Chapter Sixty-One
The meeting lasted two days, and the return trip was scheduled for Friday. On Thursday evening, Zuo Xutong found Peng Kun and told him that she had changed her flight and planned to stay in Nanyue for the weekend to explore the area before returning to Longjin on Sunday evening. She asked if he could leave his suitcase with her if he was unable to carry it.
Peng Kun shook his head and decisively refused.
There is a historical mountain in Nanyue with a high altitude. It is said that you can overlook the entire city of Nanyue from the top of the mountain. There is also a thousand-year-old Taoist temple on the mountain. Zuo Xutong plans to go there to take a look.
Early Saturday morning, she went downstairs with her backpack and saw Peng Kun sitting in the hotel lobby from a distance.
He hadn't left yet. She glanced at the time; it was already 8:30. Her flight was at 9:45, and even if she left immediately, she wouldn't make it.
When Peng Kun saw her come out, he stood up and walked over, saying casually, "I also changed my flight ticket. I'll go back with you tomorrow night."
"Are you afraid I'll be kidnapped?" She smiled and said half-jokingly, "You seem to care about me quite a bit."
“I care about you as an employee.” He said this with a serious expression, then turned around and strode away, seemingly determined to sever ties with her.
Zuo Xutong is not a person who drags things out; she can't be clingy or persistent. He had been unmoved by her repeated hints and suggestions, which had almost exhausted her patience.
She was somewhat disheartened, and even considered giving up. But she knew very well that if she missed this person, she might never meet someone like him again in her life. She didn't mind that his hand was disabled; it was like the blue-and-white porcelain plate she had broken. There were so many beautiful and intact plates in the kitchenware store, but none of them were more precious or valuable than that plate.
The two left the hotel one after the other and walked towards the nearby subway station. Half an hour later, they took the subway directly to their destination. After getting off the train, they walked for a few minutes and arrived at the foot of the mountain. The temperature in Nanyue was six or seven degrees higher than in Longjin. By this time, the sun was high in the sky, and the scorching sun made people feel irritable.
Peng Kun stopped and said to her, "There's an ice cream shop over there."
"Go buy your own food. I'm not your maid." Since you want to distance yourself from me, let's try starting now, Zuo Xutong thought.
Peng Kun glanced at her, said nothing, and walked towards the ice cream shop. When he returned, he was holding two crispy ice cream cones in one hand, which he handed to her, saying, "Here you go."
Seeing his awkward posture, Zuo Xutong suddenly felt a pang of sadness and quickly reached out to take one.
The two were sitting on the stone steps eating ice cream when Zuo Xutong suddenly asked, "Do you hate him?"
Peng Kun was completely bewildered by the question: "Who do you hate?"
"The thug who hurt you."
Peng Kun didn't answer her question directly, but slowly said, "Nowadays, people often say, 'Don't advise others to be kind if you haven't experienced their suffering.' The person who injured me is named Zhang Hao. His father died early, and his mother remarried. His past life was undoubtedly tragic, so his current behavior is understandable. But then again, whose 'evil' isn't forced upon them? Who is born a liar, a thief, or a murderer? However, when evil is done to oneself, how many people can truly 'not complain about others' evil if they haven't experienced their suffering'? I certainly can't accept it calmly. Although I wouldn't say I hate them, negative emotions still surface from time to time, when I can only type documents with one hand, when I ask a stranger to help me trim my nails, when I'm tormented by nerve pain and can't sleep at night..." There was another sentence that Peng Kun kept to himself, which was when he faced someone he liked but couldn't get close to them.
"You mean that suffering should not be a justification for doing evil, and we cannot promote evil without considering the consequences?"
“Unless you can choose to forgive after being stabbed. But don’t forget, if there is enough evil in this world, then one day the blade of evil will be pointed at everyone.” After Peng Kun finished speaking, he got up and walked forward.
Zuo Xutong followed him, and the two climbed the stone steps. She was not used to exercising, and she was panting heavily after climbing for a while.
"Ugh, I need to replenish my energy." With that, she rummaged through her backpack and pulled out a bag of chocolates. She took out a piece, casually tore open the wrapper, and handed it to Peng Kun. Then she took one for herself.
After a while, she took out another piece, and again tore open the packaging before handing it to him. This made Peng Kun laugh, recalling the first time she handed him an orange.
"What are you laughing at?" Zuo Xutong asked.
"It's nothing, I just think you have a pretty good understanding."
"Of course, I've relied on my sharp mind to get by all these years."
"And you're shameless enough, aren't you?"
Zuo Xutong wasn't angry at his slander, so she just shamelessly stayed where she was: "I can't walk anymore, can you pull me along for a bit?"
Peng Kun felt that the request was not excessive, so he extended his left hand to her. However, she acted as if she did not see it and stepped forward to grab his right hand. He was startled and instinctively tried to pull his hand back, but she held it tightly and he could not break free.
It was hot, but his palms were icy cold. Holding his hand, she could clearly feel the scars on his palms and the hard lumps on his hypothenar eminence—muscle deformities caused by nerve damage.
Whether from nervousness or embarrassment, his right arm was taut. To him, his deformed hand was grotesquely ugly, like an ape's hand attached to a human wrist. Even more pathetic was that while an ape's hand was flexible and strong, his was curled up, atrophied, unable to straighten, and unable to meet his palm. Now, he let her hold his hand, feeling like a lump of boneless mud, limp and powerless.
After walking less than 100 meters, Peng Kun could no longer continue. He used his left hand to pull her arm away and free his right hand.
"Alright, that's enough. I'm tired too," he said.
Is that the end? Zuo Xutong paused for a moment, wondering what these four words meant.
The two walked in silence for a while longer, and suddenly saw a Taoist temple hidden deep in the dense forest. It had blue bricks and gray tiles, and was simple and serene. In the main hall of the temple, there was a statue of a deity, and on the offering table in front of the statue was a divination stick container.
Zuo Xutong stared curiously at the divination tube. She saw the woman in front of her kneeling on the prayer mat, picking up the tube and shaking it for a while. A bamboo stick popped out of it. The woman picked up the stick, glanced at it, got up and bowed again. Then she found the Taoist priest standing on the right side of the hall, told him her number, and received a piece of yellow paper the size of a mobile phone screen.
Zuo Xutong learned it after watching it once. She said to Peng Kun, "I also want to draw a lot. You can go out first."
She knelt on the prayer mat, silently prayed for a while, then picked up the divination stick container, shook it a few times, and soon a bamboo stick fell to the ground. She picked it up and looked at it: the thirty-sixth stick.
She stood up, bowed like a woman, walked to the divination area next to her, and said to the Taoist priest, "Thirty-six divination slips."
The Taoist priest handed her a yellow fortune slip, which Zuo Xutong took and nervously withdrew from the main hall. Once outside, she opened the fortune slip and was instantly terrified, breaking out in a cold sweat; her hand holding the slip began to tremble slightly.
Seeing that she looked strange, Peng Kun quickly went up to her and asked, "What's wrong?"
Zuo Xutong opened her mouth, but couldn't utter a word. He snatched the slip of paper from her hand; it contained a few words written on it:
Thirty-sixth fortune stick
The Kun guards the deep abyss, while the Peng soars through the nine heavens;
Virtue matches Heaven and Earth, and the Way harmonizes with Heaven and Earth.
Peng Kun frowned and asked in surprise, "What are you asking about?"
"I...I..." Zuo Xutong stammered for a long time, her face turning red, but she still couldn't explain what it was.
"Speak quickly!" Peng Kun urged, since his name appeared in the fortune slip.
"I just... I want some guidance on marriage." She said stammeringly, blushing, then looked down at the fortune slip again. "Peng" and "Kun"—what a coincidence!
“Look, this is fate,” she said again.
Fate? Peng Kun looked up at the sky, his expression solemn, lost in thought.
After a long while, Zuo Xutong finally couldn't hold back any longer and interrupted his thoughts: "What are you doing? Thanking heaven for having eyes?"
His previously solemn and serious expression was instantly broken by her. He laughed, reached out his hand to her, and said, "Come on, I'll hold your hand."
Her heart raced with excitement, and she quickly grabbed his hand. This time, his hand was no longer as limp and powerless as before. She could feel his hand slowly but forcefully tightening, as if he were pouring all his strength into his right hand, just to hold her hand firmly.
The cuckoo calls deep in the mountains, its echoes carrying far. Occasionally, a cool breeze blows through the gaps in the branches, carrying the crispness of grass and the fragrance of flowers. The stream below the stone steps is crystal clear, with schools of fish gathering and scattering. Moss-covered green stones sit by the stream, deep and unassuming.
After walking a little further, they saw a weathered pavilion with a plaque hanging in the center that read: Wishing Pavilion. Thick ropes were wrapped around the pillars, and layers upon layers of wooden plaques hung from them. Most of the plaques were faded, with a few bright red ones that had probably been added recently.
On those signs, each with its own unique handwriting, were written all sorts of wishes: May XXX succeed in the college entrance examination; May XXX and his family be safe and healthy; May XXX and XXX grow old together; May XXX pass the civil service exam...
Academic pursuits, career, health, marriage, wealth, love—all human desires can be found in this little pavilion.
Outside the pavilion, there was a table with a pile of brand-new wooden signs on it and a QR code next to it. On the table was a printed sheet with two lines of text: "Five yuan each, scan the code yourself."
Zuo Xutong swiped ten yuan, took two signs, picked up a pen from the table, and handed them to Peng Kun along with the signs, saying with a smile, "Let's make a wish, look how magical this place is."
Peng Kun nodded and took it.
She wanted to write: that her mother would live a long and healthy life, that the HFC-300 fuel cell test would be successful, that she would live a happy and carefree life in her final year of junior high school, and that the elderly in nursing homes would have a secure old age… Countless wishes flooded her mind, and she didn't know which one to write. So she simply put down her pen and turned to look at the person beside her. Peng Kun writes with his left hand, and although his speed is a bit slower, he doesn't worry about it and starts writing as soon as he picks up his pen.
Soon, he took the written sign and walked into the wishing pavilion, tying it to the most inconspicuous corner of the pavilion. Zuo Xutong was worried that his hand might be inconvenient, so she followed him to help, but he had already tied it up and turned to her, saying, "I'll wait for you at the viewing platform in front."
Zuo Xutong nodded, picked up the sign he had just tied, tied two more knots, and then felt relieved. Driven by curiosity, she turned the sign over and stole a glance at the wish he had made.
Then she walked out of the pavilion, returned to the table, but wrote nothing. Instead, she put the blank sign back in its original place and walked towards the viewing platform.
Nanyue is a coastal metropolis where residential buildings of thirty or forty stories and office buildings of fifty or sixty stories are everywhere. Zuo Xutong stood on the observation deck, looking down at the city below. The high-rise buildings were densely packed together, and the windows on them were smaller than honeycomb or anthills. In those pinhead-sized "anthills" lived countless tycoons, celebrities, elites of all kinds, and social elites... In each "anthill," the same old decadent pleasures, loves and hates were playing out.
At that moment, she suddenly felt that all of humanity's pursuits were utterly absurd, because flowers will wither and grass will dry up, and the houses, cars, money, and positions that people care about in this life are like sausages in a dog's eyes and bread crumbs in an ant's eyes.
She recalled a quote from Peng Kun during a speech: "In reality, we are nothing."
It turns out he already knew that many people spend their entire lives pursuing meaningless things.
What he wrote on that sign was:
May all beings be freed from suffering.
【End】
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