I walked for two days and two nights before leaving the valley, and it took me another two days to find a small village with a simple folk customs.
Fortunately, when I fell off the cliff, I still had everything on my body. I exchanged some copper coins for dry food, and bought a donkey. Better than nothing, I prepared to let it come back to me and continue on the road.
These days, I always think of lunatics, especially in the dead of night, when I fall asleep, the jade tablet on my chest seems to be hot, burning my heart.
After spending more than three months together day and night, some feelings are normal. I comfort myself like this.
I stayed for one night in that small village with only a dozen households, and planned to continue on my way the next morning, but that night, I had a dream.
The dream was very clear, as clear as reality. It was as if I was suspended in mid-air, watching what happened in the cave in the past few months from the perspective of others.
Scene by scene, completely reproduced, exactly.
I fell off a cliff, a madman rescued me, I had a fever and chills, he took off my clothes and hugged me to keep me warm, obviously I was a big man, but he seemed to mistake me for a yellow flower girl, seeing a little naked The flesh and blood will be responsible to the end, treating me as his "woman".
Afterwards, pretending to be pregnant is also dumbfounding.
On the day I was going to leave the cave and leave the lunatic in the dream, I thought this dream would end here, but no, it continued. And, that's something I haven't experienced.
I saw the madman. He happily returned to the cave with a fish in his hand. There are not many fish in the valley. The fish in this season are more difficult to catch. It must have taken him a lot of time to catch such a fish.
"Noh!" he called out from the entrance of the cave, as if I was afraid I wouldn't know he was back.
Then he walked in, and I almost had a very bad feeling that everything was going to hurt me. I wanted to wake myself up quickly, but it was too late, and I was floating above the hole, watching the madman rush out shouting the name that didn't belong to me.
His face was terrifying, panting heavily, carefully observing at the entrance of the cave, looking for my figure in different directions over and over again.
"Nah!"
"Nah, come back!!"
"You come back! Nan Nan!"
He searched for a long time, from dawn to dusk. Climb wherever it is, big trees, stones, dirt slopes, climb as high as possible and look as far as possible, trying to find even a trace of me.
He searched for me for two days without food, drink, or sleep, and just when I thought he had infinite energy and would never give up looking for me, he returned to the cave where we once lived.
His feet were staggering, the shoes woven with straw stalks had been smashed from running for many days, and there were wounds all over his feet, mixed with dirty mud, black and red intertwined.
As if he was finally exhausted, he knelt down on the grass in front of the cave with his knees soft and roared in the sky, causing the birds in the valley to flutter their wings. He vented his grief, and the roar seemed to contain endless pain. After roaring in one breath, he leaned forward and vomited blood with a puff.
I was shocked and was about to go forward to check, but his body had already fallen, and I was struggling to open my eyes.
As soon as I woke up, I still couldn't get back to my senses, and I was full of crazy figures in my heart.
This dream is so real, is it my hallucination or is it real
I reached out and caressed the black jade card on my chest, and my heart was in a mess for a while.
This state continued until I rode the donkey on the road and walked for about a stick of incense, and then I realized that I was going in the wrong direction, and was actually turning around and walking back.
It's a mistake to go, why don't you go back and have a look. I told myself so in my heart.
I'll go back and have a look. It's not a day or two away anyway. If he's all right, I won't be late...
After all, I still couldn't worry about the lunatic. I grabbed the belly of the donkey, raised my hand and whipped the whip, and let it hurry up.
What I didn't expect, when I returned to the bottom of the valley, everything was the same in the cave, but the madman was gone. I found a doe in a bush near the cave. I don't know if it was used to being kept in captivity. It didn't even hide when it saw me, and kept wandering around.
"It looks like he let you go." I was in a trance for a moment, and when I saw it approaching me, I quickly waved my hand to it and drove it away, "Let's go, let's go, you will not die, you will be blessed, but Don't be stupid enough to get caught again."
The doe whined at me twice, and finally turned and went into the woods.
I sighed and waited another day at the entrance of the cave, but there was still no sign of the madman.
I was afraid that something had happened to him alone somewhere, and I searched all over the valley, but couldn't find him anywhere. I felt like I overlapped with the madman in my dream, both anxiously looking for each other.
Another day passed and I had to accept the fact that the lunatic might not be here anymore. I went back to the mountain, led the donkey that was grazing leisurely on the edge of the cliff, and left again.
I have a hunch that I won't be back this time.