The river is a forest. It is as old as a faded oil painting. It is dim and dotted with stone in the dark green. It looks like a place full of vicissitudes of life.
You can't see the sky in this forest. In other words, the sky is just a tree. I don't know when it got up on the tree trunks, but it has already been quietly covered with moss.
Tiredly shouting "I don't care, I don't care"
Perhaps, among the animals in this forest, except for birds, no one can see the sky. It seems that they don't want to see it. All living beings are mediocre and boring, but just seeking food is enough.
However, a snake did not think so. Under the ancient tree, a huge gray snake emerged from the bushes. The gray snake swam slowly, and the wooden thorns in the bushes seemed to
Even without hurting its skin, it came under the old moss-covered tree and slowly climbed up around the tree.
The cuckoo on the branch was still singing, as if it didn't know that the disaster was coming. The snake climbed up the treetop. But it didn't make any noise. It slowly sneaked behind the bird, but surprisingly.
However, it did not pounce on the bird and devour it. Instead, it stopped and coiled itself on the tree trunk, quietly listening to the cuckoo's repeated calls, regardless of it.
I am a snake. From the moment I was born, I can only walk on my hands and knees. I don’t have limbs like ordinary animals. What I have may only be a set of sharp teeth, which nothing can withstand.
Ever since I can remember, I have been in this forest. The animals in the forest are afraid of me, or in other words, they are afraid of everyone. When I try to approach them, they run away in panic.
I don’t know why, but I’m not sad in this forest, because I have my eldest brother and Silly Baozi accompanying me. Of course, eldest brother is also a snake. It seems to have hatched before me, so it’s longer than me.
I am much stronger and more beautiful. He is the most powerful in this forest. No animal can hurt him.
Silly Baozi is the only animal that is not afraid of me. Although it is very tall, it is always stupid and dazed. That day I saw it from a distance and it was lying on the ground drooling. I felt very sad.
It's interesting, but I still dare not approach it because I know that if I approach it like this, it will definitely run away like those animals.
However, when I passed by it again the next day, I found that it was still there, and it was still drooling. I was puzzled, so I deliberately paid attention to it in the next few days. It was still the same, except for eating.
Outside of the grass, he just lay there motionless.
Maybe it did the same to me. At that time, I didn’t know what this feeling was called, so I mustered up the courage to crawl towards him. When he saw me, he was not frightened and ran away like other animals.
Instead, he looked at me curiously, and of course, he was still drooling.
I crawled in front of it and said to it in surprise: "Aren't you afraid of me?"
Silly Baozi said: "What is fear?"
I said, "I'm afraid I might just ignore it, because other animals will stay away from me when they see me."
The silly boy tilted his head and said to me: "So, are my brothers also afraid of me?"
I said: "Are they ignoring you?"
Silly Baozi nodded: "Yes, it's been like this since I was born. They think I'm stupid. What do you mean when you say I'm a drag on them? Are you afraid?"
I said: "Are they drooling like you?"
Silly Baozi said: "Some can, but not as many as me."
I said: "Then it doesn't seem like you're afraid."
Silly Baozi said: “Then what does drag mean?
I don’t know how to say goodbye either
In this way, Silly Baozi and I became good friends. We were together every day, and I found that apart from our appearance, we had no difference. It was just that I ate meat and he ate grass.
In fact, when I saw him eating so happily, I wanted to eat grass with him. However, after taking a bite of grass, the taste of the juice suddenly made me shiver.
Actually, I don’t want to eat meat, because other animals don’t dare to approach me. When I try to approach them, they all run away. I asked my elder brother why, and my elder brother told me. They are
Afraid of you.
However, after getting to know Silly Baozzi, my thoughts changed again. I often wonder, are they afraid of me, or am I a drag on them?
What does drag mean? That night, I asked my elder brother what drag meant. After a while, my elder brother said to me: "Drag. It means that you are not qualified to survive, but other animals will also suffer."
I coiled my body in a circle and asked my elder brother: "Then, have I burdened you?"
The elder brother took a dead pheasant and threw it in front of me and said, "No."
I seem to have really hindered my eldest brother because I have never hunted animals by myself, because something happened to me shortly after I was born, and that was my first time hunting.
I didn't know anything at the time. My eldest brother hadn't come back yet, so I was very hungry, so I climbed up a tree. On the tree was a nest of recently hatched birds. The eldest brother had caught them for me to eat.
, it’s very delicious, and it feels good until your stomach is full of feathers.
At that time, I thought this was completely natural, so I crawled over and prepared to eat them. However, when I opened my mouth and prepared to swallow one of them, the little bird suddenly shouted at me in fear:
"Don't eat me, don't eat me!"
"Why?" I wondered.
The little bird said: "If you eat me, my brother will be sad."
I said: "What is sadness?"
The little bird said: "I just can't bear the sadness."
I said: "Then I will eat your brother. He will not be sad."
The little bird said: "But if you eat my brother, I will be sad."
I said: "Then I'll eat you both."
The little bird said: "In that case, my parents will be very sad."
I was stunned. For the first time, I didn’t know what to do. It was me who said it! “Who is Cangcha’s mother?” The little bird said: “Two birds are the same as us. They brought us to this world.
Yeah, they won’t be able to stand it if you eat us.”
If I can't bear it, I feel sad. I'm confused again. I'm so hungry now that I can't bear it. Am I feeling sad? This feeling is really uncomfortable.
So, I didn't eat them.
Since that day, I have never had this kind of hunting action. My elder brother didn’t say anything when he saw me like this. He was the most powerful in the forest and he didn’t like to talk. But from that day on
, it would bring back a dead pheasant for me to eat every night.
I asked my eldest brother: "Do we have parents?"
The eldest brother said to me: "Yes."
I said: "Where are they?"
The eldest brother said: "He was killed.
I said: "What is a human being?"
The eldest brother looked at me, and then said to me: "It is something that can kill all the animals in this deep forest."
I said: "Is it better than big brother?"
The eldest brother didn't speak, curled up in a ball, and went to sleep.
Seeing that my elder brother ignored me, I didn't ask any more questions. I just curled up in a ball, and then I thought to myself: People can kill all the animals in this forest, don't they feel sad?
I don't know, because I don't know when I started to realize that my own thoughts were different from those of my brother and all the animals in the forest, and I began to feel scared.
It was not until later that fate told me that this kind of thinking I had was called wisdom root.
We met our destiny in the spring when the net arrived. At that time, winter had just passed. The leaves all over the mountains and fields had not yet awakened, the weather was still very cold, and the tree trunks were still bare. When the net woke up from a long sleep, the elder brother felt a headache.
Because the ground is full of dry leaves, which rustle when we climb on them, but my eldest brother will still bring me a pheasant to eat every night.
I found Silly Baozi, and it seemed that he didn't take a big nap like me, so we were banging each other all day long. My eldest brother really hated Silly Baozi, but seeing that I liked him, he didn't stop me. In the past few months.
Silly Baozi and I have met "people" a few times. We both hid far away, and I looked at those people. They were cutting branches and didn't know what they were doing. They seemed to be able to talk, but I couldn't understand them.
.
It was an evening, and the sun was setting. So the clouds seemed to be burned by fire. I hung on Silly Baozzi and wandered around with it. It ran very fast, and its limbs stepped on the leaves and made crisp sounds.
In fact, sometimes, I envy it. After all, its body is very warm. It is not as cold as mine, and it has limbs, unlike me, which can only crawl forward.
How great would it be if I also had body temperature in my limbs?
We were in a good mood that day, so we ran to a valley outside the deep forest. In that valley, we found a "person", but this person was different from what I had seen before. He had no head and a button on his head.
There was a yellow thing sitting on the grass, and the surrounding vegetation had long since withered. Only the grass where it sat was still green, and it seemed that the birds around were not afraid of it, and some even landed on it.
On its body, it stretched out its paws to tease the little birds, and the little birds flew around its body.
Silly Baozi and I were surprised and found it very interesting. We both felt that there was nothing in this person that scared us. Just when we were finding it interesting, the eldest brother suddenly came out of nowhere and I saw
When he got to the big brother, he said to him: "Why is this person different from other people?"
The eldest brother is obviously well-informed, but he said to me: "He is not a human, he should be a god."
Immortal? What is an immortal? I was wondering again. Although I didn’t know what an immortal was, he certainly didn’t look like a human being, because I didn’t feel fear in my heart.
My eldest brother told me: "Follow me."
So it crawled towards the man. Silly Baozi naturally found it interesting and followed him. We came to the side of the man. When the birds on the side saw the big brother, they all ran away in panic.
There were only three of us left, and that person.
The man opened his eyes, looked at us in front of him, squinted his eyes and smiled, and then said to us: "It's really interesting for snakes to have a baby together for two days."
It was strange that I could actually understand what this person said, so I curiously said to him: "Brother said you are a god, but what on earth are you doing?"
The man smiled and then said to me: "I am not a god, I am fate."
"Destiny? What is fate?" I was stunned.
The man smiled and then said to me: "Fate is irresistible."
"Irresistible?" I was stunned for a moment, and then said to it: "How can there be something irresistible? How come I don't know about it?"
The man smiled and said: "You little snake talks a lot. Let me tell you, there are many things that you cannot resist, including your birth, old age, illness and death, and your overwhelming love and desire."
I said, "I don't know what those are."
The man said: "For example, since you were born, you have been unable to resist killing other animals. This is me, and this is your destiny."
I said: "But I haven't killed other animals?"
The man looked at me and then at my elder brother, as if he already knew everything, and then smiled: "Have you ever thought that eating the food your brother brought is considered a kind of killing?"
I said: "Why?"
The man said: "What's the difference between your brother killing for you and you hunting for yourself?"
I was stunned. Obviously I had never had this idea in my mind. This feeling was wonderful. But it was also very frustrating. I remembered what the bird said to me, so I said to the man: "Could it be,
Am I making other animals sad every night?"
The man nodded.
I said, "This is not good. I don't want to do this."
The man smiled and said to me: "Oh? Why?
I said: "Because I have been sad too and know what it feels like."
The man smiled and said: "It is indeed a snake with wisdom. Well, just based on your words. Let me ask you, what do you want?"
My eldest brother said: "I want to get stronger power. I don't want to be like this for the rest of my life."
The man said to my eldest brother: "You already have fairy bones in your body. If you want to become stronger, help me guard something."
After that, it said to us: "Do you have a name?"
My eldest brother shook his head, the man nodded, and then said to my eldest brother: "I'll give you your names."
After that, he said to my eldest brother: "The snake's own surname is Chang. If you become enlightened in the future, someone will surely enshrine the memorial tablet. Let's call you Chang Tianqing."
"What about me?" Silly Baozi and I were a little anxious. The man smiled and then said to me: "Of course you take your eldest brother's surname, so your name will be Chang Tianhong. As for you?"
The man looked at Silly Baozi and said to him: "No name, no worries, no worries, no worries. Rather than giving you a name, it would be better for you to be as free and easy as you are now. Not having a name would suit you, so you should call me Baozi."
.”
Silly Baozi is stupid himself, so he doesn't care too much.
The man continued: "Chang Tianqing, if you want to become enlightened, go to the north. You will see a mountain called Nianzi Mountain. There is a cave on the mountain, and there is a thing I put in it in my early years.
thing, but I have asked a silver python to guard it. You must kill that big python and put on its python skin to guard the thing for me. Can you do it until a hundred years later?"
My eldest brother snorted coldly and said nothing.
The man smiled and then said to me: "It's your turn now, what do you want?"
After thinking about it, I said: "What can live according to one's own choices?"
The man smiled and then said to me: "Maybe he is just a human being."
I said: "Then I want to be a human being."
When Silly Baozi saw what I said, he also said, "I also want to be a human being like my good friend."
The man smiled and then said to me: "Did you know that people are actually not that easy to deal with?"
"Why?" I was stunned again.
I saw that person saying to us: "Actually, everything has troubles, and these troubles arise precisely because of me. How many people will see through the way of heaven? How many people will escape when the world of mortals is rolling?
"
I didn’t understand what it meant. He continued to say to me: Little snake, you are very interesting. Let me tell you, life is suffering, aging is suffering. Illness is suffering, death is suffering, and there is no regret.
Meeting with someone you love is suffering, being separated from the one you love is suffering. Not getting what you want is suffering, so as long as it is life, there is no escape.”
I said, "I don't believe it. Since we have a choice, why can't we escape?"
Obviously, what I said was beyond its expectation. In fact, I didn’t know what it said. But I understood the last sentence, so I asked. After thinking about it, he said to me:
"You really don't regret it?"
I nodded. The man said to me: "Well, since you are like this, I will make a bet with you. If you win, I will let you become human beings and participate in my game."
"What game?" I said.
The man said: "I have lived for too long. Over the long years, all emotions have been numb. Although I know everything, I still can't guess people's hearts, so every once in a while, I have to select some people
Come to participate in my game and watch them follow the story I designed step by step. Only then do I feel that I am still alive, and those people will more or less learn some truths from it."
I didn't understand what it was saying, but I couldn't care less at this time, so I said to it: "What exactly do you want me to do?"
After he smiled, he said to me: "If you want to become a human being, resist me first."
"Resist fate?" I said?
He nodded and then said to me: "It seems impossible. Doesn't it? Snakes are meat eaters themselves. This is their destiny."
I thought deeply and then said to it: "That's not the case. I think I can do it. It should be okay."
After that, I left.
My eldest brother didn't leave, he stayed by my side. However, from that day on, I never ate the pheasant he brought. Most of the time, I was thinking about all this, including fate.
It was another evening, and the setting sun once again burned the clouds red. Those clouds seemed to change into various shapes. Clouds are inherently impermanent, and they are impermanent, just like the changes of fate, which never stop or change.
On the towering tree in the forest, a gray snake coiled quietly on the treetops, looking at the sky and the cuckoo. The cuckoo spotted it, but it didn't run away.
The gray snake asked it: "Why don't you run?"
The cuckoo said: "I am old and can no longer fly. I know that this is my last singing. Because of my singing, it will rain. With rain, this forest will have hope. This is mine.
Destiny until death."
The gray snake said to the cuckoo: "I have never killed anyone in my life, but many lives have died because of me. Am I stupid?"
The cuckoo said to the gray snake: "You are not stupid, you also have your own choice."
It turns out that no matter what it is, it will have its own choice. It used its own life to prove this, so it closed its eyes and looked at the sky. The last fragment of its life was the cry of the cuckoo.
The sound seems to never stop, that sound is regardless of, regardless of.
The gray snake was relieved, so it closed its eyes and fell into a deep sleep.