Chapter 29: Setting Up the Stage

Chapter 29: Setting the Stage

"Not at all, not at all. May I ask, elder, are there any renowned sects around here? Perhaps something like mine?" Li Huowang asked the question that weighed most heavily on his mind.

"There are! Of course there are. In the city of Xijing, there's a Buddhist temple. I hear the Buddhas inside are miraculously efficacious for those praying for a child!"

A Buddhist temple? Li Huowang recalled Danyangzi mentioning once that he had been hunted by monks, though he wasn't sure if it was this very temple.

Li Huowang made a mental note of this detail; after all, anyone who stood against that man-eating beast Danyangzi had to be a good person.

"But, young Daoist master, you're a Daoist. Wouldn't it be rather improper for you to visit a Buddhist temple?"

Li Huowang looked down at his Daoist robes. The old man's words truly reminded him—perhaps it was time to change these clothes, since he wasn't a real Daoist anyway.

"How has business been for you lately, elder? Going alright?"

Sensing Li Huowang shifting the subject, Lü Zhuangyuan promptly picked up the thread.

"Bah, what business? First a great drought, then a great flood in these parts. In times like these, the common folk have no money, and even fewer are willing to tip for a show. The rich won't spend on a troupe for funerals, just hosting a banquet and calling it a day. Pah! So unfilial!"

"It will pass. Things will get better once we weather these few years."

"Aye, we endure. We have to find a way to keep living, don't we?"

"I just think, if the harvests turn good again, I'll push myself to make a few hundred more trips. Once this old man saves enough to buy a theater in Xijing for the Lü family, hey, I could die with my eyes closed in peace."

"With a theater, my son and granddaughter won't have to suffer out here like I do. They can stay home and study properly. Maybe in a few years, green smoke will rise from the Lü ancestral graves, and we'll truly produce a top scholar! When that time comes... hehehe." Lü Zhuangyuan held his pipe, grinning foolishly.

Li Huowang listened quietly to Lü Zhuangyuan's visions of the future. He actually quite envied the old man; to reach such an age and still have a goal to strive for.

Guided by Li Huowang and Lü Zhuangyuan, the atmosphere between the two groups eased considerably.

At the very least, Lü Juren and Lü Xiucai no longer treated Gouwa and the others as monsters. They now knew they were human, merely afflicted by a severe illness.

What could be done about illness? Who doesn't fall sick? They were all just unfortunate souls.

By the time they arrived at Wuligang, Luo Juanhua had grown familiar enough to let Bai Lingmiao hold her daughter.

Standing on the flat ground used for drying grain, Lü Zhuangyuan looked at the villagers eating their supper with bowls under the eaves. "Alright, Wuligang has a large crowd. Let's set up our circle right here. The Lü Troupe opens its boxes! Erect the stage!"

Since they were going to perform, Li Huowang wasn't in a rush to leave. They had traveled for so long, and everyone was exhausted. It was a good chance for the others to rest.

Li Huowang had no particular fondness for opera, this ancient form of entertainment, but the others were clearly very curious and rushed over to lend a hand.

Tall, freshly cut bamboo poles propped up large swaths of crimson cloth, and the stage was beginning to take shape.

Li Huowang, catching up on sleep atop a pile of golden rice straw in the fields, suddenly felt someone poking his nose. He opened his eyes to find a beaming Bai Lingmiao.

She held up both hands, presenting a gleaming golden object before Li Huowang, and said excitedly, "Senior Brother Li, look! Such a bright bronze mirror! It reflects people so clearly! The actors use things like this for their makeup!"

"It's not even dark yet, and you've already taken off your blindfold. Aren't you afraid—"

Li Huowang's words cut off abruptly. He stared at his reflection in the bronze mirror, stunned. The face looking back at him was so unfamiliar.

"Senior Brother Li, what's wrong?" Bai Lingmiao sensed something was amiss.

"Junior Sister Bai, when I was at the Qingfeng Temple, did I look like this?" Li Huowang hesitantly raised a hand to touch his own face.

"Yes, you've always looked like this. What's wrong? Is there something different about you in the mirror?"

Li Huowang lowered his hand from his face and reached toward his reflection in the bronze mirror. It was still the same face.

Yet he was no longer a boy. He hadn't just arrived in this world; he had been here for quite some time.

"If the hospital back there was real, I was seventeen at most back then. So how old am I now?"

Li Huowang could ask this question, but he couldn't answer it. Along with his jumbled memories, he had also lost track of his own age.

He could only roughly judge from his appearance that he shouldn't be past thirty yet.

Li Huowang searched hard through his chaotic memories, but still found nothing.

"Senior Brother Li, what's wrong? Are you alright? Don't scare me." Seeing his reaction, Bai Lingmiao looked somewhat anxious.

"I'm fine, just remembered something. Hurry and return the mirror to them. The Lü family will need it for their performance soon."

"Mhm." Holding the bronze mirror, Bai Lingmiao ran toward the back of the newly erected stage.

"Yiyi~~ ah~~" Watching Lü Juren warming up his voice in the distance, Li Huowang gave a self-deprecating smile and lay back down on the straw. "Sigh... my life is truly like a joke."

He had expected his emotions to be more intense, but surprisingly, he felt very calm. It merely added another goal to his mind: to find his true age.

At night, the sky was cloudless, the bright moon hung high, and the humble stage was illuminated clearly.

Hearing that an opera troupe had arrived, nearly everyone in Wuligang showed up.

For farmers whose lives consisted of nothing but tilling fields and sleeping, an opera performance was an incredibly tempting form of entertainment.

The Lü family troupe was very small. Excluding a two-year-old who couldn't yet speak, there were only six members in total.

They had to play instruments, sing, apply makeup, and act, which was far too much to handle. So they had to appropriately cut down on some parts of the show.

Fortunately, the farmers weren't picky. Sitting on the stools they brought along, they watched with great relish.

Li Huowang and the others lay on the straw piles, watching the distant singing from afar. He had never listened to opera and didn't know which play they were performing.

He only recognized Lü Zhuangyuan, his face painted black, wearing a beard, and wielding a guandao. At his age, he still had to sing and slash on stage, looking incredibly dedicated.

"Bravo!!" A sudden cheer startled Li Huowang.

Act after act, the grain-drying ground became packed to the brim. On stage, the Lü family performed until they were drenched in sweat; off stage, the audience watched with flushed, excited faces. Only Li Huowang seemed like a detached spectator.

Unaware of the passing time, the moon had reached its zenith, and the Lü Troupe's performance was drawing to a close.

Just then, Li Huowang saw Lü Zhuangyuan's daughter-in-law, dressed in rags and wearing makeup, carrying her daughter and holding a grass basket, mounting the stage with a tearful face.

"My cruel great-uncle drove me away~~"

"Like a lone wild goose, left to drift~ ah ah ah~"

"Like roadside weeds, trampled by all~ ah ah"

"Mother and daughter, cold and starving, truly unbearable~ truly~ un~bearable~~"

"Left to beg for food on the streets~"

Singing this, Luo Juanhua gently pinched her daughter's bottom, and the two-year-old child immediately burst into fitting, wailing tears.

(End of Chapter)