A female guest sitting across from them said, “Let Jesse do a solo performance; everyone is waiting!”
She was sitting with the host’s child and gently suggested, “Shall we ask Jesse gege to tell a story?”
The child timidly nodded.
The guest handed a radish flower to the child, saying, “Good, now you go to Jesse gege. Look, it’s just over there. You say, ‘Gege, tell a story!'”
The child, holding the radish flower, ran over to the long bench opposite them.
That female guest was still calling out, encouraging him, “Baby, just say, ‘Jesse gege, quickly tell a story! Please!'”
The child looked at the handsome and smiling Qi Shejiang on the left, then at Zhang Yue on the right, who was babbling nonstop, and then shyly handed the radish flower to Zhang Yue, saying, “Jesse gege, please tell a story.”
Zhang Yue: “………………Not me!!”
Everyone burst out laughing and started banging the table.
Xie Qing was almost dying from laughter, “Who told you to keep blabbering, making it seem like you can talk a lot!”
Otherwise, how could they like Qi Shejiang so much? As long as they brought up Qi Shejiang, Zhang Yue would feel frustrated. Qi Shejiang himself, needless to say, occasionally chimed in with a comment.
The child was almost frightened and took the radish flower back, looking over at Qi Shejiang for a long while.
Qi Shejiang smiled wider and reached his hand forward.
Logically, there should only be two of them here, and Qi Shejiang had even stretched out his hand, but the child still turned around and handed the radish flower to Zhou Dong, who was laughing so hard he was convulsing, saying, “Jesse gege… tells a story…”
Qi Shejiang: “…………”
Chapter 22 Except for the parties directly involved and the child’s family, everyone else was almost laughing to madness, for a full three minutes.
The female guest, wiping her tears, asked, “Wait, baby, what do you think that brother does?”
The child, realizing he had guessed wrong again, immediately threw himself into his mother’s arms, shyly saying, “I don’t know.”
The child’s mother was also bewildered; clearly, she didn’t recognize Qi Shejiang. Since Qi Shejiang had not been debuted for long, she muttered in confusion, “He should be an idol, right? Didn’t they say there was an idol among the stars that came?”
“……” This time the female guest couldn’t laugh anymore; her mouth twitched, “…That would be me.
“
Everyone: “Whoa, hahahaha!!!”
It was one thing for the child not to recognize Qi Shejiang, but this sister also saw Qi Shejiang’s actions and didn’t dare to say he was a crosstalk performer.
After these days of getting along, since the female guest had humorously self-deprecated, they no longer needed to be polite with her and burst into laughter again, to the point where the director had to regain control of the situation.
Qi Shejiang helplessly took out the wooden clapper and said, “What you’ve said makes it clear that it’s time to tell you the truth—I am indeed a xiangsheng performer.” The child’s mother replied, “…” She said with a grievance, “I really can’t recognize it…” Qi Shejiang moved a table over and recited a prologue poem to everyone who was still smiling, “The lovebirds’ ledger records a false union, enemies meet, entangled in affairs. Even if today’s soul returns wrongly, this calamity is absolutely…” With a clap of the wooden clapper, a crisp “pop” rang out, completing the last three words: “——unfounded!” In a solo performance, the prologue poem can be finished with the clap, or it can end with a few words followed by the clap, depending on how the master teaches and the content of the poem, based on the emotions at the time.
As he opened, the venue gradually quieted down. He began by briefly introducing the previous events for those who had not heard them, giving a recap before continuing the story. “It was mentioned earlier that the county magistrate was tipped off and caught Zhao Sheng and Yang Haoshan in secret meeting in the Zen room, thinking he had caught them in the act! Zhao Sheng was immediately interrupted and scared that he fell off the stool. Yang Haoshan put her hand down, still clutching her hairpin, but when the county magistrate came in to look—she was about to remove her makeup to sleep. He thought to himself, well no wonder you didn’t want to sleep with me, it turns out you have a lover!” “Yang Haoshan is a scoundrel. He saw that now he had only two paths: either confess that he came to seek revenge for a murder, or be pinned with the accusation of adultery—neither would end well.
Yang Haoshan immediately pointed the pin at his own throat, saying, ‘Sir, you’ve finally arrived; this person wants to do me harm, I was just about to commit suicide to preserve my innocence.’
“When Yang Haoshan said this, Zhao Sheng was dumbfounded. He was all mouth yet couldn’t clarify. Furthermore, think about it—one should not wear shoes in a melon patch or adjust their hat under a plum tree. If Zhao Sheng agreed to a private meeting with a woman, didn’t he have some other thoughts in mind? It was simply that he got caught by the county magistrate.”
This was quite the scene of chaos, and Qi Shejiang once again employed his Peking Opera skills, using a few simple gestures and changes in tone to vividly portray the three characters and heightening the tension of the situation.
Because of Yang Haoshan’s behavior of feigning madness in front of his own house, the county magistrate didn’t believe she was forced.
It was an infamy for him, and angrily, he found an excuse to beat Zhao Sheng up, shackling him and imprisoning him in the dungeon. As for Yang Haoshan, she was locked in the yard to avoid losing face, waiting for future handling. Although Yang Haoshan could not escape, she felt rather pleased. Now that Zhao Sheng was in jail, and she had put a green hat on the county magistrate, wasn’t that satisfying? Not long after, a patrol officer came to take up his duties, passing through this place. Hearing about the recent fire at the county granary, he showed some concern and stayed an extra day. Zhao Sheng’s family, inexplicably hearing news that their son was imprisoned for theft, were very anxious about it and decided to intercept the sedan chair to lodge a complaint! This patrol officer was a person of integrity, and he immediately inquired with the county magistrate, who revealed his guilt, prompting the officer to take Zhao Sheng out for questioning.
There are no walls that don’t let the wind through; the matter of the county magistrate’s wife had already spread in a small circle, with some thinking that this lady, who was once virtuous and kind, had now committed adultery after becoming ill.
