"The Poor Is Frozen to Death on an Empty Stomach"
Yuan Ge goes to collect his car from the car park under South Luogu Lane, where he usually parks it. Living in the heart of the old town while filming, it is really inconvenient to drive; but today the crew finishes their last day of work and Yuan Ge feels it is time to go back his home in Moonlight Valley to live for a while.
As the car passes the entrance to the Rong Mansion, he can't help but stop. Although someone is in charge of clearing the set after today's shoot, Yuan Ge still feels a little uneasy. Now that he is the only member of the crew left in Beijing, he feels the need to do one last check before going back home. Besides, even though Amélie has done most of the drinking for him tonight, he has to allow enough time before driving just to be on the safe side.
Walking into the empty and silent Rong Mansion in the stillness of the night, Yuan Ge has inspected each of the venues rented by the crew in turn. He saw that Du Jinghai and his team had packed up all the equipment and moved it back to the warehouse before dinner. Everything has been meticulously organised and he could not help but praise Old Dude in his heart. The prop room and dressing room have also been packed up and looked quite empty. As for the lighting technicians and assistants, they are all temporary contractors. After getting paid, they all stopped working, eager to catch the various transports tomorrow morning and head back to their respective homes for the New Year - the imperial capital has always been the place where people's chase their dreams, but it would never be their hometown.
After checking around, he finally returns to the crew office, which was the only place that had not been emptied. After thinking about it, he decides to move all the things here back to Moonlight Valley for the time being. It is a hassle, but it would give him more peace of mind during the holidays - Yuan Ge knows he has OCD, which is not kind to his profession as a director. He feels compelled to worry about everything and cannot tolerate any imperfections.
Picking up the master copy of Qingqing from his desk, which is handwritten and has been revised and edited many times by him, Yuan Ge sighs and silently puts it into his backpack. Although rationally he understands what the olive branch extended by King Guan Entertainment meant to Dragon Dreams and himself, Qingqing is the fruit of his labour after all. Once they get on King Guan's bandwagon, they might travel further down the road of commercialisation, and it would be hard to say when he would be able to go back to make Qingqing again - on this point, Yuan Ge admits to having selfish motives. His position is different from that of Chow Mingrun, Du Jinghai, Amélie Jiang and the other young actors. They probably believe that Dragon Dreams has to develop quickly and gets a firm foothold in the industry as soon as possible. As for himself, he has come all this way, choosing to be a director rather than an actor because he wanted to create a work of art, the kind that belongs to the soul, free from worldly interference and true to his conscience.
A true artist often relies on this determination, on the obsession to squeeze himself to the limit, to explode with an energy in order to reach the top in a short time, to create art, to create immortal works. Lately, in his dreams and outside of them, he has been full of inspiration for the creation of Qingqing. If he cannot strike while the iron is hot and let go of his inspiration for six months or a year, will the film he produce at a later time have tasted as good as it would be today?
With his thoughts running wild, he hauls the cleared junk to the rubbish collection area at the back entrance, but unexpectedly sees a ragged figure collapsed next to a bin. Yuan Ge's heart tightens as he runs a few steps closer and realises that the unconscious man is indeed Rong Qiuchen. He is still wearing the thin, tattered costume from the set, which could no longer be seen its original white colour; his stunningly beautiful face is so dirty that it is unrecognizable, and he is holding a box of leftover lunch from the set, which he has obviously pulled out of the rubbish …
"While meat and wine go to waste behind the vermilion gates of the rich, the poor is frozen to death on an empty stomach by the roadside."[1]
Such a verse drifts into Yuan Ge's mind at an inopportune moment, remembering that so many people from Dragon Dreams had gone to Dong Lai Chang for lamb hot pot tonight, while this poor man is hunkered down here pawing through rubbish to eat.
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[1] This is a famous line by the Chinese poet Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty.