No Way Back

Si Huaruo's eyes practically sparkled with admiration.

"Dream on! What do you take tea ceremony for? A children's game? I'm so bored that I'm wasting my time here with an ignorant madman."

The girl surnamed Lu naturally didn't believe it, closed her fan, and turned to leave.

Seeing this, Si Ming finally decided to help and said to Si Huaruo, "Since we can't find a suitable replacement, how about we change the script?"

Si Huaruo snapped out of her reverie and said with a wry smile, "Good scripts aren't easy to find. Besides, there are only three days left. There's not even enough time for practice, let alone coordination during the performance."

"I happen to have a script here, with only three roles. Even if we only have three days, that should be enough time."

"You have a script? What's the name?"

"The Puppet Show"

Chapter 291 No Turning Back

"Puppet Show" is a niche ancient-style song that Si Ming saw in his previous life. It tells the story of a puppeteer and presents an indescribable sense of poignant beauty.

Looking at the lyrics alone, it's hard to tell what the creator is trying to express. It has a flavor of China films from the 1990s—it focuses on art but doesn't tell a story.

When Si Ming first heard it, he also thought it was a song that piled up words and forced sentimentality. It wasn't until he read the liner notes that told the background story of the song that he suddenly realized that the song was sung from the perspective of a puppet.

Judging from the song itself, Si Ming would give it a score of 70 at most. However, with the background story, it immediately becomes the finishing touch, easily reaching a score of 90.

Of course, right now I'm focused on acting in a play, so the songs are secondary; the stories behind the songs are the real focus.

Si Ming recounted the story, but received no response from the other end. He wondered if his storytelling skills were simply too poor. Should he just sing a song instead?

However, he is not the same person from the parallel universe. He has a terrible voice, almost tone-deaf, and his singing will likely only make him more unlikeable, turning a sad love song into a nonsensical comedy.

Suddenly, a sniffling sound came from across the way. Looking down, she saw that Si Huaruo were already brimming with tears.

"What a touching story (slurp), especially the last line, 'Warmth, yet loneliness,' it evoked an indescribable sadness (slurp)." After saying that, he pulled out a tissue and wiped his eyes.

Is it really that exaggerated? It feels almost like a story from "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio from a Chinese Studio"?

Si Ming remained silent. Although he also thought the story of "Puppet Show" was quite good and he was vaguely moved when he first read it, that was because of the dual effect of listening to the song together. If he listened to it alone, he always felt that something was missing.

Si Huaruo's emotions were far more complex than he had anticipated; he felt that the impression he had made on her during their first meeting had almost completely crumbled...

In fact, while Si Huaruo's emotions are certainly richer than those of the average person, Si Ming is not immune to the inertia of modern thinking.

Although the world has School of Fiction creating stories and multimedia communication methods like radio and television, it lacks a high-speed information carrier like the internet. The amount of information that ordinary people can access on a daily basis is actually not much. Even national leaders may not receive as much information as internet-savvy individuals—not to mention the value of that information.

In fact, only the Sea Continent Su State achieved widespread television adoption. In the Nation of Beauty, only the nobility could afford television, and the general public still relied on newspapers and radio for news dissemination. The level of television was roughly equivalent to that of China in the early 1990s, with very limited entertainment options.

"Since you also think this story is excellent, let's use it as a script. There are only three characters in it: the scholar, the puppet, and the puppeteer. The fewer the characters, the lower the requirements for coordination. As long as we find a partner with good chemistry, three days is enough to complete the rehearsal," Si Ming suggested.

Si Huaruo thought for a moment, then shook her head and said, "It's undeniable that the script is very exquisite, but the content is too short. If it were used for a performance, it would probably only last ten minutes, which wouldn't get a high score."

"Then let's fill in the content and expand the plot. There's a scene in 'Puppet Master Gu's' story that flashes back to the past, which can be used as a supplementary scene to showcase his past life, thus completing the plot's groundwork. Finally, when the scene pulls back to the present, as the puppet master is reduced to ashes, all the accumulated pressure will explode, pushing the plot to its climax."

As a School of Fiction, Si Ming said that padding his writing is too easy. Give him a hundred-word outline and he can easily pad it into 100,000 words.

"It sounds feasible, but is there enough time? There are only three days left. If we take up a day to change the plot..."

"Writing a complete script is difficult, but a rough outline only takes an hour."

Si Ming asked the maid for paper and pen and began to write on the spot.

The characters in "Puppet Show" have few dialogues and even few actions, so there is no need to scrutinize the dialogue in detail. It is sufficient to simply describe the development of the story and the characters' inner thoughts.

The theatrical performance was a short story, so Si Ming naturally wouldn't write it according to the formula of online novels; he used a Hollywood movie script template.

The first 70% is the groundwork, building up layer by layer, constantly increasing the hardships and pressure on the protagonist, and then a major turning point at the 70th point, where the situation takes a sharp turn for the worse. Usually, the protagonist is tricked by the villain and falls into the most dangerous situation. Finally, between 85% and 90%, the plot is ignited again, allowing the protagonist to stage a stunning reversal.

This is the best template summarized from Hollywood's long-term filmmaking, equivalent to the golden rule. On Earth, it would certainly be criticized by movie fans for being unoriginal and just another old popcorn movie. However, in the Sea Continent, it is an advanced theory that has not yet been explored.

Of course, Hollywood mostly makes superhero movies, so the ending is often the protagonist's victory and the good guys' families living happily ever after. But "The Puppet Show" is not a comedy. Therefore, the final plot explosion is not to make the protagonist turn the tables, but to further elevate the theme and play a finishing touch effect.

Having shed her disguise, Si Huaruo was clearly not someone who could resist curiosity. She immediately went over to read what Si Ming was writing, and by the time Si Ming finished writing the last word, she had already read the entire content.

"I've noticed a problem," Si Huaruo said in a serious tone.

What's the problem?

Si Ming glanced at the script he had just finished writing. The handwriting wasn't too bad, and there were no logical errors in the story.

"How can we play the role of a puppet? Even if Zhu Xuanhuai were to play True Person, it would be too much for her. As for puppets, we don't know how to operate them, let alone create such exquisite puppets. We'd have to find a legendary Yan Shi."

Yan Shi is a fictional character created in the "Liezi: Tang Wen". The puppets he created not only looked exactly like True Person people, but also could sing and dance, and even had thoughts, feelings, and desires, reaching a level that was indistinguishable from real people.

In the story, as the play was nearing its end, the puppet blinked and flirted with the concubines beside King Mu. King Mu was furious and ordered the Yan Shi to be killed immediately. The Yan Shi was terrified and immediately disassembled the dancer and showed it to King Mu. Inside, there were liver, gallbladder, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, intestines, and stomach; on the outside, there were tendons, bones, limbs, skin, and teeth. Although they were all fake, they were very complete. After putting these things back together, the puppet resumed its movements.

King Mu tried to remove its heart, and it could no longer speak; he removed its liver, and it could no longer see; he removed its kidneys, and it could no longer walk.

This level of skill far surpasses that of intelligent robots; it's a skill that only gods could master.

Of course, this chapter of "Liezi: Tang Wen" was originally a boastful piece, or to put it more nicely, it was a science fiction fable, belonging to the science fiction novels of that era.

At the end of the story, Liezi also said that Lu Ban and Mo Di's students, Dongmen Jia and Qin Guli, heard about Yan Shi's skills and told their teachers. As a result, the two master craftsmen never dared to talk about their skills again for the rest of their lives, and only diligently practiced their woodworking skills with their compasses and rulers.

It was clearly a fabricated story, yet it was told with great conviction. Since they couldn't do anything to you in reality, they would make you bow down in the story. After the story circulated, quite a few people actually believed it, thinking that the Lu School and Mohist School families had lost to a craftsman named Yan Shi.

By using boasting to force the truth, one has to admit that Liezi took the art of spiritual victory to a new level.

Si Ming certainly didn't intend to actually make such a puppet. Although props are an important part of drama, and excellent props can enhance the whole play, making such a lifelike puppet would feel like overshadowing the main character and easily draw everyone's attention to it, thus causing them to overlook the story's inherent meaning.