Riding the wind of rebirth

As the dean of the most popular department in Shu University, Mai Mingdong deliberately did not work overtime tonight, just to wait for his precious granddaughter and Zhou Zhi to come.

As a result, she never came. Mai Mingdong didn't dare to call his granddaughter and could only send text messages to Zhou Zhi. The reply he got was always "very soon".

I waited until after nine o'clock before the doorbell rang.

The person who opened the door was a woman in her fifties, dressed simply but in a very decent appearance. She smiled when she saw Mai Xiaomiao: "Xiao Miao, you're back?"

Mai Xiaomiao uttered a soft "hmm".

Zhou Zhi immediately sensed it from Mai Xiaomiao's mood, and this might be the reason why Mai Xiaomiao was unwilling to return to the Academician Building.

"Xiao Miao is back? Have you eaten? Auntie Liu has prepared food for you. If you haven't eaten, come and have something to eat." Mai Mingdong's voice came from the stairs. He must have been busy in the study just now.

"Oh, that's right. I just felt something was wrong. It turns out that we didn't have dinner!" Zhou Zhi agreed as he put on the shoes that Aunt Liu handed over: "Director Jiang is so mean. He didn't even give us a meal!"

After saying that, he also expressed his gratitude to Liu Ma: "Thank you, Liu Ma."

"Thank you, Aunt Liu." Mai Xiaomiao also followed Zhou Zhi and said with her head down.

Aunt Liu showed a look of relief and surprise on her face: "Student Zhou, right? Lao Ting... Come in, come in, sit down for a while and have some fruit at the coffee table. I'll heat up the food for you. It will be quick."

At this time, Mai Mingdong had already walked down quickly, wearing a comfortable thick nightgown. He had different living habits from Gu Lao and was a well-known night owl: "Why are you back so late?"

"Grandpa, we're back." Mai Xiaomiao greeted Mai Mingdong just like Zhou Zhi greeted Lao Chi Ri every time he returned to the grain station.

Although the timing was a bit wrong, the younger generation should greet each other first when they met, but it did not stop Mai Mingdong from being happy: "Hey, Xiao Miao, sit down. Elbow, you sit down too. You must have been running around all day today, huh?"

"Not bad." Mai Xiaomiao nodded: "Elbow had a lot of things to pull, so we went to the history department first. How come there is a magician in the history department of Shu University?"

“Master?” Mai Mingdong was stunned for a moment. “Oh, that’s Danzeng. He is in charge of Tibetan studies in our school. His courses include Tibetan history, Tibetan Buddhism history, economic and social development history of Tibetan areas, etc. He also serves as the dean of the Shuzhong Tibetan Buddhist College. That place is for training that… that…”

"Zen Ranba and Zhi Ranba." Seeing that Mai Mingdong couldn't say it, Zhou Zhi said, "Ranba is the abbreviation of Ranjiangba, which means a learned and wise person. 'Zen' and 'Zhi' mean elementary and intermediate levels. They are equivalent to our bachelor's and master's degrees."

"What about doctors? What are they called?" Mai Xiaomiao was very curious.

"It's called Tuoramba." Zhou Zhi said, "I heard this from chatting with Master Danzeng before, but the Tibetan Buddhist College in Shuzhong doesn't seem to have the qualifications to train Tuoramba now. Their requirements are even more difficult than the doctoral qualification of the Chinese Department of Shu University."

"It's not easy to be a monk, right?" Mai Xiaomiao asked, "It's the same thing you always say..."

"All snakes bite people," said Mai Mingdong.

"Grandpa, you know that too?" Mai Xiaomiao chuckled: "Do you often hear Elbow say that?" Mai Mingdong said: "In fact, it is not difficult for you to get a doctorate, so everything still depends on who does it. It seems that Mr. Gu requires you to follow the research topics of the experts, right Elbow?"

"Yes, it's a big topic, the deduction of Chinese pronunciation." Zhou Zhi quickly introduced his research topic in the humanities to Mai Mingdong: "The first step is to collect the phonetic pedigree of dialects across the country, use information technology to analyze the initials and finals that exist in the current Chinese local languages, and construct the most complete table of initials and finals. Then, we can deduct it from the phonetic notation of the fanqie in the Jiyun, and finally get the most scientific and authoritative pronunciation of Chinese characters in the Middle Ages so far."

"We have achieved some results now. By using Xiaozhi's function, we have segmented the audio information we have collected into phonetic and rhyme parts, summarized the phonetic and rhyme parts, and summarized the tones. This speech analysis algorithm program is currently in use and it is quite interesting." Mai Xiaomiao said that his work was going quite smoothly.

"Is this what a master's degree student should do?" Mai Mingdong was speechless: "Is this not what a master's degree supervisor should do?"

At this time, Liu's mother came over and said, "Xiao Miao, classmate Zhou, the food is ready, you should eat first."

In the eyes of gourmets like Zhou Zhi, Liu Ma's meals are all quite good. Whether it's the soft shredded pork with green peppers that has been reheated, or the homely radish and pork ribs soup, or the braised pork with chestnuts, they are all authentic.

There are three authentic chestnuts in the north and three in the south, but Sichuan is not included. Due to the current inconvenient transportation, chestnuts in Sichuan are still only available in Qianzhong and Dianzhong, which are close to the southern chestnut producing areas.

This is what is produced in some counties of Liangshan and Manzhou, so people in Shu rarely use chestnuts to cook braised pork.

"This dish was also made for me by the pork elbow." Mai Xiaomiao was a little surprised and said, "I didn't expect you, Aunt Liu, to be able to make it, too."

This was the first time that Mai Xiaomiao had such a formal communication with Aunt Liu. Aunt Liu smiled and said, "This is a hometown dish. I haven't seen it since I came to Shuzhong. These chestnuts are the ones you sent back last time. They are bigger than the chestnuts in our place and not as sweet. I added some sugar to it. Does it taste good?"

"Eh? I..." Mai Xiaomiao was about to say "I have never sent anything home", but Zhou Zhi gently touched her foot, and then she heard Zhou Zhi ask: "Where is Liu Ma's hometown?"

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

"I'm from Lu Province, Fei County, do you know?"

"I know it very well, it's the old district of Yimeng Mountain." Zhou Zhi said with a smile: "We can't avoid the Yan style when learning calligraphy. Yan Zhenqing is a famous person in your Fei County."

"There is another one, one of the 72 sages of Confucius, and a character in the 24 Filial Exemplars story, Min Ziqian, who is also from your Fei County."

"Really? I know Yan Zhenqing, but even the locals here haven't heard of Min Ziqian."

"Min Ziqian's story... He lost his mother when he was young, and his father married a stepmother. The stepmother favored her two biological children and often abused Min Ziqian, but Min Ziqian did not tell his father to avoid affecting the relationship between his parents."

"One winter, the stepmother made cotton-padded jackets for her own children and pretended to make one for Ziqian, but the jacket was actually stuffed with reeds. One day, their father took the three brothers out in a carriage and asked Min Ziqian to drive the carriage. Min Ziqian was too cold and hungry to steer the carriage, and it slipped into a ditch beside the road."

"The father was very angry and said, 'You are such a loser, you are shivering even though you are wearing such thick clothes! Look at your brother, his cotton-padded jacket is thinner than yours, but he is not as cold as you are.' After scolding him, he whipped him, and the jacket was torn, revealing the reed fluff. The father pinched the cotton-padded jackets of his other two sons and understood what was going on. He knew that he had wronged Min Ziqian, and then he scolded his wife for being unvirtuous and decided to divorce her."

"Min Ziqian knelt in front of his father for a long time and pleaded for his stepmother, saying, 'When mother is here, one son is cold; when mother is gone, three sons are alone.' What he meant was that as long as mother was here, he would be the only one to suffer the cold; if mother left, his two younger brothers would have to endure the pain of loneliness without mother's love with him. His father then decided not to divorce his wife, and his stepmother was deeply moved and changed her ways."

"Humph! If it were me, I would run away from home and live on my own, so that no one could find me!" Mai Xiaomiao expressed her contempt for Min Ziqian. (End of this chapter)