You're here too.
A few days later, at night, the lights in the study of Xiangyang's home in the suburbs were bright.
He led the excited Du Tianming into the room. The room was quiet, with only the occasional sound of passing vehicles outside the window.
Xiangyang turned around to pour tea, and after a while, he came back with two cups of steaming hot tea.
As soon as Du Tianming entered the room, he rummaged through his computer bag with great care, occupied the entire desk without any hesitation, took out the laptop from the bag, turned it on, and the light from the screen illuminated his tired but still energetic face.
"How's your progress?" Du Tianming asked first, his voice hoarse, and it seemed he had been up all night for several nights.
Xiangyang gently placed a cup of tea next to him, an unfathomable smile playing on his lips. "No progress. Things like this can't be rushed. Wait until fate strikes, and everything will fall into place naturally."
Without even looking up, Du Tianming slid his finger across the touchpad, bringing up a page. He said firmly, "Don't try to play it. You and your father are so much alike in this respect. You're both decisive and resolute, yet you pretend to be indifferent..."
Xiangyang picked up his teacup, took a sip, and frowned casually. "The script is still being revised. I sent it to a few acquaintances to read and get their opinions."
"That's true. You two brothers have been following your father around on the set since you were five or six years old. You've been influenced by him a lot, and the ones around you are directors, screenwriters, uncles and aunts..." Du Tianming said with a familiar sarcasm.
"Don't mention my brother." Xiangyang's voice suddenly turned cold, and his eyes dimmed. "Don't mention my father either."
The air in the study suddenly became stagnant.
Du Tianming, such a delicate and refined person, sighed softly and cleverly changed the subject: "By the way, the director hasn't been decided yet? You...Xiangyang, why don't you direct it yourself?"
Xiangyang put down his teacup, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table, his eyes drifting to the dark night outside the window. "We'll talk about it later. Once the structure and outline of the entire film are complete..." He raised his hand and pointed at his solar plexus. "Here, it's completely formed. God will naturally arrange it for the best."
Du Tianming laughed and shook his head, his tone becoming more playful. He finally set up his computer and found the data. "Damn it! I almost thought I was listening to your dad giving me a lecture...Okay, listen to this. This kid named 'A Luo', listen to how he challenged me."
"To challenge you? That A Luo who played the horse-head fiddle last time?" Xiangyang raised his eyebrows, full of interest.
"He's in Beijing," Du Tianming said, feeling a bit ridiculous. "Isn't that funny? We're both from Taipei. We used to be able to call each other from across the street, but now we're both in Beijing and have to rely on WeChat to keep in touch."
He turned the laptop screen towards Xiangyang and opened the WeChat chat interface.
In a chat box named "A Luo," several voice messages were lying around. Du Tianming pressed the play button.
A clear, yet somewhat indifferent, young male voice came through the loudspeaker:
"He's just the author of the original novel. Isn't it too much for him to interfere?"
Then, Du Tianming's own voice, with its distinctive Taiwanese accent, was heard, half helpless and half amused. "Hold on! They didn't say anything to you. They just mentioned that 'some terms are different between Taiwan and mainland China.' You're taking it a bit too far, aren't you?"
"A Luo's" voice sounded again, without a trace of hesitation: "If it's the kind of party A who likes to make decisions and is too strong, then I don't want to deal with it. I've been exploited before, and I'm afraid of it."
Du Tianming's voice interrupted again, as if deliberately provoking him: "Wow! Are you having some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder attack? Let me tell you, there are tons of people out there vying for this case!"
"Then you can find someone else." Clean and neat, without any delay.
The voice message ended there. Xiangyang listened to this short conversation, imagining what kind of strange person that was, someone who kept strangers away. He couldn't help but laugh out loud: "Huh, so arrogant? That's interesting."
Du Tianming sensed that Xiang Yang seemed to be attracted from the first round, and he felt secretly pleased. He continued with a smug look, "I didn't tell him who your father was. I also didn't tell him that you were not only the author of the original novel, but also the screenwriter of this movie and the largest investor."
"Well, that's not a good point." Xiangyang nodded and took another look at the simple avatar of "A Luo" on the screen, a lonely blue whale.
"Guess what? This guy went online and found your novel."
Du Tianming's tone was a bit mysterious, as if he was offering a treasure. He clicked on another voice message and signaled Xiangyang to listen carefully with his eyes.
Ah Luo's voice rang out again, this time in a much more polite tone than before: "Brother Du, the case you mentioned to me last time, 'Nezha'..."
Du Tianming interrupted and teased him deliberately, "Daddy, you've changed your name to 'you'? Hahahaha..."
That "A Luo" seemed a little embarrassed, coughed lightly, and continued, "I don't know... if it's too late now? I... I found some time to finish reading the novel, and it really resonated with me. So, I tried to finish that half-written demo... This is the full version, would you... would you like to listen to it?"
Without waiting for Du Tianming's response, a clear guitar prelude flowed out, followed by that unique singing voice with a smoky voice, yet as clear as the April breeze.
The song goes like this:
Black hair is the night sky
White hair like stars
The coolness of the season is coming to an end
There are more stars
I am the Cang Shang that chases passionately in the sky
The vicissitudes of life are always the back
And I can't stop
I hit nothing and turned around
There is a long way ahead
Looking at the bruised life
At the starting point
Try your best to bloom
Take off the wings of greedy freedom
For the first time, I gradually moved away from hesitation
The scorching June
A distant place called home, shaded by stars"
The moment the song ended, Xiangyang froze.
The noncommittal smile on his face froze, replaced by an indescribable throbbing.
The song and the emotional field outlined by the lyrics gave him a sense of homesickness after wandering thousands of miles, a sense of empathy that was suddenly understood and mixed with fragility and bravery.
Xiangyang was moved and fascinated. He would never forget the song that was sung with trauma as its soul after hearing it once.
This A Luo, his songs carry a similar journey to his own, right? He asked himself quietly.
In an instant, the floodgates of memory burst open.
It was him! It was that fleeting voice from deep in the alleys of Shichahai!
It was the boy whose thin back he only had time to catch a glimpse of.
The distant footsteps from the movie "Lan Yu", which were so brief that he mistook them for an illusion, now rang so clearly in his ears and heart again.
Half a year ago, it was also late at night like this.
He wandered aimlessly in Houhai and was attracted by the singing coming from the bar. The singing was hoarse but with a heartbreaking tenderness, singing -
"I'm the one who loves you the most, how could you bear to make me sad...
When I needed you the most, you left without saying a word...
I am the one who loves you the most, how can you bear to make me sad...
I've given so much to you, but you haven't been touched..."
He pushed open the door of the courtyard bar uncontrollably.
On the door lintel, there are four words: "passing by".
However, when he walked in, the song just ended.
A long-haired female singer walked onto the small stage and took the microphone.
He only saw the back of a boy hurriedly leaving the stage. He was about the same height as him, thin, but with a straight back...
After that, he never heard the same song anywhere else.
By this time, A Luo's song had long stopped, but the lingering sound still lingered in the air for a long time.
Xiang Yang suddenly raised his head, his eyes filled with unprecedented certainty. "Brother Du, don't consider anyone else. I'm more certain than last time, it's him."
He looked at Du Tianming eagerly, "I hope he will be responsible for the soundtrack, theme song, and all promotional songs for the movie 'Nezha'."
In the long journey of life, there are indeed too many "possibilities" and "necessities" that cannot be explained or counted.
However, in this boundless sea of people, in this blur of ever-changing things, is there really a subtle magnetic effect that somehow pulls people from all over the world closer and closer, step by step?
Close enough for them to blurt out at the same moment, "Huh? So you're here too?"
So close that all the indescribable possibilities, at the moment when one is caught off guard, become an unquestionable necessity.
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