Chapter 2 one

The young man who served as a translator held the lead gray mirror frame with his hand and asked: Mr. Irie, why do you want to go to places like Yuling? I want to go to see the Cliff Buddha there again.I investigated it in detail a long time ago.Irie Akisuke replied. According to the results of our investigation, in our country, the Buddha statues in Yuling are considered third or fourth-rate and not very famous.May I know why you must go? The interpreter speaks slowly, with clear pauses, obviously very concerned about whether the other party can understand. The Buddha statues there, like the stone Buddhas in Yungang and Longmen, were not carved by the power and financial resources of the rulers at that time, but were carved out of rocks by ordinary people without any background.I'm very interested in this, and would like to re-evaluate, if possible.

While answering, Irie found that his tone of voice was infected by the Japanese translated by the young man at some point.Not only the tone of voice, but even the reasons for the people without any background just mentioned are deliberately echoing the national conditions of this country. The young translator passed on Irie's words to the forty-year-old official next to him.Irie knew Chinese and knew that the translation was correct. The list of places Irie proposed to visit was spread out on the table.After nodding several times, the official picked up a red pencil and circled the word Yuling.

Approved. About half of the places on the list were canceled for being inappropriate.Because it is at the peak of the Red Guards' large series, there will be a lot of trouble.Irie's inspection team originally planned to take the train from Beijing to Shanghai, but later changed to a plane. In fact, there are no scenic spots or stunning scenery worth mentioning in Yuling, and the traffic is quite inconvenient.The Cliff Buddha is a very naive work made by laymen, and I am afraid that no foreign visitors have ever been there.Irie once speculated secretly that the officials who read the list must find it strange and might be deleted soon.

The approval came as a surprise to him. Looking at the red circle, Irie felt that he was beginning to waver.Going to Yuling requires mental preparation, and he never expected to be allowed, so he hasn't made any arrangements yet. The young translator held the mirror frame again and said: In the last two days of the group inspection, because the fields of study are different and the places they want to see are different, everyone splits up.It will take more than half a day from here to Yuling, and someone will accompany the teacher.Maybe it is a person who does not understand Japanese, please bear with me, anyway, the teacher's Chinese is quite good.

Well, it doesn't matter.Irie replied. Shosuke Irie was one of the eight university professors from S County to visit China.He specialized in the history of Chinese art and spent two years in China during the war. last two days On the way back to the room, Irie talked to himself like this. If you arrive at Yuling, it seems that you will feel the urge to beat your heart, so you must restrain it. Thinking of this, Irie fell on the bed and closed his eyes. Already fifty years old, do you still have the simmering enthusiasm in your body? It's like asking yourself, but the feeling of uneasiness has not disappeared.

The two-day inspection in Shanghai was very ordinary.The place to visit is often visited by foreign guests, and the hospitality of the other party is also very sophisticated. There were Red Guards everywhere, and the atmosphere seemed steamy.Professors of political science, in order to grasp the political and social situation in the period of intense turmoil before them, are all busy with their eyes wide open nervously.But entering the river has no interest in this situation. The idea of ​​going to Yuling occupied Irie's mind.Whether visiting factories, revolutionary museums, or reading quotations from Chairman Mao, he was absent-minded.

The next night, the young man serving as an interpreter brought a man to the hotel to meet Irie. This is Mr. Zhou Fujing. Mr. Zhou happens to be going to Yuling tomorrow. Zhou Fujing was the same age as Irijiang, thin and dark, and looked quite capable. Please take care of me. Zhou Fujing said, lowering his head slightly. No expression, no more words.He is a man who doesn't talk much and is not good at socializing. If the young translator hadn't taken the opportunity to explain the route to Yuling, the scene might not have lasted. Thinking of spending more than half a day in a car with this unapproachable man, Irie felt uncomfortable.But it's better than walking with nagging men.In fact, Irie knew very well that compared with realizing his wish to go to Yuling, the question of who his companions were was too insignificant.

goodbye! Before the young translator finished speaking, Zhou Fujing abruptly stretched out his hand to say goodbye. Irie quickly stretched out his hand and shook it back. It was a powerful thick palm. When he turned around and walked towards the door, Zhou Fujing's expression changed slightly, and the corners of his mouth seemed to turn up. Hesitating to speak, or smiling?Irie couldn't tell. Thinking of the upcoming departure tomorrow, Irijiang regretted writing the word Yuling into the list. But I have to go, um, Yuling is calling me to enter the river and talk to myself. Yuling twenty-five years ago came to life in Irijiang's mind.Oddly, the lines of the outline are blurred and the shape of the mountain is not clear.

This is a matter of course, because what is deeply engraved in Irie's heart is not the scenery. I couldn't sleep that night. I clearly had a dream, but when I woke up I forgot what the dream was about.It feels like a strange dream that the body is being choked by fingers and shaken helplessly. I only remember dreaming of Zhou Fujing who I met for the first time that day, but I can't remember what role he played in the dream.Maybe it's meaningless, just popping up out of nowhere. It's like coming to peep into my dream.Irie thought to himself. Although the situation in the dream is forgotten, the secrets in his heart must be mixed in the dream.If that's the case, then it's not a good idea to be spied on.

The corners of Zhou Fujing's mouth slightly turned up when he said goodbye, a bit like the sneer secretly shown by a man peeping into other people's dreams. Irie first heard stories about Yuling when he was in Beijing during the war. A Chinese rubbing master from Shanghai brought the rubbings of the Cliff Buddha printed in Yuling to the research room and asked Rujiang to verify the production date on his behalf. At that time, Irijiang stayed in Beijing to study the history of Chinese art.During the war, if there is no particularly high-sounding excuse, academic research is not allowed.

In order to promote the friendship between Japan and China, study the cultural exchange between Japan and China from the field of art ◇ Irie was sent to Beijing on the basis of this praise. Although Irie is a scholar who has just entered the industry, his orientation is not so much the study of knowledge, but the pursuit of beautiful things. Irie disapproved of the generally accepted statement that the beauty of Buddha statues came from Greece at that time.So he made up his mind that once the era of peace came, he would devote himself to studying folk Buddha statues after returning to China. Therefore, the five face pictures of Yuling Cliff Buddha brought by Master Tuoben deeply attracted Irie. The carving method is very clumsy, and it can be seen at a glance that it is not from the hands of professional craftsmen.The eyes are just two points, the nose is a vertical line, and the mouth is a horizontal rod. Compared with the face, the Buddha's body is either too short or too long, completely ignoring the symmetry. No trace of Greece. There are actually folk Buddha statues here! After Irie saw it, he couldn't help his heart pounding. Are these the only Cliff Buddhas in Yuling?he asked. No, no, there are many more, too many to count.There are big Buddhas that cannot be accommodated by rubbings, and there are also very small ones.Master Tuoben replied. Irie asked Tuoben Shi about the situation of Yuling, and learned the following things Yuling includes five mountains formed by rocks, and there are five peaks in the east and west. The people nearby call them the five peaks of Yuling.From the east, the first peak and the second peak are named after numbers. The fourth peak, also known as Pumpkin Rock, has many thin wrinkles.The rest of the peaks look like they have been cut by a giant's axe, with a flat surface, which looks like an upright blackboard from a distance, making people want to write on it. On the rock face of the peaks other than the fourth peak, many Buddha statues are carved, ranging from 20 to 30 centimeters in length to tens of meters in size.At first, I may start carving from a place where the height of the person can be reached, and gradually the space is gone, and then I use the tripod to gradually carve upwards. Due to its long history, even the locals don't know when it was carved.According to legend, it was carved continuously for about one hundred years from the Qi Dynasty to the Liang Dynasty. After hearing this passage, Irijiang wanted to see Yuling's face earlier. At that time, he was full of great hostility to symmetrical things. That seems to be a kind of youthful resistance. The so-called state of war, Irie believes, is an era in which everything is enclosed in a predetermined framework, making people breathless.It has always been a deep wish in Irie's heart to destroy everything that is similar to this framework, associated with this framework, and constructed and formulated because of this framework. The longing and longing for the quaint and naive is probably a distortion of this kind of psychology. The intolerance of being in the same place all the time can be said to stem from the same mental state. The idea of ​​entering Jiang to leave Beijing temporarily coincides with his yearning for Yuling. Coincidentally, the research institution that Irie belonged to had a budget surplus that year. A researcher who worked together had to cancel an academic investigation trip scheduled earlier due to his enlistment in the army. After entering the river, he immediately applied to go to Yuling. If the legend is true, the Cliff Buddha in Yuling will be the work of the fifth to sixth century, and it may be possible to trace its relationship with the Tuigu Buddha in Japan. This is the reason attached to the entry application. You know, it was an era where justification or excuses were needed for everything.