Synopsis
During the troubled times of the Republic of China, Shen Yanqiu, a famous Peking opera actress, became popular in Beijing and Tianjin. She sang for emperors and generals on the stage, but she had a humble life as an actor off the stage.
He loved his childhood sweetheart, his junior sister, but she was raped as a concubine by the warlord. He refused to sing for the Japanese invaders and was punished by having his legs mutilated. He was disabled for the rest of his life.
The theater troupe dispersed and old friends disappeared. In his later years, he taught opera in seclusion in a small town and accepted his last mute apprentice. He used his body to teach his disciples to sing "Farewell My Concubine". Unexpectedly, his disciples were actually the orphans of his former junior sisters.
During the Cultural Revolution, his house was ransacked and his fingers were broken. On the stage of criticism, he staggered to his feet and sang in a hoarse voice, "I am originally from Wollongong."
Before he died, he said to his apprentice: "An actor has no bones, but an actor has bones."
Content introduction
This is an epic that uses the fate of an actor as a prism to reflect the vicissitudes of modern China over the past century. Shen Yanqiu's life is not only the history of the rise and fall of Liyuan Xing, but also the history of the struggle of a small person to protect his dignity in a big era. Through his entanglement with warlords, Japanese invaders, revolutions, and storms, the novel asks a question: When the world steps people into the mud again and again, what can a person hold on to? The answer is hidden in the play - when the last line of singing fell, the play ended, but something remained.
