The master of the Shi Troupe found a little girl. She was only four, and filthy from head to toe. Only her eyes shone with a startling brightness. Master Shi took her into the troupe, named her Shi An, and taught her opera. Strangely enough, the girl was extraordinarily gifted, learning every move and gesture from her teacher with great focus. When an acquaintance teased, “Master Shi, have you found yourself another star?” Master Shi only smiled.
In the twenty-eighth year of the Republic, the Japanese invaders occupied this little county town and ordered Master Shi to bring the Shi Troupe to perform for their commander. Master Shi would rather die than comply. The Japanese stabbed her to death in the street, then hung her head at the entrance to the troupe. Next to fall were the senior apprentice brother, the second senior apprentice sister, the third senior apprentice sister, and the fifth senior apprentice brother. No one was willing to perform for the Japanese. It was a rule Master Shi had set: “We performers may have cheap lives, but our spines must be strong. Not a single person in the Shi Troupe is to perform for the Japanese.”
But Shi An was the one who stepped forward. She smiled obsequiously at the Japanese and eagerly asked how much the reward would be. She looked just like a pug wagging its tail and begging the Japanese for scraps. Her senior brothers and sisters hated her. They called her an ungrateful wretch, and when they threw her out, they spat on her several times, cursing her as faithless, shameless, and willing to call the enemy her father. They said she had no love for her country, that she was a pig, a dog, a beast, anything but a human being. Shi An did not care. She slung her little bundle over her shoulder and walked out of the Shi Troupe.
One afternoon, half a month later, people heard a series of deafening explosions from the Japanese military headquarters in the north. Then flames shot into the sky, mingled with the Japanese devils’ piercing screams. The fire burned for a long, long time...
