38 The Death of Qin Shi Huang
◎We always thought it was in different timelines, but in fact it may happen at the same time◎
Zhu Heng sat in the stairwell all night.
The next morning, Zhu Heng came to the old man as soon as his past self left the ward.
As soon as the old man saw him coming, he started to refuse to eat again.
Zhu Heng walked over and sat down beside her, completely unmoved.
As long as he could hold on until night, as long as he stayed here to prevent the elderly and children from taking her away, as long as...
Zhu Heng's expression suddenly changed.
The old dean picked up the fruit peeling knife on the bedside and pressed it on his wrist.
Zhu Heng turned his palm sideways to block the blade. The sharp edge cut his palm, and a line of red meandered down from the base of his palm.
The old dean's eyes, sometimes cloudy and sometimes clear, stared at him intently: "I want to be discharged."
"What if I die after being discharged from the hospital?" He looked at the dean and suddenly wanted to take a gamble.
He wanted to know if anything would have changed if the ending had been revealed in advance.
The old man was unmoved and still said, "I want to be discharged from the hospital."
Zhu Heng stared at her for a long time.
She was so persistent, as if her weakness and pleading words when facing the young Zhu Heng at night were all fake.
-
Click.
Blood dripped down Zhu Heng's elbow and fell to the ground.
He rolled his eyes back, then retracted them. His hand suddenly loosened, and with a slight movement of his wrist, he took the fruit knife. He stepped on the drop of blood on the floor with his toes and scraped it away with the sole of his shoe.
As soon as he finished all this, the door of the ward was immediately opened.
A group of people in white clothes came in.
The doctor came to check on the ward as usual. Zhu Heng turned slightly to the side, with his back to the doctor and nurse, and pretended to peel an apple with a fruit knife.
The doctor assumed the man, whose back was turned, was a relative visiting the patient and paid him no further attention. He performed a normal examination on the old man and obtained the various indicators from the nurse. After taking a look, he said, "Oh, you're recovering quite well."
Zhu Heng's expression shifted slightly as he heard the doctor continue, "The nurse said you want to be discharged for recuperation? It's possible. Have your immediate family come to handle the paperwork. You'll need to continue receiving IV drips after discharge. Remember to eat well. Ah... let's go to the next ward..."
As soon as the doctors and nurses left, the old dean's voice rang out behind Zhu Heng: "Either, let me be discharged, or I won't eat."
Zhu Heng stood quietly in front of the bed.
After standing there for a while, he finally gave in and sent a message to the old director's children: "Come here and complete the discharge procedures for the old man."
The doctors said the recovery was good.
Perhaps, all this is moving in a good direction, but who knows.
Before the elderly man's children arrived at the hospital, Zhu Heng had already changed into a nurse's uniform and stayed by the elderly man's side.
The journey was smooth and easy, and we returned to the welfare home safely.
Looking at the familiar building gate and the old dean who was in good condition, Zhu Heng breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed that it was not as he had heard in the past. There was no hardship on the road, and the old man did not cry out in pain. It was very quiet all the way.
Even the old director's children did their best to take good care of the old man.
It was completely different from what he thought, and he didn't care about the old dean at all.
Zhu Heng suddenly felt much more relaxed.
-
The old woman was discharged from the hospital suddenly. Several of her children, together with the current director who had heard the news, helped to clean up the room that the old director had not lived in for a long time.
There wasn't much need for Zhu Heng at the scene, so he went to the bathroom to change into his nurse's uniform, avoided people outside who might recognize him, and went out alone to get some fresh air.
I haven't been back for a long time, and the welfare home is still the same as I remember it, not much has changed.
As nostalgic as the old dean himself.
He suddenly wanted to take a look at the photo wall in the welfare home.
Every child who leaves the orphanage will leave a photo there, and he was no exception.
Zhu Heng raised his foot and walked in the direction he remembered.
-
It was the season when roses and roses were in bloom in the yard, and the petals were spread all over the ground.
A bright red shadow flashed through the flowers.
She was wearing a pair of black leather shoes and walked carefully over the slippery green bricks covered with moss, making a creaking sound.
Helan Dao followed slowly behind. The current director had gone to take care of the old director again today, so he asked him to help take care of the children.
He glanced at the bricks under his feet and frowned slightly.
It had just rained, and the petals were soaked in the rain water that had not yet dried up, gradually becoming thick.
Clearly not suitable for walking.
It's wet, slippery, and ruins the beauty.
Of course, most importantly, he was tired.
"Have you finished your homework today?" Helan Dao asked casually with his hands in his trouser pockets.
"I wrote it." The little girl said without turning her head, and glanced at Helan Dao by the way, with no emotion in her eyes.
He acts mature at such a young age.
Helan Dao said with a forced smile: "Have you written it? Then go back to the house and check it for me."
The little girl shook her black braids with an expression of great displeasure.
Fortunately, before she officially exploded, Helan Dao added, "What did your dean's mother say? You have to listen to me today."
The little girl looked at him for a long time, so long that Helan Dao could hardly stand. Then she withdrew her gaze, turned around and walked back to her room.
Coming to the table, she tiptoed to pick up a notebook on the table and handed it to Helan.
As soon as Helan Dao got the notebook, he immediately felt something was wrong.
He didn't open the title page, but just flipped it twice, glanced at it casually, and then looked at the little girl with a half-smile: "Will you show me your diary?"
"Aren't you going to check my homework?" The little girl seemed to dislike Helan Dao.
Helan Dao chuckled twice, took her diary and weighed it in his hand, it was quite heavy.
He sat down at the table and stroked the cover of the diary. It was clean and tidy, without any graffiti, scratches, ink or oil stains. It looked well-preserved.
Helan Dao was actually a little dazed for a moment.
When he finally came to his senses, he was about to put the diary down - what was there to see in a child's privacy?
I could no longer hear any movement around me.
Helan Dao looked around, and in the blink of an eye, the little girl disappeared again.
He sighed.
Put down the diary, get up and go out to look for the child.
-
Zhu Heng walked around countless flower walls and finally came to a place where not many people usually came, but he always liked to stay.
He stood in front of the photo wall, his eyes scanning each photo.
To him, these photos are of great significance. They are not just photos, but also evidence that these orphans have existed in this world.
So he wrote diaries, took photos, and cherished all the people whose lives had intersected with him.
Perhaps leaving a photo and writing enough words can let people know that there is such a person as him in this world.
As for those people, they are his means of proving that he can integrate into this society.
All these signs together create a contradictory person in him.
Even if you don't have any thoughts, you still have to learn to write a diary like keeping a running account.
Although he doesn't have obvious likes or dislikes towards people, he is just like normal people, nice to good people and bad to bad people.
Express joy at good things and feel anger at evil things.
Although, sometimes he did not understand this approach, he only knew that it was right, so he did it.
Zhu Heng's gaze fell on an inconspicuous, old photo that was buried under the overwhelming amount of colorful papers.
He reached out and took it off.
In the photo, a little girl in a red dress is holding a white rose and standing between two bouquets of blooming flowers.
The little girl's eyes were frighteningly black, and her face had no expression, as if she was looking through the photo at the real person outside.
Zhu Heng snorted lightly.
He stuffed the photo into his pocket.
-
Helan Dao pushed aside the wildly growing branches, and a wall of photos suddenly appeared before his eyes.
He had been here two days ago, intending to find clues about Zhu Heng's life experience, but later he found the old and current dean directly, so the photo wall was of no use to him.
However, perhaps because it rained at night, the plants grew wildly and were weighed down by the rain, blocking the way to the photo wall and even causing several small scratches on his exposed skin.
I came here to look for Zhu Heng, but I couldn't find his photo no matter how hard I looked, so I had no choice but to give up.
Helan Dao raised his hand to sweep the broken branches and petals on his head and shoulders, raised his eyes to look forward, and then his gaze fixed.
There is a small red shadow in front of the photo wall.
The little girl was moving a chair and climbing up on it by herself, holding a photo of herself in her hand and wanting to stick it on the photo wall.
Helan Dao came up behind her silently and looked at the photo in her hand. She was still wearing a red dress and it seemed that she liked this dress very much. She held a white rose that she had picked casually in her hand and stood with her back to the flowers.
Laughing...
No smile, expressionless face.
"Are you starting to post your own pictures now?" He Landao said casually, and then confirmed again that there was indeed no portrait of Zhu Heng on the photo wall. "Didn't you tell me that only children who are about to leave the orphanage will leave photos?"
"Yes, I'm leaving." said the little girl.
He Landao was a little surprised: "Someone adopted you?"
The little girl shook her head: "It's me who's going to elementary school."
Once you start elementary school, you have to leave the orphanage and be forced to be independent.
Helan Dao felt like laughing, but couldn't.
"So what about you?" the little girl asked, "who is the person you are looking for and what is his name?"
Just asking a person, there's nothing wrong with that.
Helan Dao turned his head and met the girl's gaze: "Congratulations..."
Just as he was about to say something, his eyes suddenly fixed on the tip of the little girl's nose.
He had been keeping a distance from the little girl before, and he didn't see her carefully because she was too far away. Only now did he realize that there was a tiny black mole on the tip of the little girl's nose.
A new mole that has just grown is difficult to identify unless you look closely and carefully.
Helan Dao paused before he could finish his words. He swallowed the word "Heng" and said, "Zhu... His last name is Zhu."
"Your last name is Zhu?" The little girl's expression finally fluctuated more.
"My last name is Zhu too," she told Helan Dao.
Helan Dao's smile froze on his face.
-
Bus No. 1634.
The crowd formed a circle, their expressions looking solemn.
Xu Wenjun explained his calculations to the crowd, "Before Qin Shi Huang unified and standardized China, there were three main calendars used by various countries: the Xia calendar, the Yin calendar, and the Zhou calendar."
"So it corresponds exactly to the three dates we see? What are the differences between the three calendars?" Tao Ran asked.
Xu Wenjun explained: "The one we hear most about now is the Xia calendar, the beginning of the Xia calendar..."
Tao Ran interrupted her: "What does the beginning of the year mean?"
"The beginning of the year is the first month of the year. For example, in the Xia calendar, the beginning of the year is what we now call the first month of the Spring Festival." Xu Wenjun continued, "Based on the Xia calendar, the Yin calendar uses the twelfth month of the Xia calendar as the beginning of the year, while the Zhou calendar uses the eleventh month of the Xia calendar as the beginning of the year."
"The mixing of calendars led to time confusion. For example, the first month of the Xia calendar was actually the second month of the Yin calendar, which was also the third month of the Zhou calendar."
"There's only a one-month difference, which is exactly the same pattern as what we see in June, July and August?" Tao Ran said.
"That's right. If our analysis is correct, then June 3rd is the date according to the Xia calendar, July 3rd is the date according to the Yin calendar, and August 3rd is the date according to the Zhou calendar. If you still don't believe it, I have another piece of evidence to support our speculation."
"What is it?" Wang Kunshu asked her anxiously.
"In the pre-Qin period, there are clear records showing that the Chu State used the Xia calendar and the Lu State used the Zhou calendar. Translated to our world today, for the people of Chu, the First Emperor died on June 3rd; for the people of Qi and Lu, it was definitely August 3rd. Think about it: the Chu Metropolitan Newspaper we picked up at the newsstand reported June, while the Qi and Lu fruit shop owner told us it was August. There were even reports at the bus stops: when the bus arrived at the Chu station, was the time reported June? Was it the Qi station's August?"
After this explanation, everyone suddenly realized what was going on.
Tao Ran hurriedly asked, "So what calendar did the Qin Dynasty use? If we can pinpoint this time, can we get off this bus?"
"The Qin Dynasty used neither. It began the year with the tenth month of the Xia calendar," Xu Wenjun replied. "So, the sixth month of the Xia calendar, the seventh month of the Yin calendar, and the eighth month of the Zhou calendar, combined into the Qin calendar, is the ninth month."
"Qin Shi Huang died on September 3rd," Xu Wenjun concluded.
After she said this, the bus finally stopped in an instant.
Everyone was caught off guard and, due to inertia, leaned forward several steps.
Xu Wenjun grabbed the handrail to steady himself and continued, "So what we've always thought were different timelines may actually be happening at the same time. Conversely, we can also work backwards. Things that appear to be happening at the same time may actually exist on two different timelines."
At this point, she frowned.
Could the disappearance of Helan Dao and Zhu Heng be related to this?
-
Helandao stood in front of the photo wall in a daze, looking at the "little girl" in front of him... No, it was Zhu Heng dressed as a little girl.
He watched as little Zhu Heng finished posting the photo, turned around, and ran away without a trace.
Helan Dao stood there with a complicated expression, gently stroking his lips with his fingertips. After a while, he turned around and strode back to Xiao Zhuheng's room.
The diary was still neatly placed on the table, and he picked it up without hesitation and opened it.
It contained all the content he had read, and was exactly the same as the copy he had with him.
Apart from……
Helan Dao flipped to the end.
Except for the fact that there were no diary entries that appeared inexplicably and had never happened to Zhu Heng.
Helanda took out the diary he carried with him and copied it in exact proportions based on the actress's diary. He paused for a second.
He made the decision almost in an instant.
Those diaries are indispensable.
Without the diary, the actress would not appear as the cause and effect of Zhu Heng; without her, in the second copy, there would be no last bead, representing Zilu accompanying Confucius throughout his life.
If there is a problem in any link here, it will change the historical process for everyone.
so.
Helan Dao took out a pen and opened two diaries.
He compared the contents of the entries asking his mother with those of Zhu Heng's real diary, imitating the handwriting and copying them exactly as they were, stroke by stroke.
Then write in the year column - 873.
This year, Zhu Heng, who was always dressed as a little girl, was only 8 years old.
The dean who raised him was still in good health this year. By chance, he learned from Helan Dao who came from the future that he would die on July 9, 883.
He only has ten years left to live.
【Author’s words】
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2022-07-04 00:43:41 and 2022-07-06 02:29:45~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution: Artie 10 bottles;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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