Chapter 56

"Grandma" covered her mouth.

"Your mother was the same back then, begging me to live with her so she could look after me. At Ankang Hospital too — you cried so hard it frightened the life out of me, so I had no choice but to come out with you… I've compromised so many times already."

"Grandma": "I've got high blood pressure, and diabetes too… I can't eat anything too salty, nothing too sweet, and even rice and the like I can't eat much of."

As she spoke, "Grandma" pointed her free hand at her own neck, then at her own stomach.

"Lie too long and my back aches, sit too long and my neck aches, eat too much and my stomach aches, and sometimes I can't even hold my water… what meaning is there in living a life like that?"

"I don't mind telling you, I'm afraid of dying too."

"Grandma" smiled.

"When my body's suffering I think I'd rather die at once and be done, but when I'm comfortable, I'm afraid to die."

"Being pulled back and forth is too exhausting." "Grandma" stroked Liu Zhiyi's head. "I want to go back to the old home, I want to be buried with your mother… I want to stay."

No, no, no.

Liu Zhiyi's eyes went hot, but her tears seemed to have run dry when her mother died, and now, somehow, none would come.

"Grandma": "Honestly, seeing you come in scared me half to death. But seeing you get the scissors, and cut through the cord too, I was quite happy — though still just the tiniest bit angry."

"Grandma" smiled and pinched her cheek.

"You cried so hard before, all set to die together with me and your mother — and what came up from the bottom of your heart was that you don't want to stay."

Liu Zhiyi shook her head, arguing anxiously.

"It's not like that — I can stay, I want to be with you…"

"Grandma" bore down with her hand, clamping her mouth shut again.

"Don't talk nonsense."

With that, "Grandma" glanced down at the cord on her belly, and once she'd made sure it was still faint and flickering, let out a breath of relief.

"A dungeon is the hardest place to hide a person's true thoughts."

The moment "Grandma" finished —

—Knock, knock.

A light sound, like a knock at a door, came from inside the coffin.

"Grandma" startled, then said to Liu Zhiyi, helpless.

"What have you gone and thought of now?"

What could she think of.

Liu Zhiyi had thought of her mother again.

She was thinking her mother, at a time like this, would surely try to talk her grandmother round.

But a sound came from inside the coffin — her mother's.

"Zhizhi, why aren't you going yet?"

Liu Zhiyi: "No, no, no… that's not what I'm thinking!"

"Grandma" laughed.

"How good — young people have such drive."

Liu Zhiyi wanted to explain.

But she couldn't get it out, because she herself knew.

She didn't want to stay in this dungeon.

She found that on this question, she couldn't compromise for her grandmother.

Just like a few years ago, when her mother had asked whether she could not go away for work.

However much it grieved her inside, she hadn't compromised, hadn't stayed for her mother's sake.

"Grandma" laughed out loud.

Liu Zhiyi saw the cord on her belly dance, winding the coffin a few more layers, as if to melt the coffin back into her belly.

"Grandma": "You've let go."

From the coffin came her mother's fussing, nagging voice — just like the time Liu Zhiyi set off for work away from home, when her mother, stuffing her suitcase full, had nagged at her to remember to eat, to dress mainly for warmth…

"Grandma" caught the hand holding the scissors, and gently but firmly pressed the scissors to the cord.

"Eat less takeout from now on, and remember to change your clothes with the seasons…"

—Snip.

The cord broke.

Liu Zhiyi felt herself float up.

The gongs and suona rose in pitch.

Her body spiraled upward.

She saw the crowd in the brick courtyard gathered together, ringed by brightly colored wreaths.

She saw Yindi cradling her belly and singing, Yu Xiao and the old woman holding hands and dancing.

The very picture of a lively happy funeral.

And "Grandma," holding her own color portrait, sat upright on the coffin.

Grandma: "Walk on, Zhizhi."

Liu Zhiyi lowered her head; she wanted to say something to her grandmother, but her mind went blank again — whatever she said felt like a poor excuse, and none of it could dissolve the guilt and unease in her heart.

But soon she found she was still rising.

Like being on a plane, leaving the ground, reaching the clouds, but still rising, until at last she broke through the atmosphere.

Liu Zhiyi jumped in fright — she'd come to outer space.

Yet in this vacuum, she didn't suffocate.

Liu Zhiyi was rather at a loss, until she saw the deep-blue Earth.

Whether it was some reflection of light in space, or some substance she didn't know of —

Liu Zhiyi saw a long black shadow joined to that blue planet.

Following the shadow, she found it went from thin to thick, its shape like a human hand, one finger held upright, pressing on the blue planet.

The shadow now scattered, now gathered.

Liu Zhiyi turned her head, toward the sun.

Facing the light source, she saw a ring of light in an arc, haloing this black shadow that seemed to gather and scatter both, its shape hard to describe.

And the instant she looked at the shadow, it suddenly took shape.

It became a human shape, but a strange one, like a person who'd turned their head aside — yet the back of the head also had the shape of a nose bridge.

It looked… like it had two faces.

And this head of two faces joined together wore the ring of light on its crown.

Some Buddhas have that kind of ring behind their heads.

The thought suddenly flashed through Liu Zhiyi's mind.

A two-faced Buddha?

Liu Zhiyi startled at her own guess.

After all, a thing so hard to describe… by the look of it, it truly didn't seem like anything good.

But then her gaze was drawn to another planet.

That planet was only the size of a marble in her eyes, but a blue marble much like Earth in size.

A planet of that size ought to be outside the solar system, very, very far from Earth.

Yet the instant she looked at it, Liu Zhiyi found the marble blink, like an eye.

Her heart shook; there were too many things in the universe she didn't understand.

So she quickly turned her head away.

"Why look away?"

When a woman's voice sounded by her ear, Liu Zhiyi paused; though a little alarmed, she wasn't at as much of a loss as before.

Liu Zhiyi: "…Who are you?"

"Your senior?" The woman's voice laughed. "It's been so long — finally another person who can let go."

Liu Zhiyi: "I don't quite understand what you mean."

The woman's voice: "That's a long story. Do you see the shadow?"

Liu Zhiyi: "The two-faced Buddha one?"

"Yes." The woman's voice was cheerful. "Earth's situation is much better than mine."

Liu Zhiyi was baffled, but she didn't interrupt.

The woman's voice: "Besides humans, the universe holds other life too. Some of it is hard to grasp by human understanding — like that black shadow. It's a kind of psychic entity… to put it a way, something of the ghost-and-monster sort."

The woman's voice: "And being life, it's bound to have the problem of survival."

Liu Zhiyi looked at the black shadow, studying it closely, and found its fingertip had melted into the Earth.

The woman's voice: "Not every environment suits survival — like a deep-sea fish coming to shallow water, it bursts… only some life-forms are cleverer than a deep-sea fish, and can remake the environment."

Liu Zhiyi thought of the mutation in the dungeons, and of Teacher Yang crumbling to ash the moment she came into reality.

The woman's voice: "Unluckily, what you've met is that kind."

Liu Zhiyi: "Then what should we do?"

The woman's voice: "Honestly, I don't know either. The kind of invader you've met is different from the kind I've met."

Liu Zhiyi turned her gaze back to that glass-marble planet.

She found the marble was wrapped in a layer of something like a fleshy membrane.

The woman's voice: "You could call me a transmigrator. I died over on Earth, and then my soul crossed to another planet much like Earth, which was being invaded by an alien thing something like an insect-mother."

The woman's voice gave a wry laugh.

"My situation's no better than Earth's, really, but at least the insect-mother is a physical creature — it can be hurt by missiles and the like. What Earth's up against is the psychic kind, and bullets and such do nothing to it."

You could feel it, Liu Zhiyi thought.

The dungeons were all shaped by human thought.

The woman's voice: "And the creature you've met is clever. The insect-mother's invasion sent its advance force down directly, and got noticed by the local government — and took a missile for it."

Hearing this, Liu Zhiyi looked at the black shadow outside the Earth, now blurred, now like a two-faced Buddha.

"It joined with our local beliefs."

The woman's voice: "Yes — it localized itself. That way it hides better, but working from belief, remaking the environment through human thought, means it's also limited by human thought. I wonder if you've noticed that?"

Liu Zhiyi thought a moment.

"This state I'm in now — is it tied to that limitation?"

The woman's voice: "Many religions speak of attaining the Way, and Buddhism often speaks of letting go — and for many people, the hard part is letting go of an obsession."

Liu Zhiyi seemed to grasp something, staring at that black shadow.

"…I let go, and so I saw through it?"

The woman's voice: "Yes. You saw your own obsession clearly, and so you saw the nature of some things too."

It sounded like a very philosophical subject.

But Liu Zhiyi's heart was in a tangle.

The woman's voice, though, seemed used to this sort of thing.

"Facing your own heart isn't always a comfortable experience, because that part can be a bit dark… It took me some effort, too, before I decided to wipe out the consciousness of everyone on Blue Star."

Liu Zhiyi: "Blue Star — that glass planet?"

The woman's voice laughed. "Is that what you call Blue Star in your heart? Quite fitting — Blue Star really is like Earth, and like a glass marble too."

Liu Zhiyi: "Why did you wipe out the Blue Star people's will?"

"Because I had to focus on facing the insect-mother's invasion." The woman's voice was easy.

The woman's voice: "Blue Star people love infighting — even facing an invasion they weren't united enough, and I hadn't the patience to solve all that. It's not my hometown anyway… so I did whatever was simplest. And the insect-mother had already found Earth; I hadn't time to think it all through."

Liu Zhiyi was shocked at her coldness.

Yet it was as she'd said: because wiping out the will hadn't happened on Earth, and because Earth was the next target —

Liu Zhiyi could understand what she'd done.

Thinking of this, Liu Zhiyi was shocked at her own coldness too.

But life was already this hard; where would she find the spare energy to worry about the life and death of another planet.

Liu Zhiyi: "Do you… have any ideas about how to deal with the two-faced Buddha's invasion?"

"No." The woman's voice answered flatly. "Even Earth's situation I only learned from a senior who let go a step before you. Some things I don't understand either."

Liu Zhiyi gestured at the distance between Earth and Blue Star.

"Then your appearing here — is it tied to letting go too?"

The woman's voice laughed. "Of course not. But I've already stopped being human on Blue Star — how could I let another invader steal my house? Though I can't come to Earth at this stage, keeping watch and making things clear to you players, that much I can do."