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

"We'll focus on Zhou Puyuan."

The classroom was so quiet that you could hear car horns honking in the distance.

Why was Zhou Puyuan able to survive? Because he had become completely hollowed out.

He has no instincts, no ideals, no struggles within him; he doesn't need to endure because he is the oppressor; he doesn't need to resist because he is the order itself.

He is a walking rule, a clan rule with warmth.

"What Cao Yu did most ruthlessly when writing about Zhou Puyuan was not that he portrayed him as a bad person, but that he was not a simple bad person."

His longing for Shiping was genuine; when he made Zhou Ping kneel down, he genuinely felt he was teaching his son to be filial; and the bewilderment on his face when he faced the devastated living room in the fourth act was also real.

He is not a demon; he is more terrifying than a demon. He is a "normal person" who has been completely hollowed out by the order and has internalized the order into his own flesh and blood.

The kind of oppression he represented wasn't from a monstrous villain, but rather a taken-for-granted "decency."

Shen Moyan paused for a moment, then his voice deepened.

"Through Zhou Puyuan's survival, Cao Yu is actually asking everyone in the old society a very cruel question."

She turned around and wrote a title on the blackboard. The chalk broke off a small piece from the force of her writing and bounced on the podium.

"If the price of survival in a system is becoming the kind of person you despise most, then what's the point of living?"

She didn't explain the sentence immediately, but left it on the blackboard for a long time.

Then she turned around, her tone calm but every word heavy.

"Ancient Greek tragedies don't ask this question, because Oedipus lives on with all his suffering and sin."

He didn't become the kind of person he hated most. He did wrong things, but he wasn't a bad person.

His very existence is a struggle against fate; you destroyed me, but I am still standing.

Even in the tragic fates of heroes in ancient Greek tragedies, the greatness of humanity is still proven.

You can destroy him physically, but you can't conquer him mentally.

Shen Moyan walked to the side of the blackboard so that everyone could see every word on it.

"But Thunderstorm is different. The old order in Thunderstorm is not fate; it is a man-made cage."

Because it is man-made, it is smarter, more insidious, and more pervasive.

It is not afraid of your resistance, because the power to resist is also given by it.

Fanyi rebelled using her status as a wife, and the more she rebelled, the more she resembled Zhou Puyuan. What she feared was not the rebellion itself, but that you wouldn't become like her.

Zhou Chong did not become it, so he had to die. Si Feng did not become it, so she had to die. Zhou Ping wanted to become it but could not, so he also had to die. Shi Ping and Fan Yi, one endured to the limit and the other resisted to the limit, both eventually collapsed at their limits.

This system isn't content with just crushing you; it wants you to become it, or you'll disappear.

Shen Moyan picked up the eraser and wiped part of the comparison table on the blackboard, leaving only the bottom row of questions.

The bespectacled boy in the back row slowly raised his hand, his voice a little hoarse: "Teacher...did Mr. Cao Yu himself have an answer?"

Cao Yu did not answer this question directly in the script.

But he expressed his attitude through the ending. In the preface to *Thunderstorm*, he wrote: "I sincerely hope that the audience will also look down upon these people on earth with compassionate eyes." He didn't say that anyone could change this order, nor did he say that good people should unite to overthrow bad people; he simply let the audience see that everyone is pitiful, including Zhou Puyuan.

Several students looked on incredulously.

"Now let's go back to the question we asked in the first lesson."

She turned around and wrote on the blackboard: What is the greatest tragedy for a person?

Then he wrote a new line of text below.

It means that a person has been deprived of the possibility of "being a human being".

"Sifeng lost this possibility, Zhou Chong lost it, Zhou Ping lost it, Shiping and Fanyi also lost it."

But Zhou Puyuan also lost his body. The difference is that the first five people were deprived of their rights and their bodies were also destroyed.

Zhou Puyuan's body survived, but his "person" had long since died; what lived was an empty shell called Zhou Puyuan.

Cao Yu used six different fates to tell the same tragedy: in this order, no one can live a complete life as a "human being."

-

Ying Zheng opened his eyes and looked at the thick, impenetrable night outside the palace.

He wasn't corrupted, but he had to admit one thing: he gave up a lot in order to become the First Emperor.

Perhaps it was a child sharing a piece of bread with a beggar on the streets of Handan, or perhaps it was a son who wanted to visit his mother while she was under house arrest but was stopped from doing so.

He strangled those things with his own hands, because without them he could have survived, climbed up, and sat in this position, facing the vast land instead of being crushed by it.

He is alive; he is the ultimate winner. No one dares to say he is an empty shell; no one is worthy of the title.

But he sat in the most magnificent palace in the world, the bronze lamps burned out, the night enveloped him, and there was no one standing before him to tell the truth.

He did not feel lonely; he did not allow himself to feel lonely.

Liu Che was not as quiet as Ying Zheng. He paced back and forth in the hall, his hands behind his back, his steps quick and hurried, the hem of his robe stirring up gusts of wind.

"Master Shen said Zhou Puyuan is an empty shell." He suddenly stopped, turned to look at Wei Qing, "You say he's an empty shell, but he has money, power, and status. He sits in the living room, the Zhou mansion is still his, the coal mine is still his, and when the sun rises tomorrow, he will still be Master Zhou. Tell me, how can someone who has lost nothing be called an empty shell?"

"If Zhou Puyuan is an empty shell," Liu Che began pacing again, his speech quickening, "then what about me? Am I an empty shell too? I sit in this Weiyang Palace, the whole world is mine, I've killed many people, Wei Qing, you know, I've killed far more people than Zhou Puyuan, am I not an empty shell too?"

He stopped and answered the question himself.

"no."

"I am guarding a great cause, while Zhou Puyuan is guarding a living room. I am guarding a vast empire. Our perspectives are different. Why should I be judged by the standards of a mere coal mine owner?"

Wei Qing finally spoke: "Your Majesty is right."

"You may leave," Liu Che suddenly said.

Wei Qing bowed and retreated to the entrance of the hall.

Liu Che stood alone in the center of the hall. Weiyang Palace was so large that even if an emperor paced back and forth, it would not be able to fill the space.

He looked down at his hands, hands that had reviewed countless memorials, written countless imperial edicts, and signed countless executions.

He had no regrets. Unlike Zhou Puyuan, he didn't need a "perfect and orderly family." What he wanted wasn't perfection, but success.