323: Chapter 63: The Distant Him (6K)_3 323: Chapter 63: The Distant Him (6K)_3 “What did you see?”
Fate is really an intriguing thing.
This time.
He still asked the same question.
And this time.
I gave an answer.
I no longer closed my eyes but stood directly over the mouth of the well, silently staring into this bottomless abyss, this time…
I saw everything very clearly.
The water in the well reflected the figures of two intertwined.
Me and Him.
Only…
it was Him from sixty years ago.
The Holy Light rippling in the well water made it difficult to look directly.
It turns out I wasn’t wrong all those years ago.
He was right, this Great Yue Well can reflect the greatest desire in one’s heart.
Living life over again.
My only desire was to survive.
To be precise, to survive by His side, to accompany Him forever and ever, till eternity.
I shifted my gaze away, this life’s Him, who lost his memory, became blind, downtrodden, ordinary, nowhere near his sacred countenance of the past.
But looking down again.
He in the well still emitted an awe-inspiring radiance.
Decades have passed, He had become she.
But she…
is still Him.
“I saw ‘us’.”
I spoke to Him, my voice filled with contentment, “Don’t worry, I will accompany you through this long life.”
The book says, at the birth of new life, everyone tends to trust the first soul they encounter.
The book didn’t lie.
It was so for me, and so it was for Him.
This answer pleased Him, but the question He asked next left me unable to let go for a long time.
He asked me a question.
A question that I would spend a lifetime unable to answer.
He asked me, who is He.
Who is He?
I felt a sense of powerlessness.
I had spent decades accompanying, following, yet couldn’t even answer such a simple question…
it was beyond my capability and beyond my comprehension.
These decades.
I didn’t even know His name.
It seems…
neither did He.
This life, I decided to give Him a name.
“You are ‘Qing Li’.”
“Qing Li?”
He felt puzzled and unfamiliar with the name.
“Yes…
Qing Li.”
I gazed intently at the Great Yue Well, slowly saying, “The book says, it’s a kind of creature extinct for a long time, appearing in brooks, small rivers, anywhere really.”
“Extinct already?”
She felt a bit of regret, asking, “If it could appear anywhere, why did it become extinct?”
I stared at the shimmering golden water in the well and was silent for a long time.
The reason I gave her this name.
Was just because…
In the water of the well, I saw a Qing Li, symbolizing the void of desires deep within the heart, where everything that appears needs no reason.
After hesitating for a long time.
I told her, “Maybe what the book says is false, Qing Li isn’t dead, Qing Li is still alive.”
“Qing Li is a good name.”
She hugged her knees, squatting in front of the well water, quietly watching the swaying water.
Even though she couldn’t see.
She still earnestly looked on.
I began to feel regret…
not for giving her the name.
But rather for back then.
I hadn’t asked Him, what He had seen in this well.
If I had been bolder back then—looked a bit longer, asked a few more questions.
Now.
There wouldn’t be so many regrets.
Unfortunately…
Life doesn’t have so many ifs.
The days of the Second Life were more “intriguing” than the first, He was no longer the exalted deity, stripped of all brilliance, He became Qing Li, became someone I could casually touch, and I had numerous impulses to tell Qing Li the truth.
But I feared His wrath, and I feared my own heart.
The book says.
When Qing Li leaps through the Dragon Gate, it becomes a True Dragon.
I knew that this day would eventually come.
Holy Light cascading, powerfully descending.
She broke free from worldly shackles, regained her identity as a deity, regained memories, cleansed her soul, and opened her weary eyes.
When that day comes.
It would probably be the day when the illusory dreams of the well water shatter.
Because I was selfish, timid, greedy, seeking to survive…
So I hid, I cowered, I skulked, I deceived…
I ended up living through sixty years just like that.
More frightening to me than her regaining her divine form was that she didn’t, instead becoming even more decrepit, in the third life, though no longer blind, she became mute.
This time, fear began to take over me.
I traveled throughout the ancient country, perused ancient texts, finding that there is something in this world called “the five declines of the heavenly beings.”
It turns out even gods can die.
The beings that were once held in high regard, when close to perishing, would lose memories and become impaired.
The signs recorded in the ancient texts all matched Qing Li perfectly.
More alarming to me than the grand descent of the Holy Light was.
Due to my selfish desires, greed, possessiveness…
It led to the submergence of the Holy Light and its eventual extinction.
In the Great Yue Kingdom, because of fortune, those born in the void, named Li Mei, usually only live for three to five years.Yet I have lived for so long…
There was probably only one reason, I stayed by her side.
The “blessings of the divine” in this world are limited, my existence attracted most of the “divine blessings.”
As I said earlier.
Divine blessings are limited.
The tragedies and unhappiness in this world, one after another, fell upon her, two lives in a row…
No matter how much I wished to scrape by.
I had to make a decision now.
In this life, I have come a long way, and I want to take her to the Great Yue Well one more time before the end of my life approaches.
Just that.
I still want to live a little longer…
Last life, she told me she wanted to live more lively, so before my “life ends,” I decided to take Qing Li to a quiet alleyway.