The Butterfly Effect

Chapter 02: Being-towards-death (1)

bylilacblue•December 27, 2021

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At nine o'clock in the evening, Zhou Yanqing rode a small electric scooter to go home, turning right in front and walking three hundred meters straight to the old community where he rented. He had been walking this road for nearly two years, so even though the street lights had been broken for months, Zhou Yanqing could use his perception to measure the distance.

The dim headlights of the little scooter swayed along the uneven road. When he turned right, two blinding lights suddenly shone in front of him, and then the ear-splitting sound of tires on the ground cut through his eardrums. The next thing Zhou Yanqing knew, he was flying up and hitting the ground hard.

The headache was splitting, and the strong smell of blood penetrated into the nasal cavity. Zhou Yanqing struggled to open his eyes, but he could only see a vast expanse of whiteness. He felt that he was floating in the clouds.

He had imagined countless times the way he would die in this life; died of old age, death and anger but he had never thought that he would be hit and killed by a car.

I am not afraid of death, but why is it now? I am only twenty-five years old, I still have very important things to do, Zhou Yanqing thought regretfully before completely losing consciousness.

"Yanqing! Yanqing! Wake up!"

The head hurt like it was being run over by a wheel, his chest was so stuffy, and he couldn't breathe. Zhou Yanqing clenched his teeth and tried to ignore it but there was always someone in his ear trying to wake him up.

He was painful and sleepy, too lazy to agree, but the person started pushing his body again.

So annoying, death doesn't make people happy!

Zhou Yanqing was so angry that he let out a breath and howled, "So annoying!"

With this shout, the suffocation and headache in the chest disappeared miraculously, and Zhou Yanqing suddenly opened his eyes.

"Yanqing!"

The voice sounded again. Zhou Yanqing slightly turned his head and a familiar face with tan skin and low cut hair came into view. It was Jiang Cheng, his roommate in college.

"Jiang Cheng, why are you here!" Zhou Yanqing was stunned for a moment. He and Jiang Cheng had not seen each other for almost two years.

Jiang Cheng, who just now had a worried face, instantly turned into a look of fright. He went over Zhou Yanqing's body to probe his forehead, asking, "Yanqing, you wouldn't be falling silly, right? Of course I'm here…"

Zhou Yanqing froze. He checked up and down to find no injuries at all on his body, much less bleeding, and only then did he find something unusual. His heartbeat speeded up abruptly, before asking carefully: "Jiang Cheng, I shouldn’t be a vegetative and sleep for a year or a half..."

Jiang Cheng looked terrified: "Yanqing, you do not scare me ah, what vegetative ah, you just fell after the shower and passed out. If you didn’t wake up, I would call an ambulance!"

Zhou Yanqing said blankly: "I was hit by a car just now..."

For the next hour, Jiang Cheng used a very patient and careful tone to convince Zhou Yanqing over and over again: You did not have a car accident, you just stayed up two days in a row working on your script and fainted while taking a shower.

Then, Zhou Yanqing kept sitting still with a stiff body, and finally he came to an unbelievable conclusion: He was hit by a car and flew to two years ago, he was reborn.

After taking a shower, Jiang Cheng came out of the bathroom, his body still surrounded by water vapor. He once again walked towards Zhou Yanqing side, bent down and touched his head: "Yanqing, are you really alright? Do you want to go to the hospital ah. "

Zhou Yanqing raised his head; his eyes were blank as he whispered back: "No, no, the fall was good. "

Jiang Cheng didn't hear clearly. He thought he said he was fine so after a few words of concern, he went to bed and played with his mobile phone. Soon, it was time to turn off the lights, and the little boys' dormitory plunged into darkness

Zhou Yanqing wiped the sweat from his hands and also laid down. The swelling on his forehead was still painful. According to Jiang Cheng, it was knocked on the bathroom sink when he fainted, but it was much better than being hit by a car and falling into a rotten persimmon.

The car accident happened only in an instant, but the picture was just as it was now. Zhou Yanqing closed his eyes and tried to recall the appearance or license plate number of the car that crashed into him. A violent pain rushed to his temples and his heartbeat suddenly accelerated. The body's magical self-protection mechanism prompted Zhou Yanqing to gasp violently. It took him a while to slow down.

There was already a slight snoring sound on Jiang Cheng’s side, but Zhou Yanqing did not dare to sleep. He was afraid that rebirth was a delusion in his mind; all the things in front of him were just the revelation of his life before he died. Once he fell asleep, he would never wake up again.

He used the faint light from the corridor to trace the outline of this male dormitory. He lived in this room for more than three years, so everything was so familiar. Now would be his senior year. There were four people living in the dormitory. The other two had already found an internship placement and moved out. Jiang Cheng and he had not found a satisfactory internship placement yet, and were living in the dormitory temporarily.

Zhou Yanqing's mind circled all kinds of past, and his eyelids unknowingly began to fight. Finally, he couldn't resist the strong drowsiness and fell into the walking lantern of his previous life.

…

Rubbing his sour eyes, Zhou Yanqing came out of a three-star hotel. He had just stayed up late to accompany a third or fourth-tier actress to finish the script.

He majored in drama, film, television and literature at university. The job opportunities in this major were originally narrow. He had another mindset to be a screenwriter. It had been more than a year since he graduated, but he didn't do well. A year ago he joined a film and television investment company, thinking there would be a good development, but the result was a lot of muddled writing, all of which were to make wedding clothes for others.

Last month, he was assigned to an idol drama crew by the company as a co-writer. Before starting up, he finalized ten episodes of the script. The next ten episodes were said to be revised by him, but in fact there was only an outline, almost for him to create independently.

This creative process also had to be modified at any time according to the temporary requests of the director and the lead actress.

Last night, the actress who brought the capital into the group called Zhou Yanqing to her room, saying that she was not satisfied with the content of the next few episodes and wanted to change some parts.

When it was almost dawn, the actress probably felt that it was useless to hint at a lump of wood, so she finally said openly and honestly: "Xiao Zhou, how about we solve each other's physical needs during this time in the group?"

Zhou Yanqing sneered and replied: "I'm sorry, I'm naturally crooked."

Then he was blasted out.

It was still early. Rubbing his painful forehead, Zhou Yanqing entered the subway station to go home and take a shower before going to the studio. It was not yet the morning rush hour, and there were not many people in the subway, so he found a position to lean back and doze off.

A short while later, the noise started. The people in the subway were clutching their cell phones watching something, some cursing, some surprised, some discussing. The sound was getting louder and louder, and suddenly a woman fell to the ground and cried out with an ‘wa’ sound.

Zhou Yanqing quickly took out his phone and a push message suddenly came to his eyes - #Movie emperor Song Yu hanged himself#. His first thought was what kind of idiot could create such an unethical rumor.

But he still followed his instincts and clicked in. The #Movie emperor Song Yu hanged himself# was at the top of the hot search list, followed by the word ‘explosive’ in purple, which meant that the number of people following the topic had reached an unprecedented peak.

The original initiator of the topic was a newly registered Weibo user who posted a Weibo at three in the morning.

@Gululu0423: According to internal news, it was confirmed that the movie emperor Song Yu hanged himself in his house. There should be an official announcement soon. If I spread rumors, I won't die well.

Although this post was sent out in the early morning, it still caused an uproar. The topic #Movie emperor Song Yu hanged himself# soon became popular. Netizens and marketing accounts came in droves, and there were hundreds of thousands of comments. Almost all of them are Song Yu's fans abusing the poster who spreaded the rumor The topic #Netizen speculated that Song Yu died# was also popular among netizens.

Originally, this farce should have been silent after Song Yu's studio came out to refute the rumor. However, netizens did not wait for the studio to refute the rumor, but waited for a heavy post released five minutes ago by the official account of ‘S City Police and People News’.

@S City Police and People News: At 22:34 p.m. on August 15, the Public Security Department of Yong'an district received a report that a man was suspected to have died in a residential building in Luxiang garden, Chengping road. After receiving the alarm, police and medical personnel quickly rushed to the scene. The paramedics confirmed that the man had died, the dead man was found to be Song (male, 32 years old, from S City). The preliminary forensic identification has ruled out the possibility of homicide and the specific cause of death is under further investigation. Please cooperate with the police and do not create rumors.

The news exploded like a bomb in the early morning of this ordinary day. Although there was no exact name, but according to the disclosed information combined with the unexplained post in the early morning, everything indicated that what @Gululu0423 had posted might not be a rumor.

Zhou Yanqing gasped and tried to click on the comments, hoping that someone would disprove that the post was not about Song Yu at all and that it was just a coincidence. However, no matter how he clicked, the comment section was blank. He let out a low roar in annoyance, saving your money, why didn't you replace this crappy phone earlier?

Immediately, the crowd around him gave him the answer that it wasn't the phone that was broken, but the huge flood of internet traffic that was rushing in, causing the Weibo server to be paralyzed.

The subway stopped and Zhou Yanqing did not know which station it was. He got off the train in a daze. Walking to the subway entrance he realized that the originally clear sky was raining, like a powerless sob.

The humid air made it difficult for Zhou Yanqing to breathe, and he walked into the rain in a daze.

Zhou Yanqing returned to his cramped rental room, took a shower, and then returned to the filming set, with a string taut in his body that made him do so.

As a result, when he arrived on the set, he was informed that the crew would take a two-day break. From the staff's gossip, he learned that the leading actress had asked for leave because of the morning's emotional breakdown over the Weibo post related to Song Yu.

Zhou Yanqing's flattering temperament that had been cultivated by literary works in the past few years was thrown into the trash can. He secretly cursed stupid, the studio hasn’t yet come out to refute the rumors, why are you fucking crying.

Zhou Yanqing went back to his rental house and opened his phone again. He did not open the popular topic that was still ‘explosive’, but searched for a koi[1] weibo post that had the highest number of reposts. As a firm atheist, Zhou Yanqing hundred percent religiously reposted this koi Weibo post, and then silently prayed for Song Yu's safety and that everything was a rumor.

[1]: In Asian cultures, koi fish symbolizes luck, good fortune, and positive circumstances. Koi fish are believed to bring good luck and prosperity to the lives of people who touch them.

Two days later, the official Weibo of Song Yu Studio issued an obituary, which set off a violent tsunami in the entertainment circle.