Chapter 03: Being-towards-death (2)

12-16 minutes 08.01.2022

  @Song Yu Studio:

Hello everyone, this is Song Yu studio, I am sorry to bring you such sad news.

On August 15th. Mr. Song Yu was suspected dead by his manager at his residence. After that, the police and medical staff rushed to the scene, and Mr. Song Yu was identified as dead at the scene.

The studio artists and staff were in a great shock because Mr. Song Yu did not leave any words. We have been discussing how to inform you of this shocking news for the past two days, and finally we decided to tell the truth.

Mr. Song Yu had been suffering from depression for several years, but he had been hiding his illness and pretending to be a positive and optimistic person. It was only when we assisted the police in their investigation that we learned that Mr. Song Yu had suffered from severe depression as early as four years ago, but unfortunately we were not able to notice it in time. Mr. Song Yu could not bear the pain of his illness and finally used this extreme method to end his suffering.

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

We would also like to urge everyone to care more about the depression group and not to let the tragedy repeat itself. Depression has no so-called appearance, some people are dying with a smile.

Finally, we will follow the style and habits of Mr. Song Yu during his lifetime. We will keep everything simple at the funeral, and will not hold any memorial activities for fans. We hereby make an obituary.

This obituary trembled under the already surging sea level, and then quickly set off a shocking tsunami that flooded the entire online community. In just a few minutes, the comments under the @Song Yu Studio Weibo account reached more than 100,000. Weeping, blaming, marveling, lamenting, all going through the process of going from disbelief to cold limbs and numbness of scalp to having to believe.

Passersby discussed, fans cried, Song Yu's friends and partners began to post tributes in Moments, and even the news media, which was rarely involved in the entertainment industry, began to repost the news.

Zhou Yanqing didn't learn the news from Weibo, he was at a convenience store picking out rice balls for lunch. The little girl at the cashier suddenly broke down and cried, and then the anchor's intermittent voice came from her mobile phone: "Song Yu...studio...confirmed dead. "

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 as his mind went 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.

When Zhou Yanqing noticed that it was already dark outside, he had already returned to the rental house unknowingly. It turned out that a day had already passed.

The pain rushed back to his chest and mind like a low tide. Zhou Yanqing tremblingly turned on the phone in the dark. After a lot of thought, he mustered the courage to click on Weibo and Song Yu’s photos and reports rushed towards him. The entire online world was immersed in lingering sorrow.

In addition to the madness and sadness of the fans, 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 pride.

Song Yu graduated from the acting department of S City Film Academy and became popular on the internet because of a photo at the beginning of his enrollment. To this day, this photo was still widely circulated on the Internet. Zhou Yanqing also had one saved in his phone.

It was said that this photo was accidentally captured by the Arts Department of the Student Union on the day of Song Yu's admission. At that time, the Arts 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 that time, Song Yu had not yet reached adulthood. He looked exquisite and tall under the HD lens, wearing a simple white T-shirt with the lush sycamore trees and blue sky behind him at S Film Academy. Before the absolute beauty, all languages became pale. The photo of Song Yu soon became a hit on the internet and became the "one glance, ten thousand years"[1] of many people.

1: imagine you see someone,just one sight, it feel like 10000 years pass away. there is also an Chinese song called 一眼万年. used to describe love

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.

Since then, Song Yu's acting career had been very smooth. After starring in several hit TV dramas, he acted in his first movie ‘The Clone’ at the age of twenty-eight. With this film, he won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the Huagui Film Festival in the Mainland, and set up his own studio that year.

When he was thirty years old, he starred in the movie ‘The Road Goes On’ 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 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 romantic, evil, steady, and dull; his image was changeable. 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 such a person with a perfect life and perfect personality be world-weary.

"Yeah, why are you world-weary?"

Zhou Yanqing lightly murmured, wiping away the wet marks at the corners of his eyes. He clicked to save one of Song Yu's stills in ‘The Clone’. 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, and he started to talk dirty to him on the phone. Two minutes later, he gritted his teeth and shouted, "Write your ass, Song Yu is dead and I'm still writing shit!

Zhou Yanqing clenched his fist and hammered his tight forehead, offending the director. Now he really didn’t have to go back to the crew, 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, and was finally 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, in which the police ruled out the possibility of homicide. The report stated that Song Yu had been treating his condition negatively, which led to aggravation of depression, and later he committed suicide in his residence using a climbing rope on a chandelier due to him could not bear the torture of his illness.

After the police investigation report was issued, two female fans of Song Yu followed in the same extreme way, 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 issued long articles calling for care for the depressed group, setting off another craze.

Zhou Yanqing looked at the whole picture as an outsider.

On the third day, the department manager of the company called and was frustrated and asked him to go through the resignation procedures.

The beard hadn't been shaved for a few days, and he hadn’t taken a bath for a few days. Zhou Yanqing was silent and speechless. Standing at a loss in front of the mirror, the whole person was like sinking in stagnant water and suffocating.

"Knock knock knock!”

The knock on the door let Zhou Yanqing find 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, which looked exactly like the still picture Zhou Yanqing had saved in his phone.

Zhou Yanqing was dumbfounded. He was extremely flustered and 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 surprised, but he couldn't speak or move.

Song Yu suddenly looked fierce because of his silence. He stretched out his hand and grabbed Zhou Yanqing's neck and blamed him fiercely: "Why don't you save me!"

Zhou Yanqing felt his heart lose its rhythm, his throat felt like it was being torn apart, and the amygdala, the fear centre of the brain, had stopped working. 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.

The air was drilled into his nose and throat, and Zhou Yanqing's eyes regained their clarity. He was still lying on the familiar single bed of his senior dormitory.

Zhou Yanqing gasped to calm his heartbeat, his T-shirt was soaked with cold sweat, and only after a long time did he mutter, "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 all right?" He put down his breakfast and asked anxiously.

Zhou Yanqing then came back to his senses and wiped a handful of sweat from his forehead, smiling: "Nothing, I had a dream."

A two-year-long dream.

Jiang Cheng breathed a sigh of relief and instructed Zhou Yanqing to hurry up and wash up before eating breakfast. Zhou Yanqing couldn't help but touch Jiang Cheng's small flat head. During college, Jiang Cheng knew that his family conditions were not very good, so he always brought breakfast for him and used this considerate way to help him.

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. His roommate had been a bit weird since he fell in the bathroom last night. When Zhou Yanqing laughed out loud for the third time, he finally couldn't help himself and asked with a smile, "Yanqing, what are you laughing at?"

Zhou Yanqing's mouth grinned even wider and instead of answering directly, he said to Jiang Cheng: "Because I dreamed that I became a butterfly in the rainforest of the Amazon River in South America."

Jiang Cheng looked confused. He was simple and honest, muttering ‘what butterfly’. Thinking that Zhou Yanqing was teasing him again this time, he followed with a smile.

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 rainforests of the Amazon River in South America, occasionally flapping its wings a few times, could cause a tornado in Texas, USA two weeks later.

This was the butterfly effect.

The Death God sent him back to Song Yu two years before when he was still full of spirits, 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.