Horse-head Wall Reflects the Qing Dynasty

Chapter 56: The breeze blows away the floating clouds, and the painting of pine and crane on the eaves

"Being a teacher is actually quite fulfilling." Walking up the mountain road, I thought of the different "teachers" I had played during this period. "Later, I didn't feel anything deliberate when I opened my mouth."

The green pines all over the mountain welcomed and saw them off. If it weren't for the immortal pointing the way beside them, the stone would have been hidden in the clouds and difficult to see clearly. Even though the road was winding, the two of them couldn't help but wonder if they were standing still - the pines had changed into more than a dozen postures, and the distant mountains that were the reference point had only shifted a fraction of a second.

Guan Yin couldn't explain the profound truth behind this. He only remembered that the reason he wanted to be a teacher was because he felt a sense of satisfaction from changing the people around him: "Who hasn't been a little teacher in a group when they were young?"

"That's right." Nodding, Cheng Heng continued to walk up the stone steps. Green moss, green pines, green stones, green mountains, green clouds... After going around in circles, it couldn't escape the word "green". It has grown up, but it is still growing vigorously.

The wind pushed the floating clouds apart, and the light poured in through the pines. At that moment, the clouds and fog dispersed, the sun shone down, and Guan Yin also opened his eyes.

When I opened my eyes, the person I saw was Liu Jiaoan.

"Jiaoan, good morning."

"It's getting late, sir. It's almost sunset."

For some reason, Guan Yin heard a hint of seriousness in Liu Jiaoan's usual voice.

In the past, Liu Jiaoan would not be in a hurry even if something happened, but now it made Guan Yin a little panicked: "I took a nap at noon, but I didn't want to sleep until this hour."

Liu Jiaoan did not continue the previous topic, but just put away the pens and ink that were randomly placed beside her. Before her eyes turned to Guan Yin, she had already said, "My husband, I have something to say to you."

"Is the matter related to San Heng?" Guan Yin had known that the previous incident would be difficult to get over, so he just dealt with it hastily that day. After that, it seemed as if there was a curtain between him and San Heng, and he was not as casual as usual.

The pens and ink arranged by Liu Jiaoan did not flow smoothly into Guan Yin's hands as usual. Instead, they seemed as neat as when Guan Yin first arrived - Guan Yin was not used to using pens with soft tips, and was always worried that one stroke would turn into a lump.

"No, it's just about my husband."

"It's about Miss Guan." Liu Jiaoan didn't turn this into a difficult puzzle. While explaining the puzzle, she gave the answer to Guan Yin, "For example, even if your husband has forgotten the past, how can his daily habits be so different from before?"

Finally, this day has come. Guan Yin dare not say that he is ready. But now that Liu Jiaoan has brought it up, there should be a conclusion.

"When did you know that?" Guan Yin did not choose to struggle with ambiguous words, "Is it because I couldn't recognize the teacher, or because of this writing..."

"Neither." With Guan Yin's frankness, Liu Jiaoan also responded to the former's question with the same frankness.

"So what are you going to do to me?"

"You're not a bad person."

Listening to Liu Jiaoan's words, Guan Yin's fists stretched out, and his brows relaxed a lot. But after a moment, a bit of helpless pain appeared in his eyes: "I don't know how to return your Miss Guan to you."

"She is not mine, nor does she belong to the music school. Tongtong is just herself."

"Everything was Tongtong's own choice, including dressing up as a man, so that I wouldn't have to marry the heartless and ungrateful man chosen by my father."

"Don't you hate me? Let Tongtong..."

"You didn't come here willingly, did you?"

Liu Jiaoan has always been very smart. She can see that Guan Yin has always been indifferent and alienated from this world: "Is it because some places here are very similar to your hometown?"

The part beyond indifference and alienation is the childish innocence when seeing Zidoutang, the silly agility when picking tea, and the occasional attempts to get closer to everything around him, but still farther away from this home than Sanheng...

"Yes." Liu Jiaoan is really smart. Guan Yin recognizes this girl from the bottom of his heart. "So I don't know how to get Miss Guan back. Maybe according to common sense... uh, according to the way in the storybook, it should be after I fulfill her wish."

"But my cousin told me that people always have wishes when they exist in this world. This is human nature."

"Then maybe it's obsession?" At this point, Guan Yin was a little confused about how to express this word. "In the novels I've read, they all change the original bad situation of the person, dig out some facts and truths, and then..."

Then what did this person who traveled through time gain? Guan Yin suddenly thought of this question.

Some are the family affection that the heroines in the orphanage lack, and some are the love that the single heroines gain. But they already have a happy family, and apart from the hard work along the way, there are no major setbacks. What can they get from it?

The same was true for the original body. It was clear that she was capable enough to support herself, and she was clearing her father's name in her own way. Her arrival, apart from disrupting the original peace, seemed to do worse than the original body in everything.

"I just want to go back." Guan Yin didn't know what else he was thinking. After going around in circles, it seemed that there was only one answer: "Go back."

"It's nice here, but I have my own parents and a job that took me almost 20 years of study to get."

“Are you a teacher?”

"Why are you..." Yes, I have mentioned many times that I want to be a teacher to support my family. Liu Jiaoan is so smart that she will understand.

"So in your place, girls can also be teachers?"

It was over. He would eventually be influenced by the thinking and social environment of later generations. Guan Yin was worried that he had influenced too much, so he hesitated and tried to escape.

But Liu Jiaoan's next words made Guan Yin unsure whether he should respond or not, and he also cleared the fog that was lingering in his heart: "Then you should go back. You can only think about it here."

"Then you don't want..." Guan Yin originally didn't want to use his own thinking to influence Liu Jiaoan, but the former's calmness and rationality instead ignited the fire hidden in his heart.

When I look back at past history, I always feel compassion and indignation for the "namelessness" of those girls. When did knowing history become a restriction in my heart for a person to find the future?
Guan Yin hated himself for retreating, but he couldn't help but be moved by Liu Jiaoan's words.

"Of course I hope so, and Tongtong hopes so too, but it's not something you can just think about."

The people in front of him saw it clearly. Just like Guan Yin could read those cool novels for fun about how a feudal dynasty that had lasted for thousands of years was easily and thoughtlessly overthrown and established a female-dominated dynasty, but he ultimately knew in his heart that this hasty behavior was unworthy of the efforts of generations to overthrow the feudal monarchy over the past hundreds of years.

Any change will never be as satisfying as in novels. Bloodshed and sacrifice are inevitable, and becoming a speck of dust in history is also inevitable.

Since Liu Jiaoan thought it through clearly, it saved Guan Yin from some worries.

"I suddenly remembered one thing. I haven't asked the girl her original name yet." Liu Jiaoan's words triggered Guan Yin's thoughts.

"Guan Yin."

"So the girl's surname is also Guan." Explaining the truth was not as terrible as Guan Yin had originally thought. When the two of them finished talking calmly and Liu Jiaoan called Sanheng in for dinner, Guan Yin realized: it was his own imagination and avoidance that turned the "confession" that had been obvious in front of him into a disaster.

The fermented rice cakes were ready, but they couldn't be finished in one or two meals. Now that they were served on the table, neither Guan Yin nor Liu Jiaoan were that interested in them.

There is almost no smell of alcohol, but the light sweet fragrance is still tempting. The more you chew it, the more fragrant it becomes.

There were no candied beans or anything like that as seasoning in the fermented rice cake. When Guan Yin took a bite, he felt that it tasted much better than the ones he bought online and had shipped from his hometown to Beijing - this purity made the beauty of the grain bloom on his tongue.

"Are you going to look for that teacher?"

"The letter gave a place, but it wasn't close to the village."

The village was at the foot of Huangshan Mountain, and the teacher was closer to the Liu family. But Huangshan Mountain was huge, and if you wanted to get around it on foot, you would need a lot of money.

"Wait for some time and wait for the money this time." Although he could know about the original body from Liu Jiaoan, Guan Yin had no way of knowing those things that the original body did not tell him and that the former had never asked about.

For example, where did the money earned from the scripts go?
"Alright."

After the meal, Sanheng went to wash the dishes, and Liu Jiaoan took advantage of this rare opportunity to talk to Guan Yin about the original Miss Guan.

"As you know, Tongtong and I's fathers were both Jinshi in the same imperial examination. My father stayed in his hometown to serve as an official, while Guan's father went to the capital."

"You should have seen the story in that play. Seven parts are true and three parts are false."

"Yeah." Guan Yin nodded. Cheng Heng had said long ago that the stories written by screenwriters are always somewhat similar to their own. "So was there really a flood at that time?"

"Yes, the flood broke the dike. Many people were killed and injured. This incident was reported to the capital... I heard it from Tongtong. My father never mentioned this to me."

"But there was no such thing as praying for the dead on Baiyue Mountain as she wrote... because Guan's father was dismissed from his post at that time and he had no money left."

So that's how it is. So the original body wrote these, clearly more like making up for the regrets in his heart.

"My cousin aunt told me that in fact, the Taoist priests on Huangshan and Baiyue had already done it for them. Tongtong and I also mentioned it."

This solved the Guan family's worries. Guan Yin nodded, it seemed that he didn't have to do anything about this matter anymore.

"Later, it was because of this flood that the housekeeper was imprisoned, and finally Tongtong is now what she is today."

"So what was the reason, Father Guan?" Guan Yin was a little confused. The two cases clearly seemed to be connected... How come it took such a long time for the incident to happen?
Liu Jiaoan pointed to the letter on the bookshelf beside her and said to Guan Yin, "It's because there was a problem with the tribute sent to the capital."

Oh, it was the one about Guan's father trusting his classmate wrongly. Guan Yin finally figured it out.

"But this matter didn't need to be so big. Now think about it, it was Tongtong's father's classmate who pinned the matter on Tongtong's father for his own fame."

As the shadows of the mountains sank into the night, Liu Jiaoan stopped telling Guan Yin stories about the past.

"You don't want to listen..." Liu Jiaoan is very smart. Guan Yin suddenly wanted to talk and tell her about what he had encountered.

"If you want to talk to me, there's plenty of time left."

If it would not affect the original appearance of this period of history, Guan Yin actually wanted to talk about it. He even wanted to talk about "history" with Liu Jiaoan.

"Go to sleep. It's not too late to talk about anything tomorrow."

The moonlight flowed into the room and fell on the two people, wrapping them tightly like a brocade quilt.

This was the most peaceful sleep Guan Yin had ever had since he came to this little house. His repeated naps during the day were not just driven by dreams. Guan Yin could not sleep well at night, and he always deliberately kept a distance from Liu Jiaoan, or simply slept on a chair.

Now it's all right! Although the two girls grew up in different societies, they both regarded each other as friends after the truth was revealed... It's rare for Wu Meng to have no dreams.

I woke up suddenly, the outline of the green pine was still in front of my eyes, with the shadow of a flying bird in between.

"Sir, are you healthy?"

"How did you fall down, sir?"

"First……"

Cheng Heng came back to his senses and finally realized that he was lying on the ground. The scene before him was clearly a pattern on the black tiles in front of him - pine and crane.

At this moment, a group of students surrounded Cheng Heng.

"Hu..." This should be his fourth script, which is the story about "Hu Kaiwen" ink. Cheng Heng subconsciously opened his mouth to see if there was Hu Tianzhu himself or his descendants in the private school.

"What did you say, sir?"

"Hu?"

"Sir, your beard is fine, don't worry sir!"

It seems that this is gone. But Cheng Heng did not intend to give up. When the dusk took away the students in the private school, Cheng Heng began to look for the ink sticks that his original body had saved.

"Ink...Wang family's ink, or Hu family's ink?" Cheng Heng used a different method to determine the age. He muttered to himself, his eyes sweeping over the ink strips, hoping to find some clues from them.

The teacher was not poor, and the parents of the students in the private school would also give gifts. Cheng Heng did not have time to worry about the tiles in the backyard that were about to be replaced. He just wanted to know what time he was now - firstly, to finish it early and leave early, and secondly, he should know what these students should listen to.

"There is no Wang family, nor is there any Hu family..." Could it be that I guessed wrong, and this is a completely unfamiliar era?

But that didn't seem like it. The students were clearly wearing clothes from the Qing Dynasty, so I wouldn't have mistaken them.

The tables, shelves, and cabinets were fortunately not in their original state. Otherwise, with Cheng Heng's rash way of rummaging through things, even if the things were of little use to him, anyone who saw them would feel heartbroken.

"Cai Zhang Mo Shop?" Cheng Heng frowned and read out in a low voice after seeing the gold-embedded characters clearly.

Cheng Heng refused to believe it and looked through it again. He finally found a piece of evidence related to Hu Tianzhu in the brocade box that he had overlooked at the beginning: "So it's not Hu Kaiwenmo at this time, then this place is... Tunxi!"