After finishing the infusion on the morning of the 2nd day, Pei Manning gestured to the nurse, and then took out the small notebook and pen that Han Chen left for her.
Pei Manning wrote stroke by stroke, "Comrade, I want to buy some books, where should I go?" She found that here, regardless of gender, everyone can be called comrade.
The nurse looked at it for a long time before she recognized her awkward handwriting. "Do you want to buy a book? Turn left after leaving the hospital and walk to the end of the street. The three-story building is the Xinhua Bookstore. There are all kinds of books in it. Just go there."
At Xinhua Bookstore, Pei Manning silently noted down the recipe.
"Then when can I be discharged from the hospital?" Pei Manning wrote again.
Pei Manning had heard Han Jingchen and the nurse mention the word "discharge". When in Rome, do as the Romans do. She also began to gradually learn the way of speaking here.
The nurse packed up her tools and thought for a moment. "If you don't have a fever, you can be discharged today after the infusion. It's just the right time to free up a bed. You... want to be discharged?"
Pei Manning nodded.
"That's fine. Your brother has called Dr. Jiang and paid him the money in advance. If you want to be discharged from the hospital, I'll take you to get it." Knowing that she couldn't speak, the nurse took her directly to find a doctor named Jiang and refunded her 12.75 yuan.
Pei Manning held the colorful banknotes in her hands. She did not recognize the Arabic numerals and portraits on them at all. Fortunately, she recognized the numbers written by κΊ¶.
After thanking the two men again and again and putting the money away, Pei Manning went back to the ward to pack her things. She collected the clothes hanging on the rope outside the window and put them in the sun drying in the dryer. Then she left the hospital carrying a pile of things.
The thing is heavy and very inconvenient to carry.
She found a deserted alley, put the enamel basins and cups, aluminum lunch boxes, clothes, towels and other things into the mustard, and then went out directly from the other end of the alley.
Following the route given by the nurse, we soon found the Xinhua Bookstore, a gray-white three-story building.
The chill of late autumn penetrated into Pei Manning's neck. She stood outside the door and saw someone walk in. Then she gathered her clothes and followed him in.
The bookstore is bright and spacious inside, with clean windows and desks, shelves filled with books, portraits hanging on the walls, and framed figure paintings covering the entire wall.
There were a lot of people inside, but they were all very quiet. Most of them were wearing gray or black clothes, looking very reserved. They were reading around the table, or looking for books among the rows of shelves, or standing, squatting, or sitting.
Pei Manning also walked over and browsed the rows of books.
Seeing this, she frowned in confusion.
Some characters were recognized, but some seemed to be missing strokes. When she saw the address written by Han Jingchen before, she thought he had written the wrong characters, but she didn't have the courage to point it out. It turned out... he hadn't written it wrong?
Pei Manning flipped through the bookshelf for a while before she came across a book called "General List of Simplified Chinese Characters" - as simplified Chinese characters have been popularized across the country in recent years, this book was placed in a very conspicuous position.
She flipped through it carefully and found that the strokes of the characters here were much simpler. Although some characters were simplified, most of them were evolved from vernacular characters, ancient characters, and cursive scripts, so there was no problem in reading them.
She then went on to look at other books, hoping to find any records of history and local customs, or the annals of the various prefectures and counties of the Zhou Dynasty.
"Bang!" Something hard hit my back unexpectedly.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Comrade, are you okay? Were you bumped into anything?" Yuan Weicheng was holding a pile of books, panting with exhaustion, and apologized repeatedly.
Pei Manning turned around, shook her head to indicate that she was fine, and stepped aside to let him pass first.
Yuan Weicheng looked up in shock for a moment, then came to his senses with a slightly red face and immediately turned his eyes away, "I'm sorry, comrade, I really didn't mean it." After saying that, he walked to the innermost part with the books in his arms as if running for his life, and put all the books on the bookshelf.
Pei Manning saw him leave and didn't care about this little episode. She continued to look for books on the bookshelf. There were several books in each row, all classified. She searched faster and finally found the history books in the area near the window.
I flipped through it and saw the second half. The more I read, the more shocked I became.
After the Tang Dynasty, wasn't there the Zhou Dynasty? What happened to the Song Dynasty?
She clearly remembered that it had only been a few years since Sejong's death. The current Saint was the seventh king of the Zhou Dynasty, but according to the records in the book, Sejong had died a year ago.
Moreover, according to the records in the book, the Song Dynasty had already replaced the third generation of the monarch, and there was no subsequent events...
How could there be no record of the prosperous Zhou Dynasty?
The late autumn weather was obviously very cold, but Pei Manning broke out in sweat. She had never heard of the term "time travel". She only knew that she fell into the water and arrived nine years later.
There is no year number here. According to the current calendar, this is 1974 AD.
"Comrade, what happened to you? Did you break anything?" Yuan Weicheng was startled. He had just finished sorting the books.
Guang subconsciously searched for Pei Manning's figure, and saw her sitting there with a dazed look and a miserable face.
Pei Manning came back to her senses, looked at the stranger in front of her, and shook her head.
She just suddenly knew the truth and couldn't believe it for a while.
In fact, as early as in these two experiences, she had already had a premonition that she might have another adventure, just like what Mr. Wu Liu said about accidentally entering the Peach Blossom Spring. However, the truth was even more absurd and bizarre than she had imagined!
"Comrade, are you really okay? You don't look well, do you want to go to the hospital?"
Seeing that he looked nervous, Pei Manning took out a pen and a small notebook and wrote: I'm fine, really nothing happened.
Yuan Weicheng was stunned for a moment when he saw her writing, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses. "I'm glad you're okay, I'm glad you're okay!"
Meeting her gaze, Yuan Weicheng felt embarrassed again. Her eyes seemed to be able to speak, with clear and delicate ripples in them.