Yipin Tang

Chapter 59 Shadow Play

Old man Liu was originally a storyteller in Dongqian Lane, and he also read books when he was young. However, in the troubled times at the end of the Sui Dynasty, he was a poor scholar who couldn't even eat enough. Even the daughter-in-law couldn't get it, and the older I got, the more I lost my mind.

Because I have read books, I have been struggling for several years, and I can barely make ends meet by relying on storytelling every day. During the famine a few years ago, I took in two children. Knowing what happened, they waited anxiously until dark, holding hands and crying.

Old man Liu took pity on them and took them in. The girl was named Liu Yuanyuan, and the boy was named Liu Baoer.

Old man Liu would take them with him when he was telling a book, Liu Yuanyuan played the pipa at the side, and Liu Baoer held up a tray and walked around the crowd listening to the book to thank them one by one.If you go to five or six teahouses in a day, you can earn more than ten or twenty renminbi, or even thirty renminbi when you are lucky.

Liu Yuanyuan learned how to play the pipa from a kind person. The pipa is an old thing that Liu spent all his savings on and bought from a second-hand dealer.

Because old man Liu's good storytelling can also bring a lot of business to the teahouse, there is no teahouse to coax them away. Every time he reads a book, he will give them a pot of tea for free.

One day half a month ago, old man Liu was telling a story in a small teahouse in Dongqian Lane as usual. Liu Baoer walked around the crowd with a tray dragging his nose, and suddenly felt the tray in his hand sink. Occupying more than half of the tray, that's a whole bag of money!

Liu Bao'er looked up and saw a young gentleman looking at him with a smile.

From then on, old man Liu took Liu Yuanyuan and Liu Baoer to a restaurant called Dengxianlou. Liu Baoer thought that Dengxianlou was the most magnificent restaurant he had ever seen.

When you get here, you don't need Liu Bao'er to walk around with a tray. Old man Liu will have a fixed income of [-] Wen every day. If you meet a generous customer, the reward money will be more than the sum of your income in the past month. Here The customers are very rich.

Old man Liu is a scholar. It was a long time ago. Even if he is still a scholar now, he has to support himself and his two children, so he has no reason to refuse the invitation of Prince Wang.

As a scholar, Old Man Liu has failed, but he has deep experience and wide knowledge, otherwise he would not be the best storyteller in Dongqian Lane. Give him a manuscript on unknown paper.

White Fox, A Chinese Ghost Story, Journey to the West, Butterfly Lovers, Liaozhai...

Prince Wang is naturally Wang Xiang. He was keen on promoting stage plays not because of Ningxiang them, nor for the development of lofty ideas such as culture. He just purely felt that the entertainment items in the Tang Dynasty were too scarce. As a modern People, Wang Xiang feels very bored every night after eating early and doing nothing. He is not the old prince Xin who lives in Yicui Building day and night, so he doesn't mind playing children's games with Li Zhi and Little Lolita from time to time. .

When rebuilding Dengxian Tower, he considered another traditional entertainment project—shadow puppetry.

It is unrealistic to move the stage play to the third floor of Dengxian Tower. Firstly, the place is not spacious enough, and secondly, it is not easy to perform stage play, and it is impossible to perform for a long time.

Shadow puppetry does not have these problems, it does not take up space, and it is very easy to perform. The most important thing is that no matter what the story is, two people can handle it, so Wang Xiang invited old man Liu to come over, and paid a salary of [-] Wen per day. And all the rewards from the guests belong to Old Man Liu.

There are not many guests who dine on the third floor of Dengxian Tower on weekdays, so the old man Liu does not perform many performances every day. In his spare time, he makes some paper figurines for backup or teaches Liu Baoer how to play shadow puppetry. Liu Yuanyuan still plays the pipa, and Liu Baoer becomes the old man Liu His partner, Old Man Liu, thinks that shadow puppetry can be passed down from generation to generation as an ancestral craft.

"welcome."

Old man Liu was concentrating on carving a paper figure of Monkey King, when he suddenly heard the sweet voice of the welcoming girl, he knew that there was a guest coming, so he quickly put away his tools, so that Liu Yuanyuan and Liu Baoer, who were surrounded by him, were ready to go The guests who dine on the third floor are not ordinary people.

Ju Yiya took Aqinu up to the third floor. She felt that there was magic everywhere in the fairy building. It was hot outside, but cool and pleasant inside. There were also two beautiful girls standing at the stairs, who saw her coming up When she was talking, she said something she didn't understand, and after Aquinu explained it, she realized that she was welcoming herself.

You etiquette led them to sit down at a big round table, and Ju Yiya asked curiously: "Aqinu, are all the restaurants in the Central Plains like this?"

Aquinu shook her head in doubt: "This restaurant seems to be very different from other restaurants, perhaps it is because of the new changes in the Tang Dynasty in the past few years." After all, it was a few years ago that she came to the Tang Dynasty last time up.

No wonder she felt this way, not to mention in Gaochang, even in Datang, it is rare to see such a big round table. In general restaurants, there are small tables, and everyone sits on the ground to eat. How can there be such a middle table? A large round table surrounded by elegant armchairs.

But it's really comfortable to sit on.

Datang is a state of the highest state, merchants from the Western Regions, orchids and the like are not uncommon in Chang'an City.

The etiquette did not show any abnormality because of the strange clothes of Ju Yiya and Aqinu. They smiled and served two glasses of iced juice, and then handed over the unique menu and program list of Dengxianlou.

Although Ju Yiya could understand and speak a little of the Central Plains language, she couldn't understand the text at all. She threw the menu and program list to Aquinu and tasted the iced juice curiously. This was the first time she saw the iced juice. For something like fruit juice, the white layer on top is crushed ice?How can there be ice this season?
"It's really ice! Aquinu, try it quickly, it's so sweet, so icy!"

Aquinu was looking at the menu, and when she heard Ju Yiya's exclamation, she put down the menu and took a sip of iced juice, her eyes were full of surprise.

"Datang is really a magical place." Ju Yiya exclaimed.

"Aquinu, what's written on it?"

"One is the menu, and the other is... the program list."

"What's the program?" Ju Yiya asked curiously.

"Princess, don't you want to hear stories? There are different stories on this program list. It seems that we can order them."

Ju Yiya's eyes lit up: "Is it the same as the show downstairs?"

Aqinu asked the etiquette waiting at the side and explained to Ju Yiya: "The performance downstairs is called stage play, and the performance here is called shadow puppetry."

"What is a shadow play?"

"I don't know either." Aquinu shook her head. She had never heard of stage plays or shadow puppet shows.

"Why don't we try one?"

After hearing Aqinu's suggestion, Ju Yiya nodded repeatedly and said, "Okay, ok! Aqinu, please tell me the story on it."

(End of this chapter)