LA ⋆ Chapter 10: Affection Is Impermanent

Sheng Yao took leave and made the trip himself to the temple where Sheng Yuanhang had become a monk.

It was a small temple in the south with not much incense traffic. From the train, then a bus, and finally a long walk on foot. The town was mostly elderly people; young faces were rare along the way.

Sheng Yao messaged Sheng Yi, saying that Master Langhang wasn’t doing well—it turned out to be a small temple in a remote mountain area.

Sheng Yi said that was normal; big temples required postgraduate degrees.

The phone call that day had been from the abbot and an old man from town. The old man was supposedly Sheng Yuanhang’s friend there. Not knowing whether the debt was real or fabricated, Sheng Yao wanted to see the medical records, to check the IOUs.

The old man had gotten the contact information from the abbot, so the three of them met in the temple, with the abbot present as well. The old man pulled out a stack of crumpled papers. At the fold marks, there were dark, fuzzy traces, as if they’d been dampened by sweat. One sheet after another, scattered and incomplete.

An X-ray, a CT scan, a pathology report. Lung squamous cell carcinoma.

Just three medical records in total. Everything else was prescriptions for painkillers.

Sheng Yao could imagine that after Sheng Yuanhang’s diagnosis, there had been no treatment, no follow-up scans either.

The IOU was indeed in Sheng Yuanhang’s handwriting. He liked to pull the vertical hook of the character for “hang” a bit to the left.

Over sixty thousand. Sheng Yao glanced at the old man. This sum was probably nearly everything he had to his name.

Sheng Yao asked: “You two were close?”

The old man mumbled in a dialect Sheng Yao couldn’t understand—like those occasional familiar words that drift past in a Level 4 English listening test. Sheng Yao managed to pick out one word: “lifesaving.”

Sheng Yao didn’t press further. He quickly transferred the money, then took that stack of papers to the incense-burning area and set them alight.

The old man braced himself on his knees, leaning to one side as he descended the temple steps, fumbling out another piece of paper with trembling hands, muttering something. Sheng Yao still couldn’t quite make it out. Confused, he took it and read:

All affections end in parting,

Impermanence makes lasting bonds rare,

The world is full of fear,

Life fragile as morning dew.[[1]]

So it was a will. It seemed he had studied some Buddhist verses seriously over the years.

Sheng Yao burned that too.

Sheng Yuanhang was buried on the back hill of the temple, but Sheng Yao didn’t plan to visit the grave.

For Sheng Yao, whether Sheng Yuanhang was alive or dead had almost no impact on him. Life was no different—the same eating, sleeping, working.

When Sheng Yao was in middle school, he learned about cloning and embryos. He asked his biology teacher a question: could a human embryo be transferred into an animal’s womb to complete the subsequent pregnancy and birth process?

The biology teacher was shocked, seeming at a loss for words. The student before her seemed to have extracted himself from the human species entirely, asking in an extremely calm, objective, and sincere manner a question that was somewhat nauseating.

“That wouldn’t be ethical,” the biology teacher finally answered.

In the years that followed, Sheng Yao had imagined countless times that he was gestated in a goat’s womb. He had human biological parents, yet was born from a goat’s birth canal, destined to bear some kind of sin.

There were clearly people in this world with blood ties to him.

But why did he still live like a drifting dandelion seed?

There hadn’t been much physical exertion, but when he returned to the rental room, Sheng Yao still felt completely exhausted.

Sheng Yi twisted the door open and came in, asking what was wrong.

Sheng Yao raised his hand to cover his face, speaking as if to himself: “My savings can never quite make it to the next milestone.” He had just paid the quarterly rent—twelve thousand.

Mom had passed away years ago, and there was no house back home either. Sheng Yi’s entire possessions fit in a single suitcase. After finishing his college entrance exam, he came to stay with Sheng Yao. If he couldn’t make it here, there was nowhere to return to.

A vast, invisible anxiety engulfed Sheng Yao.

His life really was a terrible play.

Sheng Yi went out for a tutoring session, and Sheng Yao lay in bed alone, forgetting to eat, forgetting to drink, drifting in a daze and thinking of many things.

There was a time when he was very small, when Sheng Yuanhang took him to see a paleontology exhibition. Back in an era when media and information weren’t well developed, a single exhibition opened up an entire new world. Sheng Yuanhang, earning six hundred yuan a month, was willing to spend twenty yuan to buy him a set of paleontology cards.

And later, when he was older and there was no one at home, his mom worked as a cleaner at the hospital and could only bring him along, leaving him in the office of a kind doctor. In a small county hospital on the urban-rural fringe twenty years ago, outside the office window were other people’s self-built red brick houses. On rainy days, the eaves went pitter-patter, and the air mixed the smell of soil, rainwater, and disinfectant. The old doctor gave him a mooncake.

One needed romance and poetry, the other wanted only three meals and four seasons. Sheng Yao was torn between fantasy and reality, gradually losing emotion, slowly going numb.

When Sheng Yi came back, he was angry: “How can you make the whole room smell like decay in half a day? Are you very sad that he died?”

Sheng Yi opened the window to air things out, then cooked white congee and steamed buns. Finally he came to Sheng Yao’s room, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him up.

Sheng Yao slowly moved Sheng Yi’s hand away: “No, I just remembered some things from when I was little.”

Compared to Sheng Yao, Sheng Yi’s emotions seemed stripped away even more cleanly. He had never had paternal love, never had maternal love either. In fact, he had never even been in contact with his parents.

Sheng Yi stared straight at Sheng Yao, his expression seeming to probe, yet characteristically indifferent.

“Ah, it’s fine now,” Sheng Yao said, steadying himself on Sheng Yi’s shoulder as he stood up. “I’ll go wash up.”

After the warm congee went down, Sheng Yao finally felt alive again.

His stomach was warm. He rubbed his belly and glanced at his phone—and nearly jumped out of his skin.

Sixteen missed calls. All from Cheng Ai.

His scalp went numb in an instant.

Sheng Yao unlocked his phone in a panic and found there were several messages.

“Cheng Ai: ?”

“Cheng Ai: What do you mean?”

“Cheng Ai: Sheng Yao?”

“Cheng Ai: Where are you?”

“Cheng Ai: Explain yourself!”

“Cheng Ai: ?”

Sheng Yao scrolled up nervously and found the reason.

“Sheng Yao: Cheng Ai”

“Sheng Yao: I like you”

Ahhhhhhhhh!

Sent at 15:22.

Wasn’t he passed out at that time?

Ahhhhhhhhh!

Shuitan must have cursed him!

Ahhhhhhh!