misfortune
The supervisor quickly pulled Mu Li away. Seeing me in a state of collapse and irrationality, and then looking at Bao He, who was baring his teeth and claws at their feet, the supervisor shouted sharply: "Xu Yi!"
The long, drawn-out voice, imbued with a pale yellow magical power, seeped into my mind like a drop of purifying water. My completely collapsed reason was revived by the rapidly spreading magic, erecting a high wall to block my emotions...
My mind cleared instantly, and Baohe calmed down as well, looking at his own hands with a puzzled expression, muttering to himself, "What...did I just do?"
"Sigh..." The supervisor sighed again, walked over and patted my head: "Xu Yi, you are not the same as before. You have been cultivating for too long, and now you have reached the point where you can influence the little ghosts around you. You must not be willful anymore... If you continue as you were just now, if you continue to indulge in this for a longer period of time, all the ghosts in this capital will be affected by you. At this point, you must not be careless!"
"So..." I sniffled, "I can't even cry anymore?"
“You can cry,” the supervisor said, looking me straight in the eye, “but you can’t keep indulging in your emotions like you just did, letting them run rampant.”
I turned my head and looked again at the shriveled corpse on the bed, then covered my face and wept bitterly…
The mournful sobs rose slowly through the layers of clouds, staining the sky above the entire imperial city with sorrow. But people could only see the clouds suddenly darkening; they couldn't see the pain in the weeping people's hearts. Perhaps they didn't even care...
The world is just like the world.
Because Chef Deng died from a hunger strike, and had been dead for almost ten days, his soul had probably gone with the Black and White Impermanence (the spirits of death in Chinese mythology). The body lying on the bed was just an empty shell, with nothing left...
He didn't even leave a single word... not even a goodbye...
He was probably angry, angry that I didn't keep it from him, angry that I made him, an old man, bury his son...
I recalled Chef Deng's heartbreaking cries after seeing his son off... Perhaps at that moment, he had already made up his mind to go with his son...
Unfortunately, I didn't notice... I'm angry at myself for being careless, and angry at myself for not listening to the Prime Minister. If only I had listened to the Prime Minister's advice... if only... everything might still be possible...
But at that time, my mind was filled with thoughts of the rise and fall of dynasties, and Ah Shi's future...
They didn't even notice the poor old man... What kind of utter despair must he have felt to choose to starve himself to death?
Chef Deng was carried onto a stretcher by the soldiers Mu Li had summoned. I held the handle of the stretcher, intending to take him to the cemetery. As the stretcher passed the statue of the Kitchen God, a crisp "clink" sound announced the breaking of the porcelain... followed by a series of "clinking" sounds of shattering ceramics...
The statue of the Kitchen God is broken...
Chef Deng's lineage... is amazing...
I looked at the broken and collapsed statue beside me, and my nose involuntarily turned red again. I walked over, trembling, and picked up three incense sticks, wanting to offer them to it one more time, but I couldn't light the incense stick no matter what I did...
Yes, I'm not human, nor am I a descendant of Chef Deng's lineage. It simply won't... won't accept my incense...
I cried, trembling, as I placed the unlit incense stick into the incense burner before the statue of the deity…
Because the imperial kitchen deals with food, and the palace does not permit such things, we set up the mourning hall in a side courtyard of the prime minister's residence...
The servants at the Prime Minister's residence were very efficient, and in no time they had worked with the people from the Imperial Observatory to set up the mourning hall perfectly...
I lit three incense sticks and offered them as the first incense in the mourning hall...
The Prime Minister and Ah Shi stayed by my side the whole time, and they also offered incense.
Ah Shi is nominally a prince, and the prime minister is the same age as Chef Deng, so neither of them is suitable to keep vigil. Chef Deng's apprentices and grand-apprentices are all in the imperial kitchen and cannot even leave the palace, so only I can keep vigil in the mourning hall...
Baohe is a ghost and not suitable to stay here, so I didn't bring him out. Instead, I sent the Director of the Imperial Observatory back to the Imperial Observatory with him...
So, in the entire mourning hall, only I and another servant from the Prime Minister's residence were there to keep watch. Many people had not yet heard the news, and there weren't many people who came to pay their respects...
I sat in the mourning hall all afternoon, burning gold ingots in my hands, listening to the endless chanting of the eulogy, and watching the monks perform the rituals... praying to heaven that he would not suffer in his next life...
The evening rituals were over, and the officials from the Imperial Observatory returned to the palace to report back…
The entire mourning hall was even quieter; not even the chirping of insects could be heard. It was as if heaven and earth were unaware that this kind old man had passed away, and there was neither wind nor rain all night…
Ah Shi came to see me several times, but he didn't know how to comfort me, so he could only leave dejectedly...
Around midnight, the prime minister came again. Seeing that I was still in the same posture as during the day, he came over and sat down with me to burn paper money...
"I regret it..."
"What?" The prime minister turned his head to look at me, seemingly not having reacted yet.
"I regret it..." I threw the folded ingot back into the fire, watching the yellow flames devour it, leaving only blackish-gray ash that thickened the ash at the bottom of the brazier. "I regret it. I should have listened to you. I shouldn't have been so fixated on my own 'honest' rule, so rigidly adhering to the bottom line of 'not deceiving'... In the face of human life, everything else should be secondary... But I..." I choked back tears, "Now I understand..."
My tears dripped into the brazier, causing the fire to leap even higher. Those raging sparks seemed to be blaming me for my stubbornness...
"Don't think like that..." The prime minister's deep voice slowly drifted over: "The decisions people make at the time are always what they believe to be the best option at that time. Moreover, 'honesty' and 'honesty' are inherently admirable qualities. It's just that people are different, so they choose different paths..."
"But I should have known!" I slammed the gold ingot down in a fit of anger, stood up, and paced back and forth to calm my inner turmoil. "I should have known his personality! I should have put myself in his shoes and considered things from the perspective of an old man with only one son... I should have put myself in his shoes and chosen 'Chef Deng's' path from 'Chef Deng's' perspective, instead of choosing 'Chef Deng's' path from 'Xu Yi's' perspective... It was my fault..." This sentence kept repeating in my mind, and no matter how I tried to reason with it, it was indelible...
"It's my fault..." I silently sat back down on the low stool in front of the brazier, silently picked up the gold ingot and threw it back into the brazier... "It's my fault..."
"Oh? If you were old and heard that your son had died in battle, would you commit suicide?"
“I…” I can’t… “But I’m not Chef Deng… Chef Deng chose ‘death’…”
"But actually, the older Xu Yi would choose 'live', right?"
Seeing that I did not speak, the prime minister continued, "So Xu Yi, who is old and will not die, will choose the path of 'honesty'. This is your nature, and age will not change your character..."
"But Chef Deng..."
"Yes, Chef Deng has chosen death. Whether he is old or young, his character will not change. Unless you can go back to the time when his son was ambushed and bring his son back intact... only then can Chef Deng's fate be changed!"
"Change my fate? I've never thought about changing my fate!"
"But aren't you sad and frustrated right now because you can't change your fate?"
"I..." I suddenly ran out of words...
"Moreover, you're not just deluding yourself about changing Chef Deng's fate; you even want to change your own. Xu Yi, this is not the usual path... It's natural that it's difficult to accomplish. Why be sad and upset because of something natural? Are you going to change the nature of water as it 'flows downwards' just because you think water falling from a great height will feel pain?"
"What are you saying? Prime Minister... I don't understand..."
"Don't understand? Let me put it another way: To change the current outcome, there are only two paths. One is to go back to the day his son was ambushed and bring him back alive, then save him every time his son faces danger in the future. The other is to change Chef Deng's personality, thereby changing his perspective on this matter, and thus changing the possibility of him choosing this path... Do you understand? It's not deception, not concealment, not letting him live in a dream... Or rather, as long as Chef Deng's son is dead, even if he lives in a dream, he is already dead... Do you understand?"
"No..." I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. "I didn't..."
The prime minister breathed a sigh of relief, threw the remaining silver ingots into the brazier, and said, "I didn't choose to die, did I?"
I understand. The Prime Minister is saying that this was Chef Deng's own choice, not something I could control... or rather, that my feelings of guilt and regret for not taking action were not the best way to save Chef Deng...
Change your fate? Change your nature?
It's about changing your mindset!
I understand, I understand...
I stood up, intending to tell the prime minister that I understood, but the entire courtyard was deserted; the prime minister had already walked far away…
Early the next morning, many people dressed as chefs came to pay their respects, and many left in a hurry after offering incense...
Perhaps their jobs dictate that they can't get any rest...
I watched as people came and went, some crying, some indifferent, some trembling...
But without exception, they all left...
People came and went in the mourning hall, just like the quiet, deserted courtyard of the previous night...
Like my silent heart...
Muli arrived very early and has been staying by my side ever since. Although none of the people in the hall could wear mourning clothes for Chef Deng, the funeral was, in the end, a perfect ending without any surprises...
Looking at the newly erected monument in front of me, only four words came to mind: "a handful of yellow earth"...
I glanced around at the open view and figured Chef Deng would like it...
At this moment, a light rain finally began to fall, as if the heavens and earth had suddenly awakened to the fact that an old man had passed away...
But so what? It's nothing more than the living contemplating and comforting themselves...
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