All About Daomu Biji’s PingXie Pairing – Part 2: Excerpts from Sequels

Continuing with Part 1: PingXie Excerpts from Main Story, here are some precious PingXie excerpts from various Daomu Biji sequels.

Due to the fact that Men You Ping and Wu Xie never appear together in the three sequels Tibetan Sea Flower, Sand Sea and Ten Years Later (since Men You Ping is behind the Bronze Gate during that period), these so-called PingXie moments are actually told only from Wu Xie’s perspective. In a way, it’s a study into his emotions and sentiments regarding Men You Ping.

And here’s an honest warning: Majority of these moments are just angst.

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With one glance, you could tell the oil painting wasn’t created by a professional. It depicted the profile of a person in a very ordinary, even slightly clumsy, manner. From the peeling of paint and the shades of colour, it seemed to have been here for a long time.

The subject of the painting was a young man. I never really comprehended Western paintings, but their so-called painting principle must be, to a certain extent, the same as Chinese paintings’. Although it was poorly portrayed, the style carried a unique vigour.

I didn’t understand where this feeling came from. The person in the painting was wearing the Lama’s clothes on his upper body, together with a Tibetan robe below. As the paper of this oil painting had entirely turned from white to grey-yellow, I totally couldn’t tell if the background was the setting sun or the rising dawn.

This was a prime example of poor painting skills, however, the use of colour was quite bold, which gave out the painter’s strong perception of art.

Even so, I still couldn’t appreciate anything about this painting. The thing that I found most astounding was that I actually knew that young man.

Yes, looking at the man’s features and facial expression, I had absolutely no doubt.

It must be him.

I wouldn’t know how he appeared here for there was really no reason for this person to be in Motuo, let alone in a clumsy oil painting in Motuo.

This was a portrait of Men You Ping.

At first, I furiously tried to deny it because the whole situation was too peculiar. I might have mistaken. After all, it was a painting, not a photo. Many details in the painting were fuzzy; perhaps that gave me a sense of recognition.

However, I found myself unable to move my eyes. All the details of the person were telling me: he was remarkably familiar, especially his eyes. I had never seen anyone who had the same eyes as Xiao Ge. Pangzi used to say that Xiao Ge’s gaze looked like it had nothing to do with anything, and that few people could live without any connection to this world like him.

Yet, the young man in the painting had that same gaze.

I stared at the painting for a long time. My intuition could feel it — this person was definitely Men You Ping.

– 藏海花1 / Tibetan Sea Flower, Book 1

_______

I saw a figure from the back, and I was sure that this person was just sitting there in a daze. He wasn’t really looking at anything.

But I didn’t have the nerve to go there, because I was so familiar with this back. For a moment, I wondered if I was in a trance, or if I had entered another space-time.

This was Xiao Ge’s back. He was wearing a black windbreaker, sitting quietly on the rock in the yard and surrounded by snow. He didn’t seem to be cold at all, as though he was completely immersed in his own world.

I had no idea I remained there, rooted to the ground. I just stood there with a blank expression, looking at his back from behind.

My heart asked relentlessly, What’s going on? Didn’t he say it would take ten years? Why did he come out?

Did he deceive me after all? Or have there been some changes?

And he appeared here. Was this place really the key to everything, so as soon as he got out of the Bronze Gate, he went straight here?

When I walked to the front of that figure, my doubts that felt like a dream-like daze turned into doubts that were soaked in frustration and anger. Because I found out that this wasn’t a person sitting here, but a stone statue.

A black windbreaker was neatly draped over the stone statue and a snow ushanka was put on its head, which made it look exactly like a real person.

What I was most furious about was, who would carry out this sort of prank, putting a windbreaker on a stone statue? And what had me most perplexed was, why did this figure look so similar to Xiao Ge?

I got closer and saw the stone statue’s true face. It was a simple statue carved from Himalayan stone, whose technique was extremely crude and completely devoid of details, but the whole figure really looked like Xiao Ge. I subconsciously looked at the fingers on both hands of the statue to find that the sculptor didn’t bother about such intricate details like Xiao Ge’s fingers.

[…]

I lit a cigarette and looked at the unfinished stone statue, thinking that later, I must ask the old monk what this was. But very soon, I discovered that it wasn’t like this stone statue wasn’t meant to be carved with details, rather, halfway through, the work came to a stop.

All the carved parts had totally different levels of detail. The most delicate part was the face, so this part must be the first to be completed.

I could see the expression of the stone statue and the intention of the sculptor from all the details on the face. The face of this stone statue was none other than Xiao Ge’s face.

Xiao Ge’s face was, in fact, quite distinctive. He wasn’t a person who would easily drown amid a crowd, but this wasn’t the aspect that made me pay attention to. What I noticed was the expression on this statue’s face.

I discovered that this face was crying.

I walked a few steps away, feeling more and more hair starting to stand up all over my skin. The whole stone statue presented a scene that shocked me to the core — Xiao Ge was sitting on a rock with his head down, and he was crying.

– 藏海花1 / Tibetan Sea Flower, Book 1

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As I walked another meter, there was only pitch-black darkness in front of me. Within a distance where my flamethrower could reach, I first saw that behind a tree where the house centipedes were crawling all over, there was a figure.

No, in other words, this figure was basically made of squirming house centipedes. 

My heart whispered, you’re reptiles with such low IQ, of all things to learn, why learn to disguise as a black figure. In the next moment, I saw a bloody hand in a gap between those creatures.

The fingers of this hand were very long. I could clearly recognise this feature every time the fire shined on it.

“F**k.” As a loud buzz rang through my brain, I screamed: “It’s Xiao Ge!”

“F**k!” On the tree canopy, Xiao Hua immediately let out a curse. Unable to pay any mind to Xiao Hua at the moment, I thrust my blade into the ground and rushed to the figure. Both my hands desperately moved very fast, one hand pushing and one hand directly firing at those house centipedes, scorching them away from the figure.

A corpse covered in wounds slid down from the tree. His clothes, his fingers and his hair all resembled Xiao Ge’s.

He was dead, with his jaws wide open. I pressed on his lower jaw to feel that this body still carried the temperature of a living human, which meant he had been dead for only a short while. His mouth was full of centipedes, obviously showing that he died because his trachea was blocked.

This wasn’t Xiao Ge. The quality of this corpse’s muscles was far inferior to Xiao Ge’s.

The bugs crawled all over my body and started to invade my nostrils and mouth. I used my arm to rub away the bugs to see the corpse’s hands. Xiao Hua came to my side and poured some cold fire to chase them away.

The fingers were fake. I pulled hard and tore them all off from the corpse’s hands.

As anger rose from the bottom of my heart, I tore off the wig from the corpse, and I discovered that I knew this man. He was Wang Meng’s subordinate.

“Son of a bitch.” I yelled towards the forest: “F**k all your ancestors!” My curse echoed across the valley.

– 十年 / Ten Years Later

_______

Pangzi came over and handed me a cell phone: “Let’s listen to some music. What should we listen to today?”

“What do you have?” I took the phone and swiped across the app to find that his Music list was all elderly’s group dance soundtracks. If we had this on, Xiao Ge probably would step back into the Bronze Gate. That said, I actually felt rather excited.

“Don’t you have some fitting music for our situation?”

“There’s one song that has been quite popular recently. A girl from Banai sent it to me.” Pangzi took back the phone and swiped for a long time. Finally, he turned the phone up: “See You Again.”

I let it play softly, and the singing wasn’t loud. It was in English. I quietly listened to the song, and Pangzi didn’t speak either.

[It’s been a long day without you, my friend,

And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again.]

Pangzi hummed along, which, in fact, sounded pretty nice. In complete silence, we listened to the song for a long time.

It shouldn’t be that he won’t come out? I sighed, and slowly, Pangzi fell asleep, snoring lightly by my side.

Although I tried to crank all the nerves in my head, I couldn’t help but feel very sleepy while listening to the music.

In the dimness, I saw the Bronze Gate open.

Did I just turn into the Little Match Girl? I thought, then I rubbed my face and opened my eyes.

Sure enough, no one was there.

I knew I couldn’t keep myself awake this way, so I looked at Pangzi and started talking to him.

“The people in that village have this kind of dessert, which is made with glutinous rice and brown sugar. Because they have lots of rain, a special weed called Yuzai ginseng grows in that village. This dessert contains Yuzai ginseng’s petals, which will help retain one’s memory longer. Of course, this is just a local legend.”

As I said so, I let out a long yawn and my consciousness began to blur, but I continued to talk. No one knew how long I sat there enduring the sleepiness, but suddenly, in my haziness, someone slowly sat down next to me.

I hesitated for a moment and titled my head to look over, and the other person also tilted his head to look at me.

Pangzi gradually woke up and looked at us.

I saw a familiar face, whose indifferent eyes reflected the light of the campfire.

People said that if you forgot a person, the first thing you forgot was his voice. But when his voice rang in my ears, I didn’t feel unfamiliar at all.

“You’ve gotten old.” He said.

The music was still flowing, in this place that was closest to Hell.

Pangzi stood up and hooked his arm over Men You Ping’s shoulders, causing him to stagger: “How can we compare with Xiao Ge? Finally you’re out!”

Men You Ping swayed left and right.

I pulled down my sleeve to cover the scars on my arm and stood up.

He smiled at me, and I picked up the bag: “Let’s go.”

We simply just,

hadn’t seen each other for a long time.

[I’m at the North Sea, you’re at the South Sea

The letters I send flying through the sky won’t reach your hands.

A glass of wine and peach plums, in the wind of spring

Amid this rain through the nights, for ten years the light will shine.1Nan Pai San Shu quoted this from the poem ‘寄黄几复’ by Huang Tingjian.]

(Ten Years Later, The End)

– 十年 / Ten Years Later