(a)

After 40 years of vicissitudes, I am finally back. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

As an old widow, I finally returned to Yantang Pass. This is where my parents got married and gave birth to me. This is the city that my father ruled and guarded. This city that has surrendered to you and loved you. This is the city we have loved each other. This is the city where you have grieved me. This is the city where I met Liu Shen.

For me, this city is full of too many memories of youth and has irreplaceable significance.

Here I spent the happiest days of my life. Unforgettable.

The carriage stopped in front of the former General Soldier's Palace. With the support of my son, Lingnan King Cui Chengzhi, I stepped on the lower pedal and slowly got off the carriage.

Familiar sensations came like a tidal wave.

I stood in front of the building, which had the exact same appearance as before, and I couldn't help but burst into tears.

"The Queen Mother?" Cui Chengzhi whispered in my ear.

I said, "Everything is the way it is, it's like stepping into the past." Decades seem to have passed without flowing. ”

I looked at the open door, and it was filled with your breath, as if as soon as I walked in, I could see you standing on the steps of the study waiting for me.

However, where did I go, who was young and beautiful and full of expectations for love?

Standing here at this moment is an old woman with gray hair and a wrinkled face.

Where have they gone?

The past is like a dream.

"Queen Mother, please ask the Queen Mother to settle down first, the journey is tired, you can rest first. The Huaizhou Jiedu envoy and the prefect and general soldiers of Yantang Pass have already greeted them inside. ”

My son's words woke me up from the past.

Yes, I'm no longer the Jean I used to be, I'm the queen mother of this country now.

I'm already someone else's woman.

I've always been someone else's woman.

And you, too, will never be on the steps of the study again.

(b)

I lay in my old bedroom, sleeping on the carved bed that I used to sleep in.

As the years passed, the wood color of the large bed had become even more yellow, with a golden halo.

This is the marriage bed where my parents got married. It was in this bed that I was conceived.

The last time I lay on it, I was 18 years old.

The last person to send me into this room was you.

On that day, we knelt down together in the small mourning hall of our parents and said goodbye to Yantang Pass. Then I followed you through the corridor that Sun Zhanming had built for you, and returned to my uncle's mansion, which was connected to the General Soldier's Mansion. You send me to the door, walk up the steps with me, and at the door of my bedroom, you squeeze my hand hard and let go. You say, "Get a good night's sleep, tomorrow we have a long way to go." Then you said goodbye to me, turned and left my bedroom. I watched your figure disappear over the wall, and I had mixed feelings.

The next day, you will take me to Jinfeng Village and send me into Liu Shen's life, the palace life where you no longer exist and you don't plan to appear again.

The last time I left this room, I didn't know if you would ever come back here.

And it will take another 40 years for me to come back.

I couldn't sleep.

Through the window lattice, I saw the moon in the sky, and the heavy cornices on the side of the General Soldier's Mansion.

A lifetime, how fast it flies. The last time I looked at these cornices like this, you and Liu Shen were talking about the alliance in the General Military Mansion, and the general trend of the world.

Now, you're all gone. I'm the only one left.

And this is the last time I'll be back.

(c)

The next day, I met Uncle Ding's two daughters who were married nearby.

The three gray-haired women no longer knew each other when they met. We were both looking for traces of the past in each other's faces. Then, we hugged each other tightly, and the old tears flowed down our faces.

Uncles, aunts, and uncles' aunts have all passed away.

The tombs of my uncle and aunt are in the Lotus Sutra Temple in Yantang Pass, which accompanies the ancestral halls of our two ancestors. After Ding Youren became old, he served as the sacrificial wine of the ancestral hall for a long time, presiding over the spring and autumn memorials on behalf of me and you until the year he died of illness. After the death of the uncle's aunts, they were buried in the ancestral grave of the Ding family near the water, where they accompanied the ancestors of the Ding family. Listening to the current sacrificial wine, the nephew of Ding's close branch said that this was his uncle's wish and Liu Shen's arrangement.

Liu Shen wrote to his uncle that the Ding family, although Ding Youren has no son, but the side branch is very rich, and the ancestral grave of the Ding family is not worried that no one will take care of it, however, the Cui family is in the lineage, but behind him is desolate, Liu Shen hopes that the Ding family and his wife can stay in Yantang Pass, take care of the ancestors' mourning hall for you, and take care of my parents' hometown and soul on behalf of me who can't come back often.

Liu Shen didn't tell me about it. He thought so thoughtfully and meticulously for our brothers and sisters, which made me feel ashamed and moved. I asked the new priest if Liu Shen's will was still there. He nodded his head again and again, and carefully took out the letter and presented it to me.

I looked at Liu Shen's handwriting and the date of the payment.

It was written when the current emperor turned one year old, when Liu Shen replied to Ding Youren's congratulatory letter.

At that time, Liu Shen knew exactly what was going on between us. But he still wrote such a letter to Ding Youren, and he didn't let me know without asking for anything in return.

He didn't tell me about it on his deathbed. There are so many things that he cares for me and misses you, maybe even he himself has forgotten this thing.

I knelt down in front of my aunt's tomb, remembering that when I was pregnant with the current emperor, my uncle had just recovered from a serious illness and rushed to Yunjing to accompany and comfort me, and I couldn't help but cry like a fountain and choke up. My two younger sisters also mourned and wept with me before the spirits of my parents. The scene was sad, and even Cui Chengzhi, who has always been cautious and serious over the years, couldn't help but follow, while persuading our old sisters, he frequently wiped away his tears.

(iv)

Coming out of the ancestral hall and the cemetery of the Ding couple, we revisited the Lotus Sutra Temple.

The size of the temple has expanded by more than five or six times compared to when I lived here. The abbot monk said apologetically, the scripture copying hall of the lower courtyard of the nuns that I used to copy the scriptures in it has been demolished in the expansion. Now there is a majestic Tibetan scripture pavilion, which houses a large Tibetan scripture given by Liu Shen. The Scripture Building was the public library of that era. During the Qingxiang period, Liu Shen ordered the printing of 840 copies of the Tripitaka Sutra, which were distributed to the important monasteries in the country for the collection of the country's students and the vast number of believers to study for free. Scholars who have passed the examination for children or above can go to these monasteries to read the scriptures, and the monasteries have many rooms for these scholars to live in during their studies, and the food and lodging are free of charge, or provided by the local people, or paid by the state funds. As long as you are willing to learn, the learning conditions are very superior, so there are often scholars from poor families who live in the guest rooms of the temple for a long time and study hard, but they want to be able to understand the truth, and in the future, they can contribute to the national society and seek a good background for themselves and their descendants.

The abbot monk said that at present, there are still more than 80 young students living in the monastery to study and read Tibet. I nodded my head again and again, saying that I hope that there will be more diligent and studious young people in the country. I instructed the attendants to take out a considerable sum of money from my personal expenses and make offerings to the monastery to improve the lives of these students and the monks in the monastery. The abbot monk is good.

In the Kannon Hall, I saw that the "Myoho-renge-kyo" that I had copied was enshrined behind the Changmei glass lampstand in front of the temple. The abbot monk said that because the scriptures copied by the current queen mother are enshrined here, a large number of female believers come to visit and make offerings, making the incense of this Guanyin temple particularly prosperous.

As I looked at the golden scroll I had copied, I couldn't help but think of the moment when you appeared at the door of the scripture hall with the long scar on your forehead.

I bowed deeply to the statue of Avalokiteshvara.

Amid the crisp sound of chimes, I silently prayed that I would attain a boundless body in the next life, with the profound and vast saving power of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, and save all sentient beings from the boundless sea of suffering.

I sincerely pray that I too will become Avalokiteshvara.

How much suffering does a person have to go through to make such a wish and set such an ambition! (To be continued.) )