“Fasting.” “Level 1 Care.” These were rather stimulating terms.
On the first day of the “Golden September, Silver October” peak season, Lin Song checked himself into a hospital bed on the fourteenth floor of the Houhu campus. The lights in the ward were turned off just after 8 PM, but it was impossible to sleep. He closed his eyes, pulled the covers up to his shoulders, and forced himself to try. But it was contrary to his wishes. A kaleidoscope of colors spun endlessly in his mind, like a carousel. He could only watch and wait.
“Abstain from all delicacies, pending further observation.”
The attending doctor in the ward repeatedly instructed him to eat lightly. No Coke, no fried chicken, and definitely no barbecue. If life had to be this bland, what else was there to look forward to on this already emaciated journey?
The big brother in bed 30 was chatting with his family just before his surgery. He lay obliquely on the bed, lamenting that life is just what it is: if you have money, your quality of life is a bit better; if you have less, it’s a bit worse.
The young man in the next bed had just turned 33, but his weight had already exceeded 90kg (198 lbs). Before entering the operating room, he was holding his phone horizontally, deep in a game. After returning from surgery, as soon as his complexion improved slightly, he went back to his game. His mother took time off to come and care for him, boasting that, aside from giving birth to her son, she had never been a patient in a hospital in her life. The son was deeply moved, marveling that such a healthy person could exist in the world.
The world is beginning to demonstrate some incredible skills. For example, operating the long arm of an excavator to play billiards, and playing better than the average person.
The patient in the bed by the door was a cheerful uncle. As soon as the doctors finished their morning rounds, he vanished. The nurse said the uncle’s university was holding a meeting, and he had temporarily “escaped” the hospital. During the rounds, the doctor had listed a long string of the uncle’s suboptimal test indicators, yet the uncle remained completely unfazed.
In the afternoon, the uncle returned to the ward after his meeting. At 7 PM, he turned on the TV, watched the national news for three minutes, and then switched to the documentary channel: The Art of Rebirth (Season 2) - The Rebirth of Ancient Sutras.
Aren’t ordinary mortals just like this? From the moment one is hospitalized, those who come and go are all just souls clinging to life, terrified of death. A hospital is no place to stay. You either leave through the front door or the back.
Lin Song used to always teach the younger generation that one only stands on a small corner of the world, and that one should take a step further to appreciate its complexity. But after spending the better part of a month in the hospital, and now confined to his bed, it seemed to him that for the generation raised on swiping Douyin, “seeing with one’s own eyes” and “narrow-mindedness” were, in fact, synonyms.
Su Dongpo once lived a happy and content life in Huangzhou. Soon, the imperial court had other “important uses” for him, and he was forced to leave his place of peace.
What is the difference between our time and Su Dongpo’s? Dongpo could find a place he liked and build a hut to live in; we can now freely choose a housing community we like. Su Dongpo was summoned and banished by the emperor, living a life of displacement; we rush around and rack our brains for promotions and advancement. Our view is blocked by the new high-rise built across the street. To see the more beautiful scenery in our hearts, we strive to move into taller, larger apartments. On the day that dream comes true, we must wait for an even longer elevator ride. We stay at home longer, but we are too busy scrolling through our phones to appreciate the natural breeze. Every inch of the city has been rebuilt; every landscape is an expression of human will.
Lin Yutang said that all problems in art are problems of rhythm. Lin Song doesn’t know much about art, but he has some experience with running. And the problems in running are, indeed, all problems of rhythm.
The world always inadvertently reveals its two sides, its pros and cons, to the masses.
After Su Dongpo passed away, another man, surnamed Hong, took over his position. This Mr. Hong was quite confident in his own literary talents. He asked the old servant who had once attended to Su Dongpa: “How do I compare to Su Dongpo?” The old servant replied: “Su Dongpo’s writing was not necessarily neater than yours, Your Excellency. But he never needed to check a book.”
Su Dongpo and his friend journeyed the Yangtze at night, moved by the Battle of Red Cliffs from a thousand years prior. Another thousand years later, Lin Song, alone on his sickbed, is moved by the thought of Dongpo from a thousand years prior.
If you can fully understand yourself, then you have the ability to understand others. The process of integrating into the world begins with being able to understand oneself.
Some people, in their youth, have never known what pain is—the sharp, lingering kind. They will say, “Why would I want to experience that? Only useless people get hurt by others.” At times like this, you realize, so-called “words of experience” are often not worth discussing at all. Whether physical or spiritual, one who has never experienced pain cannot feel extreme joy. Greater suffering and greater joy require a wider boundary of what the body can endure to perceive them.
Having returned to a time where he can perceive the endpoint of life, Lin Song’s spiritual world, when confronting its own past of endless, struggling, and impoverished striving, is filled with a sense of shame for that life.
“An ant climbs onto a millstone, thinking this massive rock is as stable as a mountain, little knowing that it is about to start grinding again.”
The essential decay of the body is like fine sand held tightly in the hand, gradually slipping away.
Every morning, I open my Moments feed, and it’s full of “chicken soup” maxims. It’s quite nauseating. You can choose not to look, or you can splash a little “poison” back.
On his last morning in the hospital, Lin Song was alone in the ward. His two roommates had gone for surgery and had not yet returned. In the dawn light, the street lamps had all been extinguished. Against the dark, gloomy surroundings, the golden arches of the McDonald’s shone with exceptional brightness. Looking out from the ward’s large, floor-to-ceiling glass window, the slowly rising sun was obscured behind the “Jianghan Renjia” complex’s row of towers. Even facing east, the light wasn’t glaring. In ancient times, one could “climb high and wave, and though your arm is not longer, you are seen from afar.” Today, even from a fourteenth-floor hospital room, all one can see are the nameless treetops on the nearby streets.
After returning from the hospital, his hair had been growing for nearly two months. The greasy strands, stuck to his scalp, looked quite sloppy. For the occasional social engagement, a little decency was still required. So, Lin Song filled up his car with gas on the Tuesday members’ day, parked it in the garage, and sat in the car, sending a WeChat message to Tony Wei: “Hi Tony Wei, is it possible to get a haircut now?” Booking in advance meant avoiding the queue at the barbershop. This time, however, Lin Song did not receive an immediate reply.
He continued to scroll on his phone for another ten minutes. Still no reply. He had no choice but to go directly to the shop. If he had to wait in line, so be it.
The young man who washed his hair recommended a “Director” level stylist, who was busy testing out a new stool to see if it was flexible enough. The stylist deftly gave Lin Song an extremely short buzz cut, then asked: “Take a look, is the length okay?” Lin Song stared at his own head in the mirror, thinking to himself: The last time I had hair this short was probably more than a decade ago. If I say it’s too short, can you make it grow back right now? “I’m Number 9. You can ask for me next time.” “Uh, okay.”
Lin Song walked out of the “Fa Zun” salon, calculating to himself. For the past ten years, he had always gone to Tony Wei for his hair. Tony Wei never asked him what style or length he wanted. He would just sit in the chair at Tony Wei’s fixed station, and the trimming would begin. Lin Song would close his eyes and doze off, waiting for Tony Wei to tap him on the shoulder. Then he would go rinse the clippings off his neck and head home.
In the days that followed, Lin Song never saw another barbershop-related post from Tony Wei on his Moments feed.
A perhaps irrational assertion: the least trustworthy thing of all is one’s own physique. Lin Song doesn’t know if his father ever had any spiritual pursuits in his life. But in his final years, his father discovered a foolproof way to “profit,” which was to simply “stay alive.” He fought with heaven, and he fought with himself.