Chapter 271 Unless She is the Reincarnation of an Ancient Person
All eyes fell on Xia Weibao.
The old man chuckled, "Xiao Bao Bao, can you also play the guqin?"
Xia Weibao stumbled and almost fell flat on her face!
Xiao... Xiao Bao Bao?
Old man, could you not use such a horrifying nickname? It’s scaring the baby.
"Old man, I have a name. It’s Xia Weibao."
"I know, everyone calls you Baby, don’t they? I’m older than you, so what’s the problem with calling you Xiao Bao Bao?"
Xia Weibao, "..."
She was rendered speechless.
It’s fine to call me Xiao Bao, but Xiao Bao Bao, what the heck!
She was twenty this year, not twenty days!
Forget it, it was just an elderly man she had met by fate, never to be seen again. Let him call her whatever he wanted.
She sat down at the table, her hands caressing the strings of the instrument.
A sense of familiarity surged through her, mixed with myriad emotions.
How long had it been since she last played the instrument?
The Dog Emperor used to love listening to her play the guqin during his naps.
Her Majesty the Empress felt a tinge of sourness in her heart.
In the past, she couldn’t wait to fly away from the Dog Emperor every day, but now that they were truly apart, she... missed him.
She took a deep breath, suppressing the sourness in her heart.
Putting emotion into playing the guqin was important; she couldn’t let herself be affected.
Her slender fingers gently grazed each string, as if communicating with the ancient instrument.
Her hands were beautiful, slender and fair as jade.
Her nails were neatly trimmed, showing a healthy pink hue.
Skin as ice, bones as jade – it was probably just like this.
Ruan Shushu was a bit spellbound.
Those who studied the guqin were all about the hands.
And Xia Weibao’s hands were definitely the most perfect she had ever seen!
She quickly took out her phone and started recording.
Never mind how well she played, just this sight of her touching the guqin was a blessing for hand lovers!
"The piece I’m going to play is ’Ambush from Ten Sides,’" Xia Weibao said with a smile.
The old man was taken aback, feeling somewhat incredulous.
"Ambush from Ten Sides" was one of the ten great ancient Huaxia pieces. Although there were versions played on the guqin, it was more commonly associated with the pipa.
The difficulty of this piece was extremely high, filled with a majestic aura, echoing with sounds of clashing metal and the tense line between life and death.
To express such a vast and epic scene with the guqin was very difficult.
Back in ancient times, when musicians reached the pinnacle of their art, some were indeed capable of performing it.
Rumor had it that the true "Ambush from Ten Sides" came with its own murderous energy!
It could even control the air itself, slicing through it sharply, killing invisibly!
Historical records claim that Empress Bao of the Great Xia Kingdom once took to the battlefield, using "Ambush from Ten Sides" to kill the enemy.
With the guqin as her weapon, in a flick of her fingers, an army of a hundred thousand vanished into dust!
The battlefield covered in the haze of war and blood - a mere mention instilled fear in the hearts of many.
Of course, history was probably exaggerated. It wasn’t possible that a guqin could kill ten thousand men. But the tale of Empress Bao using the guqin as a weapon had been passed down through the ages.
As a result, Empress Bao became one of the representative figures of the guqin.
The guqin artistry of ancient times was indeed masterful and reached the peak of perfection.
But as time progressed, many traditional instrumental techniques were lost.
"Ambush from Ten Sides" often required the grandeur of a symphonic orchestra to truly bring out the intense battle scene.
Moreover, that was only to make the scene spectacular. The notion of a piece carrying murderous energy or killing with the guqin only existed in martial arts fiction.
Xia Weibao aiming to challenge Yan Yuexian’s "High Mountain Flowing Water" with this piece was going to be difficult!
After all, Yan Yuexian’s level of guqin playing was already quite high, and she had brought "High Mountain Flowing Water" to a whole new level.
Unless Xia Weibao was an ancient person reincarnated, aware of those lost arts of guqin playing.