Huayu: Starting with Xiang Yu, the Hegemon of Western Chu

When Chen Mo walked into the set, the sky was just right.

Luo Yifeng watched Chen Mo walk into the warm pavilion from the monitoring shed.

He saw the way Chen Mo walked, said nothing, and put down the cup of tea in his hand.

Liang Guanhua and Wang Xueqi were both on set today.

These two veteran actors requested this themselves.

Their scenes were finished a long time ago.

I'm not here for work.

The two of them stood at the back of the monitoring tent.

Both of them were dressed casually; Wang Xueqi wore a dark gray jacket, and Liang Guanhua wore a black cotton-padded coat.

Neither of them spoke.

They are waiting.

Chen Mo lay down on the bed.

The bed was covered with a coarse cloth quilt, which was really old. The props team found it in the warehouse of an old film crew. It was about 80 or 90 percent new, and although it had been washed once, it still had the marks of being used.

When Chen Mo lay down, he felt a slight sinking sensation as his body sank into the blankets.

His right hand stretched out from under the blanket, resting on the low table and on the open memorial.

His left hand was pressed against his chest.

A person with long-term cardiopulmonary disease will unconsciously press their left hand against their chest.

Luo Yifeng pressed the intercom.

"The West Warm Pavilion of Qianqing Palace, the last scene."

"Action!"

There was complete silence.

The room was filled only with winter light, which filtered in through the paper windowpane of the west window.

The light shone on the bed and on Chen Mo's face.

Chen Mo's face appeared ashen in the light.

This grayish-blue color isn't from makeup; it's the color that naturally appears when grayish-yellow light shines on a face with grayish-blue makeup.

This color is similar.

Everyone in the monitoring booth saw it.

This color looks like someone who is really about to die.

Chen Mo's right hand was moving.

He held a calligraphy brush in his right hand. This brush was specially made by the props team and was half the weight of a normal calligraphy brush.

The props team thought that when Zhu Zhanji was seriously ill, his hands were weak, so they would make the pen lighter so that the actor's hand trembling would appear more natural.

But Chen Mo's hand didn't tremble.

His right hand rested firmly on the memorial.

He looked down at the memorial.

This time it took six seconds.

In six seconds, Chen Mo's eyes scanned several lines of text on the memorial.

His gaze slowly shifted from focused to unfocused, then returned to focused.

This is the true state of mind of someone who has been seriously ill for a long time when looking at things.

The gaze cannot be maintained.

Chen Mo managed to portray this state within those six seconds.

Six seconds later, he raised his hand and dipped it into the inkstone on the table.

The inkstone contains real ink.

The ink has been ground; it was ground by the props team this morning.

After dipping his brush in ink, Chen Mo paused the tip of his brush on the edge of the inkstone.

He needs to write a reply.

According to the script, he was supposed to write one word on that memorial: "Approved".

Chen Mo had written this character before; the night before, he had practiced it more than twenty times in his room with the same pen.

Today he's not going to write the character "允" from the exercise.

Today he wrote the character "允" (Yǔn), written by a thirty-seven-year-old emperor whose heart and lungs could no longer hold on, in the final stage of his life.

His pen tip landed on the paper.

The first stroke.

He writes slowly.

The second stroke.

When he made the second stroke, his hand began to tremble.

This shake wasn't a performance.

Chen Mo lay on the bed with his head slightly raised, his left hand pressed against his chest, and his right hand hovering above the memorial. He had maintained this posture for nearly five minutes.

If a 24-year-old maintains this posture, their hands will start to shake after five minutes.

This is the body's true reaction.

Chen Mo did not try to suppress the tremor.

He captured that tremor in the shot.

The second stroke revealed a wavy, uneven mark.

The third stroke.

He stopped halfway through writing the third stroke.

His hand hovered over the memorial.

He did not continue writing.

He raised his head.

His eyes weren't looking at anything; he just raised his head and looked in the direction of the roof beams.

The moment he looked up, everyone who saw him knew.

This emperor is tired.

It's not that my body is tired, it's that my whole being has endured for over thirty years, and now I can't hold on any longer.

Chen Mo didn't use any exaggerated expressions to portray this "can't hold on any longer" state.

He simply raised his head and looked at the roof beams.

There were no tears in his eyes.

His lips didn't move.

He did nothing.

But everyone who saw it saw in his head that the weight of an emperor who had endured for over thirty years was fully revealed.

The back row of the monitoring shed.

Wang Xueqi's hand rested on the back of the chair, his knuckles turning slightly white.

Liang Guanhua didn't speak; his eyes were fixed on the screen.

Front row of the monitoring shed.

Luo Yifeng's right hand was on the walkie-talkie, but he didn't press it.

He told Chen Mo to continue.

Chen Mo looked up for about eight seconds.

Eight seconds later, he looked down.

He did not continue writing the character "允".

He put down the brush.

This action wasn't in the script; the script said, "After Zhu Zhanji finished writing 'Yun,' he put down his pen and died."

Chen Mo hadn't finished approving the applications.

He put down his pen.

With the last bit of strength he had, a man who had been seriously ill for a long time, he placed the pen beside the inkstone.

When I put the pen down, the tip touched the inkstone, making a very soft "ding" sound.

The "ding" was clearly audible through the microphone in the monitoring booth.

Wang Xueqi, sitting in the back of the monitoring shed, grunted in response.

He didn't make a sound, but the people around him heard it.

The meaning behind Wang Xueqi's "hmm" is self-evident.

Chen Mo put down his pen.

He closed his eyes.

His breathing began to slow.

From steady breathing, it gradually becomes lighter breathing, and then becomes a barely audible breathing.

He acted in this scene for about a minute.

No one spoke in the monitoring booth.

The winter sun slanted through the paper windowpane of the west window and onto the bed.

The emperor's chest heaved less and less on the bed.

The incense in the bronze censer in the room was still burning, and the smoke from the censer drifted upwards, carrying a faint sandalwood scent.

Taste, light, and sound—all three elements are perfect.

The camera on the main unit in the monitoring booth slowly zoomed in.

The camera pans from Chen Mo's full body as he lies down to his upper body, and then to his face.

As he pushed the cloth onto his face, Chen Mo let out a final breath.

That's when I can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

My chest stopped rising and falling.

The entire room fell silent for about ten seconds.

Luo Yifeng pressed the intercom.

His voice was so hoarse that it was almost inaudible.

"Pass."

No one moved.

Logically, upon hearing the word "pass," the crew should immediately start packing up, but they didn't today.

It took about ten seconds for the assistant director to realize what was happening.

He raised the clapperboard, ready to shout his final words.

He opened his mouth, but his voice went hoarse halfway through shouting, "The entire crew of 'The Bright Moon Over the Mountains' has wrapped filming."

The assistant director hasn't cried on set in over a year.

He almost cried today.

He cleared his throat again and finished shouting the sentence.

"The entire cast and crew of 'The Brightest Moon Over the Mountains' have wrapped filming!"

The entire audience then began to move.

Martial arts director Zhao patted the shoulder of a stuntman next to him.

Makeup artist Sister Lin turned around and stood against the wall for a moment.

The girl with glasses in the archives walked over from a distance, her eyes red.

Inside the monitoring shed.

Wang Xueqi turned to look at Liang Guanhua.

Liang Guanhua looked at him.

The two stared at each other for three seconds.

Wang Xueqi spoke first.

"Old Liang."

"Um."

"We're getting old."

Liang Guanhua smiled.

"There's nothing I can do, Lao Wang. New talents emerge in every generation."

Wang Xueqi also smiled.

He didn't say anything more.

He walked out of the monitoring booth and headed towards the filming location.

He wanted to go outside the film set for a smoke.

He doesn't smoke, but he brought a pack of cigarettes with him to the film crew this year, and he's going to smoke one today.

In the set design.

Chen Mo sat up in bed.

He first removed the thin, damp towel from his head, which was meant to make him look sickly, and then slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.

He sat there for about half a minute.

He did not get up immediately.

After he finished performing that minute-long "breathing getting lighter and lighter" act, his body was exhausted.

He sat on the edge of the bed and took a glass of warm water from the makeup artist, Sister Lin.

He took a sip.

After finishing his drink, he looked up at the west-facing window.

The sky outside the window had completely darkened.

The light is gone.

Luo Yifeng walked out of the monitoring booth and into the set.

He didn't speak.

He walked up to Chen Mo and patted Chen Mo on the shoulder.

Chen Mo looked up at him.

Luo Yifeng looked at him, and after a few seconds, he spoke.

"Xiao Chen."

"Um."

Filming has wrapped.

Chen Mo nodded.

"Um."

Luo Yifeng patted him again.

This beat is a little heavier than the first beat.

After filming, Luo Yifeng turned and left the set.

Chen Mo sat on the edge of the bed without moving, looking down at his right hand that had just put down the pen.

The fingers are still there.

The character "允" was written halfway through, and the ink on the memorial was still wet, leaving a wavy mark.

He stared at the unfinished character.

I watched for a while.

He said a sentence to that word in his heart.

That sentence was not said aloud.

This sentence is...

Zhu Zhanji, you've come this far. You don't need to hold on any longer.

He raised his head.

He stood up from the bedside, still wearing his robe, and walked toward the dressing room.

As soon as he stood up, the feeling of being seriously ill began to slowly recede from his body.

The retreat was slow.

By the time he reached the doorway of the dressing room, his shoulders had already relaxed.

He pushed open the door to the dressing room.

Sister Lin was standing inside.

When Sister Lin saw him, she opened her mouth but didn't say anything.

She took the long robe from him.

Chen Mo sat down in the makeup chair.

He was looking in the mirror.

The grayish-blue face in the mirror was Zhu Zhanji's face.

Sister Lin picked up a makeup remover pad.

She started rubbing from Chen Mo's brow bone downwards.

The grayish-blue color was wiped away layer by layer.

After wiping away the grime, Chen Mo's face was visible underneath.

Twenty-four years old.

A twenty-four-year-old face slowly emerged from beneath Zhu Zhanji's face.

Sister Lin stopped wiping halfway through.

She silently hummed in her mind.

She has been in the industry for over a decade, and today is the last time she has ever done makeup, the one she is most reluctant to remove.

But once filming is finished, the makeup has to be removed.

She continued wiping.

With the last stroke, Zhu Zhanji's face was completely gone.

What remains in the mirror is Chen Mo.