"Splash!"
As the female musician playing Liu Lanzhi fell through a prepared gap in the wooden stage, concealed by blue gauze, and landed on straw laid beneath it, the original Yuefu accompaniment that had played throughout the performance abruptly stopped.
For a moment, the entire venue fell utterly silent.
For not only had the accompaniment stopped, but before the Central Hall outside the Palace City's main gate, the audience of several hundred-including dozens of high officials and nobles headed by Sima Yu, along with guards and maidservants-had almost all been struck dumb at once, then startled into helpless bewilderment.
Yet none dared make a sound.
Even Their two Majesties... yes, only Xie Shang could bring Their two Majesties here to see the new fruits of his musical work; Sima Yu could never have invited them... even Their two Majesties were astonished. The Empress Dowager's eyes had already been swimming with tears, and now she recoiled in alarm into the seat behind her, while the Young Emperor did precisely the opposite, poking his head straight through the gauze curtain to look around curiously.
But after a brief silence, as another female musician playing Jiao Zhongqing slowly paced onto the other side of the stage, the prelude of a tune that some of the seated dignitaries had actually heard before slowly began.
The prelude was lilting and winding, with a faint undertone of grief, accompanying that "Jiao Zhongqing" to the tree arranged onstage... it was a real tree! Xie Shang had insisted on it, and the couple's earlier outpourings, parting, promises, and so on had all taken place beneath it... when the music reached the appointed passage, the female musician unhesitatingly slipped the rope hanging from the tree around her neck.
Of course, there was a screen below, and as the musician