noveldepot Chapter 114 What a load of rubbish!
Chapter 114 What a load of rubbish!
A short, chubby man squatted on the ground as a human base, while another, as thin as a bamboo pole, stood on his shoulders, holding a broken tree branch and poking at the top of the lamppost.
The two of them swayed and stumbled, looking like two monkeys trying to climb a tree to pick coconuts, all flustered and grimacing.
Shen Li's curiosity was piqued, so she quietly moved closer and glanced at the lamppost.
Good heavens! ...There's a...pink lace bra hanging on top of a lamppost...
Not just any ordinary bra, but the kind with underwires and rhinestones—a high-end, battle-ready bra. It was fluttering in the wind, shimmering under the dim streetlights like a small pink flag.
Fireworks exploded in Shen Li's mind.
What's going on here? A bra hanging on a street lamp? Performance art? Lost and found? Or did some girl get dumped and, in a fit of anger, throw away her bra, only to accidentally throw it up onto a lamppost?
Just as he was pondering this, the skinny guy finally used a twig to lift the bra off. The pink "battle robe" floated down and landed right on the head of the guy squatting on the ground.
The guy yelled "Holy crap!" and frantically started pulling it down.
The bra strap got tangled in the temple of his glasses. He struggled to get it off, then held the bra with a look of disgust but also a reluctance to throw it away, as if he were carrying a ticking time bomb.
"Quick, quick, pack it up!" The skinny bamboo pole threw away the branch, pulled a crumpled plastic bag from his pocket, his hands trembling.
"Screw this! How the hell can you even pretend like this? It's impossible to fold it up!" The bespectacled man, holding the bra, looked around furtively like a thief.
"Then take it! Hurry up and go!"
"Bullshit! Why aren't you taking it?!"
"I'll get it! You're in charge of cleaning up afterward!"
The two were arguing when the bespectacled man glanced around and suddenly spotted Shen Li standing in the shadows. He jumped in fright, nearly dropping his bra. "Holy crap! Someone's here!"
The skinny guy was startled and whirled around, putting on a "we're respectable people" expression. But then he saw Shen Li with her hands in her pockets, a mischievous grin on her face...
The skinny guy swallowed hard, forcing out a smile that looked more like a grimace: "Dude...you...you just got here?"
Shen Li nodded with a smile: "I just arrived. You guys continue, I'll just take a look, I won't disturb you."
The bespectacled man panicked: "It's not what you think! This is...this is..." He looked down at the pink bra in his hand, then at Shen Li, then at the bra again, and opened his mouth for a long time, but couldn't come up with a single word.
Shen Li laughed and took out an Alpenliebe candy from his pocket... This was a free candy he had picked up at the front desk of the "Midnight Diner".
Unwrap the candy, pop it into your mouth, and chew it:
"No need to explain. I understand. It's artistic creation. We students at the Beijing Film Academy are all about the avant-garde, the cutting edge, and postmodernism. Hanging a bra on a streetlamp is meant to express... well, a critique of consumerism's objectification of the female body? Or a metaphor for urban loneliness?"
He spoke in a very serious tone, as if he were in the middle of a defense.
The two boys froze. The skinny boy's eyes suddenly lit up, as if he'd grasped a lifeline. "Yes, yes, yes! It's art! We're from the directing department! We're filming an assignment!"
The bespectacled man also realized what was happening and nodded frantically, "Right, right, right! Take a picture of the assignment! We need a... um... symbolic object to metaphorically... metaphorically..."
"Metaphorically speaking, body politics and the power of the gaze in a postmodern context," Shen Li continued, her expression unchanged.
"Yes, yes, yes! This is it!" The bespectacled man was overjoyed and looked at Shen Li as if she were his own father.
Shen Li nodded, chewing on her milk candy, and circled the two of them halfway, her gaze sweeping over them. Then it stopped on the bra in the bespectacled man's hand, and she frowned.
He would run to the girls' dormitory and deliver all sorts of things hanging on the clothesline, from Hello Kitty to leopard print lace, from plain cotton "grandma" clothes to "The Emperor's New Clothes" made up of just a few threads. In addition, the girls' conversations would pour into his ears, so his knowledge of certain things had long since evolved from a beginner level to an expert level.
If you look closely at the bra in the bespectacled man's hand, under the streetlight, the stitching is crooked and twisted, like earthworms crawling. The lace is clearly synthetic, giving it a cheap feel.
"Did you buy this at the Yiwu Small Commodities Market? It shouldn't cost more than fifty yuan. If you use this thing for your assignment, the rusty steel ring will be obvious in a close-up. What kind of eyesight do the directing professors have? They'll see right through you cutting corners on the props. You'll lose points, and you'll have nowhere to cry."
Upon hearing Shen Li's serious sarcasm, the skinny guy's mouth gaped open wide enough to fit an egg.
The bespectacled man looked down at the bra in his hand, his expression shifting from "guilty conscience" to "aha" moment, and then to "utter despair"...
Shen Li's eyes darted around. "I suggest you revise the script. Don't film 'Body Politics and the Power of the Gaze,' it's too profound, the teachers are tired of it. Instead, film 'The Aesthetic Anxiety of the Middle Class Against the Background of Consumption Downgrade'..."
Using this Yiwu bra as a prop actually fits the theme perfectly. Think about it: a rusty underwire, prickly lace, and a price of fifty yuan—isn't this a sign of consumption downgrade? Isn't this a reflection of middle-class anxiety? How profound!
The two boys exchanged a glance, their eyes gleaming with "Genius!"
"Dude!" the skinny guy's voice cracked, "With a brain like yours! It's a shame you're not a screenwriter!"
"You flatter me." Shen Li waved her hand modestly, switching the side of her mouth from one side to the other.
"Well, you guys continue, I won't disturb you. By the way, a friendly reminder: there are security cameras on this road, although they're broken, but what if they get fixed someday? You'd better find another place to film your assignments. Also, don't throw this bra away after you're done using it, find a trash can to throw it away. Otherwise, if the cleaning lady finds it tomorrow, she'll think there's some kind of pervert at our Beijing Film Academy."
After saying that, he put his hands in his pockets and strolled away.
The two boys were left standing under the flickering streetlights, one carrying a "Yiwu bra" and the other holding a broken tree branch, looking at each other in bewilderment.
Once she stepped out of that alley, Shen Li finally couldn't hold back her laughter.
What the hell is "body politics and the power of the gaze"? What the hell is "middle-class aesthetic anxiety in the context of consumption downgrade"?
These two guys clearly stole a woman's underwear from somewhere and wanted to find a secluded spot to "study it out," but somehow they ended up hanging it on a streetlight.
A directing major making an assignment? What a load of rubbish!
However, there are many strange things happening at the Beijing Film Academy. If we had to manage them all, we wouldn't have anything else to do.
Whether they were perverts stealing underwear or students genuinely filming homework, Shen Li didn't care at all.
Anyway, I neither exposed him nor questioned him, leaving him an out while having fun myself. I even casually made up a few academic jargon phrases, leaving him completely bewildered... Isn't that fun?