Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 422 The Transmigrator's "Existential Paradox"

The halo of light from the crystal chandelier spread a warm yellow across the dining table, and the silver tableware reflected the soft light, like a layer of tiny stars sprinkled on it.

Liu Yifei's fingertips danced lightly across the phone screen, and the corners of her mouth unconsciously turned up, her smile as radiant as the apricot blossoms just beginning to bloom on the branches in March.

Watching her boyfriend gently sweep up the broken porcelain shards and return to the table, she couldn't help but playfully complain, "This is a gift Changchang gave me! It's called a commemorative cup with a lotus scroll design, and it's a limited edition. You just spat one of them out like this."

Is it valuable?

"I don't know. She said it was sourced from Jingdezhen when the movie 'Lotus Lantern' was filmed. The porcelain body is made of some kind of Yaoli kaolin clay, and the underglaze blue decoration features a lotus scroll pattern."

Lu Kuan laughed and asked, "What did you return to her?"

"A Hermes bag costs tens of thousands of yuan."

"Then you'll suffer a small loss."

Xiao Liu asked incredulously, "You understand this?"

"I don't know much about porcelain, but I do know a little about painting. There are many national-level painters in the Olympic creative team."

He picked up the porcelain plate in his hand and examined it carefully: "Master craftsmen from Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province usually use Zhejiang materials to paint lotus flowers, emphasizing seven parts green and three parts purple. Yours looks a bit dull."

"However, the firing process looks quite good."

Liu Yifei covered her mouth and laughed: "I was tricked by that vixen Xiaoyu. I'll have to get my revenge next time."

“Your gift exchange is like browsing for things at Panjiayuan Market. Su Chang gives you a small handicraft, and you estimate the value and give her a gift in return.”

"If it's too much, you're just being naive; if it's too little, you're getting a bargain. It's not a scam."

Mr. Lu held the soup bowl and blew on the boiling water: "But if you want to get a good deal, you should get it back. That's a matter of principle."

"Nonsense!" Liu Yifei scolded, then began to slowly sip her soup while replying to messages from her friends.

Mr. Lu quietly sipped his soup, his eyes downcast. A few lighthearted jokes had calmed him down a bit, but the heavy gloom in his heart lingered.

He tapped the porcelain spoon lightly on the rim of the bowl, then lowered his eyes and stirred the clear broth inside.

Chef Qiao used a year-old hen and Jinhua ham to simmer a clear broth for three hours. At this moment, two fresh goji berries were floating on top of it, but they looked like congealed blood beads.

With a flick of his wrist, a slender strand of snow-white meat, freshly picked from the crab leg that morning, gleamed like pearls under the light. But even with his mind filled with thoughts of national tragedy, Lu Kuan found it hard to swallow.

Lu Kuan looked up and saw his girlfriend sipping her soup, the warm yellow light casting a soft glaze on her porcelain-white cheeks.

A wisp of hair slipped from behind her ear, falling to her cheek as she tilted her head slightly, its luster like ebony.

She seemed to sense her boyfriend's gaze. When she looked up, her pupils still held a lingering smile, and the natural upward curve of her eyes resembled a delicate, flowing stroke in a traditional Chinese painting of a lady.

"What's wrong? Are you having a bad appetite today? You usually drink several bowls of wine."

"Oh, I ate a lot at the Olympic Building cafeteria at noon, so I'm not too hungry yet."

Liu Yifei had no suspicions; little did she know that she had stirred up a storm in his heart.
The two took their usual stroll in the manor, but the delightful spring twilight that Xiao Liu saw was completely different from the man she was walking arm in arm with.

The newly sprouted buds of the Chinese tallow tree shivered in the chilly evening wind, and the crystal wind chimes hanging among the branches occasionally made a few dull thuds, like blunt instruments striking Lu Kuanxin's heart.

He walked along the cobblestone path, hearing a faint cracking sound under his feet. The buried drip irrigation system was seeping water, and the gurgling sound mixed with the mechanical roar of the unfinished area on the opposite bank of the Wenyu River, like some kind of restrained sob.

Xiao Liu blurted out, "Today actually really shocked me. I'm starting to understand what you've been doing."

"Huh? What am I doing?"

“The power of film, the power of cultural products.” Liu Yifei pondered, “You previously talked about the cultural export brought by Korean films and TV dramas, and the cultural and commercial dumping brought by Hollywood films.”

“At the time, I didn’t have a deep understanding of it, but today, because of the popularity of ‘History’ in Europe and around the world, it has inspired so many Westerners who might have been spectators or even indifferent to us to stand up at this moment, which is truly shocking.”

The night wind howled, causing Liu Yifei to snuggle closer to her boyfriend: "What would have happened today if this movie hadn't been made?"

"Pretty much," Boss Lu said with a smile. "Even if the French authorities have ulterior motives, they don't dare to make a big fuss; they're just trying to annoy us."

"Compared to other cultural products, film is the most penetrating cultural medium. It transcends language barriers and touches people's hearts directly. When people laugh and cry for the characters on the screen, they are also unconsciously accepting the cultural background and values ​​represented by those characters."

"This kind of subtle, gradual change is terrifying."

"If viewed from a conspiracy theory perspective, Titanic uses a love story to cover up class conflict and promote their Western-style romance. I don't know when it started, but celebrating Christmas and Western Valentine's Day has become a trend in China."

"What about The Matrix? It uses philosophical thinking to package technological hegemony, establishes America's technological power around the world, and increases the willingness of other countries' technological talents to go to the United States."

"The Pursuit of Happyness tells a story of underdogs rising to success, which is used to instill the American Dream and the dream of hard work in everyone's heart. If you encounter personal and social conflicts like Will Smith, please first consider whether you have not worked hard enough?"

Liu Yifei was dumbfounded. She couldn't help but think of many classic films she had seen. Did they all carry such cultural and political missions?
Lu Kuan laughed and said, "I was exaggerating. Most of the impact is objective. The main purpose of entertainment-oriented commercial cultural products is still to make a profit."

"But this is far more serious than deliberate cultural invasion. In an age of entertainment to the death, ordinary viewers are easily brainwashed."

“If a film like ‘The Sky of History’ is used for political propaganda, it would be too blatant. The conditions for dissemination are not good enough. If we want to export our culture and national spirit, we still need to ‘edutainment’.”

To give a very clear example:

Hideo Kojima created the Metal Gear series, which contains virtually no Japanese culture, except for Japanese voice acting and some anime posters that Kojima himself included.

Metal Gear Solid was the first stealth game to implement cinematic storytelling, and foreign players were drawn in by its entertainment value.

They followed Hideo Kojima, then his Twitter and daily life, and then became interested in the country and culture he lived in before trying to follow and accept him. Kojima's own game development style also inspired the industry to learn from him. Ubisoft quickly created the Splinter Cell series, which is also a stealth game with cinematic storytelling. Moreover, Splinter Cell 3 gave the Japanese a lot of screen time, even though they were mainly villains.

Fisher's scene, in which he handles a samurai sword with such a respectful and serious demeanor, makes viewers exclaim that he's a Japanophile.

"Yes, just like Dragon Ball." Liu Yifei recalled the Japanese anime elements she saw most often abroad.

"When I first came to the United States to attend junior high school, I was bullied by two white students, a boy and a girl, just because I said that Sun Wukong was from China, but unfortunately no one believed me."

Dragon Ball premiered in North America in 1996, and in 1999, its theme song even made it onto the Billboard Hot Anime Songs chart. Sales of toys, cards, and other merchandise exceeded hundreds of millions of dollars.

When Xiao Liu went to the United States with Liu Xiaoli, it was during the years when "Dragon Ball" was all the rage in North America.

"So when the Wolong base contacted me to inquire about my interest in becoming a public welfare spokesperson, I immediately agreed. DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda is going to be released in May, and if I don't promote it myself, it will all belong to someone else!"

The Kung Fu Panda project was initiated in 2003, initially inspired by the idea of ​​"combining Chinese kung fu with American comedy". Hong Kong action director Yuen Woo-ping was invited to serve as the martial arts design consultant.

The entire project underwent five years of technological research and development and patient refinement, and finally became a global sensation, becoming a classic DreamWorks IP.

It's a real shame that such a cultural treasure, with Chinese kung fu at its core and giant pandas as its medium, was ultimately brought to the world by Hollywood creators rather than Chinese creators.

When DreamWorks spent five years transforming "kung fu" and "panda," two of the most recognizable symbols of the East, into a global cultural phenomenon, it reflected the structural dilemma of contemporary Chinese cultural export.

We possess rich mineral resources accumulated over five thousand years of civilization, yet we repeatedly relinquish mining rights to others.

Fortunately, in this era of Chinese cinema, a time traveler's rallying cry may awaken everyone's awareness ahead of time and help us find the direction for our cultural industrialization process and cultural export.

However, the time traveler was clearly somewhat distracted at the moment, and astutely took advantage of Liu Yifei's mention of the giant panda to continue the conversation.

What kind of public welfare endorsement did Yang Siwei get for you?

"Well, being an ambassador for the giant panda conservation base means helping them promote giant panda-themed tourism and related products. I'm just responsible for filming a commercial and posting it on social media from time to time."

Boss Lu seemed completely uninterested, and casually asked a question that naturally changed the subject: "You told Su Chang and Hu Ge that you were coming to my house to practice singing?"

"Yes! I was still thinking about what to sing at the company's annual party!" Xiao Liu walked a few steps quickly with a bright smile to inspect her elderly mother's small garden.

She walked ahead, her hair streaked with fallen cherry blossom petals. Suddenly, as she turned, the hem of her skirt brushed against the newly planted cosmos flowers along the path.

Those were planted by Liu Xiaoli herself last month, and now they are bent over by the night dew, their flower heads drooping like mourning candles.

The so-called "candlelight for mourning" is such a desolate image, which is a true reflection of Lu Kuan's inner feelings after confirming Liu Yifei's itinerary for next month.

What can I do?

It's easy to lure the tiger away from the mountain; you can just make up any excuse. But it's very difficult to make one that's completely convincing.

Since they first met in 2001, Lu Kuan and Liu Yifei's relationship has long transcended the realm of ordinary lovers, becoming a deep connection at the level of soul.

This connection is not merely an emotional dependence, but an entanglement of memories, secrets, and future destiny.

The time traveler attempted to use a "luring the tiger away from the mountain" tactic to cover up the truth, but Liu Yifei's understanding of him was so profound that any deliberate lie would be riddled with loopholes under her keen observation.

Moreover, two months ago at the Berlin Film Festival, when Xiao Liu asked the editor-in-chief of "Sight & Sound" about the imagery of loneliness in his films, the time traveler Lu Kuan was already on alert.

He knew he was at risk of being exposed in the dark forest, which was his trump card and his greatest secret in life.

For Liu Yifei, whether it was the tombstone, his delirious ramblings, or the countless details and moments they shared over the past eight years, they all formed a blurry puzzle in her subconscious.

But the core question is: can a time traveler perfectly conceal their identity?
Lonely travelers often encounter an "existential paradox": unless they become isolated observers, their hearts sealed in concrete, they will inevitably find themselves drawn into and integrated into this world—

For example, someone like Liu Yifei, who spent seven years and went through countless twists and turns to warm up a stubborn rock, would inevitably encounter the conflict between emotional needs and the secrecy of her identity.

Lu Kuan was certainly lonely, just like that drunken night in Italy. He would instinctively rely on his partner for emotional support, and this desire to confide and trust gave rise to "selective confession".

This would make it impossible to completely conceal his tracks, because his close relationship with Liu Yifei itself is a deconstruction of the identity of the "lonely time traveler".

His predicament perfectly illustrates the ultimate tragedy of time travelers: the more one yearns for a real connection, the more one exposes the fabricated nature of the past.

Now, this lone time traveler faces the ultimate challenge since his arrival: how to launch this "hurricane rescue" at the risk of exposure?
Lu Kuan stood in the twilight, feeling as if he were being torn in two—

Half of it was the rationality of a time traveler, warning him to be cautious, or he would encounter the unknown.

Half of it was his lover's instinct. Looking at Liu Yifei, who was crouching down and crawling out of the flower room, he knew that this might be his destiny.

Liu Yifei carefully held a few newly blooming pink roses in her arms. The edges of the petals were still covered with night dew, which reflected a shimmering halo under the lamplight, making her fingertips appear even whiter and more like jade.

"A few fell off, so I picked them up and tied them up. Isn't it pretty?"

"This rose variety is called 'Pink Dragon Jewel,' and it's a cutting brought from Changping. My mom treasures it so much. She records the amount of sunlight it gets every day, specially brought in humus soil to improve it, and even numbered each one..."

Boss Lu listened patiently to the incessant chatter of the beautiful young woman in front of him, whose smile was like fireworks suddenly blooming in the twilight, her eyes filled with pure joy.

But this bright and cheerful scene that used to delight him now felt like a dull knife scraping against his nerves.

The purer her smile, the more it made his heart bleed.

The way the rose trembled in her arms seemed to be a manifestation of fate's mockery; every dew-kissed petal reminded him that the tender, vibrant life he was about to encounter the unknown.

There isn't much time left for him.

(End of this chapter)