In 1977, Zhuang Xiaomeng woke up from the dream of being an archaeological expert in 2023 and became a silent temporary worker at the county cultural station. With memories that spanned half a century, she discerned the texture of the times among the stacks of old papers and old artifacts: fragments of manuscripts from the Republic of China, the rust marks of bronze vessels, the uneven quality of the antique market in southern Henan when it first opened, as well as historical details that have been repeatedly tested in film and television dramas. The truths buried by time awakened little by little at her fingertips.
What concerned her more than the cultural relics was the man Zhou Muye who kept the cotton purse close to his body for seven days. He is her colleague and the only overlapping coordinate in the memories of the two lives. There was no fiery oath between them, only the asparagus moving quietly on the window sill, the edges of the purse that had been frayed when returning from a business trip, and the shadows that overlapped and separated while walking side by side under the street lamp. The emotions are as restrained and precise as the identification of cultural relics. In the unique implicitness of 1977, it has grown into a gentler existence than any artifact.
"I wonder if Zhou Zhiming is Hu Dieyu, and Hu Dieyu's dream is Zhou Yu?" She once thought that rebirth was an indistinguishable dream, until she suddenly understood in Zhou Muye's clear eyes in the summer night dumpling restaurant: the boundary between dreaming and waking is never important, what is important is which direction you choose to go after waking up. She chose to move forward, taking with her the knowledge from her past life, the warmth of this life, and the person around her who was willing to stand by her side, she walked into this awakening era. There are no bloody entanglements, only the most touching restraint and affection in Eastern aesthetics. If you want to feel the temperature of 1977 among the piles of old papers and old utensils, "Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Butterflies" will be a sober and gentle dream worth staying for.
