Chapter 244 Jinjiang (1)
Song Ci didn't expect that the moment he lowered his head and closed his eyes, the scene around him would become completely different.
He felt as if he was out of touch with reality, and even his previously weak body seemed to have drifted away from him. It became light and flexible, without any soreness or fatigue, but instead became healthy and full of strength.
Before the young master could figure out what was going on, he was startled by the scream of Lu Xingxing next to him.
"Lu Xingxing, are you crazy? You're so startled..."
The young master turned his head impatiently and looked at Lu Xingxing.
However, when he saw the figure behind Lu Xingxing clearly, he was suddenly startled and the words in his mouth were stuck in his throat.
——Just in the direction where Lu Xingxing was looking, there stood a paper man that did not look like a living person.
From the young master's perspective, he could clearly see that although the man's eyebrows, eyes, and facial features were lifelike, and his limbs were flexible and flawless, but when viewed from the side, the man looked like a piece of light paper without any thickness.
It’s real, a paper man.
The paper man is laughing.
Its eyes, which were drawn with a black pen, turned their pure black and lifeless eyeballs, and the curve of its mouth turned upward. Even the two bright red spots on its cheeks seemed to become even more crimson, as if they had been dyed with blood.
The paper man stared at Lu Xingxing, and just when Lu Xingxing was frightened to the point of being frozen and unable to move, it slowly raised its hand and stretched its fingers towards Lu Xingxing, as if trying to touch his eyes.
The young master was so shocked by the scene that he broke out in cold sweats, but from Lu Xingxing's perspective, he was not a paper man.
But real people.
This person was smiling strangely, but was praising his eyes, saying that his eyes were beautiful.
"It's a pity that I only have this pair of eyes. Did you see it? It's lost."
The man smiled stiffly and pleaded with Lu Xingxing: "No one came to help me repair my eyes. I am so sad. Can you please... give me your eyes?"
Lu Xingxing felt goosebumps all over his body.
He wanted to curse this man, telling him to go see a doctor if he was sick and get surgery if he had eye problems, and asked if he was asking a Taoist priest what to do if his eyes were damaged, and that he had found the wrong person.
However, when Lu Xingxing wanted to open his mouth, he was horrified to find that his mouth, which had been normal a moment ago, was suddenly unable to speak.
It's not that the mouth was glued shut, nor that the throat was tight and the vocal cords were useless, but that there was no mouth from the beginning!
Lu Xingxing clearly saw his current appearance from the eyes of the person opposite him.
His eyes were filled with fear, but where his mouth should have been was empty and smooth, without a single crack.
This made his originally handsome and unrestrained face look strange.
It's as if a crude painter forgot that people have mouths and didn't draw a mouth on his face from the beginning.
how so!
This, what is going on!
The unexpected development made Lu Xingxing panic, and hot sweat instantly broke out on his back.
He wanted to run, before the man's hand actually touched his eyes.
But a strange force held him back, not allowing him to leave.
Lu Xingxing rolled his eyes, and with his neck unable to move, he slid down desperately, trying to see clearly what was stopping him.
Then he saw...
Under my feet, the place that should have been the concrete floor of the room had turned into water at some point.
Ripples spread out from where he was standing. Blurry faces gathered beneath the water, gradually floating up from the deep bottom of the lake, and looking up close to the water surface.
On the blurred face, where the eyes should have been, there were only light-transmitting holes, and the mouth was raised high in a grin.
It's like the fish that gather in the viewing pond at a tourist attraction when they see food being thrown in.
But now the identities have been reversed, and Lu Xingxing is the fish food that attracts the fish.
But I can't see who is the spectator who threw the fish food...
"Are you stupid? Why don't you run?"
Just when Lu Xingxing's eyes were bloodshot and she was trying desperately to struggle away from where she was, she was shocked to find that all her struggles were in vain, as if all the running in the nightmare could not affect the body sleeping on the bed.
However, as Lu Xingxing's heart was gradually filled with grief and anger, he could only watch the man in front of him reaching out his hand, when a force suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him away with great force.
The moment he was touched, Lu Xingxing suddenly felt that his body, which had been trapped in place, was able to move again.
It was as if the effects of the immobilization spell had worn off.
Lu Xingxing staggered a few steps and almost fell.
He raised his head to look at the source of the sound, and what he saw was Song Ci's face, which was particularly bright and vivid in his anger.
Lu Xingxing didn't even have the time to explain to Song Ci what had just happened to him, nor did he glance at the people next to him.
He immediately grabbed the young master's arm, took the initiative and ran forward with the young master in big strides.
Song Ci hadn't figured out what was going on yet. Just as he was looking at Lu Xingxing's dazed and even unbelievable face and was about to start scolding her, he felt a sense of weightlessness.
His head jerked back and he staggered a few steps before he took a step forward instinctively. In order to avoid falling to the ground, he was forced to run forward following Lu Xingxing.
"Lu, Lu Xingxing!"
Song Ci gnashed his teeth and yelled angrily: "What are you doing!"
Lu Xingxing turned around while running quickly and looked back past Song Ci.
The man was still standing there.
He seemed a little surprised at Lu Xingxing's escape. His outstretched hand slowly fell down and returned to a standing position.
The man turned slightly, facing Lu Xingxing, and smiled with his bright red mouth opening and closing, as if saying -
Where do you want to run to?
Even the ground where Lu Xingxing and Song Ci ran across looked like a riverbed that had been split open.
The concrete floor cracked inch by inch, and huge cracks extended along the footsteps of the two people, like a spider web chasing its prey.
The water that originally flowed under Lu Xingxing's feet irrigated in, filling every gully with a surging force.
Those blurry faces that emerged from the bottom of the lake also followed the current, chasing after Lu Xingxing.
The man stood at the source of everything, his dark and lifeless eyes staring fixedly at Lu Xingxing, like a fisherman trapping his prey.
At that moment, Lu Xingxing had a feeling.
It was as if the entire space they were in belonged to an unknown existence. No matter where he tried desperately to run, he was just in the other party's palm.
You can’t escape from this Five Finger Mountain.
What's worse is that he is not Sun Wukong and does not have the power of the Monkey King to disrupt heaven and earth.
Lu Xingxing's heart, which had been beating wildly due to fear, suddenly fell into the cold lake water at this moment.
A trace of despair emerged in his heart, and Yan Shixun's name was on his lips.
Can I really protect Song Ci in this situation?
Why am I not a person like Brother Yan…Why do I have to encounter all this!
Lu Xingxing's originally frantic pace gradually slowed down, as if he wanted to give up struggling.
But in Song Ci's eyes, it was Lu Xingxing who was frightened by a painted paper man and ran away in panic, running deep into the room in a panic.
With every step they took, the white paper beneath their feet would crack due to the friction of their footsteps, revealing the picture underneath.
Song Ci was dragged and ran so wildly that he almost couldn't breathe. He could only glance down at his feet in the gaps.
He saw that covered by the white paper were beautiful landscape paintings.
It is like the backdrop of a shadow play. Each scene has a different background. The beautiful landscapes and villages that have been painted long ago are skillfully transformed in the hands of shadow play craftsmen, changing the scene and day and night in an instant.
However, compared with the background board, the picture covered with white paper and stepped on by them was larger, more delicate and beautiful, so real that it seemed as if it was not painted.
Instead, the heaven and earth were captured and placed on the drawing board, with all the scenery frozen in that moment.
Whether it is the green mountains and trees, the golden sunset in the distance, the rippling lake and villages nearby, or the curling smoke from cooking...
It makes people feel like they are really in it.
Moreover, as they ran, these scenes seemed to have no end beneath their feet, spreading into the distance.
But compared to the shock brought by such a scene, Song Ci's attention was not entirely on it.
Instead, he was distracted by Lu Xingxing and his mind was not shaken or allowed to make any associations because of the exquisite scenes in the paintings.
Song Ci was forced to run so fast that he almost couldn't breathe, and he wanted to curse Lu Xingxing to death.
But he had never been good at sports since he was a child. He had a delicate body and could only pass the school physical examination at the last second. He would run until his face turned pale and was put into the ambulance after crossing the finish line.
Not to mention the marathon-like running style at the moment.
Song Ci just felt like an unlucky owner who was out walking his dog. He couldn't hold the dog back even by pulling the leash. He could only be dragged by the Husky and run wildly. It was a luxury to want to stop.
I will never keep a dog, especially a Husky, even if you kill me!
From today on, dogs and I will never coexist!
Song Ci was filled with grief and indignation.
But just when he suspected that he would be dragged by Lu Xingxing for the rest of his life, he found that Lu Xingxing's speed was decreasing and gradually stopped.
Song Ci was delighted. He took a breath and adjusted his breathing. Then he rushed forward and slapped Lu Xingxing hard on the head.
"Snap!"
It was as loud as slapping a watermelon.
“Are you a dog?”
The young master shouted sternly, "You're running forward like crazy without saying anything. Do you have no mouth or can't you speak? What are you running for?"
Lu Xingxing turned to look at Song Ci with sad eyes, and there was even a layer of tears in her red eyes, as if she was going to cry at the next moment.
Young Master: “…………”
Young Master: “!!!”
What's going on? Lu Xingxing actually has the time to cry?
Song Ci was shocked and felt that something was wrong.
For so long, he had only seen Lu Xingxing having fun, but never cried. She looked so sad that she was choking with sobs, as if she was shaved by a husky and was in so much pain that she wanted to die.
Lu Xingxing is a well-known troublemaker. In the entertainment industry, as long as he doesn't like someone or knows someone's private life, he will scold the person mercilessly, without mercy, and he doesn't care about the other person's identity or the consequences of his actions.
Because of this, many people in the entertainment industry hate Lu Xingxing but are also afraid of him, fearing that he will reveal something shameful about them.
If there was a time when Lu Xingxing, who was so arrogant and outspoken, was cowardly, Song Ci had only seen it when Yan Shixun or Yan Shixun's lover was present.
But now...
Song Ci was too busy scolding Lu Xingxing for a moment. He quickly grabbed him to stop him from running forward, and then hurriedly went to check on Lu Xingxing's condition.
"What happened to you? Are you hurt?"
Song Ci couldn't help but wonder if the paper man had done something to Lu Xingxing when he wasn't noticing.
But Lu Xingxing grabbed Song Ci's hand that was about to tear his clothes, with tears in his eyes, and pointed at his mouth with his other hand.
Lu Xingxing: My mouth is humming, I have no mouth anymore, not only can I not protect you, I can no longer speak.
What is the most horrible punishment for a chatterbox?
——It made him unable to speak anymore, even his mouth was taken away.
Lu Xingxing was heartbroken and was even planning to give up on himself. Otherwise, he would just die here. As long as he could get Song Ci out of this crisis, he didn't want to live anymore. A life without even a mouth to feed was so bleak!
Song Ci:……?
What are you crazy about?
The young master looked back and found that the paper man had disappeared at some point.
Where they ran, there were only empty rooms connected to each other, with no end in sight.
The four walls were white, and even the floor was covered with white paper.
Only the golden-red sunset outside the window shone through the glass, dyeing everything with warm colors.
Under the warm light, it felt even more dead and empty, making people feel uneasy.
The only ones who can prove my existence are the companions around me.
Song Ci paused, and immediately pulled himself out of his uncomfortable mental state. At the same time, he was relieved that the paper man disappeared.
At least, Lu Xingxing is safe.
Taking advantage of Lu Xingxing's grip on his hand, he forcefully pushed Lu Xingxing towards the window nearby, pressed him against the glass, and looked him over carefully from head to toe in the sunlight.
There were no missing limbs, no blood, and everything looked normal.
Song Ci finally breathed a sigh of relief and asked in confusion, "Why are you just pointing at your mouth? Did someone cut your vocal cords?"
Lu Xingxing became even sadder and gestured to Song Ci frantically: Can’t you see that my mouth has disappeared!
Song Ci: ...Okay, this dog is really crazy.
"Open your mouth and speak!"
Song Ci's patience finally ran out, and he impatiently raised his hand and punched Lu Xingxing in the chest.
"Ahem..."
Lu Xingxing took a breath and, caught off guard, couldn't help but cough out in pain.
"How did you suddenly become so strong? This is too painful. Did your brother feed you spirited ginseng every day when you were recuperating?"
Lu Xingxing covered his chest with one hand, feeling stars in his eyes from Song Ci's punch, and complained with a gritted teeth.
"What do you think I want? It's easy to beat you up? It's because you refuse to speak and act like a madman."
The young master snorted coldly and rolled his eyes. He was not going to tolerate Lu Xingxing's weird habits.
Besides, he was very aware of his own physical strength. If someone said he was pissed off to death, he would believe it, but if someone said he was beaten to death or hurt... how could that be possible? What a joke, did he look like someone with such good physical strength?
The young master was so angry that he slapped Lu Xingxing on the arm again.
Lu Xingxing suddenly cried out in pain, "Ouch!"
But before the two could say anything else, they seemed to suddenly realize that something was wrong. The words they were about to say stopped in their throats, and they looked at each other with dull eyes.
Looked at each other.
"I...Is my mouth still there?"
"Does it really hurt when I hit someone?"
They both asked each other questions at the same time.
Then, they both gradually frowned because of each other's questions.
"What do you mean by the mouth is still there? Can a person lose his mouth?"
The young master frowned tightly, raised his hand, grabbed Lu Xingxing's lips and squeezed them mercilessly.
"Does it hurt? Are you there?"
“Yes, yes, it hurts!”
Lu Xingxing burst into tears immediately: "Let go quickly, it really hurts, ah ah ah, you're going to tear my mouth off."
Song Ci snorted coldly and let go of his hand.
Lu Xingxing immediately let go of Song Ci's hand, covering her chest with one hand and her mouth with the other. Her eyes were filled with tears due to the pain.
In the light of the setting sun, Lu Xingxing’s image at this moment had a bit of the beauty of Xi Shi covering her heart, full of a broken and transparent feeling.
Song Ci, who was used to seeing beauties in the entertainment industry, was stunned for a moment. He couldn't help but be attracted by the fragility and pain of the handsome young man.
——But as soon as Lu Xingxing opened his mouth, this beauty was immediately shattered by a sledgehammer.
"My mouth is still there, my mouth is not lost hahahaha!"
Lu Xingxing was ecstatic.
The filter was shattered.
The young master instantly returned to his indifferent expression.
Sure enough, to a guy like Lu Xingxing, all his handsomeness and image were just illusions.
However, Lu Xingxing's ecstasy, which did not seem fake, still made Song Ci gradually realize that something was wrong.
"So... you didn't speak just now because you thought you had no mouth?"
Song Ci asked in confusion: "What happened that made you have such an idea?"
Would a normal person feel like they have no mouth?
Lu Xingxing did not hide anything and told Song Ci everything he had just experienced and seen.
"I really almost thought we were going to die there. No matter how much we ran, we couldn't outrun those water ghosts. It was too scary."
As he spoke, Lu Xingxing pointed at the ground, wanting to show Song Ci the ghost faces that had been chasing him just now.
As a result, when he saw this, Lu Xingxing was dumbfounded.
——Where are the water ghosts and rivers?
It was clearly just white paper that had been stepped on and was wrinkled and torn.
There is also a landscape painting showing from under the white paper.
Could it be that he had just seen it wrong?
Lu Xingxing was a little hesitant.
But the problem is, those things were too real, and he didn't feel they were fake at all.
No matter what, he should be able to distinguish between three-dimensional objects and two-dimensional images, right? No one should be able to see things wrongly.
And the feeling of the mouth disappearing and the tongue being unable to lick the mouth and unable to find an exit is too real.
Lu Xingxing kept sticking out his tongue and trying to lick the outside of his mouth to prove that his mouth was still there. Only then did he feel relieved.
Song Ci's gaze fell on the ground. Because of Lu Xingxing's words, he finally understood why Lu Xingxing suddenly went crazy just now.
This fool actually wants to take him and escape?
Song Ci was angry and amused at the same time. Because of Lu Xingxing's behavior, he couldn't really be angry with him, so he could only roll his eyes and curse: "What you are looking at is basically a water monkey, right? Where did the water ghost come from? Is it yours?"
Lu Xingxing touched his chin and said thoughtfully: "Although I have never seen a water ghost, if you want to see one, we can go find Zhang Dabing."
"I now feel that as long as I follow Zhang Dabing, I can see all the ghosts."
Lu Xingxing said to Song Ci sincerely: "If this had happened in the past, Zhang Dabing might have been able to write a book like "New Classic of Mountains and Seas" or "Illustrated Book of Hundreds of Ghosts".
"This guy is in the wrong profession to be a director."
Lu Xingxing pointed at the scene around them and complained, "I'm sure we've encountered some evil spirit again."
"I remember it very clearly. When they came in, this was still a normal room. It should have been used to store shadow puppet props. But after we chatted for a while, it became like this - it must be Zhang's illness that caused it!"
If Lu Xingxing said something else, the young master might even dislike him and argue with him.
But when it comes to Zhang Wubing, Song Ci nodded in sympathy and reached a consensus with Lu Xingxing.
That's true.
Zhang Wubing's luck in encountering a ghost was indeed the most amazing thing Song Ci had seen in all these years.
Otherwise he wouldn't want to participate in this show.
"If what happened to you just now, your mouth disappearing, is true..."
The young master hesitantly lowered his head and looked at his arms. His slender palms opened and clenched. Even though veins were bulging on his slender white arms, there was no sense of hideousness at all.
One can tell at a glance that the arms are thin and weak. Even though they have not worked or seen the sun for many years, their skin has become porcelain white and soft, but they have no strength at all.
Facing Lu Xingxing, who is far inferior to Yan Shixun but has a body that has been trained for many years, he should not be able to hurt him.
However... he seemed to have a power that he never had before.
The young master was so shocked that even his breathing became lighter unconsciously.
"Then maybe, I really have the strength."
Song Ci was dazed and spoke softly, raising his head to look at the glass behind Lu Xingxing.
The sunlight stung his eyes, causing him to squint subconsciously.
Then, before Lu Xingxing could react, Song Ci suddenly clenched his fists, his eyes became fierce, and he quickly punched Lu Xingxing.
Lu Xingxing widened his eyes in surprise, and his body instinctively moved before him. He crossed his hands in front of him, lowered his head, and took a defensive posture to avoid Song Ci's sudden attack.
"Bang!"
Song Ci punched the glass behind Lu Xingxing.
However, the expected sound of glass breaking did not occur.
Song Ci's punch was like hitting steel bars and concrete, making a heavy muffled sound.
Then there was the sound of "crash" as the wall paint and bricks and stones fell off.
Song Ci watched with his own eyes as a big hole appeared on the window.
But behind the cave, there was not the outside air or yard, but solid red bricks, and blood-red things mixed in the gaps between the bricks.
The glass windows through which the light shines, and the bricks and stones on the windows...
Such scenes mixed together are absurd and weird.
It's like a painter who has lost his common sense and spliced two completely different materials together.
Song Ci felt like the glass was playing a joke on him. He wanted to break through the endless room and jump out of the only window that could possibly connect him to the outside world.
As a result, the window told him firmly that there was no freedom and security behind the glass.
A solid siege.
Song Ci shook his head slightly in disbelief and unconsciously took a half step back.
Lu Xingxing, who had closed his eyes tightly and prepared to feel the pain of being beaten, finally plucked up the courage to open his eyes little by little and looked at Song Ci through the gap between his crossed arms.
With this glance, Lu Xingxing's original angry questions disappeared completely, leaving only astonishment.
He realized something from Song Ci's expression and quickly turned his head to look behind him.
The moment Lu Xingxing saw everything clearly on the glass, his eyes widened.
"This is……"
Lu Xingxing couldn't help but slow down his breathing.
Under the gaze of the two people, the window in this room gradually changed slightly from a three-dimensional scene to a thin image.
It became a damaged painting hanging on the wall.
It was as if Song Ci smashed the illusion with one punch, so the picture no longer deceived the eyes and revealed the original reality.
——From the very beginning, the windows in the room were simply painted.
There is no access to the outside world.
After a brief moment of surprise, Lu Xingxing quickly turned his head to look both ways.
Behind the door on each side is the next room, and behind the next room is the next next room...
A never-ending stretch.
They were like poor animals placed on the edge of a flower pot, and could only walk in a circle along the narrow and empty edge.
But I can never find the exit and can't escape from here.
Lu Xingxing fell silent.
Song Ci lowered his head, his hair falling behind his ears, covering his delicate and beautiful eyebrows.
"Where are we...?"
“Brother Yan, Brother Yan!”
…
After searching for the CD in vain, Yan Shixun stood up straight and scanned the small room.
Not to mention that shadow puppet shows in different places have their own characteristics. Generally, classic repertoires are created based on stories that happened in the local area. If you are not a local or are not familiar with that genre of shadow puppet shows, you will not know the original name and story of the repertoire.
Besides, Yan Shixun himself was not someone who could listen to shadow puppetry, let alone know anything about it.
He is a person who has no entertainment activities. Apart from catching ghosts and exorcising evil spirits and helping others, he just rests at home.
He would only use his rest time to sleep or read books and practice.
Yan Shixun didn't know much about the rich and colorful entertainment of this era. He didn't even have various games or video platforms on his mobile phone. He had never registered a social account. His phone only used the most primitive functions.
Not to mention the entertainment activities of the past which are now outdated.
For example, shadow puppetry.
When Yan Shixun was a teenager, he had seen shadow puppetry at fairs and celebrations.
But those are not Baizhihu shadow puppets.
In recent years, new forms of entertainment have become popular, and shadow puppetry, which used to make children very excited, has gradually disappeared from the market.
It has become an ancient heritage placed in a museum, gradually losing its vitality.
Yan Shixun rubbed his temples, and with a headache recalled the scenes he saw when he first walked into the room. He tried to compare them with the various plays he had seen, but it was in vain.
When he asked Zhang Wubing, Zhang Wubing just shook his head blankly: "Before coming here, I looked through the materials prepared by the director team, and saw a few of the more famous Baizhihu shadow puppet shows, but none of them had the plot we just saw."
Although Zhang Wubing knew even less about these inherited cultures, he simply compared the characters and felt that they did not match.
After all, in the scene they saw, there was a female character who looked like she was crying miserably. This feature is still very iconic. Comparing them one by one, it is very clear that this plot is not in the classic drama.
"But Brother Yan, what are you looking for?"
Zhang Wubing asked curiously, "Is there something wrong with that plot?"
"No."
Yan Shixun frowned: "If we can find the corresponding play, we can know its background and development, and know what kind of story it is, then there will be no problem."
"But if you don't find it..."
This would make Yan Shixun doubt whether the play really existed or was being played by him inexplicably.
For Yan Shixun, there is no such thing as coincidence.
He knew Zhang Wubing.
Although this little fool is always careless and forgetful, and because he has always been protected by his family, he is not familiar with the ways of the world and how to behave in society. Now that he is a director, he is still stumbling and groping forward.
If someone around this little fool had evil intentions and wanted to cheat him, he would probably be foolish enough not to realize that he was being cheated.
However, even with so many shortcomings, Zhang Wubing would not lie or deceive him.
Zhang Wubing said that he should have turned off the CD player.
Yan Shixun believed this sentence.
Even though they saw the CD player playing with their own eyes when they came in, Yan Shixun still wanted to find evidence to prove that it was indeed Zhang Wubing who forgot to turn it off, so that he would truly believe that Zhang Wubing had remembered it wrong.
However, no evidence was found.
The disc that was played when they came in was not in the pile.
No, Yan Shixun even doubted whether it was a disc - or whether there were ghosts at work, manipulating the shadow puppets to perform a whole new story.
Yan Shixun's eyes swept across the room and fell on the shelf where magazines were placed.
The cover of one of the magazines caught his eye.
He walked over with his long legs, pulled out the dusty magazine from the shelf, and gently opened it with his slender fingers.
Dust particles float in the light.
Yan Shixun lowered his long eyelashes slightly and his lips gradually pursed.
This is a magazine that interviewed several masters of Baizhihu shadow puppetry. However, the words "Baizhihu shadow puppetry" did not appear in the interview content. Instead, it was replaced by "Southwest shadow puppetry".
Yan Shixun noticed that these masters were the ones on the poster, and each of them had the surname Bai.
This was a village with the same surname, and everyone was related to each other. The most famous person was the inheritor that Zhang Wubing had been looking for in vain.
Master Bai's ancestors moved here from other areas 28 generations ago and settled down in a place close to mountains and rivers. They resumed their old business of shadow puppetry to make a living.
Other relatives came to seek refuge, and out of pity for them, the first-generation Master Bai taught this craft to those relatives as well.
By the time of Master Bai's generation, many people in the village had learned this craft, made a living from it, and formed their own school, which was called Southwestern Shadow Play, different from shadow puppetry in other regions.
In the magazine, except for the inheritor Master Bai who is low-key and humble, the other shadow puppet masters interviewed are all overly confident in themselves and shadow puppets.
They even said that Southwestern shadow puppetry will become the mainstream of shadow puppetry. From now on, whenever people mention shadow puppetry, they will only think of Southwestern shadow puppetry. All others are inferior products and not worth mentioning.
The reporter from the magazine seemed surprised by the answer, and even found it absurd. When he asked the question again, he could not even hide his sarcastic tone and asked several people: Why are you so confident?
Those people seemed to feel that they were looked down upon by the reporters and were also angered. They said that the essence of Southwestern shadow puppetry lies in the bones under the skin. In order to promote Southwestern shadow puppetry, they specially invited a top carpenter master to specialize in studying the skeleton that supports the shadow puppetry.
When the master develops new techniques, Southwestern shadow puppetry will go global and become famous all over the world.
Several of them even proudly told the reporter that they should cherish the opportunity to interview them now. When they become world masters in the future, small magazines like this will have to queue up to even meet them, and it depends on whether they are willing to meet. If the money is not enough, forget about the interview.
Although Yan Shixun did not see the interview scene in person, the text of the interview record alone was enough for him to reconstruct everyone's image and tone in his mind.
He seemed to have traveled through time and returned to the interview site of that year.
Baizhihu Shadow Play, also known as Southwestern Shadow Play, was once very popular, and many magazines and newspapers came to interview and promote it.
In an era dominated by print media, for many craftsmen, that was a very happy and affirming thing.
But obviously, except for the inheritor, the other shadow puppet masters interviewed all had a very high opinion of themselves, which quickly reduced the interviewers' sense of responsibility and the situation became deadlocked.
Finally, it was the inheritor, Master Bai, who spoke up and modestly said that there were still many shortcomings in Southwestern shadow puppetry and that efforts must be made to improve it. This eased the situation and ended the interview.
Yan Shixun flipped through several magazines from that year and found that the photos of these masters taken when they were interviewed showed that they looked much younger than they did on the posters, with a difference of several decades.
He looked through the times in the magazines.
Sure enough, these interviews took place about forty years ago, when Xie Lin was still a child.
However, as Yan Shixun flipped through the magazines one by one, he found that the tone of these people's interviews became more and more condescending, as if they would become world celebrities tomorrow, and they had full and even overflowing confidence in the future of shadow puppetry.
On the contrary, Master Bai, who was originally an orthodox inheritor, became more and more low-key and silent. Even when the interview situation was awkward, he no longer spoke to resolve it.
One of the reports in a newspaper thirty years ago attracted Yan Shixun's attention.
This report is different from all the other interviews.
There is a person who has never appeared before, but appeared in this report.
Master carpenter, Mr. Zheng.
In a world where everyone has the surname Bai and is a shadow puppeteer, a carpenter named Zheng...
It seems that this person is the one mentioned by several other shadow puppet masters in previous interviews who will help promote southwestern shadow puppetry.
In this report, Master Bai also seemed very happy. Even in the photos published in the newspaper, one could see a smile on his face.
He affectionately took Master Zheng's arm, looked at the camera together, and made an awkward "Yeah!" gesture, looking quite youthful and energetic.
Yan Shixun's gaze fell on the other masters in the photo.
Except for Master Bai, everyone else's expression was not very good.
Very strange.
Although these masters said in previous interviews that their shadow puppets would be better after inviting a carpenter master, when the carpenter master actually came, their faces became very strange.
The look he gave Master Zheng was filled with undisguised greed and jealousy.
Yan Shixun's hand holding the newspaper paused for a moment.
He doesn't understand shadow puppetry.
But he was very familiar with this look.
Evil spirits and ghosts are often caused by people’s negative emotions.
Amid everyone's jealousy, malice, and anger, lives are in danger and the living become wronged souls.
Yan Shixun has been dealing with ghosts and evil spirits for many years. He has seen such looks countless times from all walks of life or from the neighbors on the street.
These shadow puppet masters seemed to want to snatch life from Master Zheng.
Only during the ten years of interviews, Master Bai, who was gradually marginalized by them, although he never praised shadow puppetry excessively,
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