Someone asked online:
[Is Yuanyuan here to accompany Pei Yubai for the opening ceremony?]
Someone answered below:
[I'm a member of the production crew, not just for the opening ceremony. It seems that Teacher Qiguan is accompanying Teacher Pei as his personal assistant, and he'll probably be staying on set for a while.]
On the day Qiguan Yuan joined the crew, everyone thought he was Pei Yubai's personal assistant.
The production crew did give him a work badge, which read "Life Assistant" and featured a photo of himself. He had silver hair tied in a low ponytail and a blank expression, as if he hadn't woken up yet.
The young female stagehand glanced at him a couple more times as she took his name tag; Yuanyuan is so handsome.
She realized something was wrong on the third day.
Other people's assistants are busy from morning till night, carrying bags, handing out water, holding umbrellas, wiping sweat, and running non-stop.
Qiguan Yuan's job was to curl up in a folding recliner, his silver hair spread out and covering the back of the chair, his face covered with Pei Yubai's script.
She used the script that Pei Yubai had never allowed anyone to touch before to shield herself from the sun while sleeping.
Pei Yubai stepped down from in front of the camera, walked to the recliner, bent down, picked up the script, glanced at it, and then held it upside down.
Qiguan Yuan originally said he wanted to see what the script looked like, but he ended up falling asleep as soon as he finished reading it.
Pei Yubai closed the script and placed it aside, then picked up his coat, which had slipped to the ground, and draped it back over his shoulders.
Qiguan Yuan didn't even open his eyes, and mumbled a question, "Finished work?"
Pei Yubai said, "There's one more show. You can continue sleeping."
Qiguan Yuan grunted and turned over, his face towards the back of the chair. His silver hair slid down his shoulders, revealing a small patch of skin on the back of his neck.
At lunchtime, Pei Yubai went to get the food that his real assistant had brought for them, and when he came back, he took apart the disposable chopsticks and handed them to Qiguan Yuan.
Qiguan Yuan took it and ate a couple of bites. "It's too salty."
He pushed his own box aside.
Qiguan Yuan doesn't really like eating strongly flavored food anymore.
Pei Yubai pushed his box over for him to try.
Qiguan Yuan picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks, chewed it twice, and ate Pei Yubai's rice without saying a word.
Pei Yubai took his box of salty food and ate it.
The makeup artist and costume designer were squatting behind the equipment box eating lunch, whispering to each other in hushed tones.
The makeup artist said, "To me, it looks like Teacher Pei is working as someone's assistant."
The costume designer didn't reply, but pointed into the distance.
Pei Yubai squatted down in Qiguan Yuan, massaging his feet with his head down, while Qiguan Yuan sat in a chair looking down at him.
Neither of them thought there was anything wrong with it. Pei Yubai finished rubbing and stood up, then casually straightened the button on Qiguan Yuan's collar that was askew. Qiguan Yuan him do it, his eyes still half-closed.
The costume designer looked away. "Don't ask. Just know that Teacher Pei is a kind person who takes good care of his subordinates."
When Pei Yubai joined the crew this time, everyone said he was quite different from before.
I can't quite put my finger on what's different, but it feels like there's something extra on my body.
One scene was filmed outdoors. The evening light was perfect, and the setting sun shone down on Pei Yubai from behind. He stood in front of the camera waiting for the lighting technician's instructions, doing nothing but standing quietly.
The assistant director behind the monitor stared at the screen for a few seconds, then turned to the cameraman and said, "Don't you think Teacher Pei has changed a lot since he came back...?"
The photographer, also staring at the monitor, finally uttered a single word after a long pause. "Like a god."
The word was used rather strangely, but no one present objected.
That feeling isn't just present in front of the camera; it's there in private too.
Why does it feel like spending so much time with Qiguan Yuan has given even Teacher Pei a kind of divine quality?
Or is it just their imagination?
One day at noon, a package was delivered to the film crew's mailroom. The recipient was listed as Qiguan Yuan, and the sender was Lu Zhao.
Qiguan Yuan opened the package; inside was a booklet.
The paper was yellowed and brittle, with burn marks on the edges. The few ancient seal characters on the cover had winding strokes that looked like scribbles to the young female staff member.
Tucked in the middle of the booklet was a slip of paper, written in Lu Zhao's messy handwriting, "I obtained this by chance. It has been lost for three hundred years. Senior, please take a look and see if you can use it."
Qiguan Yuan flipped to the first page, glanced at the first two lines, and his eyes darted around, showing considerable interest in the subject.
That afternoon, Qiguan Yuan surprisingly didn't sleep.
I nestled in the recliner, holding that booklet, and flipped through it from beginning to end, until my fingers stopped on a certain page in the middle.
The page depicted a formation, with the runes marking the positions of the formation's cores winding and complex, their strokes ancient and intricate. Qiguan Yuan stared at it for a while before folding a corner of the page.
Pei Yubai came over with a water glass after finishing his performance. Qiguan Yuan was holding a booklet and silently reciting the incantation on it, his lips moving silently and his brows slightly furrowed.
Pei Yubai placed the water glass beside him.
Qiguan Yuan didn't even raise his head.
Pei Yubai glanced at the densely packed runes on the booklet and sat down next to him to wait.
Back at his lodgings that evening, Qiguan Yuan came out after taking a shower, his silver hair still dripping wet. He draped a towel over his shoulder, walked to the middle of the living room, and opened the booklet to look at the formation again.
The spells recorded in the book must be performed at a specific time, namely the hour of Zi (11 PM - 1 AM), the point where Yin and Yang alternate.
Qiguan Yuan looked up at the clock on the wall; it was about time.
He crouched down, gathering a wisp of divine power at his fingertips to draw an array on the floor. The moment the divine power touched the floor, it emitted an extremely faint buzz, and the patterns on the floor lit up briefly before dimming.
After completing the formation, Qiguan Yuan stood up, took two steps back, formed a hand seal, closed his eyes, and chanted an incantation.
The syllables of the ancient language flowed from his mouth one by one, and he spoke very slowly.
The patterns of the formation lit up again, much brighter than before, with golden light spreading outwards along the formation's core.
The entire room was illuminated by golden light. Qiguan Yuan stood in the center of the light, his silver hair shimmering with a pale gold hue, and his eyelashes casting delicate shadows on his face.
The divine power flowed faster and faster along the patterns of the array, gathering at the array's core into a fist-sized ball of light. The ball of light suddenly exploded, sending a silent shockwave towards the ceiling, causing the lampshade to sway twice.
Then the golden light dimmed one by one, dissipating into the air, and the room returned to normal.
Qiguan Yuan stood there for several breaths. The window was closed, the curtains were still, and the cups on the coffee table were still in their original positions; nothing had changed.
He looked down at his hands, then at the now-darkened array on the floor, and frowned.
Failed?
He waited a while longer, but still nothing happened.
Qiguan Yuan yawned, pulled the towel off his shoulder and threw it on the sofa. His silver hair was half-dry and loose. He closed the booklet, put it on the coffee table, and turned to walk towards the bedroom.
As he walked to the bedroom door, he glanced back at the remnants of the array on the ground. It was clean and empty.
He shrugged and closed the bedroom door.
About half an hour after Qiguan Yuan fell asleep, the darkened remnants of the array on the living room floor suddenly flickered.
It was a very faint sound, like the last beat of a dying heart, then it was gone and there was no more sound.
The clouds outside the window had dispersed at some point, and a moon hung in the center of the sky. The moonlight was much brighter than usual, shining straight through the window and onto the remnants of the array on the floor.
The moment the moonlight touched the array, a very thin golden filament rose from the array's core.
The filament of light circled twice, drifted towards the bedroom, passed through the crack in the door, and disappeared into the darkness.
Qiguan Yuan turned over in the bedroom, his silver hair spread out on the pillow. He was fast asleep and didn't notice anything.
Unaware that the sleeping Pei Yubai was Qiguan Yuan in his arms to begin to shrink, Pei Yubai remained silent.
Qiguan Yuan didn't find it either.