Do Not Weep for Yesterday's Sunsets

200110728 Alisa田亚妮

The house is full of pine trees, but a peach tree has been planted in the west, where a room is near the tree. The door of the room stands ajar, pushed to open a wider gap by a gust of wind. A maiden sitting in front of the mirror. After making up her eyebrows, she asks the servant girl to push her to be in front of the window. It is then that we see that her legs are paralyzed. She is looking at the light rain out of the window. The rain hits the peach blossom, and then the blossom is embraced by the soil, seeming to be back home. The maiden watches this and loses her mind. Unconsciously, she is in tears.

The servant girl says: "Miss, I'll push you there. Here is your favorite book -- FLYING TO THE MOON." Then she walks up to push her.

At this time, the young lady comes to her sense.

She quickly wipes her tears and says feebly, "It is useless for those who are exhausted to read books!"

Then the tears unwillingly flow out. She beats her legs, which had been paralyzed two years ago, choking until her strength runs out...

She finally falls asleep at midnight. In her dream, she goes back to that horrible night two years before, in which she is running as fast as she could. The robber behind her is holding a gun and his scarred face in the darkness of the night is terrifying. That night, it was also raining, only not as hard as today but still enough to make difficulties for the weak girl. She runs as fast as she can, expecting to escape the robbers, but she finds herself facing a cliff. Dragging her wet body, she looks down into unfathomable depths. Glancing back, the robber's pistol is already aimed at her. With a desperate expression, she plunges and disappears over the bottomless cliff.

She wakes with a scream, a cold sweat, clenched hands and trembling all over except for her numb legs. Her eyes stay open, as if she has forgotten to blink. At this time there are two lines of tears from the corner of her eyes...

The servant girl hears the noise, hurriedly rushing into the room and kneeling beside the young lady. The servant girl holds the young lady’s hand and says: " You had a nightmare again. This has been going on for two years." Then servant girl also cries.

Two girls in the west house are in tears. One for losing her ability to walk; the other for not being able to bear the pain of her mistress.

It is daylight again. The young lady does her make-up and eyebrows in front of the mirror as usual. Letting the servant girl push her to the window again, she looks at the peach tree through the window. After the assault of the rain yesterday, only a few flowers have been left to sway in the breeze. She feels sympathy for the sorry-looking flowers left after the rain because they can neither live happily nor die directly any more than she can.

She thinks out of her mind again, even not noticing that there stands a strange man in her house.

Until the man starts to say, "Hello, Miss, I am the teacher your father has invited for you."

The young lady suddenly comes to her sense and looks around to see a gentleman standing near the door. The man has a buzz cut, glasses, and a plain long gown, his face written of three words-- "full of poetry". The young lady has a strong aversion to such people because she thinks they have a lot of knowledge, but they only teach in private schools and have no lofty ambitions.

She looks at him, and then turns her head out of the window again and says offishly, "Please go away. I don't need it."

Hearing this, the man does not leave. Instead, he walks up to the young lady and says, "Does that mean that you have learned a lot?"

There is no answer.

He goes on to say: "Then I will test you. If you can answer all three of my questions correctly, I will leave."

Young lady still having no any reaction, he is not depressed, and then he takes the liberty to ask.

"The first question is very easy. Do you know how do we improve the quality of our lives?"

The young lady still looks indifferent.

The man says, "It seems that you think it is too easy to answer. Alright. I will reveal the answer, and you can judge that if my answer is consistent with yours. I believe that the way to improve our quality of life is not to buy expensive consumer goods but to regularly throw away the things you don't need, like our sorrowful mood."

The young lady glances at him without saying a word.

The man says, "It seems that my answer is exactly the same as the lady's. That would be my pleasure. Ok, question number two, if you lost ten coppers, and you remember where you had lost them, would you like to pay twenty coppers in fare to get them back?"

The young lady seems to understand something, but doesn’t say a word. She looks down at her paralyzed legs.

Seeing this, the man says in a soothing tone, "You are too smart to make such a stupid choice. This is a pyrrhic affair. Anyone can think clearly; can you? Ok, so the last one is a little bit easier. If one day the sun cannot move, will it still shine?"

The young lady slowly raises her head and looks at the man. Her sight moves from the floor to his eyes, where their eyes meet. He sees the confusion and fear in her eyes, and she sees the firmness and generosity in his.

Then she speaks slowly: " The sun shines not because of its rotation. Does master despise me by asking me such a simple question?"

They still look at each other in the eyes. Only at this time, her eyes are no longer confused, but full of hope. The man is delight to hear this answer.

The lady looks at the charming smile on his white face, and she smiles with corners of her mouth upward.

At this time, a few remaining peach blossoms outside of the window open more thoroughly under the sunshine. Pink and white alternate with each other, like the face of the maiden.