After checking one last time that all his artificial fingernails were securely fastened, Qin Siyu took his pipa and sat in a chair by the window.
The sea was visible below. Before the enormous, brightly lit floor-to-ceiling windows, Qin Siyu sat with the pipa in his arms, his back to the view. The West Coast sunshine had gilded the shimmering sea, and he lowered his eyes while waiting for Robert to be ready.
Robert sat facing him on the long sofa from which he usually admired the ocean. Aston sat a little farther away, at an angle to Qin Siyu, in an armchair.
Seated at the window with white light spilling over him, Qin Siyu seemed almost to have an air of holiness in Aston’s eyes.
He had practiced only two pieces, but both were highlights from Mr. Mei’s classic productions.
The first was The Drunken Beauty.
Qin Siyu lowered his eyes, spread his five fingers, and swept them across the strings.
In the past, productions of The Drunken Beauty had often included vulgar material, portraying Consort Yang as using drunkenness as an excuse for licentious behavior with court officials. But Mr. Mei disliked that approach. Instead, he emphasized the consort’s delicate sorrow: her anticipation, disappointment, loneliness, and desolation. He removed the wanton scenes, depicting her intoxication without making her grotesque. From beginning to end she remained dignified and elegant. He seemed to feel nothing but boundless sympathy for Consort Yang, without the slightest hint of lewd familiarity. That was also why the New Culture movement welcomed him.
Elio’s Notes: The scene describes Mei Lanfang’s reform of The Drunken Beauty as already complete in 1933. Mei’s son, Mei Baojiu, recalled that his father’s more extensive removal of suggestive dialogue and gestures came after World War II. The author’s chronology is retained here. Source: National Peking Opera Company, Mei Baojiu’s account.
Qin Siyu had never seen the performance himself, but hearing the elderly members of the troupe talk about it was enough.
At first she was full of anticipation and excitement. “This humble woman seems like Chang’e leaving the Moon Palace.” She was at the height of her beauty and confidence, a woman before whom “the beauties of the six palaces lost their color.”
Everything seemed playful, and the music was light. Qin Siyu raised his eyes. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window beside him, a row of seagulls skimmed across the water. His own eyes shone, and the corners of his mouth relaxed.
Then came the moment when “His Majesty turned his carriage toward the Western Palace.” Qin Siyu lowered his eyes again, and the strings rang out with a sharp zheng, conveying shock and tension. His five fingers opened like intricate flowers, blooming one after another, then withering one by one.
Then she would drink alone.
Sipping slowly, cup after cup.
Everything seemed to turn sorrowful.
The music remained elegant and refined, yet beneath it lay a faint instability. Even when the later melody seemed carefree, as though to say, “What difference does it make whether you’re here or not? I can drink alone,” that slight unsteadiness remained.
After all, she was drunk.
This was the famous “Admiring the Flowers” passage. In the actual opera, the performer playing Consort Yang would pick up flowers, pinch them, cradle them, and inhale their fragrance, handling them three times and performing three woyu reclining poses.
Elio’s Notes: Woyu, literally “reclining fish,” is a controlled, low-sweeping pose in traditional Chinese opera, used here when Consort Yang bends to admire or smell flowers. Mei Baojiu recalled that his father later reduced the traditional three repetitions to two. Source: National Peking Opera Company.
Qin Siyu couldn’t explain why, but although he hadn’t touched a drop of wine, every time he played this section he felt slightly drunk himself.
There were no flowers or plants in the sitting room for him to admire. With a somewhat languid expression, Qin Siyu suddenly looked toward Aston and gave him an idle smile.
A few of the fingers on Aston’s folded arms tightened.
Qin Siyu sat in a relaxed pose, his black hair bright in the sunlight, almost gilded. When the consort finally had to return to the palace, still thinking of the man she loved, Qin Siyu inadvertently glanced at Aston once more, as though reproaching him too for neglecting her.
When the piece ended, Robert was delighted. “This is art! This is pure art. Full of beauty, grace, sobriety, and stateliness.”
The compliments left Qin Siyu dazed.
“Thank you.” He stood, smiled, and held the pipa. “I’m glad you liked it. I’ve never drunk alcohol before, so I was worried I wouldn’t capture the right feeling or play it well.”
Robert was surprised. “You’ve never had a drink?”
“That’s right.” Qin Siyu smiled again. “I was only a few years old when Prohibition began.”
Robert was an elder, and he said fondly, “What a good boy.”
“…” Aston couldn’t help feeling that he was being ignored.
After a rest came the second piece, Farewell My Concubine.
Another of Mr. Mei’s signature productions, it had already been performed hundreds of times.
Naturally, Qin Siyu would play the sword-dance passage.
It called for a balance of strength and grace.
In that opera, Mr. Mei could be resounding and powerful one moment, alluring and graceful the next.
Mei Lanfang had studied taiji swordsmanship. According to accounts of his stage performances, the sword in his hand flashed up and down with heroic flair. He wore a cloak over his fish-scale armor and a ruyi headdress. His charm was tempered by a heroic spirit. There was no excessive passion or exaggeration; instead, he conveyed wisdom, breadth of experience, maturity, and composure. Qin Siyu wished he could see it, but could only imagine.
Qin Siyu’s fingers were long and slender. His left hand pressed the strings, sometimes lightly, sometimes with quick leaps; its movements flowed freely. At other moments he applied force, the tendons standing out, or trembled his fingers so that the strings gave a sobbing sound. The red cord and green peace pendant around his wrist shook with his movements.
His right-hand fingers were extraordinarily agile. He brushed and plucked the strings lightly, sometimes sweeping across them, sometimes hooking one upward. Aston thought that Qin Siyu was particularly well suited to pursuits requiring nimble fingers.
In a way, his parents had understood him rather well when they’d wanted him to make a living in Cantonese opera.
The pipa’s notes seemed laden with the dust and smoke of battle.
Surrounded by the enemy on all sides, his cause already lost, the Hegemon-King of Western Chu lay drunk in his tent. Beyond it stretched beautiful mountains, rivers, and a star-filled sky, mingled with soldiers’ cries of anguish.
Qin Siyu had read the script and knew there was a verse here: “For what do heroes contend through the ages? Only to leave the bones of the battlefield cold!”
These soldiers had fought here year after year, but what, in the end, had it all been for?
In Mr. Mei’s version, Yu Ji was tragic and beautiful, but clear-eyed as well.
The story was not merely one of yearning and heartbreak. The two seemed to understand, cherish, love, and respect one another. Yu Ji was kindhearted and compassionate, and her sword dance ended with her death as a declaration of resolve.
In this staging, there was actually some distance between them. Yu Ji danced with her sword while Xiang Yu reclined on his couch, their deep affection revealed only in the looks they exchanged.
The newspapers said that Mr. Mei’s two glances in this scene were extraordinarily delicate, a masterpiece of expression.
Perhaps because he was so immersed in the music, Qin Siyu too raised his eyes during a pause and, for no particular reason, looked toward Aston from across the room.
His gaze even held something slightly complicated and difficult to decipher.
Aston did not avert his eyes, though he remained outwardly unruffled.
When the music ended, Robert was once again carried away by it, and once again reluctantly pulled back to the present. “Truly enchanting! Truly soulful and captivating! Exquisite technique.”
Qin Siyu was overwhelmed by the praise again.
Robert, like Kingsley, was fond of using such long words.
Robert asked his opinion. “Sean, could I hear that last piece once more?”
“Of course,” Qin Siyu answered.
Just then the butler brought over several kinds of fruit, cut into small pieces.
Qin Siyu sat by the window, holding the pipa in one hand, while the other still wore its artificial fingernails.
Aston thought the hand with the picks attached might have trouble holding fruit, or might get fruit juice on it, so he took the initiative to help. Holding a grape between two fingertips, he offered it to Qin Siyu.
Qin Siyu paused in surprise and opened his mouth, but Aston suddenly raised his hand, turning the fingers holding the grape from horizontal to vertical. He let his wrist hang while keeping hold of the grape.
Thinking Aston might be worried that his mouth would brush the other man’s hand, Qin Siyu didn’t mind. He stretched his neck up to reach the grape.
Straightening his back, Qin Siyu let his soft hair slip down. His teeth caught the grape lightly, and he held it between them, giving a gentle tug.
But Aston did not let go immediately. Still holding the grape, he lowered his eyes to Qin Siyu’s lips.
His teeth held the grape lightly. His lips were red, and from that angle, part of his tongue was visible.
Seeing that Aston was still holding tightly to the grape, Qin Siyu looked completely puzzled and raised his eyes. “…???”
Their eyes met for two seconds. Aston released his grip, and Qin Siyu took the grape away in his mouth.
He bit down, and juice burst out.
Aston brought him a tissue, holding it between his fingertips. Qin Siyu grasped the tissue and pulled, but at first it wouldn’t come free. He looked at Aston again. Their eyes met for a second, and Aston released his fingers once more. “You’ll still need to wash your hands this way.”
“…I think I’d better do it myself.” Qin Siyu spat out the grape skin and wiped the corner of his mouth. Somewhat apologetic, he said to Robert, “Excuse me. I’m going to wash my hands.”
Robert replied, “Take your time. There’s no rush.”
Qin Siyu set the pipa on the sofa and went to wash his hands.
Aston’s eyes settled on the strings. Remembering how deftly Qin Siyu’s fingers had moved just now, he fell silent for a moment.
A few minutes later, Qin Siyu returned, sat down by the window again, adjusted the pipa, and casually plucked a few notes.
“Well,” he asked, “shall I play that last piece again now?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble, please,” Robert said, his reluctance to let the music go quite apparent.
“No problem.” Qin Siyu paused for a few seconds, lowered his eyes, and entered the mood of the piece. The sound of war drums beside the river in ancient times seemed to rip through the air once more. He moved abruptly, and his fingers struck the opening note.
The music sounded like pearls falling onto a jade plate.
Beacon smoke rose everywhere; ten thousand horses charged.
Surrounded by enemy forces on all sides, the music was vast and tragic.
Then, all at once, the melody turned plaintive.
Life and death were about to separate them. The music they’d once shared in harmony and their former closeness now seemed impossibly far away.
Both characters in this opera were going to die.
Within the plaintive music was a deeper desolation.
It was not confined to romance. The pipa also conveyed the bitterness of ambitions left unfulfilled, along with a kind of detachment before the impermanence of glory and decline.
The war drums outside the tent seemed to grow louder. The enemy appeared ready to charge in, already on the verge of reaching the curtain. It was time to say goodbye.
The strings were drawn to the limit of their tension, taut almost to breaking. The heroine of the story seemed to be pouring all her remaining life into this final dance, into the final sweep of her sword. When the music ended and the performers dispersed, her life would end with it.
The next moment would mean farewell forever.
Robert had seen the opera performed onstage. He knew the heroine would unexpectedly slit her own throat when the Hegemon-King was off guard. At this point in that performance, sorrow and regret had filled the audience, but the atmosphere had also been extraordinarily tense, with an undercurrent of unease.
He remembered the final instant: the sleeves falling, the figure onstage collapsing near the edge, and the auditorium falling into deathly silence as everyone waited.
But just as Qin Siyu drew his back and waist taut, about to play the final, wailing note, there was a sudden snap. One of the strings on his pipa had broken!
It had never been a particularly fine instrument, and the strings had already been played for years. Under the strain of today’s performance, one had finally snapped!
The broken string lashed against Qin Siyu’s face with a snap, leaving a red mark in an instant.
It was so sudden that Aston’s pupils contracted and his heart lurched!
Qin Siyu paused with the pipa in his arms, knowing where the string had snapped. He showed no sign of being frightened, merely glanced at the broken string and lightly brushed his cheek with the back of his fingers. After a few seconds he raised his eyes and met Aston’s gaze. Perhaps because he was still wearing the picks, the shape of his hand looked particularly graceful.
Everything had stopped abruptly, just before the climax.
Aston looked at Qin Siyu’s eyes, then at the bloodstreak on his cheek. At last they met each other’s gaze again.
A few seconds later, Qin Siyu looked away, picked up the broken string and examined it in his palm for several seconds, then rose with his pipa. Keeping the broken string against the instrument, he apologized to Robert, exchanged a few words, and left.
Robert apologized as well and tried to persuade Qin Siyu to stay, but Qin Siyu left anyway.
Once he was gone, the entire mansion felt silent and empty.
The piece remained unfinished, yet its echoes still lingered.
The emotions the music had lifted so high now had nowhere to settle, nowhere to return. Aston even felt a little restless.
Only one phrase remained.
Yet the music had stopped dead.
He walked to the window, pulled back the curtain, and watched Qin Siyu’s departing figure.
Qin Siyu turned past the front gate and vanished. Everything returned to its usual appearance, but the music he’d been playing was still unfinished, and Aston’s emotions had not subsided.
Yu Ji’s sword still rested against her neck. It could not be lowered, and Aston felt a faint, needle-pricking itch throughout his veins.