TBE CHapter 3

@Song Yu Studio:
Hello everyone, this is Song Yu Studio. We are deeply sorry to bring everyone such heartbreaking news.

On August 15, Mr. Song Yu was found suspected of being deceased by his agent at his residence. Subsequently, police and medical personnel quickly arrived at the scene, where it was confirmed that Mr. Song Yu had already passed away.

The artists and staff of the studio are in great shock, as Mr. Song Yu left no words behind. For the past two days, we have been discussing how to inform everyone of this shocking news, and we have ultimately decided to speak the truth.

Mr. Song Yu has been suffering from depression for years, but he always hid his condition and disguised himself as a positive and optimistic person. We only learned during the process of assisting the police investigation that Mr. Song Yu had been diagnosed with severe depression as early as four years ago. Regrettably, we failed to notice it in time. Unable to bear the torment of the illness, Mr. Song Yu ultimately chose to end his suffering in such an extreme way.

Next, we will actively cooperate with the police for further investigation, and solemnly remind everyone not to spread rumors or make speculative reports.

Here, we also call on everyone to care more about people with depression, and not let tragedy happen again. Depression doesn’t have a so-called appearance—some people perish while smiling.

Finally, in keeping with Mr. Song Yu’s own preferences and style during his lifetime, his funeral arrangements will be kept simple and we will not hold any memorial activities for fans. This obituary is hereby announced.

 

This obituary sent tremors through the already undercurrent-filled surface of the sea and then quickly triggered a monstrous tsunami, submerging the entire online world. In just a few short minutes, the comments under @Song Yu Studio’s Weibo post reached hundreds of thousands. Crying, blaming, shock, regret, everyone went through the process from disbelief to feeling their limbs go cold, scalp numb, and finally having no choice but to believe it.

Passersby discussed, fans cried, Song Yu’s friends and partners in the circle began posting tributes one after another. Even news media outlets that rarely covered the entertainment industry also started reposting the news.

Zhou Yanqing didn’t find out about this from Weibo. At that time, he was in a convenience store picking out rice balls to get through lunch when the girl at the cashier suddenly let out a loud sob and burst into tears. Then, from her phone came the broken voice of a female host: “Song Yu…studio…confirmed death.”

With a ‘bang’, Zhou Yanqing seemed to hear the tense string called ‘luck’ in his body break, and his faith collapsed with it. The corners of his mouth trembled uncontrollably and his mind was blank. He could not feel the existence of space and time. In front of him was a static screen when there was no signal on the TV, completely desperate.

By the time Zhou Yanqing realized the sky outside had turned completely dark, he had somehow returned to his rented apartment without knowing when—it turned out a whole day had passed.

The pain surged back into his chest and mind like a receding tide. Zhou Yanqing trembled as he turned on his phone in the darkness. After a long contemplation, he finally mustered the courage to open Weibo. Song Yu’s photo and all the reports about him came flooding in. The entire online world was immersed in lingering, heart-wrenching sorrow.

Aside from the fans’ craziness and grief, there was more regret and astonishment from the passers-by. Anyone with a compassionate heart could not accept the quiet death of such a perfect favored child of heaven [footnote]天之骄子 (tiān zhī jiāo zǐ): literally ‘proud son of heaven’, means an exceptionally gifted or favored person[/footnote]

Song Yu graduated from the Acting Department of S City Film Academy. At the beginning of his admission, he went viral online because of a photo. To this day, this photo was still widely circulated on the Internet, and Zhou Yanqing also had one saved in his phone.

It was said that this photo was accidentally captured by the student council’s cultural department on the day of Song Yu’s admission. At that time, the cultural department was taking some photos of new students entering the school to be used in the orientation party. This photo was not used in the welcome party at the end, but someone posted it on Weibo.

At the time, Song Yu had just come of age. Under the high-definition lens, his features were delicate and his figure upright. He wore a simple white T-shirt, and behind him were the lush plane trees and clear blue sky of S City Film Academy. In the face of absolute beauty, all language became pale. This photo of Song Yu quickly went viral online and became many people’s ‘love at first sight that lasts forever’.[footnote]literal meaning of 一眼万年:”one glance, ten thousand years”, a love that begins at first sight and never fades[/footnote]

Song Yu did not take this opportunity to enter the entertainment industry, but spent a few years in school. It was not until he was 23 years old that he played an important supporting role in a full-length historical drama, for which he was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor in the Chinese Drama Festival.

From then on, Song Yu’s road in the entertainment industry had been smooth. After acting in several hit TV dramas, he starred in his first film ‘Doppelgänger’ at the age of 28. With that film, he won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Huagui Film Festival in mainland and founded his personal studio that same year.

When he was 30 years old, he starred in the movie ‘Endless Road’ and won the best actor at the Huagui Awards and Golden Deer Awards that year. The film ‘Childhood Station’, which he starred in last year, just won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Award two months ago. He was by far the youngest Grand Slam movie emperor in the history of mainland cinema, and ‘Childhood Station’ was the favourite winner of this year’s Palme d’Or Best Picture Award.

Song Yu was widely loved not only because of his excellent acting skills, but also because of his personal charm. On the screen, he was charming, wicked, steady, and awkward, with a versatile image. In his life, he had a low-key style, was rigorous in his work, respected his seniors and supported his juniors.

He didn’t shoot commercials or variety shows, as well as there was no messy scandal. His professionalism was well-known and he had a sincere love and respect for his industry.

Many people saw in him what they aspired to be like, so they felt puzzled and sorry for his passing: how could someone whose life was perfect and personality was perfect be weary of the world?

“Yeah, how could you be weary of the world?”

Zhou Yanqing murmured, wiping away the wet marks at the corners of his eyes. He clicked to save one of Song Yu’s stills in ‘Doppelgänger’. He hadn’t closed his eyes and eaten for a day and night and finally succumbed to his physical instincts to protect himself and drifted off to sleep.

The next day, Zhou Yanqing was woken up by a phone call from the director urging him to go back to the set as soon as possible. He was stunned for a while before he remembered that he had clearly said he would take two days off yesterday. His unconscious silence annoyed the director, who began to curse him over the phone. Two minutes later, he gritted his teeth and shouted, “Write your ass! Song Yu is dead, and I don’t give a damn about writing anything!”

Zhou Yanqing punched his tense forehead with a fist; having offended the director meant he really didn’t have to return to the set, but who cared?

He chose to major in literature in college in order to become a screenwriter in the future, and the idea of becoming a screenwriter first came to him because of Song Yu. For several years, Zhou Yanqing had been carrying the dream of writing an amazing script for Song Yu to star in, and every male protagonist under his pen had more or less Song Yu’s characteristics. Now the belief he had been pursuing collapsed, just like a fish without water, just like a flower without soil, just like the world without sunlight.

After completely offending the director, Zhou Yanqing was finally able to get rid of the harassment by the leading actress, but he was also unemployed. He lay muddled for two days, waking up and staring at his phone, the heat of Song Yu’s death still unabated.

Two days later, the official account of @S City Police and People News officially released a police report, stating that the police had ruled out homicide. The report stated that Song Yu had been treating his condition negatively, which led to aggravation of depression, and ultimately, due to unbearable suffering, he committed suicide in his residence using a climbing rope and a chandelier.

After the police investigation report was released, two female fans of Song Yu also followed suit in the same extreme manner, and these two incidents quickly became a hot topic. The whole thing started to go in a negative direction. In order to curb the spread of this negative message, the media started to focus on depressed patients. A number of famous psychologists and counselling agencies published long articles calling for care for those suffering from depression, igniting a new wave of discussion.

Zhou Yanqing looked at the whole picture as an outsider.

On the third day, the department manager from the company called, angrily demanding that he complete his resignation procedures.

The beard hadn’t been shaved for a few days, and the bath hadn’t been washed for a few days. Zhou Yanqing, silent and wordless, tidied himself up and stood in front of the mirror in a daze, his whole person like being submerged in stagnant water, feeling tight-chested and suffocated..

“Knock knock knock!”

The knocking brought Zhou Yanqing back to his breath. He frowned and opened the door but was confronted with a face that made people rightly horrified.

Outside the door, Song Yu was wearing a dark gray T-shirt, with messy hair lying on his forehead and a gloomy face, looking exactly like the still picture Zhou Yanqing had saved in his phone.

Zhou Yanqing was dumbfounded. In extreme panic, he wanted to ask Song Yu why he was here and why he was wearing the costume, but he found that he couldn’t make any sound or move.

Song Yu raised his eyes; his eyes were sad. He moved his chapped lips, his voice was hoarse as he muttered: “Why? Why? Why didn’t you save me?”

Zhou Yanqing was confused, but he could neither speak nor move.

Song Yu’s expression suddenly turned fierce due to his silence, and he reached out to grab Zhou Yanqing’s neck, angrily accusing him: “Why didn’t you save me!”

Zhou Yanqing felt his heart lose its rhythm, his throat felt like it was being torn apart,and the fear center of his brain—the amygdala—stopped functioning. He didn’t feel any fear, or even felt the pleasure of liberation.

Until the last trace of consciousness was about to be withdrawn, a strange force suddenly slapped Zhou Yanqing’s back, and he sat up bouncing.

Air rushed into his nasal passages and throat, and Zhou Yanqing’s eyes regained clarity; he was still lying on the familiar single bed in his senior year dormitory.

Zhou Yanqing panted heavily, calming his heartbeat. His T-shirt was already soaked with cold sweat. After a long time, he finally muttered to himself: “A big dream.”

Jiang Cheng, carrying a bag of breakfast, pushed open the door and saw Zhou Yanqing soaking wet as if he had just climbed out of a water tank.

“Yanqing, are you okay?” He put down the breakfast and asked anxiously.

Only then did Zhou Yanqing come back to his senses. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and chuckled: “It’s nothing, I just had a dream.”

A dream that lasted two years.

Jiang Cheng let out a sigh of relief, telling Zhou Yanqing to quickly go wash up and then eat breakfast. Zhou Yanqing couldn’t help but rub Jiang Cheng’s short, flat-top haircut [footnote]小平头 (xiǎo píng tóu): literally “small flat-top,” refers to a short, cropped hairstyle[/footnote]. During university, Jiang Cheng knew his family conditions weren’t very good, so he always brought him breakfast, helping him in this considerate and thoughtful way.

The two sat at their small desks and ate Xiaolongbao. Zhou Yanqing let out a little laughter or two from time to time.

Jiang Cheng turned his side suspiciously and glanced at Zhou Yanqing. Ever since his roommate had fallen in the bathroom last night, he’d been acting a bit strange. When Zhou Yanqing laughed out loud for the third time, he finally couldn’t hold back anymore and asked with a smile: “Yanqing, what are you giggling about?”

Zhou Yanqing’s mouth stretched into an even brighter smile. Instead of answering directly, he asked Jiang Cheng: “Because I dreamed that I became a butterfly in the rainforest of the Amazon River basin in South America.”

Jiang Cheng had a completely confused expression like a monk who can’t figure things out [footnote]丈二和尚摸不着头脑 (zhàng èr hé shang mō bù zháo tóu nǎo): literally ‘a monk with a two-foot staff can’t scratch his head’, idiom for being completely puzzled[/footnote]. He was simple and honest by nature, mumbling ‘what butterfly’, thinking Zhou Yanqing was teasing him again and followed along with a laugh.

Zhou Yanqing swallowed a mouthful of sweet custard bun. The smile gradually disappeared from the corners of his mouth, but there was perseverance in his eyes.

A butterfly in the tropical rainforest of the Amazon River basin in South America, occasionally flapping its wings a few times, could cause a tornado in Texas in the United States two weeks later.

This was the butterfly effect.

The had sent him back to two years ago, when Song Yu was still high-spirited [footnote]意气风发 (yì qì fēng fā): literally ‘spirited and vigorous’, describes being full of ambition and energy[/footnote], so he would be a butterfly in the tropical rainforest here, trying to flutter his wings and change the ending of Song Yu two years later, as well as to find out some buried truths.

 

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