This article develops an intercultural hermeneutic for reading contemporary kunqu as a site where aesthetic practice and theory meet in mutual articulation. Centring its focus on the Shishuo Xinyu [A New Account of Tales of the World] – an ongoing series of kunqu vignettes by the Jiangsu Province Kun Opera Theatre – this article examines three of its episodes (Fang Dai, Wu Jue, and Tiao Zheng) in order to argue that such xiqu (Chinese traditional opera) principles as ‘using the virtual to evoke the tangible’ and ‘vital resonance’ articulate a relational model of theatrical mediation in which body, object, and imagination co-produce presence through rhythmic reciprocity. In dialogue with Irina Rajewsky’s intermedial reference and Erika Fischer-Lichte’s autopoietic feedback loop, the analysis seeks to demonstrate how minimal scenic cues – a cloak, a mirror, a zither – may function as intersemiotic triggers that transform suggestion into embodied historiography, reanimating the Wei-Jin ethos for contemporary spectators. Drawing on scripts, performance recordings, production materials, and artist interviews, the article positions kunqu not merely as a cultural heritage form but as a theoretical interlocutor that contributes an indigenous aesthetic logic to global debates on intermediality, minimal scenography, and the modernization of intangible heritage.