The Taming of the Ruffian Hero

Zhu Ziping calmly sat down on the piano bench and lifted her slender hands. She hit on several keys to try it out and then she stopped with a solemn expression on her face.

She kept her eyes closed for a moment and then opened them while smiling slightly. Under the dim candlelight, she started with a minor triad chord which sounded calm and peaceful. The timber of the piano was rich. Lin Wenxi enjoyed the music while looking at the bright moon outside. Gradually, the music reached its climax which was filled with complicated minor triad chords. Zhu Ziping’s fingers moved extremely fast, which deeply impressed Lin Wenxi. While listening to the music, he felt as if he had seen a bright moon being chased by a group of colorful clouds above a vast stretch of wasted land, and then he felt as if he had just experienced an autumn rain and seen the moon surrounded by thin clouds above some high mountains.

It was the often-heard “Colorful Clouds Chasing The Moon”, but Zhu Ziping played it in an emotional and impressive way.

Lin Wenxi had passed Piano Level 10 back in his high school and kept practicing playing the piano for years. He had been quite confident about his skills before, but now he thought that he was not even qualified to become Zhu Ziping’s student.

He exclaimed with wonder. “‘The bright moon has once shed its light on the chasing colorful clouds.’ How come a soulful person like you ends up living a secluded life here? Why not continue to chase your bright moon?” Lin Wenxi was usually a person of few words, but inside this room, he somehow could not help but voicing his thoughts.

“The bright moon and the colorful clouds are nothing but illusions in the earthly world. Why bother troubling yourself with such illusionary things? Brother Wenxi, this is all I can do for you. I wish you all the best in the future.” With these words, she put her piano away. Lin Wenxi retreated to the door of her room somewhat nervously and then bowed deeply toward the young woman, who was about 25 or 26 years old. Zhu Ziping’s brother had been standing in the yard and listening to the music all this while. Upon seeing Lin Wenxi come out of her room, he hurriedly entered his room.

Zhu Ziping closed her door, refusing to tell anyone of her past. Suddenly, someone knocked at the gate of the yard.

Lin Wenxi opened the gate and saw a drunken villager staggering outside. “It’s the first time in this year that this girl has played her piano. This sounds, sounds great,” said the drunken villager. Lin Wenxi had thought that there would have been a crowd of people gathering outside and enjoying the music before, but now when he looked out, he saw no one except for this drunken villager. “Looks like no one really likes music here. No wonder she wants to play the piano for me,” thought Lin Wenxi.

“Here you are. A guy asked me to give you a quilt in case you feel cold at night.” While saying this, the drunken villager thrust a quilt into Lin Wenxi’s arms and walked away. Lin Wenxi even did not have time to ask him who sent him here.

The drunken villager staggered for some time and mumbled, “That military instructor is still young, but he’s amazingly good at drinking. He can drink a lot more than me.”

When Lin Wenxi went to sleep, Zhu Ziping’s younger brother suddenly spoke to him, “My name is Zhu Zilin.” He told Lin Wenxi Zhu Ziping’s story.

Zhu Ziping and her brother were born into a poor family. As their parents could not afford to raise two children, they let Zhu Ziping’s uncle adopt her. 𝒇𝘳𝐞𝚎𝓌𝑒𝑏𝒏𝑜𝙫ℯl.c𝚘𝒎

Her uncle and his wife had been married for years but had no child. As such, they really adored Zhu Ziping. They spent nearly all their money sending her to learn piano, and Zhu Ziping was indeed talented. She won quite a lot of prizes in different piano competitions in her childhood.

When she grew up into a beautiful young woman, she went to college and fell in love with her schoolmate Yun Che. They had a lot in common and both loved music very much. When they graduated, they chose to become independent pianists instead of starting to work right after graduation. A few years later, when Zhu Ziping was 25 and Yun Che was 26 years old, they wanted to get married. As Yun Che came from a well-off family, Zhu Ziping’s adoptive father was worried that Zhu Ziping would be looked down upon by Yun Che’s parents and stopped Zhu Ziping from going to meet them. Despite that, Zhu Ziping who had always felt grateful for and acted obediently to her adoptive father, still sneaked out to meet Yun Che’s parents.

She sneaked out excitedly, but when she came back a few months later, she looked depressed and somewhat insane. Her adoptive mother was extremely sad upon seeing that. After looking after her for a few months, she suddenly died from a heart attack. Her adoptive father was angry and drove her out of his house. Just on that day, she recovered her sanity. She knelt outside the house for a day and a night, but her adoptive father still refused to forgive her. After that, she left a letter to her real parents and then disappeared for three years. During the three years, she never contacted any of her relatives. Her brother managed to know from one of her best friends that she had worked as a teacher for two years and then she had moved to this mountain village to live a secluded life.

“My sister stayed in this village all the time. She never knew that her adoptive father had regretted throwing her out of the house and had died because he missed his wife too much.” Zhu Zilin could not help but begin to sob. “Looks like he really cares about his uncle,” Lin Wenxi thought and then felt somewhat sad. Because of his father, he had never met most of his relatives.

Zhu Zilin continued, “When our parents and I came here to persuade my sister to go home, she promised to leave with us, as she was worried about our mother’s health. But one day, our mother inadvertently blurted out that her adoptive father had died. She cried again and again and even fell ill. After that, she refused to leave with us. Our parents had no choice but to sell our old house and move here to live together with her. Probably because of the fresh air here and the fact that she often works in the fields, our mother became healthier than before. As such, we can finally see my sister smile occasionally during these years. I’ve received an offer to study abroad, and I’m going to leave this place a few days later. During the past two months, I lived here together with her and I found out that the villagers really respect her as she’s the only teacher of the village school. I think everything will be alright for her, so I can rest assured now.”

“But, her heart is bitter,” Lin Wenxi blurted out.

“She often played that song together with Yun Che before, and he bought this piano for her as her wedding gift. She used to put it in the school where she worked. I never expected that she would bring it here. I’ve never heard her playing the piano since the day she came back from Yun Che’s home. But to my surprise, she played the piano for you tonight. Maybe, it’s because you look somewhat like that Yun Che.”

“Huh?”

“Like you, he’s also a neat-looking and talented young man and likes poems. Maybe that’s why my sister still misses him. She used to tell me that she has forgotten him, but now it seems that she never forgets him. Why does she have to lie to me and to herself?” Zhu Zilin sighed and continued, “I also fell in love and then broke up with my girlfriend before. I really can’t understand what makes her so sad. She never tells us what happened to her years ago. If you meet that Yun Che someday, can you ask him what happened? I don’t hate him. I believe that he could never hurt someone that he loved so deeply. These must’ve been some misunderstanding. My girlfriend also misunderstood me and left me.”

“Sigh, the world is big. How can you meet Yun Che? I’m sorry. This idea just... suddenly popped out inside my head...” Zhu Zilin mumbled and gradually fell asleep. Lin Wenxi could hardly fall asleep. He held the quilt and the song somehow still reverberated inside his head.

When the rooster crowed in the morning, Lin Wenxi got up and understood why Zhu Ziping had said that she played the tune for him as a way of saying goodbye last night. She had to get up at 4 a.m. and walked to the school, accompanied by a villager. She would come back at 5 p.m., and at that time, some of her students’ parents would accompany her home. She was pretty safe here, as the villagers here were all pure-hearted and kind people.

Lin Wenxi felt as if he had dreamed a beautiful dream last night. When he met Shu Xiaoman, Chen Wanxin and Zhang An’an again, he thought that no matter how pretty these girls were, they were just ordinary ones.