We went to Qingdao and ate the heated tamagoyaki rice on a bench in front of the convenience store at the station. During the chat, she told me about her trip to Haba Snow Mountain alone and how she almost drowned in the snow.
Me: "I was very timid when I was young, and I didn't dare to do many things alone."
You: "I was brave enough to go anywhere with my sister. We spent the whole summer looking for cicada shells, and went to places that were difficult to access."
During the two days they spent together, You mentioned her sister many times.
I remember when I was little, I also had a sister I loved very much. Like You, I was honest when I was little, hiding in the corner and never retorting. My sister was very powerful, courageous, and she also smoked. When we grew up, our roles were reversed. In the eyes of adults, I was rebellious and my life was ridiculous. But my sister followed the routine, got married and had children, and everyone was satisfied.
It's just that You still maintains a close relationship with his sister, but I don't. Sometimes, I lack certain abilities.
This time when we went to Chiang Dao, we took a bus which was bigger than the last time and still had no air conditioning.
I sat in the window seat, with a quarter of the window open. After the car started, the wind blew in, hitting the ends of my short hair hard, still warm. When I stretched out my hands and tried to comb them, they were already frozen.
The blue-bladed fan above my head is working hard, making a "buzzing..." sound, which is a very nostalgic sound. I remember lying on the floor of my uncle's house one summer. When no one is talking, the "buzzing" sound of the fan becomes clear.
I was about to close my eyes and rest. I wondered if the wind with the smell of green would blow in like last time.
Fan had been playing in Shambhala for three days when we arrived at Chiang Dao. From the photos she gave me, I learned that her tent was set up in a straw pile where cows would visit. Based on the clues, we successfully found her tent, but we didn't see her. There was a path leading to the hillside nearby, and You and I looked at each other and decided to walk up to take a look.
Unexpectedly, after climbing for five minutes, the lake appeared in front of us. There was no one around, and the lake was surrounded by big trees and various plants. It was quiet, like a place filled with holy water. In the bamboo forest opposite, clusters of pink and purple flowers were blooming. I think this is a very ideal camping site. On the way here, I walked past the camping site of Shambhala, where there were dense tents and many people. It was a completely different world from here.
There were traces of fire on the ground, so we put the straw left by the fireman at the bottom of the tent, so it would be softer to sleep in. When we set up the tent, Fan came over from the other side of the lake. She went hiking in the woods and was surprised that we found this place.
We changed into our swimsuits and prepared to bathe in the stream next to the hot spring while there was still sunshine. In Chiang Dao, the temperature will also drop after the sun goes down, and it will not be like being in the tropics at that time.
On the way to the stream, Fan took out a special cake she bought in Chiang Rai from her messenger bag, and there was still half a piece left. I had never eaten special cakes before, so I was a little curious and scooped a spoonful into my mouth, and You also ate a spoonful.
The water in the stream was shallow, only covering my ankles. Fan was wearing a long skirt, so she just sat on the grass by the stream to bask in the sun. You and I tried to immerse our whole bodies in the water, so we lay straighter and touched the stream water with our fresh skin little by little. Although the sun was still there, the water was not warm, so we had to put our bodies in little by little. We could also put it all in at once, but I couldn't. Sometimes you just need that kind of courage, and after all your fresh skin has successfully touched the stream water, you don't feel cold anymore.
When we returned to the grassy area on the shore and sat with our friends, I couldn't help laughing. Seeing me laughing, You also started laughing. I knew we had entered another world.
I don’t know when, my hand was already in You’s. As we walked hand in hand up the hillside leading to the tent, she said, “I feel like the world around me has been magnified, and my skin feels like velvet when I touch it.”
"Tell me, when you wake up later, will you still remember how you feel now?" You's tone and voice also changed.
"Otherwise, I'll start recording from now on. That way, you'll know," I said.
My mind was still strong. I knew I was in a different world, and I knew what to do and what not to do.
At this time, the charm of music was also magnified. It was like a magnet, attracting me. So we followed this magnet and walked to the stage where the music was playing. If it was a day ago, I couldn't imagine how serious You would dance in the crowd. But now, she was shaking her fingers in front of her eyes, and occasionally pinching my arm.
In the music, if you close your eyes, you can enter a more attractive world. We try to regain our sanity the moment we open our eyes.
"I don't seem to be afraid of looking into other people's eyes anymore. I don't seem to be afraid of other people seeing me anymore." I said when I left the music.
"Me too. It would be nice if I wasn't socially anxious in the real world," he lobbied.
I have experienced myself and I am now a completely different person.
I went to buy food and asked You to wait on the bamboo bench under the tree. After You walked over, she didn't sit down, but lay down on it. She took off her glasses, pointed at the things next to her and said, "The world has become smaller! It turns out that the world I see is different from what you see." "But now, if I want it to be bigger, it will be bigger, and if I want it to be smaller, it will be smaller."
Then she took out her cell phone and made a video call to her friend.
"...I like you so much, I like you so much, I like you so much, do you know that?" This was the first sentence You said to the person on the other end of the phone.
I was standing aside, two-thirds of the way back to the real world, and I was stunned. My friend was probably stunned too. But later she told me that the person who answered the phone was indeed a very good friend of hers, a friend who was like a family member. Well, I think this kind of confession between good friends is good. In the real world, it is difficult to express so directly.
"Do you still want to dance?" After dinner, You, who was still in the other world, asked me.
"I don't want to." I answered her in the real world.
"I just thought about it seriously. I seem to miss the light feeling after smoking a cigarette in the real world. A completely different world is too heavy for me. I still want to be able to be sober in my own world." He summed up the feelings shared with You.
"Hmm..." You was brought back to reality by my answer and stopped smiling.
"I don't want to either. In the other world, you don't need to do anything, you can do whatever you want. But there will be a feeling that there is no end. Time will stop here, and you will stay here, like an outsider. I don't want to keep wandering around like this, watching others live their real lives. But you can only walk around, walk around, and walk around. Because you have no way to control yourself to do things. What you had in the last second will be gone in the next second, and then time just stops." As he said this, You's eyes changed.
The next day, You woke up early and I woke up at 9 o'clock. Then we walked together in the forest opposite the lake. After going down the mountain, we went to the stream again and put our whole bodies into the stream. In the evening, we listened to music and danced together. After experiencing the other world, we returned to the real world and repeated the experience.
I asked You: "If you really have the opportunity to choose to become an extrovert from now on, would you choose it?"
People who travel around Shambhala probably have some self they want to show off or be different from others to varying degrees. At first glance, You and I are the two most ordinary and honest people.
I remembered a passage Haruki Murakami wrote in an article a few days ago: If you keep your eyes fixed on "what you are pursuing" and keep insisting on it, the story will inevitably become heavy. And in many cases, the heavier the story, the farther freedom hides. In contrast, "the self who is not pursuing anything" is as light and free as a butterfly.
If you think about it carefully, you don’t really need to express yourself. People can still live in an ordinary and natural way. Despite this, you still want to express something. In this natural context of “despite this”, we may unexpectedly see our true selves.
