The entire stage is a vast structure of the pearl in the form of a massive tsunami wave. It curves over itself and reaches out toward the audience, looming over where we sit. The surface of the structure seems to indicate a riot of busy detail within the wave itself. However, the stage towers so high above us that, in the dim light, it’s impossible to see what’s embedded inside it.
When the sun has finally set, we take our seats. The lanterns lining the aisles are dimmed. A student skates onto the dark stage. She does a pinwheel flip ending in splits and flings two torches to either side of the stage. They strike twin fuses leading to strings of firecrackers. As the explosions race up the fuses, we see that the stage is braided with lattices of fireworks, lighting thousands of tiny candles strung through the interior of the wave to swell the whole structure with a sweep of golden light.
We gaze, dazzled. Then another gasp goes up as we see that the whole structure is translucent and deep inside are carved giant dolphins and sharks and whales and schools of fish and monstrous unnamed things churned up from the sea floor by the tsunami, all in living detail but far more massive than they would be in reality and all hanging above us instead of swimming below.
It’s like something out of a fever dream, vivid, impossible, and so unbearably beautiful that it brands itself onto the sleeping mind and is wrenched with us into waking. The marvel on everyone’s faces, bathed in golden light from the wave above us, tells us that we’re all awake together and that tonight, reality is better than a dream.
As I stare up at the form of the wave bearing every wonder of the deep, I realize that there’s only one person who has the skill to carve these sculptures within a sculpture. My heart’s bursting so full of pride that I can’t hold the tears back.
When the opera begins, it quickly becomes apparent that it bears only the most rudimentary resemblance to the true events of the Great Leap of Shin. If the boy Lim Tian-Tai had as many costume changes during his desperate race to the Imperial City as Suki has during the performance, he would still be only halfway there now. However, as pure spectacle, it’s staggering.
As the dance battle between the armies of Lim Tian-Tai and Mu Haichen escalates, the skaters begin to skate round and round to gather speed. Several of them sweep up the half cylinder formed by the wave and use it to launch up and engage in aerial combat. Several battles end with the loser kicked through the air and flying over the audience.
The forms and the movements and the sounds are so striking, they impale themselves in your mind so that you quickly get to the point where you feel that there’s no other form of fighting in the world, no other form of sport, no other form of dance. This is the only way to move. Everything else is just a pale shadow.
Watching this, I know that wu liu is all I’ve ever wanted to do. And I know that wu liu, and everything else that’s important to me, might be taken away because I chose to help Pearl; I chose to help my friend.
I also know that I had to do what I did.
For I am Chen Peasprout. And being Chen Peasprout is more important to me than being a legend of wu liu.
I’m drawn out of contemplation as the opera hurtles toward its great finale. The eunuch Mu Haichen issues the command with a chop of his hand; the great fireworks cannons strike the beat for the leap; the Great Wall of two hundred million men stretching six hundred li across the vastness of Shin, represented by the army of skaters in black, leaps in unison on the central spine of the earth. At the seventy-eighth leap, the earth shudders and quakes and cracks and breaks.
A rumble rises behind the audience. We all turn to look. A phalanx of skaters in blue, trailing fluttering ribbons, washes down the aisles through the audience, representing the tsunami wave launched by the Great Leap of Shin. The skaters fling themselves into the half cylinder, take its curve hard, and come whipping up and back at us, soaring overhead and scattering petals of blue paper as we’re all washed under by the tide that drowned the first city of Pearl. We roar as the structure is flushed with water, and the candles are put out, and we’re plunged into darkness.
The cast, composer, author, and architects take their ovations. Afterward, the three stars come down from the stage to meet their fellow students and show their sumptuous costumes up close. The first-year students who won the sculpture competition are gathered with the third-year Conservatory of Architecture students on the stage, basking in the majesty of their handiwork.
“Where is Cricket?” I hear one of the stage design team say. They search in the audience and see him. They skate down together to bring him up on the stage.
I want to go to him, I want to say things to him, but I don’t know if I have the right. I turn to Doi beside me. She nods toward the stage.
I shamble up the ramp at the side of the stage. When Cricket sees me, he is still. He doesn’t look away or bury his chin in his breast. Is it his turn now to be ashamed of me, in my socks, with my sixteenth-place ranking? He nods his head slightly. I shuffle to him. His friends part to let me through.
I reach down and take his hands. I look at the wave yawning over us and say, “That came out of your hands? These little hands?” The tears trace down my cheeks. “Can you forgive me? I was so wrong.” He turns his face up to
