A long time ago, a young traveler traveled through mountains and rivers and came to a land where birds were singing and flowers were fragrant. It was like spring all year round, the scenery was pleasant, and everyone lived and worked in peace and contentment.
In the center of the island, there is a village dotted with houses. People are either sitting in front of the door weaving clothes, or working hard in the fields, or working in the orchards.
Such a favorable natural environment and unprecedented natural disasters allowed the village to have a bumper harvest every year. The conditions of sufficient food and clothing also created the enthusiasm and hospitality of the villagers, who invited the traveler to stay in the village.
The traveler travels all year round. He has experienced strong winds and waves in the sea, experienced pirate intrusions, wandered through ice and snow, and passed through desolate deserts. He has also recorded these past journeys in his notebook. This time, he wants to live here and record this village, because he wants everyone to know that there are many places of suffering in this world, but there are also many places of longing.
The low bay at the head of the village is flowing with clear water, gurgling down. The river is winding and seemingly endless. However, the clear water in the river is set against the blue sky and white clouds. Just looking at it makes people satisfied and no longer bothers to explore the end of the river.
There is a grassland outside the village. Every time the spring breeze blows, it turns into a green ocean. The clumps of grass are like rolling waves, one wave higher than the other, passing towards the distance.
The traveler has lived in an independent vacant house in the village for half a year. The people here are enthusiastic and hard-working, but they also have very strange behaviors. For example, sometimes they will suddenly run home while doing work, and they will close the door at night and will not go out no matter what happens outside.
Every time the traveler couldn't figure it out, he would sit on the grass outside the village and think quietly. This time, he had new doubts. People in the village were free from illness and disaster, but they would die suddenly when they reached the age of fifty. In the past six months, he had experienced five funerals.
The traveler thought about it all day and still didn't know what was going on, so he went to find the only elder in the village who lived to be a hundred years old and asked for the answer.
The elder said: I accidentally reached the end of the river and drank from a spring. It was precisely because of that spring that I was able to live for such a long time.
The traveler asked: In this case, why don't the people in the village look for the spring, so that everyone can live a long life?
The elder said: For the first fifty years, I had parents, a wife, children, and friends. For the next fifty years, I lived alone. This was the punishment for my gluttony of spring water.
The traveler didn't say it clearly on the surface, but in his heart he felt that the elder's idea was too ignorant. He packed his luggage and walked along the river alone, hoping to explore the spring water that was said to make people live longer.
The river meanders, and travelers walk along the river during the day and sleep on the ground at night. The next day, a layer of thick fog begins to surround the river. A melodious sound lingers in the travelers' ears. A shell jumps out of the river, flaps its shell and expresses its meaning in a song: Young traveler, why did you come here?
The traveler was very surprised that a shell could talk, but he answered truthfully: I came to find a kind of spring water that can make people live a hundred years.
Shell continued to express in the form of singing: Young traveler~You'd better leave here~There is no Fountain of Youth here~
The traveler sneered in his heart, didn't you just say it? If not, how could there be a name like Fountain of Youth?
So he ignored Beike's dissuasion and continued to move forward.
Finally, he walked out of the dense fog area and came to the end of the river. This was a grassland covered with bright red like blood. He was shocked by the beautiful scenery here, which he had never seen in ten years of travel. Looking forward, he saw that at the end of the river was a stone statue that seemed to be naturally formed. Some fresh water spit out from the mouth of the stone statue from time to time, and flowed into a stone bowl below to collect water, exuding a fragrance.
After the traveler drank the spring water from the bowl, he found that he had become much younger. His skin, which had been exposed to wind and sun during the long journey, had become as tender and smooth as a baby's skin. He knew that this was what he was looking for, so he put some of the remaining spring water into a wine jug and took it back to the village.
This time, he visited the elder again and truthfully told the elder what he had experienced.
The elder shook his head repeatedly and sighed: After drinking Fountain of Youth, you will taste the loneliness of eternal life and never feel the real life again. It will be like a walking zombie living in the world. This is the punishment brought by greed.
After hearing this, the traveler was shocked and left the village, like the wind blowing, never to appear again. - End of the book.
The middle-aged man closed the book in his hand and lovingly touched the head of the little boy beside him, "Today's story ends here."
"Father." The little boy looked at the middle-aged man with dazzling eyes, "Will travelers really live in loneliness forever as the elder said?"
"A traveler is always adventuring alone. Even if he lives in loneliness, for him, as long as he can explore the world, it is happiness. He will not care about loneliness."
"Then why is he so nervous?" the little boy asked in a sweet voice.
"There are dozens of versions of the story of Fountain of Youth, and the book in my hand is only the one that is closest to the truth. However, the original words of the elders are not that. These were all tampered by later scholars. The truth has long been hidden in the dust of history... My grandfather once told me the true ending of this story..."
"I want to listen, I want to listen!" The little boy pulled the middle-aged man and made a noise.
"Okay, okay." The middle-aged man imitated that tone.
The elder said to the traveler: I didn't expect that you would really look for Fountain of Youth. In fact, my longevity is precisely because I didn't drink Fountain of Youth. This spring water will bring vitality to people, but it will also make people develop terrible addictions. Every household in the village hides this spring water and consumes it every day, but the price is that this spring water will take them away. They start taking this spring water when they are ten years old, so they can only live up to fifty years old. The reason why I deliberately concealed it is because I don't want this kind of thing to be spread outside. However, when you take the first sip and open the source of desire, the switch can no longer be turned off, and this place will also be the end of your journey, so I choose to tell you everything now.
After hearing this, the traveler was shocked and quickly packed his luggage and fled the village.
But a long time later, such a traveler could still be seen wandering in the village.
After the middle-aged man finished speaking, the little boy asked with some confusion, "Father, can Fountain of Youth make people live a hundred years?"
The middle-aged man stopped being silent until he heard the little boy's words. "I think this ending passed down from my grandfather should be the real ending. The so-called Fountain of Youth is actually the juice of a kind of herbal medicine. After all, it only gives short-term vitality and youth. However, most people in the world like to expose the magnificence to the sun and leave the dilapidation and dross in the darkness...
Kexi, you have to remember that sometimes a country that appears to be prosperous on the surface may not really be so. As a future king, you should learn to understand the people from the bottom, from those invisible corners, so that you can know what they need. They are the cornerstone of Santansidi. If the cornerstone collapses, then we Santansidi will also be destroyed."
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty..."
The captain of the guard gently woke up Kexi, who had been tired for many days, from his sleep, "Your Majesty, you will catch a cold, please go back to the palace to sleep..."
Kexi slowly opened his eyes, and what came into view was Garo Palace. He raised his hand and rubbed his temples, and murmured in a low voice, "It seems like I have had a long dream..."
When he thought of the scene in the dream, he shook his head again. If Diderot was deliberately planning it, did he really not know the truth of the Fountain of Youth legend? But he was still so crazy about finding Fountain of Youth. It was probably the persistence and fanaticism in his heart that was at work. But... is the Fountain of Youth his father said must be the truth?
The truth of history is always changing and there is no absolute, just like the flowers in the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, whether they are blooming or withering, no matter which posture they are in, they are their original appearance...
Kexi slowly stood up from the throne and said softly, "Let's go, follow me to see my father. He is just old and has just reached his winter. How can I deny the contribution he made to this country because of his current decline..."
Kexi walked towards the apse with his entourage. A red snail beside the window sill shook its tentacles, and then slowly retracted its body into its shell, never moving again, just like it had been alive for eternity before.
This volume is over. Because I had to take care of a lot of things, I wrote it with great trepidation. Of course, I still have a lot of things that I am not satisfied with, but that's it...