2013

“There’s nothing to doubt.”

In the summer of 2012, Chi Xiaoman was nineteen.

After she said that to the camera, she smiled at the interviewer behind it and bowed politely.

Then she straightened up.

Very openly, she told the person,

“Big sister, if you’ve got work next time, remember to call me again!”

After that, she slung her bulging bag onto her back, dragged a secondhand electric scooter out of the corner with great effort; she’d bought it for a hundred yuan from an older girl at school, and it was even missing part of the rearview mirror. Then she wobbled off on it, hurrying back to campus for class.

But she hadn’t even ridden ten meters.

She remembered something.

So she turned back, pushed the goggles on her helmet up,

tilted her chin,

and grinned at the stunned interviewer.

“My name is Chi Xiaoman.”

“Pretty much every casting director around here has my contact info. Any kind of work is fine, just call me!”

This was a rest area for extras. Someone who knew her well heard that and laughed out loud.

“Oh? The future superstar’s bragging again?”

“Didn’t you only just learn how to ride that thing last week? Could you play a street racer right now if we asked?”

Teased right to her face, Chi Xiaoman didn’t mind at all. “Big sister, don’t listen to them!”

She pushed the goggles back down. “If I can’t do it, I can learn.”

Then she rode her electric scooter crookedly back out, leaving behind a loud, spirited line in the air.

“I learn things the fastest!”

It was Chi Xiaoman’s second year in Beijing.

Two years earlier, at seventeen, she had come to Beijing on a green train with the twenty-thousand-yuan passbook her grandmother Wang Aimei had hidden under her pillow, with the two slap marks Chi Guoqing had left on her face, and with two new red-checkered snakeskin bags Auntie Li next door had bought for her. She enrolled in a perfectly ordinary university and studied advertising, which she thought was terribly impressive at the time.

For the next two years,

she took acting classes on the side in the university’s performance department,

borrowed equipment from the neighboring directing department to shoot assignments and short films required by the school,

and got up at five every morning to work in the cafeteria for four and a half yuan an hour, greeting every student who came to buy breakfast with a bright smile; once it got to ten and there were fewer people, she would crouch behind the dish cabinet and wolf down a cold bun in two or three bites, then go to class feeling completely satisfied.

At the same time, whenever she had free periods, she shuttled between major crews as an extra and a stand-in.

Because she had no money for the performing arts entrance exam, but she did have a shamelessly persistent dream of becoming a star.

She met Chen Yue the year she was about to graduate from university.

2013.

Beijing was so hot that many radio stations said it might be the hottest summer of the century. But later, everyone would know that it wasn’t Beijing’s hottest summer.

That summer,

Chi Xiaoman planned to move out of the school dorm so it would be easier to go to auditions and learn more on set.

As she remembered it, that day was hot too.

By then, Chi Xiaoman had been in Beijing for three years.

No backing, no connections.

She only drifted from crew to crew and still hadn’t played a single proper role.

She was still doing stand-in work.

Stand-ins who got beaten.

Stand-ins who took blows to the back, slaps across the face, rope around the neck until they couldn’t breathe and their faces turned red from holding it in... stand-ins.

Stand-ins who jumped into water in the dead of winter wearing several heavy layers of cotton-padded clothes.

Stand-ins who leaped from the second floor with their eyes shut.

...

Of course.

There weren’t that many unprofessional actors and crews.

So she didn’t get that much work either.

Most of the time,

she was just waiting for jobs, constantly going to auditions and screen tests, and constantly being rejected.

That day,

the weather was oppressively hot, and the crew was busy coming and going. Chi Xiaoman finished filming a scene where she got beaten, then crouched on the ground and couldn’t straighten up for a long time; her head swam, her vision blurred, as if someone were stirring boiling water inside her skull...

Back then, the public didn’t pay much attention to extras and stand-ins.

Crew life, actor life, wasn’t nearly as transparent as it would be ten years later.

Most film sets were shabby little makeshift operations.

And in those crews, if you were a stand-in dragged over just to get beaten, nobody was going to come help you when you couldn’t straighten up. They would only tell you to leave quickly so you wouldn’t block the lead actor’s shot, and they would not look at the bruises on your waist and back and kindly pay your medical bills.

That was when Chen Yue appeared.

At the time, Chi Xiaoman had been in pain for so long she still couldn’t straighten up from the ground. Cold sweat poured down her face. She wanted to faint and let it be over, but her body was probably stronger than her mind; it wouldn’t let her pass out, so she had to crouch there, swallowing again and again.

The crew member on the ground side, seeing that she still hadn’t left, grew impatient.

“Are you going or not?”

“I’m going, I’m going right away!” Chi Xiaoman answered weakly.

She still needed these people to give her work; there was no way she could offend them at a time like this.

Saying that,

her face was deathly pale, drenched in sweat, and she could only brace herself with one hand against the ground, which was wobbling like a cloud.

She tried to stand up—

but before she even got up,

a tearing pain suddenly shot through her back, making her grimace.

“What are you pretending for?”

The crew member was probably afraid she’d try to extort money.

His tone was extremely impatient. “Can you hurry up or not?”

He even reached out, intending to drag her up.

But Chi Xiaoman was afraid that if he laid hands on her, she’d be even less able to get up.

She instinctively backed away.

And with that retreat,

she lost her balance.

In the dizzy spin of the world, she looked terrified at the blazing sun hanging overhead and couldn’t help thinking she might as well just faint.

But just then,

a pair of hands steadied her.

In that heat, the hands holding her up were cool, gentle, and steady.

“Are you all right?”

The owner of those hands supported her, and only let go after she’d stood firmly.

Then, instead of leaving right away,

she came closer and studied Chi Xiaoman’s expression patiently. “Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

The sun that day was huge, shining straight down on the earth.

Chi Xiaoman couldn’t see this person’s face clearly, but she could make out that she was a woman.

The pain in her waist and back still hadn’t let up.

Cold sweat the size of beans trickled down her chin. She supported her bent body and smiled gratefully at the woman. “Thank you, thank you.”

The woman didn’t speak right away.

She helped Chi Xiaoman over to a small stool and let her sit, then looked at her for a while.

“Wait for me here.”

Chi Xiaoman didn’t react at first.

But since the woman told her to wait,

she didn’t dare leave.

She had come to Beijing alone and wanted to be an actress.

She knew it was a dream.

She also knew that no matter what crew she was in, stand-in actors like her had the least say.

She just didn’t know who the woman who had steadied her was.

From the looks of it, she seemed different from her.

Could it be that she’d taken a liking to her stubborn little weed-like self and was going to call her over to act in something?

Chi Xiaoman bared her teeth through the pain and let herself dream for a bit.

The woman came back.

She walked over to her.

Her shadow blocked some of the blinding sun.

Then she deliberately bent down slightly to speak to her. “Hurt that badly, and you still won’t go to the hospital?”

I don’t have the money for the hospital.

Chi Xiaoman almost said it automatically.

But just as she opened her mouth,

a cold object was pressed against her waist, right onto the painful spot.

It was an ice pack.

And somehow,

that line she’d been about to say; that it would just be a wasted trip and she’d still have to pay out of pocket, got swallowed back down too.

She lowered her head.

In the blinding white sunlight, she looked at the ice pack exuding cold air, and at the hand holding it, the fingertips and palm slightly reddened from the melting ice water.

Maybe she’d been dazed by the furnace-like sun overhead, maybe her heart had skipped a beat.

Chi Xiaoman hurried to take the ice pack from the woman.

For some reason,

she no longer had the quickness she usually showed when picking up work around the crews.

She only said stiffly,

“Thank you, thank you.”

The woman saw her take the ice.

And didn’t say anything else.

She didn’t insist on waiting for an answer to why she wouldn’t go to the hospital.

She looked at her for a while, then said gently,

“I’ve got more ice at my place.”

“Use it without worry. If it’s not enough, come find me again.”

What, was this woman some kind of living bodhisattva descending to save all beings?

Chi Xiaoman blinked in surprise and looked up.

But she suddenly saw the woman’s face, still blurry and indistinct.

She averted her eyes, scratched her chin, and didn’t quite know what to say.

She wasn’t much of a talker even when she received kindness. The woman didn’t mind; she just smiled politely at her again and turned to leave.

That was their first meeting.

Chi Xiaoman hadn’t seen Chen Yue’s face clearly.

She’d been stammering the whole time.

When she thought about it afterward, she realized that on that day she had only said two “I’m fine”s and four “thank you”s.

Because she was in too much pain to care.

And because the ice melted faster than she’d expected.

And because she’d been too embarrassed to really go ask the woman for more.

After resting there for a while,

she supported her waist, gritted her teeth, climbed onto her electric scooter with a limp, and left the crew with less than a hundred yuan in stand-in pay crumpled in her pocket.

That night, after she finally came to her senses, she felt annoyed with herself; she hadn’t even properly thanked the woman. So she lay on her tiny dorm bed with tears in her eyes, enduring the pain and the urge to roll over, and thought to herself: next time they met, she would definitely thank her properly.

But she hadn’t expected their second meeting to come much sooner than she thought.

It was at the same crew.

Because Chi Xiaoman kept thinking about it,

she would occasionally go back to that set to look around, wondering if she could find the woman and treat her to a meal no matter what.

Even if, at the time, the only thing she could probably afford was the cheapest bowl of egg noodles.

But Wang Aimei had taught her since she was little:

if you’re poor, you can’t be spineless.

That day,

the weather was just as hot.

Chi Xiaoman rode her electric scooter around the roads near the crew, circling for a while. She thought she probably wouldn’t find the woman this time either and felt a little disappointed, but then in an unremarkable alley, she saw the person she’d been looking for.

But the woman seemed to be talking to someone.

Chi Xiaoman didn’t want to interrupt, thinking the two had private matters to discuss, so she steadied the scooter, set her battered canvas shoes on the ground, and slowly backed up.

But after only two steps, she saw—

The man talking to the woman.

He suddenly smashed the drink she’d handed him onto the ground, speaking in a sharp, mean tone.

“It’s so cold, how am I supposed to drink this?”

The sun was blazing; the light was a pale white.

The translucent liquid splashed onto the ground.

It also splashed onto the woman’s trouser leg, soaking the side of her T-shirt and abdomen.

Chi Xiaoman froze, bracing herself on the scooter, and moved forward again, straining her neck to look in.

Then she saw—

The woman paused for a moment.

She picked up the drink cup from the ground.

Then she smiled at the man and said,

“I’ll go get it changed.”

Chi Xiaoman recognized him.

That man was the lead actor in this crew.

He was also the scene partner she’d doubled for last time.

After filming that scene,

the man had even fanned himself with his hand, telling people to hurry up and carry her away so she wouldn’t block his shot.

Now the very same man was standing in front of the woman who had helped her, acting haughty and speaking viciously.

“What are you smiling for?”

The woman’s movement paused.

She was standing with her back half-turned to Chi Xiaoman.

When she heard that, the corners of her mouth tightened slightly, as if she hadn’t felt any anger at all.

And the man snorted.

“You’re not even an actor; who do you keep smiling at all day?”

What, if you’re not an actor, you’re not allowed to smile?

Chi Xiaoman’s anger boiled over.

She immediately shouted toward the alley,

“Hey! What did you just say?”

Her voice was loud, booming.

That shout startled both people in the alley into looking over.

Then,

Chi Xiaoman rolled up her sleeves.

She abandoned the electric scooter, which hit the ground with a heavy bang.

And charged forward in a hurry.

The two people in the alley turned back toward her together.

Chi Xiaoman drew in a deep breath.

By the time she was halfway there, she finally saw the woman’s face.

And she also saw the woman looking over at her with a shocked expression, as if in slow motion.

And in that instant she remembered a sentence—one of those classic lines personally adapted by the local philosopher of Baiyun Village, Madam Wang Aimei:

“Impulse is the devil, especially when you’re Chi Xiaoman.”

In an instant,

Chi Xiaoman panicked and quickly swallowed the breath in her cheeks.

She slammed on the brakes right there.

Then stood still with her hands on her hips.

But she figured her expression was probably still fierce and murderous.

Because the man seemed to have been scared by her shout.

He backed away several steps.

Muttering “crazy bitch,” he hurried off in a fluster.

He left behind the electric scooter lying at the alley entrance, which had failed in its act of righteousness but had succeeded in sacrificing itself.

And in the alley,

the furious, hands-on-hips Chi Xiaoman.

And the woman holding the drink cup, her expression unreadable.

The two stared at each other.

For a long while.

It was the woman who finally hesitated and walked over.

She stood face-to-face with Chi Xiaoman for a bit.

Then she couldn’t help asking,

“Your waist... are you okay, holding that pose for so long?”

As soon as she said it,

as if on cue,

the pain in Chi Xiaoman’s waist and back came surging up belatedly.

She couldn’t hold on anymore.

So she sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth.

“Good thing he left; it hurts like hell!”

And so the woman laughed.

That was the first time Chi Xiaoman clearly saw this woman laugh.

At the time, she didn’t think anything else.

She just thought she was beautiful.

She thought this person must have a very gentle personality; even her laugh was soft and light.

Later, every time she saw this woman smile, she couldn’t help smiling too.

And in her heart, she would think that this woman had been born to act in movies.

And that day,

after the woman finished laughing,

she stepped out from the shadows.

Quite formally, she extended her hand and said,

“Hello, my name is Chen Tong.”

Chi Xiaoman was stunned for a moment.

At last she could clearly see the woman’s face in the sunlight, and finally understood why that man had hated seeing her smile so much.

Because the woman really did have a face so uniquely blessed by heaven that she should never have been a crew assistant in a small production like this.

But Chi Xiaoman had never, in all her life, formally shaken hands with someone like this before. So she rubbed her hands on her clothes, then very nervously used both hands to pinch the slender tips of the woman’s fingers.

And she introduced herself just as formally.

“Hello, Chen Tong. My name is Chi Xiaoman.”

At the time,

she hadn’t imagined

that one week later, she would move into a shared basement apartment with this woman called Chen Tong; that the two of them would use an old tricycle to move with the world’s greatest screenwriter, Lang Lang; or that from that day on, they would start sharing a dream that would last for a year.

Nor had she imagined that the script Lang Lang had been refining all along would be called Neon, with two heroines: one called Xiaoyu, and the other called Shu.

And that like so many young people lingering in partitioned rooms and basements in Beijing, chasing grand dreams, they would agree that ten years later they would absolutely make Neon into a film, and firmly believe—

that the film Neon

would have writer Lang Lang,

Chi Xiaoman as Xiaoyu,

and Chen Tong as Shu.

Not one of them could be missing.

Later,

the three of them pooled their money and went to a fortune-telling auntie under the overpass.

The auntie said—

The name Chi Xiaoman carried red in its fate; it shouldn’t be changed.

But Chen Tong was not a nice name.

Chen Tong; Chen Tong, it sounded too bitter.

Later still,

Chi Xiaoman landed her first role that people actually noticed. One night, she was cornered on the road by people who were chasing after her and cursing her.

No matter how nasty the other side got, she didn’t dare talk back, and she didn’t dare cry as recklessly as she used to.

Because if she was photographed, it would be called playing the victim.

Because if she talked back, it would mean she was glass-hearted and had no manners.

Even her front door was blocked.

Chi Xiaoman had no choice but to crouch by the roadside, tuck herself under her hat, and eat a bowl of egg noodles without an egg.

Then she saw a piece of news on her phone.

Inside it, a female actor had been interviewed while filming a movie, and she introduced herself to the camera openly and confidently:

“I’m an actor. Chen Yue.”

Chen Yue.

Chen Yue.

Chi Xiaoman repeated the name over and over.

Then she broke into a smile.

Chen Yue.

Chen Yue.

That might have been the only smile, during that period, that came from the heart.

Because she was genuinely happy.

And because at that time,

she made her only birthday wish of that year while staring at the bowl of egg noodles she had forgotten to add an egg to—

she hoped that the Chen Tong who had become Chen Yue would, in the future, be able to truly live up to that name every single day.

Happy every day, with no pain or suffering.

[Author’s Note]

Day six of updating Little Neon～

Here comes the familiar transition, that’s right; this book is, once again, the familiar dual-timeline structure [glasses]

As before, the ratio of past and present chapters is roughly 3:7.

And I especially, especially want to emphasize: please don’t miss the wonderful “rental apartment literature” [sunglasses]

I really love this story～so, is everyone still here [let me see]