Riding the wind of rebirth

The underground library has a very unique design. Its lighting system utilizes the atrium structure and the glass curtain wall of the aquarium, providing ample and soft natural light during the day.

Watching the huge koi swimming in the pond, the older sister-in-law couldn't help but exclaim, "These fish are so beautiful!"

"Xueshan, you've added some more koi? There are about ten of them here that aren't the old ones, and they're all top-quality ones."

Feng Xueshan sat down: "Don't you think these ten or so koi fish look a bit familiar?"

"Familiar?" Zhou Zhi sat on the sofa, staring at the koi in the aquarium for a while, until a large koi carp turned to the side near the glass before he realized, "Huh? These are from the Wuhou Temple?"

"Hmm." Feng Xueshan smiled, "They can still recognize people here. That's quite impressive."

“These dozen or so koi are truly precious,” Zhou Zhi said. “The Japanese are obsessed with the Three Kingdoms culture. They specially built a pond at the Wuhou Temple and donated a batch of national treasure-level koi to the temple to keep. How did they end up here?”

"It's because they're so precious that Wuhou Temple can't afford to keep them anymore," Feng Xueshan said with a smile. "Algae are prone to blooming in the summer, which requires a lot of circulation and filtration. Wuhou Temple can't afford the electricity and material costs, so they stopped circulating the pool."

"Stopping the circulation resulted in an algae bloom, which had a significant impact on the fish. So, the fishermen at Wuhou Temple replaced them with hardy local fish and sent these ten or so Japanese species to us for temporary care. They said they would take them back to their original pond once the weather cooled down."

“They had the provincial government putting in a good word for them, and they said that we were the only place in the entire Chengdu city with the most suitable pool. They even promised to provide manpower. I thought it wasn’t a big deal, so I agreed without telling you.”

"Well, it's a small contribution to the city government," Zhou Zhi nodded. "But it's really stingy of the Wuhou Temple to be so stingy with even this small amount of funding..."

"It's not just a little bit of funding. The monthly maintenance and upkeep of this pond costs more than 10,000 yuan. The pond at Wuhou Temple is even bigger. If you were to raise koi according to the standards of the islanders, the cost would probably be even higher."

"It costs more than 10,000 yuan a month to raise this pond of fish?" The sister-in-law was really shocked. She had vaguely heard from Yang He and Feng Xueshan that Zhou Zhi was very rich, but her impression of Zhou Zhi was still that of a child who followed Yang He to his home and ran around in the fields and mountains, fishing, catching shrimp, chasing chickens and teasing dogs. She never expected it to be so exaggerated.

Zhou Zhi gave Feng Xueshan a glare, as if to say, "Why are you telling your sister-in-law all this?"

Feng Xueshan glared back, then stuck out her belly as a threat, before taking her sister-in-law's arm: "This is just a pool. The entire operation of the guesthouse costs much more, so the room rates here are higher than those of the five-star Jinjiang Hotel. The family suite we're staying in later costs three thousand a day, and you need to book in advance."

"Then why don't we move back?" The older sister-in-law was clearly overwhelmed by the situation and felt guilty.

"Xueshan is the manager here, and she's the one who took charge of the guesthouse renovation." Zhou Zhi understood a bit about Feng Xueshan's purpose in using this sister-in-law tactic, and smiled to comfort her, "Sister-in-law, if you don't understand anything, just ask her. This place is for serving guests, and you are our honored guest, so what are you afraid of?"

"No, no, what kind of customer am I?" The woman waved her hands repeatedly: "Three thousand a night, I can't afford it."

“That’s how we act when we’re dealing with outsiders,” Feng Xueshan said. “As long as we don’t disturb the other guests, we can just treat ourselves like we’re at home.”

Zhou Zhi said, "Xueshan, you can book two apartments later, so your uncle and aunt can have a place to stay when they come up."

"Well, my parents can just book a standard room. No need to go to too much trouble," Feng Xueshan said. She was quite grateful to Zhou Zhi now. She hadn't considered the possibility of the two families living together under one roof after they came up here. Different family habits led to many conflicts.

This is for the best. It avoids the opportunity for conflict by preventing anyone from having to worry too much. When the two families need to get together again, she will have the energy to mediate.

"Then you guys sit down for a while. I'll take the things to the kitchen and tell them to make the meals a little lighter."

"I'll go too. It's quite a hassle to carry things up this slope," the sister-in-law said.

"No need." Mai Xiaomiao handed her sister-in-law a cup of buckwheat tea. "He'll take the garage elevator; it's no trouble. Sister-in-law, let's go see the room."

The third floor of Suihuaxuan is a layout with a central hall and four suites. Guests staying here will inevitably meet each other in a relatively private setting. Therefore, Zhouzhi usually does not arrange this floor to be open to the public. It is generally reserved for guests who are quite familiar with each other.

This floor is on high ground with nice views on all sides. However, the one facing the fish pond also faces the former auto repair shop, now a driving school. Zhou Zhi isn't picky and has chosen that one so far.

In the end, Feng Xueshan followed Zhou Zhi's advice and chose two sets facing Jiangxi, thus settling down.

Seeing that Feng Xueshan was in a relatively stable condition and still had the energy to make phone calls and type on her laptop to continue working, Zhou Zhi and Mai Xiaomiao went to Shuda University again on the afternoon of the week to "report for the new students".

For doctoral registration, you need your master's degree certificate, academic records, admission notice, ID card, etc. Except for the ID card, the degree certificate and admission notice were kept in the senior professor's office. The senior professor did not give Zhou Zhi the originals at all, as if he was afraid that Zhou Zhi would run away. He even called his mother to verbally inform her that the degree certificate and doctoral admission notice were withheld.

Now, Zhou Zhi only needs to hand over his ID card, and his senior will give it to the secretary. Zhou Zhi won't have to worry about the enrollment process anymore.

Everyone was busy, but the senior professor was more concerned about the preparations for the five new comprehensive research projects that had been added together because of Zhou Zhi's doctoral research.

Zhouzhi also needs to report to each of them.

The simplest approach is to collate the results of modern phonology. Modern phonology has incorporated the more scientific and advanced tools used in Western phonology research, resulting in more standardized, systematic, and logically clear phonology research results from modern scholars.

Moreover, many scholars pay close attention to dialect research and comparison. Therefore, their reconstruction of phonology has drawn on some dialects they are familiar with. In other words, although it is not as comprehensive as Zhouzhi's current collection and collation, it is actually very similar in terms of tools and methods. Transplanting it into the system for verification and comparison, and identifying problems, is not a difficult task.

The team has already started working, and results are beginning to emerge.

The group began a systematic analysis and research on the academic works of Wang Li, Luo Changpei, Zhao Yuanren, and Zhang Shilu.

What my master regrets most is that all of these people are gone. Wang Li and Zhao Yuanren passed away ten years ago, and Zhang Shilu, the most recent of them, also passed away in 1991.

If this project had started ten years earlier, the scholars' work could have been verified by them themselves, which would have undoubtedly created a small peak in phonological research and cultivated a large number of academically outstanding talents. (End of Chapter)