She thought something might happen that night, but in the end, nothing did. In the confined space, there was only the frantic rain and the even more frantic breathing. He seemed like a patient with a high fever, clinging desperately to her. He needed her to cool down, but he also wanted to pass his feverish heat to her. Li Ling was laid down on the sofa, sinking into it. The soft leather felt like a patch of moonlight, melting beneath her. Their lips and tongues were inseparable, kisses coming densely, overwhelming like an endless cold rain night, with the moon hidden away in the mist. Her face became very hot, and her breath unsteady. The kisses moved from her earlobe to the back of her neck. Perhaps it was an illusion, but the young man's lips seemed to be trembling, whether from cold or something else. Jin Jingyao held her tightly, his arms caressing her back and waist inch by inch, as if confirming her existence in this way. His face was deeply buried in her neck, close to her ear. She felt as if she had fallen into a dark lake, his breath soaking her. Li Ling asked him, "What's wrong?" He didn't speak. Suddenly, a slight pain came from her shoulder; he was biting her. Li Ling hissed in pain, saying it hurt, and reached out to push him. His movements softened, the biting turning into a small animal-like, dependent and uneasy suckling. At the same time, he gripped her hand more forcefully, interlocking their fingers tightly. It was as if he feared that if he let go, she would leave. Beyond the pain, there was something else. Li Ling sensed it, reaching out to touch the young man's face. Outside the cold rain, she felt warm, bitter tears. She had wanted to push him away, but now she couldn't. Li Ling's heart softened, and she sighed, turning her face to gently kiss his wet eyes. "It's all over," she told him. "The film is edited, everything is over." "Let's celebrate together, okay?" Jin Jingyao didn't speak, not even willing to lift his head, his arms wrapped around her like a child clinging to something. After a long silence, he mumbled, "No." She couldn't tell if he meant "no celebration" or "don't leave me." The friction of their clothes made a faint sound, like vines growing out of the muddy soil, covering the sky. That night was very long. They embraced each other, and just the embrace used up all their strength, leaving no time for anything else. In the background, the TV continued playing an action movie. The male and female protagonists, like trapped beasts, struggled through an endless night. They crawled through the city, biting like animals, but in the end, they became each other's salvation. Struggling, fleeing, together searching for the light after the storm. In the final shot, they were covered in wounds, barely alive, embracing in an empty moving train car. Outside the window, ruins and skyscrapers blurred past. A glaring red sun slowly rose between the overpasses. Like spilled, dripping blood. - The next day, both of them fell ill, Jin Jingyao especially seriously, and his brother dragged him to the hospital for an IV. Li Ling wanted to visit him but was too weak herself. She was still very worried about him and tried to video call him, but he refused. He sent her a picture of a little mummy with a thermometer in its mouth, looking dizzy. Li Ling wanted to talk to him about that night. He seemed to want to say something to her, but in the end, he didn't. When he sat at her doorstep, looking so lifeless and devoid of energy, it didn't seem like he had finished editing the film, but rather like he couldn't escape from the movie. She was very worried about him. Not long after recovering from a serious illness, Li Ling received a notification to go to the director's company to watch the sample film. Walking into the screening room, she was surprised to find that she was the only one there. Xiao Liu came over to explain to her, "The post-production isn't finished yet. My cousin wants you to take a look first." Li Ling asked, "Will he come?" Xiao Liu shook his head, "I don't know." He added, somewhat puzzled, "Usually, films aren't shown to people before they're finished. I don't know why he's in such a hurry this time. You know how much of a perfectionist he is." Until the last second before the screening, the seat next to Li Ling remained empty. Jin Jingyao did not come. The screening room became very quiet, sinking into a sea of silver-gray waves. She looked at the empty seat, feeling a vague sense of unease. The movie began. Although she had seen a lot of the shooting material on set, when it was edited into a film, it was still vastly different from what Li Ling had imagined. Her first reaction was that it was strange. The film's style was very, very bizarre. The opening interrogation scene was like a silent film, entirely in black and white. Under the short-focus wide-angle lens, the interrogation room was completely distorted, like a twisted, distorted fish tank. The light tubes swayed overhead, the air trembling like water waves. The female officer played by Li Ling was interrogating Zhou Jing under the harsh white light. Her face filled the frame, also swaying and distorted. Her features were extremely beautiful, yet extremely unreal. When she spoke, each word from her mouth was delayed, with deliberate separation of sound and image, like bubbles breaking the surface of a constantly boiling pot. Zhou Jing sat opposite her, head down, always a blurred and distant background. He finally spoke. As he narrated, the film split into two disjointed spaces. In a few rapid montages, Zhou Jing's solo scenes were suffocatingly oppressive. The abandoned grand theater appeared in the lens like a ghastly execution room. In the long, dark corridors, the young man was dragged mercilessly like a corpse. In the silent grove, he was quietly beaten. The camera, peering through the gaps between trees, observed him without emotion. He was like a crushed ant. When the story shifted to A-Ling, the visual style changed completely. Fixed camera positions replaced handheld shots, the cinematography became more realistic, with texture and warmth, like a slowly flowing river. The basement, which should have been dark, was instead permeated with ambiguous colors. Full, moist lips, skin illuminated with a warm glow. A-Ling was a temptation, a metaphor. In the endless night, she was the dim fire Zhou Jing longed to cup in his hands. The two narrative lines advanced in parallel. Zhou Jing went upstairs, downstairs. Opened doors, closed doors. His world constantly inverted, moving from the face of cruelty to the back of hope. The divide between these two became increasingly stark, just as the visual language became more fragmented. The camera sometimes stood still, sometimes ran wildly. He was trapped in the gray crevices of the world, unable to escape the chasm between light and despair. In this bizarre, spring-like narrative of highs and lows, the story pushed towards the premiere night. By this point, Li Ling had a vague, uneasy premonition about the direction of the film. She felt the visual language was hinting at something. Zhou Jing, sweating profusely, bowed to the applauding audience. A-Ling sat in the audience, they looked at each other, tears falling. "Was the middle seat your reserved ticket? Why has it been empty all along?" the actor standing next to him suddenly asked. Zhou Jing turned his head, his eyes gradually revealing a suppressed terror, as if he had been sentenced to death. "Why do you look so pale?" The other person looked at him with concern. "Is your leg hurting a lot?" Zhou Jing lowered his head. He saw a cold prosthetic limb inside the empty pant leg. He raised his head. In the fisheye lens, the faces of the audience were twisted and distorted. Each one was laughing exaggeratedly and grotesquely. They were wearing tattered, blood-soaked clothes, with only half of their bodies remaining. And the seat in the middle was empty. Like an empty chest, with the heart gouged out. In this horror movie-like scene, Zhou Jing's world was melting before his eyes, like corpses boiling in high heat. Li Ling was utterly shocked, almost losing her composure as she watched this scene. But in her heart, there were only two words and a sigh. —As expected. The story began to flash back. There was never an A-Ling. The person with the crippled leg was him. The theater troupe was rehearsing a new play, and Zhou Jing accidentally took Yang Yuanyuan's role. The other person deliberately caused a stage accident, making him fall from a height and lose a leg. There was no A-Ling. The beautiful dancer who was supposed to be his partner had the same face as A-Ling. She was just an illusion. In the basement, he meticulously took care of A-Ling, carrying her around. The camera shifted, showing him half-dead, dragging a crippled leg, collapsing on the ground like a heap of mud. He fell again and again, and stood up again and again. He was very lonely, loneliness killed him repeatedly, and then stitched him back together. He kissed A-Ling passionately, but he was only kissing the air. A-Ling did not exist. He had gone mad. The latter half of the film was almost frenzied, with the camera language becoming restless, filled with numerous fragmented shots, like a scream full of blood and tears. The mad Zhou Jing searched the world for his A-Ling. He scoured the theater and the basement, but she was not there. He desperately searched his memories, but she was not in them either. The more he thought of her, the more he lost her. In those gradually clear images, she was erased, she vanished into thin air. She was like air. He couldn't see her, yet she was everywhere. He was about to lose her. He would die painfully from lack of oxygen. He went to confront Yang Yuanyuan, who was terrified, calling him a madman, saying there was no second person in the basement, they had searched it long ago. He didn't want to kill, but Yang Yuanyuan was too hateful, repeatedly shouting, "She doesn't exist, she doesn't exist." How could she not exist? He took a knife and stabbed it in, again and again, until that hateful mouth could no longer make any noise. Blood splattered on Zhou Jing's face, and he felt nothing, saying numbly, "Give her back to me." "Give her back to me." Yang Yuanyuan couldn't respond because he was already dead. No one could give A-Ling back to him. So he killed everyone. Zhou Jing still missed her, wanting to prove she existed. Dragging his cold prosthetic limb, holding a knife, wearing a transparent raincoat, he appeared in the pitch-black night. The abandoned theater became his slaughterhouse. In the pouring rain, with lightning flashing, his gaze held the calmness of a madman, and the despair of a madman. At first, he killed to find her. Later, he discovered that as long as he killed, she would appear. She reappeared before his eyes, hugging him, kissing him. She was warm because blood was warm. Everything felt real, he was reborn. He was addicted to this feeling. But later, the illusion turned into him killing her. He pinned down those who bullied him, stabbing the knife into their bodies, making a squelching sound of flesh and blood. The camera shifts, and the person being pinned down by him turns out to be her. She is crying, begging him not to kill her. She is laughing, inviting him to destroy her, to destroy together with her. The camera shakes more and more, faster and faster, to the point of making one nauseous. In the rapidly cut scenes, he sweats profusely, and the sweat turns into tears. He is dazed, manic. He kills her, then pieces her corpse back together. He can no longer discern the truth of this world. As the story reaches this point, the scene suddenly shakes violently and returns to that cold, unreal interrogation room. He reveals the secret of the female officer. She is not a real officer; because he had always refused to cooperate, they brought in an actress to play the role of the interrogating officer. In fact, he had known all along. He silently observed the actress's not-so-skillful, overly emotional performance. His gaze was strange, repressed, and satisfied, containing a near-desperate infatuation. The power went out, and the sudden darkness surged like a tide. This was his last chance. He had to find her. Zhou Jing pinned the female officer to the ground and said to her, "You look a lot like someone." "Like the person I love." He painfully caressed her face, tears streaming down as he pleaded, "Can you give her back to me?" She dropped the gun and began to kiss him. He was dazed, his eyes wide open, his handsome face losing its shape in the darkness. The faint light quietly grew again, like a knife, tearing him apart. He knew this wasn't real. This was a blissful, near-death illusion. He could only find her in death. The screen went black. A gunshot rang out. Li Ling felt as if she were nailed to her seat. The enormous silver screen pressed down on her face, heavy and suffocating. She lowered her head, covered her face, and wept uncontrollably. She remembered many people criticizing Jin Jingyao, saying his films never had any emotion and that he couldn't learn to express feelings. But in this film, he was mad, lonely, desperate, exhausting all his emotions. Those emotions were transparent tears, red blood, blood drained from his body. In this sense, Zhou Jing did not die from a gunshot. He died from chronic suicide, from desiccation and loss. She didn't know what to say; her mind was too chaotic, filled with too many, too messy thoughts. For some reason, among all these thoughts, she grasped a trivial thread. She remembered that after Luo Mingqing joined the crew, there were many scenes he couldn't perform well, so Jin Jingyao had her demonstrate. She hadn't expected that Jin Jingyao had filmed all of this and edited it into the ending. It seemed there were many, many parts outside the main film that he had also included. He had always been filming her. His camera had never left her. In the narrative of the film, A-Ling was an illusion imagined by Zhou Jing; she did not exist. But precisely because of this, she became an even more important presence. She was Zhou Jing's soul, the soul of the entire film. What Jin Jingyao ultimately wanted to convey was no longer about the character itself, but a kind of immense, irretrievable grief that transcended the character. That A-Ling who was always hidden, omnipresent in the film. That erased A-Ling. The A-Ling he couldn't find. That was A-Ling. And also Li Ling, and her ten years.