Dark Cave - part 6 - Chapter 27
Liu Shicai continued , ” About two years ago, I was watching TV while having dinner one night and saw a feature film about Shaanxi folk art. It talked about the lost shadow play in our county. The shadow play in our county actually refers to the shadow play in our village! The official name of our village is Xiaoliang Village. Shadow play has a history of thousands of years and has a very special style. It is unique, but it has been lost! In that TV program, they showed a set of what they said was the ‘ only remaining ‘ shadow play figures and props of Xiaoliang Village . Guess what: that set is exactly the same as the one my grandma has! According to my grandma, that set of shadow play was given to her by my grandfather for her engagement ceremony. My grandfather , Ding Yishun, is the most authoritative shadow play artist in Xiaoliang Village and the only true inheritor of Xiaoliang Village shadow play. If there is my grandfather, why did the shadow play of Xiaoliang Village disappear? Because more than 60 years ago, all the men in Xiaoliang Village who could work were captured by the Japanese devils overnight. Moreover, they never came back! Not a single one came back! ”
Guan Jian and Anzaki Sachiko both took a deep breath and felt completely enveloped by a chill.
” Tell me , how could all the men in a village not survive? How come there is not even a news? Our village went from being a well-known shadow puppet village to a famous widow village. So when I saw my grandfather’s shadow puppets in Jiangjing, I wondered if all the men in my grandfather’s village were taken to Jiangjing?
” So I came to Jiangjing, determined to find those shadow puppets. I searched blindly in the dark for a whole year before I found them in the Jiangjing National Culture and Art Museum. That shabby little shop refused to return the puppets to me, and refused to tell me where they came from. They just said that a Japanese scholar found them in Jiangjing a few years ago and donated them …”
Guanjian and Anzaki Sachiko looked at each other, and Guanjian said, ” I will call and find out tomorrow . ”
Liu Shicai said, ” Don’t bother. You won’t be able to get the puppet show even if you call again, because I stole it … ” As he spoke, Liu Shicai looked around and took out a greasy black bag from the lining of his jacket: ” This bag was made by my grandfather himself. The puppet show that he gave to my grandmother as a token of love was placed in it. I also put the one from the museum here after I stole it. Look, these two are both Huang Tianba, aren’t they exactly the same? ”
Guanjian and Anzaki Sachiko took the two leather paper-cut figures and compared them carefully. They were indeed identical. Liu Shicai added: ” After I got the shadow puppets back from the museum , I immediately returned to the village. My grandmother had passed away, so she couldn’t help me identify them, but the old people in the village recognized them at a glance. They were indeed the shadow puppets of our Xiaoliang Village. Then I thought, since my grandfather’s shadow puppets were lost in Jiangjing, there must be a reason. Why did my grandfather’s shadow puppets end up outside and not be passed down? I worked in Jiangjing and thought about it myself, but I couldn’t figure it out. One day, I was staring at them in a daze, and then I found a shadow puppet that I had never paid attention to before, or a paper- cut … Look , this is it. ” Liu Shicai took out the so-called ” paper-cut ” from the small bag and asked: ” Look , what does it look like? ”
Guan Jian and Anzaki Sachiko cried out softly, ” Ah ! ”
Just as Liu Shicai described, it was a piece of gray cloth, cut into a shape with an oval on top, like a three-dimensional plane view of a basin. It could be seen that the surface of the ” basin ” was concave, and under the ” basin ” was a vertical columnar structure, which was slightly wider at the bottom and slightly triangular.
At first glance, it was the shape of the strange iron platform under the courtyard wall not far away.
Liu Shicai continued, ” I was quite puzzled as to why there was such a piece of ‘ rag ‘ in a set of shadow puppetry . I was bored, so I picked up the piece of cloth and looked at it from front to back, and found a small piece of black stitching here. ”
Sure enough, there was a black stitch at the junction of the ” cloth paper-cut ” basin-shaped ” table ” and the column .
” I wondered why there was such a seam on the paper-cut . I used tweezers to pick up the stitches, and then I discovered that after removing the thread, it felt like the piece of cloth had two layers, upper and lower. ” Liu Shicai gently pulled out the thread on the end of the cloth.
” In this section with wires , there’s a hollow space between the upper and lower layers of cloth, ” Liu Shicai tore open the cloth, separating the upper and lower layers.
A cross! ” If the light is good, the cross is a dark red, and looks like it was drawn with blood. ”
Guanjian said, ” So, you wandered around all the churches in Jiangjing City , and finally one day, you found this place …” He suddenly turned back quickly. The three of them quickly came to the iron platform in the center of the small lawn. Guanjian pointed to the northwest : ” Then you saw the cross on the top of the Notre Dame Church. ”
” My mind suddenly buzzed : My grandfather told the people who came after him on this piece of cloth that he had been here! ”
A sentence popped up in the key mind: ” Institute of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine , the first place winner of this ranking! ”
” So, it’s you who’s burning paper on this platform? Do you think your grandfather died here? ”
Liu Shicai nodded : ” Yes, only when people are about to die will they try every possible means to spread the news. ”
Anzaki Sachiko suddenly said: ” Don’t jump to conclusions so early . There is too much speculation here. ”
Liu Shicai said: ” I have been hanging around here for a while. I found the old nun in the church and asked her if she knew anything, but she didn’t know anything . Maybe I have been hanging around in this backyard for too long, so the little girl surnamed Huang started to doubt me. One day, she suddenly came to me and asked me, saying that she had seen me in the church and found it very strange …”
” I told her everything . She said she would help me look up some information, such as the history of our Xiaoliang Village. She and I made an appointment to meet here at around 11 o’clock that night. I can’t remember which day it was. I waited for her news every day, but she never came again. I only found out today …”
Guanjian and Anzaki Sachiko looked at each other again, and Guanjian said, ” How about this, we will continue to help you investigate these things she didn’t tell you, and we will tell you anyway, okay? ”
the next day , and Guan Jian and Anzaki Sachiko walked out of the door facing the backyard of the institute side by side .
” I didn’t expect this to be the last experiment. Does it feel a bit sudden? ”
An Qi Sachiko nodded . Liu Shicai was already waiting in front of the strange little iron table. ” How’s the investigation going? ”
Guan Jian glanced at An Qi Sachiko and said, ” Sachiko is the main person in the research, so let her speak. ”
Sachiko Anzaki said: ” I first looked up information about your Xiaoliang Village. The shadow play of Xiaoliang Village was indeed once known as one of the ‘ Three Wonders of Southern Shaanxi ‘ . The Japanese scholar who donated the shadow play to the museum was my father. Apparently, my father somehow found this set of shadow play. We then looked up the background of the institute. The institute building was one of the business buildings designed and built by a British architect in the 1920s . The same architect designed and built the current Jiangjing Art Museum building. In the early 1930s , the situation became increasingly turbulent, and the British-funded departments of the business building withdrew from Jiangjing, and it became the Jiangjing Botanical Institute. The current Institute of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine and the Jiangjing Art Museum were merged into one department during the occupation period in the late 1930s and early 1940s : the Greater East Asia Drug Management Bureau. ”
” Occupied by the Japanese army? ” Liu Shicai was a little confused.
” The Japanese name of the Greater East Asia Pharmaceutical Management Bureau was ‘ Kotai Pharmaceutical Management Co., Ltd. ‘ It was a private pharmaceutical company. At that time, the import and export of drugs between Japan and China in Central, North, and East China were all involved in this management bureau. ”
Key point: ” There are people who profit from war in every era. ”
” Strangely, the Greater East Asia Drug Trading Bureau was established in April 1939 , but it did not really start operating until November 1940. During the entire year and a half, the Greater East Asia Drug Trading Bureau was undergoing ‘ repairs ‘ . ”
” A year and a half to complete the renovation? ” Liu Shicai had worked in construction and decoration, and had never heard of such poor efficiency.
Key said: ” For a company eager to make money from the war, it is indeed too long. ”
Sachiko Anzaki said: ” That was exactly my problem! I later found this old photo. ”
In her hand, Sachiko Yasaki holds a blurry photo copied from a white sheet of paper, in which a group of people in tuxedos and black hats can be vaguely seen having a meal in a garden: ” There is a photo in the archives from the 1920s , a photo of a party after the completion of the Commercial Building . If you look closely, the party is right where we are now. ”
Liu Shicai exclaimed softly: ” This table! It’s white, looks like white marble, and it has a large tabletop. It’s definitely not the iron table we have now! Could it be that my grandfather’s group of strong laborers came to decorate this Japanese company? ”
All three of them felt that the consequences for this group of laborers would be disastrous.