Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Caesar's heart skipped a beat, and his pupils dilated uncontrollably.

"Ruri Kazama?" he blurted out. His voice was very low, but Chu Zihang, who was sitting next to him, heard every word.

Cesare Gattuso was rarely surprised by a person's appearance. After all, he grew up in Italy's high society and had probably seen more stunning beauties than the average person had in their entire life.

But at that moment, he was truly stunned.

The person on stage was actually Kazama Ruri dressed as a woman.

Caesar knew that Kazama Ruri was a handsome man with a delicate and almost androgynous appearance.

Kazama Ruri has a delicate, girlish appearance, so Caesar wouldn't be too surprised if he played a female role. Kabuki is originally about men dressing as women, and playing a woman is an essential skill for every Kabuki actor. Bando Tamasaburo became a national treasure by playing women.

However, Ruri Kazama's female form is completely different from those masters.

No matter how well other male actors act, when they dress up as women, they will always reveal some subtle flaws, such as having too wide shoulders, an overly prominent Adam's apple, or inadvertently revealing their masculine nature in their gestures.

But on Kazama Ruri, not a single trace of these marks could be found. His neck was slender and long, his Adam's apple seemed to have never existed, his shoulder line was as soft as a pebble washed by flowing water for thousands of years, and his fingers were long and fair, with the curve of each joint just right.

Caesar couldn't bring himself to mock her; he was truly captivated by Kazama Ruri's feminine charm.

The feeling wasn't that a man was imitating a woman, but rather that a female ghost who had been asleep for thousands of years had possessed a person's body and returned to the world through his bones and flesh.

When that female ghost was alive, she must have been an unparalleled beauty, capable of captivating a city with a single smile and a nation with a second. After her death, she was buried in the mud of the underworld for thousands of years, and the resentment she felt made her even more beautiful and dangerous than when she was alive.

Caesar stared at the white figure on the stage, feeling a chill run down his spine, while his palms were slightly sweaty.

Fear and allure were intertwined, and his reason and physical instincts were leading to completely contradictory judgments.

Ruri Kazama sang and danced, her voice echoing and resonating on the empty stage.

Every syllable transition felt like walking on a knife's edge. The white sleeves unfurled with the dance, like a pair of white bird's wings, stretching from the shoulders to two feet beyond the fingertips, drawing smooth arcs in the air.

The long sleeves were covered with ancient characters written in ink, each character written by hand, stroke by stroke, with varying stroke thickness and ink density, creating a rich variety of layers under the light.

The text on the left sleeve is written in warm ink with the brushstrokes flying upwards, symbolizing the dreamlike world of the rising sun, the sprouting of all things, and the changing of the seasons; the text on the right sleeve is written in cold ink with the brushstrokes sinking downwards, symbolizing the rising moon, the ground covered with withered bones and cold sand, and the eternal Yellow Springs that have never changed.

With each wave of her sleeve, the densely packed characters on Kazama Ruri's sleeves flickered in and out under the lamplight, as if life and death, day and night, joy and despair were battling repeatedly within this woman's body.

Chapter 777 Izanami

As she danced, Kazama Ruri's movements suddenly became sharp and swift.

The drumbeats rose sharply, no longer the low, muffled pounding of before, but a torrential downpour, the drumsticks striking the cherry wood drum with a series of rapid, almost continuous syllables.

As the drums beat, Kazama Ruri spun violently, his white sleeves exploding outwards like a vortex around his body. After spinning several times, he suddenly shrugged his shoulders, and the plain white robe covered with ancient characters silently slipped off his shoulders, piling up in a small heap at his feet, like a cicada shell peeled off by time.

A collective gasp swept through the audience; they were momentarily speechless after being struck head-on by something so exquisitely beautiful.

After removing his white robe, Kazama Ruri revealed the colorful embroidered garment he wore close to his body. The garment was extremely form-fitting, tightly hugging his slender waist and smooth back lines. Its base color was an intense, deep black, and it was covered with densely packed patterns using embroidery techniques.

At first, the audience instinctively thought it would be a traditional auspicious pattern—pine, bamboo, plum blossom, crane, tortoise, waves, or a thousand birds, but when the lights shone on the colorful shirt, everyone finally saw what those patterns were.

My first reaction was still amazement. The embroidery stitches made the colorful shirt shimmer under the light. Every thread had been carefully matched with different colors, with gold and silver threads interspersed among them, shining with an almost extravagant light under the dim light of the paper lamp.

But when they finally recognized the content of the pattern, their amazement shattered into a bone-chilling cold: the colorful shirt was not embroidered with pine, bamboo, crane, or tortoise, but with skulls and maggots. Dozens of skulls were firmly nailed to the lapel, each with a different expression.

Some laughed heartily, revealing their teeth; some stared blankly at the audience; some had dislocated jaws as if they were screaming silently.

The skulls were teeming with tiny, meticulously embroidered white maggots, each one curled up and wriggling, crawling in and out of the skulls' eye sockets, slipping into the sleeves through the seams of their clothes, and emerging from under the hem.

The colorful shirt was embroidered with large patches of decaying marks in silver thread. Those irregular silver-gray patches looked exactly like the nauseating color that seeps out when flesh begins to rot.

It was only then that the audience fully understood that the dazzling colorful robe was less a living person's finery and more a shroud worn by the deceased during their encoffining.

Those skeletons and insects are the very ones that caused the corpses wearing them to slowly rot under the coffin.

Extreme beauty and extreme ugliness, extreme glamour and extreme horror are forcibly stitched together. The beautiful side tells people that she is an unparalleled beauty, while the ugly side tells people that she has been dead for thousands of years.

This almost violent contradiction created an unprecedented visual impact, plunging the entire Kabuki-za into a deathly silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the stunningly beautiful ghost in the shroud on the stage, wanting to escape but unable to.

At that very moment, the translation screen specially set up above the stage for Caesar and Chu Zihang suddenly lit up, and lines of white text slowly emerged on the deep blue background, providing a brief introduction to the background information of this play.

Caesar abruptly pulled his gaze away from Kazama Ruri and glanced up at the screen.

Ruri Kazama plays the role of Izanami, the Japanese mother goddess. This newly adapted mythological drama tells the story of the marriage agreement and falling out between the father god Izanagi and the mother goddess Izanami.

In that ancient Japanese myth, Izanagi and Izanami were originally a brother and sister, and were the first gods to be created at the beginning of creation.

In the vast world, there were only the two of them, young people. Looking around, there was no one like them. They could not find a partner or anyone to talk to.

To ensure the continuation of the world, they entered into a divine marriage under the guidance of the gods. It was the first wedding in the world, and also the loneliest. The two stood side by side on the floating bridge of heaven, stirring the sea with a heavenly spear. The salt dripping from the spear tip crystallized into the first island, where they built their bridal chamber and gave birth to the gods of Japan.

However, Izanami was burned in her birth canal by flames while giving birth to the fire god, and the injury was too severe, ultimately leading to her death.

Izanagi wept day and night, his tears flowing like a river. Unable to bear the pain of being cleaved in two, he made a decision that no god dared to make: he ventured alone into the depths of the underworld to search for her soul.

He passed through eight layers of thunderclouds, climbed over eight dead mountains, and finally reached the entrance to the Land of the Dead, where he saw the shadow of Izanami.

They poured out their sorrows through the curtains of the Yellow Springs Palace, their voices traveling through the thin fabric to each other's ears. He said that the world outside was still as beautiful as before, that cherry blossoms would still bloom on time in spring, and that the tides would still crash against the rocks in the moonlight. He said, "Come back with me, and we can live together as before."

Izanami remained silent behind the curtain for a long, long time before finally agreeing to return to the mortal world with him. However, she made one request: she needed time to rejuvenate her appearance and asked Izanagi to wait for her outside the palace for a moment. During this time, he was not allowed to step inside or look at her body.

Izanagi waited a very long time. Long enough that the snow on the mountaintop melted into water, long enough that the fish in the water grew wings, long enough that the feathers of the birds fell off and turned into stone.

He could neither see Izanami emerge nor hear any sound.

Anxiety and longing finally consumed him; he broke off a tooth from the comb in his hand and lit it. That faint flame lit up the eternally dark underworld, like a star imprisoned underground.

He finally saw the truth behind the curtain: Izanami's body was far from recovered, and the one lying on the stone platform was not the beautiful bride in his memory, but a rotting corpse crawling with maggots.

Maggots wriggled in her once clear eye sockets and crawled through her once smooth long hair. She was wearing the colorful shroud she wore at her wedding, but the shroud was no longer embroidered with auspicious patterns symbolizing happiness, but with dense skulls and rotting scars.

Her beautiful face was reduced to bones, and the arms that had once embraced him were now just a layer of dry skin covering the bones.

In terror, Izanagi dropped his torch, turned and fled, his footsteps slamming onto the stone slabs of the underworld with a dull thud.

Izanami was suddenly awakened by his betrayal. She sat up from the stone platform and burst into tears. Her voice sounded like a vengeful ghost being torn apart, tearing her heart out in accusation. She hated him for defying her command at the last moment, hated him for seeing her at her ugliest, yet refusing to wait even a moment longer until she recovered, and hated him for not even looking back once when he ran away.

She led the ghost women of the Underworld in relentless pursuit. A vast army of ghost women surged out from the ground, including headless pregnant women and women in labor holding skeletal infants, screaming as they followed behind her in pursuit of the man who was desperately fleeing to the human world.

Izanagi fled to Yomotsu Hirasaka, the boundary between the human world and the underworld. One more step from there would lead to the radiant light of the living world. With all his might, he lifted a colossal boulder and used it to block the passage between the two realms. From that moment on, the living world and the underworld were forever separated.

Izanami could no longer catch up with him, but her resentment pierced through the thousand layers of giant rocks.

She said to Izanagi through the stone, "My husband, since you treat me this way, from now on I will kill a thousand of your created people every day."

Izanagi answered her through the stone, "If you do that, I will build 1,500 birthing rooms every day and bring 1,500 babies into the world."

From then on, Izanami transformed into an evil god who controlled death, while Izanagi became the guardian of life, and the population of Japan began to slowly multiply and grow.

The scrolling text on the screen stopped here. The subtitles faded away line by line, and the screen sank back into a quiet, deep blue.

On the stage, Kazama Ruri knelt on one knee in the center of the stage, the lantern shining directly on his face. The two blood-red marks that slanted from the corner of his eye to his temple trembled slightly under the light, as if they were really bleeding.

Chapter 778 The First Encounter Was So Beautiful

A rich golden light poured down from seven copper chandeliers above the stage, turning the entire stage into a warm ocean.

This light is from a completely different world from the lonely paper lantern in the Underworld in the first half of the film.

The light from the paper lantern was shivering and weak, as if it could be extinguished at any moment by a gust of cold wind that seemed to appear out of nowhere; but the light at this moment was intense and heavy, like a miniature sun ignited above the stage.

The scene shifts from the dark underworld to the sunlit human world. The black curtains in the background are completely removed and replaced with a gauze curtain depicting green mountains and azure sea. Several silver birds are also depicted in the picture, spreading their wings and soaring across the sky.

Izanagi appeared, draped in a long golden robe. The robe rippled with waves of light under the lamplight, and auspicious cloud patterns woven with gold thread stretched from his shoulders to the hem. The outline of each cloud was outlined with extremely fine silver thread. With each step he took, the cloud patterns changed their luster under the lamplight, as if real clouds were slowly drifting on them.

He wore a wooden mask, the face of a god, with high-arched eyebrows and a slightly upturned mouth, exuding both majesty and compassion.

Ruri Kazama slowly walked to the center of the stage using the unique Kabuki footwork technique known as "broken toe".

Wherever he went, the sunlight followed, as if his footsteps themselves were life stretching outwards.

He was chanting ancient poems, his voice no longer the plaintive and mournful female voice of Izanami in the first half, but a powerful and high-pitched male voice. The lyrics told the story of how he escaped death from the underworld, washed his body in the sea, and gave birth to three children with his left eye, right eye, and nose.

These three children were conceived by him alone and had nothing to do with Izanami.

He no longer needs her; he can carry on the world on his own.

The three children were named Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo.

Izanagi commanded them to protect this increasingly prosperous world for him: Amaterasu was appointed to rule Takamagahara, the land where the gods reside, the place where the sun rises and its light never sets; Tsukuyomi ruled the kingdom of night, to which the tides and dreams belonged; and the boundless ocean was given to his youngest son, Susanoo, in which countless lives were nurtured.

Three young dancers, dressed as three deities, appeared simultaneously from three sides of the stage. They wore magnificent costumes in blue, white, and red, and their movements were agile and powerful, each step producing a crisp echo.

Izanagi walked up to them one by one and personally handed each of their treasures to them: the Yata no Kagami, a bronze mirror that could gather the sun's rays and symbolize the sun's authority; the Yasakani no Magatama, a curved pearl formed from moonlight and symbolizing the moon's gentle glow; and his sharpest sword, Ame no Habakiri, the divine sword he used to slay the pursuers from the underworld, its blade still stained with the dried blood of the underworld demons.

He personally handed the Ame no Habakiri to Susanoo, who knelt on one knee and accepted it with both hands, his movements so devout that not a single sound was heard.

Izanagi danced joyfully with three children on stage, his movements becoming increasingly expansive and dynamic, transitioning from gentle, folding movements to leaping, exuberant ones, his golden robe billowing like flames under the lights.

Three young gods spun around him, and the entire stage was filled with gold, red and white, with the drums beating loudly and enthusiastically, and the flutes playing sharp and melodious tunes.

The audience began to nod slightly to the rhythm, and some even smiled without realizing it. The divine kingdom under the sun was so warm, and the father and children gathered together was so perfect. It was a happy scene that needed no embellishment.

But right behind this joyous scene, a solitary paper lantern lit up behind the dark, sheer curtain.

The orange-yellow halo was only enough to illuminate a plain white human figure. Izanami knelt behind the black curtain, her hands covering her face.

She also has another completely independent dance: her back is faintly visible behind a black veil, and her pure white figure begins to dance very slowly, each movement filled with a kind of pain that has been suppressed to the extreme and can only seep out at the slowest speed.

That black veil symbolizes the Yomotsu Hirasaka, forever separated by the giant rock. She lies on the other side of the rock, in eternal darkness, eternal cold, and eternal solitude.

She'll never come back.

The pale white figure behind the thin gauze curtain repeatedly bent and folded under the light, as if the excruciating pain of abandonment was surging out from the depths of the abdomen. Each bend was a silent retching, and each contraction was as if the heart was being expelled alive from the chest.

But separated by that giant rock, no matter how loud her cries were, no one in the mortal world could hear them. Izanagi was raising his cup and laughing with the children in front of the stage, celebrating the prosperity of the divine kingdom, completely unaware that behind the thin black veil behind him, a woman was convulsing on the floor like a white bird with broken wings.

Izanami, now forever lost to the underworld, dances and sings alone, repeatedly recalling that divine marriage. At that time, the Japanese islands had just emerged from the sea, the soil was still wet, the tide was still receding, and in the vast central land, only a solitary, towering jade pillar stood between heaven and earth.

Back then, he and she were still siblings. In this empty world, there were only the two of them. They loved each other deeply but did not know if their love could be tolerated by heaven and earth.

They questioned fate, setting off from opposite sides to circle the pillar, agreeing to forget each other's identities. When she emerged from the other side, he would pretend he had never seen her. So they each walked around the pillar, their footsteps echoing across the empty land for a very long time, circling a great many times, until finally meeting again on the other side of the pillar.

Izanagi saw the beautiful girl standing in the morning light, her skirt gently lifted by the sea breeze, her black hair flying over her shoulders. He exclaimed in surprise, "Oh, what a beautiful woman!"

She looked at the handsome young man, who stood on the shore with a bow and arrows on his back, the rising sun reflected in his eyes. She exclaimed in surprise, "Oh my, what a handsome man!"

And so they entered into a marriage agreement, and procreated with countless offspring. That was the first love confession on this land, and the oldest prototype of all love stories.

But now, the boy who shyly praised her beauty in the morning light has become a father who laughs and sings with his children and grandchildren in the sunshine, and when he hears her crying in pain, he doesn't even turn his head once.

"The resentment grew so deep later, simply because our first meeting was so beautiful," Chu Zihang commented softly.