Night fell, and each crew prepared for the evening's night scene.

The room was crowded with people. It wasn't so packed that there was no room to step, but it was enough to make Qu Yanting feel restless. He went up the stairs, all the way to the fifth floor, and the noisy sounds from downstairs became distant.

The voice-activated light was as dim as a single candle flame. Qu Yanting sat down on the stairs. The light went out. He couldn't be bothered to make a sound, so he rested his elbows on his knees, cupped his lowered forehead in his hands, and remained trapped in the darkness.

Before long, someone came up from downstairs.

Qu Yanting had just warmed the cold steps. He hesitated about whether to hide on the sixth floor, but before he could decide, the other person was taking three steps at a time, already climbing the stairs on the side of the handrail.

With a click of the tongue, the light turned on.

The person who came up was Lu Wen. He was fully in Ye Shan's makeup and hairstyle, holding a script, looking for a quiet place to rehearse his lines. He sat down on the steps, not noticing Qu Yanting sitting on the stairs above the landing.

Qu Yanting also remained silent, his breathing so faint it was nearly inaudible.

The script opened. Lu Wen read line by line in a low voice, repeatedly adjusting his pauses and emphasis. After reading it once, he started a second time. His serious demeanor was a world away from his usual self.

Tonight, they were filming one of the major scenes. It involved a crying scene, an overall process of emotional outburst. His scene partner was still Tao Meifan. Acting opposite a veteran senior, Lu Wen felt a great deal of pressure.

Besides, Qu Yanting was here to watch the scene, to watch him play Ye Shan.

After finishing the second read-through, Lu Wen closed the script and recited the lines from beginning to end.

Qu Yanting listened. He had written the lines, so he knew them well. Lu Wen recited them without a single mistake. After finishing, Lu Wen still felt it wasn't enough and started a fourth run-through.

Qu Yanting could no longer remain silent and let out a light cough.

"Fuck!" Lu Wen jumped in his usual startled way. 'There's someone fucking here!'

He stood up and rushed to the landing, finally discovering Qu Yanting sitting on the stairs. Following the principle of first come, first served, he couldn't very well ask, "What are you doing here?" so he just stood there awkwardly.

What Qu Yanting wanted to say was: "Don't say it out loud, read it silently."

Lu Wen explained, "I didn't know you were here. I didn't mean to disturb anyone."

Qu Yanting said, "I'm telling you to save your voice."

Lu Wen went back and sat down, mimicking Qu Yanting's posture by propping up his forehead and pressing his thumbs to his temples. He was quiet for a moment, then asked preemptively, "Can we discuss something?"

If it weren't for Lu Wen's overly gentle tone, Qu Yanting would have thought a director, producer, or investor was speaking to him with that phrasing.

He responded a beat later, "What is it?"

Lu Wen said, "If I mess up my performance, there are a lot of people on set. If you're going to lecture me, can you find a place with no one around?"

Qu Yanting's hands slid down, his ten fingers interlacing to cover the lower half of his face, filtering his amused voice so it sounded a bit muffled. "The crew has too many eyes and ears. We might as well just go back to the hotel."

Lu Wen said seriously, "Then should we go to your room or my room?"

Qu Yanting suspected Lu Wen had Stockholm syndrome. Unfortunately, for an actor, a bad performance was bound to get them scolded. If they muddled through it during the performance, the audience would surely condemn them later. It wasn't something that could be prevented.

Qu Yanting neither encouraged nor pressured him, only giving objective advice: "Don't think about how you should act. Just get into Ye Shan's state of mind and follow the reactions in your consciousness."

Everything on set was ready, and the two of them returned to 302.

The monitor was moved into the room. Qu Yanting sat down next to Ren Shu. The long night shoot was hard to endure. A large cup of strong tea sat on the table. He said, "This must be tough."

"I'm used to it," Ren Shu said. "I hope the shoot goes smoothly."

Qu Yanting asked, "What do you think?"

Ren Shu answered, "I'm not confident. It's Xiao Lu's first time shooting a crying scene, and it has to be this one. Let's do one take and see."

Qu Yanting pondered, then said, "If it's good, don't praise him; he gets cocky easily. If it's bad, don't yell at him either; yelling will just fluster him and make it more troublesome. Whether it's praise or criticism, wait until after the scene is finished. Don't affect his emotions."

"Alright." After agreeing, Ren Shu smiled. "You seem to know him pretty well."

Qu Yanting set his phone to silent and began to watch the scene.

It was Saturday. Ye Xiaowu had gone out to play with his classmates and hadn't returned yet, making the room feel deserted.

Mother Ye brought a large bundle of laundry in from the balcony and carried it into the bedroom. The house was small. Ye Shan and Ye Xiaowu slept on a bunk bed and shared a desk. After folding the clothes, Mother Ye rolled up her sleeves to tidy the messy desktop.

Both brothers' books were piled on the desk, along with comics and magazines Ye Xiaowu had borrowed. Mother Ye sorted through them one by one. She didn't need to look at the names on the test papers; the high scores belonged to Ye Shan, and the failing ones belonged to Ye Xiaowu.

After tidying up a stack of comic books, Mother Ye sighed and checked if there were any more in the drawer. When she pulled it open, it was stuffed with last semester's test papers. She took them out one by one and folded them, discovering a notebook hidden at the very bottom.

Mother Ye took it out. It was hard to tell if it was new or old, and there was no name written on it.

The camera pushed in for a close-up. The cover was lifted, and the two characters "Dawn" flashed by, written in Ye Shan's neat and forceful handwriting. Seeing the writing was like seeing the person; Qu Yanting recalled the silly look on Lu Wen's face as he squatted outside the door, slipping a note under it.

Mother Ye flipped through the pages one by one, the muscles in her cheeks tensing.

The lock on the living room door clicked. Ye Shan was back. He had gone to the seafood market to stock up before dawn and had been busy at the fish stall all day.

He went into the bathroom to wash his hands, calling out to the room, "Mom, business was good today."

After washing his hands, Ye Shan walked toward the bedroom. "Mom, I'll go on Sundays from now on, too. You can take an extra day off."

Mother Ye didn't respond. When Ye Shan walked in, she turned around with a blank expression, a dull, extinguished look in her eyes.

Ye Shan saw the notebook in Mother Ye's hands and his face changed. He rushed over anxiously, but stopped timidly just before the desk, not daring to look at his mother's expression.

"Mom..."

"What is this?"

Ye Shan remained silent. Mother Ye didn't want to engage in a silent tug-of-war with him and asked again, "What is this? What did you write?"

Ye Shan stood rooted to the spot, at a loss. The water droplets he hadn't dried were cupped in his palms, mixing with his sweat.

Mother Ye lost her patience, flipped to the most recent page, and read a line from it: "Three in the morning, Mom, yelled at me." Then she asked, "Ye Shan, did I yell at you? What does this mean?"

Ye Shan shook his head in a panic. "Mom, I was just scribbling, it's nothing!"

Mother Ye ignored him and flipped to the previous page. "The day before yesterday, four fifty-seven in the morning, Mom, slapped me."

The seventh, two in the morning, I was locked outside, Mom ignored me.

The third, four-thirty in the morning, Mom took Xiao Wu back to our hometown alone, I couldn't find them.

Mother Ye flipped backward, page by page, reading line by line. "The twenty-ninth, three-thirty in the morning, I dreamed about the day of the high school entrance exam..."

These were all Ye Shan's dreams. He couldn't remember when it started, but Ye Shan's dreams were becoming more and more frequent. Every time he woke up in the middle of the night, he found it hard to fall back asleep, so he would get up and record the contents of his dreams.

Ye Shan begged Mother Ye to stop reading. He reached out to snatch the notebook, but she forcefully batted his hand away.

Mother Ye's breathing was slightly ragged. "You've been having nightmares?"

Ye Shan's eyes were already red. He denied it, "No..."

But Mother Ye didn't believe him. She stared at him and asked, "Ye Shan, you wake up startled in the middle of the night, all because of these nightmares? But every single one of your nightmares is about me, about your own mother?"

Tears fell from Ye Shan's eyes. Mother Ye questioned him, "You dream that I yell at you, hit you, won't let you come home? That I take Xiao Wu and leave, that I don't want you anymore, is that it?"

"Ye Shan, are you delusional? Are you mentally ill?!"

Mother Ye glanced at the words again, raised her hand, and slammed the notebook hard against Ye Shan's chest. She choked out, "I work day and night, struggling to raise you two brothers. This is just great. In the end, I've become the villain in your dreams!"

Ye Shan took a step back, and the notebook fell at his feet.

"What you think about by day, you dream about by night." Mother Ye raised her voice. "Let's make things clear today. How dissatisfied are you with me? How much grievance have you been bottling up inside!"

Ye Shan bit his lip to suppress his sobs, tears streaming down his face in torrents. He couldn't say a single word.

A lock of hair fell by Mother Ye's temple, making her look disheveled and haggard. She pressed a hand to her chest and said hatefully, "Fine, you won't talk. I'll talk for you."

Ye Shan cried and begged, "Mom... I was wrong..."

But Mother Ye had already started speaking: "You think I'm not good to you, that I don't value you, is that right? You help out at the fish stall, you do this and that, but I dote on Xiao Wu more, and you're unhappy about it, aren't you?!"

"What you feel most wronged about is that I forced you to switch admission tickets with Xiao Wu, made you take the exam for him, and made you unable to attend a key high school, isn't that it, Ye Shan?!"

Ye Shan denied it desperately, no longer able to hold back his sobs. "No, it's not..."

"Then what is it?" Mother Ye's eyes welled with tears. "I'm your mother, and I'm giving you nightmares."

"Mom..."

"Fine! If you have the guts, go dream about your father!"

In an instant, Ye Shan's expression turned stunned. His knees went weak, and he knelt on the floor with a thud in front of Mother Ye.

Mother Ye's voice finally lowered, as if recalling an old piece of news, and also as if a sharp blade was falling upon Ye Shan's head. "If you hadn't insisted on going to the movies when you were eight, your dad wouldn't have been in such a hurry to come back and pick you up... and he wouldn't have had an accident on the road."

In the close-up shot, Lu Wen was frozen for three seconds.

Qu Yanting's gaze left the screen and turned to the back of Lu Wen, who was kneeling on the floor. Those broad shoulders tensed, trembling with each breath, his back bowed into a slight arc, looking so helpless, so humble.

He saw Lu Wen grab the corner of his "mother's" clothes and say, choking on his sobs, "Mom... I know you resent me."

That's why he tried his hardest at everything, just to please her, wanting the same mother-son closeness his brother had. Those frequent dreams didn't amplify or reflect grievance at all, but rather a fear born from years of accumulated guilt.

Mother Ye softly denied it, "Ye Shan, you're my son. I wouldn't resent you."

But before she became a mother, she was first a wife who deeply loved her husband. In the long and bitter years, she had tasted a different kind of pain.

"When I see you... I always think of your father."

Tao Meifan pushed Lu Wen's hand away.

Lu Wen's eyelids were red. He blinked, then slowly sank to sit on the floor. He lowered his head, picked up the notebook, and his tears fell onto the paper with soft plops.

He tore out a page.

Soft sobs, bitter crying, wailing.

Page after page of records, every dawn he woke from a nightmare, were all destroyed.

Everything on set seemed to stop. There was only Lu Wen's heart-wrenching sobs. He clutched a handful of torn paper, hoarsely forming the words "I'm sorry," but his lips and teeth trembled, and not a single sound came out.

Qu Yanting zoned out slightly, both immersed in and detached from it all. He couldn't tell if that was Lu Wen or Ye Shan, or perhaps someone else?

He couldn't catch his breath. He got up and quietly left the room.

As the door closed, the frame froze. The scene was finished.

The staff members flooded in. Ren Shu immediately stood up and strode toward the two actors, clapping as he walked. The cinematographer moved to the side. "I was about to cry."

Tao Meifan wiped the corner of her eye and asked with a smile, "Director Ren, how was it?"

Ren Shu nodded repeatedly. "Extremely satisfied. Really, I'm extremely satisfied."

Tao Meifan said, "That scene was truly satisfying to act. Xiao Lu wasn't timid at all."

Lu Wen was still sitting on the floor. He didn't have the deep experience of the senior actor and couldn't quickly break away from the character. He had cried so much his temples were throbbing with pain, and he had just managed to stop his tears.

Ren Shu pulled him up. "Get up, quick! Xiao Lu, I was worried you wouldn't be able to keep up with Teacher Tao's acting, but I didn't expect the shoot to go so smoothly. Your emotions and body language were both spot on, very nuanced. An excellent performance."

Lu Wen had a tear-streaked face and swollen red eyes, looking just like a sad black bear.

Tao Meifan joked, "Let my son recover for a bit. Go wash your face."

Lu Wen went to the bathroom dizzily to wash his face. The splash of cold water brought him back to his senses. He completed the process of getting into character and then out of it, leaving behind a wave of desolate emptiness.

There were too many people in the room; he wanted to be alone for a while.

Lu Wen went downstairs and walked toward a less crowded area. He thought he was wandering aimlessly, but in reality, he was carrying Ye Shan's emotions and subconsciously walked toward the grapevine.

In the script, there was also one at his old home in the north, planted by his father before he died. After coming to Chongqing, Ye Shan planted this one.

Lu Wen walked over. He stopped as he got closer, not expecting anyone to be there.

Under the grapevine, Qu Yanting sat alone. His face was turned to the side, his head pillowed on his arm, leaning on the edge of the table without caring if it was clean or dirty. The light from the bulb hit the space between his prominent brow bone and the bridge of his nose, like moonlight falling on a mountain peak, his eyes hidden in the shadows.

Lu Wen stood there, stunned by the surprise. He thought Qu Yanting had left. Turns out he was here, but Lu Wen didn't know why he was here.

Startled by him, Qu Yanting straightened up. There wasn't a ripple of emotion in those eyes, but they held a temperature, probably a little colder than the late-night wind.

They looked at each other for a moment before Lu Wen spoke first. "I didn't mess up."

Qu Yanting said, his voice a little hoarse, "You acted very well."

This was the first time Qu Yanting had praised him since they met.

Lu Wen wasn't surprised or pleased. The director had praised him, Teacher Tao had praised him too. The director had applauded excitedly, and Teacher Tao had smiled and said it was satisfying.

He gazed at Qu Yanting and asked in a low voice, "Then why are you unhappy?"