The Martial Arts Stunt Double of the Entertainment Circle – Chapter 6
by Little PandaThe mother and daughter sat talking for a while, and then Qiao Chunyi had to leave for work.
When she married her ex-husband Tuoba Xiu, her mother-in-law—Tuoba Xiu’s mother—did not like this daughter-in-law from a humble family. She tried every method to obstruct the two of them, and among the various tyrannical demands she made was this one: marrying her son was fine, but she had to be a virtuous wife and good mother who supported her husband and raised their children.
In other words, Qiao Chunyi was not allowed to continue her education.
Qiao Chunyi at that time had not yet been worn down by the Tuoba Family to the point of losing her edge. She was unwilling to just drop out of school like that, staying cooped up at home at a young age, living off her husband. Tuoba Xiu coaxed her with kind words, promising that it was only temporary—a show for his mother—and that he would find a way to let her finish school and develop her own career later. Qiao Chunyi foolishly believed him.
Three months into the marriage, Qiao Chunyi received good news about her belly. Mother Tuoba at least looked upon her daughter-in-law a bit more favorably, and Tuoba Xiu was overjoyed. After ten months of pregnancy, she gave birth to a daughter. Though Mother Tuoba was disappointed, she figured that flowers come before fruit1—having a daughter first was not bad—and did not treat Qiao Chunyi too harshly.
Tuoba Xiu doted on this daughter who was fair and chubby from birth. Every day, the first thing he did upon returning from the company was go to the nursery to play with her, kissing and cuddling her until little Tuoba Yan squealed and flailed, her soft, chubby little hands slapping her father’s face. The family was, by and large, harmonious.
But even after Tuoba Yan turned one year old, Qiao Chunyi, who had been watching and waiting eagerly, still could not return to school. Tuoba Xiu’s excuse was that the child was still small—they would talk about it in a couple of years. Mother Tuoba’s reasoning was that it had been agreed from the start that she was not to go out and show her face in public again, so how could she go back on her word now? No matter how clever Yanyan was, she was still a girl who could not carry on the family lineage; she would be married off to someone else’s family in the future. Mother Tuoba was still waiting to hold a grandson!
Qiao Chunyi was already exhausted from looking after the mischievous troublemaker Tuoba Yan, and it had never crossed her mind that her mother-in-law still wanted her to have more children. Her stubborn temper flared, and she clashed with Mother Tuoba.
Even the prettiest face grew tiresome after sharing a bed for over a year. Tuoba Xiu gradually grew dissatisfied with his young, strong-willed wife. The two of them began having arguments and cold wars. Mother Tuoba, without question, took her son’s side—besides, this little brat had the audacity to talk back to her, not even considering her own status!
Qiao Chunyi’s eldest brother and his wife were entirely dependent on the Tuoba Family to get by. Hearing Qiao Chunyi’s tearful complaints, even though they felt for her, they could only urge her to get along well with her husband’s family—they did not dare to stand up for her. Qiao Chunyi was no fool. Seeing herself isolated and without support, with the whole world seemingly against her, she had no path forward except to keep bearing Tuoba Xiu’s children.
With the couple’s hearts estranged, her natal family weak and powerless, and no ability to support herself independently, Qiao Chunyi—who had never truly faced the dark side of the world—found that her situation was like standing blindfolded on the edge of a cliff, where one push would send her plummeting into a bottomless abyss.
Qiao Chunyi could only swallow her belly full of grievances, put on a smiling face, and tenderly coax and win over her husband while serving her mother-in-law.
Although she had not used any form of contraception, by the time Tuoba Yan turned three, Qiao Chunyi still had not conceived again. Tuoba Xiu started staying out all night, “busy with work.” Mother Tuoba neurotically hounded her day in and day out to try various folk remedies, yet nothing worked.
Mother Tuoba concluded in secret: it seemed Qiao Chunyi did not have the fortune to continue the Tuoba Family bloodline; she needed to find a backup.
And so Gu Min came into the picture.
To this day, Qiao Chunyi did not dare to think back on those days. Her brother and sister-in-law, seeing that she was about to be cast aside, desperately grabbed whatever benefits they could from the Tuoba Family. Her mother-in-law made snide remarks and brought the pregnant Gu Min into the house, fussing over her with solicitous concern. Her husband was self-righteous—if you cannot bear a son, naturally someone else will. The wives of other families she had once been friendly with either mourned in sympathy or gloated and watched the spectacle.
The marriage existed in name only. All of this drove Qiao Chunyi nearly mad. In yet another argument with Tuoba Xiu, she lost her head and blurted out, “Divorce!”
Fine then—divorce it was.
Tuoba Yan was already four years old. Having witnessed her grandmother and father teaming up to bully her mother, she was determined to leave with Qiao Chunyi. Qiao Chunyi held her daughter and wept bitterly. In the end, she took the child support payment from the Tuoba Family and, together with the utterly disowned Tuoba Yan, was thrown out the door.
Completely disillusioned with her brother and sister-in-law and no longer holding any hope, the mother and daughter left for somewhere far away. They came to Yuchuan City and, relying on that sum from the Tuoba Family, rented a place and gained a foothold. She had dropped out of university halfway through, so she could only count as having a high school education. She could not find stable, easy clerical work at all. She washed dishes in restaurant kitchens, skewered food and made deliveries at food stalls, promoted baby formula and household products—she even nearly got pulled into a pyramid scheme and a prostitution den. It could be said that she raised her daughter through untold hardships.
However, Tuoba Yan’s temperament took after Qiao Chunyi in her youth—stubborn and unyielding. The young girl hated everyone associated with the Tuoba Family. After her younger paternal half-sister Tuoba Jiao, who was three years her junior, transferred to Yucheng No. 6 High School, this hatred rapidly fermented and swelled. Facing the college entrance exam, she devoted all her energy to making her sister miserable, and later even did the foolish thing of dropping out to enter the entertainment industry, until her condition spiraled out of control and she attempted suicide.
Watching her daughter become sensible and rational, her anorexia curing itself, and after a detailed examination turning up absolutely no symptoms of schizophrenia—even the doctors marveled—Qiao Chunyi could not have been happier. She had come to terms with it: living well was more important than anything!
The moment Qiao Chunyi left, Tuoba Yan turned on her phone, connected to the internet, and searched for Yuchuan’s Chinese herb market. After figuring out the bus route, she quietly changed her clothes—taking off her hospital gown and putting on shorts with a light jacket—then took out the coins and change she had saved from the cabinet and stuffed them into her pocket, slipping out quickly while Nurse Qiao was away.
Tuoba Yan slipped out of the hospital gates without a hitch. There was a bus stop just a few hundred meters from the hospital. It was noon now, the sun blazing hot. Fortunately, the bus she needed arrived within minutes. Tuoba Yan wriggled through the crowd as nimbly as a loach, boarded, and dropped coins into the fare box.
The bus was packed full. The driver glanced at Tuoba Yan in her bandaged, half-crippled state, and announced over the speaker for passengers to give up their seat. A refined, kindly middle-aged woman immediately stood up to offer Tuoba Yan her seat, prompting the young men and women behind her to rise as well and offer theirs.
Along the way, she transferred between two bus routes. After about forty-plus minutes, the bus announced the stop: Yuchuan Chinese Herb Wholesale Market.
Tuoba Yan stepped off the bus, and what washed over her was a familiar, comforting scent of Chinese medicinal herbs. Breathing in this herbal fragrance, she suddenly felt as though she had returned to the military camp, to the days when she brewed medicine alongside the military physicians for wounded soldiers. Looking again at the continuous stretch of modern buildings before her, she could not help but sigh with emotion.
Time had wrought immeasurable change; the world remained, but the people were gone2.
Tuoba Yan walked into the herb market. From the entrance onward, the roadside was lined with herb stalls propped up under large sun umbrellas. The crowds bustled, and the sounds of haggling and inquiring, of vendors boasting about the quality of their herbs, were endless. Tuoba Yan looked from stall to stall, keeping her ears open to their bargaining, and gradually got a sense of the prices and quality of the several key herbs she needed to buy.
With a plan in mind, Tuoba Yan began asking questions. Though she was young and a girl, her bearing and conversation exuded confidence and seasoned composure. The herb dealers could tell they had encountered a sharp-eyed young connoisseur and did not dare look down on her.
Tuoba Yan had not brought any money today, so she only asked about prices continuously, fencing verbally3 with the herb dealers. During this time, she even bought a bottle of water to drink. After more than two hours of walking around, she had gained quite a lot. Which shop had high quality, which had inferior goods, which passed off fakes as genuine, which offered good value—she had a rough understanding of it all. Most of the herbs she needed were available in the market. As for the rarer ones, she could come back another time, or directly ask reliable shopkeepers whether they could source them.
Tossing the empty mineral water bottle into a trash bin, Tuoba Yan dusted off her hands and prepared to take the bus back to the hospital.
This time, the bus was sparsely populated at first, and Tuoba Yan claimed a good window seat. Later passengers were not so lucky—the seats filled up and people had to stand. Over several stops, starting and stopping, the bus grew packed with passengers.
Standing next to Tuoba Yan was a fashionably and casually dressed woman with short hair, her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, her features refined and lovely. She carried a large bag over her left shoulder. Her left hand gripped the bus handrail while her right hand held an Apple phone, rapidly editing a text message, her expression somewhat uneasy and anxious.
The author has something to say:
Posted later than usual today, sorry—was tinkering with the blurb. Do the new blurb and cover look good?
Footnotes
- Chinese saying 'xian kaihua hou jieshi' (先开花后结果), literally 'first bloom, then bear fruit'—meaning it is acceptable to have a daughter before a son, as flowers precede fruit in the natural order.
- 'Canghai sangtian' (沧海桑田), 'seas changed to mulberry fields,' signifies vast transformation over time. 'Wu shi ren fei' (物是人非), 'things remain, people change,' expresses sorrow at loss and impermanence.
- 'Da taiji' (打太极), literally 'play Tai Chi,' is a common Chinese metaphor for verbally parrying, deflecting, or stalling—evoking Tai Chi's circular, redirecting movements.
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