Child, Daddy Knows How to Do This Puppet Show Too, Daddy Will Sing It For You!

The mother's shouting gradually faded as she rushed down the hospital corridor toward the elevators. In the room, only the child lying on the hospital bed remained, staring wide-eyed at Shen Le, the two of them looking at each other in silence.

"You are Zhang Zihan, right?" Shen Le leaned over to look at him.

"Are you feeling any better?"

"It hurts so much..."

The boy had been drifting in and out of sleep, and with the painkillers, he could barely endure it. Now that he was awake, his features were twisted in pain, his face grimacing.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the one who found your Little Puppet." With the boy's mother gone, Shen Le pulled up the chair from beside the bed, swung his backpack to the front, and took out the Little Puppet.

"Take a look, is this yours?"

"Uh..."

Zhang Zihan struggled to crane his neck, looking left and right. The Little Puppet before him had vibrant makeup, and her red dress was dazzlingly bright; she was no longer the old, dusty Little Puppet from his memory. Only the cinnabar tear mark at the corner of her eye remained exactly as it had been in the past.

"I think so... Did you change her clothes?"

"I repaired the wood inside, replaced the silk threads, and put on new clothes," Shen Le answered truthfully, then took the opportunity to ask, "When you were at home, did you play with it often?"

"Yes!" Zhang Zihan reached out to touch the Little Puppet, but as he moved, he tugged at his wounds, and a thin layer of sweat broke out on his forehead. He said indignantly, "I told them I was playing with her, but Mom and Dad wouldn't believe me! They insisted I was lying, saying I was playing with dolls instead of doing my homework! But it was her who was always playing with me!"

...I believe you. Shen Le thought silently to himself. Children were different from adults; they often saw things that adults could not. Moreover, this puppet had been passed down through their family for generations, making its spiritual nature all the more distinct. He waved his hand, pressing the child back down onto the bed.

"Stay still. If you want to play with her, I'll operate—how about I perform a puppet show for you?"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

Zhang Zihan couldn't help but want to clap. As his hand moved, it tugged at the indwelling needle, and a sharp pain in the back of his hand made him quickly lie back down obediently. Shen Le smiled at him. He set his backpack aside and held the wooden board flat in his left hand.

"Clang! Clang! Clang-dong-clang!"

As he vocalized the rhythm and manipulated the threads with his hands, the Little Puppet flicked her sleeves. Her left hand caught the cuff, her right hand formed an orchid finger gesture, and she raised it above her shoulder.

"Suddenly hearing the golden drums ring, the painted horns shake the sky—"

Excellent, truly excellent; every movement was executed perfectly. However—the few threads suspending the puppet's right arm didn't seem to be pulled quite taut.

So, Xiao Ling, are you dancing on your own?

It doesn't matter. As long as I can fool the audience and make them think I'm the one controlling the puppet, it's fine. Shen Le thought while trying his best to continue singing.

"Stirring my ambition to break through the Heavenly Gate, soaring above the clouds—"

Like that old man, singing in a female operatic voice was impossible, so he would just have to make do. Fortunately, as soon as the two lines of lyrics were out, the boy's eyes lit up. He lay on the bed, struggling to crane his neck, watching the puppet with wide, eager eyes, as if he had forgotten half of his pain.

Shen Le breathed a slight sigh of relief. He didn't care about the rustling on the next bed where an old man had turned to watch the show, nor the heavy, hurried footsteps approaching outside the ward. He simply focused on manipulating the puppet, trying his best to sing and amuse the child.

"Thinking back to those years, on the peach-blossom horse, so majestic and imposing—"

Chinese people loved a lively scene; one could say it was entirely in their nature. With someone singing opera in the orthopedic ward, it didn't take long for the commotion to draw people from half the floor to watch. There was a young man from the neighboring orthopedic ward limping on a plaster-cast leg;

Middle-aged men from the urology ward walking with their legs spread wide while wearing hospital gowns;

A middle-aged man from the cardiothoracic surgery ward carrying his drainage bottle, unable to bear the loneliness;

An old man from the rehabilitation department leaning on a four-legged walker, having been ordered by his doctor to walk back and forth;

Family members who were bored from sitting with patients, ranging from middle-aged aunts to punks with dyed hair...

They swarmed out from every corner, instantly crowding half the ward. The scene was no different from when they had gathered to watch the family members of a neurosurgery patient catch an elderly man from urology having an affair in the bathroom, leading to a massive, noisy confrontation.

The only ones distressed were the family members concerned for the patients, who were anxious and angry, pulling at people and scolding them, trying to get their own patients back to bed. However, it was of little use; instead, they were scolded back by the patients.

"I'm bored lying here all day! It's finally something fun, and you won't even let me watch! The doctor even said I need to move more, move more!"

"Make way, make way! Let me in!"

Amidst the crowd, the sound of footsteps and clamor suddenly erupted, then came to an abrupt halt. The man who had rushed over froze at the foot of the bed, gazing at the puppet dancing nimbly in Shen Le's hands, his face unknowingly streaming with tears.

He remembered.

This was his family's Little Puppet, the one his grandfather used to hold to amuse him and teach him how to perform puppet shows when he was very small and lying on his sickbed. He had practiced manipulating the puppet with his grandfather, learned the singing style from him, and even when his grandfather was critically ill, he would hold his empty fist, pretending to play the erhu to accompany the puppet show, just to make his grandfather happy...

Later, his grandfather passed away, and because he spent too much time practicing puppet shows, it affected his studies. His parents, fearing he wouldn't get into school, threatened to throw the puppet away.

In the end, they didn't throw it away, but they stuffed it into a box and locked it up. And later, and later...

And later, he had forgotten about this Little Puppet...

Now, seeing it once again, it was in the hands of a stranger, being manipulated nimbly and performed. The middle-aged man suddenly remembered that it was his grandfather's favorite piece to sing, the piece his grandfather had always sung to him when he was a child...

Back then, his greatest aspiration was to become a puppeteer, to pull the strings of the Little Puppet on stage, perform for everyone to see, and become the focus of everyone's attention...

Grandfather, Grandfather...

Gazing at the puppet that was raising its sleeves, spinning, and singing and dancing, the middle-aged man found two lines of tears already spilling from his eyes.

When his son was very, very young, he had also sung to him and performed for him just like his grandfather had done back then, doing everything in his power to make his son happy. When had it come to this? When had it reached the point where he scolded his son every day, occasionally hit him, and his son had jumped from the building in a fit of rage?

Shen Le heard him approach and heard him stand at the doorway, but he paid it no mind. He remained single-mindedly focused on performing for the child, trying to help him forget his pain, if only for a moment:

"Back then, on my peach-blossom steed, I was majestic and bold, enemy blood splashing upon my pomegranate skirt—"

Pomegranate skirt...

Pomegranate skirt?

What were the next lyrics again?

Oh no, he had forgotten!

"Let me take it from here." Just as the awkward silence hung in the air, the man standing at the foot of the bed strode forward. Traces of tears still lingered on his face, and he forced a faint smile as he gave Shen Le a nod. Reaching out to touch the Little Puppet, he turned his head to look at his son in the hospital bed:

"Son, Daddy knows this part too. Let Daddy sing it for you!"

Shen Le understood and handed the puppet over to him. The man's fingertips moved nimbly; under his control, the Little Puppet wobbled, its limbs jerking as it began to dance clumsily.

This middle-aged man held the wooden board in his left hand and tugged at the strings with his right, focusing all his concentration on making the puppet move while simultaneously striving to match his operatic singing to the rhythm of the performance:

"Suddenly hearing the golden drums and the blare of the horns, my ambition to break through the Heavenly Gate soars to the clouds. Back then, on my peach-blossom steed, I was majestic and bold, enemy blood splashing upon my pomegranate skirt..."