Dealing with Tigers

He was not weak either, and without any hesitation, he said that as long as this street lamp could make him feel extremely important by 6 PM, he could start working tomorrow. I was facing a seven by twelve-meter partition, and I only had 8 hours, which was indeed a challenge! However, I had enough confidence to handle it. That small, hanging street lamp was, of course, intentionally placed by me; I had envisioned this partition to become a silhouette of a city street at night, with the street lamp just one part of it. I had people divide the partition into eighty-four dark lines, each square meter, sketching in reduced dimensions on paper, and then scaling up the contents of each small square into the larger grid. I spent an entire afternoon on the scaffold doing the same task, painting. At 4:30 PM, I officially became Narcissus’s stage designer without any restrictions, fulfilling my wish. Everyone was extremely satisfied, but both Gao Miao and I understood that the success of this backdrop meant we would be working day and night for the next four days. Stage work has always been about the whole; an incomplete stage is worse than a blank one. The success of the painting, in a way, was a threat; if the actual set did not match up, it would all be for naught. But there was no need to take it so seriously because, from Gao Miao’s perspective, the stage was merely a tool to showcase his costumes; the audience’s attention should only be on his work. However, this was my first project after graduation; would I let it just be a showcase? Four days were enough; I would make it shine alongside Gao Miao’s work! What I wanted to capture was the gaze and the flash of the cameras! Of course, he believed in my words, that this stage, combined with his work, would certainly be worthy of the Narcissus name. Yet, he could also guess that putting too much effort into an outstanding stage would steal media attention, diverting it towards the stage designer, but he still supported me. I had to do my best and seize this opportunity. For me, it was undoubtedly a win-win situation, and even for Narcissus, it was a new selling point, a new outlet. Who isn’t selfish? This concerns my future; I don’t want to just live off money in the bank, how boring would that be? Moreover, stage design has always been my passion; I must utilize it well. With only three days left, we had already decided on the materials; all that was left was my stack of drafts. We must start work by noon tomorrow, so tonight, Gao Miao and I are determined to pull an all-nighter, hoping to begin setting up the site in the morning.