Cai Jiayan · Conversa

Cai Jiayan's initiative is always in sync with his wild imagination. At noon, he scrolled past a particularly "abstract" hand dance. The background music was an old song sped up by 1.5x, and the choreography looked like "a human trying to maintain elegance while being chased by bees." After watching it once, he started twisting in his seat. Beside him, Xu Zhiye didn't even bother to look. "Chen Qingrang." When Cai Jiayan's message popped up in the group chat, it was just three characters and a mention. Chen Qingrang, currently in the Class 1 classroom working on a physics paper, put down his pen as his first reaction to the notification. "What." "Filming a video." "No." "You haven't even heard what I'm filming." "No." "Damn it, it's just five minutes." "Last time you said five minutes, we filmed for forty." "This time it's for real! I've already broken down the moves! I wrote them down!" "...You wrote them down?" "Yes! I drew a diagram!" Chen Qingrang looked at those last four words, stayed silent for three seconds, and then closed his physics paper. He told himself, "Just consider it a break for my ears," before standing up and heading toward Class 13. Cai Jiayan had indeed drawn a diagram. A single sheet of A4 paper with eight stick figures drawn in ballpoint pen, with beat counts and arrows indicating directions next to each one. "Look, the first four beats go like this, the next four like this, and the last two eight-counts are a loop. We'll stand side-by-side, just sync the moves, it's not hard." Chen Qingrang held the paper and looked at it for about half a minute, then asked, "Which of these stick figures is me?" "The one on the left." "Why am I the one on the left?" "Because you're taller than me. Standing on the left balances the frame." "Then why is the arrow for the one on the right drawn crooked?" "Because that's your move for the next beat, the direction is moving toward the front-right." Chen Qingrang folded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. "You call this 'not hard,' you bastard?" On the first take, Chen Qingrang's movement was half a beat slow. Cai Jiayan said, "Redo." On the second take, Cai Jiayan burst out laughing—because Chen Qingrang was doing that "chased by bees" move with a completely deadpan expression, looking exactly like he always did, lazy and casual as if he were just doing morning calisthenics. "Can you give me some expression! This is a comedy video!" "I am cooperating." "That expression looks like you're solving a physics problem." "I don't make this face when I'm solving physics problems." "Then what kind of face is this?" "The 'I'm filming a video but I don't really want to' face." Cai Jiayan took his phone and scrolled through the playback. After watching, he squatted on the ground and laughed for two minutes. "Your deadpan moves combined with the music create this 'I'm being forced to work but I'm working very seriously' effect. I think it'll go viral." "Then why did you laugh for two minutes?" On the third take, they finally got it. Cai Jiayan edited it on the spot, added captions and filters, and chose a title: "When I try to drag the school hunk into my abstract universe" Then he hit publish. He held the phone up in front of both of them, the video already running on the screen—the music started, and the two stick figures had turned into two real people performing strange movements in front of the pull-up bars. The comment section was already starting to pop off. "Cai Jiayan, you're at it again." "Isn't the guy next to him Chen Qingrang? How did you catch him to film this?" "LMAO the contrast between their expressions is absolute." "Chen Qingrang looks like he was kidnapped to film this video." Looking at those comments, Chen Qingrang's expression finally softened a bit—the corners of his mouth lifted maybe three millimeters more than usual, and Cai Jiayan noticed. Then Cai Jiayan watched the video one more time. This time, as he watched, his laughter turned from "hahahaha" into "hahahahaha... eh?"—the "eh" ending with the shock of a sudden discovery. He dragged the progress bar back a bit, paused, and zoomed in. In the bottom right corner of the video, near the edge of the stairwell, someone was walking past. Cai Jiayan recognized that backpack charm. The person was looking down at their phone, seemingly completely unaware that two people were filming a video nearby, walking through the edge of the frame naturally, casually, and innocently, then walking out. The whole process was about three seconds, right in the middle of the video. Cai Jiayan stared at that figure for a full five seconds. "Pfft!" He laughed so hard he squatted all the way down, his shoulders shaking so much he could barely hold the phone. "It's over... it's over, it's over, it's over..." He squatted on the ground, looking up at Chen Qingrang, tears of laughter nearly coming out. "Did you see that? That's 你, right? Holy crap, hahaha, that's definitely 你!" Chen Qingrang leaned over to watch the playback, then watched it again, then exited to watch the full video once more. The figure in the frame walked by so naturally, face slightly lowered toward the phone, completely unaware they had become an innocent supporting actor in this absurdist video. "Yeah," Chen Qingrang chuckled. "What should I do? Do you think 你 will see it..." "You already posted it." "I know I posted it, but what if 你 sees it? If they see themselves appearing out of nowhere in my abstract video, will they think I'm crazy—" "You are crazy." "I know, but—" Cai Jiayan watched the figure in the phone screen loop two more times before finally giving up. "Whatever, 你 probably doesn't know what we were filming anyway." "They'll know once they see it." "Do you think 你 will be mad?" "Does 你 look like the type to get mad to you?" "Not really, but what if?" Cai Jiayan turned off the phone and stuffed it in his pocket, turning to Chen Qingrang. "If 你 comes looking for me, I'll just say 'I was filming youth, and you are part of that youth.'" "I won't help you when you get beaten up." "You will." "I won't." "..." That same evening, Cai Jiayan's premonition came true. <choice_group> <choice id="1">Message him with a cold face and tell him to delete it</choice> <choice id="2">When are you gonna include me next time? (jk)</choice> <choice id="3">Wait until he's not looking, sneak an ugly photo of him and post it on TikTok</choice> </choice_group>