"What's this 'husband' talk? Whose 'husband' are you, and who's your 'wife'?"
As those few spoken lines rang out, they instantly brought a flush to Ding Ling's fair face, though her eyes shone bright.
She was just about to demand an answer from Zhou Yang when, after the spoken lines, she heard the man break into song, launching into a passage of opera. Ding Ling worked as a cook in the opera troupe and was herself a lover of opera—otherwise she would never have possessed the ability of a "self-taught folk-opera learner." Her thoughts were already captured by Zhou Yang's few spoken lines, and seeing him then break into song, her heart and mind went drifting after it.
After listening to several passages of the opera, she grew ever more embarrassed and indignant. Only, the grievance that had filled her heart and then dispersed now surged up anew—she had realized that this passage of opera Zhou sang was not sung especially for her. It was not the meaning she had assumed.
"Ah~ my wife, Wang Baochuan.
Poor you, keeping watch in the cold cave, poor you, all alone, waiting bitterly for me, Xue Pinggui, a full eighteen years~
My wife, Wang Baochuan.
I should not have stirred up suspicion, I should not have spoken rash words, and so become ungrateful and faithless, as though I had wronged heaven itself…
Let me recount these eighteen years from the very beginning—
then you will know how I, Xue Pinggui, hurried home day and night, only that husband and wife might be reunited…"
After singing this piece that was part opera, part song, Zhou Yang asked Ding Ling eagerly, "How was it? Ding Ling!
Have you ever heard this passage of opera before?
What do you make of it—does it strike you as something fresh and new?"
Before returning to Daliang Village, he had gone back over every one of his experiences there. Recalling how the opera ghost had muttered away to itself, Zhou Yang then realized that in the previous encounters with the opera ghost, the opera troupe had managed to hold it at bay for a time by performing operas the ghost did not know. What connection the opera ghost had with that "Opera Lady," he could not say. What it sought was to compose a passage of opera the likes of which had never existed, so that the Opera Lady might become utterly captivated by it.
Even after becoming a ghost, it still kept that "temperament" of being briefly subdued, left unresponsive, whenever it heard an unfamiliar opera—and from this Zhou Yang reasoned: what if he himself could compose a passage of "opera" the likes of which had never existed? With such unprecedented opera, perhaps he could "captivate" the opera ghost for even longer! In that way, he and his retribution body could escape and live.
Zhou Yang asked himself honestly, and he did not have the talent or the accumulated knowledge to compose even a few acts of opera. In fact, he had seldom listened to opera at all, and even the few passages he had heard before had much in common with the operas that performers in this world sang nowadays. The operas he knew could not be called "unprecedented and unique in style." But at that moment his mind had flashed with sudden inspiration, and he had thought of a song he had heard before he transmigrated. An opera-vocal song—fitting it in here turned out to be perfectly suited! A vocal style like this, like opera yet not entirely opera, was unique in this world, and all the more "unprecedented"!
Zhou Yang could not wait to sing a passage or two of it to Ding Ling, but then he heard Ding Ling answer reluctantly, "It's catchy enough. I've never heard this kind of opera before either; it really is something fresh and new."
Though her words were praise, in truth she seemed rather uninterested. This reaction made Zhou Yang's heart jump with alarm. If Ding Ling, a lover of opera, felt no interest in this opera-vocal song he had produced, how would he dare let her sing it for the ghost to hear? And Ding Ling had grown much colder toward him—something that had never happened before. The crux of the matter did not lie in the song; it must be somewhere else.
Zhou Yang pondered briefly and quickly worked out the root cause of Ding Ling's attitude. Back then, it was I who led Ding Ling into that ruined house. I had assumed that, being right at the edge of the village, it was a good spot—whether for fleeing out of the village or for resting there a while. But I never expected it to be precisely the opera ghost's lair. When we ran into the opera ghost there, at the most perilous moment, I returned to Guancun because "the hour had come." From my point of view, this was a matter with its cause, naturally understandable and forgivable. But for Ding Ling, it was nothing of the sort. At that time, she was the one who faced the opera ghost in person, her life and safety hanging by a thread. She had counted on me to back her up and steady her nerves, to face life and death together—and then I suddenly left at that very moment. Even if I had my reasons, a thousand legitimate justifications, how could I make her accept it?
Having understood this, Zhou Yang weighed his words for a moment, then said to Ding Ling, "My leaving so suddenly then truly was not what I intended. I had no choice in it either."
At these words, a bitter ache rose in Ding Ling's heart, and the rims of her eyes reddened at once. But aloud she said, "Of course I understand. You are a man of great ability, sir; surely there are many great matters waiting for you to attend to. That Master Zhou could linger here even for a moment—this humble girl should be more grateful than she can say."
—There was still resentment in her heart.
But Zhou Yang, hearing this, fell silent for a time. His brief silence only made Ding Ling feel all the more sore at heart. She felt that any trivial matter on Master Zhou's side could outweigh her very life and safety—so much so that he had left in a hurry then without leaving a single word.
The more she dwelt on it, the more grieved Ding Ling became. But where could her grief even begin? Master Zhou and she had weathered several crises together, and could be said to have shared hardship side by side—but in every one of those crises, if Master Zhou had not gotten involved, he could have come through without a scratch. Those perils had belonged to her, Ding Ling, alone. It was Master Zhou who had helped her. She had truly never helped him at all. She and Master Zhou had met by pure chance, like duckweed drifting together on the water; she could not even call him a friend, yet he had stepped in to help her time and again. That was already a great kindness—and now she wanted to demand even more. Was that not insatiable greed? Yet even knowing all this, she was still grieved, and this grief had no way to be dispelled.
Just then, Zhou Yang let out a low sigh. That sigh sent a tremor through Ding Ling's heart. She was deeply afraid that her words had been too harsh, and that Master Zhou might truly drift off into nothing and never return.
Fortunately, after this, Zhou Yang slowly spoke. "My leaving without a word at the time also had its reasons that I could not put into words. I am not the great and powerful man you take me to be. It was only by the chance turn of fate that you and I came to meet. The reason I hurried off then was that I too was caught in a dire situation. Had I not left, it would have meant my death in an instant."
Hearing this, everything suddenly lit up clear in Ding Ling's heart. So that was how it was—he too had been trapped in a life-and-death crisis, and so could do nothing but leave in a hurry! And yet, while caught in a life-and-death crisis himself, he had still thought of me at every turn, and eased my worries and troubles… With that turn of thought, all the grief in Ding Ling's heart vanished, leaving only endless aching tenderness and regret churning back and forth within her.
Stammering, she said, "S-sir, you—you, I… I was the one who got it wrong, sir. I shouldn't have blamed you."
"As long as the misunderstanding between us is cleared up, that's all that matters," Zhou Yang said with a smile. "So, can you give that passage I sang just now a proper think? What did you make of that passage?"
"I—I didn't really catch it just now…" Ding Ling said quietly.
Apart from the few spoken lines at the start of that opera, she had had no heart to listen to any of the rest, so naturally she had little impression of it.
Zhou Yang knew all the better that this opera might well be the key to breaking the deadlock, so he patiently sang that opera-vocal song through once more. This time, as she thought of Master Zhou's own experiences and her own, she found them strikingly akin to that pair of husband and wife in the opera, each of whom had endured such hardship—and she was drawn into the opera all at once, unable to tear herself away for a long while.
Chapter 52