Part 4
“Unfortunately, whenever Grandma got engrossed in an important plot point, she would gradually forget the motion of her hand. And at those times, she couldn’t hear a single word I said, leaving me sweating buckets.”
Berlin seemed to have lingering fears, wiping the sweat from his forehead caused by sunbathingāhe only just realized that logically, the spell Han Yuzhe left should have regulated the temperature to be constant. If he felt hot in the dream, was it because the spell failed in dreams, or did Cecil wipe off the mark again while he wasn’t looking?
He turned his head to stare at Cecil and said with utmost seriousness, “You didn’t wipe off the demon mark on me again, did you?”
Cecil paused, then shook his head slightly. “I haven’t had time to yet.”
Berlin was both exasperated and amused by this answer. “So you want to wipe it off, you just haven’t gotten around to it yet, right?”
Cecil admitted it without shying away. “Yes.”
Berlin: “……”
Well, he had taught Cecil to speak his mind; that wasn’t wrong.
But Berlin still tried hard to emphasize, “This mark was left by my friend. He has no ill intent. Don’t just wipe it off casually.”
Cecil looked at him for a while before letting out a reluctant “Oh.”
He paused for a moment but still said, “But the people from the Temple might come at any time. If they happen to find you here, the demon mark will make them harbor more malice toward you.”
Berlin shrugged indifferently. “Their thoughts don’t matter at all. They can’t touch me anyway, right?”
Cecil was stunned, then revealed his first faint smile of the day. “Mhm, you’re right.”
Berlin hugged his knees, tilting his face up to feel the sunlight.
“The ending theme of that drama was magnificent and very catchy. Grandma wouldn’t skip it; she listened to the end every time. I heard it at least dozens of timesāI couldn’t forget it even if I wanted to.”
“The meaning of ‘Ending Theme’ is literal; it plays at the end of a disassembled episode. The song’s name is To Borrow Another Five Hundred Years from Heaven. I still remember the melody of the intro even now; I can sing along to every line.”
Berlin’s speech slowed down, a smile hanging on the corner of his mouth. “Music is a magical existence like that. When you hear a song you heard many years ago again, you can be instantly transported back to that moment.”
“Just like now, this song is echoing in my mind, coming from the old boxy TV set. Grandma turned the volume up to the max. I even seem to hear the cicadas chirping loudly outside the window in the summer, and the breeze carrying the night’s heat through the hall.”
Berlin even remembered seeing the Emperor lose his temper, then turning his head to secretly observe his grandma, who was focused and immersed in it. The lights weren’t on in the room; the light from the screen reflected in her eyes, different colors flashing on her face. The tense downward curve of her mouth was still vivid in his memory.
Cecil had only heard the hymns that occasionally rang out in the Temple. Hearing this song title and substituting it with the Temple’s oppressive, solemn tunes, he felt that the song echoing in Berlin’s mind must not be like that.
Because he could see Berlin’s current expression.
Berlin snapped back to reality and smiled goofily at Cecil. His eyes, clear in the sunlight, looked as if they held the entire starry sky. “By the way, I haven’t told you yet. My profession is singing and dancing. My dream is to hold a concert in a venue for a hundred thousand peopleā”
It was already half-realized; he was constantly getting closer to the dream.
Noah’s Ark.
When Berlin mentioned this term, he radiated a light full of hope and longing, so much so that even Cecil seemed infected by him, beginning to imagine a scene he had never pre-conceived.
A dream is something you spend your whole life trying to achieve. Everyone must step onto their own Noah’s Ark before the world ends.
Berlin said, “This wasn’t originally my dream.”
He swung his legs, leaning back on his arms to look at the dome. “But the interesting and unknown thing about people is that people change.”
“Life is tortuous; it will never be an eternally unchanging straight line.” Berlin’s hand swept through the air. “There are peaks, there are valleys, there are twists and turns, and there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
“We can never guess which destination the road beneath our feet will lead to.”
“There are countless crossroads in a life. To the left is a quiet bamboo forest; one wrong step is a swamp trap. To the right is a snowy peak with no end in sight; cross it, and you can see the Great Wall.”
“All stories are made up of choices.” Berlin’s hand wavered in the clear pool water. “You said the flip side of darkness isn’t light, that darkness is hidden within light, that the two are inseparable and coexist forever.”
“I think gaining and losing are the same.”
“It’s not that once you have something, you have it forever. When you make a certain choice, you think you possess a brand-new future, and that you will gain a lot on this path. But when you reach halfway up the mountain, you realize that by walking here, you have also lost something because of that choice.”
Berlin skipped over the appearance of the ‘Favorability System’ and glossed over the specific opportunity and turning point that led to his debut.
He simply said that after growing up, he had a dream, debuted as an artist, and the journey went very smoothly.
“Grandma was very proud of me. Sigh, the little old lady was so happy. She watched TV dramas and news in that little box for so many years, never expecting that one day, her own little grandson would also get into that same little box and become a big star seen by every household.”
“She originally wasn’t someone who liked moving around much, but I got her wanting to run outside all day longāvisiting the park today, walking in the plaza tomorrow. After I debuted, work was busy, and I couldn’t go home often. When my mom called me, she would always laugh and tell me the little old lady carried my album photocard with her everywhere, recommending me to everyone she met, saying, ‘My grandson is called Berlin, he’s famous, and he sings beautifully.'”
Berlin looked down and paddled the pool water. His hand passed through the shimmering surface, touching nothing.
“I was really, really busy during that time.”
“But you have to be busy when you’re young. I thought, once I get past this most important period, I can go home, watch TV dramas with her again, change the channel to the station I’m on, and watch me singing on stage with her.”
Cecil thought Berlin had always been happy.
At least from the moment he met Berlin until now, he had always seemed heartless and carefree, as if nothing could shake him.
But now he fell silent, just watching the wind stir up tiny ripples.
It seemed he could hold endless worries, carry happiness, and also digest the unhappy parts alone.
“Unfortunately, there was no chance.”
“After my very first concert ended, I happily called my mom to share everything that had just happened so exhilaratingly. The voice on the other end told me that the little old lady could never accompany me to climb the mountain again.”
“Just like the Grandpa who walked and stopped with the little Teddy back then.”
“She knew how much I sacrificed for that concert. She didn’t want to affect me, so she didn’t let my mom tell me.”
“When I was on stage, I didn’t know anything.”
Berlin scratched his head with a silly smile. “At the time, I thought, was it because I chose this job that I didn’t get to see her one last time?”
“Later, I thought, no.” His gaze landed somewhere far away. “Actually, I have a friend. He might be able to see souls going to that world. I’ve thought countless times about asking him if he could let me see her one more time.”
“Even just once, to ask her: How could you be like that little old man and not keep your word? We agreed to climb the mountain tomorrow, and then you just didn’t come.“
“But a long time has passed, and I haven’t asked. Because I figured it out. Light and darkness, gain and loss, life and deathāessentially, they are not opposites.”
“After fireflies leave their shells, their souls can still help light the way forward.”
“She must be watching me from somewhere too.”
“I want to go even further. When I naturally reach the end of my life, after living this life brilliantly, I can meet her again properlyāa reunion that is meant to beāand watch Kangxi Dynasty with her one more time.”
“She will definitely wait for me.”
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