Just as dawn was breaking, Hei Dalang was urged to get up by his pregnant wife.
He lay in bed, unwilling to move for a long time. Not because he was lazy, but because his wife wanted him to make a decision that day.
My mother is almost sixty years old. She is still in relatively good health and can do some light work in the fields, but she is not as healthy as she used to be.
My wife's baby is due in two months, and with another mouth to feed, we'll have more food to eat.
The rice in the grain jar is almost gone; it won't last until the new harvest.
He faced a choice: either everyone would starve, and his youngest son might not survive, or he would send his mother to live a secluded life in the mountains.
This is how the villagers have done it for generations. Elderly people who are too weak to work and can't earn enough food are carried up the mountain, placed in a cave, with a jar of water and a few wild vegetable dumplings, and then brought down the mountain.
A nice way to say it is "disappearing into the world," a less nice way is "waiting to die."
His wife sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him, one hand rubbing her swollen belly, the other clutching the corner of the blanket.
She didn't speak. At a time like this, no wife would urge her husband to carry his mother up the mountain. But her silence was more suffocating than any urging.
Soft footsteps came from the direction of the stove; it was my mother starting a fire to make breakfast.
Smoke from the firewood drifted in through the crack in the door, carrying a pungent, bitter smell. Hei Dalang suddenly sat up, put on his clothes, and went out the door.
In the courtyard, Mother was squatting in front of the stove adding firewood. Most of her hair was white, and her fingers, from years of farm work, had large, deformed joints that trembled slightly as she gripped the firewood.
The Kakkō illuminated her wrinkled face, revealing no expression.
"Mother, don't do it anymore," said Hei Dalang.
The mother paused for a moment, then continued adding firewood. "Breakfast is essential. Your wife is pregnant; she can't go hungry."
Hei Dalang stood in the yard, his throat feeling like it was blocked by something.
He walked to the courtyard wall and took down a bundle of hemp rope. It was the rope he used to tie rice stalks when harvesting rice last year, and now he would use it to carry his mother up the mountain. He untied the rope and checked it to make sure there were no broken strands.
The mother stood up from the stove, brushed the dust off her knees, glanced at the bundle of hemp rope, and turned to go back into the house.
Hei Dalang assumed she had gone to get a change of clothes or to give her daughter-in-law some instructions. But when his mother came out, she was only carrying one item.
A cloth bundle contained a pair of unfinished shoe soles.
She made it for her unborn grandson. The stitches were fine and dense, the sole was made of three layers, and a crooked little flower was embroidered on the patchwork of scraps of cloth.
The mother held the bundle in her arms, then walked up to Hei Dalang, turned around, and waited for him to carry it.
"Let's go," the mother said, "While it's still dark and we won't run into anyone on the road."
Looking at his mother's hunched back, Hei Dalang's vision suddenly blurred.
He wanted to kneel down and kowtow to his mother.
His mother waited for a while, and seeing that he Fudo, she turned around and glanced at him.
There was no resentment, only a faint, almost resigned calm.
The mother patted the bundle in her arms.
"These shoes are for your child, I haven't finished sewing them yet. When we get to the mountain, just leave me at the cave entrance, I'll finish sewing them slowly. Come back and get them when they're done, and your child can wear them."
Hei Dalang's tears finally fell. But he still squatted down and let his mother climb onto his back.
His mother was very light, as light as a bundle of dry firewood. He lifted her up and almost lost his balance.
It wasn't that his mother was too heavy; he hadn't expected her to be so light. He gritted his teeth, supported his mother's legs, and walked step by step up the mountain.
The mountain path was trodden out by generations of ancestors. Going up from the dry stream behind the village, through a bamboo forest, and over two small hills, you arrive at the place that the villagers call " Spiriting Away Forest ".
It wasn't actually a forest, just a rocky slope halfway up a mountain with a few shallow caves that couldn't keep out the wind and rain.
Broken pottery jars, rotten straw sandals, and blackened bones were scattered around the cave entrance.
No one claimed the body, and no one dared to. The family had already done their last bit of filial piety by carrying the elderly person up the mountain; the rest of the journey was theirs to complete.
Hei Dalang carried his mother on his back for nearly an hour. No one spoke a word along the way.
His mother was clinging to his back, still clutching the cloth bundle in her hand.
Several times he slipped, and his mother would grab his shoulders tightly, then let out a sigh of relief, afraid she would fall—she was just an old woman nearing death.
The bag just slipped, and that's how the shoe fell off.
They finally arrived. Hei Dalang found the innermost cave and placed his mother on a relatively flat rock at the entrance. The cave was very dark, and he couldn't see how deep it was. There was a damp, musty smell mixed with some other odor. He took out two wild vegetable dumplings and a bamboo tube of water from his pocket and placed them at his mother's feet.
The mother glanced down at the two dumplings and said, "Keep one. You'll need strength to go down the mountain."
Hei Dalang didn't say anything. He took another cloth bag from his waist, which contained flint and half a bag of firewood—this was the most he could prepare for his mother. There were no quilts, because there were only two in the house, and he had to leave them for his wife and son. He put down the firewood and placed the flint beside it.
Then he knelt down.
"Mother," he said, his voice barely audible, "your unfilial son. In the next life—"
"Stop talking," his mother interrupted him, her voice calm. "There's no such thing as a next life. You've been good enough to me in this life, better than anyone else in the village. Go on your way; your wife is waiting for you at home."
Hei Dalang kowtowed three times. Each kowtow was slow, his forehead resting on the cold stone for several seconds before he lifted it. Then he stood up, turned around, and walked down the mountain.
After walking about ten steps, he suddenly stopped.
It wasn't because I heard my mother crying.
The mother didn't cry because she saw something strange.
In the dense forest not far ahead, several dark figures were darting swiftly among the thick branches.
It was incredibly fast, unlike a bird or a wild beast. It was like a human, but no human could jump around so high in a tree.
He rubbed his eyes; the dark figures had already stopped on a large tree less than fifty meters away from him.
He vaguely saw something metallic hanging from the waist of one of the men, which glittered in the morning light.
Hei Dalang suddenly remembered the village legend. The old folks said that the elderly people who were carried up the mountain would not really die. The mountain god would come to take them away and make them a part of the mountain.
He wanted to become a tree, a stone, or the lingering mist atop the mountain. He hadn't believed it as a child, but now he did.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed to his knees, desperately kowtowing towards the direction of the big tree, ignoring the blood that spurted from his forehead hitting the gravel.
"Mountain God! Mountain God! You've come to take my mother away, haven't you? Please, please take her away! She's never done anything wrong in her life, please, don't let her suffer."
He was shouting incoherently, his face smeared with tears and blood from his forehead.
The dark figures fell from the tree and walked towards him.
Hei Dalang lowered his head even further, trembling all over. He didn't know what the mountain god looked like, but he was definitely a deity, someone he couldn't look directly at.
A warm hand rested on his shoulder. The pressure was light, but steady. Someone had knelt down in front of him.
"Brother, please get up. We are not mountain gods."
The voice was very gentle; it belonged to a woman.
Hei Dalang looked up, and through his teary eyes, he saw the face of a young woman. Her long black hair was tied in a ponytail at the back of her head, and her eyes were a dark red.
Her Forehead Protector had a leaf pattern etched on it.
"I am Kurenai Yuhi, a ninja from Konoha. What's going on here?"