A long, long road, the rich fragrance of books, a gentle spring breeze-all lingered, entwined around the heart. A sliver of sunlight was enough to brighten a vision long dimmed, enough to open the covers of books and let them offer you a little boat, drifting gently across the sea of books, while the gulls soaring above it awakened your long-slumbering soul.
Pale yellow pages, neat regular-script characters, page numbers steeped in classical charm-what they portrayed for us might be the enduring legacy of Confucius's Analects, the widespread appeal of Laozi's Tao Te Ching, or the historical tales in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, encompassing the breadth and depth of five thousand years of Chinese history. The verses of Li Bai, the Immortal Poet, would surface in your mind again. The broad spirit and determination to forge ahead in "The day will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves; I shall hoist my cloudlike sail and cross the vast blue sea" constantly inspired you to pursue your dreams bravely. In Su Dongpo's celebrated Prelude to Water Melody, "People know sorrow and joy, parting and reunion; the moon knows clouds and clarity, waxing and waning" carried a hint of lament, yet these words also helped you understand that you should not pursue perfection too insistently or expect to spend too long together with family and dear friends. In the first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong's lifelong labor of love, the opening sentence, apart from the introductory verse, also explained this principle: "Long united, they must divide; long divided, they must unite." In The Beautiful Lady Yu, written by Li Yu, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, the lines brimming with rhythm-"The carved balustrades and jade steps should still remain, but the rosy