Volume 2: A sudden change in the prison, a red-clothed man goes out to find a thief Chapter 194: Staying Out at Midnight
To be honest, a puppet shop is not a very common shop. For common people in those days, although life was not that difficult, few people would spend dozens of coins or several taels of silver to buy a puppet.
Because of the way they are made, the cost of puppets is relatively high, so these days, puppets are definitely quite expensive.
The puppets in this life are quite different from the puppets in Li Si's previous life. If anything, they should be more appropriately called puppets.
White lacquered wood is the main material of the dolls. After fine carving, polishing and design, movable limbs, trunk and facial features are made. Then the eyebrows and eyes are painted with colored lacquer, and matched with brocade clothes, to achieve a vivid appearance and various postures.
Common puppets can be divided into two types: cloth-covered puppets and string-drawn puppets. Cloth-covered puppets are relatively simple to make, and do not require a torso or limbs. They only require a cloth cover and hands to complete the movements. String-drawn puppets are more complicated, requiring not only a sufficiently flexible body, but also the location of the wiring, the string-drawing technique, the opening and closing of the mechanism, etc.
As for why Li Si knew so much about this thing, it was because when he was a child living in Jinshan Temple, a friend of the old monk would often visit him. Although the old monk hid from the world and told the friend many times not to come to the temple, the man still came often. The old monk could not stop him, and gradually he stopped caring.
After that person got to know Li Si, he would often bring him some stuffed dolls, which made Li Si's toys as a child seem quite luxurious, although he usually didn't play with them much.
Obviously, whether it is the materials needed to make a doll or the skills required to make it, the price of a doll is destined to be high. This also makes it out of the scope of children from ordinary families to play with. Apart from the corresponding practitioners, generally only wealthy families will buy one or two and give them to their children as toys.
There are not many wealthy families in Mingzhou City, so opening a puppet shop here is obviously not a wise choice.
In addition, a man came to Mingzhou City some time ago and he liked to play with dolls, so it is hard for people not to associate this suddenly appearing puppet shop with him.
Strange old man...
Li Si silently repeated the name in his heart and slowly closed his eyes.
In fact, he was very familiar with this person, because this person was the old monk friend who liked to bring him puppets.
Even now, he still remembers the scene when they first met, because that scene was so impressive.
It was one night, Li Si couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, so he got up and went out to wander around the temple. While wandering around, he suddenly saw a figure at the corner of the Buddhist hall. The figure was light and seemed to have noticed Li Si, and with a slight sound of wind, it retreated back into the shadow of the corner.
Li Si noticed something was wrong and picked up a broom beside the hall to protect himself, while preparing to return to the backyard to wake up the old monk.
But the next moment, he felt something stopped behind him. He turned around subconsciously and saw a young man in a gray-white robe and a black high cloth hat standing there expressionlessly.
No one knew what was painted on the man's face. Under the moonlight, his whole face was strangely pale, with a little blood red on his lips, and narrow eyes. In his hand, he held an equally pale doll with a smiling attitude.
In the dead of night, in the empty ancient temple, such a man suddenly appeared. Li Si, who had been to the underworld, thought he had seen Bai Wuchang again. He raised the broom in his hand and hit him, shouting at the same time.
"Hey! Who are you, you evildoer? How dare you disturb the tranquility of Buddhism? Show yourself now!"
He shouted this way, firstly to wake up the old monk, and secondly to scare the other party.
The other party seemed to be frightened and was knocked to the ground by Li Si's broom. Then he was punched and kicked. But he remained motionless, hugging his doll and shrinking, without fighting back or resisting..
When the old monk arrived, the strange old man had been beaten black and blue by Li Si. The old monk was so distressed that he punished the two men to kneel in the Buddhist hall for a night and asked them to reflect on themselves.
Li Si felt that he was wronged. How could he have known that an old monk who was a murderer would actually have friends? Moreover, he dressed in such a manner that anyone who saw him in the middle of the night would be scared and take action.
But strangely, the old man didn't seem to be angry after being beaten. When he knelt in the temple, he even used his puppets to amuse Li Si. His puppets could always pose in various shapes, and some could even move by themselves, which made Li Si feel quite novel and gradually forgot his unhappiness.
Later, the strange old man still often came to the temple as a guest. The old monk did not entertain him, so Li Si was responsible for entertaining him, and the two men became increasingly familiar with each other.
Li Si knew that he could not speak, and since his wife lost her at an early age, he had no expression on his face. He could only use the puppet in his hand to express his thoughts.
His puppets are always very delicate and can make all kinds of expressions, happy or sad, sad or happy. But he rarely gets angry. He is one of the people with the best temper Li Si has ever seen. It seems that you can never see anger on the puppets in his hands.
He told Li Si that he and his wife had wanted a child, but his wife passed away before they could have one. So he started making puppets, and he treated them as his own children, teaching them to laugh and cry, but he didn't want to teach them to get angry. He didn't want his anger to be expressed on his children.
Perhaps because of sympathy, Li Si could sense that the strange old man was always restless, at least not as calm as he looked. It was just that he had too few ways to express himself, so he could only make some superficial expressions. After all, he couldn't talk, laugh, or cry.
He might need some other expressions...
It must have been a sudden inspiration that Li Si made a flute for the strange old man and taught him how to use it.
The strange old man seemed very surprised at this way of pronunciation which he had never tried before, and he played with it expressionlessly for the whole day, until the old monk felt annoyed with him and threw a wooden fish from the Buddhist hall and hit him on the head. Only then did he stop, touching his head.
That day, the strange old man gave Li Si his first puppet, a smiling little man. Li Si kept the puppet in his room in Jinshan Temple, and now when he occasionally lives there, he would take it out and play with it.
…
What is this person going to do in Mingzhou City?
Li Si, who was sitting at the table, rubbed his brows in distress. Although he had a good relationship with the strange old man, he had to admit that this man's personality was definitely quite troublesome.
Not to others, but to him.
