WSSAPF chapter 18

There was only one overhead light in the room, hanging from the ceiling by a rope. The light swayed in the wind, casting a dim glow. Li Zhuoyao’s expression was clearly visible in the dim light, and his eyes were red.

“Dad, please go out first. We have something to talk about,” Zhou Chulan said to his father.

“Okay, you guys talk. I’ll go prepare a meal.”

As his father spoke, he retreated from the room and closed the door. Only the two of them were left in the room.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Zhou Chulan said, looking at him quietly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Li Zhuoyao’s lips trembled.

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me the real situation of your leg injury. I have a classmate at Guizhou People’s Hospital; I can…”

“And then? Do I beg like a beggar, telling you that I have a pair of legs that are no good, that can’t get wet, or they’ll hurt and I won’t be able to stand up?” Zhou Chulan’s tone was indifferent, almost casual.

“I’m sorry…”

“You don’t need to apologize; it has nothing to do with you.”

“If it weren’t for that day…”

“Li Zhuoyao, I’ll say it one last time. Saving you was my voluntary choice, and it has nothing to do with you.”

Zhou Chulan raised his head, looking into Li Zhuoyao’s eyes. There was a hint of sadness in Li Zhuoyao’s gaze, and this trace of sadness softened Zhou Chulan’s tone slightly.

“Thank you for coming to see me; I appreciate it. Now, go back.”

“I’m not leaving. Will your leg get better?” Li Zhuoyao continued relentlessly.

Zhou Chulan remained silent, and Li Zhuoyao persisted, “So, what’s the real story behind your leg injury? Why does it hurt on rainy days?” There was urgency in his eyes.

“It’s an old problem,” Zhou Chulan replied calmly.

“Zhou Chulan, for fuck’s sake, can’t you tell me the truth?” Suddenly, a sense of frustration surged in Li Zhuoyao’s chest. “I’ve chased after you to your home; what else do you want to hide from me? What’s the real story behind your leg injury? Tell me.”

He felt a deep concern for Zhou Chulan’s injury, yet he was frustrated that Zhou Chulan didn’t say anything and silently bore everything on his own. He couldn’t find peace with himself by doing so. As a repayment, what did he give to Zhou Chulan? He wanted to give him his genuine feelings, but Zhou Chulan rejected them. The only thing between them was that kiss, the one forcefully initiated by Li Zhuoyao, a kiss that Zhou Chulan was powerless to resist.

Li Zhuoyao felt like a complete fool, kept in the dark about everything. He hated himself for it. “It’s not your business; if I want to care, it’s my business,” he thought stubbornly. Determined to push Zhou Chulan into a corner and leave him no space, he decided to unleash the spirit of thick-skinned persistence to the extreme.

“I don’t want to be a fool anymore,” he cursed himself silently, then looked at Zhou Chulan, and with a harsh tone, demanded, “Speak up.”

He repeated the question three times, and he was ready to break through and uncover everything about Zhou Chulan in the future.

“Previously, it was broken here,” Zhou Chulan pointed to his knee.

“Who attacked you? People from the village?”

“No.”

“Then who, and why did they beat you?” Seeing Zhou Chulan evading the question, Li Zhuoyao started seriously contemplating the answers. After a brief thought, he seemed to understand something, and a thunderous realization struck him.

“Did it happen when you were locked up?” Li Zhuoyao’s question was urgent, but the pronunciation of the word “locked up” was uttered softly.

“Yeah.”

“Why did they beat you?”

“As a new inmate, you’ll always get a beating.”

This couldn’t be considered just a beating. Li Zhuoyao felt a suffocating pressure in his chest, as if he had been punched several times. Looking at Zhou Chulan’s motionless legs, he felt even more distressed, as if Zhou Chulan’s pain had transferred to him.

“What did they use to beat you? Aren’t weapons like sticks prohibited in prison?”

“Iron rods, dismantled from the steel wire beds.”

Recalling those scenes suddenly, Zhou Chulan’s memories were abrupt and vivid. On that day, he was kicked to the ground, and the lead bully lifted an iron rod, ruthlessly hitting his knee bone. While hitting, he cursed, “Damn it, I hate you scholars pretending to be high and mighty!” Zhou Chulan’s arms were held by others, unable to move. The intense pain made him groan, almost collapsing, but he still maintained that posture, eyes red, glaring at the person in front of him.

“Do you dare to glare!” The iron rod struck again…

Now thinking back to those events, he no longer had much emotional fluctuation. Zhou Chulan calmed down a bit and came out of his memories, looking at Li Zhuoyao. He said calmly, “You’ve asked too many questions; let’s stop here.”

In fact, his knee bone had been broken twice, and it had never fully healed over the years. It would ache on rainy days. The long and torturous time in prison, he rarely thought about it lately. Only in the beginning, he often dreamed about it, waking up covered in cold sweat. Four years and five months of time, like congealed lard, sat quietly in the bowl when nobody cared.

Now, encountering Li Zhuoyao again, especially encountering him, those lipid-like memories began to melt and flow wantonly. He desperately tried to suppress those memories, but he couldn’t, and they flowed to the ground, merging with the dust.

“What happened next?” Li Zhuoyao asked with a hoarse voice.

“I said, the Q&A session ends here,” Zhou Chulan said somewhat displeased. But Li Zhuoyao persisted. He squatted halfway at the head of Zhou Chulan’s bed, grabbing his arm. Both his eye rims and the tip of his nose were red.

“What happened next? Did they keep beating you? What happened next?” He kept muttering the last three words, grabbing Zhou Chulan’s arm tightly, and it hurt a bit. Zhou Chulan sighed; he thought if he didn’t answer all of Li Zhuoyao’s questions, he might hold onto him all night.

“No. After that, I fought back, and they never beat me again.” He said briefly.

The reason for that beating was also a trivial matter in life. One morning when he got up, he accidentally spilled water from his cup onto the bully’s shoes. As a result, he was subjected to a more severe beating than the first time. This time was even more brutal, and Zhou Chulan was almost knocked unconscious. Suddenly, a bright light flashed in his mind, “Am I about to die?” He thought he might have touched the edge of the Grim Reaper. A profound sense of hatred surged from the root of his heart. The strength in his hands suddenly increased several times. Usually, he couldn’t beat these people, but that time he managed to break free, directly knocking the lead bully to the ground. With bare hands, he relentlessly punched him, almost beating him half to death. The other two or three people were scared away by his frenzied appearance, and no one dared to approach. Since then, he had never been bullied again.

People are cheap; they like to pick on the vulnerable, just like how misfortune always seems to favor the unfortunate, he thought.

But what about Li Zhuoyao? Coming from a well-off family, talented, never suffered hardships from childhood to adulthood. He had also experienced such dark moments. Why? Heaven shouldn’t have assigned such hardships to someone as brilliant as him.

Fortunately, Li Zhuoyao had lost his memory. But at this moment, Zhou Chulan was a bit nervous. He had just revealed so much about what happened in prison under Li Zhuoyao’s interrogation. Would it trigger any memories for him? He stared into Li Zhuoyao’s eyes, which only reflected sadness and confusion.

Thank goodness, you still haven’t remembered anything. Zhou Chulan sighed with relief in his heart, but a huge wave of loss surged up like a tide, making it hard for him to breathe.

How could those unbearable, shattered, and dark memories once again taint your life?

Zhou Chulan’s eyes were dark, and his faint thoughts drifted into the distance. Those gloomy memories, like a movie, played in front of him.

The first scene was his prison uniform, with the number 334 on it. Every morning and afternoon, he had one hour each to spend in the courtyard, a moment he looked forward to every day, where he could lift his head and see birds in the sky. He had attempted suicide twice, and there were still two scars on his wrists. But every time he held a broken piece of porcelain, thinking about cutting himself, he hesitated and couldn’t bring himself to do it. A few days after the second suicide attempt, it happened to be the day for family visits. Seeing his father’s face, aged overnight with sorrow, he suddenly felt he had to hold on, no matter what.

The prison guard was a plump woman in her forties, very kind. On Zhou Chulan’s first day in prison, she flipped through his records without saying a word. However, her eyes were filled with pity and regret, and this emotion gave him a sense of warmth. The senior prison guard was also a psychological counselor in the prison. During moments of emotional breakdown, Zhou Chulan would seek her out, chat for a while, and feel better. Later, she started lending him books—novels, essays, news magazines. One day, she brought him a copy of the “Diamond Sutra” and also gave him paper and a pen, delivered by another male prison guard.

“Copy the Buddhist scriptures,” the male guard brought this message.

So, every night before sleep, Zhou Chulan would sit on his bed, place an inverted plastic basin for washing on his legs as a cushion, and transcribe Buddhist scriptures. Although his initial understanding of the sutra remained superficial, each time he copied, he felt a serene peace, as if illuminated by an unseen radiance. Around the middle of the second round of transcription, he began to slowly comprehend the words. He particularly liked the phrase “dependent origination and emptiness,” the idea that all phenomena arise from causes and conditions and cease when those causes and conditions cease. He thought of his past. If imprisonment was the “result” willingly swallowed due to his past actions, then, someday in the future, the “result” would also transform into a “cause.” Interconnected causes and conditions, a cycle of karma, going round and round.

He no longer feared the hardships. Whether it was the past or entering prison, the process of copying the Buddhist scriptures felt like gradually healing, making him understand the profundity of suffering. Without pain, one cannot comprehend the suffering of sentient beings. Without extreme pain, one cannot generate a compassionate heart.

One fine day with sunlight streaming through a small window, Zhou Chulan’s hands held the “Diamond Sutra.” He suddenly realized everything, understanding the true meaning of compassion. That night, he had a peculiar dream, filled with radiant golden light, immersed in a brilliant realm. Suddenly, he heard the ethereal chanting of deities and Buddhas, very distinct.