One

  At this moment, I am on a small boat in the western Pacific Ocean, and my whole body has been soaked through by the waves. The sea breeze blows dry again and again, followed by wave after wave, salty and bitter in my mouth, and my eyes are sore from the salt.

  I grasped the ship's side with one hand and clutched the rope with the other, gritting my teeth to command myself: I absolutely must not shiver. If I shivered just once, the last psychological defense wrapped around me would relax, and then the thousands of hectares of sea waves and wind would surge in through my pores, and my entire life would immediately collapse.

  I dare not think about the real location I am in now, and just assume that I am in my familiar waters. But occasionally, a chill will flash through my heart, but I don't want to admit it: this is the southwest of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, with a depth exceeding the height of Mount Everest. According to world geography, it is located in the center of "narrowly defined Oceania", belonging to Micronesia

  o

  The nearest island is Yap, which was also our overnight stay.

  Two

  The deepest sea, the condition of the sea surface is a bit special. Not like Hemingway's Caribbean Sea, not like Heine's North Sea, nor like Cervantes' Mediterranean. The color of the seawater is not the usual deep blue, but rather dark brown, with a hint of purple light inside. Those waves do not seem to be liquid, but have a solid feel. As if they had just been stirred by solids, or were about to freeze in the next moment.

  Not far away, there was also a small boat. Looking at it, one could see oneself. After a while, the small boat seemed to be a sacred object on top of a group of mountains, with light shining behind it and clouds decorating it. We had to look up reverently in order to catch a glimpse of its grandeur. But suddenly, it disappeared, not just the boat, but also the group of mountains. Just as we were surprised, we discovered that there was a huge deep chasm nearby, and it was sinking to the bottom of the abyss, so humble and tiny, seemingly about to be completely swallowed up in an instant. Before we could come back to our senses, another row of mountains rose up into the sky again, and on top of those mountains, the small boat was shining once more amidst the light and shadows of the clouds.

  So extremely high and low, yet completely without commotion, quiet to the point of suffocation, transforming in a profoundly mysterious way.

  It's hard to sit still in a small boat, but you must sit still and straight. You can only use your fingers to grasp the side of the boat and the rope, as if you want to press them into their depths. As I just said earlier, it is absolutely forbidden to make any noise on a sea ship, now I will further supplement that even when the biggest wave comes, you cannot dodge slightly. Once you dodge, you become a living being, a soft body, and you must struggle, shout, but struggling and shouting here are equal to destruction.

  To be both strong and straight, you can't afford to be distracted for a moment, you must concentrate all your limbs and turn them into ancient rock carvings. In the face of violent attacks from all sides, any other posture, attitude or strategy is useless, only ancient rock carvings will do. Even if it's cracked or broken, it's still an ancient rock carving.

  I was the big brother of several people on the same boat, using my body to press tightly against the stern. They turned their heads to look at me and exclaimed: How did you become completely black?

  Repeatedly drenched in seawater will deepen the color of clothes, which can be explained, but how can a person turn black?

  I think that perhaps on the edge of life, I issued a heavy alert to my physical body, and thus, the mysterious iron energy and black jade energy at the bottom of life were fully mobilized and suddenly released. In ancient times, warriors also had situations where they encountered strong enemies and burst out with black energy all over their bodies.

  No matter what, at this moment, the rock carving has turned into iron casting, really pressing the small boat down in the midst of the raging waves.

  Three

  Saw a flock of seagulls.

  This is absurd. They flew to the depths of the endless ocean, what did they come for? And how do they get back? The nearest island is already very far away, can they fly there?

  It is said that they are going to peck at the small fish floating on the surface of the sea. However, this explanation is highly suspicious, because I have been watching for so long and haven't seen a single seagull pick up a small fish, and their physical exertion in the strong wind is enormous. Even if they did manage to pick one up and swallow it, how would their energy be balanced?

  What are they after?

  A sacrificial ritual? A revelry of extinction? Or, I smile to myself: Could this be a group of Qu Yuans who have traveled to the edge and drowned themselves?

  Suddenly I thought of the prose "Sea Swallow" that I read in my childhood, written by Gorky. The sea swallow in the article became a substitute for revolutionaries, flying and calling out, "Let the storm come more fiercely!" My ocean journey is deep, and I have long doubted that Gorky may never have sat on a small boat to reach the distant depths of the ocean. His "storm" was just a land-based concept and a coastal concept. Here, all natural forces are integrated, shrouding everything around, where can you distinguish between wind and rain, violent or not, fierce or not?

  In the true "great scene", all adjectives and sentimental tones seem weak and ridiculous. The seagulls here cannot help anyone write prose, paint paintings, or compose symphonies. We may never guess the secrets they carry under their wings. Humans often produce "artistic dreams higher than nature", but here we have to give up.

  Four

  Our boatman is an indigenous islander. His island is much smaller than Yap Island.

  He can speak simple English, which is related to history. In the past few hundred years, the first Europeans to arrive on these Pacific islands were the Spanish, who used them as a halfway stop during the "Age of Geographical Discovery". Germany was the second batch, coming later to pick up the remaining colonial twilight. Later came Japan and the United States during World War II, turning this place into a vast battlefield and military base. After the war, the US left behind some soldiers, churches, and schools.

  "Each batch of outsiders brought something new to the island. One left, another came. The last ones to come were you, Chinese." said the boatman with a smile.

  The boatman suddenly said with a blush, according to the old man on the island, his ancestors also came from China.

  Is that so? I looked at his black hair and black eyes, thinking that if it were true, there should have been several instances of mixed blood already. What era was it when he came? Thousands of years ago? Hundreds of years ago?

  When I was studying the final destination of Hemudu people and Liangzhu people, I repeatedly stated in my paper that it is not ruled out that they might have sailed to distant seas due to massive sea disasters. However, at that time, only dugout canoes could be used. The probability of finding an island in the vast ocean with a dugout canoe is extremely small, but even such a small probability may leave behind a deserted island lineage, which has been passed down intermittently for thousands of years.

  As I thought about it, I suddenly felt concerned and asked the boatman, what did you usually eat on ordinary days, fish?

  The boatman's answer was surprising: islanders rarely eat fish. The staple food is taro, and a fruit called "breadfruit".

  Why don't they eat fish? The answer is that going out to sea to catch fish requires a fishing boat, which ordinary islanders do not have. They also only live scattered in simple huts in the forest, their lives are extremely primitive and extremely poor.

  A few islanders have dugout canoes.

  A dugout canoe? I also thought of He Mu Du and Liangzhu, whose whereabouts are unknown.

  "Can a single log go far?" we asked.

  "I'm not capable. My dad isn't either. My grandfather wasn't either. My uncle isn't either. In our family, there's only one uncle who can navigate by the stars on his head and row a canoe to Hawaii from here. Only him, no one else is capable." The boatman let out a deep sigh, as if lamenting the decline of a heroic era.

  "Can one man row a canoe to Hawaii?" This is too surprising. How many days, how many sea routes, how many waves, and how many dangers!

  "Can." The boatman was very confident.

  "Can you also go to China?"

  "Can." He was still very confident.

  Five

  That sea, it knocked down my wife again.

  She was still composed on the small boat that was tossing about violently, but after spending the night on the island, she fell ill. Her digestive system was in disorder, she vomited incessantly, her whole body was paralyzed and she couldn't move at all.

  The accommodation is a simple and clean house built by the US Navy engineers. After my wife fell ill, it started raining heavily. But what I heard was not the sound of rain, but the creaking of wooden shutters, as if the whole house was about to collapse at any moment. The primitive forest outside was also howling together, making people's hair stand on end. All the sayings like "heavy rain", "torrential rain" are not applicable here. If you say it's a "basin", then the "basin" is the sky; if you say it's a "tray", then the "tray" is the ground. The sky and the earth merged into one in the rain, wild and unrestrained.

  An adventurer who has traveled to almost all the major islands in the South and West Pacific told me that if only one-tenth of the rain here were to pour down on any city, it would be a disaster of waist-deep flooding. He also said that all typhoons in the world originate from here. Such a loud and violent rainstorm is indeed brewing into a typhoon that will sweep across thousands of kilometers!

  As I thought, my thoughts flew out thousands of kilometers, with the vast ocean waves in between. Home, that house where we lived for many years, was so far away, far to the point of being immeasurable. On this small island surrounded by grass and wilderness, everything seemed like it could be destroyed at any moment, as fragile as an ant, a blade of grass, or dust. My frail wife was right beside me.

  She closed her eyes, hadn't eaten for a long time, had no strength to speak, and lay softly. The small island wouldn't have a doctor, even if there was one, they couldn't be called. Two completely helpless lives, hiding under a roof, the roof could be blown away at any moment, everything outside the roof was unimaginable. This is what husbands and wives have been like since ancient times. This is what real families are like.

  My wife and I have always felt that our home is not closely related to our hometown, old trees, or familiar roads. Every time we go on an adventure, the house in the vast desert of a thousand miles away is both different and the same every night. A drifting home can best show the essence of home, and drifting through hardships can make this essence unforgettable.

  Always extremely remote, always very strange, always bad weather, always unable to open the door, always difficult to move forward, always exhausted, always without medical care or medicine, always with no way to appeal. And so, I had a pure home, pure to the point of infinite weakness, yet infinitely strong.

  Six

  The roar of nature completely overwhelmed the light knock on the door, yet somehow, in some interval, it was still heard. Moreover, a voice calling out to us in Chinese was also discernible.

  Hurry up and open the door. What a surprise, it was Yang Gang, the ocean adventurer who had traveled to almost all the major islands in the South Pacific and West Pacific. He used to be a young diplomat in Beijing, responsible for the diplomatic relations with the countries in the South Pacific. After multiple trips back and forth, he became deeply fascinated with the region and gradually expanded his travels to the West Pacific. He loved it so much that he quit his job and became a wandering islander roaming around Oceania.

  No matter how far he walked, in his heart, he knew what a Chinese person needed most when they fell ill. He stood at the door, holding a small flat-bottomed iron pot, and had already cooked a thin porridge with rice, sprinkling some chopped scallions on top of the rice porridge.

  I thanked her deeply, closed the door, and carried the small iron pot to my wife's bedside. My wife had only taken two sips when she looked up at me with bright eyes. After a while, Linlin, who was traveling with us, brought over several "Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Wan" pills that she had brought with her. My wife took them and fell asleep, and the next day when she woke up, she looked radiant and refreshed.

  Bok choy and rice porridge, with added Huoxiang Zhengqi pills, invigorating upon ingestion, this is the Chinese people.

  This involves another kind of "home", much larger than the "home" that depends on each other in a small hut. But this "home" is also drifting, and can drift to anywhere on earth. China has an idiom called "the four seas are home", which sounds magnificent, but unfortunately these two words "four seas" are often just empty words. In recent years, I have slowly discovered that there are not too few Chinese people who make these two words substantial. The "home" in their hearts is completely different from the so-called "home" that many people at home often talk about, which is to "go back home and take a look".

  To my wife and me, our home is a boundless ocean, yet an island that resists the waves. The philosophical meaning of "home" is a breakthrough from its ordinary meaning. Therefore, this time we've come so far. Yes, the farther, the more we want to come.

  Seven

  For many years, a Chinese man named Chen Mingcan has been living on this island. As the only Chinese person living on such an isolated island, it's easy to imagine all sorts of inconveniences, but he never showed any intention of leaving. I think there is only one reason for this - that he truly loves the sea and the island too much. He is also the kind of person who is naturally "at home in the four seas", without the sea, there would be no home for him.

  His hometown is in Heyuan, Guangdong. He drifted to another island of the Pacific, Palau, and lived there for ten years before coming here. Now he is undoubtedly a "big man" on the island, opening a small farm and hiring five Chinese workers one after another. Even the chief has something to do with him.

  He lived in a simple iron shed that could shelter from wind and rain, raising a few domestic fowl and putting some Chinese food. He installed an antenna to receive Hong Kong Phoenix TV, so when he saw me, he immediately recognized me. On the small island of the Pacific Ocean, I heard a dark stranger call out "Teacher Qiuyu", I was surprised, and my heart warmed up.

  On the island, I also met a Chinese "diving couple" who loved the sea even more than Mr. Chen Mingcan. No matter where in the world there is a good diving spot, as soon as they hear about it, they rush to go, as if it's a compulsory assignment that can't be missed. Last year on the beach in Seychelles, Africa, as soon as they heard that there was excellent coral reef here, they hurried over. The husband's name is Li Mingxue, from Tieling, Liaoning Province. As soon as I heard Tieling, I chatted with him about a familiar person, Zhao Benshan. The wife is from Shenyang and her name is Zhang Xin; when I heard this name, I also chatted with her about a familiar person, Pan Shiyi, whose wife has the same name.

  Li Mingxue and Zhang Xin, a couple who originally had good careers in Shanghai, began to question their daily routine of going to work and coming home after reading many ancient and modern texts about "ultimate care". They strongly yearned for a life that was free, easy-going, open and unbridled, so they headed out to sea. At sea, they had to challenge themselves every day, and thus became addicted to the thrill of adventure.

  "I first watched him dive from the shore, I didn't dare to dive myself. Later, I felt that I should go into the water to accompany him. Starting from the Maldives, I finally learned and after using up twenty air bottles, I also became very skilled at diving," Zhang Xin said.

  "After all these years of diving together, we must be husband and wife." Zhang Xin said with deep emotion. "Diving always encounters unexpected situations, for example, when one person's air bottle is not enough, the diving partner must immediately use their own air bottle to assist. If it weren't for being a couple, they would first consider their own safety. My husband likes to take pictures of various sharks underwater, which is also very dangerous, and I have to stay by his side for a long time, looking around everywhere. Only couples can bear this."

  "There are diving couples all over the world, relying on each other for life and death every day. Generally, they don't have children or houses. Their minds are always thinking about the next must-visit diving spot in a distant land. There are several in Europe, but even more beautiful ones are in South America. Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, all have holy lands for divers. For Chinese divers, Southeast Asia is closer, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, all have good diving spots. Australia also has great diving spots. Our China's Hainan Island Sanya can also dive, but it's a bit worse."

  She spoke in a very affectionate tone about the diving maps of the whole world, as if talking about her own home and her large family.

  Eight

  Two months ago, another couple came to this island and stayed for a month before leaving, missing us by a hair's breadth. Their infatuation with the sea sounds a bit thrilling to me.

  The husband is Belgian, named Luc, and the wife is an American-born Chinese, named Jackie. They amazingly lived on a continuously sailing sea ship for twenty-five years!

  After landing, of course, go ashore and do some business to make a living, but at night, I must return to the ship. From one coast to another, each voyage usually does not exceed half a month, in order to supplement fresh water and food. During the voyage, two people must take turns on duty at night, fearing sudden changes in weather, fearing collision with large ships, and fearing all kinds of accidents.

  Because they traveled the world, their ship's equipment was updated year by year. They had satellite navigation, computers, refrigerators and so on. But in the vast ocean, amidst unimaginable storms and huge waves, their 25-year voyage wasn't much different from that of a native uncle who sailed a wooden canoe relying on astronomical observations.

  Insignificant people, a man and a woman, walked a tough road, and it was a waterway, a sea route, an eternally unknown road, of course also an astonishing life road, a faithful love road, the human self-sublimation road.

  Can we imagine everything that happened day and night on this narrow boat over the past twenty-five years? I think anthropology, ethics, literature, and aesthetics have all been rewritten by such a couple between dawn and dusk.

  I saw Jia Kaiyi's photo, and indeed she was a Chinese woman, looking older than her age. That was the harsh mark left by space and time on a Chinese woman's body.

  Many sailors have told me that sailing with a spouse, year after year without separation, sounds very romantic but is actually very difficult to sustain. The first to leave must be the wife, because no woman can tolerate this kind of life. Therefore, the key miracle of this couple being able to persist at sea for twenty-five years lies in this Chinese woman.

  Looking at the photos, I recall those batches of Chinese people who loved the sea, islands and the ocean to an unreasonable extent. Therefore, I must say that while Chinese culture has long been wary of the sea, suspected the sea, feared the sea, and banned the sea, this is not necessarily true for countless living Chinese people. They can enter the sea, be intimate with the sea, depend on the sea, and cannot leave the sea. Culture and life are fundamentally different after all.

  Actually, from Hemudu and Liangzhu or even earlier, countless dugout canoes set sail from China and got lost at sea. Unfortunately, the rigid Chinese characters are not intimate with the ocean. The great navigator Zheng He was buried in which sea area, which coast? There is no clear record. Half of China's history sank into the waves. Lazy scholars only know how to search for books in the dusty bookshelves. Those books never had a real ocean, nor did they have the lives of Chinese people closely integrated with the ocean.

  Fortunately, we have entered an era where words and small families can be walked out. Finally, a group of Chinese people shocked the sea and sky, and also awakened the kind of life that had been buried for a long time in Chinese culture.

  In Micronesia day and night, my wife looked at me several times and said: "It's about time we had a boat..."

  I know the endless implications behind her words.

  I said: "It must be a sea ship."

  She smiled and said, "Of course."