Chapter 101 But what he loved was destined to be beyond his grasp.
That day, Pipa stood in front of the shallow pit she had dug, gazing at her mother's body that lay inside for a long time.
Surprisingly, the leader didn't ask him for the money he was owed for digging the hole.
They said the soil was too hard, so they just dug a little bit and then left Pipa alone to go to other parts of the village to find suitable goods.
The leader didn't seem worried that Pipa would escape. Well, in this dog-eat-dog village, where could a little kid like him run off to? Going with him might give him a chance to survive.
The pit is indeed a bit small, but it has the advantage of being on high ground.
Pipa thought that he couldn't take his mother away, but at least he should keep her away from that village, as far away as possible.
Standing on that small hill, you can see the river that flows past the village. The boat from outside is moored there. Pipa sees people the size of ants going up and down, some familiar and some unfamiliar. She also sees the little girl from the Yang family at the village entrance.
"Mother, look, I'm leaving soon. I'll be sitting on that boat that's moored over there."
Pipa pointed with her finger, knowing full well that her mother could no longer see.
Then, he jumped into the small pit, and fearing that his mother might not be comfortable sleeping in it, he dug deeper and around, using his fingers since he didn't have any suitable tools.
Only when the blood was flowing freely did Pipa feel a little better.
He put the string of money the leader gave him into his mother's hand, along with the freshly picked green loquats.
He had heard that after a person dies, they need to cross a river, and to cross, they need to pay a toll.
And those fruits seemed to have suddenly appeared overnight.
Pipa didn't know how far it was from this shore to the other, but he wanted to bring some food with him when he went out, just in case.
The fruit was placed in her mother's thin, dry palm, but then rolled out again.
I tried several times but failed.
Pipa glanced at his mother and suddenly realized that his mother wanted him to take her with her.
His mother had once told him that a poor family should travel with plenty of resources, although at that time he did not understand why he would leave.
Pipa's vision suddenly blurred.
He suddenly thought, if only he could have been stronger and recovered sooner... if only those people had come sooner... if only he had been the one to die...
For a moment, he actually mistook that face, which was being gradually buried by sand, for his own, something that seemed impossible.
He stood before his own grave and buried himself with his own hands.
The feeling was both incredibly eerie and incredibly real.
The loquat felt no terror whatsoever; instead, it had the illusion that this was how it should be.
A mountain breeze blew by, and he seemed to suddenly come back to his senses, looking at the mound of earth that had already risen in front of him, and shivered slightly.
Then he clenched the fruit in his hand again, turned around and walked down the mountain.
Pipa was certain that she had buried her mother's body, but the strange image of burying herself with her own hands kept lingering in her mind.
Pipa attributed it to the resemblance between herself and her mother in their eyes and brows.
That's why that kind of illusion occurs.
It must be because, rather than his mother dying, he would rather he had never been born into this world.
The large boat carrying people floated on the great river for quite some time.
During this time, some people came up and some people went down.
They come and go, just like cargo ships trading goods, except here the goods are people.
Loquat remained on the boat. He looked thin and frail, as if he might die at any moment. Especially after the battle for the fruit, which nearly took his life.
Some of the crew joked that their boss had misjudged the situation this time, making a losing deal, and that he might die on the way before even reaching his destination.
But the loquat did not die.
They persevered and finally reached their so-called destination.
Prosperous city.
I've heard of loquat before.
In my mother's incoherent murmurs before she died.
He didn't know the specific connection between this place and his mother. Perhaps his mother's hometown was in this place, or perhaps it was just meaningless ramblings on the deathbed. Perhaps the "prosperity" in "prosperous city" was not written like this at all.
However, when Pipa lay half-dead on the hard deck, weak and on the verge of death, it was these two words that finally pulled him back from despair.
Pipa learned about their destination from the conversation among the crew members on the boat.
He couldn't be sure of anything, not even that if it were really such a coincidence, this prosperous city was the prosperous city he thought it was.
—And even if we actually get there, what can we do?
Her mother had long since passed away, and Pipa had no clue about the home that only existed in vague descriptions.
He told himself to survive first, to get there alive, and then he could make other plans later.
Loquat really did achieve that.
The guy who bet that the loquat wouldn't survive halfway through the journey lost more than one meal's worth of drinks because of it.
When the loquat was getting off the boat, he deliberately stretched out his leg and tripped her.
This wasn't the first time; the same guy had previously, quite by chance, knocked loquats off the boat, or simply forgot to serve them food.
They didn't actually have any enmity; it just so happened that the guy made a bet with someone else.
The trip just before leaving caused Pipa to fall and scrape her knee, and the other guy was also kicked hard in the back of the knee by the leader, falling face-first into the mud in the same way.
This drew laughter from the onlookers.
Pipa didn't laugh; he stared at the dusty, dirty face for a while.
He wasn't one to hold grudges, so he observed carefully until the other person suddenly noticed his gaze and then glared at him fiercely.
He hurriedly lowered his head and followed the leader sheepishly to avoid further retaliation.
So when Pipa saw that guy again later, it didn't take her long to recognize him.
He wasn't too surprised, because he had already heard that the guy was a local.
Huayuelou strictly controls the entry and exit of its residents.
However, Young Master Lan never assigned Pipa many tasks, and since Young Master Lan often needed to go out, Pipa had even more free time.
Pipa discovered that the guy would show up around the same time every month, drunk, on the nearby streets.
So, when Young Master Lan went out or was resting, he secretly crawled out through a hidden dog hole.
At first, Pipa didn't understand what she was supposed to do.
I just followed behind that person instinctively.
They followed him all the way to his house.
In an inconspicuous little courtyard in the alley, seven or eight people of all ages are crammed together.
He saw the man's wife, a shy woman with her head down, and also noticed the little girl in her arms. Although she was a little thin, her round almond-shaped eyes made her look very cute.
Such a lovely child, yet that man could verbally abuse her and even physically assault her...
The woman's cries for mercy overlapped with a scene from her memory, and Pipa felt her heart burning as if it were about to explode.
At that moment, an absurd thought even crossed his mind.
...Fortunately, his father never hit his mother.
The other residents in the same courtyard just watched coldly and made sarcastic remarks. There was even a little boy who was about the same age as the girl clapping his hands and cheering.
They kept saying, "Kill her! Kill that brat! Kill that bitch!"
Pipa couldn't bear to watch any longer and turned to run away in a hurry.
Even after returning to the building, that nauseous feeling lingered...
On several occasions, when he looked at that man's back, the image of his father's bleeding head would flash through his mind, and in the blink of an eye, his father's face would transform into that man's face.
He wanted to kill that person.
He hadn't figured out the specifics yet, but he knew that the other person would take a secluded path home from the place where he was drinking. There was a stagnant river on the side of the road, which smelled bad because it didn't flow, but it was perfect for drowning a drunkard who was beating his wife.
But Li Xiao appeared very frequently during that period.
They would suddenly appear at any moment, corner him in some corner of the building, and inexplicably launch into a barrage of sarcastic remarks.
It's incredibly annoying.
I wonder if it was Pipa's absent-minded attitude that provoked the young master.
In the back-and-forth pulling, Pipa was accidentally pushed out and bumped into the railing.
Therefore, Pipa's murder plan was shelved.
But unexpectedly, that person still died.
He accidentally fell into the water while drunk, and the place was that stinking, stagnant river.
...Is it a coincidence?
It can only be a coincidence.
Even though the damned person was dead, and she didn't even have to lift a finger, Pipa felt a strange sense of loss.
—In particular, Pipa discovered that nothing had changed as a result.
In fact, the loss of a vital source of income made life even more difficult for the mother and daughter.
In addition to working day and night, mothers also have to deal with harassment from some ill-intentioned men.
After a while, he looked older and more tired than before, as if he had aged more than ten years in an instant.
Pipa then wondered if she had made a mistake.
He oversimplified everything, naively believing that as long as the alcoholic and abusive father was gone, the mother and daughter's lives would get back on track, completely ignoring the pressure from their surroundings.
Even though this land is prosperous and peaceful, it is still too cruel for a helpless mother and daughter, or a single mother struggling to make a living with her child.
—Was I wrong?
Looking at the little girl who was hunched over all day long, relying on washing and sewing to make ends meet, and the little girl who was already running around her mother's side at a young age, trying to help like an adult, Pipa couldn't help but ask herself these questions.
He definitely didn't push the man into the water.
But Pipa had indeed decided to kill, if it weren't for Li Xiao's unexpected interference...
So, according to the plan that Pipa had prepared in advance, the man would still die in the same way, in the same place, although the time would be slightly different.
But that's all.
Precisely because she hadn't had a chance to take action yet, Pipa had a nagging feeling that the man had died because of her.
If he actually did it...
He might back down temporarily out of fear, or he might suddenly realize that this action cannot fundamentally solve the problem and seek another way. There are too many possibilities for him to change his mind halfway through and thus terminate the operation.
But the loquat didn't go.
All of these possibilities will no longer have a chance to occur.
In other words, because of that man's death, Pipa could no longer retract the murderous intent that had already taken shape.
—Therefore, it will be impossible to confirm the possible future after not personally killing the other party.
So from a certain perspective, it was my own murderous intent back then that indirectly caused the mother and daughter's current predicament.
He's the one who caused them to end up like this...
Loquat felt guilty because of this.
He wanted to make amends to the mother and daughter, so he secretly sent some money and slipped it under their window.
Watching that woman, who shouldn't have looked so weathered and tired, open the window and look around in confusion, her eyes held doubt, bewilderment, and an undisguised surprise.
As the woman clutched the meager sum of money and embraced her daughter, tears of joy welled up in her eyes.
Loquat, however, felt no relief whatsoever.
Instead, it became even heavier.
As if sensing Pipa's worries, Young Master Lan asked him why he had been looking so gloomy lately.
Pipa didn't know how to tell Young Master Lan about this.
—In fact, he did nothing.
But deep down, he couldn't pretend that nothing had happened.
Pipa was worried that if she actually said it, being thought of as making a fuss over nothing would be secondary... What if Young Master Lan felt that keeping someone who had thought of killing, someone who almost carried out his murderous thoughts, around would always be a hidden danger?
To go further, who can prove that the man who accidentally fell into the water was not pushed by him?
There is no one.
...including loquat itself.
Days passed by one by one.
With Li Xiao's harassment, at least during the day, Pipa rarely thought about the mother and daughter and the man who fell into the water.
But the night, especially the time before going to sleep, is the hardest to get through.
Pipa couldn't control her thoughts.
At that time, he sought help from Young Master Lan, because Young Master Lan always had so many strange and wonderful stories.
Interesting, poignant, mysterious, even—eerie.
Pipa listened as Young Master Lan recounted the terrifying scenes of the legendary eighteen levels of hell: mountains of corpses, seas of blood, and wailing echoing across the land…
I felt both terrified and irresistibly drawn to listen.
It has to be said that although it sounds a bit scary, it doesn't make Pipa feel disgusted.
On the contrary, Pipa thinks that if such a place really existed, it might not be a bad thing.
At least it's fair, isn't it?
The loquat said: "Settle grievances, avenge wrongs. Clean and simple, all is settled."
Young Master Lan smiled faintly.
"How can you calculate it so precisely?" he said.
Loquat asked in confusion, "Isn't there an underworld with judges? Even they can't figure it out?"
Young Master Lan replied nonchalantly: "Otherwise, where would the concept of reincarnation come from?"
Pipa thought about it and realized that this made perfect sense.
If all debts are paid off, what is the point of reincarnation? Everyone is the same, so where do all the living beings come from?
Since we are born, there will be differences. Since there are differences, there are corresponding causes and effects created by past events.
—Where did this liquidation come from?
【so……】
Young Master Lan paused here, then smiled slightly: "I prefer the concept of 'karma in this life.' True reckoning never begins after death, because living is inherently a journey through purgatory. The so-called six realms of reincarnation—in reality, none can be escaped."
Young Master Lan spoke with an air of nonchalance.
Pipa, the listener, suddenly felt something invisible and enormous pressing down on him, making it hard for him to breathe.
It's like walking in a maze, experiencing hope and despair, always thinking you've gone astray and are going around in circles, only to be suddenly told that there was never an exit.
Each cycle of life and death is merely being repeatedly thrown into different locations within this endless labyrinth. What one perceives as a brand new beginning is actually a crossroads that has been traversed countless times.
The pain is not in being lost, but in being soberly aware that everything is in vain.
Pipa stared blankly at the young man's profile, flickering in the candlelight, and a tremendous sense of delusion, unlike anything he had ever experienced before, suddenly filled his entire being.
The feeling of suffocation...
A feeling of suffocation...
A profound sorrow overwhelmed his soul.
【so--】
Young Master Lan's voice rang out again, and the young man's smiling expression as he looked down at the loquat resembled that of Guanyin in a temple.
To survive, you try to grasp at something...be it a person, an object, love, or hate. You always need something to hold onto.
Pipa has always kept in mind what Young Master Lan said back then.
He thought to himself, "I am the one who loves Orchid."
It's like loving a teacher, an older brother, or a family member—a deep affection for the other person, a desire to be praised, affirmed, and seen…
Later, Pipa did indeed fall in love with Li Xiao.
It's like falling in love with an impossible version of yourself. To him, Li Xiao is more like a beautiful object held in his hands, something he wants to cherish, protect, and love...
But what he loved was destined to be something he could never hold onto.
First it was Young Master Lan, then it was Li Xiao.
—Suddenly disappearing, and then suddenly reappearing.
This is taken for granted.
It was as if nothing had happened, as if those years had not separated them.
It was as if he were the Yu Qingzhou they were talking about so much, the one they were so eager to die for.
But how could that be possible?
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