Dreaming With My Dragon Lover

Yuan Ge put down the dough in his hand and said with interest, "Does everyone in your troupe have your dumpling making skills? What fillings are so delicious that you can't stop thinking about them? Tell me some of the stories of the Jinyu Troupe, for example, this story of making dumplings sounds quite innovative to me."

Although he feels in his heart that Rong Qiuchen is being delusional again, he knows that this guy has always been full of details in the stories he has made up so far, so maybe he can add these little details to his script of Qingqing later.

Seeing Yuan Ge's look of interest, Rong Qiuchen is only too happy to tell him these stories. While his hands are busy wrapping dumplings, his thoughts seem to go back to the past.

"Back in the days when the Jinyu Troupe was still unknown and quite poor, every New Year's Eve, the Second Master would lead us in making dumplings. He would personally go to the market to buy flour and vegetables. The eldest brother came from a well-to-do family. He only joined our troupe out of love for opera, so he was the only one of us who did not sign an indenture to the troupe. Every year before New Year's Eve, he would insist on returning home despite the humiliation and reproach he received from his family. When he came back he would bring back some beef, mutton and pork, and sometimes a little seafood. The second brother was the best among us at kneading dough and pulling it into small pieces, and he did it quickly and evenly. The third brother was good at martial arts and had good stamina because he was a Sheng actor; and making minced meat filling was his speciality. Fifth brother and I were responsible for rolling out the small pieces of dough to make the dumpling wrappers. The youngest two brothers were tasked with making dumplings with the Second Master because they had an eye for detail and were the most meticulous in their work. They could wrap all kinds of different shapes of dumplings, but I didn't have such skills..."

"There are so many of you! It sounds like a clear division of labour. That would be a quick and easy way to make New Year's Eve dumplings together, wouldn't it?"

There are only three people in Yuan Ge's family, and in recent years he has often spent New Year's Eve alone, so Yuan Ge could not help but feel a sense of longing when he heard about the lively and atmospheric New Year's Eve dinner in Rong Qiuchen's description.

"As Gege said, dumplings are traditionally served around midnight, from the last hour of New Year's Eve to the first hour of the New Year's Day, so we had to do it continuously and quickly to ensure that everyone in the troupe got their dumplings in time. However, there were so many of us in the troupe that even when we moved quickly, a few hundred dumplings were only enough to give everyone a taste of it, getting half full..."

"One can imagine that in a large opera troupe full of young lads, a delicacy like dumplings is never enough to go around, no matter how many there are."

"That's right. There were not just seven 'golden flowers' in our troupe, but also many young brothers who were less than ten years old. When the dumplings came out of the pot, the young ones were given the priority to eat, so when it was our seven brothers' turn, we had only about ten dumplings each, so we were never full. We also had to save a few bowls of dumplings as a New Year's offering to the gods. Although the First Master himself did not make dumplings with us, he was the one who led us in burning incense to worship the ancestors and the gods."

"It feels like the two masters in your class, one is like a strict father and the other is like a loving mother."

"Exactly. The First Master was good at playing the Sheng role, so he was responsible for teaching us martial arts and other skills required for acting in the Sheng role. The Second Master was once a leading actor in the Dan role, and it was thanks to him that eventually the Jinyu Troupe dominated the opera scene and the Flower of the Opera Stage ranking. Life in the troupe was hard, but I felt very happy inside. Whatever was on the plate at that time tasted like a delicacy like no other."

"Every one of those sentiments and stories you mentioned sounds so touching, would hit home when placed in the plot of Qingqing. What about after that, any more events?"

"After the New Year worshipping ritual, the fifth brother's best friend Yee Bo - who was a chivalrous little beggar with a big heart - somehow managed to get a big pile of firecrackers, so a bunch of us brothers from the troupe went with him to the lively markets and fairs and let loose for a whole night, feeling completely uninhibited, free and happy! The next day, the first day of the New Year, the masters were merciful and exempted us from the morning training..."

Qiuchen's eyes turned red as he spoke, and his voice choked up, unable to continue.

"You provided a lot of detail in your story. You have made this story up really well!"

Seeing the redness at the end of his eyes and the tears welling up in his eyes, Yuan Ge hurriedly joked and tried to comfort him, "We are just making up a story, there is no need to take it seriously and move ourselves to tears."

"It's not a story! It's all in the past… the Jinyu Troupe is gone… all is gone…"

Although Yuan Ge has seen Rong Qiuchen cry a few times, he has never seen him cry with such emotion. He thought to himself, "It's New Year's Eve, how come I have made him cry? I really shouldn't make him sad!" He didn't know what to say, so he hurriedly retrieved his collection of special editions of two euro coins from his black sheep shaped piggy bank, and said, "Here here here. Give them a good wash and put them in the dumplings. Let's see which of us has the best New Year's luck and gets the most coins in the dumplings. However, although I have enough coins here, you must not sneak them into each dumpling. And no cheating! Don't mark them secretly!"

Seeing Rong Qiuchen staring blankly at the unfamiliar euro coins, his mind still immersed in reverie, a tear fell on the dumpling wrappers, Yuan Ge put his arm around Rong Qiuchen's shoulder and patted it, comforting him, "I promise you, in the future, when 'Qingqing' is resumed, I will make sure that your Jingyu Troupe and your masters and brothers will be brought to life in the movie, and make sure that the scenes are just like what you have described, okay? Don't feel sad, let's cheer up and continue to wrap the dumplings or we won't be able to eat them in time for midnight. In my house, you can have as many dumplings as you want, all you can eat in fact!"