Epilogue, 1/2
Marital bliss, everyone is good.
When Lin Jing was young he hadn’t liked his name. People’s first impressions would always be that this name belonged to a smart and cute girl. In his elementary school and high school, there had always appeared a classmate or alumni with the exact same name as him, and they would always be a girl. But his dad told him that his name was taken from the Book of Songs “Yi yan yin jiu, yu zi xie lao. Qin se zai yu, mo bu jing hao.” (Chinese: 宜言饮酒,与子偕老.琴瑟在御,莫不静好, basically is a sweet poem about newlyweds). The meaning of it, he learned, was that this name was the ideal symbol for his parents love.
Lin Jing respected his father Lin Jie Zhou a lot, even though his father had always been stern to Lin Jing and he was closer to his mom. The scientific Lin Jie Zhou was born after the Cultural Revolution as he graduated as part of the first generation of university graduates after the restoration of the college entrance exam. Since the very first of Lin Jing’s memories, Lin Jie Zhou was always an experienced person in charge of a state enterprise. Rather than calling him a manager, Lin Jie Zhou was more like a scholar. From Lin Jing’s point of view, his father was wise, quiet, rational, honest, intelligent, and had always been his role model. More importantly, Li Jie Zhou’s dedication to family matter’s and his love for his wife made Lin Jing feel as if he had the happiest family in the world.
To a man, other than a successful career, was there anything that was even more important than having a peaceful and blissful family? Ever since he was young, Lin Jing had been influenced by the circumstances around him. He believed that he should stand out and protect his family against all harms. Giving the person that you loved happiness was the bare minimum of a man’s duty. But not all families could be as happy and lucky as his had been. Even the outgoing Little Flying Dragon, once she returned to her family, had to face a continuous battle against her parents.
Every time a huge fight broke out in the family, Little Flying Dragon would appear at Lin Jing’s family’s dinner table. She would always take the initiative to sit beside Lin Jing, thinking that no one noticed when she quietly inched her small seat closer and closer to Lin Jing. Lin Jing would look down at his bowl and eat, going along and helpfully pretending that he didn’t see her eyes on him, spinning and whirling. The usually quiet and focused on eating Lin Jie Zhou not only laughed happily when Little Flying Dragon talked animatedly, he also cheerfully participated in the discussion. It was usually about serious parents and what leaders were like. Lin Jing’s mom also smiled softly as she watched the lively and clever little girl. The entire table was full of dishes that Little Flying Dragon loved to eat.
Lin Jing wasn’t even the slightest bit jealous. How he saw it, this girl was his third family member.
Lin Jing was older than Little Flying Dragon by five years. Her homework was always done with his guidance. She was pretty smart, but wasn’t very focused on studying. The mistakes in her homework were all due to carelessness. He often told her the main focus points of each book but her attention would fly away to clouds thousands of miles away.
She said, “I really like this small table lamp of yours, the orange color. Lin Jing, gift me one, won’t you? I’ll look at it everyday.”
Lin Jing replied to her saying that this kind of old lamp was already discontinued and wasn’t sold on the market anymore. His family’s lamp was also a memento from his father and mother’s marriage, so he couldn’t give it to her. She wasn’t angry and soon forgot about it. But every time the lightbulb died out, Lin Jing would specially take a train longer than an hour to go visit an old hardware shop in a market. In the entire city, only this place was still selling this color of lightbulb. He was scared that there would be a day when this market also disappeared, so he usually bought a lot every time. He knew his own selfishness; he was unwilling to gift her this kind of lamp because he wished that when she missed this kind of light, she would appear beside the lamp. He wished that he was the only person in the entire world who could give her this kind of warmth.
Lin Jing practiced Liu calligraphy (a specific style of characters) because he loved the strictness of the characters. Each stroke had a bone. His calligraphy teacher would always find it strange, he was clearly a peaceful child, yet the characters he wrote were strong and fierce. Calligraphy was what Little Flying Dragon feared the most, but her parents said, frequently visiting the Lin family was okay, but if she was tagging along with Lin Jing Gege* then she should learn something good. They hoped that learning calligraphy could temper her somewhat reckless character, so she practiced calligraphy with him three times a week.
*- Gege means brother, in case you didn’t know.
When he was with Little Flying Dragon, Lin Jing wasn’t an especially strict teacher. The majority of the time, he let her play happily with the ink, not actually practicing what she was supposed to. The result of this was that all the way up to college, when she returned for summer vacation, her calligraphy was still considered abstract, completely unpresentable. However, there was one word “Jing/静“, which she wrote somewhat well*. That’s right, he had repeatedly taught it seriously, but, it was unclear whether she had been seriously practicing it as well. Every time the adults came to inspect, she would shameless resort to using this word to trick them. Seeing this fluent and beautiful “静” made Lin Jing slowly fall in love with his name.
*- in case you haven’t guessed, this Jing character is the same as the Jing in Lin Jing’s name (静)
There were many children in the complex, so he was used to being a role model for others. When parents taught their children, most of the time, their favorite expression was, “Look at what Lin Jing from that family is like, why can’t you learn from him.” Lin Jing knew his excellence and didn’t plan on hiding it. He liked how others looked up to him, but Little Flying Dragon who was the closest to him would say, “I don’t worship you in the slightest.”
Lin Jing would laugh and ask her, “Why?”
She would say, “The person I am going to marry is obviously the best, isn’t this very normal?”
These kinds of words, he had already got used to hearing them. Perhaps ever since she had learned that people would get married when they grew up, she had already began to earnestly say, “Lin Jing, I am going to marry you, definitely going to marry you!”
She would say it in front of him and she would also say the exact same thing in from of many adults. Such a small little girl, resolutely committing to this promise of a lifetime, everyone was amused. When they were joking, they would say she was the young lady of the Lin Family (xiaoxifu, young married woman). Lin Jing would also laugh, but when he saw her red-cheeked face after playing crazily with the other children, he couldn’t help but wonder whether she really knew what “marry you” meant.
When she was six, her reason was, “Auntie Sun makes really good dishes. My mom said I can’t marry Uncle Lin or Auntie Sun, so I can only marry you.”
When she was nine, she said, “When I see Zhang Xiao Ming and those annoying boys I want to beat them up. Lin Jing, you’re still the best, I want to marry you.”
When she was fourteen, she pulled his sleeve and said, “You must wait for me, I’ll grow up quickly.”
He always laughed without saying a word.
The year she was seventeen, he returned home for summer vacation and brought her to a temple festival. She had always loved going to busy places ever since she was little. He went to buy water but when he turned back, she was already gone from his sight. In the end, he found her silhouette beside the banyan tree in the back of the temple. Even in the cold winter season, Lin Jing surprisingly found sweat on his forehead.
He walked over and asked, “Wei Wei, what are you doing?”
She was single-mindedly writing two people’s names and using a red string to tie it onto the tree. Hearing his voice, she turned and hurriedly said, “You’re taller than me, you come tie it.”
“What use does tying it so high have?”
“If it’s a bit taller then it won’t fall as easily. After we get married, it will serve as fulfilling our promise.”
She spoke as if it was natural and expected, and it wasn’t the first time Lin Jing had heard this kind of view from her. He didn’t know why, but this time he didn’t laugh. When he stood on his tip toes to tie the red string, he failed to tie it many times.
Little Flying Dragon was finally admitted into a college in the same city as him. The day before she took the train, Lin Jing took the photo which had “My Little Flying Dragon” written on it and pressed it between the pages of a book of fairy tales she had given him. These few years, many of the words had been spoken by her. But, there were some words which he had to say. He would only say it once, but it would last for a lifetime.
That night, he received a phone call. After hanging up, he realized that in that moment, his world had overturned.
“Yi yan yin jiu, yu zi xie lao. Qin se zai yu, mo bu jing hao.” (Chinese: 宜言饮酒,与子偕老.琴瑟在御,莫不静好, basically is a sweet poem about newlyweds). Such a moving poem, it had actually been about the person he loved the most’s (Lin Jing’s father’s, Lin Jie Zhou’s) eternal longing for another woman. His so called happiest family in the “entire world” had turned out to be just a joke, so was there even anything left in the world worth sticking to?
He was suddenly terrified of the Little Flying Dragon who was about to come to his side.
Lin Jing stood beside the window of the hospital sick room, softly pushing aside the curtains. The afternoon sunlight impatiently invaded the room, making him frown his eyebrows. The sunlight shone on the face of the patient on the bed, and the originally restless patient let out some unconscious sounds. He walked over and sat beside the bed, looking at the man who had become so haggard from his sickness. He was nothing like his originally strong and gentle father.
Not long after getting his degree in America, Lin Jing got a call from his mother saying that his father was severely ill, and she told him to come back as soon as possible. After returning to the country, the majority of his time was spent in the hospital, accompanying Lin Jie Zhou. Lin Jie Zhou’s disease was not only severe, he was in the terminal stages of liver cancer. After the cancer cell had spread, his life had actually begun coming to an end.
Every time Lin Jing looked at Lin Jie Zhou’s condition lying on the sickbed this way, he would always think, was this still the man who he had seen as his idol and role model of a father? For those secret feelings with that woman, he had ruined a good home. He no longer wanted his business, his reputation, and in the end, even his health couldn’t be saved. Now at this point, what did he still have, his life was even more fragile than love.
Lin Jing’s mother was still working. Her work at the union was busy and trivial, and she was extremely busy everyday. While her husband was dying, she forgave this man who had betrayed her, but she was still unable to stay by his side everyday. Lin Jing understood his mother, at this kind of time, whether Lin Jie Zhou lived or died, it was all some sort of torture for her.
After the doctor had also expressed his helpessness, Lin Jie Zhou’s periods of unconciousness became longer and longer. Even when he was awake, his consciousness was increasingly muddled. Many times, he would stare at Lin Jing and ask, “What department are you from?” or “Why hasn’t Lin Jing returned yet?” When he was able to recognize Lin Jing, he would repeatedly say the name of a place, “Wu Yuan… … Wu Yuan… …”
Wu Yuan, Lin Jing remembered that place. Nine years ago, he had once promised Little Flying Dragon to go visit there with her, to revisit the place of her mother’s love. Ironically, he hadn’t realized at the time that that place actually had the same meaning to his father.
Finally, one time, Lin Jie Zhou placed his skinny, twig like hand in Lin Jing’s and said in a faint but clear voice, “Lin Jing, after I die, bring my ashes to Wu Yuan and sprinkle them under the tree at Li Zhuang village. This is my last request for you.”
Lin Jing thought back to his mother who had become haggard over the years and his heart mourned. Slowly, he drew his hands back and said, “Dad, you’re confused from your sickness, you don’t even know what you’re saying.”
Lin Jie Zhou didn’t say anything further, but his two eyes which were watching his son slowly dimmed.
That day, when Lin Jing went to get the medicine, he saw the woman he used to call “Aunt” at the end of the ward corridor. She stood in the corner, shadowed, looking in the direction of Lin Jie Zhou’s room. Lin Jing had heard, before he had returned, at the time when his father had just been recently admitted, she had come by many times. Every time she came, she said she only wanted to take a quick look at Lin Jie Zhou, but she was always scolded away by Lin Jing’s mother. The rumors in the complex had also spread in an uproar. They all said that if it hadn’t been for her and Lin Jie Zhou’s scandal, Lin Jie Zhou wouldn’t have gotten so riled up and gotten sick so early in his life. She had implicated and disgraced the honorable Lin Jie Zhou into becoming a typical corrupted person. She herself had become a vixen (fox-spirit) scorned by all.
Lin Jing didn’t approach her and she also didn’t have the intention of walking over, so they just continued to stand quietly in the direction of the room, like clay sculptures. Lin Jing couldn’t see her eyes clearly, but he felt that her face must have had tears. He was suddenly afraid to look at that face, because the facial features faintly reminded himself of another person. It almost made him soft towards this woman who had ruined his family.
For the few days in which his father’s illness temporarily stabilized, Lin Jing went on a trip to G City, XX Province’s court. The preliminary examinations for civil servants of the prosecution had already began. He liked this grand reason. Although he already had his former postgraduate teacher’s recommendation from within the country, he had just received an invitation letter from a well-known law firm in Shang Hai.
Standing inside a phone booth in G University, Lin Jing felt as if the air seemed to exude a subtle sweetness. He didn’t know why, everything that had to do with her would always bring this kind of air, even memories were like this.
Right after he had gone abroad, Lin Jing also experienced an absurd time. Many times, he picked up and put down that book of fairy tales in his dreams, but once he awoke, he would not know where his body was or who was beside him. From the day he traveled across the ocean onwards, he knew, he would only get further and further away from Little Flying Dragon. This kind of distance was something he could not have imagined before, but his intellect told him, there was no better choice than to leave.
Lin Jing wasn’t an easily lost person. Maybe his nature just wasn’t suited for this kind of indulgence. Soon after, he once again began loathing that kind of life, and refocused his mind back on school. He felt that no matter what the situation, people should let themselves live the best lives they could. He was unable to make up for the rift between his parents; he could not change what had already happened, so he could only let himself look forward.
During those days in a foreign country, he received recognition from his professors, was very popular in the local Chinese student circle, and of course, his feelings in the world weren’t lacking either. He had dated a number of serious girlfriends, but none of them were especially bright women. Sometimes, he thought, he knew he liked those mature, sensible, smart and independent women. When they were together, it would be relaxed and comfortable, and parting would also be light and free.
The one who was with him the longest was one called Linda? She was Wu’s female classmate, and it was also his last relationship before returning to the country. Linda was a third generation Chinese immigrant. Her family was well off, she was beautiful and open minded, she grew up in the United States yet she spoke Mandarin fluently, every stroke of her Kai calligraphy was charming and talented; sometimes, even Lin Jing felt, there would be no one else who fit being his partner more.
Linda had once urged Lin Jing to settle down in Los Angeles. Two similarly intelligent and capable man and woman together, there would be no troubles in the sky. But Lin Jing had never dispelled his plans to go back to the country. Before leaving, he and Linda had had dinner together. The two of them had a friendly farewell. When he sent her home, she gave him a long hug then smiled as she wished him a good journey. He drove away, pretending not to know that she was crouching at the door crying.
It was only a long time after returning to the country when Lin Jing received an email from Linda. She said that she had kept waiting for a word from him. If at that time, he had said, Linda, come back to the country with me, she would’ve followed him regardless of everything else. Unfortunately, he never asked this. In fact, Lin Jing was also thinking, if she had cried in front of him then and urged him to stay, would he have stayed?
Unfortunately she wasn’t Little Flying Dragon. Only Little Flying Dragon would cry without holding anything back, loud and earth-shattering, when Lin Jing left home. Ever since he was young, if she only relentlessly grasped onto his sleeve, he was unable to harden his heart to leave. So, even when he had first been admitted into the Law and Politics University in G City, the day before he reported to the school, he didn’t dare let her send him off. He was afraid that if he saw her sobbing figure, he would feel distracted.
Yes, there could only be one Little Jade Flying Dragon in the entire world. Hadn’t he liked Linda in the beginning because of her intelligence and independence? So he and Linda were destined to pass by one another.
Lin Jing indirectly asked a few students in the complex who went to high school with Zheng Wei before finally getting her new dormitory phone. It had almost been four years, so he thought that there shouldn’t be any boundary unable to overcome between them. There was no one that she wouldn’t be able to forget (like anotherguy?). But when he pressed the phone, in the vaguely reflective glass telephone booth, he found himself unconsciously smiling. Every inch of his memory was an image of her in the past 17 years. It suddenly occurred to him, even if he couldn’t get his mother’s approval, it wasn’t such a scary thing.
The telephone went through, and her roommate was an enthusiastic girl. She not only told Lin Jing that Zheng Wei had just gone out with her boyfriend, she also curiously asked him, excuse me, who are you?
Who are you? Who am I? Lin Jing politely told her roommate goodbye. He wasn’t sure who he was right now to Zheng Wei; a neighboring gege who had grown up with her, or an old friend she hadn’t met in a while. Each explanation was more distant than he’d imagined.
He watched Zheng Wei walk towards him. She was a bit taller than she had been four years ago, her hair was longer and her doll face was still childish. She was looking down, and as she walked she was stuffing two full water bottles into her backpack. When she looked ahead, her face was immediately enveloped in a happy light. But her light wasn’t from him, but a slender teenager standing not far from him.
She ran the whole way to her source of light, not seeing Lin Jing who was standing inside a telephone booth beside the road.
Lin Jing also had never seen Zheng Wei like this. Of course, she had been happy ever since she was young, but when she was by his side, and that happiness had been a given. The her right now, just from a slight smile from that teenager, had become as happy as if she was gaining the most precious treasure. That kind of overflowing happiness that even he, who was a bystander, could see clearly.
For the next few days, Lin Jing methodically did everything. Sitting on the return flight, he watched the clouds whip past outside the window, like blurred scenery. A couple beside him was frantically coaxing their crying son who wouldn’t calm down. Lin Jing exercised restraint and smiled at the crying boy, asking, “Little friend, why are you crying?”
The boy sobbed and said, “I lost my favorite book.”
Lin Jing said, “So it was like this. But you aren’t the most pitiful, see, I also lost my favorite book, but I’m not crying.”
“Then why aren’t you crying?”
“Because crying won’t get me my book back.”
Obviously, the boy couldn’t understand his words and continued to sob. “None of you understand, that isn’t an ordinary book.”
Lin Jing smiled and looked out the window; of course he understood. He had also lost his favorite book; he had even lost Little Flying Dragon who had originally been his.
“He was obssessed. Lin Jing, even you are too?”
Lin Jing faced his mother whose eyes were mournful and teeth were clenched, secretly taking a step back. She was holding the box of her husband’s ashes close to her chest in one hand and the other hand was pointing to her only son, her entire body trembling like leaves in autumn. For fear that she would get stirred up and drop the white porcelain jar to the ground, Lin Jing could only silence himself.
“You aren’t going to bring his ashes to that place unless I die!”
Lin Jing sighed. Within a few days, the two most important people to him had unexpectedly threatened him with their lives. Furthermore, one of them had succeeded.
The evening he had returned from G City, Lin Jie Zhou’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly. Early in the morning, the Lin Jie Zhou which had already made the doctor shake his head miraculously woke. He called both his wife and his son to his side and used the last of his conscious time to carefully delegate all matters within the family, big and small. Real estate, stocks, deposits, insurance, all of it was transferred to his wife and son. He was a careful and methodical person, even in his last moments he was like this. Lin Jing had squatted in front of his father’s sickbed. In his heart, he knew; this person whom he had revered since childhood had already almost come to the end of his life.
Lin Jie Zhou’s voice became weaker and weaker and was eventually reduced to broken gasps. In his last moment, he no longer was able to speak, but his eyes refused to close. Struggling, he looked in Lin Jing’s direction.
In this moment, Lin Jing’s mother couldn’t restrain from sobbing. She grabbed the hand of the man she had loved and blamed before. “What else do you want to say, what other matter can you not put down?” But Lin Jie Zhou didn’t look at her; he still looked urgently at his son, the sound of his wheezing getting heavier and heavier.
Only Lin Jing was aware of what this silent plea was about. Even the usually resolute and rational him couldn’t help but be confused in this situation. On one hand, it was his father’s last, dying wish; the other side was his mother’s tears. He avoided those eyes, burying his face in the palms of his hands, but he was unable to avoid the image in his heart– that woman who had stood in the shadowed corner, as if she was permanently facing the direction of the sick room. The outline of her in the darkness was too familiar, and it slowly and unexpectedly began to overlap with another face in his heart.
Why do we always have to go through half a lifetime, until we are unable to retreat, before we know what we have given up, with our very own hands, in the past, things that we will never be able to meet in later days. The sound of gasping slowly faded. Lin Jing lifted his head, exactly in time to meet Lin Jie Zhou’s line of sight. If he gave up everything, even his body, to only return to that original place, would it be worth it? If it wasn’t worth it, then what was worth it? His heart was suddenly filled with grief; in the last of his father’s moments of consciousness, he slowly nodded for his father to see. Since he agreed, he would definitely accomplish it, no matter how difficult it was.
Lin Jie Zhou was unable to endure till the next morning. After his death, the unit complex gave him a solemn memorial service. It was a tradition for the Chinese to turn the dead into taboo; even if there had been some disgrace during the last part of his life, after he died, it would be wiped clean. After the funeral, the body was sent to be cremated. The third day after the ashes were sent back, Lin Jing decided to talk frankly with his mother about this matter. His father was also her husband; she had the right to know everything, and his mother’s fierce reaction was also within his expectations.
“Mom, the person isn’t even here anymore, only one jar of ashes, what is there left to argue for?”