The Great and Venerable China Leads the World - Zhuangzi

  The Nth revision is trying to make the introduction less artistic, I think I should explain that the two chapters of the introduction are about Zhang Yan's modern story before crossing over. Comrades who don't like pre-crossing stories can skip them and start directly from Chapter 1. The main text is in third person, only using first person in the introduction due to emotional depiction needs.

  Long ago, the great and wise Zhuangzi dreamed that he had become a butterfly. When he woke up, he suddenly felt confused, not knowing whether he was the Zhuangzi who had dreamed of being a butterfly or the butterfly in Zhuangzi's dream.

  Two thousand years later, I wander between dreams and reality, re-listening to the story of Zhuangzi's butterfly dream. My heart is moved, and I can no longer distinguish whether I am the Zhuangzi in the dream or the awakened butterfly.

  In the year 2000, Guan Er was transferred to work in Xi'an, and I was admitted to a local university's agricultural college. Guan Er said, "From now on, we'll have few chances to return to Handan, let's go to the cemetery to pay our respects to your parents."

  Guan Er is my brother. Our parents died in a plane crash when I was still young, and Guan Er was only in his teens. At the memorial service, our aunt reached out to us and said, "Guan Er, Yan Ran, come home with me."

  A smile blocked in front of me, shouting hoarsely, "Don't you care about us, I will take care of Yanran."

  I held the broken doll, hiding behind my brother's back and trembling with fear. When I looked up, my brother's figure in front of me seemed especially tall and strong, just like our father who used to shield us from wind and rain.

  "Sorry, Yanyan. Brother can't cook well, just eat something for now and I'll learn to cook like mom did tomorrow."

  "Anyone who wants to bully my sister will have to kill me first."

  Smile pulled me up as I grew up.

  The local customs of Handan have the flavor of my hometown. I bought a big bunch of chrysanthemums, and I've forgotten what my dad and mom look like, but I remember that he stroked the tall white tombstone and said, "Dad and Mom, I finally raised Yanran to adulthood, you can rest assured." He shed a few tears.

  I placed a chrysanthemum in front of the tombstone and said to Gu Er, "Let's go."

  As we were leaving the cemetery gate, we met an old woman. As we brushed past each other, she called out in a loud voice, "Yan..."

  I turned back in surprise and asked, "Grandma, were you calling me?"

  She nodded, her eyes carrying a hint of coldness and hatred, "...... It's about to begin. You, are you ready?"

  I was bewildered, "Grandma, what are you talking about?"

  "You'll understand later." She smiled, "I hope you can still be this happy when you really understand. My name is..."

  He dragged me forward with a scowl on his face, "Let's go, let's go." He sneered, "What's the point of being nice to this kind of person?"

  "Hey——" I couldn't stop my feet, so I had to follow Guan'er while turning back, didn't hear clearly what PoPo said afterwards, waved and shouted, "Auntie, sorry——"

  Moving is a very tiring thing, I bid farewell to my hometown and my native land with three steps back. My mood was as gloomy as the continuous rainy days. Saying goodbye to a part of life's past is a heart-wrenching pain.

  "But it's also the beginning of a brand new life," An comforted, "So don't look back, only look forward, and don't just remember the pain, but also the happiness."

  I nodded in agreement with my brother from several thousand feet high up in the air.

  I started having a dream.

  In my dream, there were towering buildings with broad eaves and flying corners. Servants and maidservants hurried in and out, carrying out one basin after another of bloody water. In the side house, a woman's cries of pain echoed loudly but fell on deaf ears.

  A middle-aged woman hastily walked out, knelt down in front of the man with a high crown and wide belt, and then the man closed his eyes, hesitated for a moment as if making a decision, but his face showed pain.

  Faint blood color, time seems like an hourglass, inch by inch slipping away, in the heavy curtains, a haggard woman opens her eyes in a sea of blood, gentle yet firm, the maid tries to persuade her, but she remains unmoved.

  Outside, an old man with a dull expression walked up to the young man and said something. The young man furrowed his brow, hesitated for a long time, shed a few tears, and finally nodded.

  As if after an extremely short yet extremely long time, there was finally the sound of a baby's cry piercing through the dawn light.

  The scene suddenly shifted, and the man carried the child to a side hall. In the side hall, the female lead turned her head around and smiled faintly in an empty direction.

  I was startled and frightened in my dream.

  That woman standing with her hands behind her back, if she were a bit more frail and had some white hairs mixed in with the black, and wrinkles around her eyes, could slowly transform into the old lady I met at Handan Cemetery.

  What's going on?

  I was startled in my dream.

  The young father bowed slightly to the midwife. The midwife took the baby from him and looked at the pink infant in the swaddling clothes, who opened his eyes and giggled.

  "Congratulations, young master," said the female fortune teller Zhang, enunciating clearly, "The little lord's fate is extremely noble, and he will surely become a superior person in the future."

  Word by word, it thundered in my ears, like a clap of thunder that grew louder and louder.

  She said, "This girl's fate is extremely noble."

  "Extremely expensive."

  ……

  "Yan ran, yan ran——" Xiang Er's voice echoed in my ears.

  I woke up with a start from my dream, opened my eyes and saw my brother standing by the bed in the bright light, his eyebrows were sparse and his eyes were filled with concern.

  I let out a breath and threw myself into his arms in my pajamas, "Wen Er, I had a strange dream."

  "What's so strange about having a dream?" She smiled and said, "Get up, the sun has already shone on your butt."

  Dreaming is nothing unusual, but this dream was too vivid, too real. It was so real that I remembered every wrinkle on the clothes of the people in my dream. And then there was that female fortune teller I met at Handan Cemetery.

  In September, Gu Er sent me to school. On campus, Luomi pulled her luggage and stopped me, asking, "Classmate, do you know how to get to the dormitory building?" A fiery windbreaker, big wavy curls, a slight raise of an eyebrow, a bright smile.

  She became my roommate.

  Later, she hugged my shoulder and said, "There are so many people in the schoolyard, but I just caught you, it's really fate, isn't it?"

  "What a fate, what a fate."

  A destined affinity.

  Luomi's hometown is in Inner Mongolia, and it is said that she has the blood of a minority ethnic group from the grasslands, a kind of bold and free beauty. She says she can ride horses across the grasslands day and night, so she looks down on the weakness of inland people. "Maybe my ancestors had the blood of the golden family," she said dreamily when introducing herself.

  "I am Lumi, majoring in Mechanical Engineering. The 'Luo' from Luofei and the 'Mi' from honey." She smiled, extending her hand with beautifully slender fingers.

  I couldn't help but laugh too, and I also stretched out my hand, responding, "My name is Zhang Yanran, the smiling Yanran."

  Zhang Yanran likes this girl named Luomi, in this life and the next, in past lives and future lives, for three lifetimes.

  That night, I had my second dream.

  The hem of her skirt trailed over the stone steps, and the woman with three buns and six hairpins walked down hand in hand with her maid. She stopped again about a dozen yards away from the high platform, looked up at her husband on it, who stood in front of the solemn ancestral temple, wearing a dignified official hat and looking elegant and refined.

  In front of him, a servant woman stood there holding an infant girl.

  The man bent down and held the little girl's right hand. The little girl giggled and laughed, her laughter clear and crisp.

  The woman lowered her eyes and listened to her husband's solemn voice coming from above, word by word.

  "...Now there is a girl, gentle and elegant, suitable for marriage... Let her name be: Yan."

  I woke up with a start in my dream, panting heavily, like a startled fish in a dried-up lake.

  I told myself it was just a simple dream, but I'm too weak to even convince myself.

  The man who named his daughter in the dream was clearly the same person as the man in my previous dream.

  It seems that I watched a silent drama in my dream, but I don't know who the director was, who wrote it, or who performed. The plot was coherent and the characters and scenes were grand. There were so many performers, but only one audience member, and no ticket was needed. Such lavish hospitality would only make people feel uneasy.

  "Yan Ran, what's wrong?" Luo Mi called out softly from behind the mosquito net of the bed across from her.

  I calmed down and said softly, "It's nothing, I just had a dream."

  In the dark of night, Luo Mi's big eyes sparkled with surprise as she said, "What a coincidence, I had a dream too."

  "A month before I came to Xi'an, I started having dreams, dreaming of vast grasslands. Don't laugh, Yan Ran, although I grew up on the grasslands, I had never seen such beautiful grasslands. The green grass was as tall as half a person, men wearing leather jackets rode strong horses at full gallop, those were real strong horses, real men, nowadays men have a kind of creamy softness in their bones."

  "I dreamed of a woman giving birth to a child in a large yurt, people milking a cow and feeding the child. At night, the yurt was lit up with crackling bonfires, people sang loudly around the fires, burly men with disheveled hair and wearing animal hides laughed as they held the child and drank wine, their robust bodies surpassing even the strongest oxen and horses."

  "This is the real prairie." Luo Mi yearned infinitely.

  I invited Luomi to visit me at home and thus became acquainted with Guaner.

  After arriving in Xi'an, Guan Er's craftsmanship became more and more refined, and the chicken millet sprout vegetable rolls she made were praised by everyone.

  I teased her, "You like chicken and rice sprouts so much, why don't you marry my brother, then you can eat them every day."

  Luomi slightly raised her head and said proudly, "Is it worth a bowl of chicken and rice sprouts with me, Luomi?"

  Autumn wind blows away fallen leaves, I see a vast sky and a palace sitting under the sky.

  The woman from last time got off the carriage and walked into the palace with Yan in her arms, where a woman in elegant clothes and high hairdo rushed up to them, hugging them and crying out loud.

  Time has left its mark on her face, with dry and wrinkled skin, faded complexion, but the only thing that is still commendable is her dignity, with long eyebrows raised at the temples, firm and strong.

  The two of them cried for a while, then smiled again. She took Yān from the woman's arms and cooed at her with a loving face.

  "Man Hua," she raised her head and said solemnly, "Mother has nothing left now, only you and Ying Er are left."

  "Mother would sacrifice her life if necessary to keep for you what is rightfully yours."

  When I woke up from my dream again, I was already calm and peaceful. Luomi said, "What else can we do but watch the excitement?"

  How? How?

  I don't know what will happen.

  I want to find out the meaning in these dreams.

  Before I knew it, winter vacation arrived, Luomi returned to her grassland hometown, and I also went home for the New Year.

  "Recently, I've been having a streak of bad luck," said Wenzel, complaining to me about the new strict manager. I murmured in response, sipping the sweet potato and chicken soup he had specially made for me, feeling that this New Year's was quite warm and cozy.

  I started going in and out of libraries, looking for architectural styles I had seen in my dreams and the clothing styles of people in my dreams.

  When I took down "The Chinese Costume Dictionary" from the top shelf, I saw Luo Mi under the opposite bookshelf.

  "Ah Mei." I called her.

  "Hey, Yanran?" Luo Mi turned her head around, holding a book in her hand. I caught a glimpse of the title: "Historical Tales of Minority Nationalities on the Grasslands".

  We all burst out laughing. For the tacit understanding in our hearts.

  "What did you find?" she asked me.

  "Uh-huh." I nodded, "I've studied Chinese architectural history before. The building in my dream is a type of high-platform architecture that appeared from the Pre-Qin period to the Han Dynasty. After the mid-Western Han period, high-platform architecture gradually fell out of use."

  "Alas," I said dejectedly, hugging the book, "even if we really find it, what's the use? The dreams that are meant to be dreamed will continue to be dreamed. Nothing will change."

  Luomi smiled mysteriously and said, "At least you'll understand the play a bit better."

  We burst out laughing.

  One of a kind drama that belongs to us.

  New book online