Chapter 20 – Who asked for this kid’s character setting to actually clash with his??

Editor: SleepyMango123

Proofreader: Lore

The second episode of 《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 was recorded in W County of A Province in the eastern part of the country. W County had an enchanting scenery, a long history, and a distinct cityscape. It was also an intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, the program group had already designed a new theme: ‘Wuxia¹‘Wuxia’ as defined on NU: Wuxia is a fictional genre about mortal humans who can achieve superhuman ability through martial arts training or internal energy cultivation. Wuxia is usually depicted in an ancient china setting. Despite any existence of supernatural elements, characters in a wuxia are rarely depicted reaching over 150 years of age. No immortality. I will also add that I did not translate this to ‘martial arts’ due to the element of ‘internal energy’ in wuxia.’.

The recording would start at nine in the morning under the city wall of W County. It was a fine day. The sky was clear, the mountain ridges densely and continuously overlapped in the distance with a floating mist that was a warm green. The nearby verdant willows cast shade while the cicadas sang and the birds clamored. All of this allowed the guests who arrived early to enjoy the beautiful scenery while breathing the hard-to-come-by breath of fresh air, completely refreshing their spirits.

When Director Xu announced the theme ‘wuxia’, the group wearing their personal clothes exchanged glances: Although it was also written in the script… However, if it was wuxia, shouldn’t there be costumes and props? When they were coming over, they also weren’t informed to put on makeup, no?

The director didn’t rush to answer everyone’s doubts but continued to introduce the backdrop and rules of this episode’s competition.

Because both Zhu Yingtai and Juliet’s clans were strongly against their intolerable love, the two clans jointly sent out an assassin to hunt down Liang Shanbo and Romeo.

To complete the task, the assassin infiltrated amongst the six members. Everyone’s team would be decided by drawing role cards. At the same time, the assassin role and secret task were also hidden inside the role cards. As a whole, there would still be two teams competing to finish tasks. The only difference was that the person who drew the assassin role card had to complete his secret task without being discovered.

At the final meetup, the members would cast votes on who they believed to be the ‘assassin’. If the voting result was correct, the assassin’s mission would fail and the winning team would still get to take the goddess home. On the contrary, if the assassin escaped everyone’s eyes and managed to complete his task, the killer would be declared victorious, and the goddess Zhu Yingtai/Juliet would die tragically under the assassin’s hands.

Boys! In order to protect the goddess, take action!

——Hearing the instructions up to there, the six guests finally understood. This was actually the rather common ‘Who is the spy?’ game. There were only some changes here and there, such as the roles, while the process also became a bit more complicated. However, the basic playing method was still one word: Speculate. You speculate, I speculate, are-you-going-to-speculate… What one enjoyed was the heart beating and excitement from all the furtiveness.

So it was no wonder that they weren’t informed to have their makeup done or told to change into costumes beforehand. It turned out that there were role cards that needed to be extracted on the spot.

Seeing the director display the six role cards one by one, it included ‘Guo Jing²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Jing’, ‘Yang Guo³https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Guo’, ‘Duan Yu⁴https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi-Gods_and_Semi-Devils#Duan_Yu’s_story’, ‘Lu Xiaofeng⁵https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xiaofeng’, ‘Ximen Chuixue⁶Ximen Chuixue “is one of Lu Xiaofeng’s close friends. Nicknamed “God of Sword” (劍神), he is the best swordsman in the jianghu after his triumph over Ye Gucheng. He marries Sun Xiuqing of the Emei Sect after saving her life. He appears as a cold-blooded, unfeeling, and ruthless killer to others. He is willing to help Lu whenever Lu asks for his assistance.” From Wikipedia.’, and ‘Jin Shiyi⁷Jin Shiyi is the protagonist from Yunhai Yogong Yuan, which doesn’t have a Wiki page. But here’s its sequel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiagu_Danxin’; it was almost a hodgepodge of characters from various classic wuxia novels. 

These six characters each had their own unique characteristics: Guo Jing was loyal and righteous, Yang Guo was romantic, Duan Yu was infatuated, Ximen Chuixiao was cold, Lu Xiaofeng was outstandingly handsome, while Jin Shiyi was natural and unrestrained. You could say they were all models of male gods and could easily lead people to fall into a dilemma of choice.

Fortunately, the director narrowed down the scope for them. “The guests who won last time can choose first.”

Kang Yifan, who was part of the winning team in the last episode, took the lead and stepped up, directly picking the role card of ‘Yang Guo’ then turned back to the camera and gave a wink⁸Originally english.. “As soon as I saw Yang Guo wronging lives⁹The term here is 误终身, which according to a source of mine, the ‘wronging’ refers to the peach blossom debts that surrounded Yan Guo – how many women were in love with him, but he had to wrong them all because he only loved one person, i.e. he spoiled a lot of women’s marriages. The 终身 is the same one as 终身大事 which alludes to marriage., I just knew he was for me.”

After Ye Mang went up, he struggled for a while and then chose ‘Ximen Chuixue’. He said with a smile, “This one doesn’t look as likely to be an assassin.” A staff member asked from off-camera, “You don’t want to be the assassin?”

He was stunned for a moment, then smiled and shook his head. “The goddess is so beautiful, how can I bear to kill her?” In fact, from listening to his agent’s chatter here and there, Xia Rong also knew that Ye Mang was a pure peace-loving man and didn’t like to be involved in those ‘glints and flashes of cold steel’¹⁰Essentially conflicts where people are fighting one another.. When he was free, he would also make tea for the staff members on the set, completely a good old man.

When Su Chi went up, he seemed to have already made a decision while he was waiting early. He straightforwardly took ‘Lu Xiaofeng’ and said to the camera, “I, on the other hand, hope I would get the assassin role. In that case, I can challenge a different task route to success.”

However, at the very least, from then up until entering the dressing room to change into costumes, no one could open their role cards. So he wouldn’t be able to learn whether or not his wish came true. Maybe, in the end, it was the last person who wanted to be the assassin that actually got it. These kinds of things couldn’t be said for certain.

=====

By the time Xia Rong’s ‘defeated trio’ came forward, only three role cards were left: Guo Jing, Duan Yu, and Jin Shiyi. The director didn’t let them choose one by one anymore but just handed the cards directly to the group once they came forward. So, the three people divided up the three cards.

Zhang Xin took a look at the remaining role cards, patted his chest, and said in a rejoicing tone, “Fortunately, Jin Shiyi was still left for me to choose. I want to choose him. Did either of you want him?”

Gao Junming replied ignorantly, “In fact, that name sounds rather unfamiliar. I don’t even know who he is.”

“Jin Shiyi is a character in Liang Yusheng’s novels. Regarding Liang Yusheng’s wuxia, there weren’t many adaptations into film or TV, so it’s normal that you didn’t know.” Zhang Xin explained, but he obviously knew more about it. His tone didn’t hold any contempt towards Gao Junming, instead, he patiently and kindly continued, “I think Guo Jing quite suits you, what do you think?”

With him having said this, a little bit of embarrassment appeared on Gao Junming’s face and he reached for the ‘Guo Jing’ role card. “It’s more or less the same, haha, then I’ll choose Guo Jing.”

Zhang Xin then turned around to ask Xia Rong, “Xia Rong, do you have someone you want to choose?”

Xia Rong casually answered, “Either is fine with me, I don’t have a preference.”

So Zhang Xin happily took the ‘Jin Shiyi’ role card. Xia Rong looked at the last role card, ‘Duan Yu’, on the table and sighed in his heart: This… was probably fate. Who asked for this kid’s character setting to actually clash with him? They were both rich second generations, both were handsome, moreover… No matter where they went, there were still people who loved them.

Oh, it rhymed quite well too. ¹¹Those last three ‘similarities’ end with the same sound: Dōu shì fù èr dài, dōu zhǎng dé shuài, érqiě zǒu dào nǎ’er dōu yǒurén ài.

=====

Xia Rong’s good mood lasted until everyone went into their individual dressing room and opened their role card.

The word ‘assassin’ written inside the ‘Duan Yu’ card was extremely clear and vigorous¹²The translated ‘vigorous’ here came from 力透纸背 (lì tòu zhǐ bèi) which tends to describe a calligraphy’s style..

In fact, Xia Rong was quite at ease about whether he would become the ‘assassin’. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to just do the regular tasks, but it was also a good thing if he managed to get ‘assassin’ thus allowing him a new challenge. However, what he did not expect was, the real ‘assassin’ card was actually the one that no one wanted to choose and was thus picked by him, who didn’t have a choice. This was the first reason for his surprise.

While the second reason for his surprise…

Inside the role card, in addition to the two big characters ‘assassin’ whose ink was still wet, there was also a line of small characters below it——

Assassin’s special task: the assassin must touch the earlobes of all the other members and say to them ‘You are really good-looking’ before the final segment of the episode. If all the members were successfully collected and they hadn’t become suspicious, then this mission would be judged to be completed.

…Which gay on earth proposed this super-flamboyant task ah!!!

Xia Rong turned his head and looked at the camera with a dark face, “Can I choose to give up this task?”

The accompanying director had a beaming smile, “If you go out now and shout ‘I am the assassin’ three times, then you probably wouldn’t need to do the task.”

“…” Xia Rong turned back and gnashed his teeth, “…You guys are ruthless.”

=====

The ‘Duan Yu’ style that the program group gave him was obviously based on the 2007 adaptation of ‘Tian Long Ba Bu¹³Tian Long Ba Bu is the novel that Duan Yu is from. There have been various adaptations. I could not find a specific film/drama series from 2007 but there was an MMORPG that was based on this novel in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi-Gods_and_Semi-Devils’. A tall crown in his waterfall-like hair, adding a folding fan in his hand and elegant white clothes, he completely became a beautiful young man unversed with this turbid world.

After Xia Rong changed into this getup, he was vigorously praised by the group of makeup artists, artistic director and program director. Saying how… How come they had never seen him in ancient costume before, and how it was actually so stunning, blabla… Xia Rong was calm on the surface, but in fact, he was very happy in his heart. Taking the chance before anyone came in to announce that it was time to start shooting, breaking his usual style, he decided to have a change in pattern and asked a staff member to help him take some photos. So that in the future, it can be posted on Weibo to help with publicity.

He was still performing ‘Ling Bo Wei Bu¹⁴ ‘Ling Bo Wei Bu’ is a movement technique that Duan Yu uses in the novel.’ inside the room when suddenly, he heard someone push open the door and enter. He thought that it was only someone who came to tell him they were starting to film. But when he looked back, he unexpectedly found an old man who was approximately in his sixties.

The old man was dressed in a Tang suit, holding an ebony walking cane in his hand. His hair seemed to have been dyed, a sleek inky black. He looked very energetic, hale, and hearty. Seeing him come in, all the staff put down their things and called out “Yu Lao” or “Yu Lao is here.” ¹⁵‘Lao’ is often used before or after a name in Chinese. There is a difference in implication. The more common would be before a name (e.g. Lao Yu) which would imply that the two people have a closer, equivalent relationship. However, when it is used after a name, as in this case (e.g. Yu Lao), it implies a higher degree of respect and thus is used by those with lower seniority.

From hearing “Yu Lao”, Xia Rong also understood who the person that came in was. This person called Yu Chengchang was a famous artistic director during the golden age of Xiangdao¹⁶‘Xiangdao’ refers to a place. So it’s like: ‘American films’ or ‘British films’, etc. films. He produced many classic and unimaginably beautiful Xiangdao films and could be regarded as a benchmark of that generation. After the decline of Xiangdao films, he turned to the mainland and began to invest in films. Because of his exceptionally good vision in investing, he made a lot of money and even founded his own brand. And every one of his occasional nominal films has also often been publicly praised for their box office successes, becoming an increasingly legendary figure in the circle, garnering him the nickname ‘Blessed Man¹⁷For those who might be interested, the characters here are 福人 (fú rén), where the first character means ‘blessing/good fortune/bliss’ and the second character means ‘man’.’.

One must know, while the entertainment circle was such a seemingly vain and flashy place, it was, in fact, extremely superstitious. When a crew began a production, they would have to choose an auspicious day and offer incense to the heavens. When people in the circle wanted to buy a house, they would also ask a master to take a look at the feng shui. Many stars would pray to the gods and chant to the Buddhas, and even be superstitious towards ‘qigong masters’ or ‘attained masters’. What’s more, they would also run abroad to look for ways to ‘place curses’ or ‘prick villains’ hoping their fortune would remain prosperous, while their obtrusive competitors would get hindered.

Although Xia Rong was a good young man with the five stresses and four beauties¹⁸You can think of these as some spiritual guidelines or ideal that China is promoting. The five stresses are: stress civilization, stress civility, stress hygiene, stress order, stress morality. The four beauties are: beautiful spirit, beautiful language, beautiful behavior, beautiful environment. of the new century and never engaged in feudal superstitions, except for following along when offering incense when the crew started up, this did not impede the overall environment of the entertainment circle. It was precisely because of his reputation as a ‘blessed man’ that Yu Lao was highly respected and sought after in the whole circle. With other investors, they would need to consider their conditions and negotiate with each other. However, that wasn’t the case with Yu Lao. Some production crews would even prefer to reduce their budget and request for him to invest. But whether or not he was willing, it wasn’t up to them. ¹⁹Essentially, all the crew would like for Yu Lao to invest no matter what to ‘borrow’ some of his luck. So while they are picky about other investors in general, they would rather lower their budget to bait Yu Lao to join instead.

《Liang Shanbo and Romeo》 was the first variety show Yu Chengchang invested in. When the staff in the dressing room saw him come to visit, they were all respectful and beamed with pleasure, hurriedly asking someone to drag a chair over for the elder to sit.

Yu Chengchang’s walking cane tapped on the ground twice. He did not walk in the direction of the chair that a staff member had brought, but straightforwardly walked towards Xia Rong’s side.

Xia Rong was pulling his sleeve but as he looked down, he saw this little old man in a Tang suit standing in front of him, looking at him seriously, who slowly asked…

“Youngster, recently, have you felt that something… Around you didn’t seem very normal?”

• 1
  ‘Wuxia’ as defined on NU: Wuxia is a fictional genre about mortal humans who can achieve superhuman ability through martial arts training or internal energy cultivation. Wuxia is usually depicted in an ancient china setting. Despite any existence of supernatural elements, characters in a wuxia are rarely depicted reaching over 150 years of age. No immortality. I will also add that I did not translate this to ‘martial arts’ due to the element of ‘internal energy’ in wuxia.
• 2
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Jing
• 3
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Guo
• 4
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi-Gods_and_Semi-Devils#Duan_Yu’s_story
• 5
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xiaofeng
• 6
  Ximen Chuixue “is one of Lu Xiaofeng’s close friends. Nicknamed “God of Sword” (劍神), he is the best swordsman in the jianghu after his triumph over Ye Gucheng. He marries Sun Xiuqing of the Emei Sect after saving her life. He appears as a cold-blooded, unfeeling, and ruthless killer to others. He is willing to help Lu whenever Lu asks for his assistance.” From Wikipedia.
• 7
  Jin Shiyi is the protagonist from Yunhai Yogong Yuan, which doesn’t have a Wiki page. But here’s its sequel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiagu_Danxin
• 8
  Originally english.
• 9
  The term here is 误终身, which according to a source of mine, the ‘wronging’ refers to the peach blossom debts that surrounded Yan Guo – how many women were in love with him, but he had to wrong them all because he only loved one person, i.e. he spoiled a lot of women’s marriages. The 终身 is the same one as 终身大事 which alludes to marriage.
• 10
  Essentially conflicts where people are fighting one another.
• 11
  Those last three ‘similarities’ end with the same sound: Dōu shì fù èr dài, dōu zhǎng dé shuài, érqiě zǒu dào nǎ’er dōu yǒurén ài.
• 12
  The translated ‘vigorous’ here came from 力透纸背 (lì tòu zhǐ bèi) which tends to describe a calligraphy’s style.
• 13
  Tian Long Ba Bu is the novel that Duan Yu is from. There have been various adaptations. I could not find a specific film/drama series from 2007 but there was an MMORPG that was based on this novel in 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi-Gods_and_Semi-Devils
• 14
   ‘Ling Bo Wei Bu’ is a movement technique that Duan Yu uses in the novel.
• 15
  ‘Lao’ is often used before or after a name in Chinese. There is a difference in implication. The more common would be before a name (e.g. Lao Yu) which would imply that the two people have a closer, equivalent relationship. However, when it is used after a name, as in this case (e.g. Yu Lao), it implies a higher degree of respect and thus is used by those with lower seniority.
• 16
  ‘Xiangdao’ refers to a place. So it’s like: ‘American films’ or ‘British films’, etc.
• 17
  For those who might be interested, the characters here are 福人 (fú rén), where the first character means ‘blessing/good fortune/bliss’ and the second character means ‘man’.
• 18
  You can think of these as some spiritual guidelines or ideal that China is promoting. The five stresses are: stress civilization, stress civility, stress hygiene, stress order, stress morality. The four beauties are: beautiful spirit, beautiful language, beautiful behavior, beautiful environment.
• 19
  Essentially, all the crew would like for Yu Lao to invest no matter what to ‘borrow’ some of his luck. So while they are picky about other investors in general, they would rather lower their budget to bait Yu Lao to join instead.