Forbidden Land – CH 094

On Saturday, Zhang Chao drove Chen Rong to the Shanshui Renjia residential complex on Tianmushan Road. Chen Rong had already found out which building and unit Chen Demao lived in through their classmates’ online network.

The two arrived at the door and knocked.

The door opened, and a woman in her fifties wearing glasses answered. Seeing them, she asked suspiciously, “And you two are?”

Chen Rong smiled and said, “Auntie, does Professor Chen live here?”

“Ah, yes, and who are you?” the woman asked.

Chen Rong smiled and said, “We are Professor Chen’s students, and we’ve come to ask him some questions.”

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“Oh, you’re Professor Chen’s students! Please come in, please come in quickly.” The woman opened the door, looked them over, and hurriedly welcomed them in.

After entering, the two noticed that although the complex was in a prime location, the interior decoration was quite simple, presumably because they had bought it when prices were lower. The furniture was mostly wooden pieces moved from older houses, the walls were simply painted, and the floors were only covered with simple tiles.

Zhang Chao politely asked, “Auntie, we have some questions about Classical Chinese that we’d like to ask Professor Chen for help with. We have exams next week. By the way, where is Professor Chen?”

The auntie didn’t doubt them at all and said, “Old Chen went out to buy something this morning. You can just call his cell phone.”

Zhang Chao and Chen Rong exchanged a glance, both thinking to themselves, “How careless of us! We forgot to write down his cell phone number.” Chen Rong had to say, “I lost the cell phone number Professor Chen gave to the classmate last time.”

Zhang Chao hurriedly said, “I forgot my phone. Oh, how careless of me!”

The auntie didn’t even consider that the two of them wouldn’t know his cell phone number, so how could they remember his home address? She simply said, “Then you two children, please have a seat. I’ll pour you some tea, and then you can call Old Chen.”

“Auntie, no need to trouble yourself,” Chen Rong said.

“Yes, yes.” The auntie was very welcoming, “forcefully” pressing Chen Rong back into her chair before going to the kitchen to pour tea.

Zhang Chao and Chen Rong sat there, having nothing else to do, and could only look around.

Zhang Chao quietly pointed to the wall, where a calligraphy scroll hung, displaying the Zhejiang University anthem.

Chen Rong chuckled softly, “Looks like this Professor Chen really loves the university; even his home has the anthem hanging up, haha.”

Zhang Chao added, “I’ll hang the anthem in my house too. It’s all in classical Chinese; it has a really nice feel to it. People’ll definitely say I have high taste.”

Chen Rong smiled dismissively.

After a while, the auntie returned to the living room, carrying two cups of tea, and said with a smile, “I just told Old Chen; he’s at the supermarket now and probably won’t be back for about half an hour. Why don’t you watch some TV?”

Chen Rong’s eyes lit up, and she smiled. “No need, Auntie, let’s just sit and wait. By the way, may we take a look at Professor Chen’s study? We just want to see which books he has hidden away; maybe they’ll be useful to us. We won’t ‘tamper’ with them.”

The aunt smiled and said, “What’s the problem? Professor Chen isn’t like other scholars who don’t let people into their studies. You can come and look around. If you want to see any book, just take it. Professor Chen is very willing to lend books to his students.”

Chen Rong laughed. “Really? Professor Chen knows so much! I’ve always wondered how he knows so much and what books he reads. If one day we could know as much as Professor Chen, we could be humanities lecturers too!”

The aunt asked, “Are you undergraduates or graduate students?”

Chen Rong said, “We are all graduate students, and we hope to study for our doctorates under Professor Chen someday. But we heard that Professor Chen has retired and can’t be a mentor anymore. But it would still be nice to hear more of Professor Chen’s teachings.”

Hearing her sweet words, the aunt was even happier and said, “Professor Chen treats his students better than anyone else. Come, come, let me show you his study.”

She led them to the study. It was large, nearly 20 square meters, with three large bookshelves filled to the brim and a large writing desk piled high with manuscript paper.

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Chen Rong exclaimed, “Professor Chen has so many books! This is truly eye-opening!”

The aunt smiled. “Then you can stay here and look around. I’ll go cook some food; we can have lunch together.”

Chen Rong politely declined a few times, and the aunt left the study, leaving her and Zhang Chao alone.

Zhang Chao stared at her for a long time, finally unable to resist secretly laughing. “Your acting is too good. By the way, you deliberately led the aunt to the study; you wouldn’t be… planning to search the study, would you?”

Chen Rong whispered, “Since Professor Chen definitely knows something, maybe he left something in the study. Scholars usually keep their secrets in their studies.”

Zhang Chao praised, “Smart. Let’s sneak a peek then.”

Chen Rong nodded. “Keep it down, and be careful.”

Zhang Chao nodded and went to a bookshelf to look around. But it was full of classical Chinese literature and other books, making his head spin.

Just as he had been searching for a while without finding anything unusual, Chen Rong called out, “Come and take a look.”

Zhang Chao went over and saw Chen Rong open an old diary on the desk. On the title page, it clearly read “The Song of the Quishi Society,” and the rest of the content was exactly the same as what was in the black-clad girl’s notebook!