When The Snow Falls In Autumn Chapter 15
byChapter 15
The afternoon sun was like molten amber, visibly splashing on the oak tabletop, the open ancient books, the fragments of yellow loose pages carrying ugly secrets, and also splashing on the two hands that were tightly intertwined and had not been separated for a long time.Ling Xueqing’s palms were warm, and the fingertips were dry and stable with thin calluses left by years of holding pens and touching precision tools.Ye Qiulan’s fingers were cold and trembling at first, but now they gradually warmed up under the warm and firm wrapping, but they were still weak and weak, as if the close encounter with the dark side of history had taken away most of her strength.
In addition to the smell of old book dust and residual chemical solvents, there was also something silent and heavy in the air.It was the suffocating feeling of a woman who was used as a bargaining chip a hundred years ago. It was the weight of history itself when the secret was revealed. It was also the bond between them at this moment, which was created by witnessing and bearing this weight together, a tighter but more difficult to express.
In the distance, the heavy oak door of the library was pushed open again.
This time the footsteps were lighter and more hesitant than Teacher Zhao’s, with a cautious sense of probing.A woman about fifty years old, wearing a plain modified cheongsam, with her hair neatly combed, looked around at the door, and her eyes quickly focused on the table by the west window, especially the dazzling yellow piece on the table.Her face looked a little pale under the bright light, and her eyes were complicated, mixed with anxiety, eagerness, and a hint of imperceptible… embarrassment.
She walked over quickly, and the sound of her high heels hitting the marble floor broke the usual afternoon tranquility in the reading area, and also startled the two people who were immersed in the warmth of their palms and the haze of history.
Ye Qiulan almost instinctively wanted to withdraw his hand, but Ling Xueqing’s grip on hers tightened almost imperceptibly at that moment, and then slowly loosened it.That brief tightening was like a silent comfort: don’t panic.
The hands parted.The palm of my hand suddenly felt empty, but the remaining warmth became even more vivid.Ye Qiulan put his hands back on his knees, his fingertips curled up and his ears felt a little hot.
Ling Xueqing had returned to her usual sitting posture, with her back straight and her expression calm. Only when she turned her eyes towards the visitor, she showed her usual distant scrutiny.
The woman walked to the table. Her eyes first swept over the open ancient book and the repair tools next to it, and finally focused on the yellow fragment lying on the white cotton paper, especially the few lines of clear ink.Her breathing was obviously stagnant, and her chest was rising and falling slightly.
“You…are the teachers responsible for the restoration?” The woman’s voice was a little tight, trying to remain polite, but she couldn’t hide the anxiety underneath.She looked at Ye Qiulan and Ling Xueqing, who were obviously students, with uncertainty in her eyes.
“We are assistants in the ancient book restoration department.” Ye Qiulan stood up, his voice was still a little hoarse, but he tried his best to keep it steady, “Who are you?”
“I am…a descendant of the donor’s Li family.” The woman took a deep breath and announced a name, which was the family name of the donor of these documents.”My surname is Chen, and my husband’s surname is Li. I received a call from Teacher Zhao this morning, saying that I might have found… an extra loose page.” Her eyes drifted uncontrollably to the scrap of paper again, and her lips pursed, “Can I… take a look?”
Ye Qiulan looked at Ling Xueqing.Ling Xueqing nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Yes, but please be careful, the paper is very fragile.” Ye Qiulan turned aside to make way for his position, and at the same time, he gently pushed the piece of white tissue paper and the remaining fragments to a safer position in the center of the table.
Ms. Chen did not reach out to touch it immediately.She just leaned closer, bent down, almost holding her breath, and read the few lines carefully.As she continued to read, her face became paler and paler, and the fingers holding the handbag turned white when she pinched them.When she saw the last words such as “dedicated daughter” and “dirty”, her body swayed almost imperceptibly, she quickly straightened up and turned her face away, as if the words were filled with scorching heat.
The reading area is quiet in the afternoon, with the occasional sound of books being turned.Their movements here have attracted the curious eyes of several students in the distance.
Ms. Chen stabilized her mind and turned back. She no longer looked at the fragment, but at Ye Qiulan and Ling Xueqing. Her tone was almost pleading: “This page…according to our previous agreement with the library, it should not be restored or made public. It…it records some disgraceful old events within the family.””It’s disrespectful to the ancestors, and it’s also a nuisance to the people who are living now.”She paused and said in a lower voice, “I know that the restoration work is very hard and very professional, but can you please just seal it up separately? Please don’t continue to deal with the remaining parts.”
Her request was straightforward and firm, carrying the identity of the donor and a faint sense of oppression.This is superficially consistent with the instruction conveyed by Teacher Zhao to “seal it after discovery”, but the words “don’t delve into it further” reveal a stronger meaning of covering up and ending it.
Ye Qiulan felt a little embarrassed.As a restoration assistant, she is expected to comply with the donor’s reasonable requests.But as someone who had just personally peeled off this fragment of a page from the dust of history, she instinctively felt that simply and crudely resealing it and erasing traces would be like a second burial of what really happened to an unknown woman.What’s more, this fragment is directly related to the content of the main book Zhu Zhu. It is a key puzzle piece to understand the complete background of the land dispute. Even if it is not made public, it has a value that cannot be ignored at the academic research level.
She looked at Ling Xueqing subconsciously.Ling Xueqing was still sitting with a calm expression. Only her eyes were sharper than usual, and she looked at Ms. Chen quietly.
“Ms. Chen,” Ling Xueqing said, her voice low, but clearly penetrating the slightly dull afternoon air, “The purpose of peeling off this loose page is to completely repair the main volume and avoid irreversible damage to it during subsequent processing. Its existence and content have been recorded.” Her words stopped short, but clearly conveyed two meanings: peeling off is a necessary step for repair, not deliberate prying; the content has been known, and simple physical sealing can no longer erase the information.
Ms. Chen’s face turned even more ugly.She obviously understood Ling Xueqing’s subtext, and her eyes glanced back and forth between Ling Xueqing’s cold and calm face and Ye Qiulan’s slightly uneasy but equally unflinching face.She probably didn’t expect that two students who looked so young would be so… difficult to deal with.
“Record…” she repeated the word, her tone a little stiff, “That is just a record of your work process. What I mean is that this page itself, and what is written on it, should not be seen by anyone, including your subsequent restoration records. It is best… not to mention the specific content.” Her request escalated, from sealing the physical objects to trying to blur or even erase the records.
“This is not in line with the basic working standards of ancient book restoration and the ethics of information preservation.” Ling Xueqing’s tone was still calm, but with an unquestionable bottom line, “Restoration records need to objectively reflect the original state and processing process of the document, including all discovered additions and their basic properties. Concealing or distorting it is irresponsible for historical documents.”
Ms. Chen was choked by Ling Xueqing’s neither humble nor arrogant attitude, and her face was red and white.She seemed to want to get angry, but she held it back due to the occasion and status. In the end, the anger turned into deeper anxiety and a kind of exhaustion that was almost broken.
“You don’t understand…” She lowered her voice, with an imperceptible tremor in her tone, “There are some things that are not good for anyone if they are revealed. The older generation of the family… had a lot of unpleasantness over this matter. Now that it has finally passed, why do we have to dig it out again? This page, just treat it… as if it has never existed, can’t you?” Her eyes glanced at the fragment of page again, and there was not only embarrassment in her eyes, but also something deeper and similar to fear.Perhaps what she fears is not the scandal itself from a century ago, but the new waves and pain it may cause in the contemporary family after it is re-opened.
Ye Qiulan saw the real pain and anxiety in Ms. Chen’s eyes, and the persistence in defending the historical truth in his heart wavered slightly.What restorers face is not only the pile of old papers, but also the emotions and demands of people living in the present.Cold academic norms sometimes cannot fully cover the complex folds of the human heart.
Ling Xueqing, who had been observing silently, suddenly moved his gaze from Ms. Chen’s face to the fragment of pages on the table, and then slowly scanned the relevant inscriptions on the ancient book next to it.Her eyes were deep, as if she was making some kind of quick weighing and calculation.
Then, she looked at Ms. Chen again, her tone softened slightly than before, but still clear and firm.
“Ms. Chen, the restoration of the main register must continue. This is a work commitment. This fragment of loose pages,” she pointed to the yellow piece of paper, “We can follow the original agreement between you and Teacher Zhao, after completing the necessary information recording and physical stabilization, seal it separately, and indicate ‘the donor requested to restrict access’. In the restoration record, the details of its content can only be described in general terms, such as ‘recording internal family matters related to the master register’s land disputes’ without quoting specific words.”
She paused and saw that Ms. Chen’s expression was slightly relaxed, and continued: “However, the relevant Zhu Biao content in the main book is an integral part of the document and has been partially made public. We cannot and do not have the right to carry out any technical blurring or cover-up. The restoration work will be carried out objectively.”
This is a compromise.It not only respects the donor’s wishes to protect privacy and avoid current troubles to the greatest extent (seal the fragments and summarize the records), but also maintains the basic bottom line of not tampering with the original document information during the restoration work (retaining the main volume and Zhu Biao). At the same time, it also leaves an extremely cautious but not completely cut off clue for future researchers – if someone is keen enough to connect the general description with the main volume and Zhu Biao, they may be able to piece together part of the truth.
Ms. Chen obviously understood.She was silent for a long time, her eyes wandering over Ling Xueqing’s calm face, Ye Qiulan’s eyes with sympathy and understanding, and the fragment of the page that made her feel like a ray of light on her back.Finally, the tight string seemed to loosen a little, and she nodded slightly, her voice dry: “…just do as you say. That page…please seal it as soon as possible. The rest…will trouble you.”
She seemed to have exhausted all her strength and said no more. She nodded slightly to the two of them, turned around and left quickly, her back looking a little hasty.
The reading area has regained its tranquility, with only the moving traces of sunlight and the faint sound of turning books in the distance.But the waves caused by the yellow fragment were deeply imprinted on this afternoon.
Ye Qiulan looked at Ling Xueqing, with questioning and lingering waves in his eyes.
Ling Xueqing met her gaze with deep eyes.She didn’t speak immediately, she just stretched out her hand and gently closed the fragment of the page spread out on the white tissue paper, together with the backing paper underneath, as gently as closing a wound that had just stopped bleeding but was still hideous.Then, she gently pushed the small bag to the corner of the table away from the main volume of ancient books, as if to temporarily isolate it from the core area of ​​​​their work.
“Go on.” She said to Ye Qiulan, her voice low, but with a kind of stabilizing force that brought the chaos back onto the track. “There is still a lot to do in the reinforcement and follow-up processing of the main book.”
Her eyes fell back on the ancient book, on the silent papers that needed to be saved.The confrontation with the descendants of the donor just now, about the pull of privacy, ethics, history and current emotions, seems to be just a fork in the long road of restoration that must be faced, dealt with, and then put aside.Road, we have to keep moving forward.
Ye Qiulan looked at Ling Xueqing’s side face that became focused and calm again, and watched her methodically begin to prepare the materials and tools needed for the next stage. The turmoil and a bit of moral hesitation in his heart caused by Ms. Chen’s arrival gradually settled down.She followed Ling Xueqing’s example and turned her attention back to the detailed repair steps in front of her.
The sun continued to slant westward, stretching the shadows of the two people longer on the red brick ground, slowly overlapping each other.The sealed yellow fragment lay quietly on the corner of the table, like a secret that had been temporarily shelved, and like a silent boundary marker between the historical truth and the current peace that they had just faced together and tried to balance.The tip of the repair needle once again points to the folds waiting to be smoothed out, the fragile edges to be strengthened, and to those parts of silent history that can at least be treated kindly by technology.