Setting the Stage

"Not at all. May I ask, sir, are there any renowned sects around here? Ones like mine, for instance?" Li Huowang asked what concerned him most.

"Yes! Of course there are! There's a Monk Temple in West Capital City. I heard the Buddhist masters there are especially effective at granting children to those who pray for them!"

A Monk Temple? Li Huowang recalled Danyangzi mentioning before that monks had once hunted him down. He wondered if it was this very temple.

Li Huowang marked that point in his mind. No matter what, anyone opposing that man-eating beast Danyangzi ought to be a good person.

"But, Little Daoist Master, you're a Daoist. Wouldn't it be rather inappropriate for you to visit a Monk Temple?"

Li Huowang lowered his head to look at his Daoist Robe. That remark truly reminded him—perhaps it was time to change these clothes. He was not a real Daoist, after all.

"How has business been lately, sir? Not bad, I hope?"

Sensing that Li Huowang was changing the subject, Lu Zhuangyuan immediately picked it up.

"Ah, what good business? First this place suffered a great drought, then a great flood. In times like these, ordinary folk have no money, and those willing to watch a show and give tips are fewer still. Even wealthy people are reluctant to hire a troupe for funerals—they just eat a funeral banquet and call it done. Bah! Truly unfilial!"

"It will pass eventually. Once you weather these few years, things will get better."

"Yes, endure it. One must always find a way to keep living, mustn't one?"

"I keep thinking, if the times improve, I'll make several hundred more hard runs. Once this old man saves enough money, I'll buy an Opera House in West Capital City for the Lu family. Heh, then I could die with my eyes closed."

"With an Opera House, my sons and granddaughter would never have to suffer out on the road like me again. They could stay home and study properly. Maybe in a few years, green smoke will rise from my old Lu family's ancestral graves, and we'll truly produce a top scholar! When that day comes... hehehe." Lu Zhuangyuan held his smoking pipe and grinned foolishly.

Li Huowang quietly listened to Lu Zhuangyuan's visions for the future. He actually envied the man. At such an advanced age, he still had a goal worth striving toward.

Under Li Huowang and Lu Zhuangyuan's guidance, the atmosphere between both sides eased considerably.

At least Lu Juren and Lu Xiucai no longer regarded Gouwa and the others as monsters. They now knew they were people, merely afflicted by serious illness.

What could be done about illness? Who never fell ill? They were all people born to hardship.

By the time they arrived at Wu Li Gang, Luo Juanhua had become familiar enough with Bai Lingmiao to let her hold her daughter.

Standing on the flat ground where rice was dried, Lu Zhuangyuan looked toward the villagers beneath the eaves, bowls in hand as they ate supper. "All right. Wu Li Gang has plenty of people, so we'll set up right here. Lu Family Troupe, open the trunks! Set up the stage!"

They were going to perform opera, and Li Huowang did not intend to leave in a hurry. After traveling for so long, everyone was tired. This was a good chance for the others to rest awhile.

Li Huowang had never cared much for opera, that ancient form of entertainment, but the others were clearly fascinated and all ran over to lend a hand.

Tall-cut bamboo poles supported several great swathes of crimson cloth, and the opera stage was beginning to take shape.

Li Huowang was lying atop a golden pile of rice stalks in the fields, catching up on sleep, when he suddenly felt someone poking his nose. He opened his eyes to find Bai Lingmiao smiling brightly at him.

She raised both hands, presenting a glittering golden object before Li Huowang, and said excitedly, "Senior Brother Li, look! Such a bright bronze mirror! It reflects people perfectly clearly! The opera performers use this thing to put on makeup!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he was no longer a youth. He had not just arrived in this world—he had already been here for some time.

If the hospital was real, I was probably no older than seventeen then. So how old am I now?

Li Huowang could ask that question, yet he could not answer it. Along with his chaotic memories, he had also lost track of his own age.

He could only barely judge from his appearance that he was probably still under thirty.

Li Huowang searched desperately through his jumbled memories, yet still found nothing.

"Senior Brother Li, what's wrong? Are you all right? Don't scare me." Seeing his reaction, Bai Lingmiao grew somewhat nervous.

"I'm fine. I just remembered a few things. Hurry and return the bronze mirror to them. The Lu family will need it soon for their performance."

"Mm." Bai Lingmiao hugged the bronze mirror and ran toward the back of the stage, which had already been erected.

"Yiyi~~ ah~~" Watching Lu Juren warming up his voice in the distance, Li Huowang laughed at himself and lay back down upon the rice stalks. "Sigh... My life really is a joke."

He had thought his emotions would be more intense, but he was unexpectedly calm. There was simply one more goal in his heart now: finding out his age.

That night, the sky was cloudless and the bright moon hung overhead, illuminating the crude opera stage with perfect clarity.

Upon hearing that an opera troupe had arrived, nearly everyone in Wu Li Gang came out.

For farming families whose daily lives consisted of nothing but tilling fields and sleeping, an opera performance was irresistibly alluring when they had no entertainment at all.

The Lu Family Troupe was very small. Aside from one two-year-old who could not yet speak, there were only six people in total.

They had to play instruments, sing, act, and apply makeup. They simply could not manage it all, so they could only cut back on certain parts.

Fortunately, the farmers were not picky. Sitting on the stools they had brought themselves, they watched with great relish.

Li Huowang and the others lay on piles of rice stalks, watching from afar as the performers sang their yiyi-yahya. He had never listened to opera and did not know which play they were performing.

He only recognized Lu Zhuangyuan, his face painted black, a beard hanging from his chin, Guan Dao in hand. At his age, he still had to sing and slash about on stage, and he looked as though he was giving it everything he had.

"Bravo!!!" A sudden cheer rang out, startling Li Huowang.

One act followed another. The rice-drying ground became packed to the brim. Onstage, the Lu family performed until sweat covered their heads; below, the audience watched with faces glowing red. Only Li Huowang seemed like a mere spectator.

Before they knew it, the moon had reached the middle of the sky, and the Lu Family Troupe's performance was nearing its end.

Just then, Li Huowang saw Lu Zhuangyuan's daughter-in-law, dressed in ragged clothes and still wearing stage makeup, climb onto the stage with a mournful face. She carried her daughter in one arm and a straw basket in the other.

"My heartless granduncle drove me away~~"

"Like a lone wild goose, drifting wherever the wind may blow~ ah ah ah~"

"Like roadside weeds, trampled beneath all feet~ ah ah~"

"My daughter and I are pressed by hunger and cold, unbearable~ so~ unbearable~~"

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

As she sang this, Luo Juanhua gently pinched her daughter's bottom. The two-year-old immediately burst into loud, fitting wails.