He took a deep drag on his cigarette...
“Brother, for people like us, even death has a cost, because our parents aren’t rich or powerful. They’re counting on us to take care of them in their old age. If you really die here, they’ll only suffer more than you are now… This is even more cruel than killing them with your own hands!”
He looked at me and gradually lowered his head.
In the silence, I took a deep drag of my cigarette, then gazed into the distance. It was truly dark there, but if I remembered correctly, the sun rose from that very spot…
He finally spoke up and said to me, "You still haven't answered me how long it took you to get this done."
I smiled, then frowned, and after a moment replied, "Back then, I was probably in more pain than you. You only experienced separation in life, but I endured both separation in life and death at the same time... For me, the only time the nights weren't gray, because they were all fucking black!... But I never thought about dying. On the contrary, I felt a growing hunger, because I wanted to live for the one who died, and to tell the one who was separated from me that I would live better than her... Remember this, buddy, everyone will encounter one or two things in their life that make them feel powerless. If you give up, you're a coward; if you stand up, you'll be as mighty as I am!"
At this point, I laughed and said, "Haha... Look at me, I'm doing pretty well now... After I quit my job in Shanghai, I came to Dali, and then opened that guesthouse behind you with a bunch of buddies... We have many guesthouses, and making a million or two a year is easy, so from my perspective, your current suffering is quite funny!... You should learn to create your own life, instead of entrusting your life and death to a woman, to a hopeless love... Because one day, another woman will come back into your world, and you have to greet her with sunshine, so this storm in your heart should stop!"
He was initially stunned, then sniffed and said to me, "...Before you said these things to me, I felt like I had already died once; after hearing what you said, I feel like I can breathe again...but this feeling of death just won't go away anytime soon."
"It's okay, you can take some time to think about it... Maybe you'll soon realize that there might be feelings in this world more important than love..."
He nodded.
I patted him on the shoulder again and said, "Look carefully... the direction you're facing at a 45-degree angle is where the sun will rise tomorrow. If you're worried about having insomnia, just sit here and wait... I'm really sleepy, I'm going back to sleep now."
"Thanks."
I smiled at him, brushed the dust off my clothes, and headed towards my lodgings... But, inadvertently, I saw my own shadow in the moonlight, so humble, so hypocritical...
Yes, I'm not living any better than I did in Shanghai, and my guesthouse, which earns me one or two million a year, is about to be demolished.
I was just pretending not to be sad, and then comforting someone else who was sad. Actually, sadness or not sadness doesn't need to be faked... Just like this brightly lit city, there must be countless lonely hearts hidden inside.
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