"I understand."
Down in the well, Qin Manjiang and Mei Sijun spoke at the same time.
They exchanged a glance, and Mei Sijun spoke first. "The loose stones form a path. There's something strange about where those two opera performers bleeding from all seven orifices are standing."
"Each of them has a larger stone underfoot. There seems to be something on them," Qin Manjiang added.
"It's the character for 'chou,'" Mei Sijun said without hesitation. "Both of them are wearing the painted faces of clowns. That's clearly clown makeup, yet they're singing a dan role's lyrics. They've taken the wrong path."
Qin Manjiang knew the five opera role categories-sheng, dan, jing, mo, and chou-but he knew nothing about the specific distinctions between them.
He had only noticed that the blood dripping from those two performers' seven orifices stayed within the same small area beneath their feet. They, too, only "performed" within that area, not daring to step outside it. This made him suspicious, and only after looking closely did he discover something unusual about the loose stones beneath their feet.
Some of the stones were larger, and the markings on them were indeed characters, just as Mei Sijun had said.
"There are four larger stones on the path ahead of us. Come and look." Mei Sijun crouched down and explained to Qin Manjiang with great enthusiasm, "This is the character 'sheng,' referring to sheng roles, generally the male leads in opera. Later, branches such as laosheng, xiaosheng, and wusheng developed from it."
Qin Manjiang followed his pointing finger. The markings on that larger stone were crooked, but they did indeed form the character "sheng."
Then Mei Sijun pointed to another stone. "This is 'jing,' referring to jing roles. In opera, characters such as Guan Gong and Bao Zheng have fully