Blutiger Handabdruck - Kapitel 46
“I’ve never thought about why I love her, nor do I know why I love her. None of that matters. What matters is that she’s always in my heart, and I’m always in hers.” Xu Haicheng pressed his hand to his chest. He knew whose heart beat for. Going back to Jingyun Mountain to find Fang Li was an adventure. He didn’t know what he would encounter. But none of that mattered anymore. Tribulations were just tribulations after tribulations. Buddhism says that the world is formed by one tribulation after another, and so is life. He would definitely cross the deep forests of Jingyun Mountain, cross the dark river beneath Julong Cave, cross time and space, and find Fang Li.
Just like many years ago, he walked through the sun-drenched backyard, found Fang Li among the canna lilies, and took her hand.
postscript
I started conceiving this novel in May, and several times I wanted to give up, yet I was unwilling to. If I gave up, I feared I would never have the chance to write it again. A friend advised me, saying that "three" is a number associated with the cycle of life and death in Chinese culture, and I should finish it. So I gritted my teeth and persevered, spending the entire long summer pondering it. I wrote countless beginnings, only to reject them all. By mid-November, I had less than 50,000 usable words. In my deepest frustration, one day I suddenly had a breakthrough. I finished the rest in a week, then spent another month meticulously revising it, rewriting the ending several times. Finally, it was finished, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Some readers have mentioned that some mysteries in the novel remain unresolved. Since this isn't a detective novel, I won't provide answers to every single one. Sometimes I'll use other characters' words to explain, and sometimes I'll use a similar event to illustrate… For example, at the end, when Lao Tu Mao cuts off his own head, some might wonder why he committed suicide. My extensive mention of sacrificial art earlier is to set the stage for this. Lao Tu Mao's suicide was partly due to being surrounded, but more so because of the mountain god sacrifice. To others, it was a mountain god sacrifice performed as a Nuo dance, but to him, it was a true sacrifice; he offered his life for the millennia-old beliefs of his people. With the changing times, their people gradually migrated into the deep mountains, inevitably heading towards death. All they could hold onto was their faith.
As for Fang Li and Xu Haicheng, what will happen to them in the future is not really important. They possess the most beautiful and wonderful happiness in the world: loving and being loved.