The river surface shimmered with ripples. Some time—who knew when—the crescent moon in the sky had spilled a hazy light. The light fell on the river, and the river reflected Ding Ling's profile. Alone and forlorn, solitary and without companion.
Zhou Yang sighed in her heart: "We still can't escape..."
"For now, the only way is to sing that opera we prepared for the opera ghost, isn't it? That's our last chance."
"Yes, sir," Ding Ling answered softly.
The 'audience' below the stage clapped violently, and from each of them came a rustling sound like pages being turned; the sound rose like a tide.
Zhou Yang and Ding Ling looked around again; the spectators on every side all seemed to be paper figures dressed in oil-paper clothes.
Having answered Zhou Yang, Ding Ling then tore off the false beard pasted on her face, removed the shoulder padding and padded jacket beneath the red official robe, took off the sash, and then squeezed out of the crowd and walked toward the river.
When she reached the riverbank, Zhou Yang understood what she meant to do.
But beneath the river surface by the bank, rows of opera-ghost faces—white tinged with red—had also begun to float up.
Each ghost face looked as if it had been soaked in water too long, gradually beginning to swell.
The smiles on their faces, because their cheeks were overly swollen, twisted into eerie, sinister expressions that chilled the heart.
"Don't go, Ding Ling, don't go!"
Zhou Yang warned Ding Ling.
But this time Ding Ling did not listen to him.
She smiled and teased Zhou Yang: "Could it be that Ding Ling is supposed to wear Zhong Kui's face to meet Xue Pinggui?"
As she spoke, Ding Ling bent down, scooped up a handful of water from the river, splashed it on her face, and washed off the powder and greasepaint.
She carefully washed her face.
The swollen opera-ghost faces beneath the river merely watched her with eerie smiles and did not disturb her in the slightest.
Ding Ling, her greasepaint washed away, still had water droplets clinging to her face.
Her small face was slightly pale, her features delicate and lovely; set off by that red opera costume, she looked like a bride about to be married.
Wordless emotions flowed between Ding Ling and Zhou Yang.
"Sir, with this look of mine, can I play Wang Baochuan and be matched with Xue Pinggui?" Ding Ling looked at her own face reflected in the water, but in her heart she was thinking of another person's face.
Zhou Yang's heart ached, and he said in a low voice: "You are unmarried, in the prime of your youth, and have such good character—who could be too good for you?"
"It is just that tonight, I will have to wrong you by making you my wife."
Hearing his words, Ding Ling's heart trembled.
She suppressed the thoughts that suddenly burst open, and, imitating the way of speaking in the opera, said clumsily to Zhou Yang:
"This humble one, frail as willow, is fortunate to receive your favor, sir; only then did I feel that I was not friendless and alone, not solitary and forlorn."
"If I could marry you, sir, this humble one would not have lived in vain..."
From the moment she opened her mouth, she had already completely immersed herself in the opera.
At this point, it no longer mattered whether the opera channeled the divine.
Ding Ling had become Wang Baochuan herself, right there in the opera.
Zhou Yang's spirit clung to the Ghost's Mouths that covered Ding Ling's body, gathering the ripples into light points and hiding them around her; with the Right Thought uniting the two, he forced the Ghost's Mouths on Ding Ling's body to give voice to his own.
"Ah, ah, ah, my wife, Wang Baochuan.
Pitiful you, keeping to the cold kiln; pitiful you, all alone, bitterly waiting for your Xue Pinggui for a full eighteen years...
Ah, ah, ah, my wife, Wang Baochuan.
I should not have harbored doubts; I should not have spoken careless words, falling into ingratitude and betrayal, as if I had wronged Heaven.
Let me tell you all of these eighteen years from the beginning, and then you will know that I, Xue Pinggui, hurried home day and night, only to be reunited with my wife."
Ding Ling joined in, and the opera song wound on, twisting and turning a hundred times:
"I remember those years when my tears never dried; the embroidered ball from the painted tower made a good match..."
This opera tells the story of a loving couple who are interfered with by various forces, each developing resentment, parting, then reuniting, pouring out their hearts to each other, and finally reconciled, a broken mirror made whole again.
At this point, 'Wang Baochuan' had finished singing how she and 'Xue Pinggui' came to be separated.
Then Xue Pinggui was heard telling of the many hardships he had experienced after parting from his wife.
Though he had since risen to a high position, after hearing of his wife's situation and whereabouts, he still, without hesitation, gave up wealth and glory, rode alone through layer upon layer of perilous passes, and came to see his wedded wife again.
"Ah, ah, ah, my husband, Xue Lang—"
In that one cry of 'Xue Lang,' Ding Ling's heart was tangled in a hundred knots of tenderness.
By this time, Wang Baochuan had forgiven from the bottom of her heart her husband's eighteen years of absence.
But...
After she, Ding Ling, parted from Mr. Zhou, would there ever be a day they met again?
Bitterness welled up in Ding Ling's heart again and again.
After this parting, they would likely never meet again.
All around, the spectators watching the opera were shedding tears before they knew it.
They muttered under their breath, wanting to repeat and savor the opera Zhou Yang and Ding Ling had sung; but each time the spectators opened their mouths, they only managed the beginning before they could no longer sing:
"Ah, ah, ah..."
Sighs rose on every side.
With those sighs, the spectators fell silent one after another, utterly still.
They remained where they stood, and the lovely white-tinged-with-red faces quietly faded from the spectators' faces, one by one.
The spectators stood frozen in place, turning into paper figures one by one.
When the wind blew, they fell wherever they were, some scattering across the river flat, some floating on the river.
Among the fallen paper figures, only one graceful figure stood quietly.
It kept repeating the opening of the opera, but could no longer reproduce the entire performance completely.
Even the sound coming from its mouth had turned into mere breaths of air.
Ding Ling and Zhou Yang, singing the opera as they went, crossed through the pile of paper figures toward the graceful figure standing in the very center of the paper figures, murmuring without being able to make a sound—toward the opera ghost!
"On the fifteenth night of the eighth month, the moon is round.
I think of how my husband and I suffered every misery in the cold kiln.
Casting aside the realm of Xiliang, with no one to care for it.
Riding a red-maned steed, I cross the Three Passes..."
The opera ghost's shoulders trembled without pause, its face sorrowful, yet its eyes were utterly cold and held no tears.
It sang along: "On the fifteenth of the eighth month, on the fifteenth of the eighth month..."
After repeating the opening line back and forth more than ten times, the opera ghost suddenly stiffened, stood still, and no longer moved!
The ghost rhythm that had spread over all the surroundings, like burying beetles that had caught the scent of a corpse, swarmed in from every direction, rolling back wave after wave into the opera ghost's figure!
The opera ghost's skin grew ever whiter, like paper, and two spots of rouge quietly appeared on its face.
Its opera costume gradually turned into paper clothes too!
The dark, muddled world was like a stage backdrop; now someone had torn open that backdrop, and a warm, glowing light seeped in through the crack, gradually illuminating all heaven and earth.
Amid this bewildering play of light and shadow, Ding Ling urgently asked Zhou Yang:
"Sir, sir!
If one holds to the principle of keeping one's promise, if only Wang Baochuan is willing to wait—
Will Xue Lang, or Zhou Lang... finally meet her?
Whether eighteen years, twenty-eight years, eighty years, or eight hundred years?"
Zhou Yang answered softly: "This is only an opera.
Ding Ling, don't lose yourself in the opera.
Life beyond the stage is more worthy of your staying."
He did not remember any promise-principle ever established between Xue Lang and Baochuan.
He assumed Ding Ling had simply become too deeply immersed in the opera.
At that moment, heaven was high and earth broad, the sky light suddenly brightened, and the opera ghost's ghost rhythm was washed clean.
Now that they had clearly escaped the opera ghost's ghost domain, why should this woman be left emotionally trapped in the opera, unable to extricate herself?
But hearing these words, Ding Ling's heart sank to the bottom of a valley.
Her eyes grew hot, and she could not help asking again: "Sir, since we have met like this, can you let me know your name? Not just this surname?"
"Can you let me know where you actually are?"
Hearing her voice, Zhou Yang felt a vague sense of loss.
Ding Ling had already left the opera ghost's ghost domain. Having gone through this ghost disaster, her Right Thought would surely improve greatly; with her grasp of the Draft of Playing Gods and Painting Ghosts and her Ghost Breath, she might well achieve something in the future.
Guancun was so dangerous, and he was alone, without helpers.
If in the future he was still alive and still trapped in Guancun, Ding Ling... might be able to give him aid?
Zhou Yang thought this, and then gave a faint smile.
He said to Ding Ling:
"You go.
Go with peace of mind."
Even so, how could he bring himself to do it?
These two sentences, falling on Ding Ling's ears, made her heart—already sunk to the bottom—suddenly swell to the brim.
She understood sir's feelings.
This feeling made her happy.
And made her extremely sad.
Sorrow and joy mingled in her; and in that instant she seemed to realize something, and called out again and again: "Sir, sir..."
Only the silent mountains answered her.
Only the withered grass and bare poplars.
Only that scenery, unchanged for who knew how many years and months.
Ding Ling burst into tears!
"I ride a white horse, crossing the Three Passes...
I change into plain clothes and return to the Central Plains...
I leave Xiliang behind—with no one to care for it...
All my heart wants is...
Wang Baochuan..."
These were the last lines of the opera sir had taught her.
Chapter 63