Extra 1: Here with me
There is always something unreal about taking a train at night.
At Nan Bei's ears was the resounding rhythm of the train running along the tracks. Leaning against the wall of the carriage, she could feel the faint vibration. Rhythm, all of it following a regular rhythm. The sound and the sensation could both bring to mind so many fragments of the past.
“I remembered the first time I ever took a train.” She wrapped her arms around the quilt, her face resting against it as she looked at Cheng Muyang, who was sitting by the window. He was dressed in simple, neat casual clothes, white slippers on his feet, sitting there flipping through the newspaper in his hands.
Beside him was a pot of tea.
It was so much like a certain morning by Qiandao Lake, before he and she had begun.
“Very special?”
“Not really.” Nan Bei's voice lowered. “That train was especially run-down. Once I got on, I felt like my whole body was being jolted around. Back then, I didn't know why I had to take such an uncomfortable train, so I was always crying. Hey, don't laugh. You know how old I was then. It was the first time I'd ever suffered hardship. All I knew was how to cry.”
“And afterward?”
“Afterward? I remember I sat there all night. My older brother held me all night, quietly coaxing me. When it got light, the train stopped somewhere deserted. My brother put me down behind a dilapidated station building, found some rope and tied up my hands and feet, and stuffed something in my mouth. Then he found a few scraps of torn cloth and a mat and covered me with them. He left me tied up like that for the whole day.”
Cheng Muyang frowned as he looked at her.
She, on the other hand, was perfectly at ease, without the slightest discomfort at the memory.
“Back then, I hated Nan Huai to death. It was so hot during the day, terribly uncomfortable, and there were so many bugs. I just thought I hated my brother so much. I thought he wanted to get me killed.”
“And then?”
“And then there was no ‘then.’” Nan Bei let out a soft laugh and lay on her back on the bed. “He came back, took me away, and gave me food and water. Then he would find another place to tie me up like that, not let me move or make a sound, disappear for a few hours, sometimes a whole day and night, and then come back to take me away again. It wasn't until I grew up, stopped crying and making a fuss, and understood that he was trying to draw away the people who were hunting us that I stopped hating him.” She fell silent.
Only Nan Huai knew how fiercely she had hated him when she was little.
She had bitten his arm until it was covered in scars. She really had been too young then, too ignorant to understand.
“When was the first time you took a train, Cheng Muyang?”
“Fourteen.” He put down the newspaper, lay down beside her, and drew her into his arms. “That was when I first went to Southeast Asia. I never imagined there could be places that hot. There were mosquitoes and insects everywhere, and everyone was tanned nearly black. You know, in Moscow, there are beauties everywhere, with skin as white as snow.”
Nan Bei looked at him in surprise. “You've been to Southeast Asia?”
“Yes. And...” Cheng Muyang looked at her bright, black eyes and said, “I've been to Myanmar.”
“At fourteen?”
“At fourteen.”
“What did you go there for?” Fifteen years earlier, it had not been a peaceful place.
“To see a country whose people were completely devoted to Buddhism.”
Nan Bei gave a derisive laugh. “Our fates really are different. I was running for my life in Myanmar back then, while you went there to admire the scenery?”
“At first, yes. Later...” His voice curved, carrying a temptation that seemed to eat into the bones and blood. “Later, I encountered a disaster. I was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?”
“Shh, let me finish.”
He leaned close to her ear and said, “I was clever. I took the opportunity to persuade several Burmese girls to escape with me. Along the way, one after another, they were either captured or shot dead. Later, I was trapped with nowhere to go in a forest. There were gunshots all around me, and shouts I couldn't understand. I thought I was definitely going to die.”
Nan Bei held her breath as she listened, as though she could see it before her eyes.
“I prayed to Buddha. You know my family believes in Buddhism, so I did too, but Buddha never appeared. Later, I prayed to God. I told Him that if He was willing to reach out and save me, I would worship Him until the day I died, but it was useless.”
His fingers brushed her face. “Back then, I could feel that when the girl who had climbed into the tree was shot dead and fell down, some of her blood splattered here.” He touched the place on his face. “I didn't dare move. I lay there in the grass, utterly despairing.”
“And then?”
She breathed out softly.
“Later, I was rescued. First, someone fired from hiding and killed the four or five Burmese men in that group one by one.” Cheng Muyang's voice held a smile as he told her softly, “I saw a boy come walking out with a gun. He looked like he wasn't even as old as I was, and behind him followed a pretty little girl.”
Nan Bei's eyes suddenly widened.
“That girl said, ‘Gege, don't search anymore.’ I think she knew that if they found anyone, her brother wouldn't leave a single survivor behind. So that girl took pity on me.”
“Cheng Muyang...”
“Let me finish.” He interrupted her. “A person with faith is utterly sincere toward what they believe in. When I was at my most desperate, it wasn't Buddha, it wasn't God who appeared. It was that girl.”
She couldn't believe it.
During those years of disaster, she had encountered him.
Nan Bei wanted to sit up and question him carefully, but he had already restrained her with his arm. “Don't rush to ask questions. Let's do something proper first.”
“You little hooligan,” she murmured, but her heart was pounding violently.
“Hooligan?” He laughed. “I'm a very virtuous person, you know. I'll recite the Heart Sutra for you. ‘Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva , when practicing the profound Prajnaparamita...’”
Entangled with him, Nan Bei began to laugh. She slipped out from beneath him, trying to escape, but unfortunately she was no match for him, and he forcibly dragged her back.
After all that struggling, the Heart Sutra in his mouth never once stopped.
Word after word, like words of love.
Only when the tip of his tongue teased open her lips and tongue did he have no more thought for any of it.
Because the Bodhisattva relies on Prajnaparamita, the mind is free of hindrances. Because the mind is free of hindrances, there is no fear, and one is freed from all inverted delusions, dreams, suffering, and afflictions, ultimately attaining Nirvana.
Ultimately entering Nirvana?
When had his heart ever been without attachment? This mortal world itself was an inverted dream.
He could no longer remember the words that came next.
Before his eyes, there was only that pair of pitch-black eyes.
For her, he was willing.
A lifetime of attachment, at the cost of the holy life.
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