Training

"Eee—"

"Yah—!"

While the sky was still dark, eee-yah sounds already rose by the Pear Blossom River. A tall, handsome young man was by the river opening up his voice and practicing his vocalization.

This was called calling out the voice. It was a habit every opera performer had to develop from childhood. Usually, they had to rise at dawn and go somewhere with water or to a sparsely populated hollow, so as not to disturb others.

Thus, ever since Zhou Sheng began learning Yin Opera at the age of five, he had never slept in.

By the time he finished calling out, the sun had only just revealed a hint of red. His throat was fully opened, and when his vocal cords vibrated, his voice was round and clear, like pearls falling upon a jade plate.

Next, Zhou Sheng fetched two buckets of water and hurried home beneath the morning sun.

There were already people on the road. The moment they saw Zhou Sheng, they greeted him with familiarity and affection, as though he were one of their own nephews.

One household gave him an ear of corn, another sent him a cucumber, and someone even insisted on stuffing a string of peppers into his hands.

It was as if he were not an opera performer, but someone out begging for alms.

Zhou Sheng and his Master had settled in Qinggu County when he was twelve, and they had lived there for nine years. Though remote, the countyfolk were simple and honest, and the neighbors looked after one another. It was a harmonious little place.

As for Zhou Sheng, with his handsome face and upright bearing, many families with daughters of marriageable age were especially warm toward him.

When he returned home, the sun had fully risen. The morning sun hung high, and dawnlight filled the sky.

The first thing Zhou Sheng did was change the water in the vat.

This water was not for drinking, but for raising a fish—a goldfish.

"Senior Brother Fish, the water's here!"

Zhou Sheng stroked the goldfish, then began pouring in the water.

In his memories, whenever Master arrived somewhere new, he would first find a water vat to raise this goldfish. He had always been stingy with praise toward Zhou Sheng and often wore a stern face, yet he treasured this fish beyond measure and made Zhou Sheng change its water every day.

That was why Zhou Sheng called it "Senior Brother Fish."

Senior Brother Fish truly was extraordinary. Ordinary goldfish could only live six or seven years, but it had lived for over a decade and was still lively as ever.

Master said it was a feng shui fish that could gather wealth. He instructed Zhou Sheng to take good care of it no matter what, and never to move the water vat from its place.

After changing the water, he began practicing Blanket Skill under Master's supervision.

So-called Blanket Skill was not about performing with blankets. Rather, the movements practiced were too dangerous, so a thick blanket had to be laid down for protection.

Upon that old blanket, washed so many times it had faded white, Zhou Sheng began practicing all kinds of opera movements.

Headstands, backbends, Tiger Leaps, Cloud Front Flips...

On a blanket barely three feet wide, he darted, shifted, leaped, and turned like a hare rising and a falcon dropping. One difficult movement after another flowed from him like drifting clouds and running water.

Agile as a dragon, fierce as a tiger, swift as a leopard, light as a cat.

Yu Zhensheng watched coldly from the side, rapidly rolling several pebbles in his hand. Their shrill friction brought Zhou Sheng an invisible pressure.

Whoosh!

Whenever Zhou Sheng showed the slightest distraction, a pebble would fly at him from a tricky angle, striking the major acupoints around his body with the precision of a hidden weapon.

If he managed to dodge it, all was well. If not, his body would instantly lose balance, and he would crash down heavily.

Just like now.

Zhou Sheng was performing the Reverse Pouncing Tiger. Having practiced continuously for half an hour, even with his physique, he was beginning to feel tired. His attention slipped for a moment.

The result was a pebble flying toward him, swift as lightning, bouncing off the Mingmen Acupoint on his lumbar spine.

Thud!

Zhou Sheng fell straight onto the blanket. A faint pain pulsed through his lower back; without even looking, he knew it had already bruised.

He had thought that after his Dao cultivation improved, he should be able to dodge Master's "hidden weapons." Yet he had not expected Master's pebbles to grow even swifter as well.

That silent yet thunder-swift hidden-weapon technique would be a rare feather and phoenix horn even across the martial world.

"Get up. Keep training!"

Yu Zhensheng's words rang like metal, utterly merciless.

"When performing Yin Opera, a moment's distraction could leave you dead without a burial place!"

"Remember, those pairs of eyes staring at you beneath the stage..."

"Are not the eyes of the living!"

Zhou Sheng did not complain in the slightest. He immediately rose and resumed his grueling practice.

By the end, he was exhausted to the marrow. He had fallen a full seven times, and his body was mottled with bruises before Yu Zhensheng finally nodded in satisfaction. Even then, he offered not a word of praise.

"Your Blanket Skill is passable. Next, practice your eye technique."

Zhou Sheng could only drag his weary body upright and begin staring at the pigeon cage twenty zhang away...

And so, the entire morning passed.

Lunch, as usual, was lavish: a roast goose, two jin of soy-braised beef, a large pork knuckle, white rice, and ginseng black chicken soup.

There was also a pot of fine wine, though Yu Zhensheng drank it himself and would not allow Zhou Sheng a single drop.

In his words, alcohol would affect the throat. If one wanted to sing opera, it was best not to touch a drop.

Zhou Sheng practically wolfed down his lunch, sweeping it clean like wind scattering clouds. Yu Zhensheng, on the other hand, was the exact opposite—his manners elegant and unhurried, even pouring wine and holding chopsticks with a certain grace.

In Zhou Sheng's memories, even when the master and disciple had gone hungry for a long time and suddenly obtained a feast, Master would remain just as composed and graceful.

It was a bearing carved into his bones.

Zhou Sheng wiped his mouth, intending to take the chance to chat with Master.

"Master, about leaving the apprenticeship—"

Yu Zhensheng shot him a glare and rapped him on the head with his chopsticks.

"What should you do after eating? Must your Master teach you that too?"

Zhou Sheng could only nod. He rose and walked beneath a willow tree, assuming the Primordial Basket-Lifting Stance from Lan Caihe's Twelve Guiding Postures.

Practicing the Guiding Technique after eating could better help the body digest food and build strength.

Meanwhile, Yu Zhensheng walked over to the water vat to tease his beloved goldfish.

At the hour of Wei, they began discussing opera and practicing opera.

Bao Qingtian, Beating the Dragon Robe, Reed Marsh, Locking the Five Dragons...

"Among singing, speaking, acting, and martial arts, the key to singing lies in training your breath. As the saying goes, train the Dantian breath well, and you will be invincible wherever you go beneath heaven."

"Remember this: in every aria, the breathing points amid long drawn-out notes are fixed. You cannot casually change your breath or steal a breath!"

"Before a great tossed note, take one great, deep breath. Only then will the tossed notes that follow be full and rich with breath!"

Yu Zhensheng was extremely strict, yet never impatient. Though he would strike Zhou Sheng with a stick whenever he made a mistake, his voice remained calm and measured, and he patiently explained things over and over.

After a full day, Zhou Sheng's body would often be covered in injuries, yet he was deeply grateful to Master.

There was a saying in the opera world: better give away ten mu of land than teach a single line of opera.

But whenever Master explained opera, he held nothing back and concealed nothing, wishing he could pass every bit of his experience and skill to Zhou Sheng.

To meet such a strict teacher was Zhou Sheng's good fortune.

More than that, he was not merely a strict teacher, but also a "kind father" who was poor at expressing himself.

After dinner, Master had Zhou Sheng remove his upper clothes and lie facedown on the stone table in the courtyard, its surface long since polished incomparably smooth.

Master rubbed his palms warm and applied medicinal oil to him, working again and again to relax his sinews and invigorate his blood, especially over the injured areas.

Through massage, he made the carefully prepared medicinal oil seep more quickly into Zhou Sheng's flesh and blood, strengthening his muscles and bones.

The massage lasted an entire hour.

And it had been this way for a full sixteen years.

"Master, I've already worked so hard. Can't you spare a few precious words and praise me once in a while?"

Zhou Sheng said it as though joking.

Yu Zhensheng was tired enough that sweat beaded on his forehead. He breathed faintly, his snow-white silver hair drifting in the breeze. Hearing this, he sneered and mocked, "Are you a three-year-old child? At your age, you still need others to praise you?"

"Master, why did you lie to me? Why did you say I would only leave the apprenticeship at twenty-one? Was trading your life for my three years worth it?"

Yu Zhensheng's hand paused slightly, then he said indifferently, "That old fox Lu Bingyuan lied to you. I said twenty-one, so it is twenty-one."

"Master..."

Time quietly flowed by, and snores gradually rose from the courtyard.

At some point, Zhou Sheng had already fallen asleep.

Only then did Yu Zhensheng's gaze gradually soften. Looking at the injuries across his disciple's body, he let out a quiet sigh.

"When I found you, you were only five, no bigger than a little dog, filthy from head to toe."

"Who would have thought you would now become such an outstanding Ghost Opera Performer?"

"As for what happened in Yang City, if it had been the younger me, I certainly would not have handled it as well as you..."

"You have already done very well."

Only when his disciple was asleep did he seem able to take off his mask and speak sincere praise. Even so, his voice was tiny, like the buzzing of mosquitoes and flies.

"Master, so you know how to praise people too!"

Suddenly, Zhou Sheng opened his eyes and said with a smile.

He had been pretending to sleep.

In an instant, Yu Zhensheng looked as though he had been struck by lightning. For the first time, he lost that elegant composure, freezing motionless as if turned to stone.

Then, his face visibly reddened at a speed discernible to the naked eye, while his toes kept clawing at the ground inside his shoes.

"Y-you... unfilial disciple!"

"I'll beat you to death!!!"

A moment later, waves of miserable screams rang out from the courtyard, lingering without end.