All That We Held Dear - YiZhan (COMPLETED)

Arc VI - The World In Between - Part 2

Despite having had a day to rest and recover, Xiao Zhan was still exhausted when his plane landed in Dongyang. Unsurprisingly, after his intensive soul-searching episode, it had taken him a while to fall asleep because, by the time his mind had finally agreed to stop rehashing everything in a quest for answers, he'd given himself a head-splitting headache which even paracetamol had struggled to relieve. Only in the early morning hours had he finally managed to find the desperately needed oblivion. Unfortunately, his slumber had been cut short by a test of the building's emergency systems, and no matter how much he'd tried, he'd failed to fall back asleep. Instead, he'd laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind now ironically empty of thoughts.

When he'd finally dragged himself out of bed and come out to the living room, he'd momentarily forgotten about the mess he'd left for himself the previous night, and his first reflex had been to think that someone had tried to burgle his place. This had only lasted a few seconds, but once he'd caught on, he suddenly wished someone had indeed ransacked his apartment: that would have been less tedious than having to go through every item all over again. For a moment, he'd stood there, wondering if he shouldn't just grab a garbage bag and throw the lot away. However, he knew that some of the items, if found by a third party, would cause problems, so he'd put everything in one big box and stashed it back in the closet with the intention of asking Chiyou to find a safe way to destroy it later. It's not that the objects bothered him now, but just like deleting the text thread had been a way to protect Yibo from further harm, getting rid of these mementos was a way to spare himself unnecessary pain once he recovered his emotions. When he was done tidying up, he'd used whatever energy he'd left to pack a travel bag and eat a few bites of leftover congee before laying down on the couch to try and get some more sleep.

And so now he was in Dongyang, on a bus with a few actors and crew members who'd happened to land at a similar time. A few he vaguely knew from other productions they'd worked on together, but the majority of them were strangers to him for the moment, a state of affairs which he found to be ideal. Regardless, after saluting him politely, most of them had engaged in lively conversation with the people they knew or fallen asleep the moment they'd sat down. Completely ignored, Xiao Zhan watched as the leaded-sky scenery rolled by.

When the bus pulled in front of their accommodations, there were a few groans and quiet complaints amongst the crew. A quick peek out the window was enough to confirm Chiyou's warnings about the director being cheap. As he got off the bus, Xiao Zhan took in the industry's most infamous hotel: The Royal Dragon Inn.

In the mid-nineties, when the famed Opium War by director Xie Jin was being filmed at Hengdian World Studios, The Royal Dragon Inn had been in its heyday. Patrons had sung the praises of its top-of-the-line amenities and its world-renowned chef. As the decade unfolded, it had quickly become the spot to run into celebrities. All kinds of gossip had sprung from the establishment, most of it complete drivel, but little had been done to stop the spread of the rumours as they drew customers in. As the studios had exponentially grown in size, other hotels had popped up in the surrounding area to cater to the needs of the increasing number of productions that now flooded Dongyang every year. Unfortunately, the owners of The Royal Dragon Inn, having grown overconfident and convinced of their untouchable success, had refused a generous offer to affiliate themselves with a conglomerate that was now the country's leading player in tourism. For a while, the inn's reputation had indeed been enough to keep them afloat, but soon, the better-equipped, more prestigious hotels had attracted a younger generation of producers and directions whose idea of what opulence looked like had vastly changed. In the early aughts, The Royal Dragon Inn's slow decline had begun in earnest, their revenue now a pale shadow of what it had once been. As a result, the buildings' upkeep had been neglected, and the restaurant closed, the once glamorous dining space only to be rented by production catering teams. All of this had only contributed to accelerating its downfall. These days, the inn was used mainly to house crew when no other option was available. Xiao Zhan had never heard of actors staying there unless they were in a low-budget or amateur production. However, he'd heard stories of black mould behind furniture, rats in the walls, and other unpleasant happenings.