Longevity Diary

[New Era 0204. I was working as a bartender in a small town when I heard the drinkers discussing the news that Li Su, the Half-Sage of Bronze Country, was about to die of old age. The young scholar who had argued with me in the heavy snow until our faces turned red had already become an old man. I decided to see him one last time, though every time we met, we ended up quarreling. What surprised me was that the instant we met, this old man's Dao heart was already clear and unobstructed; with one glance at me, he knew exactly who I was.]

[It was heavy snow as always. We talked through the night, drank to our hearts' content, and exchanged many things about my past experiences, the loneliness of my longevity, the torment of living too long. He said he did not envy me. He believed that aside from humans, all life was eternal, because they did not know what death was. I did not quite agree with this view. Animals feared death too. In the winter snow, we argued until our faces turned red again. In private, I felt that his arguments were still well-founded and reasoned; his ideas were always of a unique style. I had indeed grown more stubborn with age. Perhaps, in arguing like this, I was also hating my own cowardice. Back when I died of old age, I had been madly pursuing longevity, far less free and easy than he was at this moment, able to face human death directly.]

[New Era 0205, winter. Another winter had come. I had already lived at Li Su's place for a full year. Though we two old men argued every day, even his daughter-in-law could no longer stand watching it. On the afternoon of January seventh, after hearing me speak of the Battle of the Gurbantünggüt Desert from a hundred years ago, inspiration surged through him, and he painted Tyrant Close to God through the night. The next day, when I saw the painting, I knew it was destined to become a treasure of human civilization passed down for all ages, a peerless posthumous work—because the next day, he died.]

[New Era 0231. Influenced by Li Su before his death, I began to study painting and sculpture. I took the name Mr. Yin Zhu, meaning a bright pearl covered in dust, because Li Su had always mocked my works as having no soul while he was alive. But I truly had no talent in this regard. I practiced for nearly thirty full years before I gained some reputation in the small town. Every month, when the bustling market opened, I could sell some works and begin to fill my stomach. Everyone said I was a poor, sour-smelling painting peddler.]

[New Era 0245. I met a child from a village, thin and dark, with eyes full of yearning and sparkling brightness. This slave laborer was the eldest son in his family, and he was also called A Da. After several days together, I felt he was completely like the A Da from back then—clever, stubborn, brave. I remembered again that night when A Da and I counted the stars atop the boulder. I paid the child two sacks of wheat to stand still, then carved a sculpture overnight, Slave Laborer A Da. I knew that this was already the best sculpture of my life.]

[New Era 0247. A Da said he wanted to study and learn to read, that he wanted to overthrow the rule of the Slave Dynasty, and he wanted me to give him an official name. I was unwilling. I knew he would become the next A Da and would inevitably Repeat the Same Mistake. He said he was not afraid of death. Instead, he named himself Chong Dao—so what if he repeated the same mistake? I knew then that I could no longer stop him.]

[New Era 0258. When I heard that A Da had become the Revolutionary Army Leader and was leading a group of men of lofty ideals, I was in Bronze Country studying their steam craftsmanship. As the weaponsmith Lin Qingzheng, I was forging longswords. In this field, I was practically a genius, yet I had little interest in it. I still preferred painting and sculpture.]

[New Era 0271. I discovered large amounts of Qi on Immortal Herbs. I knew the fourth batch of Spiritual Qi had descended again. I gave up my travels and began studying this strange phenomenon of heaven and earth again. Not long after I picked medicinal herbs for research, I heard the news that Stone Light Emperor Changshou had been assassinated. Slave Laborer A Da had still chosen to make his move.]

[New Era 0274. I heard that Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng had ascended the throne and decided to go to the City of a Hundred Stones to take a look. This desert, which I had not visited in a long time, had already been completely renewed. The City of a Hundred Stones, once like the sun sinking beyond the western hills, had already changed. Though the wind and sand were still very fierce, the Arena had been demolished, and the slave market had been burned down with one fire. The nobles had been hanged on the walls, flayed, and dried in the wind. The people were free. They cheered and laughed, and they also cried hysterically.]

[In hundreds of years, I had rarely seen such a scene. This was freedom that had only existed in the prehistoric era. I suddenly remembered some images of freedom I had almost forgotten—the freedom of the village children crowding and piling up before the television to watch Journey to the West. That was carefree freedom. It was the freedom of the village children no longer being slave laborers. Perhaps I was too old. Amid the cheers of the people liberated from the Slave Dynasty, I unexpectedly shed hot tears for the first time in so long.]

[A sense of long, ancient epic and inheritance condensed at this moment. Perhaps civilization had always been like this. One A Da fell, and thousands upon thousands of A Das stood up again, roaring for freedom.]

[Slave Laborer A Da realized his dream in the end after all.]

[New Era 0277. While I was studying signs of unknown giant things in the ocean at a seaport, I saw a missing-person notice. It was a man with a tear mole. I knew it was him. Sure enough, he had appeared again. But where exactly had he gone this time?]

[New Era 0278. I successfully heard that man's experiences and became the painting mentor of the little girl who had posted the missing-person notices, because her painting skills were truly rotten, yet she loved painting beyond measure. The whole house was full of his portraits. My obsessive compulsion flared up, and I couldn't bear to look at it, so I directly became her teacher for ten years before leaving. By then, she was already the leader of the Ocean Clock Family, wealthy enough to rival a nation at the port. Unexpectedly, in her castle, she had treasured many collections that made me reminisce about the past, and on that wall, she had hung up the painting she was most satisfied with: Man with the Tear Mole.]