At the End of the World (9)
Luo Jingming had once told Tan Guhong that after his father and mother died, they were buried together at Green Hill Cemetery, in a place facing the Pacific coast. When spring came, kapok flowers would bloom before their graves.
Unfortunately, spring had not yet arrived. The trees had withered, the flowers and grasses had faded, and everywhere she looked was black and white, without a trace of color or life.
The cemetery was desolate and silent. Looking out across it, rows of tombstones of varying heights stood silently on the hillside. A few sparse lines of words on each one were all that remained to mark lives that had been either extraordinary or ordinary.
The elderly caretaker led Tan Guhong to a grave in the northeastern corner. Apart from the tomb where Luo Zhanfei and Liang Peishan were buried together, it was the only tombstone in the entire cemetery inscribed in Chinese. There was no photograph, no eulogy, only a few cold, unfeeling lines:
Luo Jingming, ancestral home: Xikou Town, Meizhou City, Guangdong Province, China. Born X/X/19XX, died X/X/20XX, aged XX...
It was as though the world stopped turning at that very moment. Tan Guhong's mind went completely blank.
In truth, she had never believed it until she saw the tombstone with her own eyes.
He was so calculating, so devious, so outrageously adept at manipulating people's hearts.
The wicked live for a thousand years. A brain tumor, complications, whatever they were, how could they possibly have taken his life so easily? How could a man who had never bowed to fate or heaven have suddenly ended up buried deep underground, his remains from then on rotting away with the earth?
She wanted to step forward, but her legs felt as heavy as if they had been filled with lead, and she could not take even a single step. She opened her mouth, but every sound caught in her throat.
A storm of complicated emotions washed over her again and again. There was sorrow, pain, regret, bitterness, and an immense anger.
Luo Jingming, you just appeared out of nowhere like this, and then left just as brazenly, treating me like a fool and making me run around in circles, turning my life into a complete mess, stirring up the quiet heart I once had until it was in utter chaos. Who gave you the right?
Who on earth gave you the right?!
She suddenly exploded.
All the fear, all the pressure, all the negative emotions she had accumulated over the past year and a half erupted hysterically in that moment!
She grabbed one of the glass vases holding fresh flowers in front of the grave and hurled it at the tombstone.
“Tell me! Who gave you the right? Who asked for your devotion? I never forced you to keep thinking about me all these years. You were the one who broke your promise first!”
The elderly caretaker beside her was startled and hurried forward to restrain her.
“Miss, please calm down. Don't get so worked up!”
As though she had not heard him, Tan Guhong grabbed another vase and smashed it against the tombstone.
“Was it fun playing me? Was it especially amusing watching me worry and hurt over you? You said I was your karmic knot. If the karmic knot was never severed, what right did you have to leave this world? You liar! Liar!”
She smashed every vase in front of the grave, then shook off the caretaker's hand. After staggering a few steps, as though all the strength had drained from her body, she slowly crouched down and sat amid the shards of glass and the wreckage of broken flowers.
“Liar. You're a complete and utter liar...”
But why, of all things, couldn't you keep lying to me all the way to the end?
Were they destined to be like Liao Ai and Liang Peishan, like Liao Rongguang and Huo Sixuan, destined to miss each other in this lifetime?
The elderly caretaker was very old, and trying to stop her had exhausted him. Now leaning against a nearby tree, he gulped for breath, gasping between words.
“M-Miss, miss... l-listen to me. This grave, this grave hasn't been put into use yet!”
Tan Guhong's breath caught. She slowly turned her head.
“What did you say?”
The elderly caretaker waved a hand and took a breathing spray from inside his coat. He sprayed several forceful puffs into his mouth before finally managing to catch his breath.
“Thank God, I've worked here for more than thirty years, and I've never seen a woman this hot-tempered... Cough. Miss, listen. This plot was personally purchased by the deceased two years ago. But it has never been put into use. So I think your Mr. Liar should still be alive...”
At his words, Tan Guhong sprang to her feet.
“Are you serious?”
He really wasn't dead?
Luo Jingming really wasn't dead?
“Why would I lie to you?” the elderly caretaker said helplessly. “Don't worry, there are really no ashes in this grave. If you don't believe me, I'll open it and show you.”
And so she stared without blinking as he brought over his tools and pried open the movable stone slab that had yet to be sealed over the grave.
“See? I didn't lie to you, did I? There's really nothing in here... Wait, what's this?”
Once the grave was opened, a wooden square box was clearly visible inside. Its shape and size looked highly suspicious. Tan Guhong's heart tightened, and she hurried forward and took it out.
The old man was still standing to the side, murmuring in confusion, “That's strange. I clearly remember there being nothing inside before. When was this put in...?”
Holding the box in her hands, Tan Guhong's heart pounded so violently it felt as though it might leap straight out of her throat. She took a deep breath and slowly lifted the lid, as though she were opening the box containing Schrödinger's cat.
Inside lay a quiet antique bronze mirror, its design simple and archaic, its condition perfectly preserved, its patterns exquisitely carved.
She did not need to turn it over to know that on the back of the mirror, there would surely be an eight-character inscription:
May a thousand autumns and ten thousand years endure; may we never forget each other.
It was the Tang-dynasty bronze mirror she had once taken a fancy to at an auction in Liverpool.
Beneath the bronze mirror was also a thin postcard. It showed blue seas and blue skies, with a solitary lighthouse standing among white waves and reefs. Beside it was a line of Spanish:
El fin del mundo
The end of the world.
Tan Guhong stared at the postcard. In an instant, she wanted to be angry, wanted to hate him, wanted to cry, and wanted to laugh.
“Why do you always have to keep me guessing...”
...
In the sixteenth century AD, the Portuguese explorer Magellan led his fleet in completing a voyage around the world. From then on, humanity truly understood that the world we lived in was a sphere. From a geographical perspective, there should be no such concept as the end of the world. Yet people's pursuit of the ends of the earth has never ceased, as though once they reached such a place, they could distance themselves from all the noise and turmoil of the mortal world, cast aside all the loves and hatreds of worldly life, and gain eternal peace and liberation.
South America, Argentina, the small town of Ushuaia, the southernmost land on Earth apart from Antarctica. There was a very unassuming little wooden cabin there, which served as the local post office. The post office sold postcards printed with the words “The End of the World,” which visiting tourists could send to destinations all over the globe.
Today, the port had finally shaken off the persistent rain of the past several days. The sea was calm, the sky clear for miles, and it was an exceptionally rare day of fine weather.
A middle-aged female caregiver from a local sanatorium pushed a man in a wheelchair out for some fresh air.
They made their way to the seaside. At the man's instruction, the caregiver stopped the wheelchair on a flat stretch of ground facing the sea, then obediently left, following his wishes without question, leaving the man alone to sit quietly there, gazing silently at the vast expanse of ocean, as though reminiscing, as though remembering, for a long while without saying a word.
No one knew how much time had passed before the man finally spoke in a flat voice.
“Let's go back.”
But there was no response. The man said it again. It was not until he had spoken for the third time that the person behind him finally moved, striding forward and pushing his wheelchair, then turning it around sharply.
In a flash, everything was turned upside down.
Luo Jingming and Tan Guhong silently looked at each other, as though they had lived through another lifetime.
It seemed like one moment stretched that long.
It seemed like an entire lifetime passed that quickly.
“Long time no see.”
“Yeah. It’s been a while.”
They exchanged greetings with such calm nonchalance, as though nothing had happened, exactly like that endlessly complicated reunion in Ecuador all those years ago.
His hair had grown back to its original length, but he had become considerably thinner, making his features look even more defined. His jaw was sharply sculpted, while the weakness and sickly pallor between his brows had obscured the sharpness and edge he once possessed, adding instead a few traces of gentleness, a few traces of fragility.
The heavy coat hung extraordinarily loose on him, making him look like a fallen young master from a once-prosperous family, or perhaps a delicate beauty who had lain ill in bed for a long time.
Tan Guhong spoke indifferently.
“When did you have the surgery?”
“September the year before last.”
“And you were like this after the surgery?”
Her eyes lowered to his legs, which remained completely motionless in the wheelchair.
“A little worse than this...” Luo Jingming smiled. “Postoperative hemiplegia. I couldn't move my left arm or left leg. It's much better now.”
Tan Guhong clenched her teeth, suppressing the bitterness rising in her heart.
“Why did you never tell me?”
“Because I didn't want you to see me like this.”
He gazed steadily into her eyes and said softly:
“I didn't want you to see Luo Jingming like this.”
The slow process of recovery, being bedridden and unable to move, having to ask others for everything, losing one's dignity. There was no need to say more about the bitterness and hardship involved. It wasn't that he didn't believe she could stay by his side without caring about any of it, or that she couldn't remain with him without finding him a burden. It was simply that even the most devoted children could not stay forever at a sick parent's bedside. If their love had been built on sympathy and pity, how long could it really last?
If this was all he could ever be for the rest of his life, then it would be better never to see each other again, so that in her memories he could remain forever young, vibrant, dignified and full of life. Even after years and another lifetime had passed, he would remain etched into her heart, never fading, just as he had been when they first met.
“Then why hide yourself away here? Does this place have the best neurosurgery hospital? The best rehabilitation center?” She gave a cold laugh, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Or did you lose your love too, and decide to tell all your unhappiness to a lighthouse?”
“This is the end of the world. You know what that means?”
He gazed quietly at her, his eyes filled with a thousand shades of tenderness and ten thousand shades of devotion.
“It means that no matter where you are on Earth, you can't be any farther away from me.”
In fact, during the surgery, he had several times hovered on the brink of death. He had survived by sheer force of will, clinging stubbornly to his desire to live. The doctors had called it a miracle, but he thought he should thank her for that one question she had asked when they parted, when she had staked everything on it.
The karmic knot remained unbroken. How could he dare let go of life?
Tan Guhong's breath caught for a moment, and she was unable to speak. She took a deep breath and steadied herself for a while before saying, each word measured, almost through gritted teeth:
“There was no need. You really didn't need to do all this.”
He had hidden it from her from the very beginning, keeping her in suspense, piquing her curiosity, making her misunderstand, then disappearing, cutting off all contact, going to every possible length to have other people tell her the truth. Letter after letter, crossing the boundaries of time and space, had nearly buried her alive until she could barely breathe.
He made her feel guilty, made her worry, made her imagine all sorts of things, made her lose herself, made her so anxious that she could neither eat nor sleep, tossing and turning through the night. He made her see with her own eyes the graveyard and the tombstone carved with his name, made her experience the pain of losing him to the fullest, made her understand for herself just how important he was to her!
This whole push-and-pull, this game of seeming to retreat while drawing her closer, of deliberately keeping her at arm's length only to reel her in, had been played beautifully.
Greed, anger, delusion, hatred, love, aversion, desire. Birth, aging, illness, death, and separation from those one loves. She had experienced every calamity this lifetime had to offer, all because of him.
“You went to all this trouble, calculated every move, exhausted every possible scheme, just to make me admit that I love you, didn't you?!”
He gave a soft laugh, his eyes brilliant as a field of stars, deep as the sea. Slowly, he asked:
“Then, did I succeed?”
She met his eyes in silence. She did not answer immediately. Instead, she slowly began walking backward, one step, two steps...
She kept retreating until she was about five meters away from him, then said provocatively:
“If you can walk over here and hold me in your arms, I'll tell you the answer.”
All around them, every sound had fallen silent. It was as though time itself had been pressed to pause in that instant, every sense amplified without limit.
The sea crashed against the reefs, sending up waves upon waves of white foam. From the distant harbor came the long, melodious horn of a ship. A seagull beat its wings and skimmed the surface of the water. In the depths of the sea, fish that had waited out an entire winter could hardly contain themselves as they leapt above the surface to welcome the first hint of spring.
But she simply stared unwaveringly at the person before her, never once looking away.
Luo Jingming stared back at her expressionlessly, silent for a long time.
In the end, he shook his head with a smile, seeming at once helpless, indulgent, resigned, and defeated.
Slowly, he rose from the wheelchair and walked toward her, one step at a time.
No stumbling, no faltering. His steps were steady and sure, as though he were taking a leisurely stroll.
She watched helplessly as he came closer from afar, until he stood before her. Her eyes slowly grew wet, her vision gradually blurring.
In the end, he opened his arms and pulled her tightly into his embrace. She leaned against that intimately familiar chest, breathing in its faint, cool scent of mint, and choked out an insult:
“Liar!”
She knew it!
She knew it!
She knew he would never have shown himself unless he had already recovered completely!
He did not want her sympathy. He did not want her pity. Yet he insisted on making her feel guilty, making her frightened and worried, sending her heart through wind and rain, through fire and water, carving his name into it with knives and axes.
Luo Jingming, you really are a complete and utter liar!
He gently bit her ear and asked with a smile:
“Are you satisfied now?”
“No.”
“Then what would it take to satisfy you, Miss Who-Loves-Making-Things-Difficult?”
She remained silent for a long time. He could feel the front of his shirt slowly becoming damp. He reached out and gently stroked her hair, then her back. It was both consolation and apology, tenderness and love.
He was not in a hurry. Not in the slightest.
He possessed the greatest patience in the world, the deepest capacity for restraint. He had been capable of spending ten whole years silently loving one person, and capable of devising an enormous deception, staking his own life as the wager in his scheme to win someone's heart.
And so, at this moment, he was not in a hurry. Not in the slightest.
After a long while, she finally took a deep breath. With her eyes still red, she looked up at him and asked softly:
“Have you ever seen the sunrise from the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall?”
He froze. His gaze trembled ever so slightly, but she had already answered for herself.
“Twelve years ago, I did.”
Twelve years ago, that summer, Luo Jingming returned to China with his grandfather, setting foot on the unfamiliar homeland for the first time. Tan Guhong had just graduated from high school, riding high after placing at the top of her class. The two of them had met by a twist of fate because of a disastrous blind date.
A beautiful, melancholy young man and a handsome, free-spirited young woman. The story froze there, and it should have been a good beginning.
But because of life's vicissitudes, because they were young, because they were worldly, because they were innocent, they ultimately passed each other by, losing years to twists, turns, and wasted time.
That day, he casually broke his promise and turned away without looking back, never imagining that from then on he would yearn for her day and night, unable to stop thinking of her. That night, after waiting alone for a long time, she drove to Jinshanling by herself. Standing amid the layers of mountains, she watched the red sun rise like a golden wheel in the east. That faint stir of youthful emotion in her heart had not even had the chance to ignite before it was extinguished.
For him, that first meeting in their youth lasted a lifetime. For her, it lasted only an instant.
That beautiful, gloomy young man had nevertheless left a tiny ripple in her heart without a sound. So that years later, in a foreign land half a world away, through the hazy veil of rain and mist, she could still recognize him at a single glance.
What should have been the ending of the story became the beginning of everything.
Fate went round and round, like a Möbius strip.
He opened his mouth, momentarily unable to speak. The upheaval inside him was beyond words, and his eyes softened with emotion.
So it turned out that their first meeting all those years ago had been neither too early nor too late.
He lowered his head and rested his forehead against hers, sighing softly.
“It doesn't matter. I still have a lifetime to spend watching every sunrise and sunset of the years we have left together.”
“You know perfectly well that I don't want a single moment, and I don't want forever.”
She shook her head and slowly began to smile.
“But at least right now, at this very moment, I want to be with you until the seas run dry and the stones crumble.”
✦
Today’s Film Recommendation:
Happy Together (1997, Hong Kong)
Location: South America
Synopsis: The film is adapted from The Motorcycle Diaries, written by Che Guevara himself, and tells the story of how a journey through South America inspired an entirely new worldview in Che Guevara, causing the seeds of revolutionary fervor to begin taking root and growing within him.
Recommendation: This is the first movie I have recommended in this story, and it will also be the last. Everything began here, and so it should end here, too. I don't know whether the lighthouse standing at the end of the world can truly hear all the secrets people entrust to it. In that distant story, there is sadness both on and off the screen.
I actually struggled for a while over whether this story should have a happy or a sad ending. Eventually, I came to terms with it. Ordinary people living in this mundane world can hardly escape the cruelty of reality, so often, a cruel ending is all that awaits them. And so, I want to give the people in this story a happy ending. I hope that the people outside the story, at least in this moment, can find happiness, too.
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