Chapter 5: 3rd Bookstore_1

Pingyang Prefecture is a millennium-old town on the banks of the Fen River and a stronghold in the south of Jin. Its extensive history has imbued its land with abundant resources and a thick cultural layer.

Over the past decade or so, as the underground resources have been developed, the ancient culture that languished in history has gradually been revitalizing. The private school, an antique in the old paper pile has been welcomed back with fondness.

San You Private School is such a rejuvenated antique.

This private school is located in a bookstore in a ground floor shop facing the street of Yunhua Residential Complex.

The name of the bookstore is San You Bookstore.

The schoolmaster, also the owner of the bookstore, is named Mr.Wu, who is short and plump, wearing black-rimmed round glasses. He greets people with a customary fist and bow, which has earned him an inexplicable respect throughout the neighborhood, where everyone calls him "Mr.Wu".

Mr.Wu's private school is small, with only one teacher and one student.

The teacher is Mr.Wu.

The student is a boy named Zheng Qing from a household in Yunhua Residential Complex.

Yunhua Residential Complex was a model residential project developed by the Pingyang City government in the nineties. Although it seems small by today's standards, with only nine residential buildings, its location is exceptional.

The complex is abutted on the east by a bustling commercial street, and across from the east gate is the biggest supermarket in the city. To the west of the complex is Pingyang College, the only higher education institution in Pingyang City. To the south of the complex, there is a prestigious provincial middle school, Pingyang Experimental Middle School. Adjacent to the Experimental Middle School is one of the leading private schools in the province, Jinnan Middle School. In addition, with a municipal flagship primary school across the street, a student from the complex of poor fortune wouldn't need to venture more than two blocks from birth until college graduation.

Zheng Qing felt that he was just a step away from that kind of life depicted in legends.

Zheng Qing's elder family members are mostly school teachers. His grandfather was a professor at Pingyang College, his father taught at Jinnan Middle School next to the complex, and his mother taught at Pingyang No.1 Primary School opposite the neighbourhood. All of his other uncles, aunts, and cousins were active in these school buildings. From his earliest memories, he heard the grating sound of the school bell. As he grew older, he started running wild on the school fields.

But no matter how he ran, his life seemed enclosed in this area of fields and school buildings.

Circle.

Zheng Qing picked up his heavy calligraphy brush and wrote down the word on the blank rice paper.

"Focus! Don't forget why you're here!" Mr. Wu's wooden ruler lightly tapped on the table, giving off an eerie "Dong Dong" sound.

Zheng Qing took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, tried to empty his thoughts, and focused on copying the calligraphy in front of him.

At first, Zheng Qing used to practice calligraphy with his grandfather. As an old-school scholar, not only did Professor Zheng have excellent handwriting, but his requirements for younger generations were also stringent.

Before he turned six, it was about memorizing ancient poems and scriptures, from the Three Hundred Tang Poems to the Classic of Poetry picked by Professor himself as well as some ancient literature. From an early age, he and his cousins embarked on a difficult and seemingly never-ending journey of rote learning under the strict discipline of Professor Zheng.

Day after day, with no Sundays or winter/summer holidays.

At the age of six, it was no longer just reading aloud, he also started learning how to write.

Starting with holding the brush and then learning the Point, the horizontal, the left-falling, the right-falling stroke, the tedious childhood that was full of squares eventually flooded Zheng Qing's painful tears into a pool of ink on the ink stone.

Every day, he was forcefully dragged out of bed at six in the morning to practice morning writing, fifty large characters had to be finished before breakfast. After breakfast, he began to recite scriptures aloud. By the hot noon, he had to memorize specific passages, and then practice a few more large characters. After a short nap post lunch, he continued reciting and practicing calligraphy. After dinner, it was still reciting and practicing. As soon as the clock struck nine, he was rushed to bed. Every night, from that moment until he fell asleep, was Zheng Qing's happiest time.

Because then, he could indulge in his wild thoughts without having to practice large characters or recite ancient texts.

But wild thoughts drained him too much.

Every time after falling asleep with wild thoughts, Zheng Qing would descend into chaotic dreamland. Like an ink splash landscape painting, it was vague, abstract, and out of grasp, yet he couldn't help chasing it.

Every time he woke up from such dreams, he would scream, sweat profusely, and often languish for a day or two. His family saw his nightmares and carefully looked after him. As a result, his usual chores were reduced for a day or two.

For Zheng Qing, these times were as joyful as vacations.

Days with nightmares were ultimately sporadic and unpredictable.

When Zheng Qing was younger, he found it difficult to enter that dreamland, roughly suffering from night terrors once every half-year. Perhaps due to a strong subconscious desire, as he grew older, his nightmares occurred more frequently, with a progressively worsening condition.

At first, Zheng Qing would only wake up shouting. Gradually, he began to sleepwalk. Sometimes, he would wake up in shock to find himself sleeping atop a large cabinet at home and have no memory of how he ended up there; sometimes, he would sleepwalk to the balcony, sing an unintelligible song, then return in silence to sleep in his bed; sometimes, he would even pick up a writing brush and draw large cryptic symbols.

With the growing severity of his sleep terrors, Zheng Qing began to suffer from headaches.

At first, his family thought he was trying to slack off, so they didn't pay much attention. But to be safe, they brought him to the provincial hospital to take images. The doctors found no abnormal findings, they attributed the cause to be the young boy's excess pressure and suggested a balance between work and rest.

It wasn't until Zheng Qing started bashing his head against the wall to ease the headache that his family started to panic. Professor Zheng sought help from his old classmates and took Zheng Qing to see famous doctors in the provincial capital and Capital City, but no cause was found. Meanwhile, Zheng Qing's headaches were becoming increasingly severe day by day.

In the end, Professor Zheng took the advice of an old friend to let Zheng Qing rest and restore health, using conservative methods to alleviate the condition. After returning from the Capital City, Zheng Qing was no longer required to get up and sleep at fixed times, memorize subjects, or practice large characters.

However, this complete relaxation did not improve his situation, rather it intensified the frequency of his headaches.

At the time, Zheng Qing was eight years old.

It was also during that spring that Mr. Wu, flashing his black, round glasses, came to the Yunhua Residential Complex and opened the quaint San You Bookstore in the street-facing, third-floor shop.

Professor Zheng was an old-school scholar, and Mr. Wu of San You Bookstore happened to be also a knowledgeable cultured man. Over time, the two older men became close friends through their shared love for books and calligraphy.

On one weekend afternoon, Zheng Qing accompanied his grandfather to the San You Bookstore again. Professor Zheng and Mr. Wu steeped a pot of tea and discussed Zhang Zhongjing's "Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Coffer." Meanwhile, Zheng Qing picked up a copy of "Harry Potter" and began to read with cheer.

When he read about Harry's scar bringing him intense headaches, Zheng Qing empathized deeply as if he was also suffering from a headache, which caused his mood to worsen instantly. Sighing, he closed the book and shook his head, only to find that the hallucinatory headache was, in fact, real.

The intense headache came abruptly. Zheng Qing only had time to moan "headache" before he fainted in front of the two old men and began twitching.