abnabooks Chapter 75 The Dragon Imprisoned Listens to Music
Chapter 75 The Dragon Imprisoned Listens to Music
at last.
We arrived at a courtyard called "Baohantang".
The courtyard was filled with crabapple trees, which were in full bloom at the height of their flowering season. The pink and white petals fell on the gray-blue floor tiles, exuding an indescribable poignant beauty.
The doors to the main hall were open.
Instead of the modern electric lights, thick red dragon and phoenix candles were lit inside, their flickering flames illuminating the furnishings but unable to dispel the stale, decaying atmosphere that had accumulated over hundreds of years.
A young man sat in the center of the rosewood armchair.
He was about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, thin, wearing a royal blue robe, and with a pair of gold-rimmed round glasses perched on his nose.
He looked refined and even somewhat sickly pale, clutching a pocket watch in his hand.
But even though he was thin, the few white-bearded old men standing around him bowed slightly, not daring to breathe loudly, their eyes filled with awe.
This is that... deposed emperor.
Puyi.
"This humble citizen, Lu Cheng, greets... sir."
Lu Cheng entered the hall but did not perform the full kneeling ceremony.
He was a man from the Republic of China era, who practiced martial arts and was driven by a sense of injustice. His address of "Sir" was neither humble nor arrogant, thus respecting the other party's dignity while upholding his own integrity.
The surrounding elders frowned, about to rebuke this "great disrespect".
The young man waved his hand, a faint, self-deprecating smile on his face.
"It's alright."
"Once you're outside that red wall, there aren't so many rules anymore."
"Boss Lu, I've long admired your name."
Puyi's voice was very soft, carrying a pale quality born from years of seclusion in the deep palace, along with a hint of curiosity.
"I heard that at Guanghe Tower, you shot down a trolley with one shot and caught a foreigner's bullet with your bare hands?"
"That's real skill."
"They are better than I was back then... better than those wrestling fighters I saw back then. They can only wrestle, but they can't withstand gunfire."
"You flatter me, sir."
Lu Cheng bowed slightly, his posture as straight as a pine tree. "That was a method forced upon us to survive."
"To survive..."
Pu Yi chewed on those two words, and then snapped the cap of his pocket watch shut.
His eyes suddenly became somewhat unfocused and desolate.
"Yes, in this world, who isn't just trying to survive?"
"I ran away from the Forbidden City to save my life."
"It is only in order to survive that we eke out a living in this mortal world, caught between various forces."
The atmosphere became heavy and oppressive, almost suffocating.
Pu Yi sighed and pointed to a small, makeshift stage next to him.
The stage was not large, but it was extremely exquisite, covered with a scarlet carpet and flanked by palace lanterns embroidered with dragons.
"I invited you here today for no other reason than..."
"I just want to hear the play 'Si Lang Visits His Mother'."
"Especially that section about 'sitting in the palace'."
"I want to hear what it was like for Yang Silang to be trapped in a foreign land for fifteen years, to long for home but not be able to go back, to want to die but not be able to die... what exactly was that feeling like?"
Lu Cheng looked at the young deposed emperor.
Under the watchful eye of [eagle eyes].
What he saw was not an emperor who once ruled the world, but a... prisoner.
Pu Yi was enveloped in countless auras of desolation—the aura of cause and effect, of helplessness, of the suffocating feeling of being swept up by the torrent of the times.
Although he sat in a high position, his soul was locked in an invisible cage.
A cage even heavier than that iron pulley.
"it is good."
Lu Cheng nodded, his eyes clear.
"Since you wish to hear it, then I, Lu, will sing."
"However, Lu's play 'Si Lang Visits His Mother' is quite different from others."
"Oh?" Pu Yi pushed up his glasses, showing some interest. "How is it different?"
Lu Cheng put down his opera box, took out the large spear that he had been carrying all along, even though he hadn't used it, and placed it by the stage.
Although "Si Lang Visits His Mother" is a literary play, it mainly focuses on singing, which is the "An Gong Lao Sheng" of the Lao Sheng (old male role) category.
But Lu Cheng wants to incorporate his "true meaning of martial arts" into this play.
"Other people's Yang Silang sings of sorrow, helplessness, bearing humiliation and hardship, and being bullied from both sides."
"My son, Yang Silang, is Lu Cheng's..."
A glint flashed in Lu Cheng's eyes, and his aura subtly surged forth.
"The song is about... resentment."
Even after being imprisoned for fifteen years, the desire to break free of the cage never died.
……
Lu Cheng went behind the screen to act out a scene.
Without a professional makeup artist, Lu Cheng did his own makeup in front of the bronze mirror.
He didn't paint the traditional, somewhat somber old man's face. His eyebrows were drawn slightly higher, called "sword eyebrows reaching the temples," and the red at the corner of his eye was spread out more, revealing an uncontrollable fiery temper.
He put on a beard, donned the red robe of a foreign prince consort, wore a red-tasseled hat, and thick-soled boots.
Lu Cheng looked at himself in the mirror.
At this moment, he was no longer the invincible martial arts master Lu.
He is Yang Yanhui.
He was that golden-sword prince consort of the Song Dynasty, a prisoner who was captured, had his name changed, married and had children in a foreign land, yet gazed southwards day and night, weeping... a loyal minister and his illegitimate son.
"when--"
A crisp gong sound shattered the deathly silence of the Prince's mansion.
Grandpa Su played the zither himself.
That old eunuch's skills were truly superb.
He played the jinghu (a two-stringed bowed instrument used in Peking Opera) with such sorrowful and plaintive sounds that the bow scraping against the string felt like a dull knife cutting flesh, making the listener's heart ache and their scalp tingle.
[Current Performance: Si Lang Visits His Mother - Sitting in the Palace]
[Character: Yang Yanhui (Yang Silang)]
[Playing Requirements: The character must be physically in a foreign land but mentally loyal to the Han people, portraying the tragic yet indomitable spirit of a caged beast!]
Lu Cheng has entered the game.
He didn't come out with his usual steady, measured steps.
He emerged from the ashes.
With hurried, light steps, he reached the edge of the platform in a few strides, then suddenly stopped, his body frozen in place, like a mountain.
His eyes were fixed on the south.
In those eyes, there was longing, despair, and a kind of madness that had been suppressed to the extreme and could erupt at any moment.
"Yang Yanhui—sitting in the palace courtyard—"
This is what I mean by "opening the mouth".
It's not the kind of mellow, sweet singing style.
It was a slightly hoarse, yet utterly desolate voice.
That was the "metallic sound" produced by using the energy of the "Toad-Fishing Strength," generating power from the dantian and resonating through the chest cavity.
Every word was like a nail, driven deep into the listener's heart.
It's like spitting out mouthfuls of blood from your heart.
"Self-reflection and sighs—"
Pu Yi sat in the armchair, his teacup trembling slightly, spilling a few drops of tea.
That sound...
This voice doesn't sound like opera singing, it sounds like... a lament?
No, it wasn't a lament.
It's a shout!
It's a roar of defiance against this damned fate!
Lu Cheng walked around on the stage.
His steps were heavy, each step feeling like he was dragging a thousand-pound shackle.
But the "strength" he exuded was like a sharp sword about to be drawn, ready to pierce through these layers of constraints at any moment.
He suddenly flicked his water sleeves, and the long white water sleeves exploded in the air with a crisp sound.
"Back in the day, at the beach gathering, a bloody battle ensued—"
Lu Cheng's hand suddenly gripped the void at his waist.
The aura of a "Hero in Turbulent Times" is activated!