The Stage

1,304 words

Chapter 652: The Stage

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop laughing. Don’t go, husband.” Pulled back by Luo Juan, Lyu Juren finally settled into the armchair.

The single chair was a bit cramped for two people lying together, but neither of them minded.

“Husband, I’ll say this. Marrying you… I don’t regret it. Sure, you’re a bit of a coward, but you have a good heart.”

Lyu Juren lay there, listening to his wife open up her heart.

“If someone else had struck it this rich, they’d be out looking for concubines. Not you, though.”

“Back when Xiu’er was born, as soon as they saw she was a girl, your father’s face went blacker than the bottom of a wok. But you? You were grinning like a monkey.”

At this, Luo Juan suddenly remembered something. She propped herself up, a sly glint in her eye.

“Hey, did your father ever say he’d leave this opera garden to you? You know, after he’s gone? Like a deed or something?”

“Ahem.” Lyu Juren gave a light cough and rolled over. “Why drag my father into this?”

“Tch! How can you not get the details straight? I’m telling you, that younger brother of yours might look simple, but he’s sharp as a tack inside. Don’t let the youngest son snatch all the good things away!”

Lyu Juren suddenly sat up, a confused look on his face.

“Don’t try to run away every time I bring this up. Without this opera garden, are we supposed to beg in the streets when we’re old?”

“No, listen. Why has the opera out front stopped?”

Hearing this, Luo Juan perked up her ears. Sure enough, the sound of opera from the main hall had ceased, replaced by clamor. “What’s going on? Did they mess up the performance?”

“You stay here with Xiu’er. Don’t move. I’ll go check.”

Lyu Juren climbed off the rocking chair and headed for the side door.

But just as his hand reached for the door bolt, the wooden door was kicked open with a crash, and a mob of people wearing white headbands and black cloth draped over their shoulders stormed in.

Leading the charge was an old beggar with sores on his face. Lyu Juren recognized him from the entrance of the vegetable market.

Now, the man brandished a kitchen knife, waving it with triumphant menace. He rushed forward and swung the blade directly into Lyu Juren’s chest.

At Lyu Juren’s pained cry, the old beggar laughed with vindictive glee.

“So even you rich folk, who grew up in silks and fine food, know what pain is! Do you know what hunger is? Do you know what suffering is! Do you know what it’s like to be humiliated and looked down on?”

“Heaven isn’t fair! So today, we’re going to change Heaven!! Let you taste what it’s like to be poor!”

Feeling the searing pain, Lyu Juren looked at the crowd before him. The man, who had always been so timid, shoved the old man back with all his strength. He spun around and shouted at Luo Juan on the rocking chair: “Juan’er!! Run!!”

After yelling to her, Lyu Juren turned, ready to block the door and hold these people off. But at that moment, a blacksmith’s hammer slammed into his skull with brutal force.

Bone was no match for iron. The side of Lyu Juren’s head caved in. His body stiffened, and he crumpled to the floor.

“Husband!!!” Luo Juan’s scream was a wail of collapse. Ignoring the Fa Sect followers, she rushed toward Lyu Juren’s fallen body.

A burly old woman from the crowd charged forward, raising a pair of scissors. Hatred blazing in her eyes, she gritted her teeth and plunged the blades into Luo Juan’s neck.

“Let you enjoy the good life! Let you enjoy the good life! We’re both women! Why do I have to suffer while you get to live it up!”

Watching the light fade from Luo Juan’s eyes, the old woman picked up her scissors and walked toward the wailing Xiu’er on the ground.

Just as she was about to strike, the old beggar, still nursing the bruise from Lyu Juren’s shove, rushed over and scooped Xiu’er up.

“What do you think you’re doing! She’s just a child! Do you even have a heart? Going after a little one this age!”

“Move!”

“No!”

While the two were locked in their standoff, the others had already stormed into the backyard to start looting.

Seeing this, the two of them immediately dropped their quarrel and scrambled to join in, afraid of being too slow and missing the best spoils.

Before long, though, everyone came back out to the main street, their faces filled with disgust.

The back courtyard of the opera garden, it seemed, had little of value.

“I know where their real house is! Follow me!”

Hearing this, the mob flowed like a dark tide down the street.

Among the crowd, a thug with dragon tattoos on both arms casually set fire to the opera garden as he passed.

The old beggar, carrying the crying Xiu’er, trudged at the very back.

He had never had enough to eat, and his strength was poor. Carrying a small child on top of that, he gradually fell behind.

He thought about putting Xiu’er down, but a glance at the chaotic, war-torn surroundings made him grit his teeth and push on.

Then, he heard a commotion up ahead.

“Monster!”

“It’s a demon!”

“Don’t be afraid! Lord Yuer Shen’s power is vast! What’s one little demon! Get him! Kill him!”

Before the old beggar could even understand what was happening, he suddenly saw a burst of blood mist explode from within the distant crowd.

Then, like stalks of wheat in a field, they fell, row after row.

Finally, he saw what the thing was.

A Daoist in a blood-red robe, his entire body covered in black tendrils of flesh.

The Daoist wore a copper coin mask. Within his single eye, there were two pupils. Every black tendril was tipped with a razor-sharp weapon slick with blood. He looked little different from the monsters the mob had screamed about.

The instant he saw this thing, the old beggar had no time for anything else. He simply raised his bloodstained kitchen knife, twisted his body to shield the child behind him, and—

The next moment, his body simply split apart.

——

In the cascade of blood, Li Huowang caught sight of the wailing Xiu’er, and stopped short.

He hadn’t expected to see someone from the Lyu Family Troupe again, like this.

Xiu’er, her face red from crying, ran over to Li Huowang and tugged at the hem of his robe. One of her small hands pointed frantically back toward the opera garden.

A tentacle coiled around Xiu’er. Li Huowang stepped off the tiles and shot toward the direction she was pointing.

Soon, he saw the sign of the Lyu Family Troupe’s opera garden.

The once gold-and-silver-inlaid wooden frame was now completely swallowed by roaring flames.

Watching the collapsing floors inside, Li Huowang gritted his teeth and charged in.

The old stage was also wrapped in fire.

An old man with snow-white hair stood on the crumbling platform, half-crying, half-laughing in a manic frenzy as he bellowed operatic lyrics.

Beside him lay the bodies of his son and daughter-in-law.

“A bright moon rises in the east! I think of my aged mother in the hall! Serving a lord is like a lamb beside a tiger— loyalty done, piety left undone. The stars shift, the second watch ends; I cannot rest, I cannot sleep. The people of Gu County I have never wronged— why does the golden token summon me? From the watchtower, the third watch strikes, and a bright moon shines upon the hall!”

Lyu Zhuangyuan had gone mad.

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Reading Guide Decoding

A Burning Stage, A Shattered Family

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The Stage as a Symbol: In traditional Chinese opera, the stage is a world in miniature—a place where heroic tales and tragic fates are played out. Lyu Zhuangyuan’s final performance is a grotesque inversion: the theater is his real life, his family are the actual corpses, and the “song” is the sound of a mind breaking. It is a powerfully meta-theatrical way to frame total despair. The line between the opera and reality has been erased by grief.
The Fa Sect’s “Justice”: The mob’s rhetoric (“We’re going to change Heaven!”) is a dark echo of the novel’s core theme: the struggle against an unjust cosmic order. But here, it’s stripped of any higher philosophy. This is just the hatred of the downtrodden, weaponized by a cult into raw, murderous cruelty. It’s not revolution; it’s the same old cycle of violence, just with different hands on the blades. The class envy is real, but so is the hypocrisy—the mob immediately starts looting and bickering over spoils.
Lyu Zhuangyuan’s Song: The lyrics he sings are from the traditional opera “Measuring the Hero” (Diao Kou), in the scene “The Imperial Edict.” The story is about Kou Zhun, a loyal minister. The lyrics he chooses are poignant: “Serving a lord is like a lamb beside a tiger—loyalty done, piety left undone.” He is singing about the perfect trap of a loyal life—serve your master, and you fail your family. It’s a beautiful, devastating choice of words for a man whose entire family has just been murdered because they were unlucky enough to be slightly richer than a starving beggar.

Chapter Overview

Fellow readers, prepare yourselves. This chapter is a pure, unadulterated gut-punch. After a brief, tender moment of domestic peace between Lyu Juren and Luo Juan, the world of Dao Gui Yi Xian shows its true, merciless face. A mob of Fa Sect fanatics, driven by class resentment and raw desperation, descends on the Lyu family opera garden. The violence is sudden, visceral, and utterly without mercy. This isn’t a fight scene; it’s a massacre. We witness the brutal, unceremonious end of two characters we’ve come to know, and the shattering of a third. Li Huowang arrives too late to save them, but in time to witness the final, horrific spectacle: Lyu Zhuangyuan, the patriarch, completely unhinged, performing a solo opera on a burning stage over the bodies of his children. Get your emotional armor on, Daoists. This one hurts.

Key Plot Points

The chapter opens with a rare slice of quiet, intimate life. Lyu Juren and Luo Juan lie on a cramped chair, talking about their marriage and their future. Luo Juan makes Lyu Juren promise not to let his younger brother swindle him out of the opera garden, a rare piece of worldly scheming from her.
Lyu Juren notices the opera has stopped, and a strange noise has replaced it. He goes to investigate, telling Luo Juan to stay put with their daughter.
The door is kicked in by a mob of Fa Sect followers (“White headbands, black cloth on their shoulders”). The leader is an old beggar with sores on his face.
The old beggar slashes Lyu Juren with a kitchen knife. He rants about the injustice of rich and poor, screaming that they will “change Heaven” and make the wealthy suffer.
Injured but still alive, Lyu Juren shoves the old man away and screams for Luo Juan to run. He turns to block the door but is immediately struck in the head with a blacksmith’s hammer. He dies instantly, his skull caved in.
Luo Juan, screaming, rushes to her husband’s body. A burly old woman from the mob stabs her in the neck with scissors, spitting venom about how unfair it is that Luo Juan had a good life while she suffered.
A standoff occurs between the old beggar and the old woman over whether to kill Xiu’er, the child. The old beggar, in a rare moment of humanity, protects the little girl.
The mob loots the backyard, finds nothing of value, and moves on. One thug casually sets the opera garden on fire.
The old beggar, carrying Xiu’er, struggles to keep up. As he lags behind, he hears the mob ahead screaming about a “monster.”
Li Huowang, in his full, monstrous red robe form, cuts through the mob with brutal efficiency. The old beggar shields Xiu’er and is literally split apart for his trouble.
Li Huowang sees Xiu’er and recognizes her. He follows her pointing finger to the burning opera garden.
Inside, he finds the stage engulfed in flames. Lyu Zhuangyuan, now utterly insane, stands on the burning platform, singing a tragic opera over the corpses of his son (Lyu Juren) and daughter-in-law (Luo Juan).

Reading Guide

This chapter is a masterclass in tonal whiplash. The cozy, domestic opening makes the violence that follows hit ten times harder. Pay close attention to the small details that make the horror so real: Lyu Juren’s final shout of “Run!”, the old woman’s casual, hateful justification for murder, the thug setting a fire not out of malice but simple, bored impulse. The world of Dao Gui Yi Xian doesn’t just have monsters; it has people who have been ground down until their humanity is barely a speck. And sometimes, those people are the ones doing the worst damage. The final image of Lyu Zhuangyuan on the burning stage, singing a song about loyalty and loss to an audience of ash and corpses, is one of the most tragically beautiful and horrifying tableaus in the entire story. Brace yourselves.