The Wedding Party by Liu Xinwu

Author:Liu Xinwu [Xinwu, Liu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Cultural, Asia, China
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2021-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

No need to rehearse Forging the Bell, but there is something else that needs doing . . .

Drum Tower Street is unusually busy this afternoon.

Its official name is Outer Di’anmen Main Road, but Di’anmen Gate was demolished soon after Liberation, while the imposing bulk of the Drum Tower is still there just to the north and will probably be preserved as a valuable cultural artifact—maybe the street name should change? Don’t be too sad that the gate is gone. People who don’t know old Beijing often wrongly believe that Di’anmen was a majestic city gate like Tiananmen or Qianmen. But no, it was a single-story building with three arched doorways and a hipped roof—nothing special. Beijing’s temples—the Temple of Heaven, Temple of Earth, Temple of the Sun, and Temple of the Moon—still have this style of gate. The one at Di’anmen was a little larger, that’s all.

Shortly after one in the afternoon, Tantai Zhizhu stands at the northern end of this street—that is, at the foot of the Drum Tower. Anger, worry, panic, and confusion mingle in her eyes.

She was already exhausted from her fight with Li Kai last night, then first thing this morning she received news that Old Zhao, the jinghu player, and Old Tong, the percussionist, were preparing to jump ship. She’d been supposed to host Old Zhao, Old Tong, and the other musicians at her home for a unifying lunch, but that turned into a breakup meal.

Puyang Sun is an agent of chaos. He might not be a bad person, and perhaps he came today with the best of intentions, but no wonder Li Kai can’t stand the sight of him.

After the kerfuffle, they patched up the misunderstanding. Around eleven, everyone was sitting around the table eating as they discussed how to defeat Zhizhu’s “elder sister” by making Old Zhao and Old Tong come to their senses. Even Li Kai joined in—he grasped the urgency of securing victory at tomorrow’s Cuihualou dinner. Unfortunately, Puyang Sun had had quite a few drinks by this point and proceeded to talk nonsense.

To start with, he was just a little too insistent on keeping his idea on the table, at least as a backup. “If we manage to get Tong and Zhao, we’ll really have to up our game. Let’s build on the success of Mulan Joins the Army. Of course Zhuo Wenjun will have to be a smash hit, that goes without saying, but we’ll also need to keep pushing ourselves to put on new shows. When I walked past the Bell Tower today, I remembered something. For my sins, I got my degree at Fu Jen Catholic University. The campus isn’t far from here—on Dingfu Street, to the west of Front Sea. I often used to drink at Huixian Restaurant, north of the lake, and there I heard the story of the lady who was cast in the bell. It’s a sad tale. The Bell Tower was being rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Qianlong. The artisan,

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