This was my last morning in Thailand. It was on this morning that Yang Sisi booked our tickets back to Kunming… The whole morning, my heart was filled with an unprecedented sense of despair… I was really unwilling to accept this, but I didn’t know what else I could do; in the past week or so in Thailand, my body and mind had already been overloaded with too much… and the hope I had when I first arrived had been worn away little by little by the passage of time.
Inside the terminal, I hesitated to hand over my luggage to the staff for check-in. I kept looking back, hoping for a miracle... Perhaps, like the plot twists often seen in TV dramas, she would miraculously appear before me at the last moment...
These past few days, I've gone through countless cycles between reality and fantasy. If I can only see her in my dreams, then I'd rather live in dreams for the rest of my life... If we can meet again in reality, I will wait for her in the place closest to me...
I will come to Thailand again...
I finally placed my luggage on the conveyor belt, and with that, the tension that had been building up inside me finally snapped...
I looked back one last time, and then went through the security checkpoint with Yang Sisi.
Yang Sisi said to me softly, "Don't be too sad... You've done your best... Whether Ye Zhi lives or dies, she will be happy... because there is a man who treats her with such a sincere heart."
I looked at Yang Sisi for a long time before replying, "Do you think people have a next life?"
"It will happen. The more painful your life is in this world, the happier you will be in the next... because this is a world of reincarnation and repayment."
I finally smiled and replied, "That's great!"
...
On my first night back in Dali, I developed a high fever. I didn't even go back to my own place and went straight to the hospital... In a semi-conscious, semi-dazed state, I thought of my parents...
I'm in so much pain...
No matter how guilty I felt towards them before, Ye Zhi was always there for me to make amends. But now I'm all alone to face their anxiety and expectations. I feel so lonely...
When they find out that Ye Zhi may have left our lives forever, they will definitely be very sad... I am already in this state myself, how can I comfort them?
I buried my head in the blanket, trembling and sobbing softly.
Ye Zhi is gone. I don't know what else in this world can make me feel good... She was my partner, the woman I wanted to spend my whole life with deep in my heart... Especially after hearing about her hardships and difficulties from Jian Zihan, I wanted to love her even more... But in my fragile world, she has only become a memory!
...
The ward door was gently pushed open, and a nurse came in. It was time to change my IV drip... Coach Ma followed behind the nurse. These past few days, the hair that Yang Sisi had shaved off of my head has started to grow back, and he followed in my footsteps and shaved his head too. I was pranked by Yang Sisi, but he really wanted to sever all ties with the world.
He sat down beside me, and after a moment of silence, he said to me, “While you were in Thailand, I became a monk… From now on, there will be no Ma Yuan (his real name) in this world, only Huai Rang.”
I glanced at him, then chose to remain silent.
Coach Ma—no, it was Huairang—took out a Buddhist scripture from the cloth bag hanging on his body and placed it beside my bed, saying, “When you feel pain, look at this…it will give you some insight…Actually, in this world, whether it’s you or me, suffering is inevitable, but you can distinguish which suffering is real, which is fake, which suffering is innate, and which suffering comes and goes, and goes and comes again…”
I finally spoke up: "Pain is pain, why categorize it?"
"People are also divided into different classes, into the most wicked and the most compassionate..."
After a moment of silence, I replied, "I don't care how much pain I'm in. I just want to know... where do people go after they die, and is there an afterlife?"
"Born without ever being born, dead without ever dying, life and death are one."
"It's too advanced, I don't understand."
"Life is a continuation of death, and death is a transformation of life... Death is not disappearance; what dies is the physical body. True life is continuous; it is about stepping out of this life and entering another life, just like moving from one environment to another... Do you understand?"
"You mean, life can be reincarnated, right?"
Coach Ma nodded...
"How can I believe that life is a cycle of reincarnation?"
"Sunrise and sunset, ebb and flow of tides, the changing of the seasons, the blooming and withering of flowers... everywhere is a cycle..."
I nodded, thinking he made sense, and finally felt a little better... I held up two fingers to him, indicating that he should get me a cigarette.
Coach Ma handed me a cigarette, and when I was almost halfway through, he said to me, "Like I said before, when you finally see through the illusions of the world, I'll be waiting for you at Jizu Mountain."
My heart skipped a beat. I was truly in so much pain and couldn't find a way out... Perhaps, seeing through the illusions of the world really is a way out!
I seem to be less resistant now...
Just as I was about to ask something, Yang Sisi, who had gone out to buy food, suddenly returned. She glared at Coach Ma, then grabbed the Buddhist scripture he had placed beside my pillow and slammed it out of the ward, angrily shouting, "You're a wicked monk... What right do you have to persuade Mi Gao to become a monk... Don't you see how badly you've hurt Sister Bai Lu... She hasn't eaten for days... Aren't monks supposed to be compassionate? But you only care about saving yourself, not about Sister Bai Lu's life or death... Even if you've seen through the illusions of the world, so what? After you die, you'll still have debts to repay... Because you're fake compassionate and truly selfish!"
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