Horse-head Wall Reflects the Qing Dynasty

Chapter 54: I hope the mountains and rivers can be a mirror, where can the wind take the dead souls?

"Ying Sheng." Standing at the door of Ying's pharmacy, Cheng Heng hid under the eaves and put away the umbrella in his hand that was already fragile.

Usually in the private school, Ying Sheng would speak first, and Cheng Heng would follow up on him. The only time that Mr. Cheng took the initiative was when his sister Ying An changed drastically.

Today, the gentleman took the initiative to find him. Ying Sheng understood that there must be something different: "Sir..."

"Ying Sheng, tomorrow..."

"Sir, I won't be going tomorrow. I will go to Shanghai in a few days." Ying Sheng was used to taking the initiative to speak, and he really had something to tell the teacher, so he hurriedly interrupted, "In Shanghai, I can take a ship to overseas."

Still want to study abroad? Cheng Heng had no objection to this, but he didn't know what Ying Sheng wanted to learn by going abroad.

But the rain outside the eaves came and went quickly. Before Cheng Heng and Ying Sheng could say a few words, the rain stopped and was left to fall from the eaves.

While Cheng Heng was distracted, Ying Sheng, who was separated from him by a counter, had already walked to his side. Cheng Heng then realized that the kid who was much shorter than him was now half a head taller than him.

The teacher and student walked on the bluestone road, looking up, the distant mountains in the fog were as green as ever. The mountaintop seemed to be at the end of the bluestone road, but it seemed that the road would never end.

With Ying Sheng's words just now, Cheng Heng did not take the initiative to speak, but wanted to hear what the child next to him thought.

"After all these years, sir, have you never thought about going outside the village to have a look?"

"For example, go over this mountain and see what other places have become?" Ying Sheng knew that he was about to leave, so he spoke to the teacher calmly, "Sir, you were able to memorize so many articles back then. If you go out for a walk these years..."

"You have to know that there are still many people in this village who only know how to study all their lives." Today, those who should leave the private school have left, and those who stay are just to learn to read and write, so as to avoid being cheated when settling accounts. Cheng Heng also doesn't want to continue hiding it from Ying Sheng.

"Some people need a ruler, ministers, father and son, while some people don't know who they are without a ruler, ministers, father and son... It's been too long, and they can't find themselves again."

Cheng Heng's words were somewhat obscure. Ying Sheng was speechless and didn't know what to say for a long time.

"After you leave, this private school will be closed." After sending Ying Sheng away, he should have completed this "time travel". After he left, this private school would naturally cease to exist. "All children in the future will go to new-style schools to learn what you call 'science'."

Ying Sheng felt that the teacher's words carried a kind of certainty that seemed to have seen through everything, which reminded him of the inexplicable confidence that the teacher had when he was explaining articles when he was a child - for no reason, Ying Sheng did not feel much resistance this time.

"If you settle down, write me a letter like your sister did."

"Sister?"

Didn't my sister go to the north to study in college? Why was she still exchanging letters with my husband? Ying Sheng suddenly felt something passing through his mind, but it was like a thread that had burst into pieces and could not be sewn into a needle at this moment.

At dusk, the green mountains remain, and the wind blows them. The raindrops on the eaves were swept onto his face by the slanting wind. Ying Sheng then realized that he had been at the door for a long time, and his parents were standing inside the door looking at him.

"Go ahead. I have to go too." Cheng Heng did not repeatedly ask Ying Sheng to write to him.

Cheng Heng clearly knew that even if Ying Sheng sent the letter, he might not be able to receive it. But he also wanted to know what Ying Sheng's final choice was. Stay, or continue to choose to study abroad?

Without giving Ying Sheng time to respond, Cheng Heng shook the umbrella in his hand and walked towards the private school against the sunset - it was time to post a notice to tell everyone that the private school was no longer open.

"gentlemen!"

"Huh?" Ying Sheng was calling him. Without thinking, Cheng Heng stopped, turned around, and made eye contact with this young man who looked like a child but was also a student.

"Sir, when the students are settled, they will send you a letter."

"Do you want to send a letter across the ocean? It's not cheap."

"send!"

The dusk fell on the bluestone street, and the original simplicity became desolate at this moment, as if mottled bloodstains fell on it, which was very unsightly, but also very easy to be engraved in people's hearts...

Without the chattering students, the courtyard felt terribly lonely. In just three or five days, Cheng Heng became increasingly uncomfortable.

Looking up, I see a small sky. Turning my head, I see a mottled wall.

This world will always get better and better, and what I can do as a teacher is just the limit. Cheng Heng didn't dare to say that this journey was boring for no reason. After all, there were many lives that he had never thought of when he was writing the script.

But participating in someone else's life will eventually make you feel infinite loneliness when they part, just like when a play ends. Even if you know that there will be the next character, the next light, and the next stage, you are still deeply wrapped in a feeling of helplessness.

"When can I go back?"

"Sir! Sir, there is a letter from Peking!"

Apart from Ying An, Cheng Heng couldn't guess who else would write to him from Peking.

Cheng Heng hurriedly stood up, opened the door, took the letter, and hurriedly opened it. He had read most of the letter before he even reached the study.

"Sir, everything is fine with the students in Peking."

"Nowadays, Peking is not as peaceful as my hometown. There are many things that I cannot finish telling you in this letter. If you have the chance, you can come to Peking to see it for yourself. I hope that Peking will be stable by then."

"There have been a lot of changes in the university. The former Minister of Education resigned and now comes to the school and talks more about British and American ideas."

"I don't know if Brother Ying Sheng has caused any trouble for me during my absence, but I heard from my mother that Brother Ying Sheng left for Shanghai some time ago. I will contact him, as the Japanese and French ways are no longer popular."

The drama school was in Beijing, so Cheng Heng was naturally familiar with Beijing. He also knew that Ying An was going to Peking University.

As for the variables mentioned in the letter, Cheng Heng could only roughly guess based on his understanding of modern Chinese history: "Hey, why can't you give me a golden finger for time travel, or even let me check my phone!"

"What about Britain, America, Japan, France... Ying Sheng should listen to this right away. If he really goes to Japan, at this time..." Cheng Heng subconsciously wanted to interfere.

When the others entered the study, they calmed down. He put the letter on the table, took out a piece of paper, pressed it with a ruler, and prepared to write a letter back to Ying An. The sun rose and the moon set, and it was morning and night again. Cheng Heng didn't know how long it had been since he dreamed of Guan Yin, and he didn't know when he would be able to leave this world.

"Let's go out for a walk!" A voice in his heart was calling Cheng Heng.

The mountains were too far away, and the cliffs and green pines of Huangshan were obviously not something that his original body could climb. There was no cable car at that time, and Cheng Heng asked himself if he could afford to hire sedan chair bearers - he also felt that they worked too hard.

The nearby water gathers in the hall. As time goes by, the scattered people can seldom gather together easily. The ancestral hall, which originally had extraordinary significance, is like this "old-fashioned" private school, closing its curtain step by step.

After walking out of the yard, Cheng Heng didn't know where he could go.

Finally, Cheng Heng thought of opera. It had been a long time since the Huiban Opera Troupe came to Beijing. Although he could not see the cultural migration, he could always go and see the opera troupes in the ancestral halls and temples.

Hui Opera, Kunqu Opera, and Yue Opera have been passed down without stopping at the foot of this mountain and in this circle of water.

With a goal in mind, Cheng Heng searched based on his memory. He hoped that he could hear some words on this day that was not a festival, so that he could find the place where they gathered.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Hui Opera was not as widely spread as Huangmei Opera. People always heard that Peking Opera was the result of the "fusion of Hui and Han", but few people took the initiative to look for the trace of Hui Opera.

Even Cheng Heng's own knowledge of Hui Opera came from the fact that the drama school recruited students for the Hui Opera major that year. Cheng Heng and a group of Anhui children met with their fellow villagers and chatted all night...

“If you plant flowers with care, they may not bloom; but if you plant willows by accident, they may grow into a shade.” Sometimes going out of your way to look for something is most likely to result in return empty-handed, at least that was the case with Cheng Heng this time.

He looked for it, but couldn't find any trace of it. As an old-fashioned teacher, Cheng Heng couldn't ask the elderly people in the village, but he didn't want to abandon himself in the endless waiting, so he simply kept looking for it until he couldn't find it.

Fortunately, Ying Sheng walked quickly and arrived in Shanghai in no time.

After arriving in Shanghai and settling down, I did not forget to send a letter to Cheng Heng to tell him about my experiences.

"Sir, I'm in Shanghai now. You should come to Shanghai to have a look."

"But maybe it's just like what the teacher said, some people can only study all their lives. Maybe I can only study and can't do anything else! On the way here, I went to Hangzhou and saw Hu Qingyu Tang in Hangzhou."

"My mother once told her students that Hu Xueyan, the owner of Hu Qing Yu Tang, was an honest businessman and asked us to learn from him and 'avoid cheating'. But now Hu Qing Yu Tang has been sold to others. I don't know why we are cheated again after we have said 'avoid cheating'?"

The letter was all about Ying Sheng's confusion. Cheng Heng stared blankly at the letter for a long time. Perhaps it was because the original body could not hold on for much longer, or perhaps Cheng Heng himself did not know what to say in reply - when had he ever solved such confusion in Ruan Bi's case?

Do good deeds? Have a clear conscience? Cheng Heng felt that the latter was more correct.

So he dipped the brush into ink, let the paste come out of the tip of the brush, dropped it on the paper, and wrote a short line of words: Life is not over yet, and I have no regrets.

As a drama director, Cheng Heng has written many short plays, and he would not be excited at all when he wrote a sentence that seemed to have profound meaning. But this time was different, Cheng Heng felt his heart skip a beat.

I used to write about a person's life, but now I am watching a person complete his own life. It is different after all. I put down my pen and folded it carefully, just like when I was a child and first followed my teacher to learn how to fold the costumes.

After carefully tidying up the edges and corners and placing them on the table under the light and shadow, Cheng Heng walked to the patio and sat down alone, staring at the moss on the bricks and the patterns on the tiles... The stacked tiles looked very much like pine trees on a rainy day.

"Cheng Heng?" Liu Jiaoan had indeed known that the original identity was a woman disguised as a man. Guan Yin couldn't wait to go to bed with something on his mind, and he actually dreamed of Cheng Heng.

But this time, there are endless green mountains in front of me.

"Is this the Turtle and Snake Guarding the Cloud Ladder?" Guan Yin realized earlier than Cheng Heng where the two people were standing. The Hundred-Step Cloud Ladder was dangerous, but not the most dangerous.

During the holidays, Cheng Heng was busy with various rehearsals, so he was not as familiar with Huangshan as Guan Yin, the tour guide who was forced to be trained. After the mountain was closed for five years, Guan Yin took people to climb Tiandu Peak more than five times during the summer vacation when it was opened. No wonder he remembered it clearly.

Without thinking too much about why the two of them were on the mountain, Guan Yin was busy telling Cheng Heng about his situation, and he became more cautious and moved away from the side close to the cliff...

Walking down the ladder, the two people exchanged the causes and consequences of the things happening around them.

"I feel like I'm standing on this ladder, but I still have to keep going." Guan Yin sighed, "As for your student, I'm afraid you won't be able to receive his letter across the ocean."

"why?"

"Because of the national hatred and family feud, he probably stayed in Shanghai."

"You mean..." Guan Yin's words shook his eardrums with the mountain breeze. Calculating the date, Cheng Heng guessed it was 1931. Ying An in Peking and Ying Sheng in Shanghai would see the news in the newspapers, and by then Ying Sheng would definitely not want to study medicine in Japan anymore.

"But you don't have to stop him. You should always believe that he loves this country, this land and its people... Then wherever he goes, he will be a Chinese."

The history teacher's dialectical materialist view of history never changes. When it comes to modern and contemporary history, what is taught to the next generation must not just be a statement of history, but should also include human emotions - this is what Guan Yin's teacher did, and so did Guan Yin.

Walking all the way to the foot of the mountain, the mountain breeze took away his heavy thoughts. Guan Yin did not see the familiar "warning monument" and woke up from his dream.

"Ms. sir?"

"Huh?" When Guan Yin opened his eyes, the first person he saw was Liu Jiaoan.

"My husband said before that he wanted to go to the temple. Why don't we take advantage of the Ghost Festival on July 15th to hold a memorial service for your father?"

"It just so happens that the opera troupe from Qimen will also come to the temple stage to perform the Mulian Opera."

"Mulian Saves His Mother" is performed during the Zhongyuan Festival, which is also in line with the season. Guan Yin has heard of this story, but has never seen it performed on stage. It just so happened that Cheng Heng in his dream told him that he was looking for a play to listen to. He wondered if Zhongyuan plays would still be performed during that turbulent season?

Cheng Heng had the answer to Guan Yin's question. As long as the village had money, they would definitely invite a troupe to perform this kind of festival play. After missing the White Snake on Dragon Boat Festival, Cheng Heng wanted to watch the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Dances like "Promotion of Officials" and "The Eight Immortals" are no longer so particular in theatres nowadays. Cheng Heng had even only seen those traditional customs in materials.

It was a rare opportunity to return to his hometown. Listening to the gongs and drums, Cheng Heng suddenly felt grateful for this unexpected stop.

(End of this chapter)