In the northeast corner of the old continent, there is a place called “Sero Sea Plain”. Its wind blows salt all year round, and the birds sing lazily, as if they know that time is passing slowly and without rushing or impatience. Our small village is behind that sea plain, relying on the mountains to eat the mountains and collecting snails by the sea. Life is like a pot of soup slowly simmering in a rice pot.
Aikefei is an outsider. When we first met her, it was when the spring rain had not stopped. She was wearing a water blue cloak, with some beryl conch shells on her shoulders, her hair was a little wet, sticking to her cheeks, and she looked a little tired. The villagers said, which family sent this daughter to avoid disaster?
But she said that she came here to become a “role”.
We didn’t understand what a role was at first. Some people said it was the “leading role” of the opera in the city, and she wanted to learn skills to go on stage. Some people also said that she came here to practice, to upgrade her “talent” level, and finally become an immortal.
She did not argue, but picked up the conches in the sand one by one after the tide receded. She said that it was called the beryl conch, and she had to collect 168 of them to awaken her magic power.
We laughed at her, saying that the conch was okay for making soup, but the magic power might not be steamed out. But she still got up early every day and came back late, with a heavy basket on her shoulders, but her eyes became clearer.
After a season, she said she wanted to “break through”.
She wanted to go to the deep cold secret realm to find a crystal called “Shivada Emerald Silver”. She had to rely on that rare stone to transform herself from a person to a character in the cold of the elements.
So she walked for two days, changed her clothes, and her voice became colder. When she came back, there were more broken crystals in her hands, but less flesh on her shoulders. After that, she had a high fever and slept in the corner of the hut. Her lips turned pale with fever. She was still chanting in a coma that she wanted to refine the “Secret Source Accumulation Throat”.
We took care of her, but she smiled with her eyes closed and said, “Don’t pity me, this is just growth.”
She was not as weak as the women we knew, but she was not tough either. She was like a river, flowing through many stones, fish shadows, and mosses, but still flowing quietly, as if just to follow the destined direction, no matter how many hardships the water had to go through.
Later, she said she wanted a weapon.
It was a part of her soul, a magic weapon called “Fragrance Music Player”. Thirty-six meshing gears, ninety-six mechanical spur gears, and one hundred and twenty-nine strange mechanical movement gears were needed to start making it.
We were stunned by what we heard. But she said that those mechanical gears were her veins. If she wanted to sing a song of life, she had to let the magic weapon help her play all the notes first.
She went down to the secret realm day and night to collect materials. The mechanical beast roared and shook the ground, but she just frowned and said, “It’s also part of the mission.”
When she was tired, she sat under the eaves of the wooden house and drank some cold water. Sometimes she used medicine for her wounds, and sometimes she just basked in the wind. She didn’t cry out in pain, saying, “It hurts to know that I’m getting stronger.”
Later, she upgraded her skills and said it was called “philosophy of justice.” We asked, what is justice? She didn’t answer, just sat at the entrance of the village and watched the sunset.
She said that she had to upgrade these skills to level ten. It requires “teaching of justice”, “guidance of justice”, “philosophy of justice”, and three crowns of wisdom. She smiled while brushing materials and said, “The road of life is to brush and wait.”
She no longer asked others whether they understood her, nor did she ask whether she had any meaning. She just walked, walked slowly, one step at a time, like an old cow turning the soil in winter.
She also had fragile moments. On a rainy night, she sat by the window, her face against the cold glass, and said that she had thought about giving up. But she said that she had already brushed half of it, and if she stopped now, it would be like living in vain.
Sometimes the children asked her: “Why don’t you hurry up? Others have already drawn new characters.”
She said: “I am not others.”
They asked again: “You spent so much Mora just to upgrade a number?”
She smiled gently, but her eyes were gentle: “It’s not an upgrade, it’s a memory. Every level is a mark of my coming to this world.”
Finally, she reached the maximum level.
She stood on the hillside, and the setting sun cast a golden light on her. She didn’t say much, just called out the Xiangyun player and waved it gently a few times. The wind drifted over the instrument, like a song from afar, soft, firm, neither humble nor arrogant.
The villagers didn’t understand the meaning of her many years of hard work. But I do. She was telling us that growth is never vigorous. Growing up is like picking up scattered gears in the wind, enduring loneliness and cold wind in the deserted night, and then standing up calmly and saying to life: “I’m ready.”
She is not the strongest character, nor the most beautiful woman. She is just a woman who becomes herself little by little in the wind and snow.
She is like a river, slow and silent, but will eventually reach the sea.