Dong, dong, qiang—dong, dong, qiang—dong-qiang-dong-qiang-dong-dong-qiang...
The gongs and drums clamored through the cold night.
Before the main performance had even begun, the space before the stage was already packed with heads.
Behind the curtain, Ding Ling's body had gone stiff, her hands and feet cold.
“Can you hold up?”
Zhou Yang asked Ding Ling.
The dead of Daliang Village kept converging on the stage, and the ghost rhythm clinging to them came with them.
Even though Ding Ling's Right Thought had advanced again, it would still be hard for her alone to withstand such a dense assault of ghost rhythm.
At present, the straw effigy beside her was blocking much of the torrent of ghost rhythm for her.
Even so, to Zhou Yang, Ding Ling did not look safe at all.
“I'm doing much better than last time.
“Last time, when Gao Hongbo, who was possessed by a ghost, came knocking, the ghost rhythm on him nearly swept my soul away.
“Now there are so many dead outside the curtain like Gao Hongbo, yet I still feel my mind is clear.
“Sir, I can hold up!”
Ding Ling's answer to Zhou Yang was crisp and decisive.
Zhou Yang nodded. “When you feel you cannot hold up, do not force it.
“When the main opera begins, I will cue you.”
There was a set time for when an opera began and when it ended.
The ghost-ordered opera that Chang Dafeng and the others were staging was set to begin at the fourth quarter of the Xu hour.
It was only near the Xu hour now, and there was still some time before the fourth quarter, yet the spectators before the stage could wait no longer—the dead sat up straight on their benches and began slapping their knees hard!
“Pa! Pa! Pa!”
A mass of flesh-and-bone sounds rose together!
The ghost rhythm that had been drifting in the air like turbulent currents twisted itself into one with the sound of dead flesh slapping knees. The combined ghost rhythm rushed at the stage, and in an instant all the arrangements on the stage were thrown askew!
The red strips of cloth tied around the stage pillars quickly faded and became mottled.
The vegetation around the stage withered and dried; even the red lanterns hanging overhead began to sway violently and emitted a green glow!
The yin wind howled furiously!
In the wind, there seemed to be many voices crying out impatiently:
“Start the opera! Start the opera!”
“Drag the person out and sing!”
“Sing! Sing!”
“...”
A wandering opera troupe had to travel everywhere. To guarantee their income, the gongs and drums used to summon audiences sometimes rang from noon all the way into the black of night.
Those who, upon first hearing the gongs and drums, carried benches over and brought their whole families to watch naturally did not want to wait several hours for the troupe. When they could no longer restrain themselves, they would stir up trouble and make some noise to force the troupe onto the stage earlier.
At such times, the troupe usually had ways of coping.
Instead of performing the main opera, they would either hide behind the curtain or not put on makeup at all, taking up a two-string fiddle and a pair of clappers and singing a few little tunes for the audience below to relieve their boredom.
Now Ding Ling had to sing for ghosts, so she had to be even more careful.
Chang Dafeng had also anticipated that these dead spectators would make trouble midway, and he had long made arrangements.
The eerie green firelight came through a gap blown open in the curtain and fell across Ding Ling's face.
Ding Ling's eyelids drooped, then suddenly one brow lifted—
Although her face was clearly painted with Zhong Kui's opera makeup, her eyes held a captivating charm:
“The ice wheel over the sea first turns and rises,
See the Jade Rabbit—the Jade Rabbit has already risen in the east.
The ice wheel leaves the sea, and heaven and earth are especially bright.
The bright moon hangs in the sky, like Chang'e leaving the Moon Palace;
I am like Chang'e leaving the Moon Palace.
Just as if Chang'e had descended from the ninth heaven,
Cold and lonely in the Palace of Vast Coldness—ah, in the Palace of Vast Coldness...”
This passage came from The Drunken Concubine.
The “Imperial Concubine” was now hiding behind the curtain and did not reveal her true face before the spectators.
Yet the singing that emerged from behind the curtain was melodious and expressive, as if it conveyed every frown and smile of the Imperial Concubine, every trace of her natural allure, straight into the minds of the listeners—
The dead below, who had been slapping their knees and urging the opera to begin, all at once fell silent.
The ghost rhythm that had come riding on the wind from all directions turned back into undercurrents.
Even the wind seemed to recede.
Within the departing wind, there was a faint trace of singing:
“Cold and lonely in the Palace of Vast Coldness—ah, in the Palace of Vast Coldness.”
“……This scenery is so intoxicating that, unaware, I have come to the Hundred-Flower Pavilion...”
That faint singing, in Ding Ling's voice, carried out the second half of the aria that she had not sung!
When Zhou Yang heard it, his heart sank.
This was still the first time Ding Ling had ever sung this passage from The Drunken Concubine.
Yet the opera ghost of Daliang Village could already reproduce, completely and directly, the second half that she had not sung.
Trying to confuse it with traditional opera passages simply would not work.
The Wu Family Slope that he and Ding Ling had carefully practiced for several days—how much of a chance would they have when the time came?
The road ahead was uncertain, and that alone made one's heart uneasy.
But matters had come to this point—whether one stretched out one's neck or pulled it back, the blade would fall all the same. The only choice was to firm one's resolve and walk this path to its dark end!
After Ding Ling sang one passage, she managed to steady the spectators before the stage.
Time flowed on, and the gongs and drums never ceased.
Several more times afterward, the dead tried to force the opera to begin, and Ding Ling resolved each one.
“It is the third quarter of the Xu hour, Ding Ling.
“Steady your breath and go over the words in your mind.
“When you go up on the stage and face those corpses stained with ghost rhythm below, it will surely be very different from singing behind the curtain like this. Be more vigilant.” Zhou Yang instructed Ding Ling.
He had also learned several excerpts from Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister. Though he could not sing them as well as Ding Ling, when matched with the ripple, the effect would not be bad.
But the opera was only about to begin, so he still held back his strength.
He did not want to exhaust his strength before even meeting the opera ghost—that would ruin everything!
“I understand, sir.” Ding Ling kept beating the gongs and drums without pause, and only at the fourth quarter of the Xu hour did she set down her mallets.
The noisy gongs and drums stopped abruptly.
No more music sounded in the black night.
The straw effigy, which had been standing stiffly beside Ding Ling, swayed; the yellow paper on its face stirred, and the painted features seemed to change expression.
Its painted eyes and brows curved into a smile. It stretched out a hand and seized a long-handled gauze ball lantern planted beside it.
A faint cold air drifted from the Daole warding spirit. In an instant it swept into the gauze ball, causing the ghost candle placed inside to kindle with an eerie green glow.
The aura given off by the ghost candle made Zhou Yang feel a sudden coolness in his heart.
Under that green light, Ding Ling's eyes shone all the more brightly.
The Daole warding spirit held the lantern in both hands, its face smiling, and twisted its limbs. The joints made of bound straw emitted creaking sounds.
Amid that incessant creaking, the straw effigy hopped and skipped, passing through the hidden door at the side of the curtain, and got onto the stage ahead of Ding Ling!
Zhong Kui was of exalted station, and when it traveled, attendants would naturally clear the way ahead.
In the original opera, before Zhong Kui appeared, lamp ghosts, umbrella ghosts, sword ghosts, big ghosts, and other ghosts had to lead the way.
Now only two people remained in the troupe, so they could only have the Daole warding spirit, dressed as a martial general, play the role of the lamp ghost and barely clear the way for Zhong Kui.
Daole raised the lantern and hopped and bounded about the stage, leaping and dodging in a comical manner.
The spectators below, with their hollow black eye sockets, watched the lamp ghost's movements on the stage and showed no reaction at all.
In the air, the scattered undercurrents of ghost rhythm gradually began to gather.
At this moment, Ding Ling stood behind the hidden door at the side of the curtain and steadied her breathing.
The lamp ghost tumbled a few times on the stage, then hopped into a corner.
Ding Ling, made up as Zhong Kui, strode onto the stage with the bearing of a tiger and the tread of a dragon, entering in full painted makeup.
Daole, hidden in the shadows, raised the gauze ball lantern high, and the ghost candle within blazed with lush firelight.
Amid the leaping firelight, the sounds of many instruments rose.
For a time, drums and music filled the heavens with clamor.
Chapter 55