Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister
"Can you still smell that stench of corpses?"
"It's stronger. The ghost should be very close to us."
"How close?"
"Maybe just below the slope in front of the courtyard?"
After a brief exchange with Zhou Yang in her mind, Ding Ling looked up at the people in the courtyard.
"My finger! My finger!"
Qian Heng clutched his bloody hand and rolled around on the ground, howling in pain.
Li Yichun's right thumb was also a bloody mess. He clutched his injured hand, his face deathly pale, trembling as he muttered, "The ghost is coming, the ghost is coming... You wouldn't let it choose the play, so we're all going to suffer-
"We're all going to die. We're done for!"
He continued muttering to himself.
His muttering gradually drowned out Qian Heng's howls of pain.
Listening to Li Yichun's twitchy muttering, Qian Heng forgot about rolling around and howling. He drew a deep breath, only for Li Yichun's words to plunge him back into that terrifying, eerie state.
He scrambled to his feet and edged toward the door to the main room.
In the pitch-black night, ghosts seemed to be hiding everywhere in the courtyard.
Only by hiding inside could Qian Heng feel a little safer.
Chang Dafeng glanced sideways at Li Yichun and smiled disdainfully. "If we'd done what the ghost wanted today and chosen 'Three Battles with the White Bone Demon,' that's when we'd all have been done for!
"Not one of us could hope to get through the main performance three days from now!
"Only by choosing something the ghost didn't want do we have a chance of survival!
"Look at you cowards!"
"Even so, you shouldn't have chosen 'Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister.' Anything else would've been better than that play!" Li Yichun sprang to his feet and shrieked, "I'm the only one in this troupe who plays female roles!
"You chose 'Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister,' so who's going to play the sister Zhong Kui escorts in the sedan chair?!
"Wouldn't it have to be me?!
"Zhong Kui's sister is just an ordinary mortal!
"It's a play about gods and ghosts. You'll all dress up as great gods and little ghosts to scare the real ghost, but you're making me play a mortal. Isn't that just a roundabout way of tricking me into dying?!"
Li Yichun's speech was fluent and remarkably well reasoned.
Hearing him, even Ding Ling couldn't help giving him a startled look.
"Who said you were playing Zhong Kui's sister?" Chang Dafeng didn't even look up. With a single sentence, he rebuffed Li Yichun's indignant speech.
Everything Li Yichun had prepared to say caught in his throat, turning into a few meaningless sounds.
When Zhou Yang heard Chang Dafeng's words, however, his heart sank.
If Li Yichun, who played female roles, wasn't going to play Zhong Kui's sister, it was easy enough to guess who would-did Chang Dafeng want Ding Ling to play her?!
That character was only an ordinary mortal in the play.
In the play about gods and ghosts three days from now, everyone would play gods and ghosts to frighten the ghost of Daliang Village. Only by intimidating the real ghost could they escape with their lives!
That being the case, the mortal in the play would almost certainly become the ghost's target!
He absolutely couldn't let Ding Ling play Zhong Kui's sister!
If that was what Chang Dafeng had planned, they would rather flee the troupe and find another way to survive than stay here and be sacrificed for everyone else!
That was what Zhou Yang thought, and what he told Ding Ling.
"All right.
"I'll do as you say, sir!
"Anyway, there's nothing here worth staying for."
That was what Ding Ling said.
But though she said so, Zhou Yang could still sense her reluctance to leave.
The people in the troupe had never treated her particularly well.
Yet in such a dangerous world, for a girl her age to be able to stay with a troupe and earn enough to get by was surely a stroke of good fortune.
But just as the two of them settled the matter, Chang Dafeng continued, "I'll play Zhong Kui's sister!
"Qian Heng, you'll play Sword Ghost, one of the five ghosts who attend Zhong Kui;
"Li Yichun, you'll hold Zhong Kui's umbrella and play Umbrella Ghost, another of the five attendants."
At that, Chang Dafeng paused. He suddenly turned to Ding Ling and gave a sly grin.
Qian Heng and Li Yichun both looked at Ding Ling as well.
Who would play Zhong Kui in "Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister"?
Only one person present had yet to be assigned a role. The answer was obvious-
"You'll play Zhong Kui, Ding Ling!" Chang Dafeng said.
"Why her?!" Qian Heng and Li Yichun demanded in unison.
Zhong Kui had the biggest part in the play and the strongest baleful aura.
The performer who played Zhong Kui would naturally have the best chance of escaping alive.
Zhong Kui was also central to the entire play, its undisputed lead.
Why should Ding Ling, who had never formally studied opera, be allowed to play Zhong Kui?
If she performed poorly and brought the whole play crashing down, wouldn't everyone else be doomed along with her?
Above all-she was a woman!
How could a woman play Zhong Kui?!
Those were Qian Heng and Li Yichun's concerns!
"Because she learned real skills from me and got her hands on the real thing!" Chang Dafeng shouted. "Once tonight is over, she'll be able to play Zhong Kui and immediately make her performance 'reach the divine'!
"Is that enough?"
Understanding dawned on Qian Heng and Li Yichun, but neither was satisfied.
Qian Heng in particular, still huddled in the doorway of the main room, gave an awkward smile. "But wouldn't it be better if you played Zhong Kui?
"Ding Ling has only just learned what little she knows. She'd be showing off her meager skills before a master.
"You're the true master!"
"Then shall I have you play Zhong Kui's sister?" Chang Dafeng retorted, sneering. "All you want is for Ding Ling to play Zhong Kui's sister, so you can both rely on me to escape with your lives.
"Only Ding Ling would die. Since neither of you would be the one to die, you wouldn't consider it a loss.
"But in this play, the roles answer one another. If I played Zhong Kui and Ding Ling played his sister, she'd have no identity in the play to protect her once the main performance began. A mortal would surely be killed and eaten by the ghost. With the character who answers mine gone, how could I carry on with the play?
"But if I play Zhong Kui's sister, then Zhong Kui will give his sister courage in the play, while outside it I'll be giving Ding Ling the confidence to carry on. Only by working together like this can we keep the play from falling apart!
"Do you have a better way to assign the roles?!"
The two men had nothing more to say. They nodded repeatedly in agreement.
Chang Dafeng seemed to have explained the reasoning thoroughly.
But Zhou Yang, watching from the sidelines, found an even bigger question forming in his mind. Why?
Why would Chang Dafeng sacrifice himself for others like this?
That reasoning may hold both in and out of the play, but if Chang Dafeng plays Zhong Kui's sister, he won't have the protection of a god's or ghost's identity in the play either. Since when did he care so much about the bigger picture and other people, putting others before himself without seeking any benefit?
Besides, Chang Dafeng had deliberately chosen this play in the first place.
His goal from the start had been to make the troupe perform "Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister"!
His earlier conduct showed that he was no benevolent soul who cared only for others. He had already used someone else as a substitute to die and clear the way ahead for him!
If that was the case, what was he plotting?
What secret lay hidden in the role of Zhong Kui's sister?
For some reason, Zhou Yang recalled the bloated corpse-like figure that had flashed past behind Chang Dafeng.
The answer to that secret would probably have to be found in the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting.
"The corpse stench is very close..." While Zhou Yang was still thinking, Ding Ling suddenly turned toward the courtyard gate.
Her brows were tightly furrowed, and her nostrils flared. "It seems to be right behind the gate...
"Sir, that corpse stench has reached the other side of the gate.
"The ghost is here!"
Before Ding Ling had finished speaking, Zhou Yang was jolted with alarm!
At that same moment, everyone present caught the cloyingly sweet stench of decay.
They all turned toward the two black-lacquered wooden doors.
Beneath the pitch-black sky, the two black wooden doors looked like the gaping maw of an evil ghost, ready to swallow every living person in the courtyard whole!
A chill slipped through the gap in the doors and spread through the courtyard!
At the same time, three intermittent knocks sounded at the gate!
The intervals between each knock were exactly the same.
They sounded stiff and lifeless.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
After the three knocks, a deathly silence fell outside the gate.