2016 passed uneventfully, and 2017 quietly arrived.
January is approaching the New Year, and most primary and secondary school students are on winter vacation, while working people are busy until the end of the year.
The Lunar New Year film season has begun with a flurry of promotions, featuring countless big-budget and small-budget films, both domestic and imported, filling theaters. Various online platforms and offline channels are plastered with trailers and advertisements for these movies, making this the most prosperous time of year for film.
Sun Xiaoxiao is a second-year junior high school student.
After the tense and exciting final exams, Sun Xiaoxiao finally ushered in her winter vacation. The first days of the vacation were still before the final grades were released. Relaxed yet not so relaxed.
After a day of fun, I got home around 7 p.m., just as my family was having dinner.
Sun Xiaoxiao sat at the dining table, excitedly watching the large, golden lobster her mother had just brought out. Her father was still in the kitchen simmering vegetable soup; it would be a long time before he arrived.
"Eat up," Mom said with a smile, "it'll get cold soon."
There's not much formality when it comes to family meals. Sun Xiaoxiao put on disposable gloves, grabbed a large shrimp, and began to eat heartily.
Mom turned on the LCD TV, which was showing the news broadcast.
Sun Xiaoxiao's family doesn't really watch the news, so her mother immediately started switching channels.
"Let's see what's on the movie channel?" Sun Xiaoxiao mumbled, munching on a large shrimp.
The movie channel broadcasts movies every day, and the movies shown during prime time are generally good. The minimum quality is quite high, making it a safe bet for when you're bored.
Sun Xiaoxiao hopes that the movie channel is showing a romance film, as she is at the prime of her youth and is very interested in idol dramas and romance films.
Mom had the same idea, so she pressed "6" on the remote control.
The large screen on the TV switched to the movie channel. Sun Xiaoxiao tossed aside the shrimp shells and saw three words on the side of the screen, which was the name of the movie.
The Heavenly Mystery Pavilion.
Sun Xiaoxiao curled her lip in disinterest; just by looking at the title, she knew what kind of boring movie this was.
"Mom, let's change the channel," Sun Xiaoxiao said casually.
Unexpectedly, my mother, who usually never paid attention to what was playing on the movie channel and just played the TV as background music, slowly put down the remote control.
“Look at this,” Mom said.
"Huh?" Sun Xiaoxiao pouted, but there was no need to argue with her mother over such a small matter. She lowered her head and continued eating her shrimp.
"The soup's here!" Dad put the soup on the table and rubbed his fingers together.
Dad glanced casually at the TV, then his gaze suddenly froze.
"Tianji Tower?" Dad scratched his eyebrows. "Isn't that... you know what? The one written by Jianghu Xiaoxiaosheng?"
"Phoenix Playing with Dragons," Mom exclaimed, her expression surprisingly excited, "This is beautiful!"
Dad sat down at the table, putting on his gloves as he said, "Back when you were in school, I even borrowed this book for you from the library."
Sun Xiaoxiao curiously raised her head, her gossipy eyes scanning back and forth between her parents.
Perhaps children are always curious about their parents' romances, and Sun Xiaoxiao also became a little curious about this movie with its unremarkable name.
In the past, the television at home was just background noise during meals. But today, Sun Xiaoxiao discovered that her parents were watching TV very attentively!
The film opens with a scene of flames. The screams of men, the cries of women, and the screams of children are intertwined, easily conveying the plot—a massacre of an entire family is taking place.
Half an arrow was stuck in the mud, separated by a sea of fire.
A small, bloodied hand struggled to pull out the arrow. Upon closer inspection, three small characters were engraved on the arrow shaft: Tianji Tower.
The three small characters "Tianji Tower" gradually floated up, filling half the screen and forming the film's title. Then the camera shifted, and the three characters gradually faded, finally transforming into a heavy-colored plaque hanging on a magnificent high-rise building.
The camera pans down to reveal a young man in a blue robe standing in front of the building entrance, looking up at the plaque.
The young man had a handsome face, a solemn expression, and a world-weary look in his eyes.
Sun Xiaoxiao heard her mother exclaim, "Isn't that Yang Huanyi? She's playing Xiao Fengque?"
"Mom, who is Xiao Fengque? The main character in this movie?" Sun Xiaoxiao asked curiously.
Mom nodded, staring intently at the screen: "Yes, she's incredibly skilled in martial arts! You'll see when you see it!"
Martial arts films? That's even more boring. Sun Xiaoxiao isn't interested in fighting and killing.
Dad joked, "That's your mom's idol, and my dream girl too—oh my!"
Mom tapped Dad on the head with her chopsticks, not hard, but Dad exclaimed dramatically, "Your mom is abusing me again—ouch!"
"Stop yelling, watch TV!" Mom warned. "I can't hear what you're saying anymore."
Since it's a movie adapted from a book that Mom and Dad's generation liked, the plot must be pretty old-fashioned—Sun Xiaoxiao thought to herself, glancing at it with little interest.
Surprisingly, the plot of this movie is actually quite captivating!
At first, Sun Xiaoxiao just glanced at it casually.
Ten minutes later, Sun Xiaoxiao was chewing on a shrimp while staring intently at the television screen.
Twenty minutes later, Sun Xiaoxiao stared with her mouth agape at the visceral fight scene between the Tianji Tower Master and Xiao Fengque on the television screen, while the vegetable soup in her bowl had gone cold.
"Young man, you're too aggressive."
A detached and ethereal voice echoed on the screen, and the mysterious figure of the Tianji Tower Master disappeared into the bamboo forest.
Sun Xiaoxiao then came to her senses, rubbing her neck, which ached from maintaining one position for so long. "That old man was quite energetic..."
“That’s your dad’s idol, and my dream girl too~” Mom imitated Dad’s cheeky tone, “Jiang Erjing has aged so much? He was so handsome when he was young.”
"Is he the mastermind behind this?" Sun Xiaoxiao quickly asked. If the handsome old man is the main villain, that would be so exciting!
“No, it’s not him,” Dad said while eating. “The murderer is that guy… he hasn’t shown up yet! A madam in red will come out later, and that’s the murderer.”
Sun Xiaoxiao: "..."
As a middle-aged man, Dad has an insurmountable generation gap with young people and is completely unaware of how heinous spoilers are, yet he continues to ramble on:
"Who will play the madam? In the previous version, it was Wang Sheng. He was a big, burly guy, and you could tell at a glance that he was a man dressed as a woman..."
Mom also joined the spoiler camp: "Jiang Erjing is a good person, he's so good to Xiao Fengque..."
Sun Xiaoxiao listened dumbfounded as her parents spoiled the entire plot of the movie, from its very origins to its plot twists. When she finally saw the scenes of flying over rooftops and scaling walls in the movie, she suddenly lost interest.
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