After a month of busy work, Yan Huan finally caught a breather in the weeks before Chinese New Year. She would be able to celebrate Chinese New Year in relative peace and quiet, but that did not mean she had abandoned her work entirely. She spent her free time reviewing the script for Please Close Your Eyes, and tried to get inside her character’s head.
She continually asked herself: “What’s the correct approach to this character?”
An idea came to her.
“Like that. See?” Lu Yi said after showing Yan Huan his martial arts moves.
Yan Huan was sitting at the table, her chin rested upon a hand. She nodded.
“Yup. I saw it…”
Lu Yi raised an eyebrow as he waited for the rest of the sentence.
“…I saw it, but I still don’t understand it.”
Lu Yi knew Yan Huan was honest, but he had not expected her to be this honest.
“Then you’ll just have to watch me do it again.” Lu Yi repeated his moves; it was part of an ancient martial art he had learned from the Lei family. He knew modern ways of fighting, but they were all too violent to use with Yan Huan. He did not want to accidentally kill her.
Yan Huan committed his moves to memory as she quickly made notes on the paper before her. She was an experienced stunt double, but most of her moves had been smoke and mirrors, instead of the real deal. They were convincing enough to fool the audience, but she would be beaten senseless if she tried to get into a real fight with the true experts.
But Yan Huan was tenacious. She would continue her lessons even if she was guaranteed to be beaten to a bloody pulp.
Her role in Please Close Your Eyes was that of a policewoman skilled in martial arts. Yan Huan was nowhere near proficient in fighting right now, and she would rather drop out of the project than put in a substandard performance, if it came down to it. But she had agreed to take on the role, and her primary goal now was to try to do her character justice, to bring her fighting skills to the standards that she had set for herself.
Her agency had arranged a martial arts teacher for her, and there would also be a choreographer on the set to show her what to do. But the lessons by the martial arts teacher had not been effective; her punches and kicks still lacked power.
She had thought of Lu Yi then. Lu Yi had studied the ancient martial arts; he was a true expert when it came to fighting, and she knew she would be able to learn a thing of two from him.
She had only mentioned it in passing, but Lu Yi had generously agreed to give her lessons.
Yan Huan did not intend to be a martial arts master, of course; she only wanted to study Lu Yi’s moves and stance.
A moment later, Lu Yi walked over to her and placed a cup of milk tea on the table. Yan Huan immediately reached out and unabashedly claimed the drink for herself without asking. Lu Yi’s lips curved when he saw that, but Yan Huan was quite sure it was not actually a smile—it was a sign of defeated resignation at the loss of his milk tea.
“I’ll be away for a few days. We’ll have to continue our lessons later,” said Lu Yi as he stared steadily into Yan Huan’s eyes. His demeanor was still cool, but he no longer kept himself at a distance. He treated her like a friend now, someone he trusted enough to openly discuss where he would be going next.
He realized that he had begun to let his guard down around the young lady.
That was the way relationships worked.
Sincerity was always rewarded with sincerity.
After spending time with him, Yan Huan now had a firm grasp on Lu Yi’s character. He seemed like a difficult man to approach, but he was actually easy to get along with. He did not smile much, but he was not the type to lose his temper over trivial things, either. She had thought of Lu Yi as a rude, bad-tempered, insensitive blockhead in her previous life, but she knew now that his frosty, unsmiling face belied his kind and gentle nature. He rarely declined requests by his friends and family if it was within his means to fulfill them.
“Where are you going?” Yan Huan immediately regretted the question; she had never asked him about his work, because she knew that his job often required the highest level of confidentiality.
“I’m going to Peace City. I’ll only be back in about two weeks.”
Yan Huan was caught off-guard by Lu Yi’s straightforward reply; she had not expected him to actually tell her where he was going.
Yan Huan blinked in surprise. “Two weeks? That means you won’t be able to celebrate Chinese New Year.”
Chinese New Year was the most important event in the country, not least because it was the most lively festival in the whole year. The excitement and merriment had decreased somewhat in recent years, but the trains all over the country still ran at full capacity every Chinese New Year. The mad rush to get back to their hometowns and families showed that the spirit of Chinese New Year was still deeply ingrained in everyone’s subconsciousness.
It was a shared cultural memory, one that could never be forgotten.
“I guess so.” Lu Yi stood up and walked over to the water dispenser to pour himself a glass of water. A flicker of melancholy crept into his eyes as he watched the crystal clear water stream steadily into his glass.
Yan Huan nursed her cup of milk tea, feeling inexplicably upset and agitated. She felt as though she had forgotten something important, but she could not recall what it was.
That night, she had just gotten into bed when she was suddenly flooded with an assortment of jumbled memories.
It was a recollection of TV footage she had seen in her previous life.
The footage had been chaotic and noisy.
Mudslide, trapped, eight people…
Mudslide, Chinese New Year.
She suddenly sat up. Her brow was drenched in cold sweat; her pajamas, too, were soaked, even though it was still winter.
Mudslide, Lu Yi.
She hugged her head and doubled over, her forehead almost touching her knees.
It came flooding back to her now. In her previous life, a mudslide had occurred in Peace City around Chinese New Year. About a dozen people had been trapped beneath it, and Lu Yi had been one of them. She remembered it clearly because the TV stations had covered the mudslide practically 24/7, due to the tragedy happening just before Chinese New Year. She had heard Lu Yi’s name on the news then, but had only known who he was after marrying Lu Qin. She had actually joked to Lu Qin when she found out that it was a pity that Lu Yi had not died during the mudslide; the Lu family would have been theirs then.
She had even looked up footage of the mudslide back then, out of morbid curiosity. She remembered that the mudslide had happened before she had become a famous actress, when she had achieved early infamy for her porno movie. It had happened when she was 21 years old, and that was this year.
But how was she going to warn Lu Yi? She could not very well tell him outright: “Lu Yi, don’t go, you’ll be trapped under a mudslide if you go.” Even an indirect warning such as “I had a dream last night, and I saw you trapped under a mudslide” sounded crazy to her ears. She could not expect Lu Yi to believe that.
The name “Yan Huan” would be synonymous with “bat-shit insane” if she tried that.
Even if Lu Yi believed her, how was she going to explain to him how she had known about the mudslide beforehand? That she was psychic? That this was actually her second run through life?
She would be captured and turned into a lab rat, to be experimented on.
She did not sleep at all that night. She got out of bed the next morning with dark circles under her eyes; they were so obvious she had to conceal them with foundation before leaving her apartment.
She went to Yuelun Entertainment’s office building for her martial arts lessons. After that, she participated in a photo shoot. That was all the work she had scheduled for the day; she had nothing to do in the afternoon.
She went to see Li Changqing.
“You want to take time off?” Li Changqing asked Yan Huan again, to make sure he had heard her correctly. He did not actually mind Yan Huan’s request for time off; her schedule was still relatively open, and Chinese New Year was just around the corner. She could take ten days or even two weeks off, if she wanted to.
“Yes, for about two weeks.” Yan Huan had gone over her plans, and knew that she would only have to take two weeks off. That meant she would miss out on celebrating Chinese New Year, but that was a sacrifice she would have to make.
“All right,” Li Changqing agreed. “But you’ll have to participate in a few photo shoots first. We’ll be using those photos to build up your popularity.”
Yan Huan nodded; she did not mind.
After a few days of photo shoots, she finally completed all the work that had been scheduled for her.
