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Capítulo 20

Su Fang said, "She gave birth to a girl. Xiao Yue was still a big kid herself, and didn't feel like she was a mother at all. She didn't care about Yang Li at all, and didn't take the family seriously. She just treated the baby like a rag doll, leaving it to Yang Li and not caring about anything else. She looked at the girl like a cat she fed, not recognizing her as her own flesh and blood. Yang Li did all the housework, feeding the baby, washing diapers, and preparing food for Xiao Yue. Before the baby was even a month old, Xiao Yue urged Yang Li to keep his promise and get a divorce. Yang Li agreed, but kept putting it off. Xiao Yue started reviewing her studies, preparing to retake the college entrance exam. We often saw her taking her sketchbook and going to the hillside outside the courtyard to paint, sometimes not returning until dark. A few of us from the village would sometimes go to Yang Li's house to check on things, and we would always hear or see them arguing. Sometimes we saw Xiao Yue smashing things, even throwing the pots and pans outside on the ground."

"Normally, Xiaoyue only worries about herself, always keeping herself clean, neat, and radiant."

In the past two years, her nutrition has improved, she's grown taller, and her figure is more toned. With all the nice clothes she buys, no one would guess she's been married and has a child. She became famous for her high school paintings, and everyone knows she's no longer in school. Many restaurants and hotels in the county still hire her to paint. Many men pursue her, some even coming to her school to find her. Xiaoyue told me that Yang Li became suspicious when he saw people loitering in front of his door and wanted to fight them, but he calmed down when he saw she wasn't interested. Xiaoyue always said, "I definitely won't find a man in this remote mountain village, and I will definitely divorce Yang Li." Then, something unexpected happened—"

Those few days, Yang Li happened to be at a coal mine hundreds of miles away. He would go out several times a year to purchase coal for the boiler room. Before leaving, he would buy everything he needed for the family and leave the childcare to Xiaoyue. Unexpectedly, he was only gone for two days when the accident happened, and when he returned, he found his wife and children separated from him.

That afternoon, Xiaoyue fed her baby with a bottle, put the sleeping child in the cradle, and then took her sketchbook and slipped out of the fence to paint on the hillside. A herd of wild goats had been frequently seen frolicking and chasing each other on the hillside lately; their fur was golden, their eyes bright black, and they were quite beautiful. Following their hoofprints, she searched for them in the woods on the hillside and painted them from a distance; she lost track of time and didn't come down the hill until dark. When she returned to school, she realized she had forgotten to feed her baby. Opening the door and heading towards the cradle, something startled her and leaped out the window. In the lamplight, she saw a wolf. She quickly searched for her child and found the cradle overturned on the ground, blood everywhere, and the baby lying naked on the ground, half-eaten by the wolf, her lower body gone, her internal organs ripped out…

She sat on the ground, stunned, guarding the child's body all night without sleep. The next day, she didn't call Yang Li to ask him to come back, nor did she tell anyone about it. She simply locked herself in her room and went up the mountain, searching for something. When she returned in the afternoon, she was carrying a large bundle of herbs she had picked. She then mixed the herbs together in a pot and boiled them into a soup. She poured the soup over the baby's body, wrapped it in a sheet, and carried it to the hillside outside the courtyard wall. She hid in the bushes and waited. In the middle of the night, the wolf, drawn by the scent, came again. Seeing that no one was around, it tore open the sheet and began to devour the body. After only a few bites, it became dizzy, staggering around in circles, and finally lay there motionless.

She carried both the baby and the wolf into the house. She stared at the wolf with hatred for a while, then plunged a paintbrush into its throat, coldly watching the blood gushing out, even using a paint box to collect it. After the blood had drained, she hacked at the wolf's body countless times, almost cutting it into pieces, leaving only the wolf's head and heart intact before her. As if performing a ritual, she removed the longevity lock from her neck, drilled a hole with a needle, and dripped drops of the baby's blood into it, muttering incantations. Then she squeezed drops of blood from the wolf's heart into the lock, still muttering. She heated the longevity lock over a fire, and in a short while, the hole sealed. Then she calmly put it back around her neck. Throughout the entire process, she performed it meticulously, calmly, and methodically.

What happened next was even more bizarre. She placed the easel in the middle of the room and, using a brush dipped in the blood of the baby girl beside her, painted on the paper, bringing the baby girl to life. She then covered the image of the baby girl with white paint, as if gently draping her with a thin veil. Then, she dipped her brush in wolf blood and painted on that veil, creating the hideous wolf. She slowly applied green from the outside in, gradually concealing the wolf within. Next, she stripped naked, stood before the easel, and first applied thick white paint over the green, then cut her left arm with a palette knife, her right hand holding the brush below, using bright red blood to outline her body. Afterward, she filled in the center with several different paints. When she finished, she closed her eyes, stood there chanting a spell, and heard the baby crying and the wolf howling. She felt restless and uneasy, as if she might fly away at any moment. When she opened her eyes and looked at the painting, the woman in the painting was no longer herself. Her eyes were shooting out a terrifying golden light, and she was emitting a painful and angry scream that shocked and terrified people...

A few days later, Yang Li returned from hauling coal with his convoy. Upon entering his home, he found a wolf's head and the body of a wrapped infant, and understood everything. He searched the entire campus but couldn't find Xiaoyue. He called on many students and staff to search with him. Finally, they found Xiaoyue's shoes by the river on the other side of the mountain, along with her sketchbook. Everyone ran along the river, hoping to find Xiaoyue's body. Far at the foot of the mountain, they found her tattered skirt hanging from the roots of a tree by the river. Everyone was disappointed, concluding that her body had drifted far away; after all, it had been several days since it was discovered, and it might have already been swept into the Yellow River, hundreds of miles away…

That night, a sudden downpour began, and the strong winds rattled the school windows.

Wu Bingbing and Zhang Qun couldn't sleep, so they sat on the wooden bed, wrapped in blankets. Lightning illuminated the hillside outside the window, casting strangely shaped shadows of trees onto the walls inside. Then came a deafening clap of thunder, nearly ripping the roof off. Neither of them had ever seen such a powerful thunderstorm in the mountains.

Later, she was so scared that she covered her head with the blanket and covered her ears with her hands.

Amidst the rushing water from the eaves, they heard a soft, intermittent sobbing, growing louder and louder, a persistent cry—clearly the voice of a girl. The two women crawled out of bed and listened intently. The crying was unmistakably close, right outside the window, perhaps even beneath the windowsill. On this stormy night, in this ravine teeming with wild animals, how could a girl be crying outside? They dared not think of it, much less approach the window, and pulled the blankets over their heads again.

Unexpectedly, the crying grew louder and louder, as if the person was scratching at the window while crying, causing the window to creak and groan. A thunderclap followed, then a sharp crack nearby—a windowpane shattered and fell to the ground.

Wu Bingbing suddenly exclaimed, "She's here! She's here! She came with us!"

Several times, she tried to rush out from under the covers, but Zhang Qun held her tightly each time.

Wu Bingbing's breathing grew heavier and heavier. She suddenly pushed Zhang Qun away and jumped out of the blanket.

Wu Bingbing rushed towards the door. Zhang Qun, confused, ran over and stopped her. Unexpectedly, she turned around, her face instantly changing, her eyes fierce as she glared at Zhang Qun, and she said hoarsely, "I'm out! Let me out!" It was a completely different voice. Zhang Qun leaned against the door, blocking her from leaving. Wu Bingbing stamped her feet anxiously, pounding her chest, saying, "I'm suffocating! Let me out! I can't stay here."

Wu Bingbing ran to the window, flung it open, and jumped out into the rain. She ran towards the distance in the torrential downpour. In the brief flash of lightning, she could be seen running frantically towards the village square, the rain lashing her body like whips. She pounded her chest with her fists, her mouth agape, her face upturned as she cried, like an abandoned child who couldn't find her parents…

Zhang Qun ran after her, but when the lightning went out, it was pitch black all around. She stumbled and fell repeatedly on the uneven mountain path. Covered in mud, she called out to Wu Bingbing, who was running wildly in the darkness, again and again, but she couldn't hear her or see her. The lightning finally illuminated the area again, and Zhang Qun saw a figure at the foot of the mountain in the distance, far from where she was. She couldn't believe Wu Bingbing could run so fast. At the same time, she also saw another figure chasing her… Good heavens, the two figures were entangled. Who was that? Besides Wu Bingbing, who was that other figure? But then, the lightning flashed, and everything vanished instantly, leaving only the rolling thunder and howling wind and rain.

The lightning flashed again, but she could see no one. Looking left and right, she finally caught a glimpse of a corner of the hillside in the light: a person lying on the ground, and a dark figure crouching beside her. In an instant, a jumble of images flashed through her mind—Wu Bingbing lying there, panting and pleading, while a female ghost crouched beside her head, grinning maliciously, pressing her hands down on her, lowering her head hidden by long hair, and opening her mouth full of fangs to bite down hard on her neck…

Zhang Qun screamed and ran in another direction, but tripped over a stone and fell headfirst into the ditch beside her, losing consciousness in the puddle. She didn't know how much time had passed when she felt someone grabbing her arm. She opened her eyes and saw a dark figure beside her. She screamed again and tried to break free, but the dark figure shoved her down.

The dark figure shouted, "Stop yelling! Stop yelling! The person is back. Look at me!"

Zhang Qun looked closely and saw that it was the woman in black with glasses, and that she herself was lying on the bed. She then saw Wu Bingbing lying beside her, just like her, and said with tears in her eyes, "Senior, what happened? Why are you here? Was that you on the mountain just now? Did you carry us both back?"

The woman wiped her face with a towel as she said, “I’ve been chasing you for five or six days, and I finally figured out where you were. But I got lost on the way down the mountain, and then it started raining heavily. I couldn’t find my way out of the woods on the hillside. I couldn’t even see a light in the rain. But then, I saw someone running up the mountain in a flash of lightning… At first, I was quite happy, but then it made things difficult for me. You two are so heavy.”

Zhang Qun said, "Senior, thank you for coming to find us. We would have been in big trouble today if it weren't for you."

She turned to Wu Bingbing, "How is she? Is she still unconscious?"

"It's alright," the woman in black said. "I gave her some medicine, and she'll be fine after a nap."

"I'm so sorry, senior," Zhang Qun said hesitantly. "I shouldn't have been so rude that day... But I don't understand why you came? We've already left; you didn't have to come, did you?"

“For no reason at all,” the woman in black said. “I just felt you might be in danger and I should help you. Also, I shouldn’t have refused your request for help; I don’t want to be the coward you’re calling me.”

Zhang Qun sincerely said, "I'm sorry, senior, I misunderstood you."

A fire was lit inside the house, and the woman helped Zhang Qun sit beside it. Just then, Wu Bingbing groaned twice, waking up, and the two women went over to her. Only then did Zhang Qun notice that Wu Bingbing's peach pit necklace had fallen onto the bed; they had taken it off when they covered their heads with the blanket. Wu Bingbing was surprised by the unexpected arrival of the woman in black and puzzled by Zhang Qun's tense expression, so she asked them what had happened.

Zhang Qun looked at her suspiciously. "Just now, didn't you know what you were doing?"

“What happened? I was covered by the blanket, and my mind suddenly went blank... I don’t remember anything after that. It was like a dream, and I felt someone calling me—and when I woke up, I saw you all staring at me like this.”

"You ran up the mountain, you cried and screamed on the hillside, don't you remember?"

"How could that be? With raining so hard, there's no way I could run outside!"

"Look at the clothes drying by the fire, do you think they got soaked in a dream?"

Wu Bingbing looked puzzled, walked to the fire, and touched the wet clothes. When she turned around, she suddenly burst into laughter. Zhang Qun and the woman in black were shocked and backed away, staring at her now cold expression.

She pointed at the woman in black and said in a strange voice, "Tell me, why did you come here? To settle scores with me? To seek revenge? Haha, you narrow-minded woman, stop lecturing others on tolerance and forgiveness. You're so insidious. It seems all women are the same; they all try to find ways to get revenge! Come on! —"

Before she finished speaking, she rushed forward and tackled the woman in black to the ground. The two rolled around on the ground, tumbling several times. Zhang Qun stepped forward and grabbed Wu Bingbing's waist, freeing the woman in black. Wu Bingbing struggled free, angrily biting Zhang Qun's arm, then stood up and chased after the woman.

The woman took out a cross, raised it, and a flash of electricity knocked Wu Bingbing to the ground.

When Wu Bingbing got up again, she looked at Zhang Qun and the woman in black in front of her with a look of astonishment in her eyes. She twisted her whole body and gripped the window frame tightly with both hands, as if she was trying to resist them and prevent herself from moving.

Zhang Qun realized she was struggling to break free and shouted, "Bingbing, hold on! Hold on, let her leave you! Grit your teeth and control yourself! You are in control of yourself!"

The woman in black murmured before her, “I obey my Lord’s word and treat my sister with kindness. I did not come seeking revenge. I have forgotten everything you did to me… I forgive you, I forgive all your transgressions, past and present. Please let go, do not carry this burden in your heart anymore. Release the heavy weight that has piled up in your heart, everything…”

Wu Bingbing finally awoke from her dazed state. Zhang Qun embraced her, and the woman went over to drape a coat over her. Looking at Wu Bingbing's sleepy appearance, the woman said, "It seems she really doesn't know anything—"

Chapter Twenty

She was gone. He had grieved and wept for a long time at her grave. Unexpectedly, three years later, thousands of miles away, he saw a girl who looked exactly like her—her figure, face, expression, and voice. He went up to ask her, but she shook her head.

The investigation concluded that Xiaoyue had committed suicide by drowning, and all further leads regarding her went cold. Xiaoyue's high school classmates, teachers, staff, and everyone in Shimen Village could not provide any further information about her. What news could a dead person possibly have? No one could understand the two women's repeated questions.

Passing through the dense oleander grove north of the village, they finally found the graves of Yingniang and her daughter—the graves had long since collapsed, becoming two overgrown pits, with no one adding soil or trimming the weeds. The woman in black took out a cross, stood solemnly before the graves, and prayed for the deceased, wishing their souls peace.

Meanwhile, Zhang Qun and Wu Bingbing behind them were whispering amongst themselves.

Zhang Qun said, "The key is that Wang Xiaoyue did not die; she later became Jiang Lan."

Wu Bingbing said, "Yes, I believe she is Jiang Lan. As for when she became Jiang Lan and how she became Jiang Lan, that's the answer we need to find."

The woman in black said, "I don't understand what you're saying, but not everything in this world has a cause and an effect. If you keep chasing after them like this, you will disturb the spirits of the dead and make them restless in the underworld."

Wu Bingbing said, "Don't worry, senior, we won't stay here any longer. We'll leave this morning."

For the two of them, the investigation here was complete.

That morning, the three of them left Shimen Village.

As they parted ways in the county town, the woman in black once again urged the two: "You should go back south. Chasing after them is futile. You'll never know where the wind comes from if you keep searching in the wind. Besides, you don't need to know. A gentle breeze brings coolness; just enjoy it. When a fierce wind comes, avoid it—you can only avoid it. If you try to understand everything about the wind by going into it, those fierce winds will eventually tear you apart. Understand, children?"

The two sat there for a long time after the woman in black left, still unable to understand what she had said.

They had their own ideas and would not give up halfway; they would continue the search no matter what.

So they started discussing what to do next and where to go.

Zhang Qun said, "Yang Li said that Xiaoyue found a new boyfriend after only three months of university, which is why she broke up with him. Is that guy the one from the Art Department of Zhongzhou University who wrote the letter?"

“Yes, what’s his name?” Wu Bingbing remembered the three letters she found in the ruins of Yingniang’s old house and quickly pulled them out. “His name is Gu Hongsheng. He must be her classmate.”

Zhang Qun said, "If the two were indeed in a relationship, then Gu Hongsheng should know where Wang Xiaoyue went afterward. Even if Xiaoyue wanted to disappear, it would only be in the eyes of Yang Li and those around her. She would contact her boyfriend in private, and even if it was impossible for her to see him again, she would give him an explanation and not keep him in the dark."

Yes, find Gu Hongsheng! Following the clues, they headed to Zhongzhou University.

That was a letter from 15 years ago. Only after arriving at the school did they discover that Gu Hongsheng had graduated and left the school 10 years prior, being assigned to a teachers' college in a city in southern Henan. The two then took a train overnight from north to south, arriving at this small town located on the Beijing-Guangzhou railway line, a place that had once been a military post station.

At that teachers' college, they inquired their way to Gu Hongsheng's home.

He was of medium build, slightly balding on top, and wearing glasses. He was fiddling with a root carving in his room. He was an art teacher at the school, and because he had few classes, he found a refined hobby to pass the time.

A row of finished carvings was displayed against the corner of the wall, depicting birds, beasts, and people, each with a unique and natural appearance.

The two men casually surveyed his room. It was a two-bedroom apartment, crammed full of clutter, with banners and scrolls hanging on the walls, and plaster busts and limbs piled on the balcony. The bedroom door was ajar, and a woman lay asleep on the messy bed, her head of curly hair resembling a dahlia.

When they took out the three letters and started talking to Gu Hongsheng, he first glanced nervously at the bedroom, then quickly put down what he was holding, ran over and closed the door, and whispered, "Shall we talk outside?" He then grabbed a coat, put it on, turned off the light, closed the door, and led them downstairs to the flower bed.

The two could tell that this was a man whose passion had been worn down by life.

He looked closely at the letters, his eyes filled with unspeakable sorrow and confusion. His lips were tightly pursed, and it took him a long time to relax them. He sighed and said, "I wrote them."

Zhang Qun said, "We want to know about you two? We want to know about her situation?"

He looked up: "She's still alive, right? She's not dead, is she?"

Wu Bingbing said, "At least she wasn't dead when you wrote the letter."

“I thought of that a long time ago.” Gu Hongsheng sighed repeatedly. “She is too selfish. She only cares about scheming for herself and doesn’t care about other people’s feelings at all. She doesn’t hesitate to use and deceive others.”

“Breaking up with her isn’t a bad thing,” Zhang Qun said.

"She ruined me," Gu Hongsheng said, filled with remorse. "She shouldn't have done that. She took the initiative to approach me, she ignited my feelings, and then she treated me recklessly and irresponsibly!"

"Are you two classmates?" Zhang Qun asked.

“They were classmates, both majoring in fine arts,” Gu Hongsheng said. “She originally studied watercolor, but her tutor asked her to switch to oil painting. Since I had been studying oil painting, I had her practice with me. She had a solid foundation in watercolor, and she was also very talented. She could paint like others who had studied for years in just two months. She said she had never done oil painting before, saying that her family was too poor to afford paints, and that she had only painted once or twice in high school using other people’s paints.”

Having no formal training, she lacked understanding of composition and was unconstrained by rules. She applied watercolor techniques to oil painting, incorporating the freehand style of Chinese painting, creating oil paintings that resembled watercolors. Her instructors praised her work highly, circulating it among teachers and students as a demonstration. The younger teachers at the academy gave her even higher marks, saying her paintings combined realism and freehand style, with overall abstraction and meticulous detail, representing a challenge to oil painting techniques and concepts. Now, everyone in the art department was looking at Wang Xiaoyue with new respect. Coupled with her striking beauty, many boys wanted to get close to her, making her the center of attention.

"Wang Xiaoyue wasn't so deep. She told me not to listen to their nonsense, that I was just drawing whatever came to mind. She was happy to be close to me. We often drew together, ate together, and went out together, and soon we developed feelings for each other. I remember one weekend night, she called me out, and under the pine trees on campus, she suddenly hugged me, cried without saying a word, and kissed me while crying, leaving me covered in tears. She said she loved me, that she had been keeping it to herself for the past few months, and that she wanted to tell me first, hoping I wouldn't look down on her because of it. She probably knew I liked her all along, which is why she was so bold in confessing. I felt like it was all a beautiful dream. That day, we ran out of school, let loose in the city, forgot about time, forgot about everything. We secretly booked a hotel room and went crazy..."

At this point, Gu Hongsheng looked embarrassed and pretended to lower his head and cough to cover it up.

"Did you notice she was wearing a silver longevity lock?" Wu Bingbing asked.

“Yes, yes,” Gu Hongsheng said. “So she really didn’t die? I saw that longevity lock; she always wore it around her neck and never took it off. Once, when I was with her, she fell asleep, and the lock was digging into her face. I tried to remove it, and she almost got angry when she woke up.”

“She was married and lived with someone else,” Zhang Qun said. “You were that close to her, you should have been aware of this, or at least knew something about it, right?”

Gu Hongsheng said embarrassedly, "To be honest, she was my first girlfriend, and it was also my first time being with a girl. I had no experience; I was practically an idiot. I believed everything Wang Xiaoyue said... Later I found out that those days were the most unpleasant for her. The man from her hometown was living outside the campus, looking for her every day, using both soft and hard tactics to force her to go back. Her heart was tormented, and she was almost driven to the brink of collapse. I suspect that she was just temporarily showing off her love to me, grabbing me as a lifeline to comfort her lonely and helpless heart and support her nerves that were on the verge of collapse. During those days, she would always run off to a hotel outside the campus to meet me secretly, and we would spend all our time together in a daze. I was madly in love with her, and I fell deeper and deeper, unable to extricate myself."

"I once asked her about her past, and she told me about it casually, but I later found out that it was all lies. Looking back now, I realize how unfathomable her heart was. Imagine how terrifying it is that someone who was intimate with you, lying naked in your arms, fabricated her own experiences, and all her sweet words were almost entirely carefully crafted lies, while you knew nothing about her past and believed her without question. I don't know if this is her misfortune or my tragedy. This feeling was most intense during the days she was missing. She slept with me the night before, and then suddenly disappeared the next day without leaving a single word. It wasn't until a few days later, when the school decided to expel her, that I learned she had left before receiving the school's decision, as if she had no regrets whatsoever."

"Did you look for her after she went home?" Wu Bingbing asked.

"I searched for her, but I didn't know where she was. To be honest, I was in great pain then. I couldn't forget her image; it felt like life was meaningless without her. I kept writing letters to her hometown, Shimen Village, I don't remember how many. The letters never came back, and there was no reply. I lived a life of utter darkness during that time. My tutor and classmates all said that Wang Xiaoyue had ruined me; she shouldn't have loved me before she left, and she went to great lengths to make me infatuated. Some even suspected she used witchcraft and drugged me. Anyway, I had fallen into the abyss of her emotions, with a kind of reckless obsession. Longing tormented me until I was emaciated, my grades dropped, and I had no interest in painting. So that year, during winter vacation, while everyone else went home for the Spring Festival, I traveled west alone to find Wang Xiaoyue. I took a bus for a whole day to reach the small town at the foot of the mountain, stayed overnight in a small inn in the mountain village, and then climbed the mountain road again the next day, finally reaching Shimen Village in the evening. I asked where Wang Xiaoyue's home was?" No one paid any attention to me. Even the children looked at me strangely. It was a simpleton who led me to her house, where I met Xiaoyue's mother.

"I discovered that the villagers were ostracizing her mother. Her house was in the northwest corner of the village, as if it had been abandoned by the village; no one ever came to her door. Her mother was sick and lying in the house, and no one came to visit. When she saw me, she still mustered her strength to get up and cook for me. Seeing me covered in dust, eating the bowl of noodles, she felt a pang of heartache, repeatedly saying, 'What a good child, it's Xiaoyue who ruined you.' No matter how I asked her where Xiaoyue was, she said Xiaoyue had run away and she didn't know. I pretended to go for a stroll, stopping people in the village to ask, but no one told me. That night I slept at her house, tossing and turning all night. Just as dawn was breaking and I was about to close my eyes, I felt movement above me. I opened my eyes and saw her standing beside me, waving her hands across my face. I wasn't scared; I asked her what she wanted." She said, "Child, breathe in the fragrance of this forget-me-not, and I will make you forget her and stop your suffering." I jumped up abruptly, saying, "I don't want to forget her! I must find her!" The old woman walked away helplessly, saying, "You silly child, why are you stuck on one tree like that? Xiaoyue is a wild child; she's already run far away!"

"Afterwards, I tried to forget her, but I couldn't. In the winter of the third year, I went to find her again. I went to the high school she attended and met the man named Yang Li. I learned that she had been in the county town after returning earlier, and that she had lived with him and committed suicide by drowning. I stood for a long time in front of Wang Xiaoyue's grave, weeping. Her mother, who was limping at the time, sat at a distance with a wooden cane, watching me without much sorrow. I then suspected that Xiaoyue was still alive, so I questioned the old woman, but I didn't expect to anger her so much. She said she had never seen such a stubborn man as me, and that even if Xiaoyue were alive, she wouldn't like someone like me. I felt insulted after hearing this, so I picked up my luggage and left her house. When I looked back at the hillside, I saw the old woman lying on a rock, wailing. I realized that she was trying to provoke me to leave, not wanting me to stay in the village anymore..."

"You think Wang Xiaoyue is dead, and you haven't contacted her since?" Wu Bingbing asked.

"Yes. Later, I graduated and gradually recovered from the pain of heartbreak. I was assigned to teach art at a teachers' college, and I did some painting in my spare time. The year after I graduated, a joint oil painting exhibition of ten southern provinces and cities selected several of my works for the exhibition. I took advantage of a business trip to visit the exhibition in Chengdu. In the crowded exhibition hall, I found a girl who looked remarkably like Wang Xiaoyue. After all, it had only been five years since we last met. She looked a bit plumper and more mature than before. I was very excited and hurriedly went up to her and called out to her. She was a little surprised, perhaps startled by my abruptness, and asked if I had mistaken her for someone else. I said no, it was you, you were Wang Xiaoyue. She shook her head and smiled naturally, saying that her surname was Chen, not Wang Xiaoyue. After saying that, she turned and left."

"She looks a lot like Wang Xiaoyue?" Zhang Qun asked happily.

"I thought she was Wang Xiaoyue. This woman surnamed Chen's figure, appearance, facial expressions, and way of speaking all resembled Wang Xiaoyue. I secretly followed her, sneaking around the streets of Chengdu, determined to find out where she was going. She probably noticed me following her; after leaving the exhibition hall, she went to the nearby flower park, and I followed her in. After looking at the broken pots and withered flowers, she came out of the park but went to the nearby Qingyang Palace. I squeezed into the crowd and waited. After she came out, I followed her closely. She then looked at this and that at the Songxianqiao antique market with great patience. Since I was already there, I decided to make the most of it and also picked up a replica Song dynasty porcelain vase to play with. In a moment of inattention, she disappeared. I hurriedly ran out and spotted her running figure in the distance. I chased after her for several hundred meters, but she disappeared again."

"What? You didn't keep up with her?" Zhang Qun asked anxiously.

"I suspected she had gone into the Du Fu Thatched Cottage next door, so I bought a ticket and went in too, but I couldn't find her anywhere. When I ran breathlessly into the peach orchard in the courtyard, I looked up and saw her blocking my way; her face was as cold and beautiful as the peach blossoms. She asked me why I was following her. I said she looked like Wang Xiaoyue. She asked who Wang Xiaoyue was, and if she was my girlfriend. I said yes, I was looking for her, and I had been looking for her for years. Then I told her the story between me and Wang Xiaoyue. She seemed a little moved and said that since she was dead, you should let go, forget her, there are plenty of good girls out there, why make things so difficult for yourself?"

When I pressed her for more information, she said her name was Chen Xiaona, that she was from Hengyang, Hunan, and that she was studying at the Xidu Academy of Fine Arts. We talked for a long time before she reached out her hand to say goodbye, saying she had to leave first. Holding her hand, I felt a connection to Wang Xiaoyue. After thinking about it at the hotel, I still couldn't give up, so I went to her school. It took a lot of effort to finally find her student file. Her name was indeed Chen Xiaona, she was from Hunan, her father was an engineer, her mother was a painter, she was an only child, and she was a senior at the art academy.

"What a coincidence! Not only do they look alike, but they even studied the same major," Zhang Qun said.