Chapter 453: Only a Drunken Lion Dares to Laugh at the World |
The next day, at noon.
Flower City’s largest fresh produce wholesale market.
There was no cleared set here; the place was still buzzing with noise and people.
Jiang Wen, wearing those loud floral-print shorts, stood on top of a truck loaded with empty bamboo baskets.
“Attention, all departments! Covert filming!!”
Down below, Jiang Ci crouched beside a stall selling lotus roots.
In front of him sat the black “Zhang Fei Lion” he had borrowed from Uncle Seven.
Black body with gold patterns, deep-sunk eye sockets—that fierce, murderous aura crawled out from a pile of corpses, utterly out of place in this lively, bustling market.
“Director, this lion... isn't it too fierce?” the assistant director wiped his sweat.
Jiang Wen jumped down from the height, kicking up a cloud of dust when he landed.
He walked over to Jiang Ci, holding a glass bottle of homemade liquor—the kind only old neighborhood regulars would drink.
The wine was slightly yellow. As soon as the cap opened, the pungent alcohol fumes could knock a mosquito unconscious.
“Fierce?” Jiang Wen stared at Jiang Ci. “If there wasn’t a shred of murderous intent in A Jie’s heart, how could he have survived so long in this mud pit?”
He shoved the bottle into Jiang Ci’s arms.
“Drink.”
Jiang Ci lifted his head.
His eyes—when they saw the bottle—lit up.
It wasn’t Jiang Ci who wanted to drink. It was A Jie.
“Gulp, gulp...”
Without a word, Jiang Ci tilted his head back and chugged.
The fiery liquid burned down his throat and exploded in his stomach.
After half the bottle, Jiang Ci’s face was flushed red to the roots of his neck.
His gaze went distant.
The once-clear pupils were now hazy with a film of moisture. The corners of his mouth stretched into a silly grin.
“Burp—”
Jiang Ci let out a drunken burp, that rogue-like aura seeping out through every pore.
He wobbled to his feet, tucked the remaining half-bottle of liquor into his waistband, and grabbed the heavy black lion head with both hands.
“Up—!!”
That roar cracked.
Jiang Wen narrowed his eyes and waved his hand grandly: “Action!”
The lion moved.
But it wasn’t that majestic, imposing start.
The black lion stumbled over its own front paws, crashing with a bang into the pile of lotus roots nearby.
“Hey! You damn rascal! Watch where you’re going!”
The auntie selling lotus roots was busy weighing vegetables for a customer, startled by the sudden lion, and cursed loudly.
The camera was hidden inside a nearby pile of vegetables, capturing this most genuine reaction perfectly.
The lion lifted its head.
Its eyes were half-open, half-closed, and its mouth smacked twice, as if mocking the auntie’s stinginess.
Then, in a drunken step, the lion’s body twisted bizarrely.
It slid right past the auntie’s waist, and casually—or rather, with its mouth—snatched the biggest lotus root from her stall.
“Robbery!” The auntie grabbed her scale rod and chased after it.
The black lion weaved through the crowd.
Its steps staggered, wobbling left and right.
Every time it seemed about to fall flat on its face or crash into someone else’s stall,
at the critical moment, the lion’s body would always twist.
The form of Drunken Fist, the spirit of Awakening Lion.
This wasn’t acting.
In Jiang Ci’s—no, A Jie’s—eyes, this noisy market had transformed.
The faces of people haggling became distorted and blurry.
He was the only sober drunkard in this mud pit, and also the only drunken hero.
“Good!!”
Someone shouted first.
The surrounding vendors and housewives buying vegetables, who had initially been annoyed by the lion causing trouble, were now mesmerized by this incredible display of skill.
This wasn’t just messing around—this was real kung fu!
Jiang Ci couldn’t hear the cheers.
The alcohol was racing through his blood.
He saw the old man playing chess again.
That was a real passerby, frowning at the endgame on the board, holding a “chariot” piece, hesitating over his move.
The black lion crept up silently.
The lion head tilted, also pondering the chess game.
Suddenly, the lion’s mouth opened wide and clamped down on the “chariot” in the old man’s hand, then turned and ran.
“Hey! You little brat! Give me back my chariot!” The old man’s beard bristled with rage, grabbing his cattail-leaf fan and chasing after him, “That’s ivory!”
Behind the monitor.
Jiang Wen was laughing so hard his stomach hurt, tears streaming down his face.
But he didn’t yell “Cut.”
His eyes grew brighter and brighter, yet also heavier.
On the screen, the black lion was being chased all over the market by a group of uncles and aunties—ridiculous, pathetic, laughable.
But in the gap between the lion’s jaws, Jiang Wen saw Jiang Ci’s eyes.
There was no laughter in those eyes.
Only an indescribable loneliness.
This was A Jie.
He used this clown-like method,
desperately trying to blend in with these neighbors,
trying to prove his existence,
trying to cover up the big hero dream buried deep in his heart.
“We need something a bit more intense...” Jiang Wen murmured to himself.
As if hearing the director’s thoughts.
Jiang Ci wasn’t satisfied with just messing around on the ground.
His gaze locked onto that truck parked in the middle of the road, piled high with bamboo baskets.
The truck was very tall, stacked with large, empty bamboo baskets that wobbled precariously, far from stable.
The black lion circled twice on the spot.
Then, it stomped its feet.
The puddle water splashed everywhere.
“Up—!”
The black lion shot up from the ground.
Its black body landed steadily on the edge of the most unstable basket at the very top of the truck.
“Crash—”
The bamboo basket shook.
The crowd below let out a gasp of shock.
If he fell from here, it was a two-story drop, and below were all iron racks!
Jiang Ci wobbled.
But his feet, in those broken flip-flops, hooked onto the edge of the basket.
“Lion Rolling the Embroidered Ball!”
Jiang Ci performed a high-difficulty rolling maneuver on a space barely the width of a palm.
He curled himself into a ball.
The black lion rolled and jumped on top of the bamboo baskets, every move fraught with danger, every move miraculously safe.
At this moment, the entire market went silent.
Everyone looked up, watching that black lion drunkenly throwing its weight around in midair.
It looked so dangerous, and yet so free.
However.
An accident still struck.
The lion head was too heavy, and the alcohol had numbed the balance centers of his cerebellum.
During a finishing move called “Looking Back at the Moon,” Jiang Ci’s foot slipped.
It was a piece of rotten skin on the bamboo basket.
“Crack!”
The bamboo basket broke apart.
Jiang Ci’s body lost its center of gravity, hurtling straight toward a load-bearing concrete pillar on the right!
Extremely fast!
If he hit it head-on, at best it would be a concussion; at worst, a broken neck.
“Ahhh!!!”
The screams below pierced the eardrums.
The assistant director’s face went pale, the walkie-talkie dropping from his hand: “Save him, quick!”
Jiang Wen jumped to his feet, his heart skipping a beat.
Just when everyone thought the tragedy was unavoidable.
Jiang Ci’s core strength exploded to its limit at that moment.
His waist and abdomen powered him, forcibly twisting his body sideways in midair.
What was originally a head-on collision with the lion head.
Became a side-swipe against the pillar with the lion’s back.
“Thump!”
A dull thud.
Jiang Ci hit the pillar.
But he didn’t fall, nor did he let go of the lion head.
Using the force of the impact, he rubbed his lion back vigorously against the rough concrete pillar a few times.
Scratch-scratch on the left.
Scratch-scratch on the right.
A comfortable grunt escaped his lips.
The lion head squinted its eyes contentedly (Jiang Ci controlled the eyelid mechanism), and the lion’s tail even gave a saucy little wag.
Where was this a crash?
This was clearly a drunk lion, rubbing its—itchy back—on the pillar!
“Hahahaha!”
After a brief silence, the entire venue erupted in laughter.
“This lion has become a spirit!”
“Scared the hell out of me, turns out his back was just itchy!”
“What a great performance! A reward! Give him two cabbages!”
The crisis dissolved into nothing, turning into a brilliant comedic moment.
Only Jiang Wen knew how close it had been.
He slumped back into his chair, his palms soaked with cold sweat,
staring at that bastard still rubbing his itch on the monitor, cursing: “Damn, scared the life out of me.”
After the scratching.
The black lion finally couldn’t hold on, the alcohol going to its head.
It wobbled down from the top of the truck.
Finally, it plunged headfirst into a stall selling cabbages.
Snoring sounds began.
The lion head was tilted to one side, and Jiang Ci’s hand was still tightly gripping a vibrant green cabbage.
“Cut!”
Jiang Wen finally shouted that word.
His voice was trembling.
Applause rang out on the scene.
The fish-selling uncle, the lotus-root-selling auntie, the chess-playing old man...
These genuine, old-school Flower City locals all crowded around now.
“This young man, he’s got some real skill!”
“That lion dance, it had the flair of my grandfather back in the day!”
“Hey! Wake up! Take your cabbage and go!”
But no matter how loud the noise around him was.
Jiang Ci didn’t move a muscle.
He was truly blacked out.
...
“Hiss...”
When Jiang Ci woke up, he felt like someone was doing renovations in his head, drilling into his temples with a power drill.
He opened his eyes.
What greeted him was a mottled ceiling.
This was the shabby attic the film set had rented.
Jiang Ci tried to move, only to find his arms were full of something heavy.
He looked down.
A cabbage, still carrying the fragrance of soil, was tightly clutched in his arms.
On the cabbage leaves, there were two clear bite marks.
“...”
Jiang Ci was dumbfounded.
He rubbed his pounding head, fragmented memories beginning to resurface.
Drinking... lion dancing... stealing that auntie’s lotus root... rubbing his back on a pillar...
And it seemed like he swallowed someone’s chess piece?
“Awake?”
Jiang Wen’s voice came from the doorway.
Jiang Wen was leaning against the doorframe, holding that bowl of cold pork liver congee, with an expression that was neither a smile nor a frown.
“Director Jiang...” Jiang Ci’s voice was as hoarse as if he’d swallowed sand. “I... didn’t do anything out of line, did I?”
Jiang Wen walked in and put the congee on the bedside table.
“Nothing major.”
Jiang Wen pointed at the cabbage in Jiang Ci’s arms.
“You just used a vegetable stall in the market as a bed for a nap. You insisted this cabbage was your long-lost biological brother and refused to let go no matter what.”
“Also.”
Jiang Wen pulled an ivory-colored chess piece out of his pocket and tossed it onto the blanket.
It was a “chariot.”
“That old chess player said the piece is yours. Told you not to go bothering his old buddies anymore.”
Jiang Ci looked at the chess piece, then at the cabbage in his arms, a smile on his face that looked more like a grimace.
“So... this cabbage looks pretty fresh. How about an extra dish tonight?”
Jiang Wen ignored his quip.
He looked at Jiang Ci, his expression unusually serious.
“Jiang Ci.”
“Huh?”
“I reviewed the footage from yesterday.”
Jiang Wen paused, his voice low.
“This scene is solid.”
“But...” Jiang Wen shifted the topic, a devilish smile spreading across his face,
“Since you can fight so well drunk, for the next scene against Thunder Tiger, we’re not going to follow the routine.”
Jiang Ci’s heart skipped a beat: “What do you mean?”
“I mean.”
Jiang Wen pointed outside. “I told the stuntmen to remove the wirework. For the next scene, we’re playing for real.”
“Oh, and. The actor playing Thunder Tiger? He’s a real Muay Thai practitioner, and...”
Jiang Wen grinned.
“I told him that yesterday, when you were drunk, you said Muay Thai was just flashy show, no match for your wild flailing punches.”
Jiang Ci: “???”