Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The plan hit a snag. I told myself not to panic-if it truly was a man’s corpse, it had nothing to do with me. Even in the worst-case scenario, if her body was discovered, that was something we’d already prepared for. Stay composed. Don’t scare myself into acting suspicious and attracting unnecessary attention.

Over the past two days, I quietly wrapped up the headpiece for the Shadow Person. Once it was finished, I sewed it onto the body I’d cut from donkey skin earlier-leather jacket, flared pants, high heels, and a small guitar, all very sharp and striking. I set up the control rods and tested them out on the puppet box, getting a feel for the movements.

As I watched the Shadow Person, it felt as if her spirit had really poured into it. A lifeless puppet, yet I could hear her voice: “I’ve got to live like a real person, just to show those who look down on me.” I could even see that unruly curve of her lips, her stance that refused to bow her head.

We were old acquaintances, though we lost touch for years. When we finally met again, it was as if there had never been any distance. For a while, she was everything I wanted to be. All these years later, her image is still clear in my mind-as vivid as ever.

Tonight was the official filming for my opera performance. I set up the stage in the center of the courtyard early, hung the white silk Liangzi. The Shadow Person, scenery, props-everything was ready. Shadow puppetry needs light; back when I performed with Grandpa, we’d mostly use electric lamps, unless the host wanted that old-fashioned mood, then we’d go to the trouble of lighting oil lamps.

For the first shoot, I insisted on using oil lamps. The flame flickered uncertainly, making the Shadow Person tremble ever so slightly, like the unpredictable lives both she and I have led. I could operate several Shadow People by myself, acting as both puppeteer and singer. The accompaniment had to rely on pre-recorded cassette tape.

Everything was set. To build atmosphere, the town even sent a few villagers to pose as audience members.

I sat behind the Liangzi and performed a story from “Boiling the Remaining Life” that I’d never sung before-“Molding the Bodhisattva.”

The story wasn’t complicated. A girl born in a poor rural family, always dreamed of being ‘someone.’ She became the first in her village to wear a tank top and tight pants, the first to dye her hair red, the first to smoke a cigarette, the first to belt out rock songs. She called it freedom, but to the locals, she was a freak. Her parents tried to file down her rebellious spirit, molding her into a meek, well-behaved clay bodhisattva.

In the book’s ending, the girl left her home, met a good man, got married, had children. At forty, she appeared on a singing show, performing the rock song of her youth… The story ends there. Did she ever become ‘someone’? There’s no clear answer-maybe she succeeded, maybe she stayed ordinary. The ending is different for every reader.

The woman in the book is called Bai Guixia. For the opera, I changed her name to Qiu Ling.

Not only that, but the ending in my performance was far more painful. Qiu Ling’s parents tried to marry her off for money, so she set fire to her own house-burning away her parents’ greed, destroying her own face. She became the village madwoman, her path to marriage cut off, her future severed.

People love happy endings, but sometimes ‘happiness’ is just another kind of imperfection. The sad ending fills in the empty space those vague stories leave behind, smudged with swirling smoke.

At the close of the opera, the helmeted Shadow Person hurled her guitar to the ground and turned to disappear into a cloud of thick smoke, gone without a trace.

I’ve always known I’m a storyteller. The shifts in my voice, the twists and turns in what I sang and recited-they brought the story alive in the glow of the lamps.

Holding the Shadow Person, I stepped out from behind the Liangzi and bowed my thanks. In the audience, sobs and applause mingled together, eyes glistening with tears under the dim night sky.

Tang Jing came forward and hugged me, gently patting my back. “Sister Mei, you were amazing. You deserve recognition, you deserve to be heard-more people should listen to you. You breathed new life into the story, and even though it’s a tragedy, it feels like that’s how the story was truly meant to end.”

“I worked some of my own experience into it. Life doesn’t hand you endless saviors. Most of the time, people just watch passively, or hope you stay stuck in the mud. The woman in the story isn’t me, but I understand her. There were so many nights when I wanted to set everything ablaze myself…” I stopped and glanced at the camera lens. “But we have to follow the law, can’t just act out on a whim-so I used this story to be reckless, just this once. Consider it my way of finding release-for her.”
“I understand.” Tang Jing’s voice was damp with tears and tinged with bitterness. “And the new name is beautiful-Qiu Ling sounds so much nicer than Bai Guixia. It feels like this was always her real name.”

“I like it too. There are snippets of the other stories online, but this one is entirely new.”

“That’s enough for me. I’ll definitely find a way to contact the author, and get his permission. The story he wrote is meant to be sung by you.”

He won’t-or doesn’t dare to-see me, I thought. But after settling such an important matter, most of the gloom in my heart finally lifted.

That night, I curled up in my small bed and drifted into a hazy sleep. In the darkness, I heard a faint rustling sound. For a moment, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming again.

Someone climbed onto my bed, lifted the covers, and slipped in next to me. An arm wrapped around me, another hand slid under my clothes.

The cold touch jolted me awake. “Who is it?”

“Sister Mei, it’s me.” In the confusion, Ge Wei’s voice brushed against my ear.

I went stiff as dead wood, letting his hand roam across my rough skin.

“That opera, you sang it for me, didn’t you?” he asked.

“So, you know Qiu Ling.” I pretended to be learning this for the first time.

“Yeah. Did she tell you we used to be together?”

“What do you mean, weren’t you?”

“I guess you could say we were. She’s a good person-loyal, generous.”

“Then why didn’t you stay together?”

“I’m the only son in my family, I have to carry on the family line. She’s much older than me, and her health is ruined-she can’t have children.” In the darkness, his voice felt like it was covered in tiny bristles, burrowing into my ears. “We agreed that after breaking up, we’d each move on. But when my wife got pregnant for the first time, she showed up and caused a scene. Because of her, I lost my first child.”

Breathless, I asked, “Have you seen Qiu Ling lately?”

Seen her-or her body.

He replied firmly, “No. After that, she left. I still resent her, and didn’t want to see her again. Later, we exchanged a few texts. She begged me to take you in.”

It didn’t sound like a lie. My arrival in this town was already tied to Qiu Ling.

“She said you were her best friend, and asked me to give you some stability. She said you’ve suffered too much, always sacrificing for others. If I could, she wanted me to give you some love…” As he spoke, his hand slipped into my waistband. “This is a kind of love, too. Anyway, with me, you’re not losing out.”

“You have a wife…”

“Just don’t let her find out.”

I didn’t know how things between us had come to this. It felt as if an invisible lever was controlling my body, dragging me into a play I didn’t recognize. I used to think meeting Ge Wei was a coincidence-he took pity on me, took me in, gave me food, let me keep some dignity.

Now, suddenly, I realized I didn’t know him, and yet he had seen through me from the start. Was our meeting really just about honoring an old lover’s promise to care for her friend, or was there something else at play? But what could he want? Surely not my dried-up, no-longer-youthful body. It made no sense.

After we were done, he asked, “How’s Qiu Ling these days?”

“Not well.”

“She wrote ‘Boiling the Remaining Life’? She really has some talent. But why isn’t her name on it? Not her real name, not a pen name.”

“It’s a secret.”

Ge Wei laughed. “Alright, a secret. But I bet it’s not a good one.”

In the morning, I woke up to find the bed empty-Ge Wei was gone. I suppose he knew that sleeping with someone like me while his wife was pregnant wasn’t something he could ever admit openly. So he came in the night, and left before morning.

But he was right-being with him, I wasn’t losing out.

So I didn’t scream or demand a title, or ask for an explanation. I just quietly became an accomplice to this “secret.”