Chapter 13: Who Stirs Trouble in a Harmonious Neighborhood? Do Not Let the Peach Blossoms of Spring Go to Waste
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“Who are you showing off this clear sky to?”
The mountains were lush with green. Guan Yin could not remember whether, as a child, he had ever been so entranced by nature. He only remembered how genuinely stunned he had been when the study-tour handbook was placed in his hands, confronted by those several photographs of landscapes that looked as though ink had been washed across blank paper.
It was not until his homeroom teacher came over and asked, “Oh? Guan Yin, I remember you’re from Anhui, aren’t you? Have you ever climbed Mount Huang?”
“Climbed Mount Huang?”
Guan Yin had attended middle and high school in the city and simply had never had the time to climb Mount Huang. His childhood memories were even more indistinct.
Yet during his university holidays, he had climbed nearly every part of the mountain, repeatedly serving as a guide for classmates visiting Huizhou. Guan Yin felt that by now he could hold his own against a professional tour guide.
“Guan Yin? Ah… I doubt you’ve been there much either. You know, here in the capital, who has the time to climb the Great Wall for no reason? Summers are too hot, winters too cold, and by the time spring or autumn finally arrives with decent weather, it’s tourist season again. People are packed shoulder to shoulder. You go there and all you see is people.”
Since his homeroom teacher had put it that way, Guan Yin had merely offered an awkward smile. He did not continue trying to steer the conversation back toward the fact he had wanted to mention—teaching required caution. Educating and nurturing students was a lifelong responsibility, and Guan Yin was, in truth, someone who feared making mistakes.
Afraid of making mistakes, he reasoned that the less he said, the fewer mistakes he would make; the less he did, the more unnecessary trouble he could avoid.
So when Sanheng came running back and stopped in front of him, a thought even flashed through Guan Yin’s mind: If Sanheng had come to ask him to go along, how should he refuse?
“What if the Liu family really did take Liu Jiao’an away? Was I brought to this place, which was never mine to begin with, merely so I could rescue a girl who had nothing to do with me?”
Guan Yin—how many people had joked about his name over the years, saying it sounded like Guanyin? Yet Guan Yin did not consider himself some great and compassionate immortal. He did not possess a heart vast enough to concern himself with matters unrelated to him.
Teaching and nurturing students in the present age was different, after all. A teacher might pour his whole heart into a lesson, and a student might not feel like listening to a single word. The parents’ cooperation often went no further than saying, “Education is the school’s responsibility, isn’t it?”
Though the stories he had heard since childhood still remained in his heart, Guan Yin felt that such “selflessness” was already enough to drain him when applied to teaching. When it came to complete strangers with whom he had no connection at all—
But could he really still regard Liu Jiao’an as a complete stranger?
Perhaps there were no towering buildings here, no streets blazing with electric light, and perhaps he could not have become a teacher devoted to educating the young. But the character-shaped bean candies, sweet on the tongue and carrying the fragrance of beans and sesame, were real. So was the fresh, fragrant tea.
How could this place not be his homeland?
“My God. You know I studied history. Even the smallest change could mean, at the very least, that I cease to exist—and at worst… the future could be rewritten because of this tiny incident. What right do I have to take part in history?”
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Earlier, in one of his classes, Guan Yin had discussed “historical nihilism” with his students in connection with a recent short drama. If true history was forgotten, then the accumulated achievements of spiritual civilization would perish along with it.
To record the past and use history as a mirror—that was the meaning of history’s existence, was it not? Not to fantasize about how one might have changed it if one had lived in those times.
I ought to be the first person who wanted to change nothing at all, whether good or bad, and only wished to follow the original body’s course of life step by step until the end, Guan Yin thought.
A charred smell appeared abruptly in his nose and mouth. Before Guan Yin could react, his nose instinctively drew in two sharp breaths. The fragrance of grain and firewood vanished, replaced by a cloyingly sweet and bitter odor that made him gag at once.
“What is this…” smell?
He turned his head, and the rest of his sentence died in his throat.
Dense smoke had replaced the curling kitchen smoke from before. Even without any experience, Guan Yin could now tell where the smell had come from—and knew that he had to act quickly.
He drew water from the nearby vat, soaked his sleeve, covered his nose and mouth, and rushed into the kitchen. Open flames had already risen from the wood-burning stove.
Ordinarily, he should have found a pot lid and covered the fire. But when Guan Yin saw the thick wooden lid before him, full of gaps, he knew he had no choice but to risk dousing the flames with water.
Hiss!
Hiss… whoosh!
Crackle, crackle…
Cough, cough, cough… cough, cough!
The smoke inside the kitchen grew thicker and thicker. Before Guan Yin could successfully put out the flames he had stirred up, the smoke had already engulfed the entire kitchen, coating his formerly clean clothes with black soot.
Guan Yin wiped his face and was about to charge back in when someone suddenly caught him by the sleeve.
“What are you doing here?”
He instinctively tried to shake the person off, but when he turned and saw the man’s face, his heart jolted.
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It was the very man who had come to deliver the news earlier—the one who had not even spared Guan Yin a glance. Guan Yin had no idea which neighbor he was, or how far away he lived.
“You, you…” Guan Yin stammered, trying to say something, only to realize how rude he was being. He suddenly understood just how vulnerable a person could become when utterly helpless.
The man was of average build, with his wife following not far behind him. Neither of them had particularly memorable features. If they had been standing in a crowd, Guan Yin was certain he would not have remembered their faces, nor even been able to describe whether they were tall or short, fat or thin.
Red light touched the mountaintop, and the flames in the kitchen had finally gone out. Standing before Guan Yin, the man was covered in soot from head to toe, yet he showed no sign of taking offense at Guan Yin’s “rudeness.” He merely sighed.
“I truly have no idea what your wife ever saw in you.”
Guan Yin gave a dry laugh. He did not know what he could say, or what he ought to say.
“It’s getting late. You should go meet Sanheng too. This isn’t the first time.” The man’s wife spoke, turning her head toward Guan Yin. “My husband doesn’t know how to talk. We’re neighbors, after all. If you need anything, just come to us.”
“If we weren’t neighbors, who would bother with them? If the fire spread to our house as well, how could you ever compensate us?”
These two neighbors clearly knew quite a lot, Guan Yin thought as he quietly calculated his options. If he wanted to avoid exposing himself, perhaps this kind-hearted woman would make a suitable point of entry.
The woman shot her husband a look, then nodded at Guan Yin. “We’ll be going now. You and your wife—and Sanheng—take good care of yourselves. Go and meet your wife soon.”
As soon as the woman finished speaking, Guan Yin too began to consider that evening was drawing on and perhaps he should set out to see what was happening. The man who had delivered the news earlier had already strode out through the low fence and was looking in the direction Sanheng had gone.
“There’s no need for him to go meet her. She’s already back!”
The ill-tempered shout reached Guan Yin’s ears just like that.
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