Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

Yiren has passed away.Before her grave, he shed tears for a long time.I didn't expect to see a girl thousands of miles away three years later, no matter her figure, face, expression, or speech, she was like her in the past.When she stepped forward to ask, she shook her head. The investigation found that Xiaoyue committed suicide by throwing herself into the river, and the clues about her were interrupted.Wang Xiaoyue's classmates in high school, as well as the school's teachers, staff, and everyone in Shimen Village could not provide any information about her later.What news will there be when a person dies?No one understood their two questions one after another.

Passing through the dense phlox forest in the north of the village, they finally found the tombs of Yingniang, mother and daughter—it had collapsed a long time ago, and it was almost two potholes full of weeds. No one added soil and cut grass for them. .The woman in black took out the cross and stood solemnly in front of the grave, praying for the dead in the underground, and may their souls rest in peace. But Zhang Qun and Wu Bingbing behind them were muttering in private. Zhang Qun said: "The key is that Wang Xiaoyue didn't die, she turned into Jiang Lan later." Wu Bingbing said: "Yes, I believe she is Jiang Lan. As for when did she become Jiang Lan? How did she become Jiang Lan? This is the answer we are looking for."

The woman in black said: "I don't understand what you are talking about, but not everything in the world has its own cause and effect. If you continue to chase like this, you will disturb the undead and make them restless underground." Wu Bingbing said: "Senior, don't worry, we won't stay here any longer, we will leave in the morning." For both, the investigative work here is done. That morning, the three left Shimen Village. When they parted ways in the county town, the woman in black told them again: "You should go back to the south, it will be futile to chase it any longer. If you search in the wind, you will never know where the wind comes from. Besides, you don't have to I know. The weak wind keeps you cool, and you just enjoy it. When the bad wind comes, you avoid it, you can only avoid it. If you get into the wind and try to find out everything about the wind, the bad wind will tear you apart sooner or later. Understand? ,children?"

Until the woman in black left, the two of them sat there, pondering for a long time but still couldn't understand what she said. They have their own ideas, and they will not give up halfway anyway, they have to keep looking. In this way, they began to discuss what to do next and where to go. Zhang Qun said: "Yang Li said that Xiaoyue found a new boyfriend three months after entering the university, so he broke up with him because he liked the new and disliked the old. Is that man the one who wrote the letter from the Art Department of Zhongzhou University?" "Yes, what is it called Gu?" Wu Bingbing thought of the three letters she found in the ruins of Yingniang's old house, and hurriedly dug them out, "It's called Gu Hongsheng, it must be her classmate."

Zhang Qun said: "If the two are indeed in love, then Gu Hongsheng should know where Wang Xiaoyue is going. Even if Xiaoyue wants to disappear, it is for Yang Li and the people around her. She will contact her boyfriend in private. Even if it is impossible to meet him again, I will give him an explanation and will not keep him in the dark." Yes, look for Gu Hongsheng!They followed suit and went to Zhongzhou University. That was a letter from 15 years ago.It was not until the school found out that Gu Hongsheng had graduated and left school 10 years ago, and was assigned to be a teacher in a normal school in a city in southern Henan.The two took the train from north to south again overnight, and came to this small town located on the Beijing-Guangzhou railway line, which used to be a station for soldiers and horses.

In that normal school, they inquired all the way to find Gu Hongsheng's family. He is of medium build, slightly bald on the top of his head, wears a pair of myopia glasses, and is playing with a root carving in the room.He is the school's art teacher. Because there are few classes, he finds an elegant way to pass the time when he has nothing to do. A row of carved finished products is placed against the corner of the wall. There are birds, beasts and people, with different shapes and natural formations. The two patrolled his room intentionally or unintentionally.There are only two rooms and one living room, and the house is full of sundries, banners and scrolls are hung on the walls, and plaster heads and body parts are piled up on the balcony.The door of the bedroom was left open, and a woman was sleeping on the messy bed with curly hair like a dahlia.

When they took out the three letters and started the conversation with Gu Hongsheng, he first glanced nervously at the bedroom, put down the things in his hand, ran over and closed the door, and said in a low voice, "Shall we talk outside?" Putting on some clothes, she turned off the lights and closed the door, and led them to the flower bed downstairs. The two could see that this was a man who had been worn down by life and lost his passion. He looked at those letters carefully, with unspeakable sadness and confusion in his eyes, his lips were tightly pursed, and it took a long time before he let go, sighed, and said, "I wrote it."

Zhang Qun said: "We want to know about you two? Want to know her situation?" He looked up: "She's still alive, right? Is she not dead?" Wu Bingbing said, "At least she didn't die when you wrote the letter." "I've thought of it a long time ago." Gu Hong couldn't stop sighing, "She's too selfish, she only cares about designing herself, she doesn't care about other people's feelings, she doesn't hesitate to use and deceive others." "It's not a bad thing for you to break up with her." Zhang Qun said.

"She hurt me." Gu Hongsheng was very annoyed, "She shouldn't be like this. She took the initiative to get close to me at the beginning, and she burned my feelings, and then treated me as she wanted, irresponsible!" "Are you two in the same class?" Zhang Qun asked. "They are in the same class, both of whom are art majors." Gu Hongsheng said, "She used to study watercolor, but the instructor asked her to study oil painting instead, because I have been studying oil painting, and asked her to practice with me. Her watercolor foundation is solid, coupled with the real She has a spirit, learning oil painting for two months is like others studying for several years. She said that she had never done oil painting, and said that her family could not afford paints, but she used other people's paints to paint once or twice in high school.

"If you haven't learned it, you don't know the rules. At the same time, you don't have a frame. She uses the watercolor technique in the oil painting, and introduces the freehand brushwork of the Chinese painting into the oil painting. She makes the oil painting like a watercolor painting. After seeing it, the instructor applauds it again and again. Pass her paintings among teachers and students for demonstration. The young teachers in the college have higher evaluations, saying that her paintings are both realistic and freehand, abstract as a whole and delicate in parts, which is an impact on oil painting techniques and concepts. This is good Now, all the art majors in the art department admire Wang Xiaoyue with admiration. In addition, she is so beautiful and outstanding, many boys want to get close to her, and she has become the center of everyone's attention.

"Wang Xiaoyue is not so deep. She told me not to listen to their nonsense, I just draw according to my feelings. She is willing to get close to me. We often paint together, eat together, play together, and soon develop feelings. I remember that weekend night, she called me out, hugged me suddenly under the pine tree on campus, cried without saying anything, and kissed me while crying, making me covered in tears. She said she loved me, In the past few months, I have been pressing in my heart that she wants to speak out, hoping that I will not look down on her because of it. She probably knows that I like her in the first place, so she does it in her own way. I feel that all this is as beautiful as a dream .The day we ran out of school and let ourselves go in the city, forgetting time, forgetting everything. We snuck up in hotels, like crazy..." Speaking of this, Gu Hongsheng blushed, and he pretended to lower his head and cough to cover himself. "Did you notice that she was wearing a silver longevity lock?" Wu Bingbing asked. "Yes, yes." Gu Hongsheng said, "So she really didn't die? I have seen the longevity lock. She always wears it around her neck and never takes it off. When I was with her, Once she fell asleep and the lock was on her face and I tried to take it off and she woke up almost angry." "She was married and cohabited with others." Zhang Qun said, "You are so close to her, you should be aware of this, at least understand something?" Gu Hongsheng said embarrassingly: "To be honest, she was the first girlfriend I made, and it was also the first time I was with a girl. I have no experience, and I am like an idiot. I believe what Wang Xiaoyue says... Later Only then did I know that those days were the most unhappy days for her. The man from her hometown lived outside the campus looking for her every day and was trying to force her to go back. Her heart was tortured and almost collapsed. I doubted her It is to show love to me temporarily, grab me as a life-saving straw, to comfort her lonely and helpless heart, and to support her nerves that are about to collapse. Those days she always went to the off-campus hotel to meet me, and we were in a daze. Bubble together. I was madly in love with her, and fell deeper and deeper, unable to extricate myself. "I once asked about her past, and she told me lightly, but later I realized that what she told was all lies. Now that I think about it, I feel that her heart is so unfathomable. How terrible do you think, a and You are touching skin to skin, and the person lying naked in your arms is fabricating your own experience, all the sweet words are almost her elaborate lies, and you know nothing about her past, and you believe her without any doubt I don’t know if it’s her misfortune or my sorrow. This feeling is the most painful during the few days when she disappeared. She slept with me the night before, and disappeared suddenly the next day. I didn't stay either. It wasn't until the school made a decision to expel her a few days later that I knew that she left early when she got the school's decision on her treatment, as if she had no nostalgia." "Have you looked for her since she came home?" Wu Bingbing asked. "I've looked for her, but I don't know where she is. To be honest, I was very miserable at the time. I couldn't forget her image, as if it was meaningless to live without her. I kept writing to her hometown Shimen Village, and I couldn't find her. I remember how many letters I wrote. The letter was not returned, but there was no reply. I lived a dark life for a while. My tutor and classmates said that Wang Xiaoyue harmed me, and she shouldn’t love me before she left, and she tried her best Made me fascinated. Some people even suspected that she had witchcraft, and drugged my heart. Anyway, I have fallen into the abyss of her emotions, and there is a life-and-death obsession. Missing tortured me into shape I lost my bones, my academic performance declined, and I had no intention of painting at all. So during the winter vacation that year, everyone else went home for the Spring Festival, and I went west alone to find Wang Xiaoyue. I took a car all day to reach the small town at the foot of the mountain. I stayed in a small hotel in the mountain village for one night, and climbed the mountain road the next day. I didn’t reach Shimen Village until evening. I asked where Wang Xiaoyue’s house was? The fool led me to her home and met Xiaoyue's old lady. "I found that people in the village excluded her mother. Her family lived in the northwest corner of the village, as if she had been thrown out of the village. No one came to walk around her house. Her mother was sick and lying in the house, and no one came to see me. Later, she still got up and got up to cook for me. Seeing me eating the bowl of noodles with a dusty face, she felt a little heartbroken, and kept saying, what a wonderful child, it was Xiaoyue who hurt you. No matter how I asked her where Xiaoyue was, she said that she didn't know that Xiaoyue had left. I pretended to go out for a stroll, and stopped people in the middle of the village to ask, but no one told me. I slept at her house that night and spent the whole day The night tossed and turned. When it was about to dawn, I just wanted to close my eyes when I felt something moving above. When I opened my eyes, I saw her standing beside me, with her hands dangling on my face. I didn’t feel scared, and asked What is she doing? She said, child, you breathe the fragrance of this carefree grass, and I will make you forget her and stop the pain. I jumped up and said that I don't want to forget her, I must find her. The old man walked away helplessly Open, say that you are too stupid, why did you hang on to a tree? Xiaoyue is a wild child, she has already run far away! "I tried to forget her after that, but it didn't work. I went to look for her again in the winter of the third year. I went to the high school where he was studying, and I met the man named Yang Li. I didn't know that she was in the county after she came back earlier. Only then did I know about her living together with him and committing suicide by throwing herself into the river. In front of Wang Xiaoyue’s grave, I stood and wept for a long time. Her mother was lame at that time, leaning on a wooden stick and sitting far away, staring at me, as if Not too much sadness. At that time, I wondered if Xiaoyue was still alive, so I asked the old man. I didn’t want to make her very angry, saying that I had never seen a man with a dead head like me, even if Xiaoyue was alive. I would like people like me. After hearing this, I felt insulted, so I picked up my luggage and left her house. When I walked to the hillside and looked back, I saw the old man lying on a rock and crying loudly. Only then did I know that she was provoking me Let's go, you don't want me to stay in the village anymore..." "You think Wang Xiaoyue is dead, and you haven't looked for her since then?" Wu Bingbing asked. "That's right. I graduated later, and I was slowly freed from the pain of being broken up. I was assigned to teach art in a normal school, and I did some painting creation in my spare time. In the second year of my graduation, the oil painting exhibition in ten southern provinces and cities, I selected a few of my works to participate in the exhibition. I took the opportunity of a business trip to go to Chengdu to see the exhibition. In the exhibition hall crowded with visitors, I found a girl who looked very similar to Wang Xiaoyue. After all, I hadn’t seen each other for 5 years. The one in front of me She looked fatter and more mature than before. I was very excited at the time, so I hurried up to call her. She was a little surprised, maybe frightened by my recklessness, and asked me if I had admitted the wrong person. I said there was no mistake, It's you, you are Wang Xiaoyue. She shook her head, smiled naturally, and said her surname was Chen, not Wang Xiaoyue. After she finished speaking, she turned and left." "She looks very similar to Wang Xiaoyue?" Zhang Qun asked happily. "I thought she was Wang Xiaoyue at the time. The figure, appearance, facial expression, and way of speaking of this surnamed Chen were all like Wang Xiaoyue. I quietly followed her and walked dodging on the streets of Chengdu. I must find out where she was going. She She may have noticed my stalking, and went to the nearby Flower Park after leaving the exhibition hall, and I followed her in. After watching those broken pots of rotten flowers, she came out of the park, but went to the Qingyang Palace next door. I squeezed in Waiting in the crowd. After she came out, I followed closely, and she was showing off to the Xianqiao Antique Market, very patient. Once she came, she was at ease. It disappeared. I ran out in a hurry and found her running in the distance. I kept chasing after her, and she disappeared after chasing for several hundred meters.” "What? You didn't keep up with her?" Zhang Qun asked eagerly. "I suspected that she had entered the Du Fu Thatched Cottage next door, so I bought a ticket and went in. I searched left and right and couldn't find her. When I ran to the peach garden in the yard panting, I looked up and saw her blocking me. She is as glamorous as a peach blossom. She asked me why I followed her? I said she was like Wang Xiaoyue. She asked who is Wang Xiaoyue, your girlfriend? I said yes, I was looking for her, and I have been looking for her for several years. Then, just leave me I told her the story between Wang Xiaoyue and Wang Xiaoyue. She looked a little touched, and said that since she is dead, you should let it go and forget about her. There are so many good girls, why do you have to be so hard on yourself? I asked again When talking to her, she said her name is Chen Xiaona, her hometown is Hengyang, Hunan, and she is studying at Xidu Academy of Fine Arts. After talking with her for a long time, she stretched out her hand to say goodbye to me, saying that she had something to do first. I held her hand I felt like Wang Xiaoyue. I went to the hotel to think about it, but I was still not reconciled, so I went to her school. After a lot of trouble, I found her student file. Her name is indeed Chen Xiaona, a student from Hunan, and her father She is an engineer, and her mother is a painter, she is the only child in the family, and she is studying in her senior year at the Academy of Fine Arts." "It's such a coincidence that not only do they look alike, but they even study the same major." Zhang Qun said. Wu Bingbing asked Gu Hongsheng: "Haven't you ever suspected? Didn't you go to Hunan to investigate?" "It's written so clearly in the file, why should I investigate? Although I copied the information on the file, but after thinking about it, I still admit that I was wrong. There should be people who look the same in this world. Her name is Chen Xiaona, not Wang Xiaoyue. Besides, Wang Xiaoyue's family members, people in the village, all the people I visited there said that Wang Xiaoyue is dead, and I saw her grave with my own eyes. Is there any reason to look for it again? ?—By the way, that Yang Li also kept looking for her, and later he came to look for me once, suspecting that Wang Xiaoyue was not dead, and suspecting that I found her." "That man is really bad, doesn't he give up? Want to force Wang Xiaoyue to death again?" Wu Bingbing said angrily when she heard that Yang Li was looking for Wang Xiaoyue. "It's a pity, you didn't go to see her again?" Zhang Qun asked regretfully. "Later, I got married." Gu Hongsheng smacked his lips and said, "Those things in the past, it's meaningless to think about them after we get married. I forget everything that should be forgotten. Look at me, I'm living a pretty good life now." Wu Bingbing glanced at Zhang Qun knowingly, and said: "Wang Xiaoyue is not dead. If he suspects that Chen Xiaona is Wang Xiaoyue, then Chen Xiaona may not exist, is it a fake name?" Zhang Qun said: "When he went to investigate Chen Xiaona, he understood everything." Wu Bingbing asked Gu Hongsheng: "Did you remember Chen Xiaona's detailed home address?" Gu Hongsheng said: "I remember it, write it down in a small book. I'll go upstairs and find it." "It seems that we are the only ones left to find out about her." Bingbing looked at Zhang Qun inquiringly. "It's my duty!" Zhang Qun patted her on the shoulder readily. When Gu Hongsheng stood in front of them again, both of them were startled. His face was covered with bruises, his forehead was swollen, and his nose was bleeding.He wiped the blood with his palm and said, "I fell down the stairs..."