Chapter 10 Qiao Feng II

  Under the sunset, Qiao Feng was guarding a big pile of books and dozing off there.

  It's finally time to graduate and sell old books. Qiao Feng was surprised to find that Xuzhu had a stronger competitive edge in this regard. After setting up the stall for an afternoon, Xuzhu sold over 200 yuan worth of books, while Qiao Feng only managed to sell 20 yuan worth. Qiao Feng felt quite unbalanced, but Xuzhu simply shook his bald head and said: "My textbooks are cleaner, that's all."

  Xu Zhu's book is clean, he almost never uses his own book, except for professional courses, he always copies Qiao Feng's notes to get by. And on Qiao Feng's book, in addition to being filled with black lines and red lines, there are also turtles, rabbits, and Mickey Mouse... This robust man, who looks like a bandit, likes to improvise on his book when he gets bored during class, while Xu Zhu also likes to create, but always writes the poems that come to mind on the inside of the toilet door.

  "Hey, classmate, will you sell this two-yuan book?" A girl wearing a short skirt pointed forward with one finger in a rather coquettish manner.

  "Not selling," Joe shook his head, "I'm over 190 pounds, two pieces won't sell, add some more."

  The girl's posture was a bit too coquettish, that white and slender finger slightly curled up, as if pointing at Qiao Feng's nose.

  The girl didn't blush. She carried a big bag of old books and had been battling for an entire afternoon, dealing with countless male vendors. It turned out that the customer's attire had a great impact on the price of the book; a book that Guo Jing would buy for five yuan might be sold to this girl for just one yuan. At Xuzhu's stall, she exposed her legs squatting there, and Xuzhu didn't dare look straight ahead. After haggling over prices for five minutes, Xuzhu couldn't bear the action of always looking up at the sky, so he raised his hand to admit defeat and gave away a "New Concept Persian" book to solve his predicament.

  "That GRE book." The girl smiled slyly, "Not referring to you."

  The book was hidden in a pile of notes, not very eye-catching, but indeed the most dignified one on Qiao Feng's bookstand. It was wrapped in a kind of old cowhide paper, very neat, although a bit worn out, it was extremely clean. The title was written in green ink on the cover.

  Qiao Feng lowered his head to flip through the book, and suddenly he was stunned. He touched the cover, and Qiao Feng's fingers trembled slightly. He shook his head at the girl: "Not for sale."

  The girl was slightly displeased: "You've already taken it out, why aren't you selling it now? I'll give you three bucks at most. There's a book over there that originally cost two bucks, but the book had a weird smell so I didn't buy it."

  Qiao Feng picked up the book and put it under the plastic cloth on the stall: "I took this one by mistake."

  "Hey, what's going on?" The girl frowned and pouted, her feet in sandals tapping the ground unconsciously as she turned to leave. This movement looked a bit like Huang Rong, Qiao Feng shook his head and smiled.

  "I have a new one here," Qiao Feng pulled out a book from his backpack and threw it to the girl, "the same book, but with an even newer version. I bought it but haven't used it yet."

  "How much is it? It's the same book, but I'm hesitant because this new old book isn't cheap. Maybe buying that older one would be more cost-effective."

  "Two pieces," Qiao Feng said casually, "aren't you going to say two pieces?"

  The girl paid the money in a daze and left, walking very far before curiously turning her head to look back at Qiao Feng. The big monk sat upright like he was meditating, holding that cowhide-covered vocabulary book in his hand, looking somewhat distracted.

  "Hey, fellow student, the sun has set, selling books is no better than donating to refugees." Someone said beside Qiao Feng's ear.

  Qiao Feng was taken aback for a moment, then reacted and flipped his wrist to hit the person behind him with the old book in his hand: "Get out of here, refugee, you still owe me a McDonald's meal."

  Linghu Chong covered his forehead in time: "Easy does it, easy does it. If you break my glasses, I'm done for."

  "Didn't I give you all our department's textbooks? These are just supplementary materials and books from other departments, they're useless to you even if you want them."

  "I have decided to study hard and learn Japanese next semester for GRE, and then go abroad to the Western Regions to make our country proud..."

  "You're just a waste of breath," Cho Feng glanced at the sky, "Take whatever is useful and leave."

  "Hey, Guo Jing! Guo Jing!" Linghu Chong hastily stood up and waved his hand at a distance. Amidst the rustling sounds, Guo Jing pushed through the crowd and pedaled over on a rickety tricycle.

  Qiao Feng stared blankly as Linghu Chong rolled up his sleeves and piled books onto the tricycle, only reacting after a long while: "Robbery... someone's been robbed..."

  Linghu Cong patted the dust off his hands and his eyes fell on Qiao Feng's GRE vocabulary book: "Hey, there's another one here? Spoils of war, let's take it together."

  Qiao Feng's hand suddenly withdrew: "I'll keep this one, it might come in handy."

  "You're not going abroad, what's the use of this dictionary? Alright, let's do it thoroughly, calculate it for me together." Linghu Chong stretched out his arm and snatched the dictionary from Qiao Feng's hand.

  This time, Qiao Feng was really anxious. Before Linghu Cong could react, he had already snatched the book back and gave him a hard slap on the shoulder: "What's wrong with you, kid?"

  Linghu Cong had known Qiao Feng for a long time, and this was the first time Qiao Feng had shown him a fierce glare. Linghu Cong was taken aback at once.

  "What's wrong with this?" Linghu Cong was unhappy and muttered twice.

  Jiao Feng furrowed his thick black eyebrows and waved his hand at Linghu Chong: "Go do what you need to do, stop nagging."

  Linghu Chong felt uncomfortable in his heart, but he didn't say anything else and turned around to leave.

  After collecting a circle of old books and returning, Qiao Feng was still standing there with the book in his hand. Guo Jing nodded to Qiao Feng, pedaling hard on the tricycle, while Lin Pingzhi lazily sat in the cart, turning his face away without greeting Qiao Feng.

  When the three-wheeled vehicle brushed past Qiao Feng's side, Linghu Chong suspected that his ears were malfunctioning. He seemed to have heard Qiao Feng let out a faint sigh, which was instantly drowned out by the surrounding din.

  "Hey, Linghu Chong." Qiao Feng said after a while, "I'm giving it to you, don't just throw it around casually, if you take it, you have to use it."

  Linghu Cong hastily opened his arms in the carriage and made a difficult balancing act, hugging the book tightly. This moment of fluster caused him to miss Jiao Feng's expression for an instant. Jiao Feng's mouth crooked slightly, seemingly smiling.

  The three-wheeled cart creaked and rattled as it ran far away, Linghu Cong flipped through the book in his hand, seeing Qiao Feng alone in the distance bending down to pick up those old books. Linghu Cong didn't think of going to help him, because at that time he felt that Qiao Feng was very distant from him.

  Under the sunset that dyed the sky red, Qiao Feng's blurry shadow was half-kneeling on the plastic sheet. The surrounding second-hand book vendors had almost all withdrawn, leaving only Qiao Feng working alone. Linghu Chong couldn't see Qiao Feng's face.

  Linghu Cong felt that this shouldn't be Qiao Feng's doing. The Qiao Feng he knew was someone who always had money in his pocket, didn't care about anything, and either cursed or laughed loudly with an open mouth. But now, it seemed far away, and Qiao Feng's 1.95-meter-tall stature couldn't be seen anymore. He was busy under the sunset just like other students. Linghu Cong remembered that when he entered school, Qiao Feng took him out of the police station and bid farewell to him on a tricycle in the distance under the sunset, with a lighter shaking in his hand.

  Qiao Feng has changed... Is it because graduation is approaching?

  However, Qiao Feng did not disappoint Linghu Chong after all. After collecting his thoughts for a moment, he found it too difficult to do the job by himself. He stood up, cursed his mother and threw down the books before running away.

  Old books sometimes reveal some secrets, and Dugu Qiubai, the former principal of Bian Da, is very clear about this. When he was young, he would often delve into a pile of good books, studying ancient texts that were hard to find. For a while, he particularly liked the collection of a book collector from a previous dynasty, searching everywhere for rubbings. In fact, there was always a delicate handwriting in the margins of the books written by this book collector, and Dugu Qiubai felt a sense of ancient charm between the lines, so he became deeply fascinated. However, after a certain year, this handwriting could no longer be seen in the good books. Dugu Qiubai thought about it repeatedly, but couldn't figure out why.

  It wasn't until two years later that Dugu Qiubai unintentionally read a passage in a literati's notes, which said that the person who hid the books had a concubine over 40 years old who was forced by his wife to hang herself. Dugu Qiubai's doubts were finally cleared up. Dugu Qiubai never found out the name of this concubine, he only knew that many years ago there was a woman in the quiet library, writing those interesting comments with delicate handwriting, and then hanging herself one day.

  After that, Dugu Qiubai never lent his old books to others again... and he didn't even let his wife see them.

  Linghu Cong was not a fool, and he also had enough curiosity. So that night during self-study, he studied Qiao Feng's GRE book back and forth for a long time, hoping to find some clues about Qiao Feng from it. His study was as serious as a martial arts master studying an anonymous secret manual. If Qiao Feng hadn't instructed him otherwise, he might have used cruel methods like drowning, burning, or exposing it to sunlight to force the book to reveal its secrets.

  However, the only thing Linghu Chong found was a green bookmark with a green ink inscription - "Zhe Liu". No matter how he looked at these two delicate characters, they were undoubtedly written by a girl. The handwriting of Qiao Feng and the turtle crawling out were not much different.

  With this sole clue, Linghu Cong's imagination suddenly opened up.

  In the Anshi Rebellion, Qin Ping lost his wife Liu. After many years, when the war had subsided, he asked someone to bring a bag of gold and a poem to look for his wife. The poem was "The Willow of Zhangtai": "Willow of Zhangtai, willow of Zhangtai, were you still green as before? Even if your long branches still droop like before, they should be plucked by someone else's hand." But many years later, Liu had shaved her head and become a nun. With tears in her eyes, she replied with the poem "The Branch of the Willow": "Branch of the willow, fragrant and delicate. What I regret is that year after year we are separated. A single leaf suddenly reports the arrival of autumn, even if you come, how can it be broken?"

  The joys and sorrows of parting, Linghu Cong seemed to suddenly understand something. He held the bookmark, thinking about the girl who had given him a book with Qiao Feng's name on it, whether she was also lying on a certain desk in Bianjing, writing down those two words with a heavy heart. The ancient and elegant emotions filled his chest, Linghu Cong sighed and shook his head, accidentally dropping the bookmark, but saw that the back side still had the lovely green handwriting, this time six big characters - "Big Pig Head Big Pig Head".

  This new discovery made Linghu Cong's eyes turn black and he fell asleep on his desk, snoring loudly. The next day, he had forgotten everything.

  The emotions of the girl who wrote those words back then will forever be an unsolved mystery.