Chapter Thirteen: Memoir

  Name: Qu Jing

  Sex: Unknown

  Age: Unable to determine

  Occupation: Owner of Shadow Gallery

  Address: No. 771, Bomei Village, Nanshudun

  In China, there is a wonderful thing called "activity photos", which are said to allow people or objects photographed in them to have their own will and truly recreate the scene at that time. However, the recorded reality and the reality felt by human hearts are not exactly the same...

  The ancient bronze frame is a steady dark gold, with the silk craftsmanship outlining the elegant appearance of the blooming lily's stamens stretching out flexibly at each corner, surrounding a clear blue lake-like center. Some surprising scenes are scattered among them: snow scenes, where beautiful six-sided ice crystals flutter down, piling up soft piles on the ground. A wooden house with foggy windows, a short chimney floating with swirling smoke, and a line of footprints extending from afar, clearly visible on the thick snowy ground, as if you could hear the sound of a bird calling out, a bird with seven-colored feathers flying out of the forest, falling down a cluster of fine snowflakes, the cold air rushing in, taking a deep breath, and becoming intoxicated by the pure and complete natural flavor. What a strange feeling!

  Feng Yan unconsciously stretched out his hand to touch the things in the square frame, those soft snowflakes, cool ice crystals, and the body temperature of wild birds; or push open the rough wooden door to ask about the owner of the house, where there should be a woman waiting for her husband to return, surrounded by several children. The small cottage would have a charcoal fire burning dimly, with an old-fashioned ceramic pot on the stove, simmering a fragrant meat soup. The children wore coarse cotton clothes, their rosy faces having the health and innocence of the mountains. He stretched out his hand to push the wooden door, but what his fingertips touched was a warm and flat feeling... a photograph.

  "Can I help you with something, sir?"

  Feng Yan turned his head, and his gaze fell upon a short, stout figure wrapped in thick cotton clothing, wearing a cotton hat lined with fur, and sunglasses perched on their face. With a medium-pitched voice, it was momentarily impossible to distinguish whether they were male or female. Feng Yan was taken aback for a moment before nodding slightly at the person: "Just take a look."

  "Are you looking for something that's been lost?" the man said, his hands tucked into his sleeves as he strolled over and casually straightened out some of the merchandise on the shelves.

  "I'm very sorry, I don't understand what you mean." Feng Yan looked at the person who should be the shop owner with some confusion. Although it was already early winter, such attire in the warm and cozy store was still a bit too strange, just like this inexplicable question.

  "Things that were once lost, things that were missed, things that are regretted, things that want to be made whole again, like this incomplete moon, perhaps you can pick them up here." The person muttered to himself, wiping the soft wooden photo frame with a crescent-shaped new moon drum tower picture on the shelf with his sleeve.

  Feng Yan looked around and saw that the second floor of the store was filled with all sorts of picture frames made of various materials and shapes, but there were only two people inside, aside from him, it was just the shop owner wrapped in a thick coat.

  "I think you've mistaken me for someone else." Feng Yan forced a smile and prepared to leave. A strange market, a strange shop, and a strange owner - perhaps in one's lifetime they would never encounter all three at the same time, but he had today.

  After turning around, it should be time to leave, but Feng Yan stopped. It was when he turned around that he inadvertently glanced at the photo under the cuff of his cotton-padded jacket. Was it a trick of the light? Rubbing his eyes and looking again, it wasn't a trick of the light; the new moon in the photo was slowly changing. At first, it was a crescent moon, then a half-moon, and finally a full moon radiating soft, pure light. The sound of striking the hour came from the drum tower, startling the cold crows into flight... A moving picture!

  "Is this high-tech or what?" Feng Yan looked at the photo in surprise, which was still slowly changing. The full moon had turned into a crescent moon, and the east gradually revealed a fish belly white, just now it was a night scene, but now it had changed to a morning scene.

  "I'm afraid I've made a fool of you, sir. This is just some trivial trickery." As the shopkeeper spoke, he wiped his hand across the frame made of bluish steel, and suddenly it was as if a spring breeze had arrived overnight, causing thousands of pear blossoms to bloom! The flowers in the photo, which had been budding, all burst into bloom in an instant, bringing with them the warm, moist scent of Jiangnan's spring rain. A faint floral fragrance suddenly wafted into Feng Yan's nostrils. As a gentle breeze swept across the treetops, a shower of white blossoms fell before the two men. Feng Yan reached out to catch some, but saw that the petals passed through his palm and fell onto the Persian carpet with its thick, rich colors. In an instant, they had vanished without a trace, like melting spring snow.

  "This... is simply too amazing!" Fan Yan exclaimed in his heart. The story that was written with such imagination and fantasy had actually come true in reality, it's truly unbelievable.

  He had once read a science fiction story about an activity photo, the protagonist Xiao Ma accidentally got a magical camera that could take activity photos. Anything captured by the lens of this camera would be given life and could live in the photo as if watching a real-life drama. Two people who were once lovers may have parted ways in life but could develop different lives in the photo, or people who had passed away in reality could continue to survive in the photo because they were photographed when they were healthy. The protagonist Xiao Ma used this camera to record the joys and sorrows of ordinary people and wrote them into a book, becoming a great writer. However, after losing the camera, he fell into madness and hysteria, and finally ended up in a mental hospital. The ending of the story reveals that the camera did not have any special effects, Xiao Ma had been relying on his own keen mind and rich imagination to weave stories all along. He was talented but suffered from severe self-doubt, believing that his success was due to the magical camera, so when he lost it, he collapsed mentally. This story with a hint of obsession and melancholy aims to tell people that there is no free lunch in the world, only by believing in oneself and working hard can one achieve true success.

  Feng Yan is now in his early forties, and he works as an ordinary middle school Chinese teacher. Looking back on his life so far, it seems that there have been failures and successes, but neither has had a huge impact on his life, which overall remains calm and stable. Of course, there are also regrets, such as not being able to attend university or not being promoted to a senior title, but the most secretive of these regrets is about a youthful and reckless past affair.

  When studying at the normal school, Feng Yan secretly liked the class flower of the neighboring class. Due to face and the environment of the time, Feng Yan never dared to tell the other party, until the day of graduation assignment, he finally plucked up the courage to leave a photo with the other party, after which they went their separate ways and never met again. Of course, now Feng Yan has a wife and children, but this one beautiful dream of his youth, tinged with subtle colors, remains quietly guarded in a warm corner of his heart, occasionally still secretly growing. If he had spoken up at the time, would there be a different situation now? Perhaps, one possibility is that the other party became his wife. Feng Yan's idea when seeing that science fiction was to imagine what kind of life the class flower and he would lead if they were together in that photo.

  The shopkeeper, wearing a cotton hat, looked at Feng Yan with a crooked face and a smile, his hands searching in his sleeves as if looking for something: "Although it may not be what you imagined, Mr., this book of mine can still fulfill your wishes." The shopkeeper said, pulling out a hardcover, narrow book from his sleeve, which was wide enough to hide large items.

  "How did you know what I was thinking?" Feng Yan looked at the short shop owner in surprise, as if he had walked into one of those strange and supernatural stories that students in his class liked to tell.

  "Doing business naturally requires understanding the subtleties of human expression, and I was simply making an educated guess based on your facial expressions." The shopkeeper said as he opened the cover of the book, revealing a thick black cardboard page with a semi-transparent thin paper covering it, which was a photo album.

  "All you need to do is put the photo in it, and the people or objects in the photo will naturally come to life and start moving." The shopkeeper said lightly, as if describing something very ordinary.

  "Really...can it?" Feng Yan half-believed and half-doubted, taking over the book and flipping through it to find out what made it different from ordinary photo albums, but was disappointed to discover that this book didn't have any special place where myths like Arabian Nights could appear. "You're not cheating me, are you?"

  The shop owner shook his head lightly and said: "You also saw those two photos just now..."

  "Maybe it's your doing?" Feng Yan suspiciously put down the photo album and picked up the frame with the morning scenery photo again. The picture had changed to a stormy night, the storm moving with Feng Yan as he moved the frame, merging into a turbulent flow pouring out of the frame towards him, overflowing his calves and disappearing without a trace.

  "If the gentleman doesn't believe it, he can take it back and try it out first. Once satisfied, he can come back to pay." The shop owner sincerely said as he handed the photo album back to Feng Yan's hands, seeing him off at the door.

  Feng Yan's wife didn't know why Feng Yan was particularly excited and a little tense today. He, who never drank alcohol, unexpectedly drank an entire bottle of beer in the evening without showing any signs of intoxication. After briefly greeting his wife, he busied himself in his study. First, he needed to find that precious photo. This wasn't difficult, as he had kept it well-preserved for years. When the photo was placed in the album, something strange happened. The scene from when the photo was taken appeared before Feng Yan's eyes: the two people in the photo, himself and the class beauty, were awkwardly standing apart; his own tense expression, with clenched fists and a stiff face, was vividly reproduced; even the sounds of the surrounding crowd could be heard, with some people passing by behind them. Feng Yan saw himself standing there, at a loss for what to do, until the photo was taken, and the class beauty left after squeezing his hand, without him being aware of it.

  "To be honest, I have a pretty good impression of you." The class beauty said this and left with a flourish.

  Feng Yan was stunned. It turned out that the class beauty had also taken a liking to him back then? Was he too nervous at the time and didn't notice, or had his photo album already begun creating a life different from reality? Feng Yan began to look through it with even more interest, watching as he and the class beauty started falling in love, got married, and lived a life that was different from his own. That night, Feng Yan didn't sleep at all, and by dawn, it just so happened to be the wedding day of his photo album self and the class beauty. In the photos, they were surrounded by fragrance and shadows; in reality, Feng Yan was overjoyed.

  The boss didn't cheat him after all! Feng Yan planned to go to the market after work to pay the money, but strangely, where he saw a large market yesterday is now a dilapidated building. Feng Yan wandered around the area again, but still gained nothing. Since that's the case, there's no choice but to give up. Feng Yan returned home and continued to look at his precious photo album.

  It's not just that photo, I want to see what other changes there will be. Feng Yan took out the family photo album and inserted various photos into that wonderful album one by one. There were black-and-white photos taken when he was 100 years old, color photos taken when his son was full moon, and wedding photos of his parents when they were young. As Feng Yan looked at those familiar yet strange scenes unfolding before his eyes, it was as if he was watching a segment of memories that had passed away. The happy moments, the sad moments, every scene was so vividly presented before his eyes, and to him, this was far more meaningful than the intentional fake love in TV dramas.

  Slowly, people around him knew that Feng Yan had a hobby of photography and collecting photos. He wanted all the photos he could get, and even when he was free, he would always carry a camera to take pictures everywhere. After Feng Yan's wife found out about his hobby, she was very supportive and often brought back photos from her colleagues for him. From then on, Feng Yan started saying strange things to his wife, such as how Old Wang and his wife actually had a bad relationship, or how Little Zheng didn't really have a girlfriend. What was weird was that just a few days later, Old Wang's wife really did show up at his workplace to quarrel with him, and it was also discovered that the "girlfriend" Little Zheng had been talking about was actually his cousin. All these things kept verifying the accuracy of what Feng Yan had said. Even Feng Yan himself began to believe that this photo album might be depicting real life.

  A week ago, Feng Yan's wife attended a high school reunion and brought back a stack of photos taken during the gathering. As usual, she handed them all over to Feng Yan. As he flipped through the album, he saw his wife's classmates chatting and catching up with each other. Someone suggested playing a game of truth, where the loser had to reveal something they felt was lacking in their life. Feng Yan listened with amusement as these middle-aged people shared various strange stories, such as not being able to afford meat buns at the high school cafeteria back then, or having had a crush on a teacher but never confessing. But when he heard his wife's truth, his heart skipped a beat and his smile froze on his face.

  The wife, dressed up and radiant, blushed as she said that she had once liked a boy from another school, but never dared to speak out, and finally only asked him for an old photo as a keepsake. The people in the photo were banging on the table, excitedly shouting for the wife to say the other person's name, and looking at the wife's shy face, Yan couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy.

  Who is he after all! Is it possible that my wife still likes him? Feng Yan anxiously looked at the subsequent development in the photos, but his wife just smiled and smiled, refusing to mention the man's name.

  Feng Yan's wife clearly felt that her husband's attitude towards her had changed. Although Feng Yan was not a romantic person in the past, he was very considerate of her, but now she saw more coldness and suspicion in his eyes. Despite her efforts to find out what was wrong, she couldn't see any results, and could only watch as the gap between them grew bigger and bigger. Sometimes, Feng Yan's wife even felt that she was not capable of being a good husband and maintaining this family.

  When he heard that his wife had a car accident, Feng Yan was at home looking for the photos mentioned in their conversation. After putting down the phone, he seemed to be stunned for a moment and couldn't digest the news on the other end of the line.

  "Feng Yan, Ya Ping has had an accident and is in great danger now. Hurry up to XX Hospital!"

  Outside was pouring rain, Fang Yan rushed to the hospital when the doctor told him that Fang Yaping had entered a critical phase and asked him to go in and see her for the last time.

  Feng Yan dragged his heavy footsteps, hesitated at the door of the ward for a long time before he finally gathered the courage to open it. The witness's words still echoed in his mind: "Your wife was hit by a truck while trying to protect a man who was crossing the road recklessly. What a pity!" Who could make his wife sacrifice her life to save him? Was it... him? A vague answer began to form in Feng Yan's heart, and he slowly walked to his wife's bedside, gazing at her coldly.

  The frail body, filled with all sorts of tubes, had once been rosy cheeks now turned a deathly pale white. This battered and unrecognizable person was actually his own wife? In Feng Yan's heart, a surge of indescribable emotions arose, a mix of sadness and a hint of cruel schadenfreude, betraying oneself to protect that man until the end... served her right!

  "Finally... finally... you're here..."

  Under the oxygen mask, his wife's urgent and weak voice came out, accompanied by heavy breathing, sounding sharp and terrifying. However, his already scattered eyes suddenly cleared up when he saw him, Feng Yan knew that this was what people called "the return of light".

  One of the nurses understood that the patient was beyond saving and quietly removed the oxygen mask and exited the room, leaving Feng Yan and his wife to bid each other farewell.

  "Hmm." Feng Yan replied vaguely, unsure of what expression to use in front of his dying wife.

  "You... you're fine... that's good..." Fang Yaping said with a pale smile, "I... I... went to your school to find you... that person... wore... the same kind of clothes as you"

  Feng Yan's expression turned solemn upon hearing his wife's words, a sense of foreboding surging in his chest. The same clothes, what does it mean?

  "I... I thought... you were a truck... and I just... rushed over..." Her words started to become disjointed, "You're... okay... good... good..."

  Feng Yan's face suddenly turned deathly pale, he trembled as he grasped his wife's hands: "Don't say it, don't say it anymore, doctor, doctor come quickly to save her!" He shouted desperately.

  "It's...no use...". His wife smiled, grasping his hand with an unexpectedly strong grip. "I...don't regret...being your wife. I...really...like you...the photo...I've kept it all along..."

  "What photo, Ya Ping, don't say it..." Feng Yan fiercely shook his head, not allowing that terrible thought to have any possibility of appearing. That terrible thought!

  "...the photo...of you..." The red glow on his wife's face began to fade, and the beeping of the heart monitor also started to quicken, "The photo...from your high school days..."

  As the ECG machine emitted a steady beep, Feng Yan felt his hand relax, and his heart sank at that moment. On the pillow next to his wife was her most beloved old-fashioned leather wallet, which she had used for so many years but refused to replace. Inside the wallet was a black-and-white photo of himself smiling brightly in a world of black and white when he was young, while now he couldn't smile or cry anymore, only letting out a hoarse whisper from his throat.

  "Have you thought it through?" The shop owner wearing a cotton hat put his hands in his sleeves and asked the middle-aged man in front of him with a smile.

  "Yes." The man nodded resolutely, entrusting his son to his parents and no longer having any worries. Yaping, I'll come to accompany you now.

  The shopkeeper raised his right hand and drew out a beam of light. In the light, the man gradually disappeared without a trace.

  "Sorry, the photos here are not for sale. I only sell frames and albums." The strange shop owner, wearing a black striped shirt like a zebra and sporting diving goggles, led the customer away from the giant group photo. In an oak frame, a middle-aged man and his wife were smiling at each other...

  This is the Bomei Collection, a complete collection of markets, the largest market in the world. The night is deep and dark, the market is closed, and I invite all the guests to come early next time.