nycdaug Chapter 201 Shadow Puppetry Improvement and Renewal
Chapter 201 Shadow Puppetry Improvement and Renewal
Chapter 201 Shadow Puppetry Improvement and Renewal
Shadow puppetry improved and revitalized
The morning mist, carrying the scent of saltpeter, drifted through the windowpane, and the bronze thumb ring on Su Yunlan's fingertip was coated with a layer of cold glaze by the morning light.
On the improvement plan laid out on the desk, the questions that screenwriter Zhao had circled with cinnabar have been solved one by one—the stage machinery diagram that appeared in "A Study of Puppet Shows" last night actually echoes the Big Dipper pattern.
She copied the gear structure from the Xuan paper onto the parchment scroll, and in a daze, she heard the sound of Xiao Yuhan's spear cutting through the wind during his morning practice, the rhythm of which was very similar to the clicking sound of a puppet's joints turning.
“If the troupe leader continues to refuse, I will sell the recipe for tanning donkey hides to the West Street opera troupe.” As Su Yunlan presented the improved plan to the troupe leader, a wisp of benzoin wafted from the sachet hidden in her sleeve.
This is a calming incense she specially blended, mixed with the scent of leather tanned with saltpeter, weaving an invisible net in the tea room.
Master Wang's withered fingers repeatedly stroked the script of "The New Story of the Western Wing".
The improved shadow puppets have joints adorned with fluorescent stones, and the stage has a hidden array of rotating bronze mirrors at the bottom, not to mention the rose smoke that bursts out with the plot.
"The twelve steps of tanning passed down from our ancestors..." His Adam's apple bobbed, but his gaze was fixed on the stage set diagram that Su Yunlan had unfolded.
When he saw the annotation "the pear blossom needles in the rain were transformed into mechanical snowfall," his cloudy eyes suddenly gleamed.
Three days later, an indigo curtain was hung on the inn's stage.
Qian, a theater enthusiast, squeezed into the front row with a purple clay teapot in hand. The lid of the teapot clinked against the rim of the cup, producing a crisp, mocking sound: "Even if you're thoroughly smoked by donkey hide, can you still put on a show?" He deliberately threw these words at the woman behind him who was holding a child, but out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Su Yunlan, who was adjusting the lights and candles.
The gong suddenly sounded, and the seven glass lamps went out abruptly.
As the audience stirred, the Big Dipper pattern suddenly emerged from the depths of the curtain, and indigo fluorescence spread across the stage like mercury.
The improved Cui Yingying doll emerged from the moon gate, its hairpins and rings made of fluorescent stones tinkling as they were moved, and its sleeves, as thin as cicada wings, fluttered gently in the wind.
As Zhang Sheng recited poetry over the wall, the mirror array under the stage suddenly refracted the moonlight into a sky full of stars, startling the audience so much that they almost overturned their teapots.
"Nonsense! Where did the 'Fairy Maiden Scattering Flowers' come from in 'The Romance of the Western Chamber'?" Qian, the opera fan, slammed his fist on the table and stood up, but his voice went hoarse the next moment.
In the classic scene where Cui's mother separates the lovers, Su Yunlan uses gunpowder smoke mixed with benzoin to simulate lightning and thunder, and the joints of the shadow puppets tremble like real people under the control of the mechanism.
Veteran opera fans discovered that the dust kicked up when the mandarin duck handkerchief fell to the ground was actually starlight created by fine silver powder.
At the climax of the play, Su Yunlan quietly turned the bronze thumb ring.
The mechanical diagram that appeared in the space last night has now become reality—the moment Cui Yingying leaps over the pink wall, the nine-linked mechanism activates twenty-four bronze mirrors, projecting the doll's beautiful image throughout the room.
Qian, the opera enthusiast, had long forgotten his purple clay teapot on the bench. He looked up at the marriage fortune slips revealed by the matchmaker, his wrinkled eyes reflecting the fluorescent light.
As the curtain fell, applause, carried by the morning mist, drifted over the eaves of the inn.
Su Yunlan leaned against a pillar on the second floor, watching as Qian Ximi, her face flushed, grabbed Wang's sleeve and pressed him for the time of the next performance.
Her fingertips unconsciously traced the star pattern on the inside of the ring, when she suddenly realized that Xiao Yuhan had been standing behind her at some point.
His battle robes were still on, and morning dew still clung to his shoulder armor, yet the ginger tea he offered steamed with just the right amount of warmth.
"When screenwriter Zhao was checking the gears backstage, he discovered..." Xiao Yuhan's words were interrupted by a sudden commotion.
Suddenly, the glass lamps on the top of the stage flickered in unison, and the mirror array, which had been working perfectly, emitted a faint hum.
Su Yunlan frowned and looked at Fuling, who was controlling the candles. She saw the little maid standing on tiptoe wiping a lantern that was flickering on and off. The star pattern on the indigo curtain twisted strangely for a moment as she moved.
The night breeze swept through the hall, carrying the lingering smell of gunpowder, and stirred up the yellowed stage machinery diagram on the desk.
(Continuation)
The humming sound of the bronze mirror penetrated the curtain, and Su Yunlan's fingertips dug deeply into the wood grain of the corridor pillars.
The star-patterned mirror array, which had been functioning perfectly just moments before, now seemed to be suffering from hysteria. The twenty-four bronze mirrors trembled one after another, tearing Cui Yingying's afterimage into pieces and projecting them onto the indigo curtain.
From deep within the stage came the screeching sound of gears jamming, and Fuling's figure, tiptoeing to wipe the lantern, appeared and disappeared in the swaying light and shadow.
"Bring me the saltpeter!" She suddenly pulled off the sachet from her waist and threw it at the stage, the jade beads hitting the blue bricks with a crisp sound.
The magnets stored in the space slid down his sleeve into his palm, and the mechanical diagram of the Big Dipper that he had copied last night rapidly unfolded in his mind.
Xiao Yuhan's combat boots had already stepped onto the wooden steps, sparks flying as the scales of his armor scraped against the copper studs on the handrail.
The opera troupe's musicians suddenly struck their cymbals, creating a thunderous sound, and the matchmaker rushed out from behind the curtain, holding a broken marriage token.
The tassels made of fluorescent stones swung in an arc as she exaggeratedly spun around, just enough to obscure the twitching mirror array. "Oh dear, the matchmaker's red thread has tied the wrong person!" The old woman's singing suddenly rose three octaves, and she casually tossed half a bamboo stick into the audience.
Qian, the opera fan, instinctively reached out to take it, and all eyes in the audience instantly focused on the fluttering peach-red sleeve.
Su Yunlan's magnet has been embedded in the groove of the mechanism.
The instant the powder was sprinkled, the hum on the mirror turned into a rustling sound like fine rain, and the distorted star pattern returned to its original shape as the Big Dipper.
Her back was pressed tightly against Xiao Yuhan's chest, and she could clearly feel his heart pounding violently beneath his armor, the scent of pine soot and rust enveloping her in layers.
The shadow puppets for the final act, "The Magpie Bridge Meeting," were three times larger than originally planned; these were made from tanned rhinoceros hides that she had just taken out of her spatial storage this morning.
When the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl met in the Milky Way refracted by the mirror array, all twelve glass lamps suddenly went out at the same time.
A collective gasp rippled through the audience, only to be instantly enveloped in a shower of silvery dust—phosphorus powder she had hidden in the light control mechanism, which ignited upon heating but vanished in an instant.
Amidst thunderous applause, fragments of magnetite were still embedded in Su Yunlan's fingernails.
Master Wang knelt in the corner of the stage, holding a bamboo puppet broken in two. His calloused fingers were threading silk strings back into the puppet's severed neck. "Forty years of experience..." The old man's hoarse voice, mingled with the fumes of gunpowder from backstage, was "not even as good as a young lady sprinkling a handful of silver powder."
Xiao Yuhan removed his scarlet cloak and draped it over her trembling shoulders; his arms, still clad in armor, were as strong as a city wall. "When the mirror array malfunctioned..." he whispered, his Adam's apple brushing against the stray hairs fluttering past her ear. "I found this in the hidden compartment in the main beam." Half an ebony hairpin lay in the blood-stained lines of his palm, the tip carved with a pixiu holding half a piece of peacock blue glaze in its mouth.
The night wind swept across the courtyard of the inn, carrying the lingering phosphorescent light. Su Yunlan stared at the freshly broken end of the hairpin and suddenly remembered the purple clay teapot that Qian Ximi had smashed three days ago—the edges of the shards of porcelain also gleamed with the same eerie blue glaze.
The bamboo curtain hanging in the second-floor private room suddenly moved without any wind, and a blurry figure flashed past from behind the curtain, the jade pendant at the waist striking the railing with a clear and melodious sound.
"Lady Su!" Screenwriter Zhao rushed in from the machine room, holding a cracked gear, his nose covered in fluorescent powder. "Look at the groove pattern..." His voice trailed off as his gaze was fixed on the hairpin in Xiao Yuhan's hand.
In the distance, the watchman struck the third watch gong, mingling with the sudden neighing from the stables in the backyard, crushing the unfinished words into the night mist.
As the morning light pierced through the clouds, a long, winding queue had already formed in front of the inn.
A theater enthusiast, holding a silver-edged opera book, squatted on the stone steps, arguing with the old man selling candy about the mystery of the star pattern shifting last night.
Su Yunlan pushed open the carved wooden window and saw Madam Gu from the embroidery workshop across the street standing on the outskirts of the crowd, holding a brocade. The pattern of phoenixes carrying branches on the moon-white skirt flickered in the wind.
The eyes of the phoenix were embroidered with different colors on both sides, shimmering with golden and red light in the morning sun.
Su Yunlan unconsciously stroked the frayed edge of her cuff and suddenly remembered the "Record of Heavenly Weaving" in the hidden compartment of her space.
Last night, when the mirror array malfunctioned, it seemed that a yellowed embroidery pattern fell from the gap in the mechanical diagram. Now, recalling it, the stitches were exactly the same as the Big Dipper pattern.
Xiao Yuhan's footsteps came from the end of the corridor. His battle robe had been changed into a dark blue casual dress, but he still held the broken hairpin in his hand.
The newly worn gold-inlaid dragon-patterned belt buckle on his waist gleamed with a dark light. Su Yunlan remembered that this was the insignia of the Xiao family's secret guards—three days ago, when the stage was being renovated, this belt buckle had snagged and broken the silk rope controlling the mirror array.
34; Master Wang took in six apprentices. 34; He placed the warm almond tea on the windowsill, his fingertips brushing against her cuffs, which were covered in fluorescent powder, 34; saying he wanted to improve the puppet joints of "The Peony Pavilion." 34;
Suddenly, Madam Gu from the embroidery shop across the street looked up, the brocade in her arms unfurling halfway in the wind.
Su Yunlan saw the star and moon patterns embroidered on it and her pupils contracted sharply—it was clearly the Big Dipper diagram she had used to fix the mirror array last night, but now it had turned into silver embroidery threads, flowing with a star-like halo in the sunlight.