Book 1: Chapter 225: Postscript


    I was lying on the couch in Rain Vige as it rained outside, a basin at my feet. Fatty was off to the side, enjoying his own footbath. Poker-Face was leaning against the window ledge, looking outside. ck sses was cooking in the kitchen. Xiao Hua''s injury hadnt healed yet, so he was checking the ounts in the back room. There were a lot of expenses and bills for this activity, so he was being very meticulous.


    Xiuxiu was on her way over. They probably had no intention ofing here to celebrate New Year''s next time, so they might as well stay here longer to make up for it.


    I spent nearly six days writing an ount at the end of my grandpas notes of everything that had happened. This notebook had been written by three generations of the Wu family, so it was almost as thick as Das Kapital (1). Sometimes I wanted to start a blog and write these stories on the inte under an alias. It would be nice if I could write the real hardships into words, but in fact, I really just wanted to resist the nothingness that came from the passage of time. But Fatty said that blogs were outdated, so I should just write it all down on paper and read it for myself. That way, I wont be disturbed by the cops and spend the rest of my life in misery.


    One thing that surprised me and made me feel that things were very normal was that my lung disease wasnt getting better.


    When I saw the X-rays, I knew that Boss Jiao had been talking nonsense. I didnt know if it was because he wanted to get out of trouble or if he was really hallucinating after hearing the thunder, but my condition had stabilized a lot. This meant that in the future, Id still have to carry these rotten lungs for life. The doctor said that he didnt know when it would get worse, so I decided to start looking forward to the rest of my life.


    It did teach me at least one thing. The consequences of everything I didwhether positive or negativewouldnt disappear so easily. This is a truth that must be known in ones life. When we were children, there was always a fantasy that all the bad things would one day be forgotten and disappear from our lives. As long as we moved forward and ate and slept well, everything would get better. But those pains would always appear suddenly at some point, and youd know that they would always be there. They were a part of you, after all.


    But you can''t do anything, whether its ignoring them or attaching importance to them. Like this, life just bes more and moreplicated.


    The amazing thing is that when lifees to an end, all the pains seem to be irrelevant in an instant. Eternal life brings eternal nothingness, but limited life brings splendor. And diseases that can take you away at any moment can push people to spend their lives better.


    Isn''t it funny?


    At the end of your life, when you finally want to say goodbye to yourself, you find that your favorite self is an inhuman figure thats been tortured by you.


    Don''t disservice the you that your mom and dad raised with their hearts, and dont disservice your beautiful self. Believe that your beauty makes you worthy of everything. There is only one protagonist in everyone''s life, and that is yourself.


    But whats the proper way to spend this life?


    I couldnt help asking myself this very question. I began to calmly think about the problems I didn''t want to think about before: Poker-Faces inevitable departure, the crisis of my aging body, Uncle Twos way of protecting me, the things I did wrong to my parents, the ups-and-downs of all the idiots and opponents in my life, and all the things I obtained, lost, and regretted. My friends did things for me and I did things for them.


    I just dont know.


    Maybe its doing good deeds without asking for a reward.


    I could smell ck sses'' meal burning, so I heaved a big sigh and stood up with a curse.


    ****


    TN Notes:


    (1) Das Kapital (1867) by Karl Marx is ~ 2156 pages.