Lei Yao and I exchanged glances for a moment, then she ignored me again and continued crouching on the ground playing something similar to marbles with a group of children. Helplessly, I exchanged a glance with Luoben, then walked toward her from the foot of the mountain.
Soon, Luoben and I arrived in front of her. I was still bound by some emotions and didn’t speak, but Luoben grinned at her and asked, “Big shot, the outside world is in chaos right now. Do you still have the mood to play marbles with these kids? I never thought you had such composure that you could remain calm even when a mountain collapses in front of you!”
Lei Yao didn’t even look up as she replied, “I like playing like this. Does it bother you?”
“You’re being petty!”
“You can’t control me.” Saying this, Lei Yao picked up a marble she had won from the ground and stuffed it into her pocket. The child who had lost was looking at her with a sad face. This scene was filled with the childish joy of meticulous calculation.
Luoben was met with indifference and didn’t provoke Lei Yao further. He then took off his large backpack, pulled out a pile of stationery and toys, and distributed them to the children, earning several “Thank you, Uncle” responses.
With new toys in hand, the children joyfully scattered away, leaving Lei Yao alone. She sat dejectedly on the grass watching the children leave, then gazed at the scenery on the mountain, but still refused to look at me directly.
Finally, Luoben couldn’t stand it anymore and half-jokingly said, “Oh, look at my bad memory. I forgot to introduce you two to each other. After all, it’s your first meeting. How awkward!”
Lei Yao glared at Luoben, “Go die somewhere. All you know how to do is mock people!”
“Have I mocked you? You’ve been standing there like a wooden stake for half the time. That’s not how you play!”
After all, as a man, I couldn’t possibly be more reserved than Lei Yao. Finally, I spoke first, “Don’t you find it uncomfortable sitting on the ground?”
Lei Yao looked at me, then took a handful of glass marbles from her pocket and threw them all at me. Luoben, who was standing nearby, was also caught in the barrage. The group of children who had just scattered came rushing back, picked up the scattered marbles, and ran off again… This freedom of coming and going once again infected me, who was bound by numerous trivial matters. I couldn’t help but be entranced. Perhaps what we liked here was its simplicity and freedom. Even a few unremarkable glass marbles could be elevated into a lifestyle, bringing us happiness for a long time.
“If you really want to hit him, use a stone! Throwing these things just gives a tickle, and now you’ve even dragged me into it!” Luoben said, kicking away a few marbles that hadn’t been picked up.
Unexpectedly, Lei Yao actually picked up a stone from beside her and threw it at him with a “swish.” Fortunately, he reacted quickly and dodged aside, then exclaimed with lingering fear, “Wow, her temper is like a barrel of gunpowder—ready to explode at the slightest touch!… I can’t handle you. You two keep chatting. I’ll go take a walk first!”
After the children and Luoben left, the vast mountain area was left with only Lei Yao and me. A hot summer breeze blew by, bringing the scent of lunchtime cooking smoke and stirring the pine trees in the forest. I was lost in thought for quite a while before finally sitting down beside Lei Yao.
After a long silence, Lei Yao finally spoke to me, “I finally had a few days of peace. Why have you come here, and with what motive?”
“Won’t you go back to Beijing? There’s a limit to being capricious.”
“None of your business!”
“At a time like this, let’s not say things to spite each other, okay?”
“Nonsense!”
“Nonsense?… Don’t you know that Beijing is in an uproar right now? Your agent is almost going crazy…”
“What’s there to be worried about? I just came out to relax.”
I realized something was definitely wrong, so I asked, “Don’t you know what happened in Beijing?”
“What happened in Beijing?”
At this moment, I finally confirmed that Lei Yao was completely unaware of the recent malicious hype surrounding her. She must have left Beijing before the incident broke out. Immediately, I took out my phone to show her the news from the past two days, but found that the signal in the mountains was extremely poor, and the internet was completely inaccessible. Fortunately, I still had an entertainment weekly magazine in my backpack. I took it out and handed it to her.
With a puzzled expression, Lei Yao took the newspaper from my hands. As soon as she saw the headline, her face darkened. She tightly clenched the newspaper, her expression a mix of anger and disappointment, softly muttering to herself, “Why… why did I stay with such a despicable man for so long?… Why do they keep hurting me again?… Why?”
I sighed softly and comforted her, “Don’t be too upset. The priority is for you to return to Beijing immediately, respond positively, and minimize the damage caused by this incident!”
Suddenly, Lei Yao laughed, “Haha… why should I respond to such disgusting trash… Let him say whatever he wants. Those years, I might as well have been blind, living with an animal!”
“Don’t say things out of anger. If you don’t respond, won’t it be considered as admitting his claims?”
Suddenly, Lei Yao choked up, burying her face in her legs, helplessly clenching the newspaper in her hand until it crinkled, whispering, “I’m tired, really very tired… Who can understand?”
Feeling her pain, I couldn’t even give her a comforting hug. I just suppressed my feelings, took out a cigarette from my pocket, lit it, and gazed at the group of children playing and laughing in the distance… In fact, this mountain and these people cannot truly take away the worries of the secular world, because deep in our hearts, we still have an insatiable desire for the mundane!! Therefore, no matter how relaxed and free we feel here, it is merely stolen in escape, while desire has already taken root in our hearts.
“Zhaoyang, you leave. I don’t want you to tell me all this… I just want to live here, indifferent to everything. I’m sick of the troubles of city life!”
“Is that so?… Then are you willing to give up everything you’ve worked hard for?… Can you really let go of your celebrity halo so easily?”
“Why not? Tell me why not?… I just want to live carelessly and forget those disgusting desires. Is that okay? Tell me if it’s okay?”
“If you could really forget, you wouldn’t be so incoherent now… Tell me, could you really marry any villager here, have children, and never care about life outside this world again?… Even if you think you can now, can you guarantee that you’ll still feel the same in three, five, or ten years?… Yes, it’s quiet here, and it’s free, but there are no bars, no luxury stores, no expensive cars, no villas, and no adoring gazes from others. What will you do when one day you desire these things again?”
“If my heart is dead, there will be no more desires…”
“As long as you live in a human body, you’ll never be free from desires… and humans are creatures of impulse. You can’t predict when uncontrollable desires will surge again!”
Lei Yao didn’t speak for a long time, just resting on her legs, and I couldn’t even see her expression clearly, only anxiously speculating what she was thinking now, or perhaps she wasn’t thinking anything at all, just feeling uneasy and panicked…
Another hot breeze blew by. Sweat had already formed at Lei Yao’s temples, dripping down along her hair strands before she finally lifted her head and said to me, “I’m not someone who can completely escape desires. I’ll go back to Beijing and face everything, but I want to stay here for another couple of days.”
“That’s fine, but you should contact your agent first to calm him down. You can also use these two days to think about how to resolve this malicious hype.”
Lei Yao nodded, then got up and walked toward the group of children playing in the distance again, while I didn’t disturb her anymore, just sitting under the shade of a tree, lost in thought for a long time.
…
At noon, the village chief slaughtered chickens and ducks, warmly entertaining us. During the meal, we talked a lot, but the topic always revolved around Wei Manwen. Even now, the village chief still missed the days when Wei Manwen was in the village. However, Wei Manwen would never return. It wasn’t that she had strong desires for the city, but she couldn’t live without Luoben, so returning to the city was a choice she had to make. But in the end, this was also a kind of desire… Thinking about it, even a woman like Wei Manwen, who was indifferent to fame and fortune, couldn’t stay permanently in this mountain village. How could Lei Yao?
After lunch, I contacted A Feng, who was far away in Xitang, asking him to transfer 100,000 yuan from the charity funds we had collected during the previous public welfare event. Then I handed this money over to the village chief, asking him to use it to renovate the dilapidated classroom properly, and use the remaining funds to hire a qualified teacher from the town or county to educate these children, thus making up for the absence of Wei Manwen’s continued volunteer teaching here.
This afternoon, I sat under the poplar tree at the village entrance all the time. Luoben acted as a music teacher, lowering his standards and singing children’s songs, while Lei Yao was resting in her small tent for a nap… Originally, I thought this would be a relatively quiet afternoon, but after waking up, Lei Yao found me just falling asleep and kicked me wide awake…
I opened my eyes and looked at her. She was wearing a sun hat, carrying a hiking backpack, and holding a large water bottle, saying to me, “Come with me somewhere.”
I asked in confusion, “Where to?”
“Don’t ask so many questions. Just one word: go or not?”
“Since you’re giving me just one word, do I even have a choice?”
Seeing that I didn’t refuse, Lei Yao immediately handed her hiking backpack and water bottle to me, saying, “You’ll follow me. I’ve only heard about this place. Whether it exists or not, I’m not sure.”
“Except for heaven and hell, is there any place in the world that can’t be confirmed?”
Lei Yao looked into the distance and replied, “This place is heaven to me…”
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