PLT | Chapter 13

Startled from a Dream

The production team probably never expected that what was originally just meant to be a dinner segment, eating and drinking while sampling the local specialty foods, would be forcibly turned by Zhou Chenyu’s impromptu opera performance into a major discussion about the clash between traditional opera and contemporary values. In an instant, the program had countless more meaningful bits of material and quite a few topics that could stir up discussion heat.

The same appearance fee, yet out of nowhere they got several times more content. Xiangsheng performers really were cost-effective.

The Ends of the Earth production team was extremely satisfied with this guest participant who had parachuted over from the neighboring Second Role production team. They were even thinking that if there were a chance in the future, they would invite him back again.

The other guests, however, had it much worse. Filming that was originally supposed to wrap up that evening was dragged out until midnight before they finally called it a day.

The moment he stepped into the room, Zhou Chenyu did not say a word before reaching up and switching off the camera on the ceiling.

Yan Chao laughed at him. “Why are you in such a hurry? Anyone who didn’t know better would think you came in here to rob the place.”

Zhou Chenyu curled his lip. “I seriously don’t get why you people insist on installing cameras in the room when you film shows. Are you that eager to peek into other people’s married life?”

After spending these past few days together, Yan Chao had already become completely familiar with Zhou Chenyu’s mode of endlessly spouting flirtatious nonsense. He had discovered that the more he resisted, the more Zhou Chenyu enjoyed himself. But if he flirted right back, Zhou Chenyu instead found it boring.

So Yan Chao continued, “It’s late already. Hurry up and take a shower. I’ll be waiting for you in bed.”

Unexpectedly, Zhou Chenyu suddenly walked over and sat down beside him. “Come then, husband, today in the daytime I promised to offer up my body as an apology.”

Yan Chao: “……”

He was stupid, really.

He only knew that he himself could also say shameless things. He did not know that when the dao rose one foot, the demon rose ten.

When it came to being shameless, he would never outdo Zhou Chenyu.

Seeing the stifled look on his face, Zhou Chenyu showed a smug grin without the slightest attempt to hide it.

After laughing for a while, Zhou Chenyu finally switched back to a slightly more normal expression. “I haven’t even asked you yet. What was up with you today? How come hearing one mention of Princess Daizhan made you empathize so much?”

Realizing that Zhou Chenyu had noticed his abnormal reaction at the time, Yan Chao’s gaze stalled again, but he still brushed it off. “Nothing. Am I not allowed to zone out for a bit?”

“Zone out?” Zhou Chenyu looked at him with obvious disbelief. “With that reaction you had, anyone who didn’t know better would think you got made into the other man.”

Yan Chao gave a mocking laugh. “What kind of nonsense are you talking about? Didn’t I already say it, my first love is still around.”

Zhou Chenyu huffed. “If I hadn’t reacted fast and steered the topic away, and the cameras had caught it, how were you planning to explain yourself?”

Yan Chao’s expression stilled, and for a moment he could not say a word.

It had to be said that, as a penggen whose professional ability was more than solid, Zhou Chenyu’s control of the room really was strong.

At the time, none of the people around them had noticed Yan Chao’s sudden loss of composure, but Zhou Chenyu had caught it almost within a second. Then he had quickly tossed out a baofu, shifting everyone’s focus onto himself, and giving Yan Chao’s emotions time to settle back down.

Yan Chao could not help feeling a little lingering fear when he thought back on what had just happened. If it had not been for Zhou Chenyu then…

Abruptly, several familiar fragments flashed through his mind again. Yan Chao almost instantly felt a rush of air surge upward from below to the top of his head, and in the very next second came that long-familiar explosive pain.

“Hey?” Zhou Chenyu reacted quickly and reached out to touch his forehead. That sudden movement instantly pulled Yan Chao back into the real world.

Zhou Chenyu frowned. “What’s going on with you? Where do you feel bad?”

“I’m fine.” Yan Chao waved a hand. “Maybe I’m just a little tired from filming today.”

Zhou Chenyu had probably been startled by how he had looked just now, and glanced at him worriedly. “Then hurry up and wash up and get some rest.”

Yan Chao nodded and got up to head toward the bathroom. Then he suddenly remembered something and turned around to ask Zhou Chenyu, “You’re talking about me, but when your sister brought up your childhood today, what kind of reaction was that from you?”

Zhou Chenyu lifted his eyes to him. “What kind of reaction? Wasn’t it just a normal reaction?”

Yan Chao looked into his eyes. “You can see through me at a glance, and you think I can’t see through you?”

Zhou Chenyu stared at him for two seconds, then suddenly laughed. “You weren’t willing to tell me, so why should I tell you?”

He said it without any attempt to conceal it, and he was not without reason, which left Yan Chao with nothing to say.

Then Zhou Chenyu spoke again. “Actually, it’s nothing much. Just those things from when I was learning opera as a kid. If you want to hear it, I’ll tell you another time when there’s a chance.”

Yan Chao did not really have any mind for gossip. He had only thrown the question back at him as a courtesy, but unexpectedly, Zhou Chenyu was much more frank than he was.

A single story about Wang Baochuan had actually drawn out each of their own murky, unspoken thoughts. It really was strange enough.

Zhou Chenyu patted Yan Chao on the shoulder and sighed. “Everyone’s got their own hard scripture to recite.”

As the saying goes, what occupies the mind by day appears in dreams at night.

It was just that Yan Chao had not expected that what appeared in his dream that night would actually be someone from the opera.

What he dreamed of was precisely the Gansanguan scene from Red-Maned Steed. After Xue Pinggui received Wang Baochuan’s letter brought by a wild goose, he decided to return to the Central Plains, but feared Princess Daizhan would not agree, so he got the princess drunk and returned to his homeland alone.

After Princess Daizhan woke up, she pursued him with troops all the way to the city gates. Left with no choice, Xue Pinggui told her the truth, and only then did the princess learn that Xue Pinggui already had a lawful first wife, Wang Baochuan. Moved by the feelings between the two of them, she ultimately let Xue Pinggui return to the Central Plains.

And yet, for some reason, the dream in Yan Chao’s sleep was not quite the same as the opera script.

In his dream, after the princess learned that there had actually been someone else in her husband’s heart all along, she was overcome with utter despair. She drew her sword and resolutely pointed it at her own neck.

Bright red blood burst forth across her pale skin in an instant. At almost the same time, a child’s scream rang in his ears. In a flash, the scene began to blur. All the surrounding scenery vanished. All he could see was a slick, vivid red, and all he could hear was a piercing scream warped out of tune.

Yan Chao shut his eyes and desperately covered his ears, struggling to escape that horrifying sea of red, but it was useless. All of it clung to him like a shadow, leaving him no space at all to flee.

His head hurt so badly it felt as if it were about to explode. His breathing grew faster and faster, as though an invisible hand were gripping his throat, as though he would suffocate the next second.

“Yan Chao!”

Yan Chao shot upright in bed, and all he could still see before his eyes was a field of crimson blood-red.

He gasped for air in great heaving breaths, his handsome brows tightly knit. Only after a long while did a little sensation gradually return to him.

His palms were full of sweat, yet at this moment they were clasped inside a pair of cool, dry hands.

Those hands were not broad, but the fingers were long and soft. For some reason, at that instant they gave him a strange sense of reassurance.

The room was pitch black. By the hazy night light outside the window, a blurry figure gradually came into view before his eyes and called his name again. “Yan Chao?”

Yan Chao’s breathing calmed a little, but his voice still carried some panic. “What happened to me just now?”

The other person’s grip on his hands tightened, his tone completely unlike his usual loose, careless one. “…You grabbed your own neck and started choking yourself. You scared me to death.”

Yan Chao said, “…Sorry.”

Zhou Chenyu asked again, “Did you have a nightmare?”

Yan Chao nodded. In a low voice, he said, “I scared you.”

Zhou Chenyu said, “It’s fine. Good thing you scared me awake.”

As he said that, he let go of Yan Chao’s hand and was just about to get up, when Yan Chao suddenly caught him with a backhanded grab.

Zhou Chenyu had already been startled badly by him just now. At this moment, caught off guard and unable to keep his footing, he fell hard straight into Yan Chao’s arms.

In the dead of night, in a room so dark one could not even see one’s own hand, two grown men were tangled together on the bed. The atmosphere was inevitably a little strange for a moment.

Zhou Chenyu instinctively struggled lightly, but the strength in Yan Chao’s hand was astonishingly great, so much so that he could not break free for the moment.

He could only call out tentatively, “Yan Chao?”

Yan Chao had once again fallen into a dazed state just now. Only when Zhou Chenyu called him softly did he abruptly come back to himself from those muddled thoughts.

The strength in his hand loosened a great deal in an instant, yet he still did not let go of Zhou Chenyu.

The way Yan Chao looked now was simply too abnormal, making Zhou Chenyu freeze slightly, at a loss for what to do.

After a moment, he could only pat Yan Chao on the shoulder in comfort and say helplessly, “I already felt in the daytime that something was off with you, but you just wouldn’t tell me…”

Yan Chao did not speak. He only gripped Zhou Chenyu’s hand tightly, as though clutching some kind of lifeline.

No one knew how much time passed before he finally drew a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was lower than it had ever been before. “Have you heard of PTSD?”

He himself did not know why he had suddenly told the secret he had hidden for twenty years to the person in front of him, someone he had known for less than twenty days.

But at the moment when he held those soft hands, that sense of reassurance, something he had not felt in a very long time, made every shell and disguise around him collapse all at once.

The sudden question he had just asked was, in truth, more like a confession. The moment he said it aloud, it felt as though he had already cast off much of the burden that had long been weighing on his heart.

He had not expected Zhou Chenyu to say that he had heard of it. After all, a strange mental disorder like this was not some common illness.

Unexpectedly, the instant he heard the term, Zhou Chenyu instinctively tightened his grip around Yan Chao’s hand.

And Yan Chao suddenly realized that perhaps he really did know what it was.

In the next second, Zhou Chenyu reached out and gently embraced him in return, whispering softly by his ear, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”