Besides all that, he also had the boy's complete memories and every emotion. At that moment, for instance, the boy was utterly exhausted. He was thinking about how his mother had promised to fry him two eggs that evening. He hoped she would add plenty of water so he could soak his rice in the egg broth. It would surely taste delicious.
Before long, Xu Yi felt his own perspective beginning to fade, slowly sinking into the boy's. He wasn't surprised or alarmed. He felt that this was the only way to witness the mystery. If his own perspective remained, and his consciousness stayed clear, he would never be able to comprehend it.
He didn't know how much time passed before his own consciousness stirred again. In his perspective, a withered corpse now lay before him. From the contours of its dried-up face, one could faintly make out a resemblance to the boy he had once been, at fifteen or sixteen.
Xu Yi let out a deep sigh, his heart filled with indescribable emotions. If he had to sum them up in one word, he felt it could only be "helplessness." The boy's life had been utterly ordinary. For someone born into a wealthy family, an ordinary life might not be a bad thing. But as a mountain dweller, an ordinary life was destined to end in tragedy.
At fifteen, the boy had begun his studies. The following year, his father went into the mountains to gather herbs and never returned. At seventeen, his mother pawned three of the five mu of paddy fields she had saved over the years, and found him a bride whose betrothed had died. The only thing to be grateful for was that the couple lived in harmony. At eighteen, the boy became a father.