I slammed the door open, and the scene in front of me made me stunned.
My girlfriend, Mary, was neatly dressed, carrying a large bag and a small bag, and was standing in the doorway with two suitcases, as if she was about to go out. In the room behind her, all kinds of daily necessities and sundries were gone, and only a few worn-out furniture remained. It seems that if I arrive a moment later, all I will see is an empty room.
"Josh? How are you—" Mary exclaimed, and then lowered her head blushing like a child who was caught doing something wrong.
"God, I can't believe it," I murmured, "you haven't contacted me these past few days, thinking it's because you're busy with work. Monica told me that she saw you shopping for travel and thought We're going on our honeymoon. I didn't believe it. I called you and found that you had been shut down and only came here by yourself... I can't believe it's true! Why are you running away quietly?
" Chu Chu stood pitifully in front of me, clasping her hands together uneasily, but the fire in her heart couldn't come out, and she didn't know whether it was love or hate.
"I'm sorry, Josh," she said feebly, "you let me go, I... I have to go, the plane will take off in a few hours."
"Where are you going?"
"China."
" Why do you want to go to China all the time? Just to avoid me?"
Mary stood on tiptoe and kissed my face lightly, as if to express her apology.
"It's all my fault, please don't ask..."
The anger in my heart was quenched for the most part, and I said sullenly: "If you want to break up, I will respect your choice. But I just want to know why?" Mary and I have fallen in love quickly since we met six months ago. After dating for half a year, I thought we were in harmony with each other, but now I realize that I don't know her at all.
"Sorry, it's not your fault, Josh. It's my own problem. We...really can't be together."
"But I think after the six months together, I have the right to know why. Tell me, please? Are you having trouble?" I said as softly as possible.
"Josh, you...you won't believe it." Mary said, biting her lower lip.
"Tell me, maybe I can help you."
"Josh, you can't help me, and neither can anyone. I have to get out of here because...because I can't stay in this country anymore."
"Why? Are you a wanted criminal?"
"You don't understand, because I...I..." She flushed.
I looked at her quietly, her face was full of sadness and annoyance.
"Okay," she took a deep breath and put down the suitcase in her hands. "I don't know if it's right to do this, this is the first time I've done it... I'll tell you the truth, if you don't believe it, I can't help it."
"Darling, how could I not believe you? You treat me Too unconfident."
Mary sighed softly, put down her backpack, and walked into the room.
"My real name is not Mary," Mary began as we sat together on the last couch in the room, "and certainly not Smith. I'm not American, and I'm not from Nebra. Scar. I moved from France twelve years ago."
"So, you...you turned out to be French?" I said surprised, but not too surprised, I knew she was fluent in French, Not surprisingly French.
"...not exactly, I came from Romania to France during the turmoil in Eastern Europe in '89."
"So you were Romanian? You were very young then?"
"No, but I was in Romania with those gypsies. People have lived for a long time, forty or fifty years, and earlier, I was from Germany—"
"Wait! What are you talking about!?"
But she ignored me and continued: "Before World War II, I was a communist. After the Nazis came to power, I fled from Germany to Romania. Earlier, I was Rosa Luxemburg's assistant. Of course she didn't. You know, I used to know Marx. It was Jenny who introduced us to us. We were good friends for a while. But I didn't know at the time that he would have such a big impact on history... I lived in Austria before and used My identity is a nobleman who fled during the French Revolution. Before the Revolution, I was indeed in France, but I was not a nobleman, I just worked as a maid and a female worker, and earlier..."
"Wait!" I couldn't bear it any longer and called out, "This counts What? A silly joke?"
"Josh, I'm telling the truth."
I was silent for a while, then said, "So, you're trying to tell me you're an immortal? So keep going Migrate to hide from people's attention?"
she tacitly agreed.
"It's funny, I didn't know about your gift for storytelling."
"I said, you wouldn't believe it if I told you."
"It's not that I don't believe... no, of course I don't!" I felt myself A bit incoherent, "This is ridiculous, are you going to tell me that you're a medieval vampire?"
"I'm not a vampire, and I'm no different from ordinary people except that I never get old," Mary said quietly.
"So you're an Eternal? How old are you, three hundred? Five hundred?" I said sarcastically.
Mary said sternly: "I don't know how old I am. In my earliest memory, people never count their age. They are just born, grown, reproduced, and then die."
I said impatiently, "Nonsense . , it's all bullshit. Are you going to continue this boring game?"
Mary sighed: "I told you the truth, Josh, you can choose not to believe it. But I have nothing else to tell you, really No. "
"Okay," I said after thinking about it, "if you have to say that, tell me, what era are you from?"
"I said I don't know, Josh, I don't remember how my life started, it was too old. The earliest thing I can clearly remember now is, late one night, I was alone in hiding In a cave, it was freezing and snowing outside, and I was shivering. Then somehow, I recalled that I had lived in a tribe for a long time and had a warm fire to cook in, but they said I was a monster and drove me away And it doesn't seem to be the first time that this has happened... From that night, I resolved to make a note in my mind every year, that is, the seasons reincarnate. At that time, I didn't have the concept of numbers. , but I know how to tell the difference between more and less, so I make a mental note every year, each with a finger instead, then a toe, then the previous twenty fingers and a toe with a single finger Knot means that after the knuckles are used up, I start to use one elbow and knee to represent all the knuckles...until humans invented numbers and chronology, and before that I have recorded in my mind more than 10,000 seasons of reincarnation. "
So, you have lived for ten thousand years?"
"...Before human beings had an age, four or five thousand years have passed since then, but I have learned to count."
"Fifteen thousand years... ..." I murmured, "This is really...I never thought my girlfriend was a Sybil who lived fifteen thousand years."
Mary said seriously, "I'm not a Sybyl, I'm an ancient Sybil himself, I used that name. Although the legends about me have changed beyond recognition."
"Okay," I spread my hands ironically, "then, please prove it to me."
"Josh, what do you want? Proof? In the long historical years, I have learned more than a dozen European languages, including Latin and Greek, and I have a good understanding of the history of various countries..."
"This is something that high-caliber students at Harvard and Yale can do." I said dryly.
"Well, I'll tell you one more thing. In the eighteenth century, I worked as a cook in a countess' house, but a servant accused me of stealing something he did. I was fired and went to Paris. When I was a female worker, I saw the bad guy who wronged me decades later, and found out that he was actually—"
"Jean-Jacques Rousseau! My dear, this is the story in the Confessions! You read so many stories that it confuses history and reality."
"But the Confessions doesn't tell you, and he After seeing me in Paris, he suddenly became delirious, thinking that he had seen a ghost, which is one of the reasons why he later became insane."
I was stunned for a moment: "But...it can't be proven."
Mary frowned . He frowned: "Josh, be fair. There are some in the book, you think I read it from the book, but not in the book, and you say it can't be confirmed. Then what I say is useless, why should we say it? How about going down?"
"Okay," I tried to calm myself down, "so can you tell me what you've been up to in these fifteen thousand years? Let's see if you can find some verifiable clues. Come."
"Ever since I had the first memory," said Mary, "I've been moving south because of the cold weather, which I later learned was probably due to the Ice Age. The world was huge and endless. The sky and the earth are covered with forests and grasslands, which are completely different from the later world. I don’t remember where I have been, but I guessed that at least I went to central Africa and southern Asia…”
“Wait, in Primitive society, you traveled the world as a woman? Any saber-toothed tiger can eat you, right?"
"At that time, there were no saber-toothed tigers in the Old World, but there were mammoths." Mary easily saw through the trap I set, "Of course, It's really impossible on my own, and along the way, I sometimes join this tribe, sometimes that tribe—"
"You're an outsider woman with no power, how can you join other tribes at will? How can they accept you? ?"
"Josh, it was the Stone Age, a matriarchal clan society, and women were excellent food gatherers, no less than men."
I did forget that, and was speechless for a moment.
"What's more, because of thousands of years of experience, I have mastered the rich life experience of food storage and disinfection, distinguishing and picking herbs, predicting the weather, healing injuries and diseases," she continued, "so it is very popular, of course, in other People don't know that I can live forever. I gradually learned to disguise myself, such as dressing myself as old as everyone else as the years passed. But every twenty years or so, I still have to leave my original tribe If you go back after forty or fifty years, all the people who knew me have died."
"But in these thousands of years, have you never encountered a beast, plague, flood, earthquake, etc.? You have been able to survive all the time. ?" I was still skeptical.
"Of course I've been sick and bitten by wild animals, but for some reason, my body's self-healing ability is far superior to that of ordinary people. Even if my hands and feet are broken, I can grow back. I think it may be possible to multiply with my body cells indefinitely. Relevant. And I have a wealth of life experience, so I can cope with natural disasters better than others and survive. Seven thousand years ago, I went to Mesopotamia. I was with a few nomadic tribes by the Tigris River After settling down, I gradually learned to grow crops and became a farming society. I saw with my own eyes how groups of tribes turned into villages, how villages turned into small towns, how small towns became big towns, and the big towns turned into big towns. How did it become the first generation of cities that erected city walls; I saw with my own eyes, how generations of ordinary tribal chiefs added longer and longer titles to themselves, wore more and more luxurious clothes and accessories, and owned more and more The more warriors, eventually established courts, and became kings and nobles; I have seen how people invented writing, how they smelted steel, how they built temples, how they waged war; I saw how Babylon rose, and how Egypt fell, I have seen the glory of Nineveh, I have seen the destruction of Troy, I have been a slave and an aristocrat--"
"Wait, it was already a male-dominated society at that time, as a woman, how did you live both ways? Down? They won't find out who you are?"
A blush appeared on Mary's face, I thought I caught her flaw, but she shook her head and sighed, "It's probably easier than you think. At that time, there was no population register and no national census, and women, especially young women of the lower classes, had no past or future, but existed as trophies and playthings.”
"A young female slave, bought by the slave owner, naturally won't bother to investigate her past. It may be sold by him or given to others within a few years. If she is lucky, she may be favored by him and become him. The concubine, but after a few years, he will also get tired of him and put him into the cold palace. If he is not tired of it, the female slave will try to scratch her face with a sword, make herself ugly, and finally be abandoned... And Those nobles often don't have a good time for themselves, and are soon killed by other nobles or kings. Then there is a new reincarnation, a new change of hands... If you cover it up a little, no one will notice, and that slave girl will never Old. Just like this, I was owned by different men, fought and abandoned by them..."
"But this kind of life... is too miserable," I said. From the beginning of the relationship, Mary told me that she had a complicated past, but I didn't expect it to be so complicated. This didn't make me despise her, just a complicated feeling of pity for her. But I was suddenly startled, saying that as if I had begun to believe her... Should I really believe her?
"Tragic, but maybe it's worth it," Mary said quietly, with a sense of vicissitudes not commensurate with her "age", "I used to be called Sybil, Europa, Helen, and earlier Gaia, and so many forgotten names... In the brutal war of men, I am a plundered trophy. After the destruction of civilization, I am still alive. Perhaps this is the unique weakness and tenacity of women. In the midst of war and destruction, between being trampled and ravaged, all I can do is to pass on the wisdom and culture of thousands of years to new generations, and not let them be lost."
"You are for humanity . Preserving culture?"
"My ability is very limited, and I don't do much. Besides, my thoughts were not free from ignorance at the time. I only know that many beautiful things I have seen and heard with my own eyes have disappeared in the war. , later generations may not even know they exist. I just want them to survive. I was the witch Sybil of Crete, when the barbaric Mycenaeans occupied Crete, I tried to Teach them the previous script, but it was not very successful, they only used some of the symbols, and those ancient scripts were eventually lost."
"You mean Linear A and Linear B?" I said in amazement. The two scripts use the same symbols, but express completely different languages. The linear script A has not yet been deciphered.
"That's what people called it later."
I was speechless, and Fang asked for a long time, "And then?"
"Then I went back to Mesopotamia and lived in Babylon. That was my most successful era, and I I have gained the respect of the people, and even established my own theocracy. People call me the goddess Istar, and my status is higher than that of the king. The rise and fall of the dynasty does not affect my status. There was also a king who called himself 'Son of Heaven'. I found out later that he was a king of China."
"King of China, how is this possible? There are... tens of thousands of kilometers apart?"
"His name is Ji . Man, an adventurer like Alexander at heart. He visited Babylon with a huge motorcade, and was overwhelmed by the prosperity and wealth of Babylon. He knew that I was immortal and asked me for the secret of immortality, but I had nothing What can be taught to him, this is not something that people can learn. In the end, he returned to China in disappointment. After thousands of years, I learned that his visit was recorded in Chinese history books, calling him Mu Tianzi, but saying It is a bizarre myth."
"But this splendor and glory did not last long, at least not for me. Then the Persians invaded and wiped out the kingdom of Babylon. I was captured by Cyrus the Great, He took him to Susa. Cyrus knew that I could live forever, let me teach him the secret, or cut off my head. I lied to him that the secret of longevity was in the far east, in China. So Cyrus decided Take me east to China."
"As we all know, he was killed by nomads in Central Asia, and his head was chopped off as a drinking vessel." I said thoughtfully.
"Yes, even I was taken prisoner by the Massagtai. Queen Tomyris did not know my details, but she saw that I was a captive of Cyrus, and took sympathy for me, and made me her maid. After she died, I ran away again and went to India. It was around 500 BC."
"Let me think, that was the time of the Buddha?"
"Yes, but when I got to India, he was already dead. I didn't meet the Buddha himself, but I met the sangha of his disciple Kasyapa, and I followed them for a while, initially just looking for a place to stay. , but was quickly attracted by the teachings of the Buddha and was willing to take refuge, so I became a bhikshuni."
"You don't look like a Buddhist."
"That was 2,500 years ago." Mary With a sad smile, "At that time, I was tired of life, tired of the impermanent changes from queen to slave girl, and from slave slave to goddess, I just wanted to get Nirvana and completely disappear from this world, so I followed those monks and nuns in the snow-capped mountains of Nepal. After practicing for more than 300 years, I once thought I had discovered the truth... Unfortunately, I still did not get the peace of life in the end. Those monks who practiced together at the beginning saw that I would never grow old and thought it was the magical power of the Buddhadharma, so they honored me as 'Auspicious Goddess' ', I have been supported from generation to generation. But I saw that as Buddhism was worshipped by the kings of India, those sects and sects began to compete for fame and fortune, and they were no different from others, and I did not try to persuade them. U, they even used me as a call, I was disappointed, so I left them again."
"And where did you go? China?"
"I want to go, but it's not realistic. I've seen the Chinese, and I know they are Mongolia. Ethnicity, and I'm Caucasian, close to the Mediterranean, I can use makeup to cover up some subtle differences from Europe to India, but the basic ethnicity can't be changed. In ancient times I couldn't go to East Asia or Black Africa, There I would be treated as a foreigner, and it would be difficult to stay there for long. I followed a Jewish caravan back to Palestine, where the Romans had conquered by then... Then I could no longer live in Judea, and went to Greece, only to be People were trafficked, made into slaves, and taken to Rome."
"And then? Did you meet Emperor Nero?" I asked curiously, drawn more and more by her story.
"Josh, you may think this is an interesting story, but for me, these are all blood and tears from the past. I have been unknown in Roman times, enslaved and played by those nobles. I escaped a few times, They all use a knife to cut off the slave brand on their body, then hide in caves or sewers, without eating or drinking for a few days, slowly waiting for the new skin to grow. Can you imagine this kind of pain?" Mary said, unable to help but want to weep.
"I'm sorry!" I felt a lot of remorse, and a strong feeling of pity emerged spontaneously, wanting to protect her and take care of her. I held Mary gently and stroked her hair. She struggled slightly, then stopped moving.
"Maybe...it's my fault, I think I should believe you...yes, I believe you, Mary." I finally felt that she wouldn't be lying, "Enough, let's not talk about the painful past. "
Anyway, I've already said more than half of it, so let's finish it." Mary let out a long sigh of relief, "Later, I joined the Christian underground church, and many people supported each other, but they were persecuted by the imperial officials. With the help of some Christians, I escaped to Britain, then to Ireland, and finally got my freedom. Although I still have to hide in Tibet, after all, on the border of the Roman Empire, I don't need to be enslaved. I live with the local tribesmen. Together, I returned to the original life that was thousands of years ago. For the next two thousand years, I have been wandering the land of Europe. In the Middle Ages, I was almost burned as a witch, and I almost died of the Black Death. In the feudal era, in the countryside, There was little movement of people, it was easy to detect, I was suspected several times, and then went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then to Constantinople. To make a living I did all kinds of things that women were allowed to do, including the most Shameful... I finally survived until modern times. In the wave from the great seafaring to the industrialization, the population flowed frequently, and I also found more space to live. That's all. Do you believe it?"
"I Believe." I said excitedly, "I understand you completely, Mary! If you go to China, I will go with you, and I will always be by your side, protect you, take care of you, and never leave you alone again. Yes." Saying that, I took her hand.
"Thank you, Josh." Mary choked with tears in her eyes, "I'm really touched, but it's not okay..."
"Why?"
"Josh, don't you understand? The problem is not just between me and this country, and the rest of the society, but also between [me and you]. I love you, Josh, I'd never dared to I love anyone, but after meeting you, I can't help but walk with you. But you are a mortal, you will be old in twenty years, and you may leave this world in fifty years, And I'm still going to live in this world, it may be the end of the world. I can't watch you grow old, watch you die, I can't take it. So I have to leave you. You know, I could have Stay by your side for a few years, but then we will only get deeper and deeper, and in the end, no one will be happy."
"Mary, actually I—"
"Needless to say," Mary's expression was stern and painful, "this seems familiar. I don't know how many times in my life, men, whether they really love me or forcibly occupy me, have left me and are irreversibly dying and returning to dust. But I am still alive , no matter how lonely and painful. This is my destiny, to live alone, to try my best to protect the human race until the demise of human beings. Maybe I should never love anyone or have a relationship with anyone... "
Mary, haven't you met a second immortal in your life? Are you the only one who can gain immortality among the hundreds of millions of people you've seen?"
"I've seen many guys who claim to be immortals." , but most of them are liars. That's a good judgement: they'll tell those ancient myths as true stories in order to prove their immortality, about seeing Olympia and the Titans at war with their own eyes, or Surviving the world-destroying flood or something like that, I knew it was fake. But..." There was a strange trance on her face, "but I did meet someone, He's probably also the real Eternal."
"Who is that?" I wondered. Is there really another immortal being?
"He is a Chinese, a sorcerer who followed Mu Tianzi almost three thousand years ago. He said his name was Ji Keng. Like me, he has lived for thousands of years, and is called Peng Zu, and he is revered as a half. God. Later, human beings gradually became civilized, and he also kept his name incognito and lived among mortals. He heard about my deeds in the far east, so he followed the king all the way to the west, hoping to find his own kind."
"But what do you do? Know what he said is true? Have you seen him thousands of years ago? He has been to Babylon or Greece before?"
"No, he said he has been in the world they call Huaxia for thousands of years, and he used to think that It is the whole of the world, and he never imagined that in the west of the desert and plateau, there is another vast continent."
"So you can't confirm what he said, maybe this person is just a liar." I was cold. He said coldly, for some reason, he was full of jealousy towards this basket.
"You don't understand, the way he speaks, the expression, the pain and sadness of losing everything he loves in time, the feeling of the same kind... It can never be wrong." Mary's expression was dreamlike.
"Do you like him?" I asked bitterly.
"Like? No, much deeper than that. Josh, you can't imagine that special blood connection between two Eternals. We've been lonely for so long and finally found each other. It's like there's just the two of us on earth. , we poured almost all our affection into each other. It was in the past, but I couldn't help myself at the time."
"But he left you in the end," I reminded her coldly.
There was a deep sadness on Mary's face: "He... he said he would come back, but he didn't. He asked me to wait for him for a hundred years, he said that he would definitely come back in a hundred years at most, but I waited. After three hundred years of him, he never appeared again until the destruction of Babylon. So I encouraged Cyrus to go to China, because I wanted to go to China to find him, but Cyrus failed. Then I met Marco Polo, Tried to go to China with him, but this bastard sold me to an Arab businessman in Baghdad to raise money for the trip! I struggled to escape back to Europe. I went briefly a few times in the 19th and 20th centuries China, but nothing in the war."
"Then you are going to China now, are you also looking for him?" I finally understood why Mary was going to China.
Mary was silent.
"Answer me!"
"I'm sorry, Josh, but we really can't be together, the Eternal can only be with the Eternal."
"Wake up! That guy is a liar! He's not an Eternal at all, Otherwise why don't you come back to find you? That guy died three thousand years ago, and now you're going to find him?"
"No, he's not a liar. I have... hard evidence," Mary said insistently.
I looked at her in astonishment, waiting for the next paragraph.
"I'm sorry, Josh." She lowered her head and said, "There's something I haven't told you. I can't say anything about such a bizarre thing... Actually, I once had a child with Qi Keng."
"You? Have a child?" I repeated blankly, unable to understand what she meant for a while.
"Yes, Josh, my physique is different from a mortal, and my germ cells may be different. Although I've fallen in love with many men and been raped many times...but no one can get me pregnant except him. I think That's because he's also an immortal, so the chromosomes can match."
Mary, my Mary, had a child with some Chinese monster thousands of years ago? I can't understand it, let alone accept it. Just feel like the world is spinning. Mary hurriedly supported me: "Are you alright?"
"Then...what about that child?" I stayed for a while, and finally asked.
An elusive and strange expression appeared on Mary's face again: "Josh, you probably don't want to know...it's hard to accept..."
"Tell me!" I asked eagerly, vaguely feeling that something was wrong. Probably more than just a child.
Mary sighed: "Okay, Josh. I may not be truly immortal, but the life cycle is much longer than the average person. The average person spends a thousand years, which may only be equivalent to about a year for me."
"I ask you that What are you talking about, kid?" I growled like a jealous husband.
"Listen to me, since Qi Keng went back with Emperor Mu three thousand years ago, I soon found that my menstruation stopped, and I gradually had some pregnancy reactions, so I knew that I had his child. This is my more than ten thousand It was the first pregnancy since 2008. I was waiting for the birth of that child in surprise and unease. From now on, even if there is no basket, my life will not be lonely."
"But ten months have passed, ten years have passed. Even a hundred years have passed... The child has never arrived, but my menstrual period has not resumed. I know that the child is still in my belly, and I don't know when it will be born..."
"Nearly a thousand years later. , I came out of India and followed a Jewish caravan to Palestine. There was an old woman in the caravan whose husband and children were killed by robbers. I felt sympathy for her, so I took care of her as a mother and daughter. We Back to her hometown, Nazareth in Galilee, people thought I was her biological daughter, a young Jewish girl..."
I suddenly felt breathless.
"That year, strange stars appeared in the sky. It may also be that the time has come. My pregnancy response has accelerated, and my stomach has grown rapidly..."
"You...you don't want to say that you are...you are..." I opened my mouth wide in shock.
"People in the village thought I was a virgin who lived with a widowed mother, but now I am pregnant unexpectedly. I have no choice. In order to give this late child a decent future, I married a carpenter in the village named Joseph, and I gave birth to six months later. had a son. It was the only child I had in my life. People say he was conceived by a virgin...you should know who he is. I love this child so much. I taught him a lot as a kid I learned the principles of compassion and kindness from the Buddha, but I didn't think it would have such a big impact on him in the future..."
"Shut up!" I couldn't help the anger that erupted in my heart and grabbed Mary by the collar. , "Do you know what you're talking about? How dare you -- how dare you say -- you crazy woman -- you're crazy, you're really crazy!"
"Josh, I know you're religious, I didn't want to stimulate you...you asked me to say it!" Mary defended innocently.
"I'm not asking you to say this!" I yelled, "You can say anything, even if the child is Moses or Isaiah, but you can't say it's [that person], absolutely not!"
"Okay, I won't talk. Calm down." Mary stood up and picked up her bag, "Let me go, I have to catch a plane, it's too late."
"No!" In front of her, "You can't go, you... you still have to make it clear! Today you have to make it clear!"
"You let me talk for a while, but don't let me talk for a while, what is it?" Mary was very helpless.
"I... I am... Since you have already said it, let's go on, I have to figure out this matter! What happened to your so-called son?"
"Okay... Later, my son He ran away from home and rarely returned to his hometown. I don't know what he was doing outside. I only heard that he was apprenticed with a god named John, until... until I heard a letter that he was nailed by the governor's order. The cross. My heart was broken, and I was crying. But a few days later, I heard the news of his resurrection."
"So, you didn't see him resurrect?" I asked in a trembling voice.
"No, it was told to me personally by several of his followers, but it was very detailed and specific, so it wouldn't be false. I think he may also have inherited the self-healing ability of me and Qi Keng."
"Then [ That person] ascended to the kingdom of heaven?"
"No, that is a legend later. His disciples told me that he told them that he was going to India, and he said that he was going to see the Buddhist kingdom that his mother said, and I will never again. I haven't seen him either. Maybe he's dead, maybe he's still alive. I've searched for him, but to no avail..."
"You lied to me, it's impossible, impossible... Your son can be Anyone in the world, but it can't be [that person]! It's impossible..." I said the same thing over and over again, as if that's the only way I wouldn't fall into a breakdown.
"That's right!" I suddenly thought of a flaw in her words, and seized a glimmer of hope, "Thirty years have passed since [that person] was born to when he was nailed to the cross. be found?"
"From the age of twenty to fifty, people don't get old very fast, so just wear a veil. Besides, people in the countryside are covered in dirt every day, so they can't tell how old they are."
"What about Joseph? Doesn't he also Found out?"
"He hated me because of his son, which made him feel cheated. He couldn't keep his head up in the village. He quickly slept in a separate room with me. How could he be aware of my strangeness? Later, he openly lived with another woman in the village, and that woman bore him several children, the brothers and sisters of my son recorded in the Gospels... Josh, this is not the Gospels This is a real, helpless ancient life."
I couldn't find any flaws, and I was speechless for a while.
"Even my son hates me when he grows up," said Mary sadly, "you remember what he said to me in the books: 'Woman, what have you got to do with me?' Others say, 'Who's my mother? Who's my brother?' In fact... because he knows he's an illegitimate child, he thinks I'm embarrassing him."
"You bullshit, [that person] wouldn't do this, he... … He clearly believed that he was the son of God, conceived as a virgin."
"Maybe he did, but he knew in his heart that it wasn't true. Our mother-son relationship has never been good, and he went out as a teenager. , did not want to see me. I always wanted to find the right time to tell him the truth, but I didn't expect that before he said it, he had already-since then, our mother and son have never seen each other again..." She covered her face, tears Slipping down from between his fingers.
"Enough!" I roared anxiously, "This is all a story you made up, and I don't believe a word of it! If you want me to believe that you are that person's mother, unless...unless..." Suddenly I felt Liang, "By the way, [that person] speaks Aramaic, and so does his mother. If you are really his mother, just say a few words for me to listen to!"
Mary raised her hazy tearful eyes and shook tragically. He shook his head: "Josh, my memory is similar to that of ordinary people. Arramwen has disappeared for two thousand years, and I have almost forgotten it."
"Just say a few words, even one sentence! You can't forget all of them, Isn't it?" I said aggressively.
"But I just said it, and you don't understand..."
"It just so happened that I took a few electives in college, you say!" I grabbed her wrist.
"Josh, you scared me..." Mary exclaimed.
"Speak!" I knew that my face must be extremely ugly, but I couldn't control it.
"Okay..." Mary gave in and said something softly.
I was struck by electricity, staggered back a few steps, and sat down on the ground, shivering all over.
"Josh, you... are you okay?"
I didn't speak, just kept shaking.
"Josh—" Mary put her hand on top of me, and I shuddered violently, pushing her away. Mary did not stand still and was pushed to the ground by me. I suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter: "Haha, you are Helen, you are Sybil, you are Istar, you are an Indian saint, you are still a Virgin! Is there anyone luckier than me? Haha, haha!"
"Josh—"
"I just don't get it! Why are you still alive? Why didn't you just die two thousand years ago? Why give birth to a dead one? Will resurrect the evil seed come out, make up a nonsense religion to harm the world? Why did you come to me, let me know all this, so that my heart can never be redeemed?" I gritted my teeth, but I didn't know myself what are you talking about.
Mary stared at me blankly, without saying a word, tears streaming down her face.
"Yeah, maybe human beings still need you. Maybe one day after a nuclear war, the world will be in ruins, and we will return to primitive society. It is up to you to inherit civilization, great Virgin." I smiled strangely. , waved his hand, "Let's go, let's go! Go to China, go to Japan, go to Mauritania... whatever you want, just don't come back! I don't want to see you banshee again in my life!"
Mary thought She said something, but finally didn't say anything. She got up, wiped her tears, dragged her suitcase, and turned to leave. I sat blankly on the ground, listening to the sound of her footsteps gradually receding and disappearing into the void.
I lay slumped in the corner, thinking blankly, the first time I saw Mary, the first time I held her hand, the first time I kissed her, the first time—
I thought we were a match made in heaven, Just now, I thought that fate finally gave me the love of my life.
And yet—
however—
she was—
after an unknown period of time, the full of resentment and depression gradually subsided, and a deep regret turned up. God, what have I done? I drove her away so rudely, but it wasn't her fault, she wasn't wrong at all, why should I put my anger on her? God, I can't let her go like this, disappear from my life like this again, I must keep her, I can't let her disappear, never!
I don't know what I'm going to do, I just know I can't just let her go.
I jumped up and rushed downstairs, it was raining lightly outside. I didn't care, I took a car and rushed to the airport. As soon as the taxi stopped, I threw a hundred dollars to the driver, told him to stop looking, and rushed into the terminal.
But as soon as I got to the door, I saw a huge LCD information screen clearly showing that the flight to Beijing had taken off five minutes ago. It's too late for everything...
I walked out of the terminal in despair, a cold autumn wind with raindrops slapped my cheeks, and my heart was blank. At this moment, there was a roar of an aircraft engine overhead. I looked up blankly and saw a huge Airbus passing over my head and flying to the horizon. On the tail of the plane, the flaming red logo of China Airlines is clearly visible.
My heart skipped a beat again. Mary is up there. Impermanent fate separates us once again, and we may never meet again. Just like Mary and Kuang Keng. But maybe, in the infinite life course, in the journey of destiny wandering in the world, one day we will meet again, but we will forget each other...
Is this the cruelty of fate or kindness? I don't know, and I don't want to know.
"Go to sleep, child, and mother will tell you a story tomorrow."
The Aramaic word with a strong local accent appeared in my ears again, and it lingered for a long time. When I was a child, my mother's gentle figure when she was telling me stories by the bed crossed the long years and emerged in my memory, becoming one with Mary's beautiful figure...
"Goodbye, Mom," I murmured, tears filled with tears. My eye sockets finally couldn't help but flow down and melted into the boundless drizzle.
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