Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 495 Gifts
Yu Dong carefully copied the words on the last page, and then found a box, carefully put "Border Town" in the box and packed it. He planned to take the book to Jinling and put it in the Wangqiu Pavilion for safekeeping. .

The next day, Yu Dong's family went away with relatives for another day.

On the ninth day of the lunar new year, he went back to Jinling first, while Cheng Yanqiu followed his parents to visit relatives.

The reason why he had to go back to school first was because the department and the school had to hold a mobilization meeting before the start of the semester. He was now a department leader, so he had to be present.

After returning to school, their department first held a meeting. In the past two years, there have been more and more teachers and students in the department, and more and more things need to be communicated. From the curriculum arrangement to the student accommodation, there must be one by one. meeting discussions.

At the school meeting, the topic of discussion basically focused on their drama department.In recent years, the drama department has always been the focus of Jin Yi's work, and Wu Changxin has always been very supportive of the drama department.

Regarding Wu Changxin's eccentricity, the other departments didn't say anything. After all, their department didn't lose anything because of this eccentricity. On the contrary, the school has developed better and better in the past two years, and their other departments have followed suit.

During the meeting, Yu Dong didn't speak much, and spent most of his time listening to them.

In fact, he was still thinking about Mr. Chang. Ever since he read the paragraph behind "Border Town", he has 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 search around to see if he could dig out more stories.

After the big and small meetings were over and the school started, Cheng Yanqiu and the others hadn't returned to Jinling yet, so Yu Dong called to ask if some relatives invited them to dinner, but Yu Dong didn't take it seriously Just let Cheng Yanqiu not delay his class because of leaving relatives.

The relatives who should leave have basically gone, and for the later ones, Yu Dong actually felt that there was no need to go again, because he was afraid that Cheng Yanqiu would be too embarrassed to refuse.

Until the eighteenth day of the first month, the first weekend of school, Yu Dong was watching some of 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 all laughed.

"It's still young people who have passion. I haven't seen you in the past few days, and I brought gifts when I came back."

Bi Feiyu also teased: "Bie is better than newly married, I think Yu Dong lives alone these few days, and he doesn't know where to go all day long."

"Isn't it?" Mo Yan took over the quarrel, "I used to ask him to play poker, but he pushed three blocks and four blocks, and now he came over to watch us play poker if he had nothing to do."

"So, Teacher Cheng is still standing in the way of Yu Dong's poker game." Yu Hua said.

Chen Hong curled her lips: "You think playing cards is a good thing."

Cheng Yanqiu blushed a little after being teased by them, and dragged Yu Dong to her home.

Yu Dong was dragged by her and asked curiously, "What did you bring me?"

"You'll know when you go back."

"It's still a secret."

After returning home, Yu Dong saw the box on the coffee table at a glance.

"What, it's quite big."

"It's not big, it's the quantity."

Cheng Yanqiu smiled, walked over and opened the box, revealing the books inside.

"This is?"

Yu Dong looked at the several books above, each of them looked very historical, and without exception, each book had a seal on the cover, which looked very similar to the "Border Town" that Li Jiyong gave him before. picture.

Is it...

Yu Dong looked at Cheng Yanqiu in disbelief. Cheng Yanqiu also knew the speculation in his heart, and said with a smile: "It took a few days, but I can only find so many. It's a pity, many people took Mr. Chang's book, I didn't take it seriously, either I couldn't find it, or I sold it as a scrap. There are a total of 250 six copies in this box, and Hu Hao and the others helped to carry them up just now..."

Before Cheng Yanqiu finished speaking, Yu Dong had already hugged her.

Although Cheng Yanqiu didn't say how difficult it was to find these books, Yu Dong could imagine how much effort she had put in for these 250 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 at this moment.

Cheng Yanqiu was hugged by her husband, and she was very upset in her heart. She did all this to surprise Yu Dong, and now it seems that everything is worth it.

The two were hugging, and their emotions were about to rise, when suddenly a child's voice came from the door.

"Uncle Dong, Auntie, what are you doing?"

The couple were startled, and quickly separated. Turning their heads, 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 sent by Yu Dong to use the fruit, but he forgot to take it when he came back.

Yu Dong took the basin from Yu Haiguo, "Thank you, Haiguo."

"You're welcome. Mom asked me to tell you that you and your aunt will have dinner at night."

"Well, I see, go back and report to your mother."

Yu Haiguo nodded and turned to leave.

After he left, Cheng Yanqiu looked at Yu Dong, his face was still a little red.

"I'm going to pack my luggage." Cheng Yanqiu said, and walked away.

Yu Dong smiled, walked to the box, flipped through the books inside, only to find that there was a notebook on the upper floor, which looked new.

He picked up the notebook and looked at it. Yu Dong recognized the handwriting inside, and it belonged to Cheng Yanqiu.

"What's the matter 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. I didn't remember It's very detailed, I don't know if it will be useful."

Yu Dong nodded and looked at the contents of the notebook seriously.

Cheng Yanqiu's writing is very simple, basically in the form of a question and an answer, there are some things Yu Dong has heard of before, and some things 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 are called Mrs. Chang, some are called Mrs. Xu, and some are called Aunt Li... There are seven or eight different names, which makes it difficult to understand Mr. Chang’s lover. What the hell is it called.

But they should all be talking about one 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, and Mr. Chang did not move out after his wife passed away.

There is also the place where Mr. Chang used to teach. Some people say that he opened a private school, some say that he taught primary schools, and some say that he taught middle schools. Everyone’s memories are different.

This is actually not difficult to understand. The people Cheng Yanqiu interviewed were basically not of the same age as Mr. Chang, and they learned a lot about Mr. Chang from their elders.

Yu Dong put down the notebook and looked at the books in the box.

Cheng Yanqiu should have spent a lot of effort, and in the end he could only find these more than 200 books, but according to Yu Dong's cousin Li Jiyong, Mr. Chang's house should have a room full of books.

It can give people the feeling of "a room full of books". To be conservative, there must be three to five thousand books.

It appears that most of these books have been lost.

Yu Dong was a little disappointed, but also a little fortunate.

I am disappointed that not all of Mr. Chang's books have been preserved, but only a few. Fortunately, they found them early. If a few years pass, even the books in front of them may be gone.

He was not in a hurry to open the book, but first found a few books with clearer seals and began to study 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 "Quiet Master", both of which are inscribed in Xiaozhuan.

Chang Huaiying should be Mr. Chang's name, and Jingju Master may be his own name.

Then Yu Dong took out all the books from the box one by one, and spread them out in the living room, finally allowing him to find the third seal.

Fortunately, the only third type of seal is relatively clear and recognizable. It is the word "Yingping" inscribed in small seal script, which is very likely to be the name of Mr. Chang and his wife.

The one with the word "Yingping" is Turgenev's "Eve", published by Cultural Life Publishing House in the 37 of the Republic of China, and the translator was Lini.

Lini, formerly known as Guo Anren, was an influential essayist in the 40s and [-]s.Yu Dong's impression of this essayist is that his works are full of poetry but lack of narrative.

Lini himself knows this too, as he wrote in "Hundred Nights", he thinks he is an imbecile who is clumsier than anyone else in storytelling.

Yu Dong turned to the back of this book and realized why this book alone had the word "Yingping".

Whether Yingping is the name of Mr. Chang's wife is still uncertain, but what is certain is that "Yingping" is indeed the seal of Mr. Chang's wife.

At the back of "Eve", there is also a paragraph written by Mr. Chang, explaining why this seal appeared.

After his wife passed away, Mr. Chang looked through old books and found that this "Eve" actually had his wife's seal.

His wife did have a seal, which was carved by Mr. Chang himself, but his wife had never used it, but he didn't know why it left a seal on this book. After thinking hard, he finally remembered.

When Lini died in 1968, his wife was very sad, probably because of this, she left her own seal on this book.

Yu Dong put "Eve Before" aside, and picked up a copy of "A Noble House" by Turgenev. He thought, since both "Border Town" and "Eve" were written by Mr. Chang, perhaps There will be other books too.

It's just a pity that he flipped through the entire book, but couldn't find even a single handwritten word.

It seems that Mr. Chang did not leave words on every book.

Yu Dong didn't give up, and turned to other books, trying to find if there were any other words written by Mr. Chang left.

After searching several books, I couldn't find Mr. Chang's handwriting, but let Yu Dong find another person's handwriting.

Compared with Mr. Chang's handwriting, the newly discovered text is not very beautifully written, it is crooked.

After reading the content, Yu Dong understood the ins and outs. This copy of Qian Zhongshu's "Fortress Besieged" was actually a gift from a woman who admired Mr. Chang. This text also expressed the woman's appreciation for Mr. Chang.

Just looking at the time of inscription, it was already 1949, when Mr. Chang was married to his wife, and I don’t know how Mr. Chang responded at that time.

　Thank you [Little Flying Cat 001] for your 5000 reward
　　
　
(End of this chapter)