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

the other side.

After the assistant director yelled "Filming wrapped," the whole set sprang to life.

But this "movement" is different from the "movement" of a typical film crew wrapping up filming.

When a film crew finishes filming and yells "That's it!", the extras immediately start whistling, clapping, tearing off their heavy armor, and shouting, "That's it, that's it! I'm going to have a drink tonight!"

The extras today weren't like that.

They moved, but slowly.

Old Zhang was the first to make a move.

Old Zhang is a veteran extra, over forty years old, and has been in this line of work for twenty years.

I played two roles in this production. In the early episodes, I played an old soldier from the Yongle era, and later I played one of the old eunuchs who stood by Zhu Zhanji's sickbed.

Old Zhang has scenes in the scenes depicting his serious illness.

He stood at the foot of the bed, less than two meters away from Chen Mo.

He stood still the whole time during the entire scene.

Logically speaking, extras are supposed to just stand in a position and don't need to act, but today, after he finished standing there, he couldn't straighten his back.

It's not a matter of physical strength.

For the past ten minutes, he had been feeling a tightness in his chest, a feeling he couldn't quite pinpoint its source, but at his age, he knew it was a heavy burden.

After the assistant director yelled "Wrap filming," Lao Zhang didn't move.

He just stood there.

He stood for about ten seconds before slowly squatting down. He wasn't squatting down to pick something up; he just wanted to give his back a rest.

After he squatted down, a young extra in his early twenties looked at him and squatted down next to him.

That extra's name is Xiao Zhao.

Xiao Zhao was temporarily recruited by the production team. He has been a struggling actor in Hengdian for three years. He has played a classmate in an idol drama, a fat guy eating a hamburger in a gay film, and a person riding a bicycle in two campus dramas.

Before joining the production, his understanding of the Ming Dynasty was that Zhu Yuanzhang was a murderer, Zhu Di was a war-loving maniac, and he didn't know who Zhu Zhanji was.

He plays a eunuch this time, and in the scene where Zhu Zhanji is ill, he is one of the eunuchs standing in the back row.

He was in the film crew for a year, initially because of the money.

For this young man who was working as a laborer in Hengdian, the film crew provided food and lodging for a long period of time, and the salary was paid on a daily basis. His original plan was to get through this year, save up some money, and go back to his hometown to find a partner.

As a result, he encountered problems in the first month.

It wasn't about the money; it was that he noticed everyone in the crew was quite different.

In other film crews, extras are just extras.

The director tells you to kneel, so you kneel; he tells you to run, so you run. Once the filming is over and everyone's gone, nobody cares what your character's name is, who you are, or why you died.

This group is different.

Before filming begins, the assistant director of this group will give a speech to the cast: "Today you are playing the cooks from the Northern Expedition in the twelfth year of Yongle's reign. Most of them died in the Oirat raid the next morning. You are playing the way they roasted naan bread last night."

This was the first time Xiao Zhao had heard such an explanation, and he didn't react for a moment.

He never knew that the film crew would explain such things to the extras.

From that day on, he started borrowing books from the film crew's archives.

The first book he borrowed was "Those Things About the Ming Dynasty".

He reads very slowly, only able to read thirty pages a day.

He began to suffer from insomnia when he read the volume about the Yongle Emperor.

He didn't have insomnia because he was excited by what he saw.

He did so because he had never encountered an emperor in his entire life who had devoted his entire life to fighting wars.

After finishing that book, he borrowed a second, a third, and a fourth.

By the end of the year, he was already able to argue with Lao Zhang for half an hour in the crew's canteen about whether Zheng He's voyages to the West were a losing proposition.

Old Zhang, an experienced extra, usually didn't pay much attention to the younger guys like Xiao Zhao, but after that argument, he treated him to a bowl of braised pork from the crew's canteen.

Old Zhang, holding his rice bowl, said to him, "Kid, this trip wasn't in vain."

That night, when Xiao Zhao returned to his dormitory, he pulled out the half-read "History of Ming" from under his bed and started rereading it from the beginning.

In that year, he went from a young man from out of town in Beijing who didn't know who Zhu Zhanji was to someone who could discuss with others "why the Prince of Han rebelled in the first year of the Xuande reign".

He himself was unaware of this change.

He suddenly realized it when the assistant director shouted "Wrap filming" today.

He squatted down next to Old Zhang.

Neither of them spoke.

After about half a minute, Xiao Zhao spoke.

He kept his voice very low.

"Brother Zhang."

"Um."

"I'm a little reluctant to part with it."

Old Zhang didn't respond to his question. He just hummed in response.

Xiao Zhao continued.

"It's not that I'm reluctant to see the filming end, it's that I'm reluctant to let it go..."

He paused for a moment, unable to find the right words.

Finally, he uttered a sentence that even he himself found a bit pretentious.

"I can't bear to see Zhu Zhanji gone."

He blushed a little after saying that, realizing he had said something rather silly.

Old Zhang didn't say "um" this time.

After five seconds, Lao Zhang replied with a single sentence.

"Kid, Zhu Zhanji is long gone."

Xiao Zhao was stunned.

Old Zhang continued: "He died in 1435 AD, which is 588 years ago today."

"Um."

"We see him gone today because we thought he was alive for the past year."

Xiao Zhao stared at Lao Zhang.

He had read so many books that year, he knew that what Old Zhang said was right.

Zhu Zhanji died 588 years ago in history.

He felt that Zhu Zhanji was still alive that year because the 24-year-old actor in the crew brought Zhu Zhanji back to life.

That actor finished his performance today.

So Zhu Zhanji died again.

Xiao Zhao squatted on the ground, feeling an even heavier weight on his chest.

On the other side, Lao Zhou stood outside the dressing room.

Old Zhou is the most senior extra in this crew. He's sixty years old and has been in the industry for thirty years. He's been acting since the 1980s and has played roles in so many dynasties that he can't even count them all.

This time, he played two old ministers from the reign of Zhu Di and an old eunuch from the reign of Zhu Zhanji. The three roles had few scenes in total, but each of them had to kneel.

It's already quite remarkable that he can get this kind of work at his age.

He didn't participate in the final scene depicting his serious illness today.

His filming wrapped up two days ago.

But he came today, standing outside the dressing room.

He didn't change his clothes.

He was still wearing the same casual clothes that he wore two days ago as an old Ming Dynasty official.

He couldn't bear to take off those clothes.

He has worn too many costumes from film crews this year, but this one is the one he feels most comfortable wearing.

He stood leaning against the wall, waiting.

He was waiting for Chen Mo to come out from inside.

When Chen Mo came out of the dressing room after removing her makeup, it was already past nine o'clock at night.

He was wearing his casual clothes, a thin black down jacket, and his face still had a slight redness from not completely removing his makeup.

He didn't notice Lao Zhou when he went out.

Old Zhou called out to him.

"Teacher Chen."

Chen Mo turned around and saw the old man standing by the wall, and paused for a moment.

He knew Lao Zhou.

That year, he bumped into this senior colleague a few times in the dressing room. Each time, he nodded and greeted him, but they never had a deep conversation.

Chen Mo walked over.

"Teacher Zhou."

Old Zhou smiled at him, a smile that contained a mixture of weariness, reluctance, and a touch of inexplicable pride.

"Teacher Chen, I'm here to wait for you today, I won't disturb you."

"Teacher Zhou, please speak."

Old Zhou thought for a moment, but didn't speak immediately. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket.

The paper was torn from one of his old notebooks; it was yellowed and the edges were curled. A line of text was written on it in pen.

He handed the paper to Chen Mo.

Chen Mo took it and looked at it.

The paper had a line of old writing on it.

"On the third day of the first month of the tenth year of Xuande's reign, the emperor fell ill and died in the Qianqing Palace."

Just this one line.

The last sentence of the "Annals of Emperor Xuanzong" in the History of Ming.

Chen Mo looked at the line without saying a word.

Old Zhou spoke.

"Teacher Chen, I have been in this field for thirty years and I have been reading the History of Ming for more than twenty years. In the past, every time I came to this field, I would just move on."

"This one line is in the book, just this one line."

"Today, in my sixty years of life, this is the first time I've felt the weight of these words."

"It was so heavy that I couldn't even walk away from the dressing room just now."

Chen Mo looked at Lao Zhou but didn't reply.

He didn't know what to say.

Old Zhou continued on his own.

"Teacher Chen, I'm not here to give you anything or ask for your autograph. I just want to tell you something."

"Um."

"When I read the History of Ming again in the future, when I come across this line, I will remember the moment you looked up today."

"That sudden upward glance created a space in this line of text."

"For the rest of my life, whenever I see this line of text, that empty space will always be there."

After saying this, Lao Zhou was stunned for a moment.

He never expected these words to come from the mouth of an old extra like him.

Chen Mo looked at him, and after a while, nodded to him.

He didn't say "Thank you, Teacher Zhou," nor did he say "You flatter me."

He simply nodded.

He knew that nod wasn't enough, but he also knew that Old Zhou didn't want more.

Chen Mo returned the paper to Lao Zhou.

Old Zhou waved his hand.

"Teacher Chen, please keep this. I tore this paper from my notebook in 1989. I just keep it in my drawer. Here, take it."

Chen Mo caught the paper.

He nodded: "Thank you, Teacher Zhou."

Old Zhou patted his arm.

Neither of them said anything more, and Old Zhou turned and left.

Chen Mo stood in the corridor outside the dressing room, holding the piece of paper in his hand.

He looked down and glanced at that line of text again.

He may never forget this line of text in his entire life.

It's not because the line of text itself is heavy.

It was because there was a 60-year-old extra who had read this book for over 20 years in his life, and today, because of a 20-second scene featuring Chen Mo, he felt that this line of text was so heavy that he couldn't just walk away.

This is an acknowledgment of his talent as a junior.

This also motivates Chen Mo to strive to become the "good actor" he envisions.

The more expectations he carries, the more he can examine himself at every moment.

Making money through acting is important, but so is ensuring that good stories are passed down.

Chen Mo folded the paper and put it into the inside pocket of his coat.

He didn't say much.

He walked towards the exit of the film set.

As he reached the exit, he heard a noise in the distance.

In the distance, on the film set, extras were walking towards the actors' passageway.

They didn't speak.

These extras are always making a racket as soon as filming wraps up. They shout, laugh, joke, fight, and grab each other by the neck, asking, "Where are we going for drinks today?"

No one is causing trouble today.

They slowly walked out.

Martial arts director Zhao stood at the entrance of the passageway, intending to say a few words to the assistant who was collecting the cameras, but the words were stuck in his throat. He was also stunned for a moment, as he was not usually the type to hold back his words.

He turned his head and glanced at the lights on the set in the distance.

The lights in the decorated room of the West Warm Pavilion in the Qianqing Palace were still on.

After the last scene was filmed, the lights were still on.

Martial arts director Zhao looked at the lamp without saying a word.

He turned his head and shouted.

"Don't turn off the light yet."

The worker collecting the lights was stunned.

"Brother Zhao?"

"Don't turn it off yet, let it stay on for a while."

The worker nodded.

Martial arts director Zhao turned and left.

He didn't know why he gave that order, but for a moment he felt a surge of anger if the light were turned off.

Let the light stay on a little longer.

Just for a little while.