Lin'an, on a bitterly cold winter's day. The protagonist was blind, lying in a dilapidated room with only one devoted young apprentice and three stray dogs by his side.
He asked his apprentice to gather all the neighborhood children, saying he had one “last story” to tell. The children crowded around his bed as he told the tale of Yue Wumu. When he reached the words “Give me back our rivers and mountains,” he suddenly sat upright, his voice ringing out as powerfully as it had in the teahouses of Bianliang.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to hear what happens next, ”
He never finished. The clapper slipped to the floor.
Snow fell for three days and three nights. No one in Lin'an knew that the storyteller who had once made half the city laugh had passed away.
His young apprentice later inherited the clapper and traveled farther south, continuing to tell stories in a small town thick with miasma. The first tale he told began: “They say that in the city of Bianliang, there lived a gentleman named Lin…”
