Killing Monks

Nan San squatted down in front of him.

After he squatted down, his face was about the same height as Guangyuan's. The moonlight cast long shadows of the two of them, overlapping and making it impossible to tell whose shadow was whose.

"Living Buddha, we've lost," he said. Not "we've lost," but "we've lost."

The word "us" contains far more than just "we".

We are together, like grasshoppers on the same rope, like porridge from the same pot.

If you're generous, I'm generous; if you're sparse, I'm sparse. If you win, we win; if you lose, we lose. We lost.

Guangyuan didn't reply. He finished the last mouthful of porridge in his bowl, placed the bowl on the stone steps beside him, and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

The movements were slow and natural, as if they were doing something that they did every day, for many years, and that they no longer needed to think about.

"It's not that we lost," he said, "it's that we didn't win."

Nan San was taken aback. What's the difference between not winning and losing?

He thought about it and figured it out.

If you lose, you've been defeated; if you don't win, it's because you didn't play well. If you're defeated, you blame others; if you didn't play well, you can only blame yourself. Blaming yourself is much more painful than blaming others.

"Living Buddha," Nan San's voice lowered, so low it was as if he were talking to himself, "we need you."

Guangyuan did not answer.

"The Northern Expedition," Nan San said, "we still need to fight. The Northern Zhou is currently weak, with a new emperor, an unstable court, and unsettled people. If we attack now, we're sure to win."

"This time is different. This time we have experience. We know how to transport supplies, how to move troops, when to fight and when to stop. We're not lacking anything, except one person. We're lacking you, sir."

He spoke very quickly, as if afraid that if he stopped, he wouldn't be able to continue.

He had kept these words in his heart for too long, thinking about them over and over again, and every time he thought about them, it was the same—they were not lacking, they were just lacking one person.

Guangyuan remained silent.

"Unification." Nan San uttered these three words. These three words were heavy, as heavy as a mountain, pressing on the tip of his tongue, almost making him unable to speak.

But he still spoke it out. After speaking it out, he felt relieved. The mountain had been moved, the tightness in his chest was gone, and he could breathe easily.

"Sir, we can establish a unified dynasty. Not the Tang Dynasty, not the Northern Zhou Dynasty, but a dynasty unlike any other, larger than the Song Dynasty, stronger than the Northern Zhou Dynasty, a dynasty that will be respected by all under heaven. Sir, don't you want that?"

Guangyuan did not answer whether he would go or not.

He simply sat on the threshold, watching Nan San's back sway in the moonlight, then sway again, like a candle flame being blown by the wind, about to go out at any moment, but never going out.

When Nan San returned and squatted down in front of him again, he finally spoke. But the question he asked had nothing to do with the Northern Expedition, nothing to do with unifying the world, and nothing to do with the thousands of words Nan San had just spoken.

"Do you still have any 'old men' around now?"

Nan San was taken aback.

He squatted there, as if frozen in place by something.

The moonlight fell on his face, making the scar appear white, as white as an unhealed wound.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. It wasn't that he didn't want to speak, but that he didn't know how to say it.

He hadn't heard the word "old man" used in a long time. So long that he thought he had forgotten it.

But when Guangyuan mentioned it, he remembered.

"Old man" is not a person. "Old man" is a type of person.

The current Heaven and Earth Society, a cola-themed novel reading feast: a vast collection of books, an ultimate experience. There's no "Old Man" anymore.

Nan San chewed on that sentence over and over in his mind, until his gums bled and his mouth tasted like rust.

There's no "old man" anymore.

The old men have died; the old men are no longer coming.

It's not that they don't want to come, it's that they dare not come.

What are you here for?

Look at you all sitting in the hall, arguing over seats, official positions, who has the biggest territory, and who has the greatest merit.

Look at you two arguing so fiercely over a mere title, slamming your fists on the table, smashing cups, and almost drawing your knives at each other.

Look at how you divide your brothers who went through thick and thin together into different classes, who should sit in front, who should stand in the back, and who isn't even worthy of stepping over the threshold?

They don't look. If they did, their sense of "reason" would collapse. With that reason collapsed, they wouldn't know what they were living their lives for.

The old man is too exhausted.

What's being consumed isn't food or silver, but people's hearts.

The human heart is soft; if you squeeze it, it deflates; if you squeeze it again, it deflates a little more; if you squeeze it too much, it will never spring back.

When they rebelled against the Tang Dynasty, they didn't need to consider these things. Back then, they had nothing but their lives.

Life may not be worth much, but it's still life. You risk your life for others, and they risk theirs to help you.

Life for life, it's only right and proper.

Things are different now. Now they have territory, official positions, money, and things they never dared to dream of before.

Once you have something, you're afraid of losing it. Because you're afraid, you have to grab it. Once you grab it, you have to hold on tight. Once you hold on tight, you can't let go. If you can't let go, you can't accept what others offer you.

Every high-ranking official is a potential political ally.

This wasn't said by Nan San, but by the staff members in the capital.

Offend one, and you'll offend a whole string of enemies; offend a string of enemies, and you'll have enemies everywhere. With many enemies, your position will become unstable.

If your position is unstable, you can't do anything.

Nan San thought it made sense at the time.

Now, squatting in front of Guangyuan, listening to Guangyuan ask, "Are there any 'old men' left?", he suddenly felt that all those principles were nonsense. At least a fart smells bad, but those principles didn't even have a smell.

"If I were to go back," Guangyuan said, her voice flat, as if she were talking about something very ordinary, "it would be to restart 'Old Man'."

Nan San raised his head and looked at Guang Yuan.

The moonlight sliced ​​Guangyuan's face in two, one half bright, the other half dark. The bright half was serene, and so was the dark half.

He was talking about something he had thought about thoroughly, something he would never change. It wasn't an impulse, it wasn't a matter of emotion, and it wasn't something that could be moved by Nan San's words, "Living Buddha, we need you."

He thought about it for a long time, so long that Nan San didn't know how long he had been thinking about it.

"This..." Nan San hesitated.

It's not that they don't want to agree, it's that they dare not agree. What does the "old man's" restart signify?

This means that the Heaven and Earth Society will have to return to the old ways, without seats, official positions, territory, or those "political allies" that the staff counted on their fingers.

There are only people. If you help me, I'll help you. If you don't help me, I won't blame you. But if you do help me, I'll remember you for the rest of my life.

Nan San has lived that kind of life. He didn't think it was good when he was living it, but now, looking back, he realizes that was the kind of life a human being should live.