Chapter 397: First Shoot, Then Draw the Target

One sheet after another, one segment after another, Lin Sicheng was methodical, neither hurried nor slow.

A group of Experts, however, found it increasingly bizarre the more they looked: patching things together from east and west was one thing, but it was also messy and chaotic?

The fourth segment Lin Sicheng read was an excerpt of "Yu Meiren" from the Song Dynasty ci-poetry critique *Biji Manzhi* by Wang Zhuo. The fifth segment became a musical passage from "Bomei Xizi Ci" composed by Dong Ying of the Southern Song Dynasty.

Although these two are Song Dynasty ci-poetry tunes, they both originated from Tang Dynasty court music (official banquet music and folk tunes), and could be considered somewhat related to "Liu Yao".

But the rest was truly baffling:

The sixth segment was a sanqu aria from the *Jiu Gong Dacheng Nanbei Ci Gongpu*, compiled by imperial decree of the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. To put it simply: it was a folk ballad or ditty. The seventh segment became court music from the Qing palace found in the *Lü Lü Zhengyi*, compiled during the reign of Kangxi.

If it were standard Qing palace music, it wouldn't be strange, as a large portion of it was collected from Ming Dynasty court music. What they found strange was the passage Lin Sicheng had transcribed: an excerpt from "Yan'er Ta", a guqin piece modified from the twelve-tone system to a fourteen-tone system by imperial decree of Kangxi.

To use an analogy: if the twelve-tone system passed down from the Zhou Dynasty were the character "one," then the fourteen-tone system would be a deliberate complication, adding several radicals to this character—the kind that are extremely obscure and difficult to write, with at least twenty or thirty strokes.

Therefore, this thing only exists in literature.

If one were to make a comparison, the level of absurdity is no less than that of the previous Yuan drama segment.

But it didn't end there: the eighth segment suddenly switched to the Tang Dynasty Tuyuhun music and dance piece "Qinghai Bo". The ninth segment was an erhu passage from "Diao Sang", a traditional Puxian Opera from Putian, Fujian.

And from the ninth to the eleventh segments, it became Dunhuang Pipa Score fragments: P. 3539 and P. 3719?

That is to say, the two pieces among the three volumes of ancient Dunhuang scores that have yet to be translated and restored to this day: the twenty pipa notation characters and fingering Annotations on the back of the *Record of the Buddha's Original Acts; Upali Chapter*, and the "Huan Xi Sha" pipa fragment on the back of the *Erya* scripture.

How did Lin Sicheng translate them?

No one knows.

Whether the translation is correct, no one knows even more.

After that, the musical style changed abruptly, and Lin Sicheng interspersed several segments of "Ji Quzi", "Man Quzi", "You Ji Quzi", and "You Man Quzi" from the ancient Dunhuang scores translated and restored by Chen Yingshi.

The scale had not changed, but the rhythm had been altered beyond recognition.

If one were to ask a few Experts for their impressions, it could be described entirely with two phrases: extremely bizarre and completely off-base.

But no one made a sound.

After all, these were just selected segments; when transcribing the music, they were only played one section at a time. Who knew if a chemical reaction might suddenly occur if they were put together? After about an hour, the first draft was considered complete. Lin Sicheng rearranged it slightly, though the changes were minimal, basically following the order of the segments as they were transcribed.

After examining it, he recopied it once more and handed the score to the pipa player.

Upon receiving it, the musician was stunned for a moment.

It could be said that having practiced from childhood to adulthood, learning for nearly thirty years, she had reached the point where, at a single glance at a musical score, notes would naturally Float in her mind and the music would begin to play.

She could even judge at the very first moment whether a piece was easy to play and whether it would sound good.

Looking at this piece in her hand, the musician's first reaction was: what on earth is this?

As if unable to believe it, she read it through silently once more, then raised her head and stared straight at Lin Sicheng.

That look, that expression—it didn't need translation; anyone with eyes could see it: Teacher Lin, are we really playing it like this?

Lin Sicheng smiled and nodded.

Fine, if it doesn't sound good, don't blame me...