Dreaming With My Dragon Lover

After dinner that evening, Yuan Ge has gone into his home cinema room and retrieved a lot of film materials related to the Ming Dynasty from his collection for comparative study. Although it is the first day of the New Year and he is still in holiday, he dares not slacken off in the slightest when he thinks of the pressure of work after the festival season.

Rong Qiuchen is quiet all night, neither hanging out with the little robot nor going into the home cinema room to watch movies with him, but staying in Violette Fu's room alone for a long time. Yuan Ge assumes that he must have been excitedly assembling and playing with the dolls. He is sure that he will see a perfect opera stage with the whole cast from the Jinyu Troupe reappearing in his mother's room soon.

It's not until after midnight that Yuan Ge has finally finished his work for the day. At that moment, Rong Qiuchen happens to come upstairs to say good night, his eyes full of excitement.

"How's it going? Finished assembling the doll set?"

Rong Qiuchen nods happily, "Gege, I want to thank you for letting me have this set of dolls. Looking at them makes me feel as if the seven brothers of the Jinyu Troupe are right in front of me, and the pain of missing them is somewhat eased a little. The dolls have so many joints and are so flexible that they can be made into all kinds of poses. Perhaps I can make new costumes for them and use them to choreograph new plays in the future."

Yuan Ge chuckles as he listens, "So that's why that shop owner relented to sell you the dolls. Probably only in your hands can they fulfil their roles and shine. But it's quite strange when I think about what happened today. Don't you think it's weird that someone should have met these famous Qing Dynasty actors from Flowers of the Opera Stage through a dream like I did? It's not an easily accessible book, so where did the shop owner or you get it from?"

"Gege, do you still think that the shop owner and I both learned about the Jinyu Troupe by reading the book the Flowers of the Opera Stage?"

"What else could it be? Are you all reincarnated and carrying the memories of your past lives? I guess only my mother would believe such nonsense. Just tell me the truth, where on earth did you get a copy of that book? It will save me the trouble of guessing all the time."

When Rong Qiuchen sees that Yuan Ge is still as stubborn as ever, holding the same attitude as before, he feels quite helpless, "Gege, didn't you also meet Rong Qing in your dreams? Why do you believe in yourself, but not in us?"

"That's not the same! I did get a lot of details of Rong Qing from my dreams, but the original inspiration came from another source." Yuan Ge winks mysteriously, "Because not only did I see the original book of The Flower of the Opera Stage and read its contents, but this rare artefact itself is now in my house!"

Seeing Rong Qiuchen's astonished and completely dumbfounded look, Yuan Ge simply is feeling quite smug. He leads Rong Qiuchen to the sitting room and says indulgently, "Seeing that you have such a deep connection with opera, I'll show you this treasure that has been held in the highest esteem by generations of Chinese opera singers."

Yuan Ge takes down a post-modern decorative painting from the wall, revealing a built-in safe behind it. After some tinkering with mechanical rotation, codes and fingerprints, the safe is finally opened with a click.

Yuan Ge puts on a pair of gloves and carefully takes out a turquoise brocade box from the safe, brings it to the coffee table in front of the sofa and opens it. Rong Qiuchen looks inside curiously and sees that there are two thin pieces of palm-sized oval shaped jade lying in the box.

With Yuan Ge's voice command "Spotlights!" The lights above the sofa and on the side wall light up, illuminating the entire coffee table without a shadow. Only then does Rong Qiuchen see clearly that the two pieces of jade are pure white in colour and flawless, and are actually made from top quality suet white jade. He cannot help but blurt out, "Gege, how did you get this authentic piece of artefact?"

"You know it's the real thing just by looking at the cover? The way you talked as if you've seen it before!"

Yuan Ge doesn't take too much notice of what Rong Qiuchen said, and carefully picks up the two pieces of jade, which have many pages of yellow paper folded into a little book between them. On the first page, there are five words written - "Flowers of the Opera Stage".

"I don't know where you have seen a copy of this book and learned the name of Rong Qiuchen, while this book folded between the jade covers in my hands is the authentic original book the Flowers of the Opera Stage!" Yuan Ge smiles proudly and continues, "My mother and the curator of the Forbidden City Museum have been close friends for many years, and this book is considered by the curator to be the greatest treasure in his private family collection. Because he wanted to have it evaluated by my mother, and also because I'm making a film about a famous Beijing Opera actor, he has temporarily left it to my mother's care. You are very lucky to be able to take a look at this precious historical relic that has not yet been released to the public."

Rong Qiuchen looks at the book in Yuan Ge's hand in a daze and can not help but exclaim, "As fate would have it, I would never have imagined that this book would pass into Gege's hands!"