Chapter 154: You fell from the sky (Part 1)

The nights in the snow-capped mountains are beautiful, but the same night, the experience with Ruoxue and the one with Lushan, are so different.

With Ru Xue, any hint of beauty can evoke a myriad of thoughts in the heart… But with Lu Shan, the two of them were not concerned with any beauty. The grass rustled beneath their footsteps, and the two of them, walking in silence, felt a kind of companionship between men, a companionship that was not lonely.

We still stayed by the lake where Ru Xue and I had been the night before… It was still the same rock, and both Lu Shan and I jumped up at the same time… and then sat down on the rock.

The lake was full of starlight… The night breeze was light, and I took out a pack of cigarettes from my robe and gave one to him… We lit the cigarette together in silence, and the light blue smoke began to rise. Lu Shan finally said, “In fact, I have wanted to tell you about my past for a long time… but it’s not a happy thing. I even doubt whether I have the courage to tell this story.”

“Everyone has things they can’t forget, and things they can’t forget aren’t necessarily bad things, right?” I comforted Lu Shan. In fact, life is like this. The more sad and regrettable it is, the more difficult it is to forget.

“I am an orphan… an orphan from Tibet…” Lu Shan suddenly looked at me and smiled.

I was surprised, but on second thought, apart from taking good care of Tao Bai, Lushan had hardly mentioned his relatives.

I didn’t interrupt, but Lushan continued to talk: “But to say that I’m an orphan is not entirely true… I only lost my parents, but I still have my grandparents and an uncle… Of course, this is the Han name, but you can understand the relationship anyway.”

“In that case, you didn’t grow up without any support, did you?” I grew up in a warm environment, with parents, a sister, and a master who all loved me very much. I couldn’t relate to Lushan’s life story, but I subconsciously hoped that Lushan could also find support and love.

Lu Shan looked at the lake in the distance with a cigarette in his mouth… He didn’t answer my question directly, but instead smiled slightly, with a distant memory, and said with a sense of vicissitudes of life that he couldn’t look back: “I never met my parents. My grandmother told me that they disappeared deep in the snow-capped mountains in search of a mysterious existence.”

“Ah? Your parents?” I looked at Lushan in surprise. I always felt that there was a great story behind this. If an ordinary couple were living an ordinary life, why would they go to the depths of the snow-capped mountains to find a mysterious existence? And leave behind a small child? Do Lushan’s parents have a story?

Facing my question, Lushan looked at me and smiled wryly, then said, “Chengyi, if I tell you that I have never met my parents, and I have rarely heard of my parents, would you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you.” I don’t know why, but a trace of bitterness welled up in my heart. It was as if Lushan’s wry smile had been carved into my heart… It’s already sad enough to lose your parents, but to know so little about them? What kind of heartbreaking childhood is that?

“But it’s not completely unknown.” Lushan suddenly lay down on a large stone, holding a cigarette in his mouth, then squinting his eyes and said, “When I was a child, my grandmother once told me that my father was a respected man, and my mother was very beautiful. They both loved me very much… My mother lacked milk, and my father would give me milk from the goat… Even when it was snowing, he never stopped… When I was a child, I was weak, and my mother held me all day and all night, refusing to let me leave her embrace. My father also picked herbs for me… I just hate that I was too young at the time.”

I also lay down next to Lushan… I understand his sadness, the sadness of not being able to remember the good memories, not being able to remember the faces of my parents. This is Lushan’s childhood.

I also realized that nothing happens for no reason. Lushan is an outstanding and mysterious cultivator, and his talent must have something to do with his parents… even if he doesn’t know anything about his parents.

“Do you think I’m suffering? Chengyi?” He suddenly asked me with a smile, but before I could answer, he continued, “Actually, before I was seven years old, I wasn’t suffering… My grandparents pitied me for losing my parents and loved me very much. They always protected me. Our family was a herder, and although we weren’t rich, we still had a flock of sheep… we had no worries about food or clothing. The only person who didn’t like me was my aunt. After she married into the family, she and my uncle never gave me a good face.”

“Hmm? What happened next?” I asked.

“Later? I said that because of my grandparents’ presence… my uncles and aunts wouldn’t do anything to me. Besides, at that time, the family had split up… they had their own sheep, and the herdsmen would move with the sheep. But human life is limited, right? After all, my grandparents were old… and because they missed my parents too much, their health deteriorated quickly. I often saw my grandmother crying at night, saying my father’s name.” Lushan’s cigarette had burned to the end by this point.

His profile looked a little sad. Although he had spoken lightly, I knew that he, who had been abandoned since childhood, would have a deep affection for his grandparents…

Lushan lit another cigarette and said after a long silence, “I remember it was a winter… my seventh winter, a particularly cold winter… even the grasslands were covered in snow, which didn’t melt for a long time… it was during that winter that my grandfather and grandmother passed away. After that, things were actually very sad… anyway, you don’t need to know the details, but in general, I started living with my uncle and aunt, and the sheep my grandparents left me also belonged to them.”

When Lushan talked about this past, he was even more relaxed… as if the suffering he had endured was not worth mentioning at all.

“Do you hate them?” My eyes are on the endless sky, the bright stars… In fact, under this sky, we are so small, and when you think about it, is it really worth mentioning? If you put it in your heart, it is hate, if you don’t put it in your heart, then everything has nothing to do with your life, your happiness.

“Those who had hatred before, in their families, had to eat poorly, and there were heavy household chores weighing on them… When they were a little older, they went to herd sheep… and they had to let their younger brothers have their way. If their younger brothers were unhappy, they would be beaten. I think that my grandparents, too, would cry out for their parents while hugging their favorite sheep alone at night… How could I not hate, a little me?” Lushan looked at the starry sky and sighed.

“Did you stop hating them?” I asked.

“I don’t hate them anymore. If it weren’t for them, I, a seven-year-old child, wouldn’t have been able to grow up in the vast grasslands. After all, I wouldn’t have been able to herd sheep at that time. There were still wolves and all kinds of unknown dangers on the grasslands… They were not good to me, but at least they let me grow up. Even if I didn’t eat well, I still had enough to eat, didn’t I?” Lushan said with a sigh.

“You are very open-minded.” I simply commented.

“Chengyi, if you had my personality, you would have figured it out even earlier than I did. It’s because if you remember to hate, you will live a very painful life… but if you look at the kindness, you will live a happy and easy life. They have raised me for a few years no matter what. At that time, I thought my life would go on like that… When I grew up and got married, my uncles and aunts would give me some sheep, even if not many, so I could live my own life. I thought that as long as I worked hard, the sheep would gradually grow bigger… my life would get better, and at that time, the thing I most longed for was to grow up. When Lushan talked about this, he had a smile on his face, as if it was a beautiful dream. I could understand… If I could really live like this, wouldn’t it be a kind of happiness?

“What happened next?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“What could happen? You can probably guess, too. But you can’t guess the details.” Lushan smiled again… The smile was like being immersed in memories and unwilling to extricate oneself.

“Then just tell me.” In fact, I should be able to guess that his fate took a certain turn, and that this turn may be related to that mysterious and evil temple.

“That year, I was 11 years old… I was already a mature shepherd, familiar with the grasslands and the sheep… I was used to the life of a shepherd… but even so, I couldn’t guard against the unpredictable grassland wolves. That summer, I went out to graze… for some reason, a small group of grassland wolves came to the usually peaceful pasture. I was in a difficult situation at that time, and I couldn’t bear to lose any sheep… during the time I lived with my uncle and aunt, I had such a deep affection for every single sheep.” Lushan looked at me and asked, “Can you understand?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“That was when I met Pema, the woman who changed my life… I met her while I was running for my life with my sheep, fighting off the wolves.”