The Eye of the Storm

The night is dark, and there are few people and cars on the street.

In Cao Ye's view, Beijing at this time is the most attractive.The streets were quiet, the crowds dispersed, and the city showed its original outline, heavy and arrogant.

Cao Ye didn't know where he was going, so he left the car in Su Sa, and planned to ask the driver to drive back tomorrow. The question of "where to go" has not been figured out in the mind, and the two legs seem to make a decision before the brain.

He realized he was walking toward Inn [-]th Street.There is a bar he opened on that closed narrow street. Since it opened three years ago, it has not made a profit until now, and has always been in a state of loss.In fact, he didn't expect it to make money—otherwise, who would be stupid enough to open a speakeasy in that dead-end alley in the corner, and the location obviously didn't want to be noticed and disturbed by too many people.

Huang Ying, the owner of the bar, was often worried about the poor management in the past two years. After realizing that Cao Ye didn't care whether it lost more or less, Huang Ying really did what Cao Ye said, and let it grow wildly up.

Hey, not to mention, after Huang Ying let her loose and let her lose money to play, this bar has developed such a lovable shadow in a crooked way.

Absurd, isolating, and self-destructive, filmmakers and directing students who are obsessed with indie cinema love it here.For a while, it actually lost less money than before.

All right, let's go and have a look, it's been a long time anyway.

Less than two kilometers away from Yinsi Street, Cao Ye walked slowly all the way, and it took only half an hour to reach the destination.

The character "burn" made into a flame effect stands at the end of the narrow street. If a passer-by stumbles into this blind alley by mistake, they will feel confused.

This bar called "Burning" is built underground, and you can only see the clues of the entrance and exit if you get close. If you want to enter the bar, you have to walk through a long, narrow and dark spiral staircase.

In Huang Ying's words, this staircase is so long that people doubt life.

In the words of those directors, this staircase is really fucking suitable for long shots.

Cao Ye heard the faint music coming from the underground bar, as if someone was singing Cui Jian's "A Piece of Red Cloth".

"It makes me feel good

It makes me forget that I have nowhere to live

you ask me where else to go

I said to go your way"

He vaguely recognized that the man sang these lines. The song is really old, but something strong will never be out of date.

He took out his cell phone and called Huang Ying.The beep sounded for a while, but there was no answer there, probably busy now.

Cao Ye lowered his head and called up the chat page on the screen, and sent a message to Huang Ying: "Key." Then he put the phone back in his pocket, found a wooden bench by the side of the road and sat down, leaning his head on the back of the chair , Close your eyelids, listening to the looming melody coming from underground.

-

"Sister Huang Ying, why don't you have another drink?"

"Don't drink, don't drink anymore," Huang Ying looked down at the message sent on her phone half an hour ago, and jumped off the high stool, "The boss is looking for me, I'm sorry, you guys have fun."

"Mr. Cao is here?" Everyone at the table looked up at her.

"Yeah, is Wu Tuo's key with you? Give it to me first, and come to me later if you want to use it."

"Oh, here I am." A boy took out the key from his pocket, stood up and stretched his arms, and handed it to Huang Ying across the table, "Why is Mr. Cao coming so late tonight?"

"How would I know?" Huang Ying took the key.

"You can't fall asleep because of the "Darkest Choice"?" A boy diagonally opposite said with a smile.

The students sitting around the table laughed in agreement, and the girl next to the boy patted his arm: "Crow mouth."

Huang Ying had already reached the stairs, she turned her head and said with a smile, "Worry about your own film."

Huang Ying supported the uneven wall with her hands, and ran up the stairs in three steps at a time.

The ground and the ground are two completely different worlds. The outside is clean and peaceful, completely different from the hustle and bustle of the bar. Huang Ying took a deep breath, turned out of the stairs, and saw sitting on a long wooden chair with her head up. Cao Ye fell asleep.

And the tramp sitting on the other side of the wooden chair, sleeping as soundly as he.

What a spectacle.Huang Ying couldn't help laughing the few steps she walked.

She stood two meters away to appreciate the picture - under the dim streetlights, a playboy who is exquisite from the inside out and a homeless man in a down-and-out suit are sitting at the two ends of the wooden bench, and the postures of the two are the same. The thighs are separated, the arms are folded on the lower abdomen, and the head is leaned on the back of the chair.There is a strange sense of harmony in this picture.

Huang Ying burst out laughing, raised her phone, aimed the camera at the two of them, and pressed the camera button.

The moment the flash light came on, Cao Ye frowned slightly, and then raised his hand to cover his eyes. He just woke up, and his voice was hoarse: "What are you doing?"

"Hush——" Huang Ying immediately raised her index finger in front of her lips, then pointed to the homeless man next to him, and said angrily, "Don't disturb people's dreams!"

"Then why are you disturbing my lucid dream?" Although there was displeasure in his tone, Cao Ye lowered his voice.

He got up from the wooden bench, raised his wrist and looked at the time: "I just saw the news, so busy tonight?"

"The group of students who filmed "Mandala" finished filming today, and they insisted on taking me to drink together," Huang Ying walked with him to the anti-theft door a few meters away, pressed the button of the key, and the anti-theft door slowly opened. He got up, rose to a position of about one meter, and did not move.

"This door is broken. A few days ago they were filming a scene, and they accidentally hit it with a car." Huang Ying walked over, squatted down, with her palms facing upwards, trying to push the door with some effort, her voice was a little distorted because of too much force, " ... fully automatic becomes semi-automatic.”

"Let me do it," Cao Ye bowed down, put his palm against the lower edge of the anti-theft door, pushed the door up forcefully, and patted the ashes on his hands, "Why didn't you tell me earlier, I'll ask someone to come over and change the door."

"Hey, I'm going to trouble you for such a trivial matter?" Huang Ying said with a smile, and walked in behind him, "I've already made an appointment for the maintenance master, and the master will be here in the next two days...By the way, why are you in the middle of the night? Thinking of coming to Uto? Couldn’t it be because of the recent movie that I can’t sleep?”

"Yeah," without Huang Ying leading the way, Cao Ye went straight to the innermost small theater, opened the door and entered, "I'm so worried that I'm going to lose all my hair."

"Is it true?" Huang Ying looked at the top of his head, "I didn't see it... Isn't it rumored recently that Liang Sizhe might come to make up this film?"

"Do you believe it?" Cao Yeruo said casually, raised his hand and pressed the switch on the wall to turn on the ceiling light in the room.

A square table was placed in front of a few rows of seats, and a dozen Blu-ray discs were piled up in a mess on it. Cao Ye picked it up and looked at it—"Red Men and Red Women", "Thirteen Days", "Wild", "Wangchuan Zhichuan", "The Wind", "Liang Sheng Zhu Meng"...he picked up one of them and looked at the cover: "Are those students fans of Liang Sizhe?"

"Isn't that right, I really like it," Huang Ying said with a smile, "From the director to the cameraman to the lead actor to the makeup artist, as soon as you chat with them about Liang Sizhe, they can drag you to chat for a long time without stuttering."

"Is it the ones who filmed "The Mandala"?"

"Yeah, the funniest thing is that they got a fake Liang Sizhe out of nowhere!"

"What the hell?" Cao Ye didn't understand, and looked up at Huang Ying.

"It's a boy who looks very similar to Liang Sizhe ten years ago, but he looks alike, and his temperament and acting skills are far from good. They gave the boy the most important role, and let him appear in various scenes. In the inconspicuous shot, it is said that he wants to pay tribute to Senior Liang Sizhe!"

Cao Ye looked at her speechlessly: "..."

Huang Ying couldn't stop laughing, took out her mobile phone, flipped through a photo from the photo album, and brought it in front of Cao Ye: "Don't believe me, see for yourself if you look like it?"

"How do you look like it?" Cao Ye took the phone and looked at the screen, frowning slightly. He really didn't see the resemblance.

"It's pretty similar, you can't expect to be exactly the same!" Huang Ying leaned over to take a look by herself.

"It's far away." Cao Ye returned the phone to Huang Ying without much interest.

"Is it really the same? Liang Sizhe's face is so valuable."

Cao Ye didn't respond, and sat in front of the main control computer's screen, holding the mouse with his right hand, trying to find a popcorn chip to hypnotize him.

Huang Ying is naturally diligent and doesn't like messy desktops. At this time, while putting the disc back into the box, she asked Cao Ye: "Will Liang Sizhe help you with the movie "The Darkest Choice"? You two used to have such a good relationship."

"Who knows," Cao Ye looked at the screen, "...why there isn't a single movie here?"

"By the way, that machine was infected with a virus a few days ago, and the system was reinstalled. I will copy a few copies for you later, but if you want to watch it tonight, you can only choose from these few discs."

"Have a virus?" Cao Ye looked up at her, with an indescribable expression on his face again, "Isn't this machine disconnected?"

"Yeah, but this time it's not a cyber attack, it's a hard drive virus." Huang Ying also looked helpless, "I don't know which student's hard drive has a virus."

"Okay, I've got a virus..." Cao Ye raised his hand and squeezed the space between his eyebrows, "This is too unreliable. I'll call someone over to change the device later."

Cao Ye had no choice but to go to the square table again, and quickly messed up the discs that Huang Ying had just sorted out. He wanted to find a film that was not starring Liang Sizhe, but he searched through all of them. "Liang Sizhe" three words.

"Why is it all played by Liang Sizhe?"

"Is it a disc that Liang Sizhe's fans found... What, you don't want to see him act?"

Cao Ye casually made up an excuse: "When I saw him, I remembered "The Darkest Choice" and waited for the re-shooting. Does this make people sleep?"

"Oh... this one is not played by Liang Sizhe." Huang Ying found a disc and handed it to Cao Ye.

Before Cao Ye could speak, she quickly added: "It's just directed by Liang Sizhe!"

After hearing this, Cao Ye looked at the cover of the CD with no expression.

He knew that for this film, after Liang Sizhe won the best actor award at Cannes, almost all audiences were waiting for him to return to the mainland Chinese film industry to show off his talents, but he did not expect Liang Sizhe to reject all the coveted film offers, and plunged into the backstage. In two years, without a word, a movie that was neither well-received nor popular was released, and it was this "Liang Sheng Zhu Meng".

——It seems that apart from this one, there is no other better choice right now.

"Then here it is." Cao Ye said, took the disc and walked to the front of the main control unit, put the disc in, and clicked to play.

The title of the dragon title appeared on the screen, and Cao Ye found a seat closest to the main controller and sat down.Fumbling with his fingers, he pressed the button on the side of the leather chair, put the backrest at a suitable angle, leaned back, and looked at the screen while lying down.The leather chair is wide and soft, and it is extremely comfortable for people to sink into it. It is a good place to sleep.

"Then I'll leave." Huang Ying walked to the door and touched the switch with her finger, "Have you turned off the light?"

Cao Ye gave a vague "hmm".

The door closes, the screen begins to enter the picture, the camera zooms out, and on the distant and blurred stage, two theater actors raise their voices and sing in duet:

"If your brother Liang is undecided, my younger brother will be your matchmaker—"

"My virtuous brother is my matchmaker, but I don't know who the daughter is?"

They sang the Yue opera "The Butterfly Lovers".

The lower screen gradually reveals the film's behind-the-scenes staff:

Producer: Liang Sizhe and Xu Yunchu

Producer: Bai Mingze

Director: Liang Sizhe

Starring: Xu Xiaohan Qiao Rui

……

Then the camera slowly zoomed in, gradually changing from blurred to clear, and the distant and bright stage was also shrunk into one screen of the TV.The camera turned, and a woman in her forties was squatting in front of the TV, staring at the screen in ecstasy, holding the remote control in her hand.

"Mom—" A young girl's voice came from outside the camera, "Did you wash the dress I bought yesterday? Mom—"

"Oh," the woman returned to her senses, her expression flustered for a moment, but she quickly calmed down. She lowered her head and pressed the remote control button to turn off the TV screen, and stood up, "Here we come..."

Immediately afterwards, there are some short and trivial pictures of parents.

It is a literary film, and its style is deeply influenced by Cao Xiuyuan.

Cao Ye quickly set a general tone for the film in his mind.

The shadow of Cao Xiuyuan can be seen everywhere in the transition skills and shooting techniques, so that Cao Ye can't concentrate on the story itself-however, the story seems to be lacklustre, full of trivial and mediocre details, which makes people feel irritable .

The straightforward rhythm makes people drowsy. No wonder the box office was dismal when it was released two years ago-how can the audience have the patience to watch this kind of film these days?

Cao Ye turned his face sideways and leaned against the back of the leather chair, closed his eyelids, stopped looking at the picture on the screen, and slid his body down a little to make himself more comfortable, and then forced himself to fall asleep.

I have to say that the short voice in this film is quite suitable for hypnosis.

Sleepiness was like a slow tide, slowly covering his nerve endings, dreams surrounded him, and the closed small theater suddenly became an empty theater.

The lights were dim, and the sewage left by the previous crew still accumulated on the pitted ground, reflecting the various lights in the theater.

Cao Ye and Liang Sizhe stood back to back. Liang Sizhe was shirtless, with shoulder-length hair tied behind his head, and the tip of his hair brushed against the back of Cao Ye's head, making him feel a little itchy.

Not far away, Cao Xiuyuan behind the camera said: "Take off your pants too." There was no tone in the words.

It should have been said to the two of them, but Cao Ye didn't move.Liang Sizhe bent down and took off his trousers, holding them in his hand.

"Don't hold it in your hand." Cao Xiuyuan said again.

Everyone behind the camera looked at them, but no one stepped forward to help Liang Sizhe take over his pants.

I'll get it for you.Just as Cao Ye was about to say this, Liang Sizhe threw his trousers on the ground not far away as soon as he raised his hand. With a "pop", the sewage splashed a little.

dirty.Cao Ye thought.

Blinding flashlights were turned on them.

That seemed to be the beginning of it all.

No, it started earlier.