.
Neither would give an inch; they glared at each other—but the tense standoff was shattered by a single cry:
“Grandpa Li! Grandpa Lin!”
Li Dingchen turned, and his face lit up: “Aiyo, if it isn’t Yanyan!”
The three cross-generational friends7, reunited after so long, were delighted beyond words. Li Dingchen couldn’t wait to run through the few forms of the Health-Nourishing Fist Tuoba Yan had taught him, asking over and over, “Well? Not bad, right?”
Tuoba Yan praised him first, then pointed out two spots that weren’t quite polished, and said apologetically, “Grandpa Li, I’m here on business today. Next time, I’ll teach you the fifth form onward.”
Li Dingchen was sorely disappointed and was just about to fix a time with Tuoba Yan when he spotted his eldest granddaughter standing a short way off, looking their way. He waved her over: “Youfu! Perfect timing—come here, quick!”
Tuoba Yan’s gaze followed Li Dingchen’s line of sight of its own accord—and came to rest on Li Yanrao, whose expression had gone awkward.
Youfu?
Li Yanrao’s face burned with embarrassment. Trust Grandpa to bring up the one kettle that wasn’t boiling8—a milk name from how many years ago, and he still bandied it about!
Li Dingchen said smugly to Tuoba Yan, “Don’t rush off, girl. My eldest granddaughter’s here—let me introduce her to you.”
Now it was Tuoba Yan’s turn to gape. Li Yanrao was Li Dingchen’s granddaughter? Then the grandfather Li Yanrao had mentioned… could only be Li Dingchen. In a flash, Tuoba Yan’s memories linked themselves together—wasn’t this very place where she and Li Yanrao had first met?!
Li Yanrao, unable to juggle all her things, simply set everything on the ground and walked over empty-handed.
Li Dingchen asked, beaming, “Big girl, what brings you here today?”
Li Yanrao cleared her throat. “I brought my partner to see you.”
Li Dingchen slapped his thigh, eyebrows flying: “Only been a few days and you’ve sealed the deal? You’ve got your grandpa’s old flair! Where is she?” He looked around eagerly.
But Li Yanrao’s gaze came to rest on Tuoba Yan.
Li Dingchen: “…”
Lin Yutang: “…Old Li, Old Li, what are you doing—don’t get worked up—aiyo!”
Li Dingchen roared: “Well, well, Li Youfu—how old is the Yan girl, anyway? And you still dared go after her and ruin her! I’ll beat you to death!”
Li Yanrao had long since prepared herself mentally and ran off faster than a rabbit. Lin Yutang, trying to break up the fight, nearly caught the old man’s cane himself; only Tuoba Yan’s quick hands snatched the cane away, and Old Man Li finally subsided, sitting on his little folding stool and sighing over and over.
He said to Li Yanrao, “Youfu, go fetch something for me—that little box in the nightstand.”
Li Yanrao knew perfectly well her grandfather was sending her off, and she answered without much conviction. Lin Yutang, having no business meddling in family affairs, also found some excuse and slipped away.
Li Dingchen sighed. “Yanyan, don’t just stand there. Sit down and talk.”
Tuoba Yan, a little nervous, sat down on another little folding stool.
“Girl, what are you thinking?” Li Dingchen asked.
Tuoba Yan said, “In what regard?”
“Youfu is a woman, after all. The state doesn’t recognize marriage between two people of the same sex, and the two of you are so many years apart…”
Tuoba Yan thought about it, then answered: “For two people building a life together, being able to accept and cherish each other is enough. I don’t consider gender much of an obstacle. As for whether the marriage is legally recognized… personally, I don’t care. The binding force of a marriage certificate is really just one flimsy sheet of paper—if your heart’s set on escaping it, a flick of the fingers tears it apart. And the age gap between Yanrao and me isn’t all that large. At bottom, the two of us simply hit it off, and things came together as naturally as water finding its channel.”
The author has something to say:
You’re all right—little sister Tuoba is still young. I’ll let the plot run on a bit before I decide.
I’ll reply to comments tomorrow. I’m so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open…
Footnotes
- 校草 | xiàocǎo | Literally 'school grass'—campus slang for the most handsome boy in a school, the male counterpart of the 'school flower' (xiàohuā), the prettiest girl.
- 花美男 | huāměinán | Literally 'flower beautiful man'—slang, spread through Korean pop culture, for delicately pretty young male stars; the girls' quarrel over 'sissy' versus 'flower boy' is a fight over the same soft-featured look.
- 众人皆醉我独醒 | zhòng rén jiē zuì wǒ dú xǐng | From a Songs of Chu dialogue attributed to the exiled poet Qu Yuan, who said all the world was drunk while he alone was sober—now borrowed self-mockingly for the loneliness of seeing what others don't.
- 珠圆玉润 | zhū yuán yù rùn | Literally 'pearls round, jade lustrous'—a classical idiom for full, mellow ripeness, first used of singing voices and later of plump, well-rounded feminine beauty; here it quietly contradicts the other girls' mockery of her weight.
- 鱼目混珠 | yú mù hùn zhū | Literally 'fish eyes mixed among pearls'—a classical idiom for passing off worthless counterfeits as the genuine article, applied here to suitors faking innocence.
- 象棋 | xiàngqí | Chinese chess, played by two armies on a board divided by a 'river'; a fixture of Chinese street corners and park benches, where elderly men heckle each other's moves exactly like this.
- 忘年交 | wàngniánjiāo | Literally 'a friendship oblivious to the years'—a classical term for a close bond between people generations apart in age, one of Chinese culture's most cherished ideals of friendship.
- 哪壶不开提哪壶 | nǎ hú bù kāi tí nǎ hú | Literally 'lift the very kettle that isn't boiling'—a colloquial idiom for raising, deliberately or obliviously, precisely the sore subject everyone knows to avoid.
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