Chapter 10: The Ogre Who Loves Learning

  The night was deep, and for some reason the moon couldn't be seen in the sky, only a vast expanse of stars. Summer nights always seemed more vibrant than other seasons. Yi Tianxing sat by the edge of the small pond not far from his little black house, smelling the fragrance of flowers and grasses that came from who-knows-where, feeling the faint scent of dampness brought by the wind rustling the surface of the pond, closing his eyes, tilting his head at a 46-degree angle to gaze up at the sky.

  He has always been perplexed by his own body, always feeling that he is an abnormal person and must be a monster. However, these strange and supernatural things, he himself cannot believe in them, so he always wants to find some plausible explanation. Unfortunately, relying on his current ability to recite the high school physics textbook from cover to cover, he can't see any possibility of explaining it clearly from a physical perspective.

  So he decided to read Xuanxue, but felt that those masters were too childish. He had no choice but to turn to Wuxia novels to seek psychological balance. Seeing the high-ranking characters in the book flying around in the sky made him feel somewhat comforted, thinking: Look, this is what a divine being looks like, much more impressive than me... Sometimes when reading Jin Yong's books, he would fantasize that he wasn't born this way, but had cultivated the Pre-Heavenly True Qi of Shaolin Temple. Alas, even he couldn't deceive himself with this excuse.

  I don't know which comrade who makes a living by philosophy said that humans always put their ultimate hope of understanding unknowable things in religion. Yitian Xing is no exception, being a typical Chinese young master, he naturally wouldn't hold onto the Old Testament, and he really likes the lovely appearance of little angels with wings. So, logically, he extremely dislikes Jehovah, that old pervert... Therefore, he started practicing Zen. As for practicing Zen, to him, it's actually no different from studying physics, borrowing some Buddhist scriptures from the city library and then going home to memorize them blindly, who knows what kind of achievement he'll attain. If there is a Buddha in the Western Heaven, I'm afraid they would all be driven mad by this dull little boy.

  He recently read "The Three Flavors of Sitting Meditation Sutra", which mentions the five gates of treatment. Yitian Xing reads Buddhist scriptures, originally to find a cure for his illness, and this is just what he needed to soothe his stomach. He carefully read it once and memorized it. The book describes the five gates of treatment as follows: Those who are overly lustful are treated with the impurity gate; those who are often angry are treated with the kindness gate; those who are foolish and ignorant are treated with the contemplation of cause and effect gate; those who are often anxious are treated with the mindfulness of breathing gate; those who are often indecisive are treated with the mindfulness of Buddha gate.

  He had previously been in a small black room, lit by a 25-watt dim light bulb, scratching his head and thinking, but couldn't figure out what kind of illness he was suffering from or how to treat it. So, he randomly picked a foolish person. His idea was simple: if those rascals had the same strange physical abilities as him, they would probably laugh every day, and wouldn't be as worried as he was. Just like winning a summer car in a shopping mall lottery, some people are unhappy and worried that it's a scam, and in the eyes of others, they must be foolish.

  So he carefully read the so-called specialized treatment for foolishness... contemplation of dependent origination. But after reading through what kind of ignorance and karma, etc., his whole head was dizzy, and then looking at the counting breath gate, some flavor came out, especially when tasting the two characters "stop and observe", clearly showing that the body is originally non-existent... The body is like a gathering of foam, cannot be grasped by hand; it is like the sea, not tired of the five desires.

  ……

  ……

  He thought he had understood something, but in fact... he still didn't understand anything. Cultivating Zen to the point of being able to recite it by rote like him, Yi Tianxing was definitely not the first person in the world. Thinking about those ancient monks who couldn't even recognize big characters, they probably also used the "duck-stuffing" method to become enlightened. But people like him, who after memorizing by rote began to feel as if they had gained some insight, were indeed rare.

  Actually, he didn't understand anything, but he was certain of one principle: whatever happens.

  Not even taking care of oneself, whether it's a demon possession or a holy infant reincarnation, maybe one is just a genetic mutation. The world has many worries, why think so much? Rivers flow into the sea, following the natural course of things. If those thugs come looking for trouble, although one's physical strength can be compared to a tank, there's no reason to stick one's head out and get smashed.

  Yitian thought he had figured out a great truth and his mood improved, so he sat down by the pond to enjoy the cool breeze.

  This pond was actually a pit left after the explosion in '77, and as the rain accumulated, it gradually became a pond with duckweed floating on its surface. Yi Tianxing didn't know about this matter, nor did he know that he was picked up by his grandfather on the day of the explosion. He just always felt something strange, every time he sat by this pond when he was feeling anxious, he would immediately calm down.

  It hasn't rained for days, the water in the pond is calm and clear. Yi Tianxing shouted loudly as he stripped himself naked and jumped into the water at night, stirring up a splash of waves.

  Suddenly he felt some itch on his back, so he picked up a goose egg stone from the edge of the pond, took a slight breath, split it into two halves with his palm, and then compared them in his hand before choosing the sharper one to scratch himself vigorously.

  Luckily, the small black house he lived in was remote, and at night there were no people around, nor did anyone want to approach this place that was always filled with a foul smell. Otherwise, seeing someone use a sharp stone as a towel would be unthinkable.

  Yitian Xing was just playing with water, and soon he had to go to Gonghe Village to eat, so he didn't wash his face, but just used the stone slab to scrub himself clean. He looked at the duckweed floating on the surface of the water, listened to the croaking of frogs in the stone crevices by the pond, and slowly calmed down. Then he thought of the scene of riding a bike back home with Zou Leran in the afternoon.

  He was then caught in a strange feeling that someone had unreasonably beaten up a group of people, so he carefully asked Zou Lelie: "What if I'm really a monster?"

  Zou Ler's answer at that time made him feel very good, very natural, and very much in line with Yi Tianhang's imagination of his ideal partner. The girl said seriously with her big, shiny black eyes:

  "Then you go ahead and turn into a monster first, let me take a look, I'll decide what to do next. If you can become even more handsome than you are now, that would be great..."

  ……

  ……

  Yitian Xing thought of this sentence and burst out laughing in the pond. He got out of the water, threw a stone into the pool, startling the frogs and insects, and disturbing the fish's summer dreams. Then he turned around and entered the small black house, put on his own black cowboy pants that didn't look like anything, wore a blue work uniform from some textile factory, put on a worn-out straw hat with thorns on the edge, and grasped the handkerchief that couldn't be washed white - yes, it was the same outfit he used to pick up trash every night. He strolled along, enjoying the scenery, looking like Su Dongpo visiting a monk at night, walking leisurely towards the garbage mountain in Gonghe Village.