18
The filming continued until the end of my second year of junior high. My skin was so thick it was tempered to its limits. No matter how many onlookers there were during the shoot, I didn't care; I was numb. During the summer vacation, Li Zitong intensified her harassment, pestering me almost every day. Fortunately, judging by the length of the script, the film's plot was already mostly finished, so I could just bear with it. But unexpectedly, she made a request that pushed my boundaries.
One day in early August, the temperature was as scorching as a Xinjiang naan oven. She'd arranged to meet me at a suburban reservoir. Since my pocket money was running low and I couldn't afford the bus, I rode my bike. By the time I arrived, I was drenched in sweat.
As soon as we met, I couldn't help but complain, "Why did you choose such a faraway place to shoot? Isn't there an artificial lake in the city?"
"Okay, okay. I know it's hot, but I didn't say anything even though you were nearly half an hour late."
She threw me a can of Coke, and when I took it I found it was not cold at all, but I still drank half of it in one breath.
"It's almost 40 degrees, so try to take pictures in the shade, okay?" I suggested.
"Don't worry, we'll go to a very cool place later."
Today's scene depicts a farewell to a basketball: Unable to find any other living humans, the boy gave up searching and settled in a remote, ecologically resilient area. But one day, while the boy was asleep, a strong wind blew the basketball into the lake, where it drifted away. Upon waking, the boy was devastated to discover he had lost his only friend. After a series of heartbreaking tears, he finally embarked on a new journey in search of other humans.
That was how it was supposed to be, I even memorized my lines. But Li Zitong suddenly changed the plan.
"I thought about this before I went to bed last night. I'm afraid that simply filming the boy crying and shouting afterward wouldn't be enough to convey his grief. It's too thin, and your acting is... that kind."
I was a little irritated by the sudden criticism of my acting skills, but when I thought about it, I really didn't have the confidence to do a crying scene. If nothing else, I knew I wouldn't be able to force out the tears, so I just sighed and said, "What do you want?"
"Here's what I planned," she swallowed nervously, "The plot is changed to have you go into the lake to chase the basketball."
"ah?"
"That is, through the scene where the boy dives into the water to save the basketball despite the danger, it shows his emphasis on friendship and his determination."
"Hey, hey." I felt the muscles on my face twitching. "Going in the water here? Didn't you see the 'No Fishing and Swimming' sign when you got here?"
"Don't worry, no one will care about this kind of thing. There are a few uncles fishing on the other side of the lake."
I followed her gaze and looked into the distance, and there were indeed two middle-aged men in camouflage uniforms fishing.
"Fishing might be okay, but look at the water quality here. Even if we lower the standards, it's still not clean," I protested desperately. After all, I could see it with my own eyes—the shore was covered in mud, there was a lot of duckweed floating on the surface, and there was a dead fish, completely bleached.
Her pupils shone brightly like the sun. "Please, consider it a sacrifice for art."
"No, absolutely not this time. And I don't have a swimsuit."
"You don't need a swimsuit, just wear everyday clothes when you go into the water. That way it will feel more realistic."
What would I do after the shoot? I'd have to go back home in soaking wet clothes? Did this woman ever consider my feelings? It felt like she was just using me as a tool. Thinking of this, I couldn't help but get angry.
"No, absolutely not. Being an unpaid volunteer actor for such a long time is fine, but I would never do something as outrageous as jumping into a lake."
"But you're the lead actor. This is a movie that belongs to both of us. It's almost done, don't you want to finish it?"
"That's easy to say. Why don't you try it yourself? Don't movies use body doubles? Anyway, you can only shoot long shots from the shore. You can still shoot with your hair tied up."
"I can't swim," she answered simply.
Well, I'm a pretty good swimmer. I took swimming lessons at the Children's Palace when I was little... but I couldn't say that out loud. I simply lay down in the shade of a tree by the lake, closing my eyes and resting my mind. Li Zitong squatted beside me and tried to persuade me for a long time, but I pretended not to hear.
Finally, she gave up and sat down beside me, her back against the tree trunk. I felt a little sorry for her and wanted to offer some words of comfort. But thinking of the potential consequences of showing weakness at this moment, I forced myself to hold back.
"You want to go on a date?" she suddenly said.
"What nonsense are you talking about..." I was a little flustered. Did I accidentally let something slip?
"Do you remember Gao Yang? Although we are not in the same class now, as an old classmate, he sometimes calls to chat. The topics tend to be nostalgic, such as talking about old classmates in the past." She said lightly.
I felt my heart beating faster and a sense of foreboding came over me.
"I heard that last Christmas, one of his friends complained for a long time. It seemed that a girl asked him out, and he thought he was going on a date. He was very excited for a long time, but in the end, the girl didn't even buy him a movie ticket."
That big mouth! I heard myself stammering foolishly and felt the blood rush to my neck.
"Gao Yang didn't know the girl's name, but he knew his friends called her 'the bloodless and tearless dead woman.' It's a really interesting name."
"No, that's not the case..."
"Okay, let's not talk about that for now." She looked me straight in the eye. "If this movie can be successfully completed, how about I go on a date with you? Of course, I'll buy movie tickets for two."
"Are you serious?"
"Of course, it's a deal."
I nodded subconsciously.
After simulating the shooting content more than a dozen times on the shore, Li Zitong finally agreed to officially start shooting.
"Johnny!" I shouted the name of the basketball in the movie (given by Li Zitong, so uncreative), and just as my toes stepped into the water, I stopped hesitantly. The water temperature was much colder than I had imagined.
"Cut!" she shouted disapprovingly from behind. "Your performance is terrible! It's completely different from what we just rehearsed! Show your strength! The one who fell into the water is your only friend. Jump into the lake and save him!"
I had to reshoot the scene. This time, I was mentally prepared and jumped into the lake. Unexpectedly, the bottom was completely muddy, and my foot slipped. I swallowed several large gulps of water and barely managed to maintain my balance by grabbing onto the reeds at the water's edge.
As soon as I poked my head out of the water, I heard Li Zitong complaining, "What's going on? If we reshoot this videotape, it's going to be ruined!"
"I didn't mean to do that. Who knew the bottom of the water was all slippery mud!"
She checked the condition of the video recorder for a while and said, "Forget it, let's continue reshooting."
No one anticipated how difficult this scene would be to film. We re-shot it about six times, constantly encountering flaws and unexpected situations. Mud splashed onto my face, the basketball, which should have drifted away with the current, got stuck in the reeds, and a fisherman on the other side of the river changed his spot and strayed into the corner of the shot. I had to swim out again and again to retrieve the basketball, and Li Zitong's face grew increasingly grim, probably because he was worried about the money he had to spend on the videotape.
The seventh time, everything went smoothly. I didn't hear her call for a stop from the beginning to the end. I breathed a sigh of relief, but I didn't dare to slow down. I tried my best to look anxious and desperately chased the basketball that was drifting towards the center of the lake.
The muscles in my right calf twitched suddenly, then rapidly contracted and cramped, the pain unbearable. I realized my leg was cramping, and I suddenly sank. I tried to push off the surface and scream for help, but there was nothing beneath my feet. At some point, the lake suddenly became bottomless.
I panicked, gulping down several large gulps of water. After struggling for a long time, I barely managed to poke my head above the surface, shouting and slapping at the water with my hands, but Li Zitong didn't respond. I held on for two or three seconds before sinking again. As if by some strange coincidence, as I sank, I remembered the original plot: the boy wasn't a good swimmer, and he nearly drowned chasing the basketball before giving up on saving his friend and swimming back to shore.
This was over. Li Zitong probably thought my drowning performance was just an act. She might get the most realistic drowning scene, but I guess my short life will end in this stinking pond.
My body's reaction was completely different from what I thought in my mind. The instinct for survival drove me to wave my arms and left leg and paddle desperately towards the shallower waters. However, the dirty water that choked my respiratory system soon made me dizzy, and my strength became weaker and weaker. My body fell straight into the center of the lake like a weight.
Someone suddenly lifted me under my armpits. With the help of that force, I struggled to rise, finally peeking my nose and mouth out of the water. I took a deep breath, feeling refreshed. Grabbing my toes and pulling back, my right leg finally recovered from its stiffness. Turning, I saw Li Zitong splashing high in the water, her long black hair rising, her face submerged.
I was startled and quickly tried to pull her arm, but she dragged me down into the water. I knew something was wrong, but luckily I could see the direction of the shore when I last poked my head out of the water, and once I sank into the water, I used my hands and feet to struggle hard.
We dragged each other along, struggling to move forward underwater. The short distance of ten meters felt like the road to heaven. The moment our feet finally touched solid ground, we felt like we had been reborn.
We were all exhausted. We vomited the lake water for a long time and lay on the shore gasping for breath. It took us a long time to recover.
"So you really can't swim." I forced myself to straighten my upper body and looked at her.
“No one taught me.”
She leaned against the stone, her clothes dripping wet and sticking to her body, showing off her curvaceous figure, her fair skin gleaming in the sun. I quickly looked away.
"By the way, where's the camera?" she shouted in panic.
We searched for it for a long time on the shore, finally finding it amidst the weeds. It looked like she'd thrown it aside in a hurry. There was a scratch on the case, but thankfully it wasn't damaged and worked fine after turning it on.
"Great! I thought the video record was going to be lost. It was filmed perfectly until I realized you were actually drowning."
In comparison, we almost lost our lives. Isn’t this what we should be most afraid of?
Perhaps my true thoughts were revealed on her face, and she realized something. "By the way, I should apologize to you. I'm really sorry for dragging you into this dangerous plan."
I shook my head, "It's okay, didn't you save me?"
"But at the end of the day, if I hadn't forced you to act out the lake-jumping scene, you wouldn't have needed to be rescued by anyone."
"I told you not to worry about it. We are friends. Since nothing really happened, there's no need to worry too much."
"Friends?" She looked a little confused.
I was even more confused than she was, almost speechless. If we weren't even friends, why had I been fooling around with her for so long?
"I thought you were just returning a favor," she said.
It was getting dark, and it was time to go back. But our soaked clothes still wouldn't dry. It was fine for me, a man, but Li Zitong was too exposed to walk on the street. We had no choice but to wait by the lake.
A bluish-white moon appeared in the sky, a thin crescent moon.
None of us spoke again, and an awkward silence fell. The fishermen on the other side had also left at some point. It was eerily quiet, and not even the chirping of insects could be heard.
Li Zitong seemed lost in thought. Aside from occasionally fiddling with the video camera, she stared at the moon reflected in the lake. What kind of scenery was reflected in her eyes? The moonlight cast a shadow, making it impossible for me to read the subtle expressions on her face. Perhaps there was an unimaginable distance between us.
"Are you cold?" She put down the camera and asked alone.
Before I could answer, she leaned in. I felt a warmth on my back.
"It's warmer this way," she said.
We just sat there back to back, and the Earth kept spinning.
"That's not what I said just now. At least not literally."
I nodded, then realized she probably couldn't see it, so I said "hmm".
"Do you think I'm weird?"
I stretched out my right hand towards the night sky, my fingertips brushing against the moon's halo, but I didn't feel anything real.
"More or less, you are the loneliest person I know."
“Do lonely people look weird?”
"Not really. But you chose that lifestyle on purpose, that's why it's strange."
"I didn't choose it on purpose," she said in a calm, adult voice. "I'm just timid. Deeply connecting with someone requires giving your heart, and I'm afraid of that feeling of being defenseless."
"Isn't this the awareness you need to have to make friends?"
"Well, maybe it's a bit exaggerated, but I'm just afraid," she said softly. "Sometimes I think it would be great if the movie I made could come true. I like the atmosphere of the end of the world, and it seems like it wouldn't be bad to live alone in such a world."
"And then choose to be friends with basketball?" I made a clumsy joke to lighten the mood.
It took her a while to understand what I meant. She smiled vaguely, "Maybe that's not so bad. By the way, where's Johnny?"
I looked out at the lake, too. The basketball had indeed vanished. The lake was clear, and I could see the other side at a glance, but there was no sign of anything floating there. Perhaps it had sunk after being submerged for so long; it was a broken ball, after all.
"It's a pity. We all made it back to shore, but it was the only one buried at the bottom of the lake."
"You originally planned to recycle it after filming?"
"Of course, we're friends after all."
She walked to the shore and quietly gazed at the lake. The lake was not calm, and sometimes there were wind and waves, and water droplets splashed on her clothes that were not yet dry. But she didn't care. She stretched out her hands and pressed them to her mouth into a trumpet shape.
"Goodbye, Johnny...Rest in peace underwater!"
I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
At that moment, I felt I understood her somewhat. But now, I realize I didn't understand her at all. Trapped in the quagmire of the murder, I couldn't guess where she had disappeared to, whether she was a suspect, or what role she played in the case. To me, Li Zitong remained an elusive and unpredictable presence, like a foreigner living on the moon.
Although we have been through a lot together, she has never opened her heart to me.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
