When Lu Ya heard the news of his friend Chen Zheng again, it was already midsummer after they had been separated for two years.

I heard that after two years, Chen Zheng re-entered the government and became a local petty official in a certain county in Luoyang.

Lu Ya went to Luoyang for this purpose.

Seeing Chen Zheng again, his appearance has become thin and brittle, his flesh is protruding, his eyes are still bright, his eyes are bright, like a torch, but two years ago, he was on the list of dragons and tigers, and the handsome appearance of a young man who was a young man with a high ambition is gone.

"It's only been two years, and he's changed so much?"

Lu Ya sighed in his heart.

Chen Zheng welcomed him warmly, as if he was afraid that Lu Ya would ask, so he took the initiative to say:

"It's been two years, and I haven't been able to write poems that can be passed on, and it's also boring to stay at home, so I joined the company again."

Lu Ya cautiously grasped a degree, and didn't dare to ask too much, for fear of ruining the friendship between the two of them, so he only asked with concern:

"I'm just worried about you, are you really used to life in officialdom?"

Isn't this good friend just because he couldn't stand the flattery of officialdom that he gave up his great future back then?

Now, when I join the company again, there is no starting point for me.

Petty magistrates......

Chen Zheng smiled and said: "I always have to plan for my wife and children, it was too easy for me to think before, and it is not easy to become famous with poetry." ”

Lu Ya didn't continue to ask, just talked to him about other things at the wine table, and talked about the friendship he hadn't seen for two years.

In the end, when Lu Ya left, he left some silver for Chen Zheng.

Chen Zheng did not refuse.

It's just two people saying goodbye.

Sitting on the carriage, Lu Ya sighed in his heart, although he and Chen Zheng maintained a tacit understanding, he didn't ask, Chen Zheng didn't say much, and behaved very freely. But something is obvious at a glance.

Obviously, after resigning from the official position and leaving Chang'an, Chen Zheng did not wait for the poetry to become famous in the world, and he did not have an official body, but his daily life was difficult to maintain, and he was embarrassed.

Because of his livelihood, he must have felt anxious and uneasy, and he re-entered the office, which may have been a decision made for a long time.

This is already half despairing of his poetic ambitions.

Lu Ya is more worried now.

Chen Zheng was born arrogant and arrogant, and he is now re-entering the office, of course, to maintain his life, but today is a time has passed, and in two years, the childhood that was honored with him in the past has already been promoted.

For example, Lu Ya was promoted from a school secretary to a foreigner, and some of them would be able to slap horses to curry favor with Shangguan, and those who built officialdom were even promoted by three levels in a row.

is also a person on the list of dragons and tigers in the past, but in order to regain his life, he has to bow his knees to the barnyard official stupid who he despised before.

He couldn't imagine whether his arrogant friend, with his arrogant self-esteem, could really withstand such blows and traumas.

With such concerns.

Lu Ya sent a special letter every three months to ask the officials in Luoyang about his friend's situation.

And so, another three years passed.

It was another midsummer this year, and Lu Ya was promoted again, and he had been promoted to the imperial history.

But he wasn't very happy.

It's just that in the past three years, his friend has really begun to become depressed as he feared, and his already wild and uninhibited personality has become more exaggerated and difficult to repress.

Even if he is far away from Chang'an and Luoyang, Lu Ya can feel the contradictions and struggles in his friend's heart.

With such concerns.

A month later, Lu Ya came to Luoyang again.

"What, he's gone?" Lu Ya changed color and asked, "What do you mean it's gone?" ”

The official of the government replied: "That is, half a month ago, I accompanied a few colleagues to Mr. Chen on a business trip to Fen County, when we stayed overnight on the side of the Jinghe Big Buddha Temple, it was night, Lord Chen suddenly screamed, woke us up, and then we watched him scream and run barefoot out of the house, submerged in the night, we couldn't catch up, and finally I don't know where he went, and finally the county government searched the local mountains and wilderness for several days, but also failed to find the slightest trace of Lord Chen. ”

"How so?"

Lu Ya's face changed slightly, and he muttered:

"How could such a big person disappear like this? Does his wife and children care about the old and young? ”

"What the hell was going on that night?"

He pressed the officer.

The official said: "Lord Chen never has much contact with people, even his wife said that he was like a demon, and I saw clearly that night, he seemed to be really crazy." ”

Lu Ya was extremely sad all of a sudden.

Crazy?

He could detect his depression from the letters of his good friends in the past few years, but he couldn't understand how a person of such a big age could not find a trace even if he was crazy.

In a trance.

He always felt that he could find this good friend.

For this reason, Lu Ya stayed in Luoyang for another month, searched for a long time, and finally had to give up.

And when he saw Chen Zheng again.

It was eight years later.

This year, Lu Ya was ordered to patrol Lingnan and stayed overnight in Ankang County on the way.

Eight years on, he always had a feeling that he was about to wake up from a big dream.

It seems that the dream is not far away.

Fortunately, the official business on his body is important, the sky is not bright, he is in a hurry, the little official of the post station said to him, there are white-fronted insects in front of the post, and many people have been eaten, pedestrians only dare to pass by during the day, and the adults should wait for dawn before setting off.

"It's okay, this official has brought so many followers, and he is afraid of fierce tigers." Lu Ya waved his hand, ignored any warnings, and hurried on the road.

With the help of the stars and the moon, the group went on the road ahead, and when they were about to walk through the Jingyanggang in front, a big tiger jumped out of the grass!

A fishy smell came to the face, shaking the mountains and forests.

The tiger pounced straight towards the cliff.

Under this threat of death, Lu Ya's understanding in his eyes became deeper and deeper, and the premonition of waking up from a dream became stronger and stronger.

But the strange thing is that just when he thought that he was going to be eaten by a tiger, a dream of life, a thought of life and death, it might be the true meaning of life.

When the tiger pounced on the cliff, it suddenly stopped, and then jumped into the grass sharply.

Immediately, after the group heard the grass, a human voice came out, as if a person was hiding in the grass and muttering to himself in fear:

"It's so dangerous, I almost ......"

As soon as he heard this voice, Lu Ya was like a thunderbolt, this voice was extremely familiar, he suddenly thought of whose voice it was, and immediately stepped forward and asked loudly and eagerly:

"Listening to this voice, it's not my friend Chen Zheng!"

Hear Lu Ya's inquiry.

There was a moment of silence in the grass.

A moment later, a man's sobbing voice of shame was heard, and after a long time, he whispered:

"Down, exactly."

Lu Ya suddenly stepped forward and said excitedly: "Brother, how did you get here, do you know that Ling has been missing for nearly ten years, please show up." ”

Chen Zheng hid in the grass and replied with a low sigh: "I am no longer human, you have seen my appearance just now, if I appear, you will definitely be afraid and disgusted when you see me, and I myself am even more ashamed, so it is difficult to meet you, however, I didn't expect that after such a long time, I can still meet you by coincidence, it really makes me excited, I don't know if you can just cross the grass, don't dislike me, talk to me for a while." ”

Lu Ya stepped forward: "You and I are friends of life and death, how can I dislike you." ”

When he first woke up from the big dream, Lu Ya no longer seemed to be Lu Ya, he completely accepted this transcendent phenomenon, perhaps because the grass was his long-looking friend, so he didn't think it was strange at all, so he stood next to the grass and communicated with the tiger's voice:

Rumors in the world, news of some of their mutual friends in the past, Lu Ya's current official position, and congratulations from Chen Zheng......

Even after more than ten years, the two of them are still as honest as when they were young and in high school, and Lu Ya asked his good friend how he became like this.

The tiger in the grass said: "Since I re-entered the office, my mood has changed greatly, and I occasionally have a disease, that night, I have a disease attack, and I ran out of the house with a roar, only to feel that the foreign object suddenly has nothing to do with me, unconsciously, I ran into the Qinling Mountains, ran and ran, unconsciously put my hands on the ground, and the feet exchanged, and so come back to my senses, I found that my hands and feet have grown hair, after dawn, I took a photo in the waterhole on the side of the mountain, and I turned into a tiger. ”

"I immediately wanted to kill myself, but at this time, a rabbit ran in front of me, and as soon as I saw it, the humanity in my body was gone, and when my humanity was restored again, my mouth was already covered with rabbit hair and blood."

"This is the first time I have become a tiger, and in the future, within a day, I will have a period of time to regain my humanity, and I will be able to speak some human words, and even continue to write poetry, and at the same time, when I look at the lives I killed when I became a tiger, I will feel ashamed and afraid, sad and indignant, and I don't understand how I can become a tiger when I am a good person."

"But as time goes by, I gradually realize that I slowly become a tiger for more and more time, and I don't understand because I am a person, as if I should have been a tiger, but when I come back to my senses, I look at the tiger's thoughts from a human perspective, and I feel shuddering, as if my humanity will gradually be completely swallowed up by animal nature in the future."

"Now I'm talking to you about this, and I'm also terrified, if one day I really forget that I'm a human being, it will be the saddest result for me."

"So before I completely lose my humanity, there is one thing to ask for."

Lu Ya held his breath and said, "Please speak." ”

The voice said: "What I ask for is nothing else, I have become a tiger all these years, I have made hundreds of poems, I hope you can help me write it down, even if one of the poems can be passed on to future generations, if it can be passed on, I will die blindly." ”

Then he began to recite.

Lu Ya wrote it down completely, but when he was sad, he still felt like back then, and in every poem, he especially felt that something was missing from a subtlety.

Sigh in my heart.

But he did not speak.

Chen Zheng laughed at himself: "Speaking of which, in fact, I am not completely incomprehensible to myself in this situation, just like I am now, according to common sense, I should have entrusted the affairs of my wife and children to you first, I have been separated from them for more than ten years, and I don't know how they are now, but compared to the suffering of my wife and children in the past ten years, the first time I saw you, I still only thought about my own poems." ”

Lu Ya asked, "So, do you think it's because of this that you became a tiger?" ”

Chen Zhengdao: "I don't know, I just thought of my previous experience, maybe it has something to do with it, when I was a human being, I didn't like to interact with people very much, so they all said that I was high, I was a very complicated person, and I was inferior and confident." ”

"I want to leave a famous poem for future generations, but I don't take the initiative to learn poetry with others, and I don't communicate with people who are more powerful than me."

"At the same time, I don't want to be in the company of ordinary people who are worse than me."

Chen Zheng let out a deep sigh:

"To sum it up. My whole life has been torn between skepticism, arrogance and blind confidence. ”

"I am deeply afraid that I am not a beautiful jade, so I dare not study it hard, but I half-believe that I am a beautiful jade, so I refuse to be mediocre and live with the rubble."

"So I lived in isolation, but because of my livelihood, I had to join the company again, and after I joined the office, I didn't want to make friends with others, so I became more and more alienated from everything in the world."

"Now that I have become a tiger, I have lost all my talent because of my anxiety, in fact, I really want to pass on my poetry to future generations. It's just a little talent, and I'm afraid that I only have this talent, so I don't want to work hard, and I often hate it because of my laziness that I don't use it. ”

"It's this anxiety and the vulnerability, the shattering glass mentality that ruined my life."

"Even after turning into a tiger, I'm still anxious."

Lu Ya listened to Chen Zheng finish all this.

Silence in the woods.

"I'm really miserable." Chen Zheng's voice cried: "Thank you for being able to meet you again, to be able to listen to me talk about this, so that I can get a little happiness of being born as a human for a short time before I am completely devoured by beast nature." ”

All the people in the forest also wept when they heard it.

Chen Zheng muttered, "It's so bitter. ”

"Only when there is pain can we let go of it."

The light in Lu Ya's eyes was dreamy:

"When you can transcend these, then you will be enlightened. In this life, it is a problem-solving, and the article is behind. ”

Chen Zheng asked in the grass, "Dao?" What article? ”

Lu Ya smiled and walked behind the grass.

"How did you get in!" Chen Zheng was like a frightened big cat, shrinking his tiger's head, tiptoeing back a lot towards his head.

Lu Ya smiled, stepped forward and touched Chen Zheng's head:

"We are not in a hurry, if we don't understand in one life, we will live in two lives, and if we don't realize in two lives, we will live in three lives, even if it is thousands of lives, I will save you."

As soon as the words fell, his eyes returned to clarity.

The world turns dreams upside down.

Lu Ya woke up from a dream.

Fall asleep.

This world will also sleep together and go back to sleep a second time.

The second dream arises.

……

(End of chapter)