Setting Up the Stage

"Not at all, may I ask, old sir, do we have any famous sects around here? Like someone like me," Li Huowang asked about the thing he cared about the most.

"Yes! Of course, there is. There's a monk temple in West Capital City. I heard the Buddha inside is very effective at granting children!"

A monk temple? Li Huowang remembered Danyangzi mentioning before that he had been chased by monks. He wondered if it was this temple.

Li Huowang marked this in his mind. No matter what, anyone who opposed a cannibalistic beast like Danyangzi should be a good person.

"But, little Taoist priest, you're a Taoist. Isn't it inappropriate to go to a monk temple?"

Li Huowang looked down at the Taoist robe he was wearing. The other party's words reminded him that he should probably change this outfit. He wasn't a real Taoist anyway.

"Old sir, how's business been lately? Not bad, right?"

Sensing that Li Huowang was changing the subject, Lu Zhuangyuan immediately took over the conversation.

"Hey, what's good about it? We had a severe drought followed by a major flood in this area. The common people have no money these days, and even fewer are willing to watch plays and give rewards. Rich people are reluctant to hire opera troupes for funerals; they just finish with a meal. Bah! Truly unfilial!"

"It will pass eventually. It'll be better once we get through these years."

"Yeah, let's just get through it. We always have to find a way to keep going, right?"

"I'm thinking, if the years get better, I'll run a few hundred more shows. When I, this old man, have saved enough money, I'll buy an opera house in West Capital City that belongs to my Lu Family. Hey, I can die in peace then."

"With an opera house, my son and my granddaughter won't have to come out and suffer like me anymore. They can honestly stay at home and study. Maybe in a few years, the ancestral graves of my old Lu Family will emit green smoke, and we'll actually produce a Number One Scholar! By then... hehehe." Lu Zhuangyuan chuckled foolishly, holding his pipe.

Li Huowang quietly listened to Lu Zhuangyuan's vision for the future. He was actually quite envious of him, being able to have a goal to strive for at such an old age.

Under the leadership of Li Huowang and Lu Zhuangyuan, the atmosphere between the two parties eased a lot.

At least Lu Zhuangyuan and Lu Xiucai no longer regarded Gouwa and the others as monsters. They already knew that they were people, just seriously ill.

What could they do about being sick? Who doesn't get sick? They were all people with hard lives.

When they arrived at Wu Li Gang, Luo Juanhua was so familiar with Bai Lingmiao that she was letting her hold her daughter.

Standing on the flat ground for drying rice, Lu Zhuangyuan looked at the villagers eating dinner under the eaves. "Alright, there are many people in Wu Li Gang. Let's just set up the stage here. Lu Family Troupe, open the boxes! Set up the stage!"

They were going to perform a play, and Li Huowang didn't plan to leave in a hurry. Everyone was tired from traveling for so long. It was a good opportunity for the others to rest.

Li Huowang wasn't interested in such an ancient form of entertainment as opera, but it was clear that the others were very curious and rushed over to lend a hand.

Tall bamboo poles held up several large pieces of red cloth, and the basic shape of the stage was beginning to take form.

Li Huowang, who was lying on a pile of golden rice stalks in the field, suddenly felt someone poking his nose. He opened his eyes and found Bai Lingmiao smiling at him.

She raised her hands, and a golden object appeared in front of Li Huowang. She said excitedly, "Senior Brother Li, look! Such a shiny bronze mirror! It clearly shows people! The actors use this to put on makeup!"

"It's not even dark yet. Why did you take off your blindfold? Aren't you afraid—"

Li Huowang's words stopped abruptly. He stared blankly at himself in the bronze mirror. The person in the mirror was so unfamiliar.

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

"Junior Sister Bai, when I was in Qingfeng Temple, did I look like this?" Li Huowang hesitantly touched his face with his hand.

"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 out towards himself in the bronze mirror. His face was still that face.

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

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

Li Huowang could ask this question, but he couldn't answer it. Besides the chaotic memories, he had also lost his age.

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

Li Huowang tried hard to search through his chaotic memories, but still found nothing.

"Senior Brother Li, what's wrong? Are you okay? Don't scare me." Seeing Li Huowang's reaction, Bai Lingmiao looked a little nervous.

"I'm fine, just thinking about some things. Hurry up and return the bronze mirror to them. The Lu Family needs it for their performance soon."

"Okay." Bai Lingmiao hugged the bronze mirror and ran towards the back of the stage that had already been set up.

"Yi yi~~ Ah~~" Watching Lu Zhuangyuan, who was practicing his voice in the distance, Li Huowang smiled self-deprecatingly and lay down on the grain stalks again. "Sigh... I really live like a joke."

He thought he would be more emotional, but he was surprisingly calm. He just had one more goal in his heart: to find his age.

At night, the sky was cloudless, and the bright moon shone clearly on the simple stage.

Hearing that a theater troupe had come, almost everyone in Wu Li Gang came.

For farmers who usually only farmed and slept, watching a theater troupe perform was very tempting since they had no other entertainment.

The Lu Family Troupe was very small. Besides a two-year-old who couldn't speak yet, there were only six people in total.

They had to play instruments, sing, and act, so they were too busy to handle everything. Therefore, they could only appropriately reduce some items.

Fortunately, the farmers weren't picky and watched with great interest while sitting on the stools they brought.

Li Huowang lay on the pile of rice stalks with the others, watching them sing from a distance. He had never heard opera and didn't know which one they were performing.

He only recognized Lu Zhuangyuan, who was wearing black face paint, a fake beard, and holding a Guan Dao. It seemed like he was working very hard, singing and slashing on the stage at such an old age.

"Good!!!" A shout of applause suddenly rang out, startling Li Huowang.

Performance after performance, the entire rice-drying field was packed with people. The Lu Family on stage was sweating profusely, and the audience was beaming, but Li Huowang seemed like an outsider.

Unknowingly, the moon had already reached the middle of the sky, and the Lu Family Troupe's performance was coming to an end.

At this moment, Li Huowang saw Lu Zhuangyuan's daughter-in-law, wearing ragged clothes and makeup, carrying her daughter and a grass basket, walking onto the stage with a mournful face.

"The heartless uncle drove me away~~"

"Like a lone goose drifting in the wind~ Ah ah ah~"

"Like a roadside weed for anyone to trample~ Ah ah"

"My mother and daughter are suffering from hunger and cold, it's really hard to bear~ Really~ Hard~ Bear~~"

"We can only beg for food on the streets~"

Singing to this point, Luo Juanhua gently pinched her daughter's butt, and the two-year-old child immediately cried out in response.