A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

Episode 6 of Sky Curtain is airing.

Shen Moyan, dressed in the same dark blue suit and skirt as in the first class, stood on the podium with a blank blackboard behind her.

She wrote on the blackboard:

I. Why did Lu Xun write "The New Year's Sacrifice"?

II. Why should we read "The New Year's Sacrifice" in this era?

III. Who will be the next Xianglin's Wife?

"Lu Xun wrote 'The New Year's Sacrifice' in 1924. That year, the Xinhai Revolution had been over for thirteen years, and the Qing Dynasty had been overthrown for thirteen years. But everything in Luzhen—the blessing ceremony, the Neo-Confucian furnishings, and the discrimination against widows—remained almost unchanged."

"As Lu Xun once wrote: 'Before the revolution, I felt like a slave; after the revolution, I was deceived by the slaves and became their slave.'"

The reality he witnessed was that the overthrow of the system did not bring about spiritual liberation. Imperial power had fallen, but patriarchal power remained; the dragon throne had been moved, but not a single ancestral tablet in the ancestral hall had been touched; the laws had been changed, but Aunt Si's harsh words, Aunt Liu's threats, and the indifference of the people of Luzhen remained unchanged.

"So he wrote 'The New Year's Sacrifice' not to criticize the already extinct Qing Dynasty, that would be too easy."

He did this to criticize what is still alive: the cannibalistic social norms, the silent bystanders, and the intellectuals who are still running away.

Shen Moyan's voice became even more powerful.

"When someone suffers misfortune, the first thing that comes out on the internet is not sympathy, but victim blaming, which is a repeat of Liu Ma's behavior."

"When a woman chooses to divorce, the first thing the family says is, 'You have brought shame upon us,' that was my fourth aunt's harsh rebuke."

"It has been almost ninety years since Mr. Lu Xun passed away, and almost a hundred years since Xianglin's wife died on New Year's Eve, but the logic behind those murders has not disappeared with Xianglin's wife's death."

They've simply changed their appearance and continue living.

"So we read 'The New Year's Sacrifice' not to mourn a woman who died a hundred years ago, but to see those Xianglin's wives who are still alive today, so that we will no longer be the narrators who cannot explain themselves."

Who will be the next Xianglin's Wife?

When Shen Moyan asked the last question, his voice suddenly softened.

"I'm not prepared to answer this question; I'd like each of you to answer it yourselves."

"At the end of the novel, Lu Xun wrote: 'In my hazy state, I vaguely heard the continuous sound of firecrackers in the distance, which seemed to merge into a thick cloud of sound, embracing the whole town with swirling snowflakes.'"

"The clamor of this 'blessing' drowned out a person's death, but Lu Xun wrote this novel so that the drowned voice could be heard again."

"Over the past hundred years, this voice has been carried on by more and more voices."

Qiu Jin took over, she took off her daughter's clothes, picked up a gun, and fought for women's right to education. She was taken over by millions of ordinary women, in factories, schools, families, and on the streets.

They spoke out together: "I won't be like Xianglin's wife."

"If you choose not to remain silent, not to run away, and not to provide a footnote to oppression, then Xianglin's Wife will be the last one."

"There were originally no roads in the world, but when more people refused to remain silent, they became roads."

She paused slightly, then said, "get out of class dismissed."

The image on the screen was frozen on the blackboard behind her.

There were only two words on the blackboard.

blessing.

Lu Xun closed his pen and rubbed his aching wrist.

The view outside the window is of Beijing in 1924, on the eve of the Lunar New Year. The faint sound of firecrackers can be heard in the distance.

He read through the manuscript he had just finished writing from beginning to end, and solemnly wrote two words on the first page.

blessing.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

In a daze, he seemed to see a woman in the snowy night.

She stood on the street corner, leaning on a bamboo cane and carrying a bamboo basket, her eyes vacant.

He stood up and walked towards her.

This time he did not run away.

He took her hand, even though he knew it was just a phantom from a hundred years ago.

"I'm sorry," he said to the phantom, "I still couldn't save you in time."

Then he opened his eyes, returned to his desk, and continued writing.

He knew he couldn't save Xianglin's wife.

But he can ensure that the second Xianglin's Wife, the third Xianglin's Wife, and all the Xianglin's Wife who are still alive will not be forgotten.

This is his true blessing to the world.

In the thirteenth year of Chunxi (1184), Zhu Xi revised the commentary on "Reflections on Things at Hand" and added a note under the entry "Starving to death is a small matter, but losing one's chastity is a great matter": "This argument is for the conduct and conduct of scholars and officials, and should not be applied indiscriminately to common women. If later generations use this to restrict widows from remarrying, it is not Cheng Yi's original intention."

He eventually changed his bet.

Aunt Zhang asked softly, "Miss, did that lady say there are many people in the world like Xianglin's wife?"

Ruolan nodded.

After a moment of silence, Sister Zhang said, "I won't be like Xianglin's wife."

She survived.

The moment she was seen, her soul broke free from that invisible threshold.

Those old Confucian scholars are still lecturing, writing books, and submitting memorials to the emperor.

But they also vaguely sensed that there was a crack in the wall, and the light was already shining through the crack.

The Forbidden City, Chuxiu Palace.

Consort Ling, née Wei, and several other concubines secretly watched the final episode in the courtyard.

As Shen Moyan finished saying "Dismissed," a young concubine suddenly said, "She's so pitiful."

No one responded.

After a while, Consort Rong whispered, "Don't you guys think that the female teacher on the sky is saying something strange?"

"What's strange about it?"

She said that Xianglin's wife never understood until her death that her only "crime" was being born a woman, and simply living.

The women in the courtyard fell silent.

Consort Ling stood up: "Put it away. Don't mention tonight's events again."

She is a smart woman.

She knew there were some things she couldn't think about. If she did, she wouldn't be able to go on living.

But as the eunuchs moved the chairs away, she stood under the eaves, looking up at the darkening sky, and suddenly whispered, "Xianglin's Wife."

The head palace maid beside her didn't hear clearly: "What did Your Highness say?"

"It's nothing." Consort Ling withdrew her gaze and turned to walk into her bedchamber.

In the night sky behind them, that sentence still echoed: "Her only sin was being born a woman."

She knew that the distance between herself and Xianglin's wife was not as far as she thought.

Meanwhile, in the Qing Dynasty court, Emperor Qianlong was raging at the sky, but the sky remained completely unmoved.

His eyes were sinister as he stared intently at the kneeling ministers below, scanning them one by one as if they were the murderers who had brought about the downfall of the Qing Dynasty.

"The Heavenly Curtain is an evil entity that spreads heretical rumors and misleads the public. It must be eliminated immediately."

Suzhou, the Zhou family mansion.

The matriarch, Madam Wu, is supervising her two daughters as they embroider.

The sky was bright, and no one dared to say they wouldn't watch.

The youngest daughter suddenly stopped sewing: "Mom, the female teacher on the celestial screen is amazing. I don't quite understand a lot of what she's saying, but it makes a lot of sense."

Ms. Wu put down her embroidery hoop.

"What's the logic behind that?"

Is it reasonable for a woman to not stay at home and to show her face to the world?

Look at what she's wearing!

What respectable woman would dress like that?

"But she was talking about that woman named Xianglin's Wife..."

"Xianglin's Wife, Xianglin's Wife, all you ever talk about is Xianglin's Wife!" Wu suddenly raised her voice. "That's a novel! It's fake! She uses a made-up story to make you cry a couple of times, and you think she's right? Do you know that every word she says is an insult to us?"

The younger daughter was stunned: "Insulting...insulting us?"

"Yes, she's cursing us." Mrs. Wu stood up, walked to the window, and closed it tightly, as if that would block out the sounds from the sky. "She said that traditional ethics are cannibalistic. If you listen to and believe what she says, how will you ever get married? What respectable family would want to marry a woman whose mind is full of 'rebellion' and 'freedom'? Who will suffer in the end? Her? Or you?"

The younger daughter lowered her head and dared not speak.

Wu sat back down in front of the embroidery frame, picked up the needle and thread, her hands trembling slightly.

"Keep embroidering," she commanded.

Unlike the general public, the emperors were concerned with a different issue.

Has imperial power collapsed? Has the dragon throne been moved?

Li Shimin looked thoughtful as he glanced at the assembled officials below, who had all bowed their heads and pretended not to hear.

"So there were no emperors in later generations."

There was a moment of silence; no one dared to speak.

Ying Zheng frowned. "Then what system should we use? How will we rule this world?"

Liu Che also noticed the meaning behind those words, but he chuckled and pretended not to hear them.

That future is far from him; he's busy fighting the Xiongnu right now.

That feudal ethics and morality now seem incomprehensible to him.

However, he still planned to send people to issue some decrees to encourage widows to remarry, since it would have no impact and would make the people grateful.

While all the heavens throughout the ages were immersed in a silence of intellectual upheaval, the collapse of social norms, and a profound change in the hearts of the people.

Shen Moyan's voice rang out softly once again, bringing forth a brand new trailer.

"Feudal ethics have never only consumed women from the lower classes."

"It devours the dignity of the weak, the integrity of scholars, and the lives of ordinary people."

"The next chapter."

"We're talking about another pitiful person who was completely ruined by the feudal imperial examination system, feudal hierarchy, and the feudal era."

"The next lesson is 'Kong Yiji'."

The sky briefly lit up before darkening again.

The entire universe, spanning countless ages, was completely shattered!

The suffering of women has just revealed the truth, and the tragedy of intellectuals will reopen a new thousand-year-old wound!

Scholars, Confucianists, students, and officials throughout history were deeply shaken and filled with unease.

A nationwide trial against the feudal imperial examination system is about to begin!