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Chapter 1.3- The Unfathomable Past(3)
After Shi Yi saw the email, her gaze shifted to the bottom right corner of her screen. 7:36 a.m.
She was a little worried, would this meet-up be like the previous ones where, because of unexpected weather changes, a sudden sickness, busyness at work, or various other strange events that arose out of the blue, it would be cancelled?
But this time, Heaven suddenly opened its eyes to her and the rain did not continue coming down.
Their videographer was actually from the province of Shaanxi, so even though he was not born in Xi'an, he was still familiar with the city. Shi Yi was worried about being late, so she anxiously asked Hong Xiaoyu and the videographer to confirm how long it would take to get to Qinglong Temple from where they were. The end result was, they were early by a full twenty minutes.
Perhaps because it was cherry blossom season and the weather had just cleared up as well, Qinlong Temple's main entrance was bustling with people coming and going and was rather crowded. They chose a more noticeable location to wait, and approximately ten minutes later, they saw Zhousheng Chen alone in the distance coming toward them.
As Shi Yi faced the sun, she squinted her eyes and recognized him, and her heart seemed to quietly settle down.
"Shi Yi, you're a lost cause......" Hong Xiaoyu whispered to her. "Your face is all red. Don't tell me it's because of the sun."
She shook her head. "I'm not going to try to explain to you. I can't explain it so that you would understand anyway."
You're 10 minutes early. Is that a habit of yours?"
Zhousheng Chen stretched out his hand and gave two entrance tickets to Shi Yi. "When I am meeting someone, I am normally fifteen minutes early. Just now, I used five minutes to purchase the tickets." The remaining ticket, he handed to the videographer.
With a thank you, Shi Yi took them from him and then slapped one of the tickets loudly into Xiaoyu's palm.
Hong Xiaoyu had never been here before, so naturally, she did not know this meeting place she had arranged was very pitifully small.
They entered the temple and wandered around for a little while. The cherry blossoms bloomed boldly and unabashedly, and the eaves had a mottled, ancient color. However, the small number of people sitting on newspapers and chatting in groups of twos or threes detracted quite a bit from the blossom-viewing atmosphere and made it seem more like a regular spring outing. Despite it being such a crowded, little temple, there were still several groups of tourists who were walking side by side and listening to their guide's explanation.
"...... 1986, Qinglong Temple introduced cherry trees from Japan and planted them on the temple grounds. There are a total of twelve precious varieties here. The ones that blossom early in the season include the Edohigan [彼岸樱], Ito-zakura [红枝垂樱]......" The tour guide recited his prepared commentary.
Shi Yi listened in interestedly and even took out her mobile phone to secretly record part of his description, but unfortunately, the guide soon left. She listened to a few seconds of the recording but discovered that it was noisy and unclear, and she hesitated over whether to delete it.
If she wanted to recall the information later, perhaps taking some photographs of the interpretive signs with her camera would be better.
"When I first arrived, the people at the research institute here gave me a book of Xi'an city's notes and descriptions. If you would like, I can give it to you," Zhousheng Chen told her in a nonchalant tone. "All over this city, there are stories that can be told."