Tale of the Sage's Gestation

A woman's voice came from behind:

"My lord, please clean the stage for me, and then I will sing a song."

What Su Yao saw, however, was a woman in a faded red theatrical costume approaching from behind the old man.

Upon hearing this, the old man turned around, startled, but ultimately had no choice but to nod in agreement.

After the old man finished cleaning the stage and returned to Su Yao's side, he looked at Su Yao and said apologetically:

"When she was young, she was one of the most famous actresses in Qinghe Commandery City. After she married me, she never performed on stage again, only singing for me in private, but she never wore theatrical costumes on stage. I don't know what happened tonight..."

He shook his head halfway through his sentence and didn't continue.

Su Yao waved his hand to indicate that it was alright, and then looked towards the stage.

On stage, the woman had already begun to sing:

"The azure sky shines down from beyond the nine heavens, in an instant, the soul flies away and the spirit remains. It wasn't the spring breeze that planted the jade embryo, but rather a ghostly spirit entered the embrace. The bones within the womb, the veins from beyond the heavens, turned the person into Pill Furnace. By what divine omen, by what sudden calamity has this calamity descended?"

She sang a song that Su Yao had never heard before.

Although her voice is no longer young, it still carries the skill of an old-time actor, each word sharp and poignant.

"This is a Northern-style ci poem title, ' Duan Zheng Hao, '" the old man suddenly said. "When she was young, she mostly sang Southern-style songs and rarely sang Northern-style songs."

Su Yao did not respond, but only stared at the stage.

On stage, the woman's voice suddenly rose, becoming somewhat sharp:

"Huaxu treads on thunderous marks, Nu Nü Deng senses the stench of dragons, Fubao sees lightning swirling around the handle of the Big Dipper, Jian Di swallows a black egg with a rumbling sound in her belly, Jiang Yuan treads on giant footprints and her body can barely stand. Each one says it's the birth of a holy king, a sign of divine intervention, but I only see bloodshed, one life for another!"

She started coughing suddenly at this point in her song.

The old man tried to step forward, but she stopped him with her hand.

The old man looked at Su Yao and explained:

"It's still the Northern Qu (a type of Chinese opera) lyric form [Gun Xiuqiu]."

Su Yao did not respond upon hearing this.

Who cares if I'm drenched in cold sweat in the middle of the night? Who cares if I'm trembling with fear in the dead of night?

Su Yao shifted his gaze from the stage and looked at the old man.

"She fell seriously ill after giving birth that year," the old man's voice lowered, "And when she woke up, she wouldn't speak, just stared blankly at the swaddling clothes."

"Old man..." Su Yao spoke up at the right moment, but was interrupted by the old man waving his hand.

"Listen, the song isn't over yet."

On stage, her tone suddenly shifted, becoming urgent and indignant. "His father stared wide-eyed, unable to recognize him; his grandfather stamped his feet, fearing disaster. The elders whispered about a demon, and the neighbors spat in disgust. A piece of flesh growing in her womb became the victim of a massacre! I regret going out to gather herbs that day; I hate only that the rosy clouds stole my three souls!"

Su Yao withdrew his gaze from the old man and looked back at the stage.

"'Regret' is a repeated phrase in [Daodao Ling]." The old man's voice suddenly became like reciting a poem. "She taught me a few lines when she was young. The most important part of the [Daodao Ling] in Northern Opera is those repeated phrases. They must be sung quickly, densely, until the listener can hardly breathe."

He paused for a moment, then said:

"I didn't understand before. I listened to her sing my whole life, and all I could hear was urgency. Tonight I finally understand, she wasn't singing a song, she was asking a question. A question she'd been asking for decades..."

On stage, the woman's voice suddenly lowered:

Blood flowed like a river before the bed, and no one offered hot water behind it. The midwife trembled, afraid to touch it too much, for who dared approach the sacred fetus? She knelt only at a distance. The sacred fetus was born and the Encampment Fire, yet he wept as much as any ordinary child.

She suddenly stopped.

The night breeze stirred the lanterns, casting her shadow long and short.

She slowly raised her right hand, gently supporting it in front of her chest.

Su Yao's eyes welled up with tears.

"I reached out to hug him, but his father shouted, saying that a divine child should not be defiled, and splashed a basin of water three feet away, forbidding me to come near him."

"I did a lot of terrible things that year," the old man's voice seemed to be squeezed from the depths of his throat. "Splashing water was one of them. Later, there was a second and a third. But you can still regret splashing water, but some things, regret is useless."

Su Yao looked at the woman's hands, which were loosely held in front of her chest, on the stage, and suddenly spoke:

What happened to her hand?

The old man was silent for a moment. "After that year, I've been trembling ever since."

On stage, the woman's voice finally trembled slightly, like a string that had been stretched taut for decades suddenly loosening at this moment:

"I couldn't bear to watch any longer, so in the middle of the night I secretly untied the silk from my bosom and tucked that lump of flesh into the crook of my chest. The moment he bit my nipple, the hatred in my heart suddenly turned into a torrent of tears."

"'Suddenly'," Su Yao said in a low voice.

"What?"

"She sang 'biased teaching' all before, but then it became 'regret' and 'hate', a hate that lasted for so long..." Su Yao paused, "And then, in that instant, she only used 'suddenly'."

The old man didn't reply; he simply gazed quietly at the stage.

"It's not that I'm too kind-hearted, but this flesh and blood are connected to my very bones. He sucks the blood of my heart, he sleeps in the nest of my arms. Others say he will one day ascend to the throne, I only pray that he won't cough tonight."

The old man's shoulders trembled violently in the audience.

Su Yao gazed at the elderly woman on the stage, at her hands resting lightly on her chest. He suddenly realized that on a night he could never remember, those hands had pulled him back from the cold and given him the first warmth of his life.

It was not the glow of Qixia Mountain, nor the Daozheng, nor the guidance of Gui Hong. It was a mother shrouded in fear, who secretly unbuttoned her clothes in the middle of the night and covered what she saw as a "monster" to her heart.

He hadn't heard anyone talk about what happened after that, nor had he seen her, but she sang:

"That day, after he finished nursing, he looked up at me. He didn't seem like an infant, but rather like an adult scrutinizing me." Her voice suddenly became unfamiliar, as if squeezed out from between her teeth, "This isn't my son, this is a demonic entity possessing my womb!"

Her hands began to tremble, and her voice began to tremble as well.

I closed my eyes, unable to look any longer. Gritting my teeth, I wrapped myself in the tattered swaddling clothes and fled to the Great Qing River under the cover of night. As soon as I let go, I heard the water murmur softly. I turned and left, not daring to look back. Do not come looking for me; my life with you is over.

Her movements froze on the stage.

His right arm was outstretched, his five fingers spread, as if he were still suspended above the water.

That swaddled baby has been in the water for decades, yet her hand has never been withdrawn.

The courtyard was completely silent.

"This is the clearest part she's ever sung." The old woman's voice was so soft it was as if she was afraid of waking something. "She's sung the earlier parts for decades, on and off, but these few lines are the only ones she's never forgotten. She sings them perfectly, word for word."

After a long while, the woman lowered her arms, looked down at her empty hands, as if realizing for the first time that there was nothing left in them.

She spoke again.

This time, however, it was not in the style of Northern opera, but rather a slow, gentle chant.

"Later, the neighbors said I was heartless, but they didn't see those eyes. They weren't the eyes of a child, but the bottomless pool of an ancient abyss. I didn't abandon my child, but the nest that was taken from my womb; he came from heaven, so he didn't need to seek a mother on earth. Now I'm old, and I still dare not walk by the water at night, for I fear that the river's reflection will once again reveal those eyes from back then."

After listening, Su Yao looked at the old man again:

What is the name of this play?

The old man shook his head as he looked into Su Yao's calm eyes, but then, glancing at Su Yao's trembling body, he finally choked up and said:

"The Tale of the Sage's Gestation!"

A few tears slid down Su Yao's cheeks. Dao Orthodox Unity telling him all along:

"There was unrest within the clan, and my parents had no choice but to resort to this desperate measure!"