Volume 2 Probation- Chapter 27 The Requiem

The tunes of "Liu Qing Niang" (literally the Lady of the Green Willow) wafted heavily over the eaves of a zither lessons classroom in the university; the sad, sorrowful tune cast a blanket of gloom and melancholy across the whole room. Never did anyone expect that the instructor for zither lessons, Yang Na, would be urgently hospitalized that night after playing this song. A piece of a wooden block was unearthed from the ground; an ancient relic found during the excavation of the school grounds which was part of the university's recent expansion project. By a stroke of coincidence, the Archaeology lecturer was present, and he called out frantically for the construction workers to handle the wooden block with care. After cleaning it, it was discovered that it was the board of an ancient zither! The age-old instrument was then delivered to Yang Na, the lecturer in charge of Ethnomusicology, for further examination and study. Judging by the number of strings able to be fixed upon on the zither, Yang Na concluded that the zither had come from a time no later than the Song Dynasty. Zithers had only five strings when it was first invented. As time went on, zither eventually had more strings added until it was thirteen in the Song Dynasty. Zithers nowadays have twenty-one strings altogether. With a fresh set of strings installed, at the pestering of her students, Yang Na played a song—the "Liu Qing Niang". None of them knew that the song had become the deathly requiem that had almost heralded their demise.