Chapter 8 Duan Yu

  On such a clear morning, Duan Yu stood alone in front of the window of his dormitory, with snowflakes fluttering in the sky.

  On summer vacation mornings, the sky brightened especially early, and the entire campus was unusually quiet. Their dormitory was on the third floor, and outside the window was a lush ginkgo tree, whose emerald leaves hid a bird that loved to chatter, which would often hang around outside the window in the morning, making long and short sounds. Sometimes when it got annoying, Duan Yu would think about making a slingshot like he did when he was little to shoot it down. But now that his mood was good, Duan Yu didn't want to shoot it anymore, and thought its calls sounded like a Western flute melody that seemed to be broken but continued.

  Duan Yu's personality is like that. Although he is considered quite intelligent from his average grades in various subjects, from some aspects of his behavior, Linghu Chong firmly believes that Duan Yu has two kinds of foolishness - infatuation and stupidity.

  Flower idiot is almost certain. Duan Yu goes to the cafeteria at 11 am every day, occupies a good position by the door and window, puts two small dishes side by side, eats happily while watching the girls entering and exiting the door, occasionally commenting on their appearance. Like this, Duan Yu can eat lunch for an hour.

  According to the student safety manual of Bian Da Yi Ben, summer is a high incidence period for harassment because girls wear thin and revealing clothes. Linghu Chong once pointed out that this clause was specifically written for Duan Yu. Unfortunately, few girls looked at Duan Yu with vigilance, because he had a very cute baby face. On the other hand, many people had glared fiercely at Linghu Chong, although he only accidentally rubbed against them when squeezing past to buy beef. After reflecting on himself, Linghu Chong had to admit that whether from appearance or nature, Duan Yu was not an aggressive person by birth. He was purely a rabbit without teeth, and girls would not be wary of him.

  But Linghu Chong still had his doubts about this. Duan Yu, although he usually spoke without much thought, had studied Buddhist scriptures with an old monk from the tourist holy land "Tianlong Temple" in Yunnan during his high school days, so occasionally he could say something that would shock people's ears.

  For example, Linghu Chong once said: "Old Fifth, you're always looking at girls, aren't you annoyed?"

  Duan Yu sat at the dinner table in front of the Wudang Gate, picked up a piece of beef with his fork and stared blankly: "No way? You can even get tired of looking at girls?"

  Linghu Chong thought about it and felt that there weren't many pursuits higher than the pursuit of love in this world. So he could only say, "However, always watching has a bit..."

  Duan Yu looked at Linghu Chong with a very sincere and innocent gaze: "You've seen her, don't you like beautiful girls?"

  "Like..." Linghu Chong could only admit that he was also an unmarried big man.

  "Why don't you like me?"

  Duan Yu went to wash the rice bowl, while Lin Huong held a stainless steel spoon and stood there, still not fully awake after being possessed by the Flower Fairy's spirit.

  Let's go back to that summer morning, because this morning was really important for Duan Yu.

  The birdsong had only reached Duan Yu's ears in the pauses between the music, and as he took a deep breath of the slightly cool air, the cassette player suddenly flipped over with a click, and next came Paul Simon's famous song, "The Sound of Silence".

  A good portable music player and a melancholic song can easily create a quiet space around you, isolating the hustle and bustle, but blurring reality and fantasy, with only one voice whispering softly to you. Duan Yu's earphones were of poor quality, but fortunately his perfectionist spirit made up for this deficiency. As the music sounded again, Duan Yu fell into that melancholic world in the song.

  Duan Yu is actually a relatively happy person. Paul Simon's melancholy didn't make him lose the fun of eating baozi outside Xiaodongmen, at most it just made him suddenly have some wild thoughts. Paul Simon's melancholy doesn't affect him anyway, instead it makes him feel that the summer vacation campus is really wonderful. Duan Yu thinks the Song Dynasty government said it right, living in the Song Dynasty is truly happy and joyful. Looking at the Western Regions with so many Paul Simon-like melancholic brothers, while he faces the peaceful and serene campus of Bianjing, he only feels that his master, Master Kongweng, said it right: "True suchness is free", being able to be carefree in one's heart is already a high level of cultivation.

  Duan Yu prepared to close the window and set off.

  In fact, if Duan Yu could resolutely close the window and leave at this time, or simply turn his head back to bed and sleep soundly, his happy mood might have continued for a long time, and he would still be the Duan Yu who had just entered school with a brain full of silly thoughts and only liked to look at beautiful girls.

  Unfortunately, he heard the birds outside the window calling again, so he didn't take a step back and leave, but instead took a step forward to look out. Perhaps the change in a person's life is only in one step of advancing or retreating. The chattering bird outside the window called out once, and left behind Duan Yu. At that moment, no one knew whether this call was good fortune or bad luck for Duan Yu, but with this call, Duan Yu changed.

  Duan Yu heard footsteps.

  The heel tapped gently on the ground, tapping so quietly and softly with a hint of elegance. As a semi-professional flower enthusiast, Duan Yu quickly turned his head following the sound. He saw a white silk handkerchief.

  A slender figure emerged from the thin fog in the east. The girl was holding a songbook, her head slightly bowed, without an umbrella. Her white shirt and black long skirt were simple to the point of being dull, yet somehow managed to create a sense of purity that seemed to be far removed from the dust of everyday life. Her long hair flowed like water down to the ends, where it curled up slightly, and with each light step she took, the tips of her hair danced lively. A white silk handkerchief separated her slender neck from the rest of her body, draped over her back and lightly fluttering.

  The hem rises and falls...

  Hair flying in the jump...

  A snow-white scarf is floating in the rain and mist...

  At that time, he was suddenly elevated to a very high realm by a beautiful flower, without any desire. At that time, his pure heart was enough to make an old angel ashamed and speechless. He didn't look at the girl's slender ankles, nor did he notice the delicate skin around her collar, and even lost the innate ability to evaluate whether her figure was good or bad. His eyes were only chasing after that piece of silk handkerchief, fluttering, fluttering, fluttering.

  Early summer yellow flowers fall, rain hits the leaves with a rustling sound, Duan Yu said in his heart: "It's all over!"

  There is no language that can describe the mood of Huāchī at that time. If Linghu Chong and Yang Kang could understand, they should immediately scatter flower petals or fine snow around Duan Yu, and shine a beam of pure white light from his head to Huāchī's face, and pile up 99 million roses like mountains and seas behind him.

  If it weren't for this, it wouldn't be enough to set off the spiritual shock of that moment.

  That girl came walking on the yellow flowers, her heels tapping out a tune that couldn't be forgotten. After spending a year in the history department, which was steeped in humanistic spirit, Duan Yu of course knew what "green bamboo, all is dharma body, dense yellow flowers, nothing but prajna" meant, but when the season's yellow flowers withered and fell, Duan Yu even forgot what "prajna" referred to. It wasn't liberation; Duan Yu threw away the Diamond Sutra he had read for ten years, his heart filled with a kind of sinking great joy.

  When Duan Yu was writing to Master Ku Rong with great enthusiasm, the master was drinking medicine and was choked by the liquid on the spot. He was hospitalized and died of severe illness. From this, it can be seen that the so-called beauty is a calamity, and the ancient people are not deceiving me. A certain woman just relied on a vague feeling to transcend a high monk.

  "I won't compete with you anymore!"

  A shout from behind brought Duan Yu's thoughts back from the void. In that brief moment of distraction, the girl had quietly walked past him, disappearing into the shadows of the trees on the other side. Duan Yu stood at the window, lost in thought.

  Linghu Chong grasped a large wrench in his right hand, glaring fiercely at Guo Jing's wardrobe, feeling that he should struggle with the big iron lock on it.

  He was originally the second laziest in the dorm, and it was impossible for him to get up at 6:30 on summer vacation. However, before Guo Jing left for Mongolia, he locked his alarm clock in his closet. The diligent Guo Jing usually set his alarm clock to 7:00 am, and his alarm clock was the cheapest model from the street vendor, with a coarse nerve that rang happily for an hour as soon as it went off. Guo Jing's small mistake was that he forgot to turn off the alarm, so the two people left in the dorm, Linghu Chong and Duan Yu, listened to the ringing sound from Guo Jing's closet every morning at 7:00 am. The perfect design of the student dormitory closet created a resonant cavity inside, making it seem like the alarm clock was playing heavy metal music in an ancient bronze bell.

  Duan Yu reacted completely differently, sleeping early and waking up early to enjoy a healthy breakfast, while Linghu Chong had developed the habit of jumping out of bed at 6:40 every morning with red eyes. Afterwards, he would rummage through Yang Kang's toolbox for half an hour, pondering whether or not to leave the large iron lock on Guo Jing's wardrobe intact.

  "Old Fifth, pass me the tiger clamps on the table," Linghu Cong called out to Duan Yu.

  Duan Yu seemed not to have heard and stared blankly out of the window.

  Lao Wu?

  Still no answer.

  Linghu Cong scratched his head, feeling a bit puzzled. Duan Yu was indeed a bit silly, but he shouldn't be slow-witted to this extent. Linghu Cong glanced at the wall clock and saw that it was already 6:50. This meant that if he couldn't completely get rid of Guo Jing's alarm clock locked in the wardrobe within ten minutes, he would once again miss his chance to sleep in late in the morning. So, Linghu Cong didn't bother with Duan Yu anymore, weighed the object in his hand, and focused his attention on the sturdy black iron lock.

  The palm of his hand lifted up, and Linghu Cong steeled himself to strike down.