Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

He held a white paper folding fan, closed, with three fingers gently pinching the handle. His gaze passed through the joyful scene in the center of the stage, bathed in golden light, and through the thin black veil, landing on the plain white silhouette curled up in the darkness.

He paused for a moment, then said, "Even God can be hurt by love."

Chapter 779 Killing Baqi

The singing echoed throughout the theater, and without even closing your eyes, you could picture Kazama Ruri as a woman whose sorrow was etched into her very bones.

She wore a colorful shroud and danced alone in the depths of hell, surrounded only by silent skeletons and eternal darkness.

The audience was as quiet as a still pond; even breathing was suppressed to a minimum.

Several elderly guests, who had spent their lives immersed in the art of Kabuki, silently shed tears. The tears slid down their cheeks and dripped onto the hem of their kimonos spread on their knees, leaving a small, dark water stain.

The humpback whale's entire upper body was trembling. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and covered his eyes, which were brimming with tears. The handkerchief was printed with the three characters "Kazama Mikoto" and was the same set as the ribbon tied around his forehead.

This middle-aged man, who had been working in host clubs for over twenty years, was now crying like a high school girl watching a romance movie for the first time. His shoulders were trembling, and he could only keep quiet by biting his lower lip tightly.

Caesar was indeed slightly touched, catching a glimpse of the unique tragic beauty in the female ghost. However, a quick glance revealed the shopkeeper's face, his stubble streaked with tears, making him feel embarrassed to continue feeling sentimental.

He swallowed back the emotion that was rising in his throat without making a sound, changed his sitting posture, and covered half of his face with a folding fan.

The curtain slowly closed, marking the start of intermission.

The lounge was quiet and deserted. This lounge itself was part of the Kabuki-za theater, and the walls were covered with photos of famous actors from all over the world—Ichikawa Danjuro, Onoe Kikugoro, Bando Tamasaburo, each black-and-white or color face quietly watching the audience generation after generation.

Everyone stood by the window, holding their teacups, or leaning against the wall, still caught up in the performance they had just witnessed.

Some people stared at the photos with a sense of loss, as if they had glimpsed someone they had known long ago in that divine marriage and betrayal a thousand years ago; others whispered among themselves around the display cases.

The Japanese dared not speak loudly, but their tone clearly betrayed a surging excitement.

The fat woman and her girlfriends huddled in a circle in the corner of the lounge, chattering and exchanging their feelings. The fat woman's eyes were still red, but the expression on her face had changed from sadness to satisfaction. She wiped her nose with a handkerchief and said to her girlfriends repeatedly, "We made the right choice."

As the lights dimmed again during halftime, the second half began amidst the anticipation of the entire stadium.

This time, the atmosphere was completely different from the first half of the film, making it seem like a completely different work.

If the first half was a somber and mournful funeral elegy, the second half was a magnificent and joyous heroic epic. The orchestra replaced the single sakuragi drum, the flute and cymbals intertwined, and colorful flags fluttered on the stage, telling the story of Susanoo, the youngest child of Izanami, slaying the Yamata no Orochi.

The background information of this story slowly appears on the translation screen.

Susanoo, though a young god who rules the ocean, weeps uncontrollably day and night because he misses his mother who has been banished to the underworld. His weeping causes the sea to overflow and mountains to shake.

Izanagi was thoroughly enraged by his unruly behavior and banished him from the divine realm. Alone, he wandered to a desolate land called "Izumo" with the Ame no Habakiri in his arms.

Here he met a beautiful girl named Hime Kushinada.

Princess Kushinada was the last daughter of an elderly couple. Her seven older sisters were all devoured by the same monster, a mountain-sized monster with eight ferocious heads and eight long tails that blotted out the sky, named Yamata no Orochi.

Its eyes were like blood-red sour berries, its back was covered with pine trees and moss, and its belly was perpetually filled with hunger, constantly oozing pus and blood. Every year it would devour a young girl as a sacrifice, and this year it was finally Princess Kushinada's turn.

Susanoo fell in love with Kushinada-hime the moment he saw her. He resolved to slay the Yamata no Orochi to rid the locals of this scourge, and in return, he asked the elderly couple to give him their daughter in marriage.

The elderly couple readily agreed.

Susanoo then used his divine power to transform Kushinada-hime into a wooden comb, which he inserted into his hair, making it cling tightly to his hair. He then ordered the locals to prepare eight jars of the strongest sake, placing them in eight huge stone troughs, and hid behind the boulders to wait quietly.

As the Yamata no Orochi slowly crawled down from the mountains, its eight heads simultaneously smelled the aroma of wine and plunged their heads into the wine jars to drink wildly. After each of the eight heads became completely drunk, they collapsed to the ground with a thud, their blood-red eyes half-open and half-closed, their mouths spewing out the smell of wine and a foul stench.

Susanoo leaped from behind the boulder, drew his sword, and chopped off the giant serpent's eight heads one by one, purple blood gushing out and flowing like a river. When he reached the serpent's tail, the seemingly indestructible blade of the Ame no Habakiri suddenly chipped open. He frowned and used the broken sword to cleave the serpent's tail, discovering a divine sword, "Ame no Kusanagi," hidden inside, even sharper than Ame no Habakiri.

Susanoo offered the divine sword he had obtained by chance to his sister Amaterasu to repay the debt he owed when he left the divine kingdom. Then he married Kushinada-hime and built a pure white palace on the land of Izumo, where they lived a peaceful and happy life.

On stage this time, Kazama Ruri took off Izanagi's golden robe and put on a scale-like robe over her plain white robe. It was made of hundreds of palm-sized silver scales, each one polished to a shine.

He crouched down and ran and tumbled on the stage, the eight fake heads of the Yamata no Orochi emerging from both sides of the curtain one by one, which he then chopped off. His dance moves were almost identical to when he played Izanami in the first half of the performance: bending his legs, spinning, waving his sleeves, bending his waist, the same figure, the same rhythm, and the same expressionless face.

But what the audience read aloud was entirely different: the first half was like an abandoned woman lamenting her beauty and sorrow, while the second half was like a primordial serpent struggling and roaring madly before its death, every movement imbued with a completely new violent connotation. He sang no lyrics.

Caesar understood. He lowered his voice and said, "He used the same dance language to portray two completely different beings. The first half was resentment, the second half was madness. He was telling everyone that Orochi was not killed because he was protecting Kushinada-hime. Izanami transformed into Orochi and was then cut into pieces by her own son. The girl Susanoo wanted to marry was hidden in the hair of his mother's killer; and the Ame-no-Murakumo sword that killed his mother was drawn from the tail of his mother's corpse."

Chu Zihang did not answer; his gaze was fixed on the silver figure tumbling on the stage.

With a final, resolute twirl, Kazama Ruri straightened up abruptly, shaking off the silver scales covering his body. The scales swirled and danced in the light, like a blizzard whipped up by a raging wind.

Izanami ultimately died by the sword of the son she had given birth to, while Susanoo happily embraced the Kushinada-hime, which was transformed from a wooden comb, and walked towards the white castle for the wedding without looking back amidst the swirling snow.

Chapter 780 A Tragic Revenge

The audience rippled outwards from the front row, as if a pebble had been thrown in.

This is extremely rare among Japanese audiences, who are known for their deeply ingrained sense of etiquette.

Even if Japanese people are internally turbulent when watching Kabuki, they maintain a composed sitting posture and at most let out a customary cheer at the most exciting parts.

At this moment, there were countless people whispering to each other, pointing towards the stage, or staring blankly at the silver figure lying in a pool of blood on the stage with his lips slightly parted but unable to utter a sound.

The second half of the performance was really bizarre.

The battle to slay the snake should have been a fierce confrontation, with heroes against monsters, swords against fangs, and life and death tug-of-war on the edge of the blade.

What the audience saw was not a fight, but a dance between a woman and a boy.

Ruri Kazama performed the Yamata no Orochi with the exact same dance moves as Izanami; every turn, every flick of the sleeve, and every arc of the bent leg were identical.

The first half was like an abandoned wife lamenting her beauty and sorrow, while the second half transformed into a primordial serpent struggling and roaring madly before its last breath.

The same person, the same body, on the same stage, using the same set of movements to tell two seemingly unrelated stories.

As these two stories slowly overlap in the audience's minds, an extremely terrifying truth seeps out from the cracks in the stage.

Susanoo's sword slashed at Kazama Ruri one blow after another.

It wasn't a show of bravado; every sword strike landed squarely on the scaled robe, producing a dull, metallic thud. Crimson dye seeped from the seams of the silver scales, glaringly bright like real blood under the lamplight.

Each time Kazama Ruri was struck by the sword, her body jerked violently, and the silver sequins on her scale robe were shattered and scattered in all directions, tumbling and refracting countless tiny points of light in the air.

His movements grew slower and slower, his spins smaller and smaller, like a bird repeatedly struck until it could no longer support its wings. Finally, he fell backward, landing in the very center of the stage, his silver, scale-patterned robe spreading out on the floor like moonlight shattered by a storm and scattered across the sea.

Susanoo knelt beside him, holding Ame no Habakiri upside down with both hands, the sword tip pointing downwards and hovering in mid-air. In that instant, all the stage lights went out, leaving only a spotlight fixed on the suspended sword tip, its cold gleam like a frozen meteor in the darkness. That frozen second stretched out endlessly, so long that not a single breath could be heard in the entire theater.

Then Susanoo suddenly plunged his sword into his heart.

Cold fireworks erupted simultaneously from all four sides of the stage. Silvery sparks surged forth from the proscenium, the ceiling, and hidden mechanisms on both sides of the stage, exploding into countless meteor-like arcs in the darkness, illuminating the entire theater so that even the farthest corners were exposed.

Amidst the dazzling lights, Susanoo grabbed the colorful, scale-patterned robe that Kazama Ruri was wearing on the outside and ripped it open with force. The sound of tearing fabric traveled through the miniature microphone hidden near the stage, echoing throughout the theater. It was sharp and short, as if something that had been suppressed for a very long time had finally broken free in that instant.

The scale-covered robe was ripped off, revealing a blood-red woman underneath. It was the inner garment that Ruri Kazama wore when she played Izanami. Originally a pure white robe, it was now completely soaked in a large amount of red dye hidden under the scales, the scarlet stain running from the collar to the hem, with only a few small, irregular patches of white remaining at the cuffs.

She lay quietly in the solitary spotlight in the center of the stage, surrounded by falling silver flames. Red, white, and silver mingled together, freezing into a still frame, like a maple leaf broken off a branch by the autumn wind and falling onto the snow.

A voice-over slowly seeped out from the deathly silence. It was Kazama Ruri's own voice, sung in a very low, eerie tone, as desolate as a lonely soul weeping at the bottom of an ancient well forgotten in the wilderness:

“Weary, weary, the ghostly face of the emperor; the road I came from is now lost, looking back is all I see; a broken boat floats on the sea, gazing at the lonely city; I still remember the kindness of yesteryear, but the waters of sorrow flow eastward forever.”

After the four lines were sung, the lingering sound echoed back and forth in the theater until the last syllable dissipated into the darkness that had gathered again after the cold flames had burned out.

After a brief silence, an elderly man wearing a dark-colored patterned haori (traditional Japanese jacket) slowly rose from the front row of the audience.

He was an honorary director of the Kabuki Association of Japan. In his youth, he was a famous actress and the most renowned actress of that era.

Instead of applauding like modern audiences, he tilted his head back and let out a long, howling cheer from deep within his throat. The voice was old and powerful, like an old wolf howling at the sky from a moonlit mountaintop, piercing through all the noise and silence in the theater.

Immediately afterwards, the entire audience stood up, and applause pounded down like a tidal wave.

The frenzy continued for several minutes without stopping; no one took the lead in stopping, and no one wanted to be the first to sit down.

The humpback whale stuffed the handkerchief into its mouth and bit it hard, its tears having already smeared the three characters "Kazama Mikoto" on the white cloth on its forehead into a blotchy mess.

The ending was unbelievable.

Everyone understood that Yamata no Orochi was the incarnation of Izanami.

Years later, she returned to the human world with her eight-headed, eight-tailed snake body, crawling back little by little from the cracks in the rocks of Yomotsu Hirasaka. With her rotting body and undying resentment, she sought to avenge the blood debt she owed for being abandoned by her husband.

But her own son, Susanoo, ended her revenge.

The so-called "newly compiled Kojiki" is new in its ending. In the original myth, Yamata no Orochi was just a monster that plagued the human world, and Susanoo's slaying of it was a pure heroic feat. But in Kazama Ruri's version, it is a revenge by an abandoned wife against her husband and the entire world he created.

She had given everything to that man: her body, her love, the gods she had given birth to, and the world she had woven stitch by stitch. But the man let go of her hand in her ugliest moment and ran away without even looking back at her.

So she returned to seek revenge, in her most ferocious form, to tear apart everything he had created with her own hands.

Although revenge itself is evil, and the Yamata no Orochi she transformed into devours an innocent girl every year, just thinking about the suffering she endured, and the loneliness of rotting alone in the eternal darkness of the Underworld for millions of years, softens one's heart.

Ruri Kazama's appearance is so beautiful, and her singing voice is so mournful. A gloomy atmosphere pervades the Kabuki theater, carrying the audience between mythology and reality in an instant. In the play, it is the tragedy of Izanami. In real life, who can say with a clear conscience that they have never been the one who was abandoned in a relationship?

Before the applause had even subsided, a group of excited Kabuki critics had already jumped up from their seats and sprinted along the aisle onto the stage.

The elderly man with white hair who was leading the group was the former editor-in-chief of "Engekikai," Japan's most authoritative Kabuki review magazine. He walked shakily onto the stage and stretched out his withered hands to tightly embrace Kazama Ruri.

As Kazama Ruri stood up from the ground, her red and white makeup on her face was smudged by sweat in several places, but the two blood-red marks at the corners of her eyes were still vivid and lifelike.

The old man hugged him for a very long time, and when he let go, a reporter on the scene captured the tears welling up in his eyes.

He spoke into the microphone in a hoarse voice, saying that this was the most perfect Kabuki performance he had ever seen in his sixty years in the industry—not in recent years, not in this era, but in his entire life.

The audience, already overwhelmed by emotion, could no longer hold back upon hearing this. Low sobs spread through the audience like a tidal wave, sounding like countless tiny whimpers up close, but merging into a continuous, resounding sound from afar.

The fat woman buried her face in her best friend's shoulder, crying until her makeup was ruined. The humpback whale bit its handkerchief, its tears soaking the entire white cloth.

Caesar and Chu Zihang quietly left the stage. At the height of the applause, while everyone was still immersed in that gloomy atmosphere, they had already stood up from their boxes.

Chu Zihang closed the folding fan and placed it on the armrest of the seat.

Caesar straightened the collar of his black haori and took out a white envelope that had just been delivered from his breast pocket with two fingers.

The envelope was quietly handed into the box by a waiter in a black uniform the instant the performance ended. There was no knocking or ringing of the bell, as if the person had been standing outside the box the whole time, just waiting for the moment when the applause would erupt.

Inside the envelope was a special invitation card, the paper identical to the invitations received before, with a subtle, hand-pressed chrysanthemum pattern faintly visible under the light, and two characters written on it in calligraphy—

"Backstage".

Chapter 781 Didn't Sakura-kun come?

The corridor wound its way deep into the backstage area, leaving behind layers of the surging applause and sobs from the audience.

The backstage area was several degrees colder than the theater, and the lighting had changed from warm gold to a cold white, casting a faint frosty hue on the wooden walls on both sides of the corridor.

The corridor was extremely long, with a turn every few steps. At each corner stood a young man in a black suit, his hands clasped in front of him. Upon seeing Caesar and Chu Zihang in the distance, they all bowed down in unison.

Each person wore a brass badge on their chest, engraved with the character "鬼" (ghost) in seal script.