Chapter 73 Final Test
"I killed my father." Chen Jian stood at the edge of the bridge, looking at Li Daming with cold eyes.
He closed his eyes, standing in the pouring light, bathing in it, squinting his eyes and enjoying it very much.
My throat gurgled, and I whispered to Li Daming, "Another Professor Chen."
The light enveloped Chen Jian, and we were surprised to see him slowly aging, first to twenty, then thirty, forty, and fifty. He became what he was in reality.
Li Daming said in a low voice: "He has returned to the state before his death."
Chen Jian's face began to become particularly terrifying. There were blisters on his face from burns. His face was almost unrecognizable, and his facial features were gathered together, looking extremely terrifying.
We watched intently; the scene was so bizarre it was beyond our imagination.
Chen Jian retracted his gaze, gently touched his face, walked slowly to us, and said in a low voice: "Li Daming, you are from outside, right?"
We both immediately understood that Chen Jian had recovered all his life memories.
"Yes." Li Daming admitted: "I was invited by your daughter to go into the underworld to save you."
Chen Jian touched his cheek, walked to the bridge, looked at himself in the lake in the light, and sighed for a long time, "This is all retribution."
"This is the last level now. As long as we can crack it, we can bring you back to life." said Li Daming.
Chen Jian sat cross-legged on the bridge, his eyes never leaving the gloomy lake, and sighed, "It doesn't matter whether I go back or not. I used to think that it's better to live a miserable life than to die. Now I understand that a person's life is actually a process of accumulating karma and retribution. There is no liberation after death, and the cycle of grievances continues... There is no liberation."
"That's not the case." Li Daming got up and said, "Besides sins, people also have blessings. The most important thing is that with a human body, we have the opportunity to understand the great way. It is said that it is difficult to obtain a human body and it is difficult to hear the Dharma ."
"What is the Tao?" Chen Jian asked quietly, turning his head to the side.
Li Daming thought for a moment and said, "Humans are the spirits of all things. Their bodies are unique in that they preserve their health. Their qi, blood, meridians, internal organs and organs are consistent with the numbers of nature. Humans themselves are a small universe. To open up spiritual wisdom, develop a heart for the Tao, and pursue the essence of the world is a great pleasure in itself."
Chen Jian smiled bitterly: "Li Daming, let me tell you what the essence of the world is. Perhaps you have guessed it, my father died in my hands. At that time, I was still young and lived in a rural area in the mountains. When I returned home that day, I saw my father beating my mother madly. My father came to the countryside in that era, responded to the call to take root in the countryside, and married a rural wife. Later, other classmates returned to the city, either to take the college entrance examination or to work in the factory, all to find a good job, but my father could not leave, and his social relations remained in the countryside forever. He often stared at the entrance of the village in a daze, sighing at every turn. He said that if he could take the college entrance examination, he would definitely get good grades. When he was in school, his academic performance was particularly good. At that time, because of his age, he was nicknamed professor by his classmates."
Li Daming listened without blinking: "And then?"
Chen Jian said: "His ambitions vanished into thin air. Every day after work in the fields, he would come back and drink a little wine, then take it out on my mom. He would beat people to death. My mom just endured it silently, without crying or getting angry, and let him beat her. Every time I asked her about it, she said that she had ruined my father's life and that she deserved to be beaten! My father should have had a more promising life, could have found a government position, and should have been richer, but it was all because of her... She said she was a burden."
Chen Jian's tears fell like rain, and they dropped onto the water surface, creating layers of invisible ripples.
"That day," Chen Jian said, "I came home and saw my father beating my mother like crazy. I couldn't help it and fought back for the first time. I beat my dad. He was drunk that day and his eyes were red. He beat me like crazy and cried while beating me. He said that my mother and I were troubles and troubles that would drag down his life. After beating me, he beat my mother. When he was beating my mother the hardest, I stabbed him in the back with a kitchen knife... He didn't make a sound and I don't remember much blood. He fell to the ground and died."
"Then what?" Li Daming asked.
Chen Jian said: "That night my mother and I dealt with the body. I carried my father's body up the mountain late at night and buried it in a ravine where few people go. It will definitely not be discovered for many years. My mother asked me to leave home as soon as possible the next morning. I know what she meant. Although she is not well educated, she is very smart. She wanted me to have an alibi."
"Then you left her alone and left?" Li Daming asked.
"I was scared, I was really scared." Chen Jian cried very sadly, "Four days after I left, I received a call from the village, telling me..." His voice was trembling: "My mother jumped into the well and committed suicide."
We gasped at the same time.
"I hurried back to the village and only then did I know the whole story. The old branch secretary told me that my father left home without saying goodbye. My mother couldn't find him after searching for several days. She cried so hard that she jumped into the well at the entrance of the village the night before yesterday." Chen Jian cried and said, "My mother is so great. She made up such a lie to clear my suspicion. She chose to commit suicide in order to save me because she was afraid that she would be exposed in the future..."
This story made me feel sad. Li Daming was silent, like a big stone blocking his way. The whole thing made me sigh and feel sad, but there was nothing I could say.
Li Daming said: "The inner demon challenge you faced in this last level was your father, and you killed him again."
Chen Jian wiped his eyes, raised his head, looked at the black lake surface, and did not speak for a long time.
"Damin, now that you have killed your inner demon, you should be able to pass this level." I said, "Why are we still here?"
This sentence reminded Li Daming, "Yes, what's going on? Professor Chen has been killed by Chen Jian, and his inner demons have been dealt with, so why hasn't he passed the test yet?"
"Do we need to wait a little longer? Is the system confirming it?" I guessed.
"Nonsense." Li Daming said, "How could the Bardo be so outdated? There must be something we didn't expect, or maybe some mission was not completed."
As we were guessing, the lake suddenly changed, with ripples on the surface and waves rippling. My most direct feeling was that something .
I suddenly realized what it was.
Li Daming and I shouted almost at the same time, "Dragon! It's a dragon!"
Don't forget that the ultimate core of this level is the dragon that has been . Professor Chen and the exploration team have the ultimate goal of finding the secret of the dragon's sleep.
Now, it seems that the dragon is waking up.
"This is the final test." I swallowed hard, "It's the dragon."
Chen Jian was a little frightened and stood up from the bridge.
The lake surface changed more and more dramatically, like a boiling pot, with many bubbles and gurgling sounds. A layer of white mist was floating on the surface of the water, and the air was filled with a faint fishy smell and fragrance, mixed together, a taste that was hard to describe.
Li Daming saw something, and he tried his best to crawl on the ground. I couldn't walk, so I crawled beside him. We got to the bridge and looked down. There seemed to be a huge black shadow swimming at the bottom of the lake.
I can't describe how big this shadow is. It's all I can see, and its movements are zigzagging and circling. "Dragon, it's a dragon..." I almost felt dizzy.
"Strange." Li Daming muttered to himself, "Why is there a dragon in Chen Jian's bardo realm?"
At this time, a roar came from under the lake. It was very low and not harsh, but continuous and long, like a low-frequency sound wave attack, which made my ears buzz and my whole brain crashed.
A clear syllable mixed in the sound waves emerged from the bottom of the lake, "Jian'er, Jian'er...my Jian'er..."
Chen Jian's whole body trembled, his lips trembled, and he walked to the bridge as if he had lost his soul. He looked at the dark lake and responded softly: "Mom, mom...my mom..."
Li Daming and I were so shocked that we were speechless.
Li Daming's jaw dropped in surprise. "It turns out that the dragon in the lake is his mother. This is the ultimate test!"
I said, "His mother jumped into a well and died...it had something to do with the water."
Everything here is a reflection and metaphor of Chen Jian’s state of mind. All the changes are impermanent and strange, but there are traces to follow, which makes people speechless.
Li Daming sighed: "I finally understand what it means that the human heart is hell."
From a certain perspective, the difficulties in the bardo realm were actually created by Chen Jian himself.
At this moment, Chen Jian murmured to himself: "Mom, Mom..."
The voice under the lake was very bewitching, "Jian'er, Jian'er, my Jian'er, mother misses you, mother is thinking of you..."
Chen Jian walked towards the edge of the bridge step by step.
"Jian'er, I've had a hard life, and I accept it all. I just want to see you succeed, and I don't want to drag you down." A faint voice came from the bottom of the lake.
"Mom!" Chen Jian knelt by the bridge and cried loudly, "Mom, I'm here to find you."
"What should we do now?" I asked Li Daming at a very fast speed.
Li Daming was also in a dilemma. Our goal was to break through the barrier. Chen Jian might die if he jumped into the lake, but he couldn't pass the barrier if he didn't jump. What should we do?
