She huddled into her clothes, and carefully raised her red, icy hands to her mouth to warm them with her breath. She kept her stack of newspapers close to her chest, afraid that they would be soaked by the falling snow.
I’m not cold, she told herself, I’m not cold at all. Once she finished selling her newspapers, she would be able to buy a bowl of noodles in hot and sour soup for Song Yang. She felt that he deserved it because he had it so much harder; all she had to do was hawk newspapers on the street, but he had to work overtime at his office—long after his colleagues had already gone home—and ingratiate himself with his superiors just to get them to notice him and provide him with opportunities to further his career.
She hugged the newspapers in her arms closer to her chest. A layer of snow coated her long lashes; she smiled valiantly, even though her hands were already red and swollen from the freezing cold.
“Cut!” yelled Huang Ming quickly. He rubbed his own hands to warm them.
“Let’s move on to the next scene.” Huang Ming was concerned that Yan Huan would not be able to stand the cold. He was wrapped in a large winter coat, but that did not stop him from shivering. He could not imagine what it was like for Yan Huan, who was barely dressed for the weather because they needed her to look a certain way on camera. It was winter: the snow was real, and the temperature was five degrees below Celsius. It was, quite literally, freezing cold.
Yan Huan got to her feet. Her entire body had gone numb from the cold; her fingers were so stiff now she did not think she could bend them.
She rubbed her arms before starting the next scene.
Xiang Ke experienced firsthand the best and worst in people as she tried to sell her newspapers. Some people readily bought newspapers from her; others gave her dirty, annoyed looks. And then there were the hot-tempered ones who had been stewing over pent-up frustrations all day; one of them decided to vent their anger on her by deliberately scattering her newspapers all over the floor.
Divorced was primarily a tearjerker. The more tears the audience shed, the better the reviews.
Everything had to be realistic. It had to be real.
Bam! Yan Huan fell onto the snow. She struggled to get up, her face and hair covered with white snow. It was so cold now all color had drained from her face. Finally, she got up and looked at her palms; they were bloody from where she had scraped them against the floor.
Huang Ming froze as he deliberated whether to yell “cut.” The blood on Yan Huan’s hands was real; she had accidentally scraped them during her fall.
Yan Huan steadied herself. She looked at the snow on the ground, and grabbed a fistful of icy cold snow to rub into her palms. She bit her pale, colorless lip as her eyes grew red and misty—but she did not cry.
Her hands trembled as she bent to recover the scattered newspapers from the floor. The last newspaper was already soaked from the snow by the time she picked it up. As soon as she retrieved it, she sank to her knees and began to cry into her armful of newspapers.
Everyone on set found her silent, choking weeping painful to watch. A few of the men, usually stoic and hard as nails, could not help the tears gathering in their eyes.
Huang Ming wiped the tears from his eyes. Determination surged within him; he would make a good movie, come hell or high water.
“Does it hurt?” Yi Ling carefully bandaged Yan Huan’s hands. “Are you filming a movie, or are you trying to kill yourself? How’d you get this badly injured?”
“It’s not that bad.” Yan Huan smiled cheerfully. It actually hurt a lot, but as soon as she thought of her share of the 100 million yuan box office revenue, she knew that she had to give it her all. It would not be right for her to take a share of the profits if she faked it through.
Most of the actors were newcomers, but the shoot for Divorced progressed quickly and smoothly nevertheless. The actor for Song Yang had a few movies and TV shows under his belt, but it was his first time participating in a melodrama. Throughout the shoot, Huang Ming told Yan Huan several times, in tones of gratitude, that she was the sole pillar supporting the project.
Yan Huan could only smile wryly at that. She had forgotten about the actress who had played Xiang Ke in her previous life; all she could remember was that the little known actress who had gotten the role had enjoyed a boost in popularity after the movie, but had then quickly married a rich heir and disappeared from showbiz. Back then, Yan Huan had thought that the actress was foolish to give up on her career so early; now, however, she felt that the actress had been wise to do so.
Showbiz was a pot of murky dye—there was no hope of finding true love in it.
They had finished shooting the first half of Divorced. It was now time to shoot the scene in which Xiang Ke discovered Song Yang’s infidelity by catching him red-handed, in bed with another woman.
Xiang Ke placed her hand on the door handle. There was a pair of high heels outside the door; they were red, the one color she never wore because it was too bright and flashy for her tastes.
She was terrified of the sight that awaited her behind the door.
She left her hand on the door handle for what seemed like an eternity as she tried to muster the courage to face what lay beyond. She knew what she saw next could very well shatter her life into pieces.
Should she feign ignorance, or accept the truth?
Should she remain with him, in honor of all the promises they had made to each other?
Or should she laugh at the unrealistic, impractical oaths they had made during their impulsive youth?
At that moment, Xiang Ke was Yan Huan, and Yan Huan was Xiang Ke.
In her mind, the occupants of the bedroom had turned into Lu Qin and Su Muran.
There were many similarities between Yan Huan and Xiang Ke But Xiang Ke was a fictional woman, and the fictional women in tearjerker stories tended to have happy endings: she had lost everything, yes, but she would eventually meet the man who had faithfully waited for her, the man who loved her from the bottom of his heart.
Yan Huan, on the other hand, had met an untimely demise in her previous life. That was one of the reasons why she had wanted to act in this movie no matter what—it was the story of her life, but with a happy ending. She found it ironic.
Her other hand balled into a fist. Finally, she opened the door with a burst of sudden strength.
Yan Huan believed that she and Xiang Ke were fundamentally the same: they were the type to choose death over dishonor. They refused to wag their tails like a sad, pitiful puppy. They did not want love that was uncertain and nebulous. They rejected love that was bestowed upon them like alms upon a beggar. And they abhorred any kind of emotional manipulation by the men in their lives.
They were kind, gentle souls, but that did not mean they had given up their dignity.
The couple inside the room were in the middle of “doing it” when they heard the door open. They froze in place, their lewd postures leaving nothing to the imagination.
She saw the love bites and claw marks on their pasty white skin. It made her feel like throwing up.
Song Yang was already pushing 30, but time had not blessed him with maturity, and money had not provided him with wisdom. All he had gained over the years was the rolls of fat around his waist—fat that, at that moment, was still wobbling from the inertia of his “activity.”
Xiang Ke watched them frantically hunt for their clothes, her eyes cold. The man was her husband of nearly five years; the woman, his new secretary.
The woman put on her clothes. Just as she was about to leave, Xiang Ke suddenly grabbed her by the arm.
The actress playing the secretary had yet to react or say her lines when she saw the icy look in Xiang Ke’s eyes. It was a look of deep hatred, one that only another woman would be able to understand. All women understood one another; that mutual understanding led to a sense of solidarity and sympathy between women, but at the same time, it also meant that women knew the best way to hurt one another.
