coobybook Chapter 941 Mechanisms
Chapter 941 Mechanisms
When Lin Xiaoman plugged in the repaired phonograph, the melody of "Song Girl at the End of the World" sounded again. In a trance, she seemed to see two figures emerging in the light and shadow: the woman in cheongsam and the man in long gown smiled at each other, and the moonlight still flowed gently on the copper horn of the phonograph. Outside the window, the waves of the Huangpu River beat against the embankment, telling the old times that never fade. On the day the restoration work was completed, Lin Xiaoman brought the phonograph to the Shanghai History Museum. In front of the display cabinet, she gently turned the turntable. In the melody of "Night Jasmine", in the reflection of the glass, the woman in pearl white cheongsam nodded slightly to her. In the museum's guestbook, Lin Xiaoman wrote a line of small words: "Some voices will never be buried by time; some stories are worth listening to for a lifetime." Many years later, every rainy season, the museum staff would always hear the melody of "Song Girl at the End of the World" faintly coming from the exhibition hall where the phonograph was stored. When visitors stop, they can often see two figures leaning against each other in the patterns of the copper trumpet, never separated in the old days. Chronicles of the School In the spring of 1919, the catkins in the city of Beiping fluttered against the vermilion lacquered gate of the Yuying Women's Normal School. Lin Zhaoran clutched the gold-stamped admission letter and looked at the new school sign hanging on the lintel, her heart beating faster than the copper bell on the school's bell tower. This was the school she had secretly applied for under her brother's name without telling her father - in a world where women's virtues were determined by their lack of talent, this new-style school that promoted vernacular Chinese and taught mathematics, physics and chemistry was her only glimpse of the daylight. "Student, please show your ID," the old school worker at the gate stopped her. Lin Zhaoran took a deep breath, lifted the hem of her navy blue student robe, revealing her bandaged chest, and lowered her voice: "Lin Zhaoran, a freshman in the Chinese Department." The old school worker looked at her beautiful eyebrows suspiciously, and finally waved his hand to let her go. Passing through the corridor covered with wisteria, the sound of excited reading came from the classroom. Lin Zhaoran leaned against the window and looked over. Female students wearing indigo cheongsam were reading "New Youth" in unison: "Youth is like early spring, like the morning sun, like the budding of hundreds of flowers..." The female teacher on the podium suddenly turned around and knocked the ebony pointer on the blackboard, stirring up a cloud of chalk dust: "So what you have to do is not to be a dodder in the boudoir, but to be a kapok that supports the sky!" This scene made Lin Zhaoran's eyes hot. Until he heard a sneer from behind: "Country bumpkin, have you never seen the world?" Tang Wanru, a rich girl wearing a dark green woolen coat, walked past her with her curly hair swung, and her pearl earrings brushed against her ears, "Mr. Gu hates late students the most." When Lin Zhaoran rushed into the classroom, his forehead was soaked with sweat. The female teacher took off her gold-rimmed glasses and wiped them, revealing the thin smile lines at the end of her eyes: "Sit in the third row." She opened the lesson plan, "I am Gu Qingru, the Chinese teacher. From today on, you will not only learn about the meaning of the word, but also learn how to use words to dissect this cannibalistic world." That night, Lin Zhaoran was copying notes under the oil lamp in the dormitory. Zhou Yun, who was on the bed next to him, suddenly came over and lowered her voice: "Have you heard? Mr. Gu is a member of the Tongmenghui and participated in the burning of Zhaojialou last year." Before she finished speaking, hurried footsteps came from outside the window, and several dark shadows climbed over the wall. Lin Zhaoran blew out the oil lamp and saw through the gap in the window paper that Gu Qingru was stuffing a stack of mimeographed "National Salvation Declaration" into the students' canvas bags. The situation took a sharp turn for the worse in the heavy rain in May. When the news came that the Beiyang government had signed a humiliating treaty, hundreds of students gathered on the school playground. Gu Qingru stood on the steps, a flush on her pale face: "Classmates, Qingdao is going to be gone! Shandong is going to be gone! The only thing we can do is--" "Take to the streets and march!" Lin Zhaoran was the first to raise his fist. Her chest was hurt by the corset she wore, but it couldn't resist the boiling blood in her chest. When the team rushed out of the school gate, she saw Tang Wanru stuffing her jade bracelet into the pawnshop and exchanging it for twenty silver dollars to buy a banner. When the parade reached the gate of Duan Qirui's Executive Yuan, gunshots suddenly rang out. Lin Zhaoran protected the classmates behind her and retreated, but was dispersed by the crowd. In the darkness, a hand suddenly grabbed her: "Follow me!" It was Gu Qingru, the hem of her cheongsam was covered in mud, and her hairpin was missing. "The military and police are arresting students, you must leave Peking immediately!" When the two hid in a dilapidated temple in the west of the city, Gu Qingru began to cough, and dark red blood spread on her handkerchief. She pulled out a code book from her lapel: "This is the communication code of the revolutionaries, it must be sent to Shanghai..." Before she finished speaking, the temple gate burst open, and a dozen black-clad secret agents rushed in with guns. "Run!" Gu Qingru stuffed the code book into Lin Zhaoran's arms, but faced the muzzle of the gun, "I'll hold them back!" Lin Zhaoran stumbled out of the temple gate, and Gu Qingru's shout came from behind: "Zhaoran! Remember, words are sharper than guns!" Three months later, Lin Zhaoran wore a wig and sneaked into Shanghai St. Mary's Girls' School. She hid secret letters in specimen bottles in the biology laboratory and wrote codes between the notes of the piano score. The Yuying School had already been closed down, and Gu Qingru's name appeared at the top of the wanted list. On a rainy night, Lin Zhaoran was sorting documents in the attic, and suddenly heard the familiar melody of "Graduation Song" floating from downstairs. She leaned against the window lattice and looked out. The woman in the grey tweed hat was walking quickly with her head down. A silver necklace similar to the one worn by Gu Qingru could be vaguely seen around her neck - it was a token of a female member of the Tongmenghui. Lin Zhaoran grabbed the oil-paper umbrella and rushed downstairs, stopping her at the entrance of the alley. The woman slowly raised her head, but the smile lines between her delicate eyebrows made Lin Zhaoran shiver all over - this face looked exactly like Gu Qingru! "Who are you?" Lin Zhaoran's voice was trembling. The woman took off her hat, revealing her very short hair: "Gu Qingru's sister, Gu Mingche." She took out a half-broken fountain pen from her purse, with the word "Zhao" engraved on the tip of the pen. "Before my sister was arrested, I told you that the fire of the school will never go out." In 1927, the Northern Expedition entered Peking. When Lin Zhaoran led the students to hang up the school sign of Yuying School again, she deliberately locked the code book left by Gu Qingru in the sandalwood cabinet in the principal's office. As the autumn wind swept across the playground, she seemed to hear the figure in the Yindanthrene cheongsam saying, "What you need to do is to become the kapok trees that support the sky." Outside the school, tens of millions of kapok trees were growing rapidly in the turbulent times, with their roots deeply rooted in the hot land. In the late autumn of the rd year of the Guangxu reign, the bluestone slabs of Pingyao Ancient City were covered with frost-white fallen leaves. Chen Henian held the gilded key his father had given him before his death, standing in front of the red lacquer gate of the "Rishengchang" bank. The mottled animal heads on the copper door knocker seemed to be staring at him silently.