Chapter 300

Chapter 300

Sure enough, they had decided to start with Mei Linshuang.

Li Qingying asked, “Xiao Jiu, should we intervene? Mei Linshuang… she’s so pitiful.”

I shook my head. “Sister Qingying, have you considered this? If Mei Linshuang didn’t want to cooperate, she had a way to ask us for help. But she didn’t.”

After my blood dripped into the Red Coffin, Mei Linshuang had a brief window in which she could separate herself from it.

Otherwise, how could she have become the Lingchi Blade? And how could she have given the Red Banner Child a pouch of Silver Coins?

Li Qingying immediately caught on. “You mean Mei Linshuang may want to return to the Opera Stage?”

At that, I immediately went back to my room and took out the box that had once held the Water Sleeves and the Town Chronicle. After opening it and checking everything inside, I went to the Main Hall, retrieved the Lingchi Blade, and placed it in the box as well.

I handed the box to Li Qingying. “Sister Qingying, keep an eye on the Great Hall. Find a chance to put this box inside the Red Coffin. If you can’t, bury it somewhere around the Opera Stage instead. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone notice.”

Li Qingying accepted the box with both hands. Her fingers trembled slightly, but there was also an inexplicable excitement on her face. She blinked, lowered her voice, and said, “This is great. I love the feeling of secretly stirring things up with you!”

I patted her on the shoulder. Li Qingying tucked the box away and left.

I locked up the Pawnshop and headed straight for the Teahouse.

The Teahouse was already bustling early in the morning.

Some people were drinking tea and eating breakfast inside, while others listened to storytellers. More were exercising in the open space beside the Teahouse… Sure enough, a new Opera Stage had been erected in the center of the clearing. It wasn’t large, and there were no seats below it.

At the moment, the Opera Stage stood completely empty.

There were plenty of people doing their morning exercises nearby, but all of them tacitly kept their distance from the Opera Stage, as though it were taboo.

I approached a middle-aged woman doing a fan dance and asked, “Ma’am, I heard this Opera Stage only opens at night. Is that true? Does anyone really come to watch opera that late?”

The woman immediately closed her fan and pulled me aside. Holding the fan up to hide both our faces, she said mysteriously, “Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu, haven’t you heard? This Opera Stage wasn’t built for the Townsfolk. It’s a Ghost Opera Stage.”

I feigned surprise. “What? A Ghost Opera Stage? What’s that?”

“A Ghost Opera Stage is a stage where opera is performed for ghosts, of course.” Looking utterly conspiratorial, the woman glanced around repeatedly, as though terrified someone might overhear. “I heard the performers on the Opera Stage at night are ghosts, and so is the audience. Wufu Town hasn’t been peaceful lately.”

I scratched my head and pretended not to know anything. “I left town for a while and only came back yesterday. I didn’t notice anything different about the town.”

“A lot has changed,” the woman said. “Didn’t you notice how quiet the town was last night? The moment it gets dark, everyone shuts their doors and locks up. No one dares wander around outside anymore. They say someone ran into a dead person on the road at night — a bloody corpse without any skin. It was terrifying.”

As she spoke, the woman shuddered involuntarily. “Oh, I can’t keep talking about this. It’s giving me the creeps. I need to go home and make breakfast for my little grandson.”

With that, she gathered her things and hurried away.

Li Qingying had told me before that the area around the Teahouse was always lively at night.

But judging by the woman’s account, that nighttime bustle had little to do with the Townsfolk of Wufu Town.

The Teahouse had erected a Ghost Opera Stage, while over at the Great Hall, Mei Linshuang was clearly preparing to perform again.

The Opera Stage at the Great Hall hadn’t even been rebuilt yet, but those things were already gathering there at night.
Was the Teahouse locked in a contest with the Great Hall?

I turned and went into the Teahouse to find the proprietress.

It was crowded in the morning, and she was busy. She told me to wait in a private room while she bustled around, her narrow waist and full hips swaying as she worked.

Only after the morning tea rush had passed did she enter the private room with an assortment of pastries. She closed the door and sat across from me.

I kept studying her.

She was in her early thirties and somewhat voluptuous, with a lovely figure, fair, delicate skin, and a sweet smile. A closer look, however, revealed calluses on her hands. She was clearly no ordinary woman.

Perhaps my stare was too blatant, because the proprietress covered her mouth and giggled. She teased, “Xiao Jiu, if you keep looking at me like that, I might get the wrong idea.”

I hurriedly looked away and asked with a smile, “May I ask your surname?”

“Chen.” The proprietress poured me a cup of tea. “My name is Chen Fuying. You can just call me Yingying.”

Since she was so straightforward, I decided not to beat around the bush. “Yingying, were you sent by Gu Yan, the Teahouse’s former proprietress? Are you also from Xiangxi?”

Chen Fuying shook her head. “Actually, I didn’t know the former proprietress before taking over this Teahouse, and I’m not from Xiangxi. My family hails from Wufu Town in Jiangcheng.”

I frowned. This was different from what I had imagined. “As far as I know, Gu Yan is an extremely cautious person. Unless you had something compelling enough to sway her, she would never have transferred this Teahouse to you.”

“That’s right. Before me, plenty of people tried to take over this Teahouse, but she turned them all down.” Chen Fuying was completely candid. “I was able to acquire it because this Teahouse originally belonged to my ancestors. By taking it back, I was merely returning it to its rightful owner. Boss Gu had no reason to refuse me.”

I stared at Chen Fuying in astonishment, carefully weighing every word she had said.

The Yan Guilai Teahouse had originally belonged to Chen Fuying’s ancestors… Chen Fuying… Chen?!

My gaze instantly sharpened. “Are you a descendant of Chen Ping?”

Chen Fuying curled one slender, pale finger beneath her chin and thought for a moment. “Mm, I suppose you could say that. After all, the surname Chen was indeed bestowed upon my great-grandfather by Chen Ping. Over the past century, four generations of my family spent their lives fleeing and hiding, and I’m the only one left of the bloodline. As for what our original surname was, I have no way of finding out.”

I could hardly believe it. “He bestowed a surname on him?”

I had only ever seen such things on television, like emperors granting surnames to their subjects.

I never expected that more than a century ago, Chen Ping had also been able to bestow surnames on people as he pleased — and had even given his own surname to Chen Fuying’s great-grandfather.

That meant Chen Fuying’s great-grandfather had, at the very least, once made his living under Chen Ping.

Chen Fuying gave a hum of confirmation. Her voice carried, but it was sweet, with a naturally charming innocence to it.

“My great-grandfather built this Teahouse up with his own hands. Business was always lukewarm until he brought in an opera troupe and made one of its performers into a star. Only then did the Teahouse begin to thrive. That star later became my great-grandmother.

“After Chen Ping seized control of Wufu Town, he also became infatuated with my great-grandmother’s singing and her appearance in costume. Back then, he ruled Wufu Town like his own private kingdom. He wanted my great-grandmother for himself, so he did everything he could to torment my great-grandfather. He beat him, imprisoned him, forcibly changed his surname, and bestowed upon him the name Chen Ah Gou.

“My great-grandfather gritted his teeth and endured it all because my great-grandmother was already pregnant at the time. But every night, Chen Ping forced him to carry my great-grandmother on his back to the Marshal’s Residence, where she had to perform opera for Chen Ping alone…”