I am not Ximen Qing.

What is love? Guo Baoshan and Na Zhenzhen never worried about their children's food and drink, because Lao Guo was the manager of the bureau's large canteen. Na Zhenzhen's skin was still as translucent as a pearl. Guo Baoshan never had a good temper with the noisy children. Love is about constantly having children. The testament to their love: Jinque, Jinxia, ​​Jinlan, Jinshui, and Jingou. And now, Na Zhenzhen is pregnant again. Guo Baoshan loves his second daughter, Jinque, and brings her delicious food as soon as he gets home. Jinyu is now in school and sensible. Guo Jinyu keeps her distance from Guo Baoshan. As a father, he knows very well how formidable his eldest daughter is; he can't scold her, hit her, or say anything to her. Guo Baoshan's love for his eldest daughter, Guo Jinyu, is a different kind of love. His love for Jinque is a completely natural and open fatherly love. In Lao Guo's eyes, the other children are all naughty and annoying. His third and fourth children are just tomboys, and he yells at them, "Why don't you learn from your second sister?" It was all Guo Jinshui's fault; Guo Jingou had led the third and fourth sisters astray. That Pearl loved her two youngest sons dearly, and to protect their right to misbehave, she often argued with Guo Baoshan. Pearl was like a wild duck, with a fiery temper. Guo Baoshan was dumbfounded; he made Pearl so angry she convulsed, and she had to be rushed to the bureau hospital for a sedative. The doctor didn't say Pearl had any illness, only telling Guo Baoshan to go home and read some novels. Guo Baoshan asked, "Doctor, what kind of novel can cure Pearl's illness?"

""idiot""

The young nurse had a strong temper and immediately suppressed Guo Baoshan's imposing manner. He knew that doctors and nurses were not to be trifled with. Pearl seemed to be possessed by a ghost, but once they arrived at the hospital, the doctor gave her an injection and she was fine.

"Okay, okay, I'm an idiot."

“Your wife has a bad temper, can’t you, husband, be a little gentler? Don’t be so chauvinistic, she’s pregnant.” Guo Baoshan advised, “It was quite dangerous to make Tana angry this time. I’ve argued with Tana countless times, but I’ve never seen Tana like this before, with convulsions and chills all over her body. This is also bad for the baby in her womb.” However, the problem with the baby is that she is powerless to love, and she has no energy to love.

During the day, Guo Baoshan was busy in the canteen, loud-voiced and short-tempered. However, he was kind-hearted; Baoshan often offended people but also did good deeds. Zhenzhu privately advised him to lower his temper, to speak politely to leaders, and to be more tactful. What is an idiot? It's epilepsy, a folk term for convulsions caused by anger. Some folk artists often use "convulsions" to amuse audiences; some folk artists enjoy this kind of crazy, silly "convulsions" for amusement. Actually, Jinque's eyesight is naturally poor; it's a hereditary condition. However, the second daughter is clever and can quickly calm Guo Baoshan, transforming his raging volcano into a tranquil river. Doesn't the river beneath the platform have turbulent currents, calm currents, and wide, peaceful surfaces? If her father's heart can be as calm as still water, her brothers won't suffer. But Jinque never thought it was Guo Baoshan's fault. Third sister, fourth sister, and eldest brother, the younger brothers are too much, it's unimaginable! He envied his eldest sister for going to school at Linhai School every day, so she wouldn't have to be caught between Guo Baoshan and Pearl and feel embarrassed by her younger sisters and brothers' immaturity.

Guo Baoshan was a truly kind and loving father, and Jin Yu admired him from the bottom of her heart. No one in the entire Linhai School had the same good fortune as Guo Jin Yu. Guo Baoshan would go to great lengths to prepare delicacies for Tana and his children, dishes that seemed straight out of the Forbidden City. The children would listen to their father talk about the Empress Dowager's "food," and they even thought their father's ancestor was the Empress Dowager. Otherwise, why would their father have such deep feelings for the Empress Dowager? They never heard him talk about his own parents, only about the Empress Dowager, as if she lived in his head. Jin Yu's good friends at Linhai School were all made possible by her father's love of food. His daughter was always arrogant at school, an arrogance fostered by Guo Baoshan's culinary skills. For example, the most ordinary way to eat was Guo Baoshan's charcoal-fired copper hot pot, where the water had to be heated to a scalding high with charcoal. Jin Yu admired Guo Baoshan's pickled cabbage hotpot the most. His knife skills were like those of a master butcher, slicing the pickled cabbage with exquisite fineness, like silk threads. This was the first step in making pickled cabbage hotpot. If the knife skills weren't up to par, the flavor wouldn't come through according to Guo Baoshan's instructions to Jin Yu, and the hotpot wouldn't meet the Empress Dowager's requirements. Guo Baoshan laughed heartily. He knew Jin Yu was a reserved but greedy girl, and it was truly difficult to make this formidable woman laugh. Slicing the pork belly for pickled cabbage hotpot also required skill. If the pork belly wasn't sliced ​​properly, the flavor wouldn't come through. Pork belly in the hotpot was the authentic taste; using beef or mutton in the hotpot didn't make it a proper copper pot.

Jin Yu had far too many good friends—Old He, Old Meng, Old Jiang, and so on—all because she promised the girls they could eat sweet and sour pork and crispy pork belly at the cafeteria. At home, Guo Baoshan pretended to keep his distance from Jin Yu, but at the cafeteria, the moment Jin Yu brought her friends, he became a completely different person, showering them with tenderness and delicious food and drinks. Guo Baoshan's tenderness was entirely focused on Jin Yu; he seemed to see a shadow of Pearl's past in her. Guo Baoshan sighed, thinking how abnormal it was for women to have so many children, giving all their love to a bunch of kids. What was he, Guo Baoshan, in Pearl's eyes, in Tana's? Guo Baoshan didn't realize this was a woman's nature—women were meant to endlessly, tirelessly, bear children and rule over men. Now, Guo Baoshan feels almost invisible at home, especially with his two sons, Jinshui and Jingou, who are perhaps utterly wicked. It's not fair to call it a manifestation of human evil, but Guo Baoshan still doesn't understand. His two sons, on whom he placed his hopes, nearly drove him to his death with anger. Were these sons born to torment their father? Sometimes, when Guo Baoshan's temper flares, he chases his two sons all over the mountains and fields. The two sons aren't afraid, because they now know there's no way to deal with their father at the Pearl Tower. When they get angry and have spasms, Guo Baoshan's temper disappears, his fighting spirit vanishes. This isn't Guo Baoshan's fault; the blame lies with the consequences of the Manchu-Han coexistence. His two sons are spirited, but times have changed. They can't go back to the days of drawing bows and shooting eagles, the era of Genghis Khan, Nurhaci, and Dorgon. Lack of culture is terrifying.

Guo Baoshan knew the power of culture. The pale-faced scholar often made things difficult for Guo Baoshan, yet he remained outwardly friendly and polite. As for Pearl's words, "Baoshan, if you were in the palace, you would have been beheaded more than a hundred times by now."

"Tana, you're so smart, how come our son keeps doing such stupid things? Tana, do you actually know why I'm angry?"

Why Baoshan?

"Jinshui, Jingou, just listen to these names, they've ruined all my original aspirations."

“The name Jinshui Jingou is too grand; they can’t handle it.”

"But we can't dig up golden pits and golden eggs, that's too vulgar."

Baoshan

Tana, I'm angry that Jinshui and Jingou are up to no good. Can't they be a little more scholarly and subtle, like that pretty boy? I can tell what they're up to the moment they lift their butts.

Actually, Guo Baoshan's ancestors were all prominent figures in his hometown. At the very least, they owned a gold shop in Taiyuan before the liberation. They were running a gold shop in Taiyuan even before liberation. Look at Guo Jiefang's family; all his children are studious and successful. The contrast is stark. What exactly is the difference?

Linhai School was the best primary and secondary school in the Forestry Bureau. The teachers were mostly high-achieving Shanghai graduates who had come from big cities to support the nation's development; many were from the south, and few from the north. Speaking Shanghainese, these were originally literary and artistic youths who, on a whim, came to the school deep in the forest to become teachers of Chinese, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Because of the shared socialist system with the Soviet Union, and the Western blockade of China, the school taught Russian, so Soviet culture and art had a significant influence on contemporary China. Gorky's works, *Childhood*, *The Great Learning*, and *My Apprenticeship*, were highly praised by Stalin as representing the highest level of Soviet literature.

Learning a foreign language is amazing! Children are full of curiosity about everything, and Russian is such a great language. The Soviet Union had a profound influence on China; people admired the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union deeply influenced every aspect of China. Portraits of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Chairman Mao hung on the walls behind classrooms, in school offices, and factory offices. Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought saved the oppressed people of the Third World. In political class, the stages of human development were discussed, culminating in communism and the enjoyment of beef stew with potatoes. Upon hearing "beef stew with potatoes," Honglin's mouth watered. He thought it would be better than river fish from the Yalu River or tofu stew with pollock. In his excitement, Zhang Honglin secretly drew a sketch for his political teacher titled "Communism and Beef Stew with Potatoes." Honglin often found himself drawing during class, seeking his thoughts and spirit; drawing sketches of his teachers had become a bad habit. Finally, this time, he was caught red-handed by Gao Yali, a teacher with high political awareness and cultivation. No wonder the teacher was angry. The teacher was holding up a political book, and there was a steaming bowl of beef stew with potatoes in front of him. This was both an insult and a mockery of the teacher.

Old He and Old Meng led the way in exposing Zhang Honglin's prank, and Jin Yu eventually joined in, saying it was too much—drawing a sketch of the teacher! Jin Yu's first impression of Honglin was that he was dirty, unkempt, and slovenly. Honglin even explained that it was his artistic aura, a sophistry based on hearsay from painters. Jin Yu, hearing that he was an artist, assumed he must be a great scholar. She asked Honglin if he had eaten authentic copper pot hot pot with charcoal and pickled cabbage. Honglin asked Jin Yu to describe what the hot pot was like, and then drew a large, artistic copper pot for her, which infuriated her. He went home and told Pearl that there was a crazy, poor artist in their class who could only draw hot pots, and that he had deliberately drawn hot pots to annoy her. Jin Yu had a fiery temper and accused Hong Lin of bullying her. Zhen Zhu, however, spoke up for Jin Yu, saying that if Hong Lin could draw a hot pot, it meant he could make a sauerkraut hot pot just as delicious as his father's. This calmed Jin Yu down. Zhen Zhu knew Jin Yu's temper was as volatile as Jin Hai's, so this was the only way to appease her daughter. Zhen Zhu had many children and couldn't take care of them all, but she still cared most about Jin Yu's upbringing.

What about Zhang Honglin? He was reprimanded by his math homeroom teacher, a young intellectual from Shanghai, and the union chairman, Zhang Sirui, was made to come to school to apologize along with his son. Actually, the homeroom teacher had no choice; he just wanted the son and father to set an example for the other subject teachers, and that was it. Teachers need to save face, right? Otherwise, other children would follow suit. If discipline can't be controlled, the class can't be taught. What about Hongyu and Hongying? They're quite admirable for Zhang Sirui. They're also good at Russian, which the Russian teacher is very proud of. The bureau is going to hold Russian, math, and essay competitions, as well as the Hua Luogeng Math Competition—these are the children's goals. The motto for learning is: master math, physics, and chemistry, and you can go anywhere in the world. There's almost no traditional Chinese education in schools anymore. The Thirteen Classics, the Zuo Zhuan of the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Book of Changes, the Book of Rites, the Rites of Zhou, the Book of Etiquette, the Gongyang Commentary on the Book of Documents, the Book of Poetry—these are too difficult. And the Zhuangzi and Laozi are too hard to read. Education is following the Soviet-style education route.

However, Honglin also received some punishment for this incident. He was now responsible for all the chalk drawings for his class at school. Wanting to draw? Wanting to show off? Fine, give him ten large blackboards to draw on. This master artist has to draw something every week, and it can't be the same; he has to change the style. Want to show off? Then go all out! Honglin underestimated his homeroom teacher's abilities. Because of the national sports movement, which promotes physical fitness, basketball was the most popular sport in the bureau. The Soviet Union's basketball team, led by Tito of Slavic origin, was a force to be reckoned with, even feared by the Soviets. The bureau was holding basketball selection tournaments, sending promising players to the provincial teams, and each school was to hold one. The summer sports meet was the children's most anticipated event. Every sports meet meant they could drink soda and eat popsicles—their magic cure.

Honglin was also responsible for creating the promotional posters for the sports meet. This required a spirit of selfless dedication. The reward for painting the posters was that Honglin, who wasn't a good student, became the class's publicity committee member. Lao He was the academic committee member, and Guo Jinyu was the sports committee member. Lao Meng's father was furious; why hadn't his son, Lao Meng, achieved anything? The homeroom teacher made Lao Meng the math representative, which was a real hardship for Honglin, as he hated math homework because of his art. Lao Meng, on the other hand, was constantly tattling to the math teacher and homeroom teacher. Honglin often pondered a question: why did he feel so energetic even after just a few days in the monotonous studio with the Shanghai painters? Why did he feel like a cacophony of black crows howling as soon as he entered the classroom? He could feel something pure in the painters, but in the classroom, he felt only vulgarity. The thought of constantly being in such a depressing environment made it impossible for him to find the carefree spirit of ink painting. During this time, he came to understand the painter's teachings about remaining untainted by the mud. Only he could now grasp the beauty within this scene. However, Honglin's blackboard painting had reached a higher level. His latest creation secretly drew the souls of the three Young Pioneers from Lao Meng, Lao He, and Lao Jin; they were their prototypes. He understood the Shanghai painter's teachings: the soul of a painting is simply a likeness of spirit. Spiritual likeness is the highest level of creation; mere physical likeness is low-level imitation. Why is it not delightful to learn and practice what you have learned? Why grind an iron rod into a needle? Why must one read the Thirteen Classics and the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi? What becomes a classic must be earnestly understood.

He stole their souls without them even realizing it. Then another idea came to him: the homeroom teacher was the teacher in the poster, Zhang Sirui was a worker, and the political teacher was a model worker. These were all secrets in Honglin's heart—stealing spirits and creating with souls. He felt Jin Yu was too indifferent to him. She was just the daughter of a cafeteria manager; what was so special about her? He, Zhang Honglin, was the son of the union chairman. Now Honglin was showing some of the arrogance of an artist, because he could steal spirits and souls, creating with them. He no longer had to worry about inspiration; if his soul withered, he would steal it and create new life. Of course, Honglin hadn't read the Genesis passage in the Bible, where God molded a man from clay and breathed on him—that was Adam, the human being, and God gave Adam a soul.

Honglin thought he was the Jade Emperor of the class. He would draw the spirit of anyone he didn't like on the bulletin board to vent his anger.

Zhang Honglin had learned many stories from *Jin Ping Mei* from his uncle. The painter specifically told him about the inspiration behind *The Story of the Stone*. Both *Jin Ping Mei* and *The Story of the Stone* contain both dross and essence, but the essence outweighs the dross. In the past, the fates of beautiful women were almost always tragic, but without beauty, it wouldn't be a good book. Honglin asked the painter why. Honglin had his own thoughts: why did the painter's lumberjacks seem so soulful and spirited? The painter could only smile and say that Honglin's understanding of beauty had deepened; these were merely different expressions of beauty. Beauty, after all, is something that can never be stopped being explored…

Honglin felt that the girls in his class couldn't be called beautiful; they were too vulgar, especially Guo Jinyu's eyes—Honglin was afraid of those eyes. It seemed that only the beauties in the Forbidden City were truly beautiful, as depicted by painters. Honglin was confused; it was beauty that caused his mental turmoil.