Michael Lam 

The opera comprises excerpts from three different legends which are all literally woven with humans, spirits and gods, written in flowery language, and portray scholars from the same perspective. Although the details of the stories may not be perfectly coherent, the scholars mentioned in the stories do form a consistent body which gives audience a glimpse of the personality of their author, Dik-seng Tong. It might seem unreasonable to see the characters and the plots as the author’s self-portrayal. Yet, authors would inevitably be influenced by their own personality when they are producing their works, no matter how objective they intend to be. These relevant clues are not difficult to be found in most literary masterpieces.