"I came precisely for that."
Qin Manjiang spoke in a low voice.
He was growing anxious, too. The night was nearly over, and things were taking an increasingly bizarre turn, yet they knew nothing about what had actually happened.
Now, with Miss Lin's help, they were finally about to make some progress.
But Miss Lin merely pointed, and a pavilion appeared at the silent, frigid bottom of the well. It simply looked far too new, without a speck of dust.
"Let's talk over there."
Qin Manjiang nodded in agreement and followed her toward the pavilion.
Even then, he kept looking back, but apart from the two paper figures holding white lanterns, no one else from the troupe appeared along the way.
We came down through the same well opening. Could we have entered different spaces...?
Qin Manjiang pondered this.
Just then, Lin Yanqing suddenly asked, "Do you know what a yin-yang person is?"
Qin Manjiang froze, instinctively thinking Miss Lin was saying something strange.
But on second thought, in this era, and even in much earlier times, the term seemed to refer specifically to... intersex people?
He nodded. "I do."
Seeing nothing amiss in his expression, Lin Yanqing continued, "He was a yin-yang person."
He?
Qin Manjiang knew that the person Lin Yanqing meant was the opera performer who had supposedly "drowned himself in the well."
"His name was Li Yunxiu. He was a man, but his body was not entirely male."
Qin Manjiang nodded, already beginning to understand.
Never mind a hundred years ago-even in modern society, certain beliefs still persisted in some relatively remote regions. With inadequate medical knowledge, people readily associated those with both male and female characteristics with ghosts and gods, believing their abnormalities were divine punishment.
Having both male and female characteristics was a condition