People online don’t keep up with every single piece of news all the time, so right now, only Little Reed knows what’s really going on. He used to laugh at Samuel Parker’s singing style with others, but now his face is red. “Alright, alright, stop talking. You guys don’t know anything—he’s actually really good.”

Everyone was stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing, thinking Little Reed was joking.

Little Reed: “……”

“Quiet down, you little brats!” John Cooper shouted from the other side. “Bring over a sanxian!”

Someone immediately brought over a sanxian, intending to hand it to John Cooper, but Samuel Parker took it instead—it turned out he was the one who wanted to play. Those who had never heard Samuel Parker play the sanxian couldn’t help but look a little surprised.

……

Just now, Samuel Parker had introduced John Cooper and the others to the vocal styles of Zidi Shu, such as Sparrow Tail, Phoenix Nods Three Times, Fishing for the Moon in the Sea, and so on. Zidi Shu features a wide variety of ornate singing styles—just the ones he inherited number over a hundred.

The lyrics are mainly in seven-character lines, accompanied by the sanxian, which is why it’s also called Qingyin Zidi Shu.

“This is a short, single-episode piece called ‘Lingguan Temple’,” Samuel Parker explained briefly.

Zidi Shu pieces can be as short as one episode or as long as over thirty. It’s not all singing—there are some spoken parts as well. But after it was lost, later generations, looking at the surviving texts, couldn’t tell which parts were sung and which were spoken.

Samuel Parker plucked the sanxian and first recited the opening poem: “Who is an enemy, who a friend? By the Stone of Three Lifetimes, past causes are set. All because of unpaid debts of romance, the heart is moved to pity and affection. The land of Buddha turns to song and dance, the gate of emptiness becomes a gate of right and wrong.”

Then he began the singing section: “It happens to be just after the Ghost Festival, neither cold nor warm. At Lingguan Temple, the real nuns are hosting a banquet to celebrate a birthday. They’ve specially invited high-ranking officials from court, as well as those lively, boisterous ladies. There are also royal relatives who serve as the nation’s shield, and scholarly officials who hold the silk cords of office. There are wealthy merchants, and those who serve and have wide connections in the yamen…”

Every word and line he sang sounded much like Jingyun Dagu, but it was definitely not drum song—the melody was more elegant and free.

The actors watching from a distance were all confused. They could mistake “Why Bother with the Western Chamber” for a drum song because it shares the same drum music, but this “Lingguan Temple” doesn’t exist in the drum repertoire—they’d never heard of it.

And hearing him play and sing in person, the sanxian was played beautifully and matched the singing perfectly. Listening to it, it really didn’t sound off-key at all.

Someone vaguely caught on—could it be that this man wasn’t singing drum songs at all?

By now, Samuel Parker had finished the piece. After saying something to their master, he put down the sanxian and began singing the Jingyun Dagu version of “Why Bother with the Western Chamber” a cappella.

Of all the drum songs today, Jingyun Dagu is the most similar to Zidi Shu. In terms of rhythm and meter, Jingyun Dagu could be called the “direct descendant” of Zidi Shu.

Besides that, Jingyun Dagu also borrows from opera singing and Peking opera performance.

At the end of the verse, Samuel Parker used the classic “throwing the tune” technique from Jingyun Dagu—leaping from a low note to a high one, then dropping back down, finally ending on the main note. The range was wide, his vocal control precise, and the flavor of Jingyun Dagu was fully displayed!

On closer appreciation, he wasn’t just singing—he was imitating, and he sounded just like the famous Jingyun Dagu master, Master Mu. [http://www.repanso.com] Baidu Cloud search engine, for finding novels, movies, and TV shows.

The same subject, both Zidi Shu and Jingyun Dagu versions—now Samuel Parker had sung them both. After hearing Samuel Parker sing Jingyun Dagu, no one could possibly doubt that his Zidi Shu was off-key.

A herd of alpacas seemed to stampede through the actors’ minds.

“Holy crap!”

“…Did this guy grow up eating drum songs??”

“Who—who said he was just a pretty face?!”

If this is what a pretty face is, they might as well find a hole to crawl into!

As crosstalk performers, they’d all studied various folk arts, especially drum songs, which are widespread. Now they could be absolutely sure—Samuel Parker was definitely not off-key before! This Mu-style drum song—what an authentic flavor!

—When they found out that what Samuel Parker had actually been singing was Zidi Shu, they wouldn’t just want to crawl into a hole—they’d want to die on stage.

……

Samuel Parker had a foundation in Peking opera and could perform Zidi Shu, so learning many drum songs was twice as easy for him, especially Jingyun Dagu. And he never mixed up the styles—whatever he learned, he performed. After Jingyun Dagu, he imitated Meihua Dagu, Jingdong Dagu, Qinshu, and so on.

Samuel Parker was sharing his crosstalk skills with Cooper and Scott. Unlike singing Zidi Shu, as a crosstalk performer learning to sing, the focus was on imitation. He deliberately chose to imitate various famous artists, and his mimicry was spot-on.

Since he started learning crosstalk, after graduating, Samuel Parker’s master played the straight man for him. Later, when times got tough and his family was destroyed, he went a long time without a fixed partner, performing solo, switching partners, able to play both the straight and comic roles, skilled in speaking, imitating, teasing, and singing—he could do it all. When he had no partner, he just did solo acts.

It was during those hard days that Samuel Parker honed his abilities.

In the eyes of James Scott and the others, they had a different impression—they felt that Samuel Parker truly deserved to have learned crosstalk from the “overseas lost treasures.” His sense of timing and habits were just like the old masters, completely at odds with his young and handsome appearance.