Horse-head Wall Reflects the Qing Dynasty

Chapter 23: Calm Your Mind and Say Goodbye: The Dreamy Lake Reflects the Mountains
"Jiaoan..." Seeing Liu Jiaoan's face, Guan Yin rubbed his sore eyes, "Didn't you just tell others?"

Every one or two days, Liu Jiaoan would go to the market to sell some handmade embroidery, exchange the money for it, and then buy some rice to take home - the food she ate during this period was light, far less than the sumptuous meals that Guan Yin ate in the university cafeteria.

"Husband? You are not my husband!"

"Send her to the government office and show her what happens when she pretends to be my husband!"

Guan Yin had already imagined that the bailiffs would come in with clanking chains and heavy shackles, waiting for him to surrender. This day finally came before he figured out how to return to reality... Guan Yin lowered his eyebrows and felt his heart trembling.

"This is not what I want to do, I also..."

"Ms. sir?"

A calling seemed to come from the distant horizon, and not far in front of the desk, there was a mist like white silk or the surface of a lake swirling with the call.

"What? It's not what you want to do? The corrupt officials said they were forced to take bribes and pervert the law, and the robbers and murderers said they were doing it to make a living. Doesn't the government punish such people?"

"What's more, you are occupying someone else's life, using their body, enjoying their wife, property, and servants. Do you think you are better than these people?"

At first, Guan Yin thought this analogy was absurd, but then he thought about it and put himself in the shoes of a stranger. If someone close to him was possessed by a stranger, would he believe the stranger's claim of innocence? What if he found a way to deliberately take revenge?
"Husband, wake up."

A dizzying shaking finally dispersed the layers of fog, and the first person Guan Yin saw when he woke up was San Heng.

Unlike usual, after the frightening dream, Guan Yin had not yet completely come out of the nightmare, and looked at San Heng with a vigilant look: "You won't..."

"Sanheng, of course not." Although Sanheng didn't know what her husband was talking to himself, it was right for her to respond first. "Sanheng saw that her husband kept mumbling, and he must have had a nightmare, so she woke him up."

"Could it be that what my husband dreamed of was the so-called, so-called..."

"What's that so-called? Zhuang Zhou's Dream of the Butterfly?" Since the original body and Liu Jiaoan had told this story, Sanheng might have also heard of it. Not long after Guan Yin woke up, he had forgotten most of what happened in the dream. He only remembered that he was facing terrible things because his identity was discovered.

"No, no, change your husband." Sanheng shook his head, "Not this one."

"That was a dream, a dream of a yellow beam, or maybe..."

San Heng counted on his fingers and compared the words his husband said with the stories he had heard. After thinking about it for a long time, he could not come to a conclusion. He simply clapped his hands and said, "Hey, San Heng is just worried that I have woken my husband's sweet dream."

"Your husband doesn't have sweet dreams." When Liu Jiaoan pushed open the door and walked in, Sanheng was still secretly struggling with the name of the dream, "If he has any ideas in his daily life, he will write them into her story."

His wife came in, and San Heng couldn't continue to be distracted. He just nodded and smiled: "Madam is right, San Heng knows."

"Then Sanheng will go and heat up some water for Madam." Seeing Liu Jiaoan nod in agreement, Sanheng turned sideways and went out.

"You're back so early?" San Heng went out, and Guan Yin quickly stood up to greet Liu Jiaoan. "Madam, you've worked hard going back and forth to the market."

"I'm fine... but when I was about to go to the market, I suddenly felt a little palpitation. I was worried that something happened at home, so I rushed back and I felt better."

In his dream, he was filled with inner confusion and doubt, but outside of the dream, he felt the other person's unreserved concern for him. Guan Yin didn't know how to respond for a moment and just stared at Liu Jiaoan blankly.

The two looked at each other in silence for a while, and Liu Jiaoan took the initiative to speak again: "The scenery in late spring is very beautiful. My husband, come with me for a walk when you are free someday." For the people living in this yard that only covers one and a half rooms, there is no distinction between slack season and busy season.

After all, there was a small tea mountain behind them, and neither the original body nor Liu Jiaoan knew how to farm, so they only had a private plot of land that was barely enough for the three of them to eat on a daily basis, and Sanheng was responsible for taking care of it. More seasonal vegetables had to be bought from the market.

"Okay." Guan Yin agreed and then began to regret it. He regretted that he didn't know when the next batch of manuscripts would be submitted. If he met an acquaintance while traveling, how should he hide his identity?

Fortunately, Liu Jiaoan had made sufficient preparations and had thought of a way out for Guan Yin: "If my husband is not busy, we can go to the mountains for a walk. If he is busy... it would be nice to just meet the neighbors nearby."

For a moment, Guan Yin thought: If I can keep my identity a secret forever, it would be nice to live a simple life every day, with nothing to fight for or worry about.

But this would make me feel so unfair to my original self, to my parents, and even more so to myself for my childhood dream that I had to study hard for nearly twenty years to realize.

“Who would want to be a teacher?”

"What's wrong with teaching and educating people?"

"It's good for others, but who still treats teachers as human beings now?"

Guan Yin's heartbeat quickened as he heard those extreme words again - during the few months he had been a trainee teacher, he had encountered parents who were completely unreasonable.

The sky is high and the clouds are vast, and birds are singing. The wind blows through the pine forest, and the rain hits the bamboo branches. It is a beautiful painting of Jiangnan. Looking up, I see a patch of orange and red, and the sun is setting on the western hills.

"Sir, my son is stupid, please excuse me."

After a while of dizziness, Cheng Heng looked up and saw the middle-aged man in front of him with a big smile on his face, pushing a half-grown child in front of him: "This is..."

"My son Ruan Bi, please excuse me, sir."

"Ruan Bi?" This was the second story in his script. Cheng Heng's first reaction was not to return to the real Huizhou merchant "Ruan Bi" in the late Ming Dynasty, but to stay in the script he had changed.

"Sir, but..."

Restraining his "seen a ghost" expression, Cheng Heng nodded with a mature look on his face: "Nothing, nothing, this is a good name."

"That's good, thank you sir." The other party knew that this meant that the gentleman was willing to accept the child.

After gossiping about his own child, Mr. Ruan gestured to Ruan Bi to greet the teacher.

"Hello sir."

Cheng Heng turned sideways imperceptibly, avoiding the greeting: "Hurry up and take the child to rest, it's getting late."

After thanking him profusely, the visitor put down the gift and left with the child, leaving Cheng Heng, who was worried about the gift, sitting at his desk and muttering to himself: "She said she didn't want to change history, but Ruan Bi is recorded in history books. How come he became my student?"

Just now, he was leaning on a chair in that old, dark room, feeling dizzy. How come he was in another place at this moment? Cheng Heng was confused and just wanted to lean on the table and fall asleep early. When he fell asleep, he would see Guan Yin and have someone to talk to.

(End of this chapter)