A Man of Seventy: I Really Want to Live Another Five Hundred Years

On his sickbed, the nearly seventy-year-old Su Changqing suddenly sat up. No one could have guessed that this old man, who once ran errands for an opera troupe, would work his way onto center stage and become the city’s most celebrated performer.

From fetching tea and water as a servant, to becoming a modestly famous leading actor, then a veteran performer praised by everyone, he was eventually hailed by opera fans as “Old Jade Man.”

He often joked about himself: “Sure, I like cracking jokes and being a little clever, but I know in my heart that we have to deserve every round of applause from the audience!”

At its heart, this story is a period-style tale of “your old man will always be your old man.”