Demon King's Repayment - chapter 33
“I lived alone in the backyard back then and rarely had any contact with outsiders. I just remember that the place where I lived was carved with beams and painted buildings and magnificent, occupying most of the street,” she said while looking at the familiar street.
She only knew that her husband’s surname was Li, but she didn’t even know his full name. Finding a young man with the surname Li fifty years ago in a densely populated town was a little difficult. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Yuan Xiang, tired of walking, sat in a teahouse to rest. She ordered a pot of Longjing dim sum on the second floor lounge and put Nan He and Hui Teng’s cages on the table together to let them breathe.
In a corner of the teahouse venue was a stand. A storyteller who was over sixty years old was wearing a long gown and holding a Sanxian* in his arms. He was talking on the stage vividly.
He told exactly the story between Hui Teng and Li Sheng fifty years ago. It turned out that there was a lot of trouble in the local area back then and some literati and influential people wrote the storytelling “Li Sheng Meets Snake” according to the legend and it was still talked about by local residents.
The gentleman shook the strings, the sound of the strings turned a thousand times, like a cry grabbing the audience’s attention.
“But since Li Sheng married the snake wife, his family business prospered day by day. No one knew it back then. Just outside the door on this purple stone street, he rode a horse from the street for a quarter of an hour. It’s not out of the scope of Li house. The house’s courtyard was filled with strange flowers and stones, charming slaves and maidservants, gold bricks paved the ground, silver forged into mountains and rocks, spiritual grass wrapped in branches and red wax for firewood. The owner was generous. The guests sang songs there every night. It was splendid wealth and endless glory.”
“If you could have such glory and wealth, let alone marry a snake wife, even if there is a fox wife or even a ghost wife, I will also marry her!” A man in the audience heard it and hit the table.
“I heard that the snake wife, who looks like an immortal, could hook the soul of a man with just one glance. Isn’t it right?” Another person roared.
For these ordinary people who listened to books, the charming character was the most attractive one in the story.
“You guys, stay calm and listen to me.” The storyteller shook his head and said, “The lady was coaxed by Li Sheng and kept in the backyard, so that no one could easily see her. So only a few people who had seen her said she was really good-looking. Old and talented people said that when they were young, they were fortunate to have a glimpse of the fairy face.”
The gray-haired old man talked about his childhood and he was slightly proud, “Back then, I was a poor child who was less than ten years old, kicked a sepak takraw ball* into the backyard of Li house when I was playing cuju (like football). I couldn’t bear to lose it and jumped over the wall to find it. I came down from the wall and heard a woman’s laughter coming from afar, so I quietly searched for it only to see a woman in green sitting on a swing in the courtyard. It was high up in the sky, making a series of bell-like laughter. I was a child back then, although I only caught a glimpse of the lady, I will never forget it.”
“Tell us what the lady looked like,” the people off the court were anxious.
The storyteller sighed and pulled the Sanxian. The melody was mellow and beautiful and sang along with the tune.
“Her waist was slender, crescent moon beautiful crimson lips, full autumn water eyes and sentimental, misty and scented body, she was like a fairy fallen into the earth.”
The listeners at the scene thought of the beauty of the woman fifty years ago and exclaimed.
Even Yuan Xiang and Nan He were attracted by the old man’s way of speaking and leaned on the railing to look down.
Hui Teng straightened her head with her tail crossed in the cage and nodded repeatedly, “Yes, that’s right. I’m just so beautiful.”
“It’s a pity that the world is insatiable and the desires are hard to settle. Li had such a beautiful woman, splashing the sky and wealth, but he wasn’t very satisfied. He wanted to have a good future, but he couldn’t stand the hard work of studies. So he had the idea of getting together with Gao Xiaolang, Miss Gao. Holding gold mountains, he went to her door to ask for marriage and also coaxed that snake lady into being a concubine.”
There was another sighing and discussion in the audience.
Someone said, “Niangzi (Shiniang) was wild and charming but it was a private meeting at night, without a formal marriage ceremony. She should be a concubine.”
There were also poor scholars who substituted themselves into the story, pretending to be infatuated, “If there will be a beautiful woman who could help me study hard, then I will live up to her friendship.”
The sound of the Sanxian on the stage turned sharp, noisy, like a jade falling on the plate, drums rang in unison and the story turned to the climax.
“Li Sheng headed up to the horse, proudly. When he married his bride, a strange wind blew on the side of the road carrying sand and rocks. The wind was turbulent and a pair of lanterns were raised in the sky swaying. Before it were the two eyes of a big snake in the mountains. The big snake opened its mouth and a fishy wind blew up and overturned the sedan chair. The bride rolled off the sedan chair and the groom fell off the horse. The group of people who came to welcome relatives turned their backs on their horses, crying for their fathers and their mothers. The guest officials asked what happened. It was the snake’s wife who in jealousy was unwilling to let him marry and came to stir up trouble in her true shape.”
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Thank you for the chapter! 🥰