Huayu: I rely on hit-movie tactics to interweave...

Chapter 69 Questioning the Heart

The next day, Liu Yu had a farewell dinner with his colleagues from the film crew in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Sammo Hung drank a few beers, his face flushed, and he became much more talkative than usual. He took Liu Yu's hand and said, "Director Liu, after this movie is finished, if anyone bullies you in Hong Kong, just mention my name."

Liu Yu smiled and nodded, thinking to himself, "Teacher Hong, your influence is indeed very useful in Hong Kong, but who can I possibly offend?"

Luo Jin was also there, and he drank more than usual, his eyes were red.

Luo Jin drank a couple more glasses than usual, then fell asleep on the table.

Back at the hotel, after taking a shower, Liu Yu lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.

It wasn't because of the time difference, but because there was a string in my heart that had been stretched taut for more than half a year, from the preparation of "The Witch" to the start of filming to the wrap-up, that string never let down.

Now that filming is over, that string suddenly snapped, and I feel empty, as if something has been pulled away from me.

He lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, where a square light was embedded in a white chandelier, surrounded by a halo of dark yellow light, like a quiet period.

He picked up his phone and scrolled through it.

Zhong Lifang sent a message saying that her plane ticket back to Beijing had been booked, for 11 a.m. the day after tomorrow.

Liu Yu stared at the line of text for a few seconds, then made a decision that even surprised himself.

He put down his phone, picked it up again, and replied to Zhong Lifang: "Sister Zhong, let's cancel the plane ticket. I want to go somewhere else and return to Beijing later."

Chung Lai-fang replied instantly: "Where to?"

Liu Yu thought for a moment and typed three words: "Russia".

Then he added, "Don't tell anyone."

Zhong Lifang sent a string of question marks, "Boss, are you alright? Russia? What are you doing in Russia all by yourself?"

Liu Yu replied with three words: "Take pictures."

Zhong Lifang was silent for a moment, then replied, "Okay, be careful."

The next morning, Liu Yu checked out of the hotel, carrying his old backpack and dragging a small suitcase, and boarded a flight to Moscow.

He fell asleep with his head resting against the window on the plane, and when he woke up, they had already landed in Moscow.

He didn't linger, but took a domestic flight to Murmansk, Russia's northernmost ice-free port city, within the Arctic Circle, where winter temperatures are typically minus thirty degrees Celsius. All you can see are vast expanses of white snow, a hazy sky, and the occasional aurora borealis.

Liu Yu rented a Raptor pickup truck at the airport, strapped snow chains to the tires, and filled the truck bed with camping gear, photography equipment, food, and water.

He didn't have a specific destination, only a general direction: drive north until there was no road, then stop there and wait for the aurora.

The outskirts of Murmansk are an endless snowfield.

White dominated the entire field of vision; the sky was grayish-white, and the ground was pure white, with no transition in between.

Liu Yu found a high spot, slightly elevated, with a wide view, perfect for watching the aurora.

He parked the car, set up the tent, mounted the camera, pointed the lens at the northern sky, and then sat inside the tent, staring blankly at the snow outside.

The first week is the adjustment period.

Every morning when he wakes up, the first thing he does is check the camera battery and film, then boil water, cook instant noodles, or heat up a can of food.

After noon, he would go out for a walk, wearing a thick down jacket and snow boots, trudging through knee-deep snow. When he got tired, he would stop, look at the distant mountain ridges, the snow-covered bushes nearby, and the birds that occasionally flew by in the sky.

Once he walked so far that when he looked back, the tent was just a tiny black dot.

He stood there, surrounded by a silence as if a mute button had been pressed; even the wind sounded muffled.

He suddenly remembered a saying: "Everything has cracks, that's how the light gets in."

He couldn't remember who said it, but he felt that the sentence was quite appropriate here.

This snowfield itself is a crack, and he stands in the crack, waiting for the light.

He started to get bored in the second week.

The camera kept rolling, but the aurora never appeared.

Sometimes at night, a faint green light appears on the horizon, but it quickly dissipates, like someone who hasn't woken up yet turning over in their dream and falling asleep again.

Liu Yu lay in the tent, watching the game on his phone, playing level after level until his fingers were frozen stiff, and he had to put his hands into his sleeping bag to warm them up for a while.

He recalled that when he was studying at the Beijing Film Academy, he felt unbearably cold in Beijing when the winter temperature dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius. If someone had told him back then that he would be playing video games in the Arctic Circle in the freezing cold, he would definitely have thought that person was out of their mind.

He got used to it by the third week.

I've gotten used to shoveling snow off the top of my tent every morning, used to cooking instant noodles wrapped in my sleeping bag, and used to squatting on the ground waiting for the aurora until 2 a.m. only to see nothing.

He found himself noticing details he wouldn't normally pay attention to: the snow on the tent fabric melting into water droplets and then freezing into ice crystals, which would shatter at the touch of a finger, making a soft, crackling sound, like shards of glass falling to the ground.

The withered grass on the ground poked its head out from the snow, dry and stiff, yet it still stood upright in the far northern daylight.

He captured these details, using both a camera and his mind.

He doesn't know if he'll ever look at this footage again, but he feels that what he's filmed is like money he's saved up; he doesn't necessarily have to spend it.

One day in the fourth week, while he was cooking instant noodles, he suddenly remembered something.

He hadn't thought about his past life for a long time.

In the first few years after his rebirth, his mind was filled with memories of his past life, like an endless book, with every page reminding him of his past.

You've lived an extra lifetime, so you know things that others don't. You should use those things.

At that time, all his decisions were driven by self-interest. He calculated the gains and risks of every step, as if he were playing a game of chess where he could only win and not lose.

Now, he sits here, in the Arctic Circle, holding a bowl of instant noodles. The steam from the noodle soup quickly dissipates in the minus thirty degree air, turning into a cloud of white mist before disappearing.

He suddenly realized that those things from his past life were no longer important.

He is no longer the young man reborn with over forty years of memories. He is now a twenty-six-year-old director who has made four films, earned some money, had a relationship, broken up once, and is now sitting here, waiting for a ray of light.

He smiled and felt that his idea was a bit pretentious, but there was nothing wrong with it.

In the fifth week, he began to interact with the local residents.

The town of Murmansk is not crowded; most of the residents are fishermen and hunters, along with a few tourists like him who come to see the aurora borealis.

He chatted with the shopkeeper for a few minutes while buying something at the only small shop in town.

The proprietress was a Russian woman in her fifties, plump, with a face reddened by the wind, and when she smiled, you could see bits of meat stuck between her teeth.

She couldn't speak English, and Liu Yu couldn't speak Russian. The two communicated through gestures, like two people who couldn't speak the same language performing a silent film.

When he left the convenience store, he felt that his communication with the proprietress was smoother than his communication with some film producers.

He changed the tires on that Raptor twice.

The first time was because one of the tires was punctured. The owner of the only repair shop in town was a young man in his early twenties with a beard and wearing earmuffs. He liked to hum songs while working, and he hummed those fast-paced Russian folk songs.

Liu Yu can't understand the lyrics, but he can remember the melody.

The second tire change was because he wanted to drive further north, where the road was more difficult. The shopkeeper gave him a set of thicker anti-skid tires and also added a tow rope to the truck bed.

Liu Yu thought to himself, "The people here may look rugged, but they are very meticulous."

In the sixth week, the aurora finally arrived.

That night, Liu Yu was cooking instant noodles. The water had just boiled, and he hadn't even put the instant noodle cake in yet, when he caught something flash by out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his head and saw a faint green hue seeping out from the northern horizon.

He didn't move immediately, but waited five seconds to make sure it wasn't an illusion.

Five seconds later, the green became even darker, like a piece of silk being blown open by the wind, slowly spreading across the sky, with a faint hint of purple at the edges, like an unevenly mixed color in a watercolor painting.

Liu Yu put down the instant noodles, turned on the camera, adjusted the focus and aperture, then leaned against the tent and looked at the sky.

The aurora lasted for nearly forty minutes.

It started out green, like a flowing river; then it turned purple and pink, like an overturned palette of paints; finally it turned back to green, slowly fading until it disappeared completely.

Liu Yu didn't keep his eyes glued to the camera. He sat on the snow, tilted his head back, and let the aurora light shine on his face.

The light was soft, like the moon filtered through silk; it had no temperature, but it made people feel warm.

After the aurora dissipated, Liu Yu cooked and ate instant noodles.

The noodles were already a bit soggy from soaking, but they were still delicious, especially the soup, which was piping hot. As it flowed from my throat to my stomach, it made me feel completely alive again.

After finishing his noodles, he packed his things and sat in the tent for a while, lost in thought.

The sky outside was completely dark; there was no light pollution, no moon, only endless blackness.

He suddenly felt that all the previous setbacks, fatigue, and resentment had been taken away by the forty minutes of aurora.

It's not that I forgot, it's just that it's not that important anymore.

The next day, Liu Yu unpacked the tent, put the equipment back in the car, and started the Raptor.

The engine shuddered in the sub-zero air, spewing out a puff of white smoke, before starting to run smoothly again.

He shifted into gear, stepped on the gas, and drove back the way he came.

In the rearview mirror, the snowfield grew smaller and smaller until it became a dot on a piece of white paper.

He first went back to the town and bought some food at the convenience store.

He stayed for two days, did his laundry, and reviewed the footage from the camera. He thought it was pretty good, though the composition wasn't great. The scene itself was beautiful, so the composition didn't matter.

On the third day, when he was about to leave, the young man at the repair shop checked his car to make sure there were no problems. He patted the hood and said in English, "Good car."

Thank you.

The young man patted the hood again, turned around, and went back to humming his song.

Liu Yu sat in the driver's seat and took one last look at the small town through the car window.

White rooftops, gray sky, a pine tree by the roadside, its branches laden with snow, which falls with a rustling sound when the wind blows, flashing briefly in the sunlight before disappearing into the ground.

He didn't know if he would ever come back, but he knew that this place would always remain in his memory, like a letter sealed by snow.

He drove for a long time, south from Murmansk, through coniferous forests and tundra, back to the remote village.

The scenery along the way was monotonous, nothing but snow and trees, nothing but snow. After a while, it felt like watching the same photo on a loop.

Liu Yu wasn't annoyed. He turned on the radio and tuned to a local station, where a Russian song he didn't know the name of was playing. The male voice was deep, and the melody was soothing, as if telling a very long story.

He knew little about St. Petersburg, only of the Winter Palace, Nevsky Prospekt, and those domed churches.

He didn't have any specific purpose; he just wanted to go and see.

In his previous life, he lived for over forty years and traveled to many places, mostly on business trips to discuss deals, meet clients, and sign contracts. He would go from one hotel conference room to another, and the street scene outside the window was always the same, with the same traffic and the same faces.

He has made many movies and visited many countries in his life, but he has hardly ever gone there just to see them.

He felt it was time to make up for this lesson.

Winters in St. Petersburg are much warmer than in Murmansk, with temperatures dropping to minus ten degrees Celsius, light winds, and people walking on the streets.

Liu Yu found a small hotel next to Nevsky Prospekt and checked in. The room was small, and the window faced a narrow alley. At the end of the alley, he could see the dome of a church, dark green, which looked very quiet under the gray sky.

He put down his luggage, took a hot shower, then put on his coat and went out for a walk.

He walked along Nevsky Prospekt for a long time.

There weren't many pedestrians on the street. Occasionally, you could see a few elderly people wrapped in thick coats sitting on benches by the roadside, feeding pigeons with bread in their hands.

The pigeons weren't afraid of people. They cooed and came over to peck at the bread crumbs on the ground, then flew away, making a loud flapping sound with their wings.

Liu Yu stopped in front of a small stall selling mulled wine, bought a cup, and held the paper cup in his hands, feeling warm and cozy.

He took a sip; it was sweet, with a hint of spice, cinnamon and cloves, and a very faint touch of alcohol.

He stood on the side of Nevsky Prospekt, holding a glass of mulled wine, gazing at the silhouette of the Winter Palace in the distance.

As darkness fell, the lights on the walls of the Winter Palace came on, casting a warm yellow glow that shone on the white walls, like a painting being painted.

On his last day in St. Petersburg, Liu Yu received a message from Zhong Lifang.

She sent a long message, the gist of which was: "Boss, when are you coming back? 'The Man from Nowhere' has finished its global run and grossed over $300 million. Global media are reporting on it. Han Sanping has called several times asking where you are, and Lionsgate is also asking, saying the celebration party can't be without you. Where are you?"

After reading this passage, Liu Yu leaned against the windowsill of his hotel room, looking out at the narrow alley and the dome of the church in the distance.

Three hundred million US dollars—a figure that might have made his heart race a year ago—now he just thought, "Oh, that's good." He didn't reply to Zhong Lifang's message, but instead typed a few words and saved them in his phone's notes: "I should go back."

He put his phone in his pocket and looked out the window again.

As darkness fell, the church dome turned a deep blue in the twilight, like a silent giant.

He recalled that when he was waiting for the aurora in Murmansk, he woke up in the middle of the night and saw a thin layer of snow on the top of his tent. It melted when he touched it and felt cool.

He thought at the time, if only people could be as simple as snow, coming and going without dwelling on it or looking back.

He may never be able to go that far in this lifetime, but at least he can try to make his life a little easier.

He packed his things, checked out of the hotel, and dragged his suitcase out of the hotel.

The streetlights on Nevsky Prospekt were already on, their orange glow casting a pale golden light on the snow.

Upon arriving at the airport, Liu Yu went through security and sat in the waiting area to board his plane.

My phone vibrated again; this time it was Han Sanping.

He didn't answer; it rang six times before automatically disconnecting.

Then he replied with a message: "Mr. Han, I'm at the airport. I'll be arriving in Beijing tomorrow. It's hard to explain over the phone, let's talk in person."

Han Sanping replied with a single word: "Okay."

Liu Yu put his phone on silent, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.

The announcements in the waiting area were broadcasting flight information, alternating between Russian and English, but the sound was a bit muffled, as if through a layer of water.

Listening to those sounds, he felt like a leaf that had been blown by the wind for a long time, and now it had finally fallen to the ground.

It's not a stop, it's a rest.

Once he has rested enough, he will be blown up again and fly to the next place.

He recalled the years after his rebirth, from his initial high aspirations to his later desperate rush forward, every step was carefully planned and every step was taken steadily.

At that time, he felt that life was a game of chess, and he was the player, and he had to win every move.

Now he feels that life is not a game of chess, but rather the wind.

You can't control the direction of the wind, but you can adjust the angle of the sail.

When the wind comes, you go; when the wind stops, you stop.

He stayed in the Arctic Circle for two months, sails down, boat motionless, feeling as if he were frozen in ice. Now the wind has picked up again; it's time to go.

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