Chapter 147: Nuo Opera

Chapter 147: The Nuo Opera

The pass into Siqi was reached sooner than expected.

As expected, yet somehow surprising, the pass was blockaded by imperial soldiers, seemingly to root out spies.

The entire border fortress was steeped in grim vigilance; even those passing through wore scarcely a smile.

Yet, with the persuasive power of silver, the two groups slipped through the checkpoint without hindrance.

Leaving the lake-studded lands of Siqi, the surrounding world grew desolate, the trees gradually giving way to the encroaching Gobi.

By the tenth night, a sweeping gaze revealed not a single tree in sight.

The deeper they ventured, the more desolate it grew. Li Huowang had already surmised that perhaps this was the true, intended visage of Later Shu.

"Haa..." Zhao Wu, keeping the night watch, exhaled a plume of white breath.

He rubbed his numb, frostbitten hands, constantly blowing warm air over them.

It was nearly the start of summer, and it should not have been this cold, yet in this desolate wilderness, there was not even a boulder to break the wind, let alone firewood for a fire; naturally, it was freezing to the bone.

Glancing over at Li Huowang sleeping beside the carriage with Bai Lingmiao in his arms, Zhao Wu's eyes betrayed a profound envy.

He looked down at his own frail body, his gaze heavy with a crushing sense of inadequacy.

He yearned for a wife, yet a useless wretch like himself would never find a woman willing to stay by his side.

Inhaling the dry, frigid air to chase away his drowsiness, he roused his spirits and practiced tracing characters on the ground with small pebbles.

Some were taught by Senior Brother Li, while others he had pestered Gao Zhijian into teaching him.

"I will learn to read, I must learn!" Zhao Wu's eyes burned with absolute resolve.

He would prove to his father that he was no useless wretch!

Once he could read, he could make a living like the blind fortune teller at the temple fair, earning coin by writing letters for others.

And if he mastered the written word, he could devour more books, sit for the imperial examinations, and rise to become a high official!

"By then..." Just as he was lost in fantasies of the future, he suddenly sensed a presence behind him.

The sudden anomaly sent an icy chill coursing through Zhao Wu's entire body.

His body began to tremble involuntarily; steeling his heart, he was about to shout a warning to his fellow disciples when a hand devoid of fingernails clamped over his mouth. "Don't make a sound, it's me!"

Li Huowang's voice allowed Zhao Wu to relax instantly.

Dropping his voice to a bare whisper, he asked, "Senior Brother Li, what is it?"

He cast his eyes around, but there was nothing but the pitch-black expanse of the Gobi.

"Shh... something is creeping up on us. Let me test the waters first to see if it's a living soul."

Fixing his gaze on a particular spot, Li Huowang cleared his throat and suddenly bellowed into the darkness, "Three elders and four youths lean upon the road, a sea-stirring dragon swims out of the river. I wonder which set of rites is in vogue now?"

Li Huowang's voice carried far across the empty Gobi, rousing the others from their sleep.

"Does the Spring Code open?" a voice even more hoarse than Li Huowang's echoed from afar.

"The Spring opens!"

"Shoulder to shoulder, brothers, cast a vine?"

Li Huowang offered a Daoist salute in that direction. "A wondrous Linglong Tower! Facing the green stronghold, backing the sands! The crossed-hand vine!"

"So it is Daoist Li. Are you merely passing through, or lying in wait?"

"Merely passing through. What is the shopkeeper's honorable surname?"

No reply came after Li Huowang spoke those words.

It was not until the sky began to pale with dawn that Li Huowang realized the stranger had long since departed.

"I never expected the secret cant taught by Escort Chief Zhao to be put to use so soon," Li Huowang murmured to himself.

The previous night, though he had keenly sensed the stranger's approach, he could not discern whether it was a lone figure or a band of men.

Now, if a few exchanged words could resolve the conflict without bloodshed, so much the better.

After all, with these bandits of unknown origin, who knew what hidden tricks they might have up their sleeves?

Upon hearing of the night's peril from Li Huowang, Lü Zhuangyuan was seized by a wave of lingering dread.

"Good heavens, we've barely been here a moment and already we're met with highwaymen. It seems Later Shu is far from peaceful."

Gathering up his meager belongings, Li Huowang sat up.

"Peaceful or not, we are merely passing through. Let us press on; if we hurry today, we should reach a town before nightfall."

The road ahead proved relatively uneventful; though the surroundings remained desolate, at least there were no more highwaymen.

Just as Lü Zhuangyuan was showering Li Huowang with endless flattery, they finally caught sight of human habitation.

"Father, why is this beast so strange? Why are there two humps upon its back?" asked Lü Xiucai.

"Are you daft? That is a camel!"

"Jingle, jingle, jingle..." The camel bells chimed ceaselessly as the caravan tread the hard-packed road, advancing at a slow, steady pace.

Li Huowang cast a glance at the camel driver, only to find his face completely wrapped, seemingly to ward off the wind and sand.

The appearance of the camels seemed to be a signal, for soon more and more travelers began to gather along the route.

At last, Li Huowang and his companions reached the first town in Later Shu just before nightfall.

Stepping into the town, Li Huowang immediately noticed the differences between the people of Later Shu and those of Siqi; both the architecture and the attire were far more rugged.

Whether to ward off the wind and sand or not, many townsfolk had their faces wrapped.

This, however, worked to their advantage; the other disciples, cloaked in black gauze and bamboo hats, did not look nearly so out of place.

"Let us go and find an inn to settle in. We have been on the road for over ten days; let everyone rest their feet."

A look of profound relief instantly washed over the dust-weary faces of the others.

The days without fire or water had been truly unfit for human endurance.

The group followed the throng, melting into the bustling flow of the townsfolk.

From the nearby stalls, the scent of roasting meats and the rich aroma of noodle broth tantalized everyone's senses.

Wandering onward, they arrived at an open square that appeared to be the heart of the town.

The sudden clash of drums and gongs immediately drew all eyes toward the densely packed crowd.

"This must be the Nuo Opera," Li Huowang murmured, watching the three figures leaping and bounding amidst the throng.

Shaking heads, twisting torsos, squatting and trembling, winding wrists, stamping feet, leaping high.

The three dancers, their heads bound in red cloth and hidden behind ferocious wooden masks, moved with a bizarre, uncanny grace, as though their motions were born of some inhuman imagination.

Accompanying this grotesque dance was the chaotic, discordant rhythm of gongs and drums.

And from time to time, the mournful wail of a horn-like instrument would pierce the air.

The sound issuing from the black ox horn was like the eerie wailing of a female ghost.

The clashing of gongs, the beating of drums, the ghostly wails, all coupled with that bizarre dance—it made Li Huowang feel profoundly uneasy no matter how he looked at it.

Yet the onlookers surrounding them held quite a different view, sitting rapt and utterly entranced by the spectacle.

"What in the world is this? Can this even be called opera?" sneered Lu Zhuangyuan, his fellow performer, his face twisted in utter disdain.

No sooner had the words left his lips than the three performers began to writhe and twist with even greater ferocity.

Amidst their violent contortions, razor-sharp white fangs began to tremble and emerge from the gaping mouths of their wooden masks, sprouting forth as if taking root and blooming from living flesh.

It was not merely a fang or two, but a full set of sixteen; these sixteen fangs quivered in time with their Nuo ritual dance, clacking and clattering against one another in rhythmic tandem with the beating drums and crashing gongs.

"Is this... fang-playing?"

The trio’s mastery of the fang-playing art was extraordinary; watching the white fangs dart in and out of their mouths, Li Huowang was nearly convinced they were genuine teeth sprouting directly from their own gums.

(End of Chapter)