Chapter 30: The Opera

1,147 words

The old man’s face flushed crimson with excitement. He threw his head back—another piece of silver flew from his hand, landing on the stage. More thanks, more bows, more of that same hollow, grinding gratitude.

Li Huowang was tired of watching this farce. He yawned, stretched out on the straw stack, and said to Zhao Wu beside him, “I’m going to shut my eyes for a bit. You keep watch.”

“Yes, shixiong.”

When Li Huowang opened his eyes again, the sun was high overhead. The others were sitting around chatting—looks like everyone had spent the night crammed into this pile of straw. In the distance, the stage was already dismantled. The Lü family was loading gear into their wagon boxes.

“Zhao Wu,” Li Huowang asked, interrupting the idle talk, “how many days of grain do we have left?”

“Not much. We can stretch it three days, if we’re careful.” Zhao Wu answered without hesitation.

Li Huowang dug out the handful of copper coins and the small lump of black silver he’d swiped from the supply room. He handed them over. “Go into the village and trade for some food. We’ve still got a long stretch of road ahead.”

Nearly twenty mouths to feed, and most of them young men—the grain they’d hauled all the way from Qingfeng Temple was almost gone.

Zhao Wu, still riding on the fool’s back, was about to send the fool into the village when he stopped himself. He thought for a moment, then called over one of the cleaner-looking little acolytes. He put the money in the boy’s hands and gave him quiet instructions.

Li Huowang pushed himself up off the straw pile and walked toward the dismantled stage.

“Elder,” he said to Lü Zhuangyuan, “when do we set out?”

Lü Zhuangyuan looked anxious. “Little Daoist, please bear with me a moment. My daughter-in-law took Xiuer and ran off somewhere this morning. We’ll leave as soon as she gets back.”

Li Huowang frowned. “Oh? Missing? Isn’t that her right there?”

He pointed toward the village entrance. Luo Juan was walking toward them, a length of cloth in her hands, her daughter in her arms, beaming.

The sight of his wayward daughter-in-law sent Lü Zhuangyuan into a rage. He grabbed his pipe-stem and charged toward her, unleashing a torrent of curses.

Faced with her father-in-law’s fury, Luo Juan looked completely innocent. “Dad, weren’t you the one who told me to go into the village to buy cloth? You said the cloth in town is expensive…”

After venting his anger in a furious burst, Lü Zhuangyuan turned back to Li Huowang with a placating smile. “Little Daoist, no problem now. Let’s go.”

“Hey—Dad, don’t leave yet! When I went to buy the cloth, I landed us a job.”

Both Li Huowang and Lü Zhuangyuan turned to look at her. “What kind of job?”

“What jobs can we do, if not opera jobs? The client is that gentleman who tossed up the most tips last night! Go take a look—he says he wants to discuss something in detail.”

The moment he heard that, Lü Zhuangyuan stopped in his tracks. He turned around slowly and grinned sheepishly at Li Huowang.

Li Huowang didn’t need words. The man’s expression said it all. “No matter, Director Lü. Make your money first. One more day won’t hurt.”

“Oh, a thousand apologies, a thousand apologies. This old man won’t be long.” Lü Zhuangyuan shoved his pipe-stem back into his collar and trotted cheerfully into the village, towed by his daughter-in-law.

Li Huowang went back to the straw pile. With nothing better to do, he picked up the dented Daoist bell and examined it closely.

If he really could command the Wandering Lord, his strength would jump enormously.

But the thing was useless as it was. He had to find a way to fix it.

He turned it over and over, inspecting every detail. There was nothing wrong with it except the only possible problem: the bell’s wall had been crushed inward.

“What if I push it back into shape? Would it work then?”

He thought for a moment. He set the bell on a flat stone, then picked up another rock and swung it hard against the bulging side.

The clang hit him like a spike through the skull. He almost dropped the rock. Pain lanced through his head.

“That’s not going to work.” He shook his dizzy head hard. “I need to ask if there’s a blacksmith in this village.”

Just then, he saw the acolytes dragging two sacks toward him.

He tucked the bell away and hurried over with the fool and Zhao Wu.

“Shixiong Li, this is all we could get,” one of the acolytes said, his young face full of unease. They were children, but they were capable—they’d had to be. The ones who weren’t capable were already dead by Danyangzi’s hand.

Li Huowang pulled open the sack. Dried sweet potatoes.

“These won’t last us long, shixiong, even with nothing else to go with them. The fool eats a jin and a half in one sitting alone. And too much of this stuff gives you heartburn.”

Zhao Wu’s words made the big, simple, bald-headed fool hang his head in shame. “I… I’ll… eat less! Don’t… don’t leave me behind.”

Not enough food. Li Huowang stared at the sack, turning over strategies in his head.

According to Lü Zhuangyuan, they still had a long way to go before they reached Jianye City. If they ran out of grain partway there, his group of nearly twenty couldn’t very well strip bark off trees.

He reached into his robes again. His fingers closed around a gold ring wrapped in red string.

He held it for a moment, thinking. Then he reached behind him and pressed it into the hand of Bai Lingmiao, who was clutching the hem of his robe.

“Trade this in for food,” he said.

Then he pulled out Xuan Yang’s jade pendant and handed it to Zhao Wu.

“Shixiong, how am I supposed to trade this? There’s no pawnshop in a village like this. Nobody can make change, and these dirt-farming clodhoppers probably don’t even know what jade is worth.”

“Can’t trade the pendant for grain, either,” Li Huowang muttered, frustrated. Then he saw Lü Zhuangyuan and his daughter-in-law walking back toward him.

“Little Daoist,” Lü Zhuangyuan said, looking deeply embarrassed, “I’ve run into a bit of a problem with my business. Would you do me the favor of helping out?”

“Director Lü, I don’t know how to perform opera. I don’t think I can help you with your problem.” It sounded absurd—what, did the old man want him to get up on stage and wave a sword around?

“No, no—you can help. It’s just…” Lü Zhuangyuan lowered his voice, glancing around furtively. He leaned in close. “Master Hu asked me to perform a ghost opera…”

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Reading Guide Decoding

Grain, Gigs, and Ghosts — Survival Logistics

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Ghost Opera (鬼戏): A specialized form of Chinese folk opera performed to appease restless spirits, often requested by the dead or by spirits who have not yet passed on. In the Dao-Twisted World, a "ghost opera" is not just a spooky theme—it's a literal transaction with the supernatural. A living client requesting one is already unusual; a human client asking for a ghost opera hints at either extreme piety, a hidden motive, or a dangerous connection to the spirit world. This is a significant escalation in the world's lore, since it implies that spirits can hire performers and that the living can act as intermediaries for the dead.

Daoist Bell (道铃): A ritual handbell used in Daoist exorcism and summoning. Its sound is believed to call spirits, repel evil, or focus ritual energy. A dented bell is not just imperfect—it may produce a discordant note that disrupts its intended effect or even causes physical harm, as Li Huowang discovers. The bell's broken state is a tactile reminder that in this world, every tool carries a cost and every repair attempt can backfire.

Gold Anklet (金脚环): A traditional Chinese ornament often given as a betrothal gift or family heirloom. Its appearance here signals Bai Lingmiao's trust and sacrifice—she is willing to give up a personal treasure to help the group survive. In a village economy, however, such an item has no practical value unless the recipient knows where to pawn it. This highlights the gap between the Dao-Twisted World's monetary systems and the gritty barter economy of rural life.

Chapter Overview

The morning after the opera performance, Li Huowang wakes to a concrete problem: his group is nearly out of food, and the road to Jianye is long. While the Lü family opera troupe prepares to leave, Luo Juan returns with unexpected news—she's landed a paying gig from the wealthy patron who showered them with silver the night before. The catch? The job is a ghost opera, and the client wants to talk terms in person. Li Huowang, meanwhile, grapples with his own resource crisis: his dented Daoist bell is still broken, his silver is useless in a village without a pawnshop, and his only remaining asset is a jade pendant that nobody here can appraise. The chapter is a masterclass in low-stakes, high-tension logistics—the kind of gritty survival problem-solving that makes the Dao-Twisted World feel lived-in and dangerous, not just theatrically spooky.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang's group faces a genuine food shortage: dried sweet potatoes won't last more than a few days for twenty hungry young men.
He attempts to repair the Daoist bell by hammering it back into shape, but the piercing sound nearly knocks him unconscious—suggesting the bell retains some power even in its damaged state.
Luo Juan demonstrates her value to the troupe by securing a paid performance with the wealthy Hu, revealing her street-smart initiative despite her father-in-law's grumbling.
Li Huowang improvises a survival solution: he hands Bai Lingmiao a gold anklet to pawn and offers Xuan Yang's jade pendant to Zhao Wu, but neither transaction is straightforward in a poor farming village.
The chapter ends on a loaded note: Lü Zhuangyuan reveals the job is a "ghost opera," and the client wants to speak with Li Huowang specifically, hinting at supernatural stakes beneath the routine performance.
The group's social dynamics are reinforced: the acolytes are competent but traumatized children; the fool is ashamed of his appetite; Bai Lingmiao remains a silent, trusting presence behind Li Huowang.

Reading Guide

This chapter is a breather episode that does something the novel does brilliantly: it makes mundane survival problems feel just as tense as a monster fight. The food shortage, the broken bell, the useless silver, the jade pendant nobody can appraise—these aren't filler; they're the gritty scaffolding that makes the supernatural horror land harder. Pay attention to how Li Huowang thinks now: he's no longer a confused victim reacting to terror. He's a pragmatic leader who assesses assets, delegates tasks, and tries to fix tools even when the fix hurts. The ghost opera introduction is the real hook—it promises that the next chapter will drag him back into the world of hungry spirits and bargaining with forces he doesn't understand. For now, enjoy the rare moment of sunlight and the grinding stress of logistics. It won't last.