TOW 9

When he woke up, daylight was already streaming in. Even with the curtains drawn, the bright sunlight spilled in like liquid mercury, painting the floor in a dull golden hue. Xu Fei clutched the blanket, groggily staring at the floor for a moment. Then suddenly, there was a loud clang from outside. He jolted, flipped upright in bed, and before he could even gather his thoughts, the bedroom door swung open.

“Sorry,” Liang Xuan said. “Knocked over the basin. Did I wake you?”

Xu Fei blinked and replied reflexively, “No, I was already awake.”

Then he just sat there, dazed, staring at Liang Xuan for a good ten seconds before his soul seemed to return to his body. He yawned, threw off the blanket, and got out of bed.

“What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock,” Liang Xuan replied. “Catching a flight?”

Xu Fei hurried to grab his phone and glanced at the screen. “No worries. My flight’s at one thirty.” He stretched his neck and headed to the bathroom. Liang Xuan had already laid out a fresh cup and toothbrush by the sink. Xu Fei picked them up, stuck the brush in his mouth, gave it a half-assed scrub, then shuffled out in his slippers. Liang Xuan was setting breakfast on the kitchen island.

“You’re pretty domestic, huh?” Xu Fei said, mouth full of foam, words barely comprehensible. Liang Xuan shot him a blank look and moved the toast out of his reach. Xu Fei glared at him in mock offense.

Liang Xuan stayed put and sat down to read the newspaper. Xu Fei glared at him for a long moment before finally slinking back into the bathroom. He cleaned himself up, then came out and sat across from Liang Xuan.

Liang Xuan handed him a cup of soy milk.
“Just heated,” he said.

Xu Fei didn’t mind. He finished the soy milk with a few noisy gulps, then picked up the newspaper and flipped to the entertainment section. Right there, he saw Liang Xuan’s sharp profile printed beside a bold headline:
“Rising star Liang Xuan shows outstanding talent, joins director Xu Weizhen’s new film The Woman on the Balcony.”

“This is what you’re filming next?” Xu Fei asked.

Liang Xuan glanced over and replied, “Yeah.”

Xu Weizhen was one of the top young arthouse directors in the league. Xu Fei couldn’t even bring himself to be jealous. “Some people really do live a different life,” he muttered bitterly, polishing off the last two fried eggs on the table.

After breakfast, Xu Fei sat cross-legged on the sofa, zoning out. Last night, he had been bent over right here getting his ass fucked, but now there wasn’t a trace left. He had no idea how early Liang Xuan must have gotten up to clean everything until it looked brand new.

Old Pang messaged him on WeChat: “Want me to pick you up at the airport?” Xu Fei replied: “No need. I’ll take the subway.”

Liang Xuan came over, sleeves rolled up. He’d just finished doing the dishes, and his hands were still damp. He looked like a proper househusband. Xu Fei had the sudden urge to rip open his shirt and pin him to the wall for a kiss. But he knew better than to act like some pitiful pervert.

“I’m heading out,” he said.

Liang Xuan responded with a soft sound. After a moment, he asked, “Want me to take you?”

“No need,” Xu Fei said. “I’ll go on my own.”

Liang Xuan didn’t insist. He simply said, “Alright,” then stood there for a while before turning and heading back to the kitchen.

By the time Xu Fei was dressed and putting on his shoes at the entryway, Liang Xuan came out again. He hesitated for a moment before saying, “Stay in touch?”

Xu Fei turned to look at him, smiled, and said, “Sure.”

They never got in touch again.

A few days after returning to Pinghai, Xu Fei joined a friend’s film crew. He played a down-and-out novelist, wandering the streets and alleys of Pinghai. A woman who lived by the rules fell in love with him, slept with a publisher to get him a shot at publication. The novelist felt deeply humiliated, yet he was also caught in the glittering promises laid before him. On the day the novel was published, the woman stole the key to the publisher’s house and fucked the novelist senseless in the publisher’s own bedroom. Everything’s going to be okay, the novelist thought. A perfect era was just around the corner.

The film took two months to shoot, plus over a month in post. For a low-budget arthouse piece like this, there was no way it could hit mainstream theaters. The best they could hope for was to get into a few indie film festivals, pray for a miracle, and maybe catch a distributor’s eye to sell a few DVD rights. But that was wishful thinking. Xu Fei followed the director to three different festivals. Only in Europe did someone show a little interest, and even then they tried to lowball the price hard. In the end, they just barely broke even.

The director took it all in stride. This was already his third movie. The first two lost so much money he might as well have pawned his underwear. So this time, not losing money was already an improvement. Xu Fei was genuinely happy too. The French loved that kind of messy, struggling bullshit. Some people even thought he did a great job. After one screening, a few folks came over to congratulate him. For once, Xu Fei actually felt a bit of pride in being an actor.

They stuck around in France for a bit of sightseeing. By the time they got back to Pinghai, it was already September. The heat was still suffocating, and from a distance, the asphalt roads looked like they were melting into the horizon. Xu Fei ducked into a nearby video store. He looked up and happened to see a scene from Southbound playing on a TV.

Southbound had wrapped up its broadcast back in May. It had already been sold for a second round of broadcasting, released on DVD, and was slowly generating income from downstream markets. But none of that had anything to do with Xu Fei. He was just a minor supporting role, nowhere near the kind of profit chain involved. Liang Xuan, on the other hand, might still have a shot at it.

A female customer stopped next to Xu Fei, watching the TV with her head tilted up. The scene happened to show Liang Xuan’s character. His upper body was bare, muscles lean and defined. He sat cross-legged on the sand, reading a book. His fingertips were pale from gripping the pages, his expression focused. He didn’t look like he was sitting in a warzone on the verge of chaos, but more like he was in his backyard, sunbathing, with a cup of coffee nearby. The woman sighed and said, “He’s so damn hot.”

Xu Fei blinked, glanced at her, then remembered he still had his sunglasses on. There was no way she could recognize him.

“Yeah,” he said with a nod.

The woman turned to him. “You watch Southbound too?” Xu Fei gave a vague hum. She kept gushing, “How does a man look that good even eating military rations?”

Xu Fei bought a set of Southbound. At home, he watched the last few episodes while sitting cross-legged on the couch. On screen, the team was moving through a city in Ceylon that had just been bombed by rebel forces. Liang Xuan was in the front passenger seat, holding a gun and staying alert while Xu Fei’s character chattered next to him. The waves from the nearby coast kept crashing in rhythm, like a never-ending lullaby, woven into the roar of the convoy’s engines.

The DVD came with a commentary track. In the final episode, Xu Fei and Liang Xuan joined Li Shanyi as guests and talked through the whole thing. They covered everything from how painful gun training was to the nuances of their characters and even touched on deeper thoughts about war. Xu Fei was smiling the whole time. Liang Xuan smiled now and then too, voice low and soft, like a gentle undertone in the background.

Xu Fei propped his chin in his hand, a little dazed as he listened. He still remembered how close they sat during that commentary session. Their knees would occasionally brush. Behind Li Shanyi’s back, Xu Fei would sneak dirty little gestures at Liang Xuan. Liang Xuan’s face stayed calm, but the tips of his ears were visibly red.

That night in Colombo, the soldiers were sitting around eating M&Ms. Xu Fei’s character, Peng Hui, sat on a raised platform and dumped a whole bag of candy into his mouth, chewing with no restraint. “I like sweets,” Xu Fei’s voice came through the speakers, slightly muffled. “Didn’t like brushing my teeth when I was a kid. One time I had this horrible toothache, thought my teeth were done for, so I threw out all the chocolate I bought the day before. Then my mom took me to the dentist, and afterward I was so upset I cried all night in my room.”

Li Shanyi chuckled and asked, “Do you still eat sweets now?”

“Still do, can’t help it,” Xu Fei said. “Just can’t quit.”

He leaned back on the couch and suddenly remembered that morning. He hadn’t said anything, yet Liang Xuan had already added sugar to his soy milk.

Goddamn it. He raised his hand to cover his eyes, feeling like there was a weight stuck in his chest that just wouldn’t go away.

Old Pang lined up a few more roles for him, saying, “You should have some name recognition by now.” But when he actually showed up in front of casting directors, they couldn’t make up their minds. It wasn’t that Xu Fei wasn’t good-looking or lacked acting skills. The problem was his height, which limited the roles he could play, and the few he had taken on had such distinct personalities that no one could figure out where to place him.

Xu Fei didn’t care much. He never thought he’d be a movie star, didn’t even want that. Old Pang often scolded him for being unambitious, but Xu Fei couldn’t be bothered. He went for runs, read books, played piano, occasionally caught up with friends like Cai Jiajun, living like some kind of urban hermit.

In November, Li Shanyi called him again and asked, “Wanna try theater?” Xu Fei had no objection. He met with the troupe Li Shanyi recommended, did an audition, got the role, and agreed to join rehearsals the following year.

“See, I’ve got a job now,” he bragged to Old Pang. “Might even be a stable gig in the long run.”

Old Pang wanted to smack him.

Liang Xuan shot to fame like a rocket. He was tall, handsome, and rich, a typical male lead. If he didn’t blow up, there was no justice in the world.

In June, he joined the mini-series Qinhuai River produced by Alliance TV, playing Mao Pijiang. Word was he’d be entangled with seven or eight top actresses. Gossip exploded overnight. Paparazzi swarmed his neighborhood so badly it became a nuisance for the other residents. But the public loved it, gobbling up one juicy scoop after another, wishing the circus would never end.

Xu Fei’s mom asked him again, “Didn’t you work with Liang Xuan? Wasn’t he dating Feng Zijun a while ago? How come now he’s with Yuan Yuan?”

Xu Fei looked helpless. “Mom, why are you so invested in his love life? If you’ve got that much energy, maybe focus it on Dad. Get him to stop playing mahjong.”

His dad shot him a glare.

His mom wasn’t pleased. “I’m just asking. Your aunties all watched that show you two were in. They know you know each other. They’re so curious they can’t stand it.”

Xu Fei muttered, “So now I’m just his sidekick.”

His mom smacked him on the head. “Stop talking nonsense. Just asking about a person’s situation. You always got something smartass to say.”

Xu Fei rubbed his head and dodged away, retreating to the living room. “I’m not even close with him,” he shouted. “He’s a big-time celebrity now!”

Two days before New Year’s, Xu Fei suddenly got a WeChat message from Liang Xuan. He didn’t notice it at first, and when he did, he thought he was seeing things. It wasn’t until he checked it twice that he hesitantly opened the chat.

Liang Xuan had sent, “I’m in Pinghai today for an event.”

So what?

Xu Fei had no clue what Liang Xuan meant by that. But then again, who was he kidding? Liang Xuan didn’t mean anything. It was him who was dumb as a rock, who couldn’t keep his damn boundaries in place. He had no right to ask Liang Xuan for a damn thing.

Blame that fucking face. No human being should be allowed to be that fucking good-looking.

He sent over the address to his apartment.

At ten that night, Liang Xuan showed up fully disguised. Knit beanie, sunglasses, a mask over his face, and dressed in all black. From a distance, he looked like some shady pervert. Xu Fei couldn’t stop laughing.

He kept laughing even after Liang Xuan stripped down to just a sweater and jeans, laughing so hard his stomach hurt. Liang Xuan shot him a dark glare.

“Sorry, sorry,” Xu Fei said. “I didn’t’t expect… opps, “He put on a fake shocked face. “Your hair grew out.”

Xu Fei stepped back to take a good look at him, taking in the slightly messy short hair, the thick brows, the bright eyes, and those soft, warm lips.

Liang Xuan scratched his head and said, “Yeah.”

He stood there like a robot that had forgotten how to speak.

Xu Fei let out a sigh, stepped forward, grabbed him, and kissed him.