Pingyang Prefecture is a thousand-year-old town by the Fen River, and also a major town in Southern Jin.
Its long history has accumulated rich resources and profound cultural nourishment in this land.
Over the past decade or so, with the development of underground resources, the ancient culture that had been dormant in history has gradually re-emerged with vitality.
Private schools, these antiques from dusty archives, have once again become popular.
San You Private School is one such renovated old antique.
This private school is located in a bookstore on the street-facing ground floor commercial unit of Yunhua Community.
The bookstore's name is San You Bookstore.
The Private tutor, who is also the owner of this bookstore, is named Mr. Wu.
He is short and stout, wears round, black-rimmed glasses, and habitually greets people with a cupped-fist salute, which has earned him a strange respect throughout the community, where he is known as “Mr. Wu.”
Mr. Wu’s private school is very small, with only one teacher and one student.
The teacher is Mr. Wu.
The student is a boy from a household in Yunhua Community, named Zheng Qing.
Yunhua Community is a model residential complex developed by the Pingyang City Government in the 1990s.
Although from a modern perspective, this community is indeed not large, with only nine residential buildings; its geographical location is excellent.
To the east of the community is a bustling commercial street, directly opposite the city's largest supermarket, across the community's east gate.
To the west of the community is Pingyang University, the only institution of higher learning in Pingyang City; to the south of the community is the provincial key middle school, Pingyang Experimental Middle School; next to the Experimental Middle School is the province's top private school, Jinnan Middle School.
Coupled with the city-affiliated key primary school across the street, students from the community, if unlucky, would not need to walk more than two streets from birth until University graduation.
Zheng Qing felt he was just one step away from that legendary life.
Many of Zheng Qing’s elders are school teachers.
His grandfather is a Professor at Pingyang University, his father teaches at Jinnan Middle School next to the community, his mother teaches at Pingyang First Primary School across the street from the community, and his other uncles and aunts are also active in these Teaching Buildings.
Since he could remember, he had been in schools, listening to the harsh bells of class starting and ending.
A little older, he ran wild across the playgrounds of several schools.
But no matter how he ran, his life seemed to be confined within this single playground and Teaching Building.
Circle.
Zheng Qing held the heavy brush and wrote this character on the pure white Xuan paper.
“Concentrate! Don't forget what you’re here for!” The wooden ruler in Mr. Wu’s hand lightly tapped the table, making an eerie Dongdong sound.
Zheng Qing took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, tried to empty his mind, and diligently traced the calligraphy model in front of him.
Actually, at first, Zheng Qing practiced calligraphy with his grandfather.
As an Old Professor, Professor Zheng not only wrote beautifully himself, but he was also very strict with the younger generation.
Before he was six, he memorized ancient poems and prose, from the Three Hundred Family Surnames and Thousand Character Classic, to the Three Hundred Tang Poems, and then to lyrics, melodies, and classical prose personally selected by the Old Professor.
When he learned to speak, he began to learn characters and memorize classics.
Zheng Qing and his other cousins, under the Old Professor's ruler, tearfully began their difficult and seemingly endless life of memorization.
Day after day, with no Sundays, and no winter or summer vacations.
At the age of six, he no longer just memorized; he had to start learning to write.
From holding the brush, a dot, a horizontal stroke, a left-falling stroke, a right-falling stroke, within the dotted lines of the Tianzigge, filled Zheng Qing’s monotonous childhood; the inkwell of the inkstone was filled with Zheng Qing’s bitter tears.
He was pulled out of bed promptly at six in the morning to start morning practice, fifty large characters to be completed before breakfast; after breakfast, he began morning recitation, needing to memorize the designated texts by noon, and then practice a few more large characters.
After lunch, he had a half-hour nap, and upon waking, continued to memorize and practice writing; after dinner, it was still memorizing and practicing writing.
At nine o'clock sharp, he was sent to bed, and every day, from this time until he fell asleep, was Zheng Qing’s happiest moment.
Because he could let his imagination run wild freely, without practicing large characters or memorizing ancient prose.
But letting his imagination run wild was very taxing on his spirit.
Every time he fell asleep after letting his imagination run wild, Zheng Qing would enter a chaotic dream.
Like an ink-splashed landscape painting, ethereal, abstract, impossible to grasp, yet relentlessly pursued.
Whenever he woke from such a dream, he would always shout and scream, covered in cold sweat, and would often be listless for a day or two.
His family just assumed he was having a nightmare, so they took careful care of him, and his corresponding schoolwork would also be lightened for a day or two.
For Zheng Qing, these days were as happy as a holiday.
Days of nightmares, however, were rare.
When he was younger, Zheng Qing found it difficult to enter this dream, only having a nightmare about once every six months.
Perhaps due to a strong desire in his heart, as he grew older, Zheng Qing’s nightmares became more frequent, and the situation gradually worsened.
At first, he would just wake up shouting and screaming.
Then gradually, he started sleepwalking; sometimes, when he woke up in the morning, he would be horrified to find himself sleeping on top of the large wardrobe at home, with no memory of how he got there; sometimes, he would sleepwalk onto the balcony, then sing a nonsensical song, and silently crawl back into bed to sleep; and sometimes, he would even pick up his brush in the middle of the night and scratchily draw a large area of bizarre talismans.
Along with the progressively worsening nightmares, Zheng Qing began to suffer from headaches.
Initially, his family thought he was trying to shirk his duties and didn't pay much attention.
But to be safe, they also took him to a specialist hospital in the city for scans, but doctors couldn't find any problems, only attributing it to a child being under too much stress and needing a balance of work and rest.
It wasn't until one day when Zheng Qing started banging his head against the wall to relieve his headache that his family became alarmed.
Professor Zheng found his Old Professor, took Zheng Qing to the provincial capital and to the capital city, visiting all the famous hospitals, but no problems could be found, yet Zheng Qing’s headaches worsened day by day.
Finally, Professor Zheng followed his Old Professor's advice and let Zheng Qing rest and relax to alleviate his condition in a conservative way.
After returning from the capital city, Zheng Qing no longer needed to wake up and go to bed at a set time, no longer needed to memorize, and no longer needed to practice large characters.
But this completely relaxed approach did not improve the situation; instead, it made his headaches more frequent.
At that time, Zheng Qing was eight years old.
It was also in the spring of that year that Mr. Wu, wearing those black-rimmed round glasses, came to Yunhua Community and opened this antique-filled San You Bookstore on the street-facing commercial unit number three.
Professor Zheng was an Old Professor, and Mr. Wu of San You Bookstore happened to be a knowledgeable cultural figure.
Over time, the two old men became close friends through calligraphy and painting.
On a weekend afternoon, Zheng Qing followed his grandfather to San You Bookstore again.
Professor Zheng and Mr. Wu brewed a pot of tea and discussed Zhang Zhongjing's “Synopsis of the Golden Cabinet,” while Zheng Qing picked up a copy of “Harry Potter” and happily began to read.
When he read about the lightning-bolt scar on Harry’s forehead giving him severe headaches, Zheng Qing felt as if he was experiencing it himself, as if he too was getting a headache, and his mood immediately soured.
Sighing, he closed the book and shook his head, only to find that the headache, which felt like a hallucination, was actually real.
A sudden, severe headache struck, and Zheng Qing only managed to groan “headache” before his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed in front of the two old men, beginning to convulse.
