My girlfriend is a Miao demon.

Monday morning rush hour always starts earlier than usual. Although Xiang Nanfeng was prepared and left home shortly after 7 a.m., by the time he arrived at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Wangshan Medical University, the clock on his watch was still between 9 and 10 a.m., which is the busiest time of the week for the hospital.

Normally, Xiang Nanfeng's three follow-up examinations should have been scheduled for the first, third, and sixth months after surgery. The first month had long passed, and the third month hadn't arrived yet, but his vivid dream had disrupted the usual rhythm. Fortunately, the results of this last-minute follow-up examination were surprisingly satisfactory to both parties.

"Don't worry, there's no swelling, no fluid buildup, and your brain is perfectly fine, not a bit atrophied!" his attending physician, Director Shen, joked. "How's it going? I remember you've been having strange dreams lately. Are you still having them?"

"No, I'm not doing it anymore, I'm not doing it anymore."

Xiang Nanfeng gave an awkward smile.

"You should still avoid strenuous exercise for the next three months, such as running, jumping, or lifting heavy objects. Also, avoid looking at your phone or computer for extended periods. When bending over to pick something up, move slowly to avoid a sudden increase in intracranial pressure. By the way, I remember your colleague said you like hiking? You can't go hiking right now. Let's talk about those kinds of activities after spring."

"Okay, okay, I won't climb anymore, I won't climb anymore."

Xiang Nanfeng could only manage an awkward smile.

An unexpected car accident left him in a coma for 46 days. But only he knew best that this prolonged coma was not a pathological reaction, but rather an unspeakable physical need arising from the duality of the dream world and the real world. And for the sake of this duality, the car accident and the surgery were probably no accident. Otherwise, how could anyone explain how, after the two spaces separated, the car accident and the surgery left no trace of injury or illness in his body, just like waking up from a dream?

It was already 11:30 a.m. when we left the Third Affiliated Hospital of Wangshan Medical University. Xiang Nanfeng's stomach was rumbling. It was less than two kilometers away from here by car from Muge Kindergarten, where Luyao worked. If we went through the residential area and alleys, the journey would be even shorter.

There's a Hong Kong-style dim sum restaurant in Haiquan Dongli residential area, just across the street from Muge Kindergarten. He and Luyao had visited it twice before, but it had been a while since they'd eaten there. Xiang Nanfeng was craving the taste of their fried rice noodles, so he decided to go there for lunch today.

This shop's rice noodles sell well. Luyao once said that she must come for lunch because the rice noodles usually sell out before dinner.

Back then, the two of them could share a bowl of rice noodles, and order a basket of shrimp dumplings, a basket of rice noodle rolls, and a couple of small steamed dishes like spare ribs with black bean sauce and handmade beef balls. But now, he was all alone, so Xiang Nanfeng only ordered a bowl of rice noodles and a bowl of steamed chicken feet with black bean sauce. The chicken feet were actually a side dish that Luyao liked.

Xiang Nanfeng chose a spot by the window, where he could see the gate of Muge Kindergarten across Huihai Road, behind which stood the ancient building with a history of over a hundred years.

The weather at Wangshan today is not good. Another cold wave has arrived, and the air is filled with a gray mist like a veil. The building stands quietly in the misty sycamore forest, its cold stone outlines a mysterious and solemn silhouette.

The building's exterior walls are constructed of dark gray granite. Even from a distance, one can still faintly see green moss growing in the cracks between the stones, giving the walls a mottled and weathered texture. The long, narrow, pointed arched windows are inlaid with stained glass, and one can imagine the colorful light and shadow inside the kindergarten when sunlight shines through the glass.

These stained glass windows are clearly not the original ones from when the building was completed, but the wrought iron scrolls and thorn patterns on the window frames are still over a hundred years old, their rust and patina telling a story of time, old-fashioned yet still moving. The building's roof, with its dark blue-black spires piercing the sky, seems like fingertips praying to God, yearning for salvation.

The interlacing of layered pointed arches and flying buttresses gives it a slightly exaggerated vertical tension, as if it were ready to break free from the earth's constraints at any moment. Even without the huge and heavy bronze hanging clock, Xiang Nanfeng could still recognize that the space beneath the spire was originally a clock tower. One can imagine how evocative the stories of the distant chimes from over a hundred years ago, carried by the swaying trees and the wind.

What is that?

What is that?!

Isn't that building, that big villa or that small castle, also a Gothic-style building?

Wangshan City over a hundred years ago: Oh no! There was no Wangshan City at that time, not even a place name like Wangshan! Over a hundred years ago, amidst the rolling waves of rice paddies in the vast fields north of Shounan Mountain, there actually stood a consulate! What were the Germans doing here? Were they here to plant rice? What exactly was the business of this consulate?

"Sir, your rice noodles. All your dishes are served."

"Oh, okay, thank you!"

"Sir, is this your first time visiting our store?"

"what?"

Xiang Nanfeng then looked up and saw a waitress about the same age as Luyao. He smiled shyly and shook his head.

"No...this isn't my first time here."

The little girl clearly misunderstood Xiang Nanfeng's shyness. She thought he was embarrassed because he hadn't been recognized, so she kept apologizing.

"Oh, so you're a regular customer! I'm so sorry! With Chinese New Year approaching, we're having a promotion: we're giving our loyal customers a free 100 yuan voucher. Next year, it will automatically be deducted from your regular purchase, but you can only deduct 5 yuan at a time, up to 20 times. Why don't you give me your membership card and I'll top it up for you?"

Luyao had mentioned that this small shop was located in a residential area and mainly served regular customers, so almost everyone had a membership card. Xiang Nanfeng could only smile shyly and shake his head again, saying:

"Never mind, never mind, I don't have a membership card, my friend does, but she didn't come this time."

"Oh, could you please let her know if it's convenient for you? This event is only available this week; she just needs to show up, she doesn't need to make a purchase."

"Oh, she...she left Wangshan, she might not come back."

"How about you get a membership card?"

"Well... okay."

The waiter took out a pre-prepared membership card registration form and a pen from the front pocket of his apron and handed them to Xiang Nanfeng. Xiang Nanfeng remembered hearing a couple arguing as they left the tea restaurant, discussing the Pastoral Song Kindergarten. So, while filling out the form, he asked:

"When I came in, I heard a couple arguing as they came out. It sounded like it was about the kindergarten. Do you know what they were arguing about?"

"Oh, that couple? I think they wanted to visit Pastoral Kindergarten because their child needs to enroll in kindergarten. But the man got the open day date wrong, writing yesterday's open day as today. As a result, they took the day off today, only to find out they had the wrong date and weren't allowed in. Yesterday was Sunday, after all."

"Oh, I see. Do you know when the next open day at Pastoral Kindergarten is?"

"Next time? Well...maybe next Sunday? I heard the older sister and brother complaining that it would be a week later if they came again."

"Oh, a week from now? Great!"

Xiang Nanfeng handed the membership card information sheet back to her, silently plotting his future plans. While the kindergarten wasn't exactly a secret facility, it was certainly not a place anyone could just sneak in. Because of Luyao's incident, the gatekeeper had already identified Xiang Nanfeng as an intermittently mentally ill person who wasn't yet registered; he certainly couldn't get in easily on his own. How could he get in? Who could he ask for help?

The matter of the Muge Kindergarten can't be rushed, especially since there's still a week to prepare. The truly urgent matter is the literature review, a task I missed the day before yesterday, and also part of this afternoon's plan. After lunch, Xiang Nanfeng took the K38 express bus from Nanhui Road to the old branch of the Wangshan City Library. The so-called "old branch" isn't really that old; it's less than 18 years old since its completion.

A drab, three-story building stands at the entrance of Guangnian Alley, resembling a square, old-fashioned biscuit. A row of rusted, reddish-brown exhaust fans on the roof looks like a string of panting nostrils. The beige paint bears the marks of time on every corner, and the peeling walls reveal the bluish-gray brick base beneath.

Xiang Nanfeng hopes to find clues to the mysterious ancient castle beneath the Shounanshan pool here, as well as the legends of the Lou family and the predecessor of Muge Kindergarten. The Western-style buildings in the Old Summer Palace, the Ruins of St. Paul's in Macau, the embassy buildings in Dongjiaomin Lane, Beijing... every Western-style building deep in the heart of ancient Eastern civilization must have an extraordinary historical story, and these real histories in the real world will not easily sink to the bottom of the water with the passage of time.

According to the first edition of the "Wangshan City Gazetteer," compiled by the Wangshan City History Office in 2009 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Wangshan's establishment as a city, Wangshan City was established in 1989 by reorganizing Wangshan County. Its jurisdiction includes the entire territory of the former Wangshan County, one town and two townships in the neighboring Xiyang County, and two townships in Changqing County. The former Wangshan County was established in 1971 by separating one town and six townships from the former Xiyang County. At that time, the county party committee and county government were located in the only town in the county, namely Wangshan Town, hence the name Wangshan County.

It wasn't until we traced it back to Wangshan Town that this town finally began to have a little bit of "history" to it:

Wangshan Town originated from a military post set up by the Kuomintang army in 1927 during the Northern Expedition—the Wangshan Military Post, which is the true source of the name Wangshan. In late 1937, during the War of Resistance against Japan, Xiyang County fell to the Japanese. After being abandoned for two years, the military post became a barracks for the Japanese and puppet troops. At its peak, it housed more than 150 Japanese and puppet troops, which shows the strategic importance of Wangshan, making it a place that was "uncontested by military strategists."

In 1945, Japan surrendered after its defeat in the war. The strategic value of the military stations and barracks disappeared, and the Wangshan barracks were officially converted to civilian use. The Kuomintang established a provincial primary school and a provincial hospital here. Then, merchants opened oil mills, pharmacies, tea shops that bought tea leaves, and rice shops that bought rice. Wangshan finally took the shape of a town.

Therefore, after Xiyang was liberated in August 1949, the new government set up Wangshan as a town under the jurisdiction of Xiyang County, thus beginning the history of Wangshan as an administrative region.

While this ten-volume "Wangshan City Gazetteer" clearly recounts the origins of Wangshan, Xiang Nanfeng was greatly disappointed after examining the specific chapters. The gazetteer's history is largely contemporary, focusing solely on Wangshan's rapid development and recent achievements over the past 20 years, while glossing over everything before Wangshan was established as a county. Clearly, the idea of ​​using local gazetteers to unravel three mysteries was not wrong; the mistake lay in coming to the wrong place and choosing the wrong book.

If you really want to research the history of Wangshan from the Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, you should go to the nearby Xiyang County Library to check the local chronicles of Xiyang County.

And so, just as the old saying goes, "good things come to those who wait," it's getting late today, and going to Xiyang will only mean spending another day in a hotel and waiting for the library to open tomorrow.

Xiang Nanfeng decided to go home to rest before the evening rush hour, ate dinner early, and went to bed. The next morning, before dawn, he rented an old car and drove onto the ring expressway before 7 a.m. Following the navigation, he arrived at Xiyang County Library at 8:30 a.m. Then he found a place to park and have breakfast. As soon as the library opened at 9 a.m., he was already standing in front of the book lending machine.

Here, Xiang Nanfeng finally found four sets of local gazetteers as he had hoped. In chronological order, these four sets of gazetteers are:

The Xiyang County Gazetteer was compiled in 1580 (the eighth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty); the Xiyang New Gazetteer was compiled in 1691 (the thirtieth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty); the Newly Revised Xiyang County Gazetteer was compiled in 1746 (the eleventh year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty); and the Revised Xiyang County Gazetteer was compiled in 1929 (the eighteenth year of the Republic of China). Among the above sets of county gazetteers, the Wanli edition of the *Xiyang County Gazetteer*, in five volumes and five books, is well-preserved with clear characters, though it is the smallest and most concise. The Kangxi edition of the *Xiyang New Gazetteer* is a manuscript, originally a unique copy, and its original content was the most detailed, consisting of three cases and eighteen volumes. Unfortunately, in 1926, the Xiyang Academy, where the book was kept, was destroyed in a major flood, and two cases were lost. The Qianlong edition of the *Newly Revised Xiyang County Gazetteer*, in eight volumes and eight books, is the largest extant ancient gazetteer of Xiyang. The Republican-era *Revised Xiyang County Gazetteer* is the best printed, also in five volumes and five books, though still thread-bound, it is a collotype print.

Of course, all the above-mentioned local chronicles are only photocopied copies available for citizens to browse at will.

For Xiang Nanfeng, whether these local chronicles were original or not was irrelevant. The only important thing was whether the shocking glimpses hidden between the lines were the true, unpredictable truth.

The silent midnight is like a ghostly wanderer, quietly climbing onto the windows of speeding cars without ever making a sound.

Through the dark tinted windows, the dazzling neon lights of the city faintly appeared at the end of the highway. The southern streets, illuminated by starlight, sped past, and the towering buildings of the central business district gradually revealed their graceful or robust forms in the lights.

Rolling down the car window towards the south, braving the biting winter wind to face the beautiful and magnificent modern cityscape at night, the world becomes a still image in this fleeting moment, with only the occasional flashing aviation obstruction lights between the distant skyscrapers indicating that this is not a still photograph.

On the overpasses beneath the skyscrapers, cars weave through the city; in the underground world beneath, the flow of people in the subway intertwines and disperses. Neon lights illuminate the night sky; in the cycle of night and day, in the passage of time, every life will traverse the cycle of awakening and slumber, growth and aging, birth and death. And flying over this city, traversing the history of industrial civilization, in the city's silhouette, in the rearview mirror of a car, one can always see the darkest blocks of color and the most rugged lines under the night sky:

Let's get to know each other again. Hello, Shou Nanshan!