The film crew settled in a remote village in western Qinghai Province.
Tang Yasong’s team had scouted locations a year in advance and selected this village with beautiful scenery but virtually nonexistent infrastructure. There were no hotels in the village, and the nearest county town was a thirty-minute drive away. The production team rented a local house for the crew’s use, giving preferential treatment to the actresses. Xi Tang and another actress occupied a room in the west courtyard, while most colleagues slept on large kang beds in communal arrangements. The lights in the equipment room stayed on all night. The weather was scorching, with torrential rain and intense heat alternating. At night, mosquitoes swarmed densely, making working conditions extremely harsh.
Accompanying Xi Tang was her assistant and agent Ma Jihong. Ni Kailun was six or seven months pregnant. As Xi Tang was the company’s newly popular actress who needed to fly frequently between Beijing and Shanghai for work, Ni Kailun’s physical condition couldn’t keep up. There were also commercial activities and promotional events in Beijing that required repeated negotiations, so the company sent Sister Jihong to accompany her. Xi Tang had limited interaction with this person, who had previously managed the company’s popular male actor. Xi Tang only knew that this agent was also an industry veteran and even the shrewd and formidable Ni Kailun was somewhat wary of her.
Ma Jihong arranged everything for her at the film set and then flew back to Beijing.
The month-plus of working in Qinghai was Xi Tang’s most arduous yet also most peaceful filming experience. It was certainly difficult with such poor living conditions, but her deepest impression was of every evening after filming, when all colleagues ate from the same large pot in the courtyard. There was no internet here either. After the exhausting daytime shooting, everyone gathered in the courtyard at night to rest their feet, and acquaintances and strangers alike huddled together to chat. Old Geng, the lighting technician, would bring out his guitar, and everyone would gather around him to sing. One night, everyone urged Director Tang to perform, and he obliged without hesitation. Standing on a threshing pile in the courtyard, hands on his hips and eyebrows raised, he delivered a high-pitched Xi Pi opera piece: “Today I drink to celebrate success, but my ambitions remain unfulfilled until the end—” Everyone clapped and laughed heartily. Xi Tang sat on the steps below, laughing until tears streamed down her face.
Day after day, the entire crew ate, lived, and worked together, quickly building strong revolutionary camaraderie within the team.
It was during this time that Xi Tang began talking more with Qin Guohuai. He had joined the crew about a week after her. By then, Xi Tang had already become familiar with the entire crew, and when she saw him again, she was no longer so nervous. Xi Tang knew better than anyone that even the most glamorous stars on screen were just ordinary people in real life, but Qin Guohuai’s misty, dreamlike face was still connected to her adolescent dreams and memories.
On Tang Yasong’s extremely serious set, her professional qualities and requirements as an actress made her treat him as a cooperating actor, but off-camera, facing him still felt dreamlike.
They often finished work together. At night after dinner, Xi Tang would hold the little girl who played her daughter in the film, and they would look at the stars together.
The child fell asleep in her arms.
Qin Guohuai sat next to her in a bamboo chair and smiled, saying, “I never expected that a young girl like you could endure such hardship.”
Xi Tang felt a bit shy. “I was an extra in Hengdian for several years. Being an extra is even more difficult.”
Qin Guohuai was slightly surprised but didn’t show it. “I lived in Hengdian for a few years. Being an extra is indeed not easy.”
“You haven’t done period dramas for the past few years.”
“These past year or two, less often.”
Sometimes Qin Guohuai would hold the child, and Xi Tang would say, “You’re quite good with children.”
“I’ve always wanted a daughter.”
“How old is your child?”
“Six years old, a boy, quite mischievous.”
The pride of fatherhood was evident in the corners of his eyes and brows.
During such casual conversations, crew members would come and go. Sometimes Director Tang would join them for a while, sharing a pipe of locally rolled dry tobacco with Qin Guohuai.
The night when the female lead Ding Fangfei completed her scenes in Qinghai, Xi Tang finished work very late. After returning to the crew’s lodging and taking a bath, she was drying her hair when she heard the rumbling sound of rain outside.
The summer downpour in the village came pouring down like thousands of horses galloping. Xi Tang, with her hair still wet, lifted the door curtain and saw Qin Guohuai sitting in his usual bamboo chair under the eaves of the courtyard, holding a can of beer, brows lowered as he quietly watched the sudden rain.
Xi Tang walked over and sat on the doorstep, hugging her knees. For some reason, neither of them spoke.
Today they had kissed on camera. His arms had embraced her tightly. His embrace was warm and strong, with a hint of tenderness, sending tremors through her heart… That embrace belonged to Ding Fangfei and her husband… Xi Tang couldn’t let herself recall that feeling.
There was only the vast rain in the courtyard.
Qin Guohuai suddenly said, “Xi Tang, has anyone ever told you that you’re still beautiful off-camera?”
Xi Tang smiled slightly, but her tone remained casual: “You’re too kind, Teacher Qin.”
Amid the sound of pouring rain, Qin Guohuai extinguished his cigarette and raised his hand to hold her shoulder.
Xi Tang felt the moist mist from his lips mixed with the taste of tobacco.
The next day, the Qinghai portion of the film “Late Spring” wrapped up shooting.
Tang Yasong’s strict requirements for camera work meant that even though all the main creative personnel had scheduled plenty of time, by the end of shooting, the whole crew’s work had still been delayed by two days beyond the coordinated schedule. The entire crew, especially the main actors, had their schedules filled with commitments afterward. To return to the city as quickly as possible, the first part of the crew and equipment had already left two days earlier, and the remaining crew departed around five in the afternoon. Halfway through the journey, local villagers blocked the road at an intersection. When the driver got out to ask, they learned that due to the previous day’s heavy rain, the road ahead had collapsed. The local drivers discussed with the crew members, and everyone agreed to take an alternative route, which would take about two more hours but would still get them back to Xining City.
Xi Tang had fallen asleep as soon as she got on the vehicle. With a travel pillow around her neck, she collapsed into the seat and slept deeply. In her haze, she felt the vehicle stop for a while, then resume driving. After sleeping for who knows how long, she occasionally woke up, looked outside to see only pitch-black darkness, then closed her eyes and fell back asleep.
Suddenly, amid confusion, she heard a tremendous crash.
Before she could react, her body was thrown toward the window, and then restrained by the seatbelt. A-Kuan beside her was pressed entirely on top of her, letting out a piercing scream.
The headlights of the vehicles in front and behind flashed chaotically.
Soon, someone opened the car door and shouted her name. Xi Tang quickly responded, and a man’s arm reached in, grabbing her hand.
Flashlights moved across the road surface. A vehicle ahead had driven into a mud pit and broken down. The slippery rain-soaked road had caused the driver behind to fail to avoid it, resulting in a rear-end collision.
Xi Tang was pulled out through the gap in the car door, rolling through the mud.
The production coordinator shone a flashlight back and forth in the darkness, loudly calling out each person’s name. Fortunately, all crew members were safe. The vehicles couldn’t be driven for now. Several injured colleagues and the female crew members supported each other, walking along the mountain path for over an hour, until dawn broke, reaching a small village in the mountain valley.
The men remained at the site. The vehicles carrying equipment and materials were stuck in the muddy water, and everyone was desperately trying to salvage what they could. Someone had to guard the scene, and even Qin Guohuai hadn’t returned.
A local herdsman cleared out a room for them and brought hot noodle soup.
Xi Tang wiped the mud off her body with a towel, changed into a local villager’s robe, and helped colleagues organize the mess of clothes and props. Around ten in the morning, she heard someone calling her name outside.
Xi Tang went out and saw several newly arrived vehicles outside. Someone was distributing boxed meals and mineral water to the crew members one by one. The male colleagues had gradually returned, and among the crowd stood a young man in a white suit with an elegant demeanor, followed by several men. The newcomer looked at her and said, “Xi Tang, are you all right?”
Xi Tang shook her head.
Hu Shaolei said, “Good to hear you’re fine. Thank you for your hard work.”
At this moment, Tang Yasong came in. Hu Shaolei smiled at her, then turned and walked out with Director Tang.
Xi Tang returned to the room. By now, the news had spread. Last night, they had lost contact with the outside world in the valley. Due to the unclear situation, the stars’ companies were still temporarily suppressing the news. The problem arose from the family of the child actress who played Xi Tang’s daughter in the film. The child was filming on location, with her mother accompanying the crew. The child’s father knew the crew was supposed to return to the city that day, but he couldn’t contact his wife and child from the previous night through the dawn into the day. Combined with continuous weather reports of heavy rain and mudslides, he became anxious and went directly to the media. Once the news broke, the entire internet exploded.
A female colleague was quietly gossiping about Hu Shaolei. Unexpectedly, this incident had alarmed the young master of Huaying. It was said that he had arrived in Qinghai’s provincial capital in the early hours of the morning and driven over overnight. As soon as Hu Shaolei arrived, rescue teams immediately followed, with local military units bringing in military trucks and using hoists to extract the vehicles stuck in the mud.
As soon as the entire team returned to Xining, assistant A-Kuan’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing. The company’s publicity department colleagues had been anxious for hours. “Late Spring” was already a hot topic in the entertainment section, and after a night of unexpected events, all fans were waiting for follow-up news. Several actors had already posted on Weibo. As the female lead, Xi Tang certainly couldn’t fall behind. At around three in the afternoon, following Director Tang Yasong, Xi Tang’s social media account also posted pictures related to this incident: one of crew members guarding the vehicles stuck in the mud, another of the misty small village as they walked along the mountain path at dawn, and a third that the publicity department had specially converted to black and white, showing Xi Tang wearing a simple cloth robe, kneeling on the ground organizing things, facing the camera with a smile as bright as the spring sun.
That post received over one hundred thousand shares within an hour.
Due to the dramatic nature of this accident itself—a thrilling process that ultimately ended safely—the originally low-key and mysterious “Late Spring” crew became famous before filming was complete, with online discussions reaching unprecedented levels of intensity.