Yu Dong carefully copied the words on the last page, then found a box and carefully put "Border Town" in the box. He planned to take the book to Jinling and put it in Wangqiu Pavilion for preservation.
.
The next day, Yu Dong's family spent another day away from relatives.
On the ninth day of the Lunar New Year, he returned to Jinling first, while Cheng Yanqiu followed his parents to continue visiting relatives.
The reason why he wanted to go back to school first was because both the department and the school were holding a mobilization meeting before the start of the semester. He was now considered the leader of the department, so naturally he had to be there.
After returning to school, they held a meeting in their department. In the past two years, there have been more and more teachers and students in the department, and there are more and more things that need to be communicated, from course schedules to student accommodation.
meeting to discuss.
When it came to the school meeting, the discussion topics basically focused on their drama department. In recent years, the drama department has been the focus of Jin Yi's work, and Wu Changxin has always been very supportive of the drama department.
Other departments did not say anything about Wu Changxin's favoritism. After all, their department did not lose anything because of this favoritism. On the contrary, the school has developed better and better in the past two years, and their other departments have also lived a good life.
During the meeting, Yu Dong didn't speak much and spent most of his time listening to what they said.
In fact, he was still thinking about Mr. Chang. Ever since he read the passage at the end of "Border Town", he had been thinking about the story of Mr. Chang and his wife.
Yu Dong had heard some stories about them before, but they were scattered and many of them were contradictory.
He thought that he would go back to Shanghai when he had time after school started and look around to see if he could dig out more stories.
After all the meetings were over and school started, Cheng Yanqiu and the others had not returned to Jinling yet. Yu Dong called to ask which relatives had invited them to dinner, but Yu Dong didn't take it seriously.
, just let Cheng Yanqiu not delay his class because of visiting relatives.
Most of the relatives who should leave have already left. For some of the later ones, Yu Dong actually felt that there was no need to go anymore. He was afraid that Cheng Yanqiu would be too embarrassed to refuse.
Until the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, the first weekend of school, Yu Dong was watching them play cards at Yu Hua's house, when Cheng Yanqiu came back.
"I brought you something."
Hearing Cheng Yanqiu's words, Chen Hong and the others laughed.
"Young people are still passionate. I haven't seen him in the past few days, and he brought gifts when he came back."
Bi Feiyu also joked: "Is a little farewell better than a wedding? I see that Yudong has been living alone these days, and he doesn't know where to go all day long."
"That's right." Mo Yan took over the conversation, "I used to ask him to play cards, but he refused. Now he comes over to watch us play cards when he has nothing to do."
"So, Teacher Cheng is still a stumbling block on Yu Dong's road to playing cards," Yu Hua said.
Chen Hong pouted: "You think playing cards is a good thing."
Cheng Yanqiu blushed a little because of their teasing, and pulled Yu Dong to his home.
Yu Dong was dragged by her and asked curiously: "What did you bring me?"
"We'll find out when we get back."
"It's still a lie."
After returning home, Yu Dong immediately saw the box on the coffee table.
"What a thing? It's pretty big."
"It's not that they're big, it's that they're numerous."
Cheng Yanqiu smiled, walked over and opened the box, revealing the books inside.
"This is?"
Yu Dong looked at the books above. Each one looked very historical, and without exception, the cover of each book had a seal. It looked very similar to the "Border Town" that Li Jiyong gave him before.
picture.
Could it be...
Yu Dong looked at Cheng Yanqiu in disbelief. Cheng Yanqiu also knew what he was guessing and said with a smile: "It took me a few days to find only this much. It's a pity that many people took Mr. Chang's book.
They didn’t take it seriously, either they couldn’t find it, or they sold it as scrap. There are a total of two hundred and fifty-six books in this box, and Hu Hao and the others just helped carry it up..."
Before Cheng Yanqiu finished speaking, Yu Dong hugged her.
Although Cheng Yanqiu did not say how difficult it was to find these books, Yu Dong could imagine how much effort she put into these two hundred and fifty-six books.
"Thank you, Teacher Cheng."
Some people say that there is no need to say thank you between husband and wife, but Yu Dong wanted to say thank you to Cheng Yanqiu right now.
Cheng Yanqiu was hugged by her husband and felt very at ease. She did all this just to give Yu Dong a surprise. Now it seems that everything is worth it.
The two were hugging each other, and just as their emotions were getting better, suddenly a child's voice came from the door.
"Uncle Dong, Auntie, what are you doing?"
The couple were startled and quickly separated. When they turned around, they saw Yu Haiguo standing at the door holding a basin.
Yu Dong coughed lightly: "Ahem, Haiguo, what are you doing here?"
Yu Haiguo pointed to the basin in his hand: "Mom asked me to bring you the basin."
This pot was brought by Yu Dong to bring fruits, but he forgot to take it when he came back.
Yu Dong took the basin from Yu Haiguo's hand, "Thank you, Haiguo."
"You're welcome. Mom asked me to tell you that you and your aunt should go over for dinner tonight."
"Well, I understand. Go back and report to your mother."
Yu Haiguo nodded and turned around and left.
After he left, Cheng Yanqiu looked at Yu Dong, his face still a little red.
"I'm going to pack my luggage." Cheng Yanqiu said and walked away.
Yu Dong smiled, walked to the box, looked through the books inside, and found that there was a notebook on the top floor, which looked new.
He picked up the notebook and looked at it. Yu Dong recognized the handwriting inside, which belonged to Cheng Yanqiu.
"What's going on with this notebook?"
Cheng Yanqiu replied in the room: "The notebook is some information I recorded for you. When I went to collect the books, I also chatted with those people and asked some things about Mr. Chang and his wife. What I remember is not
It’s very detailed, I don’t know if it will be useful.”
Yu Dong nodded and read the contents of the notebook carefully.
Cheng Yanqiu's writing is very simple, basically in the form of questions and answers. There are some things in it that Yu Dong has heard from others, and some things that Yu Dong knows for the first time.
Moreover, the contents recorded in this notebook are also contradictory.
For example, when talking about Mr. Chang's lover, some people call her Mrs. Chang, some call her Sister Xu, and some people call her Aunt Li... There are seven or eight different names, which makes people confused about Mr. Chang's lover.
What is it called?
But they should all be talking about the same person, because according to these memories, Mr. Chang and his wife lived in that house before the founding of the People's Republic of China. Later, after his wife passed away, Mr. Chang did not move out.
As for the place where Mr. Chang taught before, some said he opened a private school, some said he taught primary school, and some said he taught middle school. Everyone's recollections are different.
This is actually not difficult to understand. Basically, the people interviewed by Cheng Yanqiu are not of the same generation as Mr. Chang, and they learned much about Mr. Chang from their elders.
Yu Dong put down his notebook and looked at the books in the box.
Cheng Yanqiu must have put in a lot of effort and could only find more than two hundred books in the end, but according to Yu Dong's cousin Li Jiyong, Mr. Chang's house should have a room full of books.
To give people the feeling of "a room full of books", conservatively speaking, it would take three to five thousand books.
It seems that most of these books have been lost.
Yu Dong was a little disappointed, but also a little happy.
What's disappointing is that not all of Mr. Chang's books have been preserved, only a few of them. Fortunately, they found them relatively early. If a few years had passed, even the books in front of them might have been gone.
He did not rush to open the book, but first found a few books with clearer seals and studied them.
After reading about fourteen or five books, he found that there were basically two types of seals.
One is "Chang Huaiying" and the other is "Jingju Master", both of which are inscribed in small seal characters.
Chang Huaiying should be Mr. Chang's name, and the master of Jingju may be his self-title.
Then Yu Dong took out all the books in the box one by one, spread them out in the living room, and finally found the third seal.
Fortunately, the only third seal is relatively clear and can be recognized. It is the word "Ying Ping" engraved in small seal script. This is most likely the name of Mr. Chang and his wife.
The one with the word "Yingping" left on it is Turgenev's "The Night Before", published by Cultural Life Publishing House in the 37th year of the Republic of China, and the translator was Lini.
Lini, whose original name was Guo Anren, was an influential essayist in the 1930s and 1940s. Yu Dong's impression of this essayist was that his works were full of poetry but lacked narrative.
Lini himself knows this. He wrote in "Hundred Nights" that he thinks he is an imbecile who is worse than anyone else in telling stories.
Yu Dong turned to the back of the book and realized why this book had the word "Ying Ping" in it.
It is not certain whether Yingping is the name of Mr. Chang's wife, but what is certain is that "Yingping" is indeed the seal of Mr. Chang's wife.
At the back of "The Night Before", there is also a paragraph written by Mr. Chang, describing why this seal appeared.
After his wife passed away, Mr. Chang looked through old books and discovered that the book "The Night Before" actually had his wife's seal.
His wife did have a seal, which was carved by Mr. Chang himself. However, his wife had never used it, but he did not know why the seal was left on the book. Later, he thought hard and finally remembered it.
When Lini passed away in 1968, his wife was very sad. It was probably because of this that she left her mark on this book.
Yu Dong put "The Night Before" aside and picked up a copy of Turgenev's "A Noble House". He thought that since "Border Town" and "The Night Before" both had words written by Mr. Chang, maybe
There will be other books as well.
It's a pity that he looked through the entire book and couldn't find even a single handwritten word.
It seems that Mr. Chang does not leave words on every book.
Yu Dong did not give up, and turned over other books, trying to find out if there were any other words left by Mr. Chang.
After searching several books, I couldn't find Mr. Chang's name, but Yu Dong found another person's name.
Compared with Mr. Chang's handwriting, the newly discovered text is not very beautiful and is crooked.
After reading the content, Yu Dong understood the whole story. This volume of "Fortress Besieged" by Qian Zhongshu was actually given by a woman who admired Mr. Chang. This text also expressed the woman's appreciation for Mr. Chang.
Chapter completed!