Free Web NovelChapter 2129: Chapter 1990: What Use Are Ornate Carriages and White Horses? (Part 4)
"They’re Marching Ants!" Song Xiaodong reminded everyone.
"Head of the Song clan, this is the Corpse Ant Formation, your Dragon Gate Turning Palm can break it!" The Young Taoist turned his head and said to Song Xiaodong.
Song Xiaodong pondered briefly, then took a porcelain bottle from his Huai. The moment he opened it, a burst of overpowering fragrance wafted out.
Song Xiaodong poured out a pellet, a pitch-black elixir, then hurled it hard; no one knew exactly where it landed.
After the elixir hit the ground, the ants beneath their feet changed. They no longer crawled along the ground at random, but began moving in a single direction, and stopped gnawing at people’s clothes and bodies.
If Song Xiaodong and the others had been looking from the sky, they would have clearly seen the ants begin to circle endlessly around a certain point. freёwebnoѵel.com
The center of the circle, of course, was that elixir Song Xiaodong had thrown.
Biologists call this phenomenon an ant death spiral.
Marching Ants have no eyes; they rely on pheromones to communicate. Usually a single lead ant heads the column, and the other Marching Ants blindly follow. If the lead ant loses its sense of direction, the ants’ pheromones become chaotic, and in the end the entire Marching Ant column, millions strong, will enter a death spiral, circling around a certain center point until they collapse from exhaustion and die of hunger and fatigue.
The Young Taoist had no patience to wait for the Marching Ants to starve and drop dead. He glanced at Song Xiaodong and the others and said, "Retreat to where there are no ants."
The group obediently backed away to an ant-free area.
The Young Taoist drew in another breath, then spat out a tongue of fire. The ants covering the ground began to burn rapidly; the fire spread in an instant, as if the whole ant-carpeted ground were stuffed with tinder-dry willow catkins, as if the entire surface were paved with black gunpowder. The flame flashed across, igniting and going out just as quickly, leaving behind a layer of pitch-black powder, and the air was filled with a pungent, sour stench.
Before they could catch their breath, a burst of theatrical music suddenly sounded by their ears—big drum, side drum, clappers, bone flute, pipa—playing out a mournful, plaintive melody.
The singing and music drifted now near, now far; one could not tell where it came from, could not judge distance, could not discern a direction.
Actors are the most sinister and poisonous kind among Fierce Ghosts.
When the prelude ended, a woman’s voice began to sing, beat by beat, the enunciation perfect, the tone full and round.
"For what reason have you come crying out so, saying that Lord Yang’s bones have some faults? Listen while I tell it all from the beginning."
"Here I clearly hand over everything in full; there you yourself will receive each and every item in person, and leave behind a written receipt without a single falsehood."
"This here is the sun-bone and the eight fragments of the skull,"
"This here is the chest bone without entrails,"
"This here is the shoulder bone with skin still on,"
"This here is the kneecap bone with shanks complete,"
"This here is the backbone with all the ribs attached."
...
Song Xiaodong also knew which opera this was: "Haotian Tower: Meng Liang Steals the Bones."
A yin opera, sung for the dead.
As soon as the lyrics sounded, the voice abruptly gained direction; it was coming from the east.
Song Xiaodong and the others looked toward the east and saw only bright lights blazing there. Behind a sand dune, a Dragon Boat was slowly sailing forward through the desert.
The huge dragon head was raised high, a pair of deathly pale lanterns hanging where the eyes should be. The entire Dragon Boat had a camel’s head and a deer’s antlers, rabbit eyes and ox ears, the neck of Snakes and the belly of a sea-serpent, carp scales and eagle claws, whiskers at its mouth, a bright pearl at its jaw, a reverse scale at its throat, gliding noiselessly toward Song Xiaodong and the others.
The Dragon Boat had no oars, no flowing water beneath it; it simply moved of its own accord over the sea of sand, without wind.
On the Dragon Boat was an entire troupe: leading male, leading female, clown, secondary female, painted-face role, all present, twelve people in total. Four played accompaniment—one beating the drum, one blowing the flute, one striking the clappers, one banging the gong—all with false beards and thick eyebrows. There were eight others; seven sat to one side, and only one dan role, dressed in a long gown with two wide, flowing water sleeves, was performing.
The Young Taoist did not move, the Old Taoist did not move, and neither Song Xiaodong, Sun Yiyi, Chu Xianling, Zhao Ruonan nor the others dared to move.
The Dragon Boat halted when it was still some distance away from Song Xiaodong and the others, and began to sing again, but now with a different opera.
"I cry once, Young Master Shang; I call once, my Merchant Husband, oh my Merchant Husband."
"Qin Xuemei, seeing her husband’s spirit, bursts into loud lamentation: I cry once, Young Master Shang, my short-lived husband."
"I had truly hoped to wear the Phoenix Crown and Xia Pei Robe, yet who would have thought that today I would be putting on Filial Piety Clothes."
"As of now this scene is entirely changed; the bridal hall I longed for has become a mourning hall."
Chapter 1993: Presumptuous!
"Qin Xuemei Mourns at the Wake."
Song Xiaodong silently recited the name of this opera in his heart.
The two pieces just now were both Yuan zaju; according to research, this one should be a repertoire piece from the Ming Dynasty or Qing Dynasty.
This Fierce Ghost is quite well-versed in the development of drama.
Especially yin operas and funerary operas.
The young woman in green robes was delicately beautiful and demure; her eyes brimmed with tears that glittered, two clear tear tracks running down her cheeks. Her water sleeves fluttered and flew, and all those present could not help but be moved to tears by her plaintive singing.
"Don’t listen! Cover your ears!"
The Young Taoist turned back to warn them, and saw that many of the warriors under Zhao Ruonan already had dazed eyes and could not help but start walking toward the Dragon Boat. At his shout they snapped out of it and hastily blocked their ears.
A violent gust in the desert swept up the Yellow earth and sand. When the sand-laden wind dispersed, the space before the Dragon Boat was packed full of dense, shadowy figures. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
They were precisely the Three Thousand Lost Souls that the Young Taoist had previously burned to ashes.
At first the Lost Souls’ shadows were whole human forms. But as soon as the woman on the stage opened her mouth to sing, these silhouettes began to rot: chunks of flesh and maggots sloughed off and littered the ground, until they became no more than a handful of Yellow earth, then re-formed again, and the cycle continued.
What does it feel like to repeatedly experience your own body gradually rotting away?
The Young Taoist looked at this scene in puzzlement.
The shadowy Lost Souls all remained silent, listening, spellbound, to the grief-laden lyrics sung by the young woman in green.
