Chapter 10 chapter eight

The Yuyingtang is located in an abandoned temple near Longgu Mountain. It is just up a rough and difficult path from the direction of the railway station.Old Wei didn't want the donkey to be troubled, so he put me down when the last two miles were left.He let me out of the car, said goodbye to me, and I started a new life. It was autumn, and the trees on the mountain had lost all their leaves, like an army of bare skeletons, guarding the mountain and the courtyard on the top of the mountain.As soon as I walked in, no one stepped forward to greet me.Facing it was a dilapidated temple, with cracked planks and peeling paint.There were many little girls standing in the open-air yard, all wearing white shirts and blue trousers. They lined up, like soldiers, bending over in unison, facing forward, to one side, back, and to the other side, as if they were being blown by the wind. Blowing to and fro.Not to mention that, I saw another strange sight: for the second time in my life, I saw a foreigner again.Two men, one Chinese and one foreigner, carrying a map, crossed the compound together, followed by a group of people, all holding long sticks.I was very scared, afraid that I would run into an underground party of the Communist Party by mistake.

I stepped over the threshold and was startled by what I saw.There were all dead people in front of them, twenty or thirty of them, all covered with cloth, standing in the center of the hall, and there were also some dead people on the side of the wall, tall ones, some short ones.Immediately I thought, this must be the dead man coming home.Aunt Bao once told me that when she was young, some families hired mages to cast spells and drive the dead back to their hometowns.Aunt Bao said that the exorcists only travel at night, because they are afraid of encountering the living and being haunted by the ghosts of the dead.They rest in the temple during the day.Aunt Bao didn't believe these rumors before, but later at night she heard a monk knocking on a wooden fish, and everyone in the village ran away, but Aunt Bao hid behind the wall and watched secretly.She first heard the sound of dangdang wooden fish, and then saw them, six in total, all like big maggots, jumping forward with legs side by side, with a step of one foot.Aunt Bao told me that I was not sure what I saw, but I only knew that for a long time after that, I was very strange, as if I was a different person from before.

I was about to run out the door when I caught sight of golden feet under the drape.I looked carefully again, and found that those coverings were not dead people, but statues of gods.I went forward and lifted the covering from one of them.This is Wenquxing, with a high crown, holding a pen in one hand and an official hat in the other. "Why did you remove the cloth?" cried a voice.I turned around and saw a little girl. "Why cover it up?" "The teacher said that this is a feudal superstition, which has no good influence on us. We shouldn't believe in these old gods, we can only believe in the gods of Christianity."

"Where is your teacher?" "Who are you looking for?" "It's the person who arranged for Liu Ruling to come to the Yuyingtang." The little girl ran away.After a while, two foreign women stood in front of me. Those American missionaries didn't expect me to come, and I didn't expect them to be Americans.I have never talked to foreigners. When I met them, I just stared at them without opening my mouth.They both had short hair, one gray and one curly red, and both wore glasses, which made me think they were about the same age. "Sorry, no one has arranged to take you in," the white-haired man told me in Chinese.

"Sorry," said another, "most of the orphans are much younger than you." Then they asked me what my name was, but I still couldn't speak, so I wrote my name in the air with my fingers.The two of them spoke English for a while. "Do you know those characters?" One of them asked me, pointing to a Chinese slogan. "Eat well, don't keep it private," I read. One of them gave me a pencil and a piece of paper. "Can you write these words?" I did.Both of them were amazed: "She wrote it without looking at it!" They asked many questions: Can I write with a brush?What books have I read?Later, they talked in foreign languages ​​for a while, and when they were done, they announced that I could stay.

I later realized that the reason I stayed was because I could be both a student and a teacher.There are only four teachers there, all former students of the school, who now live in thirty-six houses in the courtyard.Teacher Pan taught the older girls, and I was his teaching assistant.When he was a student fifty years ago, the school only accepted boys.Teacher Wang teaches the younger girls. She has a widowed sister, we call her Mother Wang, who is responsible for taking care of the little ones, and she also appoints a few older girls to help her take care of them.There was also a little girl, Sister Yu, with a stooped back, thick, stiff hands, and a high-pitched voice.Sister Yu is responsible for the management of cleanliness and morals. She usually tells us to take a bath on time and assigns us tasks for the week. She also likes to assign the cook and his wife to keep them busy.

I gradually discovered that the two female missionaries were actually of different ages.The curly-haired Miss Grutoff was thirty-two years old, and the other was twice her age.Miss Grutoff was a nurse and the dean of the school.Miss Dowler, who was superintendent of the Foundry, went to those who had a right to sympathize with us, and begged them to donate to us.Miss Dowler also led us to church every Sunday, choreographed plays for us, acted out Christian stories, and accompanied us on the piano when she taught us to sing. She always said that we "sang like angels."Of course, I didn't know what an angel was at the time.I can't sing either.

The missionaries call us the New Destiny Girls.There is a large red pennant in every classroom, with these words embroidered in gold letters.Every afternoon when doing exercises, we have to sing the song of new destiny in Chinese and English.The song was written by Miss Dowler: We learn, we progress, Marriage is our own decision, We work and fend for ourselves, The old fate left it behind. Because I come from a family of ink makers, Teacher Pan said that I am the best calligraphy student ever in the school.He often told us about the events of the Qing Dynasty, how the court was corrupt, and even the imperial examination system was corrupted.But whenever he talked about those old things, he always looked very sad, with a nostalgic tone.He said to me, "Ru Ling, if you had given birth to a boy in the early years, you would definitely become a famous scholar." These are his exact words.He also said that my handwriting was better than that of his son Kaijing whom he taught himself.

Kai Jing is a geologist. He actually writes very well. What's more, he was born with polio when he was a child, which left sequelae, and the right side of his body is relatively weak.Fortunately, after he fell ill, the family spent a lot of money and exhausted all their savings to hire the best Chinese and Western doctors.So Kaijing was saved, but his foot was a little lame, and one shoulder was a little slumped.The missionaries later helped him find a scholarship to study in a famous university in Beijing, and he became a geologist.After his mother died, he came home to take care of his father, who happened to be working with the scientists in the pit.

He rode his bicycle back and forth between the nursery hall and the archaeological pit every day, and rode all the way to the door of his father's classroom.Teacher Pan often sat sideways on the back seat of the bicycle and asked his son to drive him back to the room on the other side of the yard.When they passed by, our teachers and classmates would shout loudly: "Be careful, don't fall!" For a long time, I did not reread what Aunt Bao wrote to me on her deathbed.I didn’t read them before, because I knew I would cry when I saw those pages again. Sister Yu would definitely blame me for self-indulgence and self-pity in front of Xiaoding and other children.That Sunday afternoon, I found an abandoned storage room full of small idols and smelling musty.I found a place by the window, sat down against the wall, and opened the blue cloth bag wrapped in the paper.I noticed for the first time that Aunt Bao had sewn a small pocket in the cloth bag.

There are two treasures in the pocket.The first one was the oracle bone piece she showed me when I was young. She told me that when I grew up and knew how to remember things, she would give me the bone piece.She once kept this piece of bone, her father also kept it, and now it has been passed on to me.I stuck the bone splinter to my chest.I took the second thing out again.It was a small photo of a young woman with an embroidered forehead on her head and a padded jacket with a collar that stood up high to her cheeks.I hold the photo up to the light.Could this be...?I can see that this is indeed a photo of Aunt Bao before her face was burnt.She had dreamy eyes, bold eyebrows raised up, and her lips, so full and slightly pouty, and her skin so smooth.She is very beautiful in the photo, but she is not the way I remember it. I am sad that the photo is not her face after the burnt face, but the more I look at her, the more familiar she is in the photo.Only then did I realize: her face, her hopes, her knowledge, her sorrows, all of them are mine now.Then I cried and cried, filled with joy and self-pity. One afternoon after I had lived in the Foundling Home for two years, Miss Grutoff handed me a letter in which I recognized the handwriting immediately.It was noon, and there was a lot of noise in the lobby, but suddenly I couldn't hear anything.The little girls around me were clamoring to ask who wrote the letter and what it said.But I avoided them, like a hungry dog ​​protecting food, holding my baby and not showing them.I still have that letter.The letter reads: "My dear sister, I'm sorry I couldn't write to you sooner. I miss you every day in the past, but I can't write. Old Wei refused to tell me where he sent you. Mother also I refused to say it. Until last week when I went to the market, I heard the discussion that the archaeological pit on the Longgu Mountain side had become lively again, and Chinese and American scientists were living together in an old temple, together with the students from the Yoying Hall. Later When I saw my aunt, I said, "I don't know if Ru Lingjian has seen those scientists. She lives so close." The aunt replied, "I thought so too." That's why I found out about your whereabouts. "My mother is in good health, but she always complains that her fingers are always black due to hard work all day long. They are still working hard to make up for the ink lost in the fire. My father and two uncles had to spend money with the coffin in order to rebuild the store in Beijing. The boss borrowed money to borrow wood. As a result, most of our family’s business fell into the hands of the boss Zhang. When I married Zhang Funan, their family took over part of our family’s business. Zhang Funan is the fourth child of the Zhang family. The son who married. "My mother said that we are lucky if the Zhang family is willing to marry our daughter. But I don't think it's lucky. I think it's lucky that you didn't marry into this family. Every day, every mouthful of food I eat, people eat Remind me of their family's kindness to us. We owe their family wood, and the debt we owe is over and over again. After we have worked hard for a hundred years, the Liu family still has to work for their Zhang family. Our family's ink is not like that. In the past, the price was so high and it sold so well. To be honest, the quality is not as good as before. Now the material is not as good as before, and there is no engraved lettering by Aunt Bao. For the debts our family owes to others, I don’t have any money every month. Monthly pocket money. In order to buy stamps to send this letter, I have to pawn a hairpin. "I have to tell you that this family is not as rich as we thought when we were young. Most of their wealth was consumed by opium. A sister-in-law told me that Fu Nan had a problem with falling down when he was young. He was dislocated, so his mother fed him opium. Later his mother passed away. Some people said that she was beaten to death, but Boss Zhang said she accidentally fell off the roof and died. Boss Zhang later married this , is the next concubine of a warlord, this warlord used to do business with Boss Zhang, and exchanged opium for coffins. This Xuxian is also good. The warlord told Boss Zhang that if he dared to hurt her, he would kill him. Let him be a eunuch. Boss Zhang also knew that the warlords were not joking, because he had seen people who lost arms and legs because they did not pay off their opium debts to the warlords. "This home is a house of misery, all day long mad, shouting, always trying to get money for opium. If Fu Nan could break me up and sell me for opium, he would do it. He kept me purely because He believes I know where there are more keels. He babbles to me all day long to tell him where the keels are hidden, and says I'll tell him and we'll be rich. If I do know, I'll sell the keels, Get out of this house as soon as possible. I can sell myself. But where can I go? "Sister, I'm sorry if my letter made you sad or worried. I just wrote it to let you know why I didn't go to you, and you are very lucky in comparison. Don't give me Write back, that will only cause me trouble. Now that I know where you are, I will write to you again. At the same time, I wish you health and peace of mind. Your sister, Liu Gaoling." After reading it, the letter was still trembling in my hand.I still remember being jealous of Gao Ling once.Now her fate is worse than mine.Sister Yu said that we should feel happy as long as we think that there are people who are living more miserable lives than us.But I don't feel happy at all. But as time went by, I gradually became less unhappy.I accepted my life.Maybe it was my poor memory that made it less painful for me.Maybe it's just that my vitality is gradually exuberant.All I know is that I am a completely different person from when I first came to the Yuyingtang. At that time, I also became a formal teacher, no longer the lonely little girl I used to be, I fell in love with Teacher Pan's son. This is how we started. Every year since the New Year's Eve, our students began to write Spring Festival couplets and sell them at the Zhoukoudian Temple Fair.One day, Teacher Pan and my classmates and I were writing Spring Festival couplets in the classroom. The table and the floor were covered with long red paper. As usual, Kai Jing rode a bicycle to pick up his father back to his room.At that time, the ground of Longgu Mountain was frozen hard, and it was impossible to work in the field, so Kaijing spent most of his time drawing diagrams, writing reports, casting bone models and so on.Kaijing came very early that day, and Teacher Pan was not ready to leave yet.So Kaijing offered to help us write Spring Festival couplets.He was standing at the table next to me.I'm glad to have more hands to help. But I soon noticed that his behavior was very unusual.Whatever words I write, he also writes.I write "rich", he also writes "rich", I also write "yu", he also writes "yu".I wrote "All the best", and he also wrote "All the best", stroke by stroke, followed me, and the rhythm was consistent with me.In this way, the two of us seemed to be performing a dance.This is how our love started, turning and drawing together, gradually becoming consistent with breathing, and lifting the pens in our hands together. A few days later, my students and I sent the Spring Festival couplets to the market.Kai Jing accompanied me, walking beside me, talking softly.He was holding a small book in his hand, with ink paintings drawn on mulberry paper, and on the cover was written: The Four Realms of Beauty. "Want to know what it says?" he asked.I nod.Anyone who overhears our conversation will think that we are talking about school teaching, but in fact, he is pouring out love. He turns the pages. "No matter what form of beauty, there are four different realms. Painting, calligraphy, literature, music, dance. The first realm is the beauty of skills." We looked at a page in the book together. Two clusters of identical bamboo.This is a very common picture, the painting is very realistic, the details are lifelike, showing the toughness and vitality of bamboo.He went on to say, "The beauty of craftsmanship refers to being able to repeatedly use the same strokes, the same strength, the same rhythm and realistically draw the same picture. But this kind of beauty is just the mediocrity of beauty. "The second realm," Kai Jing continued, "is the beauty of momentum." We looked at another picture together, which showed several stalks of bamboo. "This painting is beyond the beauty of craftsmanship," he said. "It is uniquely beautiful, but the picture is simpler. The painter does not emphasize the bamboo stems, but the leaves. The picture conveys both the tenacity of bamboo and a sense of tranquility. If the painter is not good enough, he can only convey one of them. meaning, and had to ignore another meaning.” He continued to turn the pages.There is only one stalk of bamboo in this picture. "The third state is called Shen Yun," he said. "There is no trace in the breeze, and the bamboo shadows are shaking. Most of the bamboo stems are painted with imaginary brushes. The so-called imperceptible brushstrokes. But the imaginary shadows seem to be more vivid than the real branches and leaves with mottled light. If people see such a picture, It will be amazing. Even the same painter cannot reproduce the feeling of this painting, the feeling of the bamboo shadow shaking." "Is there anything more beautiful than Shen Yun?" I said softly, knowing that I would know the answer soon. "This fourth realm," Kai Jing continued, "is even more remarkable than Shen Yun. All living beings in the world can't help but seek this kind of beauty, but you can only feel its existence when you are not looking for it. This kind of beauty can only It will appear when you don't bother, don't have extravagant expectations, and don't know what the result will be. Its beauty is simple, just like innocent children. When the master of art is old, loses his mind, and regains his innocence Only then can this realm be regained.” He turns the pages.There is a simple oval on the next page. "This painting is called 'Bamboo in a Tube'. If you look up and down through the tube, all you can see is this ellipse. It's just being in it, without explaining the ins and outs. Everything in the world is interconnected. Relation, this is the magic of the way of heaven, there is nothing better than a black ellipse and a piece of white paper, a person and a bamboo stem, a painter and a painter.” After Kaijing finished speaking, he was silent for a while, and finally said, "This fourth state is called 'Tao'." After speaking, he put the book back in his pocket and looked at me thoughtfully. "Recently, I have often seen the beauty of heaven in many things," he said, "have you not?" Both of us know that what we mean by "the Way of Heaven" actually means that two people love each other casually, like two bamboos leaning towards each other with the wind.So we leaned together, kissed, and indulged in the world of the two of us.