Flying-Bird Hourglass

21.

Rong Qianshan’s memory moved forward quickly after meeting Yu Yingwen. He remembered that he was on the bus one second then appeared at the intersection the next second. A huge wave of memories flooded into his brain. He dealt with the flow of information for a while. He graduated and defended his thesis yesterday. Now he was going to go shopping with the girlfriend he started dating in his senior year, although he didn’t have any real feelings. He recalled the past, like reading an open book. He obviously hadn’t done these things, but it was deeply imprinted in his mind.

Looking up, it was the little boy who helped him with the coins on the bus. It was no wonder that he called Yu Yingwen a young boy. Although he was tall, he was white, with a pair of brown almond eyes, looking particularly innocent.

He pretended that it was all a coincidence, but he actually had doubts in his heart. What was going on? On the grounds that he owed two coins, he forcibly invited the little boy to a meal. After a conversation, instead of answering Rong Qianshan’s doubts, he had more and more questions.

Two people who were not in the same world fell in love?

He was not from this world?

Frequency resonance to open a channel?

What was that little hourglass?

Rong Qianshan watched Yu Yingwen’s leaving figure, and slowly caught up with him: “Wait!” Turning to the corner, Yu Yingwen disappeared.



22.

There was a slight scar above Rong Qianshan’s right eyebrow, like a feather. I didn’t know what caused it, but I liked to kiss that place.

Rong Qianshan liked seagulls. I often teased him about his name. A thousand mountains, no sign of birds in flight; Ten thousand paths, no trace of human tracks*. He pinched my cheek and scolded me for having no conscience.
*From a poem River Snow by Liu Zongyuan

He was a mystery when he was alive, he was a mystery when he died. He threw me an hourglass without even an instruction.

He kept reminding me of him all the time, the puzzles on his body, the scar on his eyebrow, and everything about him.

Bastard.



23.

I hadn’t opened the hourglass for a while, and I went to the senior college to register for a course, painting.

I wanted to draw his appearance. When he was young, when he was tall and thin with thin -rimmed glasses, a handsome and friendly young man, not a strange uncle who was addicted to vinegar that he was in his thirties.

When I immersed myself in studying hard to master the correct proportions to draw his outline, I realized that some people were born with no talent for drawing, such as me. I could watch “Waiting for Godot” full of energy, but to me, painting was just a bunch of strange formulas on Rong Qianshan’s blackboard.

Throwing away the pencil in frustration, looking up, the cold wind roared outside the balcony. It had been half a year since the last time I saw Rong Qianshan, from the beautiful spring to the early winter. The hourglass was on my bedside table. The small grains of sand, the size a big palm, seemed to complain silently about my neglect.

I walked to the bed with a glass of milk and sat down, glanced at the phone, oh, it was my birthday today.

Rong Qianshan was a person with a sense of ceremony and a rare romantic among science students. I picked up the hourglass, pressed the red button, and watched the sand drift upwards as if weightlessly, and my eyes went dark—

I was going to see him again, that was great.



24.

Opening my eyes, I was in the back seat of a driving car, turning my head, and Rong Qianshan stared at me in amazement, “Where did you come from?”

I was also a little curious about the way I appeared, was it gradual in and out like the Tardis in Doctor Who, or did I appear just suddenly?

“How old are you this year?” I asked.

“Twenty-seven.” Rong Qianshan said, he pushed his spectacle frame, “I’m preparing my graduation thesis these days, how about you?”

“I graduated with a PhD early.” I said. It had been forty years since I graduated, I calculated in my mind.

“I checked your name at school, there’s no student named Yu Yingwen in the School of Philosophy.” He said, “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t.” I said, “I’m in a special situation.”

“How special is it?” he asked.

I stared at the top of his right eyebrow, where the skin was smooth and there was no feather scar.

“Hello?” He waved at me, “Yu Yingwen, come back to earth.”

I felt uncomfortable, like the undulations of space squeezing, like tiny, creepy touches. I looked up and saw a truck came straight towards us from the side window.

“Get down!” I pulled him, and we hugged each other.

The huge impact sound was accompanied by the “crash” of broken glass, the sound of braking, the sound of whistling, and the cry of surprise mixed into an ocean. My heart thumped and kept beating, Rong Qianshan laid on my shoulders closing his eyes tightly.

“Rong Qianshan?” I patted his shoulder gently, “Rong Qianshan?” I held his face, a glass shard wiped off a piece of flesh above his right eyebrow, like a feather uprooted and bloody.

I reached out and wiped the blood on his eyebrows, and my fingertips became transparent, like light-permeable frosted glass. I should go now.

Leaning forward, I carefully arranged his hair: “See you next time.”



25.

“Sir?”

“Sir, wake up.”

Rong Qianshan slowly opened his eyes, and he saw a bright and tidy ward, and a policeman, he asked, “Where am I?”

“Nanqiao First Central Hospital.” The policeman said, “You have been in a car accident.”

“Car accident?” His face changed slightly, “Is there another person?”

“The driver is in the ward next door.” The policeman said.

“Not the driver, another person, his name is Yu Yingwen, my junior.” Rong Qianshan said, “What about him?”

The police was stunned: “Only you and the driver were in the accident, there’s no third person.” He thought Rong Qianshan was confused. “You currently have a slight concussion. Take care and rest. The medical expenses are paid by the driver in full. Don’t worry.”

Three times, Rong Qianshan frowned. He saw Yu Yingwen three times. This person was like a gust of wind, coming and going without a trace, who was he.



26.

I laid on the bed until dawn. There was less sand in the hourglass. I held the hourglass, as if holding a certain belief, Rong Qianshan gave me this to remind me that he would always be by my side.

I couldn’t get out of his shadow, even if he died, he could still circle me around.

He loved me in his way, I could feel it.



27.

“Brother, why did you start taking medicines again?”

I scooped up a spoonful of yam porridge and put it in my mouth: “I’m not feeling well.”

“Are you seeing hallucinations again recently?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I replied vaguely, “I see Rong Qianshan.”

“Where did you put your last medical checkup?” she asked.

“I threw it out.” I said.

“…” She stared at me bitterly, “Can’t you let me see it just a little?”

“No.” I finished the bowl of porridge and walked into the kitchen with the empty bowl to wash it.



28.

I had a heart disease, a sequelae from eating too much risperidone.

In fact, it was a miracle that a patient with schizophrenia like me could live to this age.

The profile of the hourglass that Rong Qianshan left me proved that he was a real person, but we were not in the same world. If the truth was so, then why did I meet him the year I became ill?

There were billions of people in the parallel world, did I dream of him alone?

Question after question, he was my endless mystery.



29.

I wanted to wait a little longer before starting the hourglass. I had a heart attack in the middle, walked around the gate of the ghost. I realized that I might run out of time in the world before I even run out of sand in the hourglass.

The worst thing was that the money was not spent and the person was gone.

For the same reason.

I laid on the hospital bed and pressed the red button on the base of the hourglass.

Opening my eyes again, I stood at the door of a laboratory.

Rong Qianshan was wearing a white lab coat, writing notes carefully.

“Hi.” I stepped into the laboratory.

Rong Qianshan raised his head, with a feathery scar above his right eyebrow. He looked more and more like the Rong Qianshan I had dreamed of for the first time.

His expression was blank for a moment, and he hurriedly put down his notebook: “Hi.”

Kind of cute and silly, I thought, “What are you up to?”

“I’m writing a paper, adjusting the data.” He said, picking up a tuning fork attached to a wire, “Listen.”

The wire was connected to an apple, and the tuning fork emitted a steady tone “hum——”

He waved to me: “Come here.”

I walked over, he picked up two thin wires and handed them to me: “Take them.”

I clenched the wire and looked at him with puzzled looks, the tuning fork made a slightly higher tone of “hum——”

“Listen.” He said, “Do you know what’s wrong?”

I said: “The tone is different.”

He nodded vigorously: “Yes!” He picked up the wire himself, and the tuning fork made a sound of “hum——” like the apple, and he waved his hand excitedly: “Look, I have the same frequency as this apple, but yours is different.”*
*Referring to the setting in American TV series Fringe

“So?” I asked.

“Every universe has a specific frequency. Everything vibrates at the same frequency. I will find you.” He said, “Even if you are in another universe.”

I looked at his firm eyebrows and suddenly felt enlightened.

He specially gave me this hourglass so that I could get in touch with him when he was young.

We were a perfect circle, Rong Qianshan and I, he found the young me, I found the young him, we were each other’s life puzzle.

So for my last chance to cross, Rong Qianshan, what did you want me to see?



30.

I lived steadily for a year, putting the hourglass in my personal pocket, growing flowers, reading newspapers, and trying hard to improve my painting skills, although it didn’t make any progress.

It was as if my painting skills were cursed. Other people painted radishes as radishes. I painted radishes as potatoes, balloons, or something else, anyway, they were not radishes.

With this speed of progress that had been condemned by the god, if I wanted to draw a lifelike Rong Qianshan, it was estimated that I need to live to 10,000 years.

I was sixty-seven years old. If Rong Qianshan were still alive, he should also enter the age of antiquity. A real smelly old man.



31.

Lying on the bed, I looked at the dark night outside the window.

I had had a wonderful life, I thought. I had been in love with someone from another world for a lifetime, and I had met him through time and space. If the three-dimensional creatures were a group of ants, I must be the most powerful traveler among the ants.

With this in mind, I took out the hourglass and spread flat the thin layer of sand in the glass. My last chance to see Rong Qianshan.

I thought of the elephant graveyard, mysterious and solemn, the curved breast bones were like large ships, scattered in the deserted sand, reflecting the blood-red sunset. The light pierced my eyes like a knife, I was Meursault in Camus’s writings, I was a vagrant waiting for Godot, I was Samsa turned into a gigantic insect. I thought of many, many things, but Rong Qianshan was the one that occupied the most space.

I fell in love with him on an ordinary morning. He listened to me chattering about humanistic thoughts, very boring things, and I didn’t know how I kept talking. I kept talking about the era of Cicero and the Renaissance, freedom and morality, and the essence of human nature. It made my mouth so dry that I had to stop and drink a glass of water.

The advantage of dating in a dream was that it had whatever I wanted. If I wanted to drink water, there would be a glass of water on hand.

Rong Qianshan smiled and said, “I want to make love with you inside the church.”

“Pfff—” I just took a sip of water and almost woke myself up from my sleep, “Huh?”

“What you just said, humanism is a confrontation and transcendence against the shackles of medieval Christian theology.” Rong Qianshan said.

I felt a huge sense of respect. He actually listened to my every word. Reading philosophy was a rather lonely road. The reason why many professors were either crazy or suicidal was that no one talked to them, no one listened to them, and in the end they could only talk to themselves in an infinite theoretical universe.

I was in awe of Rong Qianshan. Next time he taught me string theory, I would listen to the class and wouldn’t get distracted.



32.

I got distracted.

Rong Qianshan, sorry.