CHAPTER IX

On the morning of the third day of the temporary emergency meeting of the Department of Philosophy, Zhou Xiaobo and Yang Ying jointly served as invigilators for the final examination of the History of Chinese Philosophical Thought course for undergraduate students of the Department of Philosophy.

After the exam began, Zhou Xiaobo and Yang Ying worked together to distribute the test papers to the students. Later, Zhou Xiaobo took a stool and sat at the back door of the classroom, while Yang Ying sat at the podium table, and the two supervised the students' exams one after the other.

This is the first time Yang Ying has worked with Zhou Xiaobo since the end of the meeting, and it is also the first time she has met. After Yang Ying filled in the exam registration, she looked up at Zhou Xiaobo by the back door, and originally wanted to whisper a few words to Zhou Xiaobo and say something to comfort him. As soon as she looked up and saw Zhou Xiaobo sitting tiredly, staring blankly at the student in front of her, she interrupted the idea of talking to him.

Zhou Xiaobo has often suffered from insomnia in recent days, always unable to sleep at night, and even when he does, he will wake up halfway, sometimes because of nightmares, and sometimes without warning. Even if he was not by his side when Sima Yuanying had an accident, nor did he see it with his own eyes, whenever he closed his eyes, he could always faintly and immediately hear Sima Yuanying calling for help like him, and the voice was hoarse and full of despair.

Zhou Xiaobo himself understood that the reason why he was so unacceptable to Sima Yuanying's sudden death was not only because Sima Yuanying was his favorite disciple, but also because Sima Yuanying's heartfelt love for philosophy had ignited to some extent the fire in his heart that was about to be extinguished, that is, a passion for pure academic research as a goal and value of life. When he first joined the work more than ten years ago, he had poured all his experience into the boring study of philosophical theories, just like Sima Yuanying, and at that time he felt that the combination of teaching and educating people and ideal interests was simply the greatest beauty in the world. He devoted all his energy to philosophical research and teaching, on the one hand, he wanted to understand the world as systematically as possible in his limited life; On the other hand, he also wanted to be able to share his views on the world with more students.

As he grew older and worked for more years, he felt more and more disappointed. He was disappointed not only with his students, but also with the school and with Chinese education as a whole. In his years of work experience, he found that the vast majority of philosophy students have no passion for philosophy at all, and most of them, whether undergraduate or graduate, sit and wait for graduation as soon as they enter the school. He also met a few students with good attitudes and hard work, but after many exchanges with them, he was sad to find that not only did they have no opinions of their own, but they did not even know what philosophy was, worshiped authority, and used textbooks as the key to everything. If they worship authority because they lack the ability to learn independently, then having no opinion is tantamount to ignorance. For example, if a person always insists on studying the conceptual theory of classical German philosophy from a materialist dogmatic viewpoint, then philosophy is poison for this person, and the best result is that there is nothing to gain from the entry, and the worst result is that a variety of values are intertwined with each other and eventually collapse. Over time, Zhou Xiaobo also figured out that philosophy was nothing more than a means to increase their competitiveness in their future jobs, and he naturally lowered the academic requirements for students.

Zhou Xiaobo's disappointment with education lies in the fact that college education has given him the feeling that for more than ten years is a kind of cold knowledge indoctrination, without heat, humanity, and even less educational life, and they are doing assembly line production day after day. This mechanical mode of human production not only created numb refined egoists, but also gave birth to a deformed education system. In terms of the form of government of sovereign states, the most lacking thing in theocratic countries is never the economy but freedom, such as Saudi Arabia. In the same way, when politics and education are entangled, and the boundaries between the two are difficult to demarcate or even politics dominates education, then this kind of education system has no vitality at all, and it may not lack freedom, but it certainly does not cultivate the seeds of freedom.

In this way, as the working hours became longer and longer, and the teaching became longer and longer, even he doubted himself whether he had misunderstood the world, or if the world had played a joke on him. He slowly retreated from the passion of his youth, and evolved from a passionate philosopher to a numb teacher. The once ideal has become a noble pastime after firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea, and the pursuit of the past has become an unattainable hope.

However, the appearance of Sima Yuanying changed him and rekindled the fire of hope in his heart. He saw in Sima Yuanying the passion for pure love for philosophy and the courage to abandon all worldly entanglements. He not only hopes that he can pass on what he has learned in his life to Sima Yuanying in a way that maximizes the value of his life, and train Sima Yuanying to become the best graduate student in philosophy, but he also hopes to turn Sima Yuanying into the driving force for him to regain hope.

Perhaps it is true that he and Sima Yuanying have misunderstood this world, this world is originally such an impetuous and greedy material world, Sima Yuanying is such a pure person who vomits bad luck, and the flame of hope he has just rekindled is also covered by the pouring rain. For a philosopher, not believing in fate and not having God is the most basic cultivation of a modern philosopher, but many times recently he feels that the world is taking revenge on him because of his ignorance.

Ignorance is a virtue, and anyone who tries to rebel against ignorance will be damned.

Zhou Xiaobo raised his head and glanced at the student who was making a big answer, and his eyes met Yang Ying unexpectedly, Yang Ying smiled at him full of embarrassment and comfort and tenderness, and he also returned a smile without meaning, and turned his head to look at the end of the corridor. He recalled another conversation with Wang Hong in Wang Hong's office on the day the meeting ended.

"Mr. Xiaobo, are you okay today? You are not in good spirits today, do you need me to tell the teaching secretary Mr. Wang, you should put down the invigilation work this week and have a good rest. As soon as Zhou Xiaobo sat down in the middle of the couch after entering the door, Wang Hong brought him a glass of water and said with friendly concern.

"No, Director Wang, I'm fine, I don't need to rest." Zhou Xiaobo responded politely.

"That's good. Although work is important, but the body is more important, we are not willing to encounter this kind of thing and are sad, we should take care of ourselves. ”

"I know. Thank you, Director Wang, for your concern. ”

"It should." Wang Hong changed her posture, withdrew her body that was originally leaning forward, gracefully picked up the cup on the coffee table and took a sip of water, and then said, "By the way, have the police looked for you?" ”

"Not yet, I'm not a key person, and I don't think I will have time to look for me for a while." Zhou Xiaobo smiled awkwardly.

"Huh." Wang Hong smiled unintentionally, "Principal Li also said that since the incident has happened, we should actively cooperate with the police." So we should actively feed back to the police what we know that is helpful in identifying the case, what do you say? ”

"Director Wang, you are right, even if Sima Yuanying is not my student, it is the basic obligation of every citizen to cooperate with the police investigation." At the mention of Sima Yuanying, Zhou Xiaobo's heart couldn't help but feel a little desolate.

In addition, it is estimated that Sima Yuanying's parents will arrive in Linhai City in a few days, and then the police will arrange for Sima Yuanying's parents to identify the body when the time is right. I discussed with several leaders in the school, and suggested that you accompany Sima Yuanying's parents to the police station to identify the body. On the one hand, after all, Sima Yuanying is your graduate student, and you know Sima Yuanying's characteristics better; On the other hand, it can also demonstrate the school's compassion and positive cooperation towards the families of the victims. What do you think? Personally, I think that if there is no conflict in time, it doesn't hurt to go there. ”

"Okay, I'm willing to accompany Sima Yuanying's parents to the police station." Zhou Xiaobo couldn't say the word "recognize the corpse" anyway, just saying that he could feel the rejection of "that corpse" in his heart, and he was afraid to see the corpse described by his lover in person, with a sparse face and festering muscles.

The air fell silent, and Wang Hong looked at Zhou Xiaobo, the corners of his mouth grinning slightly, revealing a vague smile for comfort.

"There is nothing else important to keep you after today's meeting, the main thing is to talk to you, see if you need my help, if so, I will definitely help you." After a while, Wang Hong took the initiative to say.

"Thank you, Director Wang, I'm fine, nothing I need help." Zhou Xiaobo once again expressed his gratitude, "Then if Director Wang is fine, I will go back first?" ”

"Well, you can go back first."

Zhou Xiaobo then left Wang Hong's office.

It was still early, Zhou Xiaobo didn't want to go home immediately, his lover hadn't gotten off work yet, and the overly quiet air at home was like a wall, overwhelming him. But he didn't know where to go in the huge world outside, and for the first time he felt unfamiliar with the city where he had lived for decades. In the end, he had no choice but to go back to the teacher's office, but fortunately, he left the school directly after the meeting at the classroom door, and there were no other teachers in the teacher's office at this time.

Another quiet world.

At this moment, the figure that appeared in the corridor interrupted Zhou Xiaobo's thoughts, and it was Wang Hong. As the head of the Department of Philosophy, she has to visit every major examination room in the department, such as the final exam, which is not only her job content, but also an effective means to deter students from cheating.

Wang Hong walked from classroom to classroom, leaving the back door of the classroom after inspecting the examination room that Zhou Xiaobo was in charge of, and nodded as he passed by Zhou Xiaobo, revealing a friendly smile.

After Wang Hong left, Zhou Xiaobo's thoughts began to flood again, and he recalled Dong Chenghai's question about him yesterday afternoon.