"Da Chou, Da Chou, are you home?"
Still groggy from his drunkenness, Da Chou was suddenly jolted awake by a rapid knocking at his door. He barely pried his eyes open, a hint of impatience flickering within them.
"I'm not feeling well, please come another day." As the knocking grew louder, Da Chou finally spoke with annoyance.
His words were met with an instant cessation of the knocking.
"Oh, alright." A voice from outside replied, tinged with surprise. As the footsteps gradually faded, peace returned to the surroundings.
If the bartender at the tavern had seen the person, he would have immediately recognized him as the man in the green robe who had been drinking there the previous day.
Da Chou rubbed his forehead, his eyes filled with a touch of confusion. He looked at the scattered masks on the floor, shaking his head with a wry smile. Then, he slowly stood up and gathered the masks one by one, placing them on the couch.
The room's furnishings were extremely simple. There were robes of various styles, raw materials for dyeing, and many folded kites and wooden carvings. All of these were prepared by Da Chou for the town's residents.
The kites and carvings were also for the many children who enjoyed Da Chou's company, in addition to the adults.
Throughout the day, many people knocked on Da Chou's door. However, Da Chou turned them all away. Their reactions were largely the same: initial surprise, followed by their eventual departure.
Only when nightfall descended did Da Chou change back into his green robe and leave through the back door of the courtyard.
It was the same inn, the same bartender, and the same kind of wine.
This time, however, the bartender greeted the man in the green robe with a smile. "Customer, you gave me too much money for the wine last time. You don't need to pay for this one."
Da Chou nodded slightly at this, picking up his wine cup and gazing somewhat distantly at the passersby below. Despite the night, the street was bustling and vibrant. Seeing the smiles on everyone's faces, the confusion in Da Chou's eyes deepened.
The bartender, looking curious, asked Da Chou, "Customer, haven't you gone to find Da Chou? Besides cheering you up, Da Chou can also help you solve quite a few problems. In our Forget Worry Town, anyone who feels unhappy goes to Da Chou."
Da Chou let out a bitter laugh at this, then looked up at the bartender and asked, "Then, if Da Chou encounters unhappy things, who does he go to?"
The bartender was taken aback, clearly not expecting such a question from the man in the green robe. He also struggled to come up with an answer.
"I think, since Da Chou can help everyone solve their troubles and bring us happiness, he probably doesn't have any unhappy things himself." The bartender's voice trailed off, as if he himself lacked confidence in his answer.
Fortunately, the man in the green robe merely smiled after hearing this. The bartender mumbled, "Please take your time," and then practically fled the scene.
Da Chou drank his wine, watching the people below, listening to the laughter and chatter within the tavern, his mood growing heavier. Finally, he raised the wine pot and drained it in one gulp, then stumbled out of the tavern once more and headed towards the west of the town.
The night passed in silence.
The next day, the usually quiet Forget Worry Town erupted as if a pot had boiled over, with discussions and murmurs spreading everywhere.
"What, Da Chou is gone?!"
"What happened? How could Da Chou disappear without a trace?"
"I went to knock this morning and thought Da Chou just hadn't woken up. After waiting for a while, Aunt Wang came. When I asked her, she said she had been here the day before. Later, we pushed the door open and found no one inside. On the table, there were just three hastily written words: 'I'm gone.'"
The crowd buzzed with speculation, each face etched with unease. Yet, in the end, no one stepped forward to offer to search for him. As time passed, the people dispersed, and the dilapidated houses fell back into silence.
Time flew by, and a month had vanished without notice.
For many, this month was almost insignificant. But for Forget Worry Town, it brought about earth-shattering changes.
The once bustling town was now sparsely populated. Even the few pedestrians hurried along, heading straight for their homes. From within the houses on the small streets, heart-wrenching cries could be heard intermittently.
Arguments, curses, and the sounds of breakage never ceased, as if the very air was filled with the scent of gunpowder.
Forget Worry Town, once filled with laughter and joy, had, with Da Chou's departure, finally erupted into unprecedented turmoil.
Intimate couples became suspicious of each other. Harmonious neighbors bickered incessantly over trivial matters, even resorting to violence. Nothing was as it used to be in Forget Worry Town.
Only in the quiet of the night did people recall Da Chou for a fleeting moment. They remembered the days when Da Chou was still in Forget Worry Town.
But the more intense their longing became, the deeper their resentment grew. The townsfolk attributed everything that had gone wrong in Forget Worry Town to Da Chou's departure. If Da Chou were still here, Forget Worry Town would not have become this way.
Yet, they forgot that Da Chou, like them, had his own emotions and his own choices.
More time passed. Forget Worry Town was once again shaken by a major event that filled everyone with dread.
Someone had been murdered.
The townsfolk all claimed this person was not from their town, as none of them had ever seen him before. Only the bartender at the tavern showed a flicker of surprise upon seeing the body.
Because the bartender remembered that before Da Chou left, this man in the green robe had indeed been a patron of his establishment.
And the murderer was eventually found to be the town mayor himself.
It turned out that after drinking, the mayor had encountered the man in the green robe walking in from outside the town, and they had accidentally bumped into each other. Already slightly intoxicated, the mayor naturally felt annoyed.
Recalling the various emotions that had been building up recently, he drew his dagger and stabbed the man in the green robe, who had his back to him.
"Alas, if only Da Chou were still here. Our Forget Worry Town has become unrecognizable."
"Da Chou is already gone, he probably won't be back. It's laughable, Da Chou lived in our Forget Worry Town for over twenty years, and we don't even know what he looks like."
"So what if Da Chou doesn't come back? Can't you people live without Da Chou to solve your problems?"
"Liu Er Gen, stop acting so wise and old! If Da Chou were still here, our negative emotions wouldn't have erupted, and we wouldn't have ended up in this situation!"
"Without Da Chou, you can't survive? You can't live?"
"..."
The various conversations devolved into endless shouting matches. No one paid any attention to the corpse of the man in the green robe lying on the ground. The scene abruptly cut off.
In the void, Li Xuan's figure reappeared.
This time, a look of solemnity was on Li Xuan's face.
Li Xuan knew that in this second life, he had been the man in the green robe, known to the people of Forget Worry Town as Da Chou. Da Chou's existence was to help everyone in Forget Worry Town vent their negative emotions.
The reason the people of Forget Worry Town didn't know Da Chou's appearance was also related to the roles he often played. Da Chou always appeared before the public in disguise, wearing various comical costumes. This was to bring joy to everyone.
"Does such a person truly exist in the world? Although he brought laughter and joy, and harmonious families, who ever cared about Da Chou?"
"Where was Da Chou's happiness?"
"Even more ridiculous, when Da Chou chose to return to Forget Worry Town, he died at the hands of his own people."
Li Xuan murmured softly, a hint of regret on his face.
Hum.
As the golden light flickered once more, Li Xuan shook his head, then closed his eyes slightly, his figure disappearing again.
"Hmm, what's going on?"
Tall buildings rose everywhere, and in his sight were rapidly moving block-like objects. What surprised Li Xuan even more was that his consciousness this time had not been cleared with the reincarnation.
He was currently hidden in the void, observing everything below as if from God's perspective. In front of Li Xuan, a boy of about seven or eight years old was kneeling on the road, his face streaked with dried tears.
Li Xuan's mind moved, and all information about the boy instantly entered his mind.
The boy was from a poor family and lived on a planet called Earth.
The reason the boy was kneeling on the road was that his aunt had accused him of taking ten yuan from a drawer. Although Li Xuan didn't understand the boy's world, seeing a child of seven or eight kneeling on the roadside made him feel a pang of sympathy.
As he extracted the boy's memories for assimilation, Li Xuan learned about the boy's past. The boy had lived with his chronically ill grandmother since he was young, and with his parents divorced, he had never received any affection from them.
Coupled with his family's poverty, he lived a hand-to-mouth existence. To a child, being able to eat his fill was undoubtedly the greatest happiness. In the boy's memories, he had taken things from home to sell, and had also secretly taken things from other families in the village.
Sometimes it was freshly laid eggs, sometimes freshly steamed buns.
The boy's reputation for stealing naturally spread. After the boy was brought to the city by his father to attend school, his life improved somewhat. But this particular incident began during the boy's nap time.
His father's residence was not far from his aunt's house. It was the weekend, and his father had to go out to work, so he took the boy to his aunt's place.
When the boy woke up from his nap, ten yuan that his aunt had placed in a drawer had vanished. And it seemed only the boy had been sleeping in the house. Coupled with the boy's past misdeeds, his aunt's family unanimously believed he had taken the money. Thus, the scene Li Xuan had witnessed unfolded.
Heavy rain poured down, making the boy's solitary figure on the road seem bleak. Li Xuan sighed softly and, with a thought, instantly stopped the downpour. Li Xuan had a feeling that the ten yuan that went missing was not actually taken by the boy.
An hour later, the boy's father arrived on a bicycle at high speed.
Seemingly already aware of the matter of the boy stealing money, he stopped his bike, looked at the boy kneeling on the road, and without any intention of questioning him, he took off his belt and began to whip the boy.
Pain, a searing pain. Seeing this, Li Xuan could barely bear it and wanted to intervene. But unexpectedly, a loud and ancient voice suddenly rang out.
"Heaven's Chosen, watch patiently. This scene should give you more insight. If you intervene, all of this will vanish."
Li Xuan looked and saw a golden light appear beside him. Within the golden light, a figure emerged. This person was none other than the Buddha Shakyamuni. Li Xuan was slightly surprised. Although he didn't understand why Buddha Shakyamuni had appeared, he still heeded his words.
The two remained silent, then turned their gaze back to the boy below.