After they’d all left, I lived alone in the little house.
When my college entrance exam results came out, I’d placed in the top hundred in the province, and the university awarded me a scholarship of a hundred thousand yuan.
I enrolled in forensic medicine at Sichuan University, and the teachers and classmates I met there were all quite good to me.
But somehow I’d lost any desire for leisure or fun—my days were spent entirely between the library and the lab, and studying became my only way to pass the time.
Every year, I’d go back to the old alley once, to see whether he’d returned, and take the chance to clean the little house from top to bottom.
When I went back in my sophomore year, I heard my father had been released from prison, and had followed that gambling boss surnamed Zhu down south to make his fortune.
Days passed like beads sliding through a strand, one after another slipping through my fingers, threading together into weeks, into months, into years.
In my fifth year, I did an internship at West China Hospital, where I met a senior colleague who took very good care of me. Coincidentally, he turned out to be the older brother of Wang Zhe, my high school classmate—Wang Yanli. I hadn’t even recognized him at first.
After graduation, I followed him in taking the public security exam back in my hometown, and started working in the criminal investigation unit. I held onto the hope that maybe, someday, I might get to work alongside Zhou Haiyan. I wasn’t afraid of hardship or exhaustion, and I had plenty of nerve besides—sometimes my colleagues would praise me for being more capable than the men, saying I’d brought honor to female forensic examiners everywhere.
Over these six years, whenever I grew tired of everything, I’d think of him, think of him living, existing, somewhere in this world, and I’d find myself willing to endure anything at all—his existence mattered that much to me. The moment I thought of him, time itself seemed to lose all its weight.
I never quite understood how the days I’d spent with them could feel both so long and so fleeting all at once, so I kept turning them over in my memory again and again—simply living off those memories was already happiness enough. If I erased any single moment they had ever appeared in my life, I could never have become who I am today.
…
That day, I was in the middle of writing up a report.
Suddenly, my heart clenched violently. The pen slipped from my hand, rolling to a stop by my feet. My chest felt like it was shattering, the pain so sharp I couldn’t breathe, my hands and feet going numb all over, tears sliding down my face without my willing it, a nausea of grief rising in me.
It felt as though somewhere far away, a tree bound to my very spirit was being cut down.
“Heqing, what’s wrong?”
Wang Yanli, my senior colleague working beside me, saw the state I was in and rushed over in alarm.
I grabbed hold of his sleeve. “Senior, I need to take leave. Right now. I need to go to Puji Temple.”
Over the years, I’d occasionally felt this kind of unease before, but never as intensely as today.
Loving someone felt like tending a god who could fall at any moment—every breath, light or heavy, tied to him.
I was too afraid. I needed something to hold onto, anything, for a scrap of security. They said Puji Temple was the most effective place to make a wish, that prayers there were always answered.
When a person is helpless to the point of despair, all that’s left to turn to is faith.
By the time I stood in front of the temple, my heart was still in a panic. The rain was pouring down hard. My senior, worried about letting me go alone, quietly held an umbrella and accompanied me.
I refused to take shelter under it—I was afraid it would show a lack of sincerity, that the Buddha wouldn’t hear me.
Seeing he couldn’t talk me out of it, he put his own umbrella away too. Before long, we were both soaked through, and to anyone watching, the two of us looked like a pair of half-crazed, drenched rats.
The sky hung dark and heavy, as if countless cracks had split open along the horizon, the sound of the rain merging into one continuous roar, the trees along the stone path shaking wildly, fat raindrops pelting down without mercy.
Passersby all ducked for shelter; the two of us standing rigid in the downpour looked jarring, out of place.
The temple sat high on the mountain, one hundred and eight steps from the foot to the summit. Ignoring everyone’s stares, I climbed them kneeling, bowing three times with every step.
Forehead pressed to the ground, knees striking stone, the heavy, dull sound of each impact scattered by the falling rain, each one a prayer for his safety. Countless times, pressing my palms together, it was his name I called.
My forehead was scraped raw and bleeding by the gravel, my knees bruised deep, but all I wanted was for the Buddha to see the sincerity in my heart.
Gritting my teeth through the final step, I finally reached the top—only to watch the temple’s great doors slowly swing shut before my eyes.
Through the gap in the doorway, an old monk stood in dark robes, prayer beads in hand, his brow carrying a solemn, grave weight.
“Without cause, how could you ever meet; without debt owed, how could you ever come to owe each other. The bond between you was always thin, and that bond has now run its course. Once the bond is spent, nothing more is owed.
“Benefactor, please go home.”
The instant the temple doors closed completely, the mountain suddenly rang with the sound of chanting sutras.
In a daze, I thought I heard someone calling my name. But when I turned around, there was nothing behind me but the wind, raging on.
Boundless confusion and despair swept over me all at once, and I had no idea which way to turn.