Chapter One Thirty-Five Years Later

  Years later, when I recall the past, I deeply feel that fate is like a continuously extending line. The starting point is fixed, and this line connects countless branches. When you choose one of these lines with a certain attitude, this segment becomes your destiny for this life. Whether or not you are willing, this is the path you must continue on, because it was your own choice from the beginning.

  Lao San entered the room when I was playing dota with several brothers in the dormitory. As soon as Lao San opened the door, he almost got smoked out: "I say, you guys are really something, on such a hot day, the whole room smells like stinky feet, can't you even open a window?"

  "Whatever! I'm in no mood for this, Second Brother almost destroyed my tower." Fourth Brother replied casually without even lifting his head.

  Lao San helplessly opened the window and shouted at me, "Ah, right! Second brother, there's someone downstairs who says they have a meal delivery for you. They insisted on sending it to our house, but the concierge aunt stopped them. Luckily I bumped into him, so I said I'd bring it up for you, but he wouldn't let me. You quickly go downstairs and take a look."

  I smiled wryly and said: "Old Three, your trick is too cheap. I didn't even order dinner. I'm leaving, this round is lost for sure."

  Lao San sat on the bed, not arguing back, and replied lightly: "Believe it or not, I've already said what I wanted to say." I thought for a moment, Lao San is usually a person who doesn't joke around, so I'd better go take a look at what's going on.

  "I'll be right back, guys, I'm just going to go and come back." I dashed downstairs at a speed of 100 meters per second. When I ran out, I was in such a hurry that I only wore one slipper. Downstairs, except for an old man, there was no one else. As expected, I was deceived by Lao San again, I thought to myself, preparing to go upstairs and teach him a lesson. The old man slowly walked towards me, asking in a low voice: "Are you Zhou Junyang? The grandson of Zhou Yuanzhi?"

  I nodded and asked: "Who are you?"

  The old man handed me a fast food box and said, "Child, there is a letter in this box that your grandfather asked me to deliver to you. He instructed me to hand it over to you personally and not let anyone else know. I believe someone will come looking for you soon." He looked at me with an unwilling gaze, as if he was seeing me off.

  I was stunned: "Wait a minute! Who are you? My grandfather is in the nursing home, how could he entrust you to deliver a message?"

  The old man sighed and said, "What you see may not be true, many things need you to find the answer yourself. I believe we will meet again, kid, good luck." Before I could ask anything else, the old man turned around and disappeared into the campus, leaving me standing there in a daze.

  I returned to the dormitory with a thoughtful expression, and Old Four poked his head out and burst into laughter: "Second Brother, which girl sent you this loving dinner?" I was too lazy to pay attention to him, gave him a white eye, and casually put the box on the bed. I thought to myself: This old man is really strange, speaking nonsense. Grandpa has been in a mental hospital for decades, could he be Grandpa's hospital mate, coming out to tease me? I didn't think much about it, sat down and continued playing with my brothers until around 3 am. I was so sleepy that I couldn't help yawning, and after tidying up the bed, I fell asleep.

  The next day I woke up around noon, stretched my waist and saw the fast food box placed beside the bed. I remembered the reluctant eyes of that old man yesterday and felt that all this didn't seem like a prank after all. Anyway, first give my parents a call to ask about Grandpa's situation. Unexpectedly, both my dad and mom's phones were turned off. I suddenly realized that things seemed a bit off. My parents hadn't contacted me for a week already, according to my mom's previous anxious personality, she would have started searching for me all over the world, blaming me for forgetting about her before even getting married. Now, there was no news from them for a whole week, which was indeed unusual. That old man told me that the letter thing couldn't be let known by others and specially used a fast food box to hold it, thinking that there must be some deep meaning behind it.

  I found a relatively secluded spot and took out a yellow cowhide envelope from the box. On the envelope was written "Jun Yang personally opened". Since I can remember, my grandfather has been suffering from severe mental illness, every day is just nonsense or staring at a place in a daze. Never seen Grandpa write, this font is strong and powerful, written with blue-black pen, I quickly took out the letter inside, the letter paper was slightly yellowed, it seemed to have been stored for a long time, there was only one poem on the letter:

  Cypress seeds in front of the courtyard

  In and out of the clouds, leisurely and full, too empty; originally true nature is one dust without.

  Repeatedly asked about the meaning of coming from the West, he simply pointed to a single cypress tree in front of the courtyard.

  Gathas are generally the lyrics in Buddhist scriptures, which are attached to Buddhist scriptures as some afterthoughts or insights gained from practice. They usually consist of four sentences and have a good literary style, easy to recite, although they are not the main content of Buddhist scriptures, they become classics that can be mentioned together with Buddhist scriptures. Buddhist scriptures are the foundation of Buddhism, while gathas are its branches. Because each gatha has a story behind it, it becomes a beautiful talk among monks and believers.

  We often read the Tang Dynasty's great monk Master Hui Neng's "Non-duality Verse": "Bodhi originally has no tree, a bright mirror is not a stand. Originally there is not a single thing, where can dust be stirred up?" This is the most famous verse in Buddhist scriptures. There are few people in my family who devoutly believe in Buddhism, so why did my grandfather write a verse for me? This really makes one think deeply and cannot understand.

  At night, I made a dozen more calls to my parents, but they were still unreachable. Lying in bed, I gazed out the window at the stars and felt that something was off - first, there was the letter, and now my parents weren't contactable. In a daze, I thought I heard someone calling me, and before I knew it, I found myself standing in the desert. A black figure walked ahead of me, and I followed him for a long time until he led me to a massive palace. The palace was shaped like a giant bowl, half-rounded, as if an Eskimo's ice house had been magnified hundreds of times. Inside the palace, it was pitch black, but on the dome above, a gemstone slowly emitted blue light, illuminating the entire hall.

  I noticed that in the center of the great hall, there was a statue about three stories high, it was a three-headed and six-armed goddess statue. Each of her six arms held different ritual objects, no matter from which angle, she always had a pair of eyes watching you. I searched my mind for this statue, but it seemed that I had never seen it before. At this time, the black shadow who led me slowly turned around to face me, his throat made a strange sound, very much like a poisonous snake spitting out its tongue, and at the same time, a voice appeared in my mind: "You're back." Seeing his face for an instant, I let out an "ah" and sat up from bed.

  "Damn it, Second Brother, you want to scare me to death?" Fourth Brother cursed from the upper bunk.

  I took a glance at the watch and it was already past 2 o'clock in the morning, I replied: "Had a nightmare, dreamed of a blue-faced man, scared me to death."

  "My grass, Second Brother, you've watched too many horror movies, right? Blue-faced people, Avatar?" Fourth Brother sneered with a smile.

  I didn't respond to him, indeed the scene just now was unbelievable, but why did it feel so real, as if I had just been there. My emotions calmed down a bit, and I thought of that poem, suddenly remembering something from my childhood.

  At that time, our family was not very wealthy and lived in an old house in the suburbs. My parents were struggling to raise money for my grandfather's medical treatment while also trying to support my education. There was a cypress tree in the courtyard, and every time my father saw it, he would sigh. I was young at the time and asked him, "Why do you look unhappy whenever you see this tree?"

  He replied to me, "This tree was planted by your grandfather when your father was a child. Your grandfather's archaeological team encountered an accident in the desert and only he survived, but he fell ill. Father hoped that Grandfather would recover soon." Now thinking about it, the last sentence of the poem "Only pointing to the courtyard in front of the cypress tree", could it be referring to some mystery hidden in the old house's cypress tree?

  The next morning, which happened to be the weekend, I packed my things and decided to go home. My hometown is very close to where I am now, and it only takes almost two hours by train to get there. My parents' phones were still turned off, and I was filled with worry, but more questions. The old house in our village started to be demolished two years ago, and later the unscrupulous developer ran away with the money of the common people, leaving it broken and deserted, fortunately, that tree is still there.

  I arrived at my old home and immediately took a taxi to rush to the old house. In the broken tiles and weeds, I found that cypress tree with one glance. The area around the cypress tree had already grown thick with weeds, and the ground beside it was very flat, without any signs of someone having buried something there. Well, I thought, might as well treat a dead horse as if it were alive. I prepared to roll up my sleeves and start pulling out the weeds - oh, wait, I'm actually wearing short sleeves. It was almost noon, getting hotter by the minute, and after digging around the tree for an hour, I had nearly exposed its roots but still hadn't seen anything. Just as I was about to give up, a corner of something box-like suddenly appeared in the dirt, my spirits lifted instantly, and I quickly dug out the box from the ground.

  This is a wooden box about the size of A4 paper, purple-black in color, looking very old. There are no patterns on the box, it's very ordinary. When I opened the box, there was an old white cloth inside, with uneven edges that had been worn away, which looked more like sheepskin paper than cloth. Unfolding the sheepskin paper, there was a map inside, with annotations in a font I couldn't understand. After taking a rough look, my whole body trembled and I was stunned to the point where I couldn't speak. The map marked a building that looked like an inverted bowl on the ground - it was exactly the same as the one I dreamed of yesterday! Is all this just a coincidence? I put the map and box in my backpack and decided to go home and take a look at my parents.

  All the way, my mood couldn't calm down for a long time. When I returned home, the door was locked from the inside, and all the windows were closed. The house was in disarray, and I found that two suitcases were missing. Everything else was intact, but there was a thin layer of dust on the table. It seemed like my parents had gone out for a long time, but what urgent matter made them not even tell me when they would be back? I was puzzled and decided to go to the nursing home to see Grandpa and ask about the situation. As soon as I stepped out of the house, a towel covered my mouth, and a strong smell of ether came over me. Then I lost consciousness...