Chapter 164
After he left, she lay lazily on the bed and refused to get up. At noon, the little girl came in and said, "The master wants his wife to go out to see a play. The car is waiting outside."
She thought that since she couldn't do anything anyway, she might as well go out.
After packing up and going to the opera, she was alone in the box, which made her more likely to attract attention. Why do people always like to gather in groups, especially these wives of officials? Mrs. Yi always wants a lot of people to accompany her to play cards and go shopping. It's always like this, doesn't it get annoying? Is it weird to go to the movies or the theater alone?
But the piece being sung today happened to be "Spring Boudoir Dream". If he had known that this was the piece being sung today, he wouldn't have wanted her to come and listen. The more she listened, the more uncomfortable she felt.
But this young man's eyes are really similar to his. Maybe there is no one to support him, so he can never play the leading role.
Someone came in and asked her what snacks she wanted. She didn't want to eat anything, so she gave money and asked someone to go out and buy some beef pancakes and fried tofu soup.
After eating the two hot things, she felt better.
On her way back, she saw Lai Xiujin in the car. "Is this guy crazy? He's following me."
She looked even more terrifying.
Wang Jiazhi was very scared. If Lai Xiujing continued like this, it would be disastrous if someone discovered him.
Amma and the little girl were discussing privately whether Old Yi had lost his mind. He was afraid that such a young concubine would be disrespected and would always go out and become wild. He actually wanted her to go out and watch operas, and he wasn't afraid to imitate others and keep opera singers.
The little girl laughed and said, "It doesn't look like that. Our aunt is very well behaved."
When she got home, she lay on the bed with a heavy heart, watching the sky gradually darken and the moon rise.
"What is he doing?" she thought to herself.
I don't know when she fell asleep.
That night she had a dream. She was standing barefoot in a horrible place, the ground covered in blood and distorted, trembling ghostly figures like flames.
The evil spirits were wearing scary masks and walking towards her, roaring.
She walked forward in panic, the evil spirits were so scary. Then she saw a most terrifying mask, but the eyes revealed were so familiar. She ran to him, took off his mask, and it was really him. She hugged his neck and cried.
When she woke up, it was still quiet outside, and it was still a long time before dawn. She must have been watching a play during the day and thought that the young man's eyes looked like hers, which is why she had this dream.
Two days later he came back with two branches of jasmine flowers.
She was catching up on her sleep during the day, and when she woke up and saw him coming back, she put her arms around his neck.
She told him the dream, and he laughed, "You must have seen it in the movies. It's just a good idea to tie a knot to interpret the dream."
She noticed the two sprigs of jasmine by the bed.
In a tall, slender glass vase, two long branches, one taller than the other, were placed. Each branch was tied with a knot, and each contained clusters of blossoms. The flowers were a jade-like, goose-yellow and white, several small blossoms forming a round, hydrangea-like ball. The branches of this flower were exceptionally flexible, and could be tied into a knot without breaking.
It is called "Knotted Incense" for this reason. Legend has it that tying a knot on its branches can help interpret nightmares. Another theory is that making a wish while tying a knot will make it come true. In any case, the branches of this flower are always covered with knots.
Wang Jiazhi laughed and said, "I think humans are really overdoing it. Just because their branches are soft, they make up stories about dream interpretation and wish-making. They tie knots all over the branches that can't be untied, which is sad to see. Other branches are hard and can't be tied into knots, so they don't get bullied. But this branch is so soft, it becomes a reason to be bullied."
He smiled and said, "It can't be helped. Humans rule the world now, and that's the rulers' privilege." He looked at the two flowers and said, "But don't you think it would lose a lot of its beauty if the branches weren't knotted?"
Wang Jiazhi saw that it was indeed true. The flowers hanging upright were indeed not as beautiful as the branches tied into a knot that looked like an upright auspicious cloud.
She said, "Perhaps this is its fate. But there must be a limit. Some trees are full of knots, which only look pitiful and lose their beauty."
"This is what is called moderation."
Wang Jiazhi recalled reading "The Sick Plum Pavilion" as a child. At that time, she did not understand that the poem used the sick plum blossoms to satirize current politics. She just felt that the plum blossoms could have bloomed beautifully, but were tortured into such a morbid beauty, which was so pitiful.
Later, when she grew up and saw the sick plum blossoms, she felt a deep sense of guilt because she felt that the sick plum blossoms were more beautiful than the healthy ones. This conflicting feeling still exists today.
Wang Jiazhi talked about his guilt towards Bingmei. When talking about Bingmei, his first reaction was actually Bingmei at work.
He created a form of punishment he named "Sick Plum." To create the sickly, curved branches of a plum tree, he tied wire to plum branches and twisted them into the desired shape. Inspired by this, he tied a person's hands and feet to iron or wooden rods and twisted them like the branches of a sick plum tree...
He said, "So, some people say that perfection is actually the biggest flaw. A lot of beauty is pathological."
Wang Jiazhi said, "That's true. For a while in Europe, there was a craze for that kind of morbid beauty, like tuberculosis, that dead-white beauty. Some people even deliberately contracted tuberculosis for the sake of that dead-white beauty. They weren't even afraid of death for the sake of beauty. It was ridiculous. Or, for example, if a tragic story had an absolutely perfect ending, wouldn't it be meaningless?"
He said, "It's like Lin Daiyu. The author likes this character the most, but he insists that she be frail and sickly, and die of tears and grief. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't like her."
Wang Jiazhi said, "If Lin Daiyu and Baoyu had gotten married and lived happily ever after, this story would have been cheesy. But I always felt that Lin Daiyu got what she wanted, spending her whole life with such a loser. She died for him, so she'd have done her best. But Baochai, it's as if women shouldn't have ambitions for revenge, and that having them is a heinous crime. She had such ambitions and worked so hard, but in the end she had to marry an incompetent, cowardly loser. It's the greatest disgrace there is. She'd rather have died."
He laughed and said, "Because most books are written by men, of course men like the kind of woman who loves only him and is willing to die for him. Especially those poor writers who are down and out and have accomplished nothing. How could they possibly write about a woman who is smarter and more capable than themselves and have a good ending?"
Wang Jiazhi said, "This is why I don't like reading Dream of the Red Chamber. I've always found Baoyu annoying. He's not even as good as Ximen Qing in The Golden Lotus. At least Ximen Qing would give money and things to a woman if he liked her, and indulge her in her misdeeds. But what about Baoyu? He's a parasite who has accomplished nothing, so to speak, but he doesn't have any blood in him. When Qingwen, Jinchuan, and Fangguan were driven away, he didn't dare to say a word. They say he loves and respects women, but it's useless at the critical moment. He just hides away. In normal times, saying a few nice words, mixing rouge, or blocking incense ash is considered a great achievement. It's simply unreasonable." She held her chin with one hand and said, "The only thing that counts is that he is very nice to Granny Liu."
He looked at the little girl in front of him and said that she was naive and silly, but many of her ideas were quite mature and experienced.
They were originally discussing the issue of morbid beauty, but apparently they had unknowingly gone off topic.
When the kitten saw the two flowers, it ran over and sniffed them. It must have disliked the scent of the flowers, so it ran away quickly.
The branch of the flower trembled gently. He said, "There are many flowers like this on the mountain where I came from. I haven't been back for many years. If I have time in the future, I will take you back to see them."
He said it so casually, but her heart was filled with turmoil.
He said the same thing at that time, and said he would take her back to his hometown if he had the chance.
She was shocked at the time, but she tried to avoid it, thinking that she must be overthinking it. He just said it casually, how could he have meant that?
He had no real relatives in his hometown, so what else could he do when he returned? Of course, he would pay respect to his ancestors' tombs. Bringing her back to pay respects together would mean he would acknowledge her as someone he related to. No way. He had so many women, so did they all have to meet their ancestors?
She wasn't afraid that her own sentimentality would one day appear ridiculous and pathetic. Because before that day came, they would be finished. She was just avoiding it, trying her best to convince herself that he treated her no differently than he treated those women who were just playing around.
She also knew that she was deceiving herself. No one had ever been kind to her in the past, but now someone was really good to her. She could only deceive herself. He was not sincere at all and was the same to everyone.
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