born to ashes

The research topic of the Linguistics Department is a little heavier than imagined, and the reason lies in the personnel.The most prominent direction of the Faculty of Liberal Arts of Zhucheng University is literature, followed by the pronunciation of Putonghua. It is slightly lacking in ancient Chinese. Professor Jiang is the only professor who specializes in ancient characters, and there is no master or doctor in his staff.

Although Professor Jiang is a well-known expert in ancient Chinese characters, the research task is heavy, and ancient Chinese phonetics account for a large proportion of phonetic research. The leader suggested to cooperate with other schools to complete the project. He was vetoed by Professor Jiang and returned to the soil.

Wei Linze personally thinks that it is not a bad thing to cooperate with other schools. Ancient Chinese is a shortcoming of Zhucheng University, but Professor Jiang is used to being strong all his life, and he only thinks that he is old and strong, and the young teachers from other schools are not enough to add to the chaos. .But that being said, the school can't really let an old professor who has to move around in the aisles to pick up such a thick beam by himself, and temporarily drag Wei Linze back to the school from his comfortable summer life of drinking tea and reading books .

Wei Linze himself has studied ancient characters for a period of time. Although he doesn't understand the phonetics very well, he can at least do the most basic writing work.

The ancient pronunciation is based on the phonology of "Book of Songs" and "Chu Ci", and the middle ancient pronunciation is based on "Qie Yun" and "Guang Yun". For the remaining half of the summer vacation, Wei Linze was almost soaked in these four books. Sometimes I stare at the ancient text for a whole day, and finally I can't recognize a single word in the whole text.

Professor Jiang's set of "Guang Yun" has been around for a long time, and it is placed in the office at will on weekdays, and everyone will flip through it when they need it. After a long time, it is inevitable that a few pages will be missing.Of course, it is inevitable that the most important page will be missing.

Fortunately, Wei Linze has his own way.

On weekdays, he puts books randomly. The bookshelf looks neat on the surface, but in fact, when he was trying to accurately find a book that is not commonly used from the books full of two walls, he suddenly realized that the inside of the bookshelf was really chaotic.Wei Linze stepped on a small bench and hollowed out half of the wall, leaving dirt all over his body, but he still couldn't find the damn "Guang Yun".

However, I found another thing.

On the cover of the 2017 first draft of "The Wave", his name was clearly signed on it: Wei Linze.

He clearly remembered that the stack of draft samples was taken in a hurry. After handing over to the students at the intersection of the food street, he directly wrote his name on the paper with his arms on the paper. There was a takeaway boy who passed by him in a rampage.

That was the day he met Josh.

He remembered the day when he asked for a draft sample, and Josh taught him to be forgetful and frankly said that he hadn't seen the cover. At that time, he didn't think that he would have an intersection with this person who was obviously not of my race, so he didn't have the nerve to ask.But in fact, since this cover was left in Josh's hands, it was doomed, and their relationship would not be broken.I don't know what state of mind Josh was in when he left the cover with his signature, but Wei Linze can see the state of mind he found by accident at this time.

Teacher Wei, who has always been known for his dedication to work, sat on the thin ashes of old books scattered all over the afternoon when Professor Jiang was waiting for him to go home to pick up his books, holding a cover and posting them all afternoon.

That night when he entered the police station, Wei Linze couldn't help sighing about life when he thought about it again.

But the one-act play of that night alone can't support the whole show. Before he even got to the curtain call, he ushered in a turning point, and then he was suddenly pulled out of the stage.

Due to the continuous exhaustion of physical strength the day before, Wei Linze rarely slept until noon.

He squinted his eyes as if he was disintegrated, and used the back of his hand to block the light bit by bit to adapt to the light in the room. When he fully opened his eyes, he felt for a moment that he might have had a dream.The room was quiet, like countless mornings when he himself woke up, and the air smelled of hot air that hadn't circulated all night.There was no one in the living room, no one in the study, only a pan on the stove and a red egg in the kitchen.

If it weren't for the wound on his face that was still hurting majestically, he might really feel that yesterday was a dream that was both heroic and romantic.

Josh disappeared this morning out of thin air.

Phone off.

Zhang Zhihe didn't know where he went, neither did Zheng Fei.

When he went to find Zheng Fei, Zheng Fei hesitated to speak, and finally muttered to himself that it was impossible, and finally came to a conclusion, and he didn't know.

Such a big living person just disappeared?

Zheng Fei habitually frowned his eyes and eyebrows, "Don't worry too much, Josh just has this temper, if something goes wrong, he just disappears for a while, maybe he's just playing around."

No matter how he looked at it, Wei Linze didn't think that Zheng Fei was not worried.

The "Guangyun" was finally found in the mezzanine of a "Dictionary of Ancient Chinese".

In short, passing through this innocuous episode, the subject research in the Linguistics Department is in full swing. Wei Linze is learning and practicing under Professor Jiang's hands, honing his will day and night with a group of linguistic experts. , I didn't feel much, and school started.

The subject research did not stop just because the school started, but the rhythm slowed down significantly. A group of teachers adjusted their spirits and stepped into the hall of teaching and educating people.

Wei Linze opened an elective course. At the beginning of the new semester, the students were full of enthusiasm, and they all gathered in the front half of the classroom to sit quietly and listen to the class.

Jiang Wenwen was wearing a short-sleeved skull with off-the-shoulder sleeves, and the tassel belt flying around tied her like a mop.The mop classmate rushed to the first row as if having fun, and squatted down on the seat next to Qiao Wang.

"Master Qiao! Your notes are amazing. The key points are the exam questions. If you tell me that the exam questions are written by you, I will believe it."

Qiao Wang turned the pen and glanced at "Ginger Mop", "How much is it?"

"It's not hung up anyway," Jiang Wenwen bit her nails a few times, "It's more than 70 points, and it's [-] points in ancient literature."

"Really, classmate Jiang Wenwen, you made me realize what a setback is." Qiao Wang gave her a serious look.

"How much did you take the test?" Jiang Wenwen persistently asked Master Qiao, who regarded the [-]-point exam as a great shame, Master Qiao ignored him, and took out his notebook to draw a stick figure.

Jiang Wenwen glanced at the match figure on the paper, and pressed a few times with her mobile phone. After waiting for a while, the monitor sent the document to her. She clicked on the Excel sheet and scrolled down according to the student number, only to see Qiao Wang's name The long series of numbers that followed were all starting with nine, and there were actually two full marks!

Full marks in ancient Chinese are fine, but there is a 35-point critical article written behind the modern and contemporary literature, which can be done without deducting points. There is no other explanation except to teach modern and contemporary Professor Zhang to be his mother.

"Master Qiao..." Jiang Wenwen was about to question his relationship with Professor Zhang when she raised her head to meet Zhou Budu's face with a strange smile. The bag was moved back a row, and he murmured to himself, "Students should not occupy a good seat in the first row."

Zhou Budu unceremoniously sat on the seat that Jiang Wenwen had just vacated, turned around and gave Jiang Wenwen a sensible look, "Student Jiang Wenwen..."

Before he could finish speaking, Jiang Wenwen waved her hands with a smirk, "No thanks, no thanks."

Qiao Wang looked at her avoiding snakes and scorpions, and sighed helplessly, obviously he should be hiding more.

"This class is an elective for novels about ancient gods and demons. Didn't you go to the wrong classroom?" Qiao Wang said indifferently, his hand drawing the stickman didn't even stop, and his eyes were fixed on the paper, like It's because he doesn't care who is sitting next to him at all, he just asks casually in the midst of his busy schedule.

"Why can't I choose novels about gods and demons?" Zhou Budu propped his elbows on the table, tilting his head to look at Qiao Wang's profile.

Qiao Wang was about to continue talking when Wei Linze entered the classroom, and the students quickly found their seats and sat down. They looked up obediently at the handsome appearance of the liberal arts college, and their eyes followed him on the podium like sunflowers. Move back and forth.

Wei Linze looked at the "big eyes and small eyes eager to study" in the water below, and felt relieved suddenly.But he was relieved to be relieved, he still took out the roster unselfishly, and established rules like most first classes in most schools.

"In principle, absenteeism is not allowed in my class. Three or more absenteeisms will be scored as zero in the final exam. Of course, I don't like roll call very much, but occasionally, depending on my mood, I will call someone up to answer questions..."

Wei Linze cold-bloodedly repeated the classroom discipline that has been said countless times. After talking about it, he also felt that it was boring, so he simply found a similar place and hastily ended the lengthy pre-class preface.

He flipped through the roster and explained, "Next, let's take a roll call. This roll call is to verify whether everyone has successfully selected the course, not to check your attendance status. I believe that I didn't dare to go to the first class." Students who dare not come."

Wei Linze read the names in the order of the roster, and when he read to the end, there was a bold one who didn't come. He crossed the name and continued to read: "Zhou Budu."

A gray-haired boy sitting next to Qiao Wang lazily raised his hand to answer. The look at Wei Linze was rather ambiguous. Wei Linze thought it was his own illusion, and he only realized it belatedly halfway through the class. Well, isn't this boy the one who sat with Qiao Wang in the class before the summer vacation - after class, he said hello to him with great interest.

Hair dyed, almost unrecognizable.

Before the official class, Wei Linze asked a question: Which are the four great books of the Ming Dynasty?

When the students below heard it, it was simple. At any rate, they were [-] serious college students who had studied hard in the greenhouse for more than ten years. Everyone's voices were almost in unison, and they said one by one: "Journey to the West, Outlaws of the Marsh, etc. ", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Dream of Red Mansions"."

As soon as everyone's voice fell, there was a brief silence in the classroom, only to hear Qiao Wang say in the first row, ""□□Ci Hua"."

Zhou Budu couldn't help laughing when he heard him say "□□".

Qiao Wang glanced at him, slandering the ignorant and fearless in his heart, and was too lazy to explain to him the fact that "A Dream of Red Mansions" was written in the Qing Dynasty.

Wei Linze brought up the PPT and explained why "□□Ci Hua" was listed as one of the four great books in a bright mood. In fact, most of the students didn't know it, but they didn't seriously review the questions. Wei Linze stumbled on this topic when he was an undergraduate. Once, Yi especially loved to use this question to test students, as if it was just to prove that he was not the only one who made such low-level mistakes when he was in college.

"These four books basically represent four rough categories of ancient Chinese chapter novels, which are novels of gods and demons, legends of heroes, historical romances and novels of world affairs. Our course is mainly based on "Journey to the West" Representatives come to have a general understanding of the development and artistic expression techniques of gods and demons novels."

He turned around and wrote on the blackboard the four big characters "Novel of Gods and Demons". He stopped writing as soon as he wrote three dots in the word "Analysis".It's not good-looking, and the written characters are not good-looking.

From this point of view, you can know that this character is not well written.

He wiped the dot with the blackboard eraser, and he didn't want to write any more, so he didn't write any more. There were only four words "God and Demon Novel" left on the blackboard, occupying a dark green blackboard alone.

Taking advantage of the few seconds when he turned around, he was slightly distracted, Josh's handwriting was beautiful, he thought.

Wei Linze seldom loses his mind while working, aside from occasionally coming to "refresh" the students in a harmless way, he is an iron-cast teaching machine in the classroom, aiming to tell the students all the necessary knowledge .Regardless of the pros and cons of teaching methods, the spirit is really beyond reach.

This distraction made him a little flustered.

It wasn't that he was nervous about his professionalism, but that he suddenly and seriously realized that his stable single life had been eaten away by a man named Josh, and it was useless when he found out.So, human habits are really scary things.

In the past few days, when Wei Linze ate the dishes he cooked, he felt more and more tasteless.When Josh left for the first time, he resumed his previous life style of taking out food, restaurants, and cooking by himself. The reason why he didn’t feel uncomfortable in the past few days was because he felt Josh would always come back, and there was a rough deadline. Those few days of "reminiscing about bitterness and thinking about sweetness" were even a bit of pretentious fun. At that time, he didn't have a strong awareness of Josh's importance to him.

But this time is different, whether Josh will come back is uncertain.

He disappeared cleanly, without anyone noticing. It really felt like he disappeared into the circle of life for many years without any entanglements.If they hadn't been together the night before, if there hadn't been any signs of someone breaking into the house, if he hadn't taken away his charging pack data cable and car, he could probably go to the police station to file a case.

Teacher Pan and his wife downstairs specially invited Wei Linze to eat at home in order to thank Wei Linze for taking care of Xiao Pan during the summer vacation.

Associate Professor Wei, who had been dissatisfied with his appetite for several days, had no appetite when he saw a table of dishes.

Wei Linze himself doesn't care much about the taste of food, but he has always believed in the fact that he doesn't like it so he doesn't want it, and no one forces him in the name of health, so he naturally developed the habit of partial eclipse.eggplant?do not eat.carrot?do not eat.Garlic?do not eat.fat?do not eat.coriander?do not eat.Shell seafood?do not eat.

Looking at it this way, he can only eat the pot of stewed chicken with mushrooms.

But Wei Linze looked at the busy figure of Mr. Pan and his wife, and he was not ashamed. He just overcame the psychological barrier and put those dishes he didn't like into his mouth while chatting.

With such a recollection, when Josh cooks, most of the time he cleverly avoids the dishes he doesn't like.In the beginning, there were always dishes on the table that he didn't like, but gradually, the dishes he didn't like never entered the house again.

He'd never told Josh what he didn't want to eat, but he just knew it.

When Wei Linze realized this, he felt very strange.This feeling of being taken care of by people from the subtleties that are not easy to find is not bad, but it makes him uneasy.

Wei Linze adheres to the principle of being solitary, good and evil are judged by his own standards, he never interferes in other people's affairs, and he is not willing to let others interfere in himself.He had already admitted his feelings for Josh to himself. Although he was not very nice to Josh, but compared with his attitude towards others, it can be said that he was trying his best to be nice to Josh.However, his kindness is a kind of kindness that is subtly maintained in the independent space of two people.

It's as if he doesn't want to interfere with Josh's inferiority complex.

He judged others by himself, he never thought that Josh really used his energy to treat him well.

The fact that this matter came to the surface just snatched Wei Linze's sleep all night.He likes a stable life, preferably unchanging, but he only imagines his own situation, and never adds another person to his plan.

As a young and middle-aged man with no physical problems, to say that he has not had a partner these years is to be a hooligan.However, for most of them, everyone gets together and breaks up to solve physical problems, without thinking about giving any time or affection.When Wei Linze's delicate grasping of Josh's heart and liver first sprouted, Wei Linze was a little strange about this feeling, but after thinking about it later, it was also a step-by-step approach.

So he didn't talk about it, and he didn't look into the future.

On the contrary, it was Josh's disappearance without a deadline this time, which allowed him to quietly push away the thick fog that he had been too lazy to disperse, and take a good look at the future.