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

Under the banyan tree, an old woman wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "Poor Shi Ping, she was kicked out while still in confinement with her baby."

Several people nearby gathered around and started discussing it.

"She shouldn't have married a rich man in the first place. Rich people's food isn't always so delicious."

"That guy named Lu Gui is no good either. Did you hear what the teacher said? He's trying to extort money from his daughter? We're better off without a father like that."

"If you ask me, the worst one is Zhou Puyuan. He drove his wife away, but kept her things and pretended to be a good person. This kind of person is more disgusting than a real villain."

The old woman sighed, "What a tragedy! That Fanyi too, imprisoned for eighteen years, anyone would go crazy in that situation!"

"She and her stepson... that shouldn't be happening either," a young woman whispered.

The old woman glanced at her sideways: "You haven't been imprisoned for eighteen years, so it's easy for you to talk when you're not the one suffering."

The young woman shut her mouth, but her eyes remained fixed on the sky, unwilling to look away.

"You tell me," a young man couldn't help but interject, "who does Zhou Ping actually like?"

"What good is liking someone!" The old farmer waved his hand. "He's having an affair with his stepmother and also with his maid, who's actually his own sister. People like that deserve to die."

"But he didn't know that Sifeng was his sister."

"Does ignorance mean you can mess around?"

"I did not mean that……"

"Alright, alright, stop arguing," an old man stepped in to smooth things over. "Let's watch the show."

On the sky, Shen Moyan wrote two words on the blackboard: Father and Son, and then turned around.

"The third match, Lu Dahai broke into Zhou Mansion."

"He barged in today to negotiate with the mine owner and fight for justice for his fellow workers. He had no idea that Zhou Puyuan, the mine owner who exploited the workers, was his biological father. Zhou Puyuan also had no idea that the worker who led the trouble and talked back to him was his biological son who had been separated for 30 years. Father and son confronted each other, still not recognizing each other."

"The two were on the verge of a heated argument as soon as they met. Just when the conflict was at its most intense, Zhou Ping pushed the door open and saw Lu Dahai arguing with and offending her father in public. On impulse, she stepped forward and slapped Lu Dahai hard across the face."

Shen Moyan drew a line on the blackboard connecting Zhou Ping and Lu Dahai, and then wrote two words next to it: Brothers.

"An older brother beats his younger brother; one is dressed as a young master, the other as a worker, and neither knows they are brothers."

She put down the chalk.

"Shi Ping stood in the corner and saw this scene. Her two sons were hitting each other, and she couldn't say anything. She couldn't shout, 'Stop hitting them, you're brothers!' She couldn't rush over and pull them apart. She could only stand there and watch."

Shen Moyan lowered his voice, "This is the cruelty of heaven and earth that Cao Yu spoke of. You have not done anything wrong, but you have to watch all the worst things happen and you cannot say a word."

There was complete silence under the banyan tree.

The farmers, who had been chattering and cursing Zhou Puyuan and Lu Gui, fell silent.

The old farmer pulled his hand out of his sleeve and slapped it hard on his thigh.

"Ugh!"

His son, who was standing next to him, thought he was going to scold Zhou Puyuan, but he didn't.

"This Zhou Puyuan, he abandoned his son, and thirty years later that son is standing in front of him, leading other workers to rebel against him?" He paused for a moment, "What do you call that? You reap what you sow."

The old man next to him sighed, "He's not the one suffering. Look at those two kids, brothers fighting each other, ruined by their father their whole lives, and in the end, they even took a bullet for their father."

The old woman stared at the sky for a long time before finally saying, "Shiping, in her whole life, she had three children. Her eldest son called her 'Madam,' her youngest son argued with his master and brother outside, and she couldn't persuade him. Her daughter fell in love with her eldest son, and she couldn't stop her."

She lowered her head, unable to bear looking any longer.

"What kind of life is this for a mother?"

On the sky, Shen Moyan closed his textbook.

Before the bell rang, she looked at the whole class and gave a concluding speech.

"The three scenes in the second act are arranged with great precision. Shi Ping recognizes the Zhou family, and the sins of the past come to light."

Zhou Puyuan recognizes Shiping, and the pretense of Zhou Puyuan's nostalgia is exposed.

Lu Dahai bursts into Zhou Enlai's mansion, where the hatred of being abandoned clashes head-on with the order that is being maintained.

Shen Moyan paused for a moment, then continued.

"There is something you should think about. In the second act, everyone is hiding something. Shiping hides Zhou Ping's background, Zhou Puyuan hides Shiping's existence, Fanyi hides her relationship with Zhou Ping, and Lu Gui hides everything he knows. No one in this room is telling the truth."

She wrote a word on the blackboard: concealment.

"In the second act, Cao Yu took the concept of 'concealment' to its extreme. All the concealment maintains a 'perfect' illusion on the surface, but this is only the calm before the storm. When the thunder roars, thirty years of concealment will pour down like a torrential rain in an instant. This is 'Thunderstorm'."

The bell rang, signaling the end of get out of class.

Shen Moyan picked up his textbook. "get out of class dismissed. Next class we'll discuss Act Three: Coercion."

The sky darkened.

Inside the Xianyang Palace, Ying Zheng put down his pen. There were still memorials piled up in front of him, and he was halfway through reviewing them, but he was no longer looking at them. It was unclear when he had put down his pen.

He leaned back on his throne, closed his eyes briefly, and some distant memories surfaced in his mind.

He thought of his father, the man who abandoned him and his mother when they were held hostage in the State of Zhao.

But he wasn't exactly like Lu Dahai; he knew who his father was. He wasn't exactly like Zhou Ping either; he didn't stay in the "young master" position, he climbed up.

Liu Bang fell silent, his wine cup held to his lips, but he forgot to drink.

"This play is too cruel." He put down his wine glass. "The father and son are thrown apart, the son comes back and rebels against him, brothers fight each other, and the mother stands by and watches."

He turned to look at Lü Zhi.

"As the Master just said, this is merely the calm before the storm," Lü Zhi said calmly. "This is only the second act; the third and fourth acts haven't even begun, and we're already seeing brothers fighting. What will it be like when the storm truly breaks?"

Liu Bang turned his head and looked intently at the sky, but the sky did not light up again as he wished.

That night, everyone felt a storm brewing in their hearts, and they went to sleep with mixed emotions about the plot.