abcnovels
Book 1
Book 1: Chapter 225: Postscript
I was lying on the couch in Rain Village as it rained outside, a basin at my feet. Fatty was off to the side, enjoying his own footbath. Poker-Face was leaning against the window ledge, looking outside. Black Glasses was cooking in the kitchen. Xiao Hua's injury hadn’t healed yet, so he was checking the accounts in the back room. There were a lot of expenses and bills for this activity, so he was being very meticulous.
Xiuxiu was on her way over. They probably had no intention of coming here to celebrate New Year's next time, so they might as well stay here longer to make up for it.
I spent nearly six days writing an account at the end of my grandpa’s notes of everything that had happened. This notebook had been written by three generations of the Wu family, so it was almost as thick as “Das Kapital” (1). Sometimes I wanted to start a blog and write these stories on the internet under an alias. It would be nice if I could write the real hardships into words, but in fact, I really just wanted to resist the nothingness that came from the passage of time. But Fatty said that blogs were outdated, so I should just write it all down on paper and read it for myself. That way, I won’t be disturbed by the cops and spend the rest of my life in misery.
One thing that surprised me and made me feel that things were very normal was that my lung disease wasn’t getting better.
When I saw the X-rays, I knew that Boss Jiao had been talking nonsense. I didn’t know if it was because he wanted to get out of trouble or if he was really hallucinating after hearing the thunder, but my condition had stabilized a lot. This meant that in the future, I’d still have to carry these rotten lungs for life. The doctor said that he didn’t know when it would get worse, so I decided to start looking forward to the rest of my life.
It did teach me at least one thing. The consequences of everything I did—whether positive or negative—wouldn’t disappear so easily. This is a truth that must be known in one’s life. When we were children, there was always a fantasy that all the bad things would one day be forgotten and disappear from our lives. As long as we moved forward and ate and slept well, everything would get better. But those pains would always appear suddenly at some point, and you’d know that they would always be there. They were a part of you, after all.
But you can't do anything, whether it’s ignoring them or attaching importance to them. Like this, life just becomes more and more complicated.
The amazing thing is that when life comes to an end, all the pains seem to become irrelevant in an instant. Eternal life brings eternal nothingness, but limited life brings splendor. And diseases that can take you away at any moment can push people to spend their lives better.
Isn't it funny?
At the end of your life, when you finally want to say goodbye to yourself, you find that your favorite self is an inhuman figure that’s been tortured by you.
Don't disservice the you that your mom and dad raised with their hearts, and don’t disservice your beautiful self. Believe that your beauty makes you worthy of everything. There is only one protagonist in everyone's life, and that is yourself.
But what’s the proper way to spend this life?josei
I couldn’t help asking myself this very question. I began to calmly think about the problems I didn't want to think about before: Poker-Face’s inevitable departure, the crisis of my aging body, Uncle Two’s way of protecting me, the things I did wrong to my parents, the ups-and-downs of all the idiots and opponents in my life, and all the things I obtained, lost, and regretted. My friends did things for me and I did things for them.
I just don’t know.
Maybe it’s doing good deeds without asking for a reward.
I could smell Black Glasses' meal burning, so I heaved a big sigh and stood up with a curse.
****
TN Notes:
(1) “Das Kapital” (1867) by Karl Marx is ~ 2156 pages.