Wang Xiaohu had a long, long dream. In it, he saw himself stricken by a terrible illness, so weak that he could no longer rise from bed.
Within the dream, a stranger constantly appeared. From the man's birth, to being abandoned by his parents in an orphanage, to drifting through the streets as a petty thief, to being dragged into a police station… scene after scene unfolded before Wang Xiaohu's eyes.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but soon he saw the stranger enter a shabby school to study Peking Opera—being scolded and beaten by his master, playing and performing with his brothers. These moments played out in his dream like an endless movie.
Wang Xiaohu desperately wanted the dream to stop. Anyone would go mad being forced to dream of a stranger who had nothing to do with them.
He shouted loudly: "Stop making me dream of you!"
The world around him was pitch black, and no one answered.
Panic surged. He tried to escape, running with all his might, but no matter how fast or how hard he tried, he found himself trapped, just like the Monkey King who could never leap out of the Buddha's palm. The dream held him fast.
It went on for a long time, until he saw the stranger board an old, broken ship with a young boy. Only then did the dream finally fade. At the very moment it ended, Wang Xiaohu felt the strength to open his eyes again.
"Where am I?"
What he saw was a dark, damp little room. Inside were only two old beds and some crude furniture, nothing more. Judging by their style and condition, they looked like antiques from decades ago.
"This isn't my room," Wang Xiaohu concluded after a quick glance around.
His bedroom walls should have been plastered with posters of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen—all his idols, the martial arts stars he admired and the goals he had worked toward.
Wang Xiaohu was just a temporary stuntman. To put it plainly, he was a martial arts double. Whenever the stars refused or were unable to perform dangerous stunts—car chases, high jumps, explosions—he would eagerly step in and complete them, often to perfection.
He dreamed of one day becoming a martial arts star like Bruce Lee, someone who could influence the entire world. For that goal, he had endured countless hardships. Injuries were routine, but he gritted his teeth and carried on. Within his small circle, he had already earned nicknames like "The Madman," "The Indestructible Cockroach," and "More Jackie Than Jackie."
Though proud of himself, he also knew the harsh reality: there was only one Bruce Lee, only one Jackie Chan. Unless he stumbled upon a stroke of fortune like Wang Baoqiang, he would forever remain just another nameless stunt double.
He still remembered before he lost consciousness, he had been shooting a rooftop jump scene. He repeated the stunt several times but kept failing, angering the stunt coordinator who shouted abuse at him. Enduring the sharp pain in his waist, he jumped once more… and then plunged straight into that damned dream.
…
Propping himself against the headboard, Wang Xiaohu rubbed his throbbing temples. Ever since waking, the strange headache had left him irritable.
Going over everything in his mind, he suddenly realized the seriousness of the situation.
Clearly, he had been injured during filming. But instead of being rushed to a hospital, or perhaps after a failed rescue attempt, he had been left unconscious. And now, rather than proper treatment, the director had dumped him into this shabby room to recover.
A damp, dark, neglected room with no one to look after him—was this really how stuntmen were treated?
Anger bubbled up. He decided he would confront that heartless director. If the man paid him proper compensation for the injury, fine. But if he denied everything, Wang Xiaohu wouldn't hesitate to smash his handsome nose with a fist.
"Don't think a stunt double isn't an actor," Wang Xiaohu muttered bitterly.
The moment the words left his mouth, he froze. What he had spoken wasn't Mandarin at all—it was Cantonese.
"What the hell?"
He tried again: "Is anyone there?" "Is the director around?" Yet every word that came out was still Cantonese.
Frowning, he slowed his speech and forced himself carefully: "Damn it… what is going on?" The Mandarin was halting, awkward.
In his dream, the stranger had spoken Cantonese. Could it be that just by dreaming of someone, he had gained their language? If that stranger had spoken French, would he now be speaking French instead?
Wang Xiaohu shook his head. Ridiculous. Better to leave this place quickly—every extra minute here was unbearable.
The door was locked tight from the outside. After a few failed attempts, he gave up and turned toward the window. Something about all this felt deeply wrong. He needed to see the world outside.
Looking through the glass, he was stunned again.
The buildings outside were old-fashioned, the kind of style you'd expect from the 1960s or 70s. The streets looked like scenes from an old movie. The lamps glowed faintly yellow, the pedestrians wore outdated clothes.
"Does China still have such backward places?" he wondered. But then, in the dim reflection on the glass, he saw a stranger's face staring back.
No—familiar, not strange. It was the very face he had seen in his dream.
Heart pounding, he reached up to touch his cheek. The reflection copied his movements exactly.
A chill ran through him. Could it be… that person was him?
Before the thought could settle, the sound of the door creaking open broke his trance.
He turned and saw another "familiar stranger."
A boy, fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing a black shirt and worn blue jeans, stepped into the room carrying a small box. He flipped on the light.
Wang Xiaohu immediately noticed the mole on the boy's right cheek. Familiar—because this was the very boy he had seen at the end of his dream, the one who boarded the ship with the stranger.
When the boy saw Wang Xiaohu awake, his face lit up with genuine joy. He hurried over, exclaiming in Cantonese: "Ah Hu, you're awake! That's wonderful!"
Wang Xiaohu just stared blankly, and the boy grew anxious. "Ah Hu, why aren't you answering me?"
At that instant, a name leapt into Wang Xiaohu's mind—Yuen Biao! Shock jolted through him. This boy looked barely fifteen or sixteen, but Yuen Biao? Wasn't he Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung's junior brother, the youngest of the Seven Little Fortunes?
Jackie Chan was already over fifty. By that calculation, Yuen Biao had to be at least in his forties. How could he be a teenager?
Staring at the boy, Wang Xiaohu asked uncertainly, "Yuen Biao?"
The boy pouted, puffing out his cheeks, and replied indignantly: "Hey, Ah Hu, don't forget—even if you're older than me, by the rules of the opera school I entered six months earlier. You should be calling me Senior Brother!