Duosheng Danyuan

My name is Gu Changfeng, and I am an ordinary male college student.

At 22, my favorite thing to do is experience life.

With scholarships, student loans, and some mundane part-time jobs, my life is fairly ordinary. But for me, an ordinary life is just right; it allows me to experience extraordinary things, thereby helping me to truly experience my own life.

My philosophy on life is similar to that of most young people: it's good to be alive, and it doesn't matter if I'm gone. However, my Buddhist-like view is quite different from most of them. For me, life and death are not a very distant topic, and my many views on life and death do not stem from youthful arrogance, but from my younger brother.

My younger brother died when I was thirteen. My mother became depressed as a result and died the following year. To help support the family, my father went to work in a faraway place, where he unfortunately died in an accident. With the pension from my father's boss, I stumbled and struggled to get into a junior college thousands of miles away from the village, and lived a very frugal life.

Therefore, death is not a distant matter for me. As someone who is practically alone, what I want to do most before I die is to fully experience my life.

My younger brother left us when he was only ten years old, completely oblivious to the world around him. He was lucky; his young age prevented him from experiencing much fear about his own death. Perhaps the pain of fear was also shielded from him. For him, death was just a dream from which he could never wake up.

My mother, in her forties, passed away in excruciating pain. It was truly tragic, but in my opinion, she was also fortunate. The loss of her young son, the torment of illness, and her congenital disability—to have lived this life and experienced so much suffering—it wasn't a wasted life. For her, death was a release.

My father was in his early fifties. I don't know what it was like when he passed away, but I imagine his pain wasn't as prolonged as my mother's. The phone call came in the afternoon, and he was gone that evening. I didn't even have time to buy a train ticket to another city. For him, death was truly sudden and unfortunate, and undeniably tragic. But it suited his life perfectly—a nightmare.

My father, mother, and brother all say that how a person dies reflects how they live. I don't want to die like them; I want to die with some meaning. This meaning doesn't mean I have to make some contribution to society, nor does it mean I have to do something great that everyone will respect me. The meaning I want is to fully experience all of life and make my time on earth complete.

Tagore once said, "Life is as brilliant as summer flowers, death as serene as autumn leaves." Death is certainly quiet, and perhaps beautiful, but not everyone's life is brilliant. The quality of life of a beggar and a millionaire is never equivalent. I am not a millionaire, and fortunately, I am not a beggar either. Experiencing more of life's flavors, I believe the quality of my life will be greater, and my summer flowers will bloom even more brilliantly.

Life and death are intertwined; summer flowers and autumn leaves share the same origin and species. Only when my summer flowers are vibrant enough will my autumn leaves be beautiful enough, and only then will my death have any real meaning.

I enjoy experiencing life to the fullest, until that rainy day.

That day, in order to earn money, I went to the construction site as a temporary worker, just like always.

As I walked toward the construction site, I felt a little unwell. The once azure sky began to flash with dark lightning, as if it were a sign of an impending downpour.

I was very unhappy because if it rained, the construction site wouldn't necessarily shut down immediately, but they wouldn't hire a college student like me as a temporary worker. They were afraid something might happen to us, which would not only cause them a large compensation loss but also subject the construction site to supervision and rectification, indefinitely delaying the construction progress. So, even though the foreman knew I was childless, he wouldn't let me into the construction site on rainy days.

However, I still walked towards the construction site, clinging to a sliver of hope. The reason was simple: I was already here, what if I could get in? But fate is unpredictable; this rain might not actually come.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, it wasn't raining when I arrived at the construction site. I was able to get my safety helmet, put on my orange work clothes, and head to my workstation.

According to the rules, as long as I took the work clothes and entered the construction site, even if they wouldn't let me continue working because of the heavy rain, they still had to pay me half of my wages. This was the rule for daily wages. Of course, this wasn't an ordinary rule; it was just a compromise they came up with to appease the situation after the ringleader had caused trouble a few times in the past.

To avoid having to compensate us, once we were on the construction site, the foreman wouldn't stop me from working, even in a downpour. I was initially worried that the foreman would prevent us temporary workers from entering because of the bad weather, but I didn't expect to get in so easily. I guess the construction progress is a bit tight right now.

The work at the construction site was monotonous and busy, and I quickly forgot about the possible storm. A few hours later, the sky gradually darkened, but the heat made me feel uncomfortable.

I found a slightly cool corner, sat down, and prepared to fish for a while and finish my daily quota.

Just then, the older brother who often rallied his fellow workers to protest against the foreman also came over.

"Hey! What are you doing hiding here?"

"...Take a break." The older brother didn't arrive quickly. I finished my quota before he got close, then forced a smile. "Brother, are you taking a break too?"

"Pretty much," the older brother chuckled, plopped down on the tire of the truck next to him, lit a cigarette, and said, "That's how day jobs should be. After you've met your work targets, hide away where the foreman can't see you and slack off. That's life."

As he spoke, he exhaled a few puffs of smoke, appearing to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

I was also trying to slack off, so I sat down with him. That way, if the foreman found out, at least this older brother would be there to share the scolding with me.

"Where are you from?" the older man asked casually after finishing a cigarette.

"Students in the vicinity."

"I mean, where is your hometown?"

"native."

"Oh, I see..." The older man nodded, then suddenly turned to look at me, changing the subject abruptly, "Local university students can't be too low-class, right?"

"...What do you mean?"

"What did you just take? Copper wire, cable, or some steel blocks? Whatever you took, if the foreman catches you like this, you're guaranteed a beating."

"Haha, it was just a slip of the hand," I said awkwardly, tossing out a small roll of copper wire from my pocket. I lowered my stance and said, "Brother, I just had a momentary lapse of judgment. You certainly won't tell the foreman, right?"

"I definitely won't tell, but you'd better be careful," the older brother said, nodding with satisfaction at my honesty. He then picked up the copper wire I had dropped and put it in his pocket, patting my shoulder. "These kinds of things can't be done sneakily; you have to take them openly and honestly!"

"...Okay." I forced back my twitching lips and nodded.

There was silence for a moment.

"Smoking?"

I sat back on the tire, and the older man smiled as he took out a pack of Red Golden Dragon cigarettes and reached out to hand it to me.

Although I don't smoke, I knew this older man always made things difficult for me, so I didn't refuse. I just took a cigarette, tucked it behind my ear, and whispered, "Thank you."

"fine."

Then we just stayed in that corner and slacked off.

"How long have you been here?"

"I've been here for a few days."

"How long are you planning to work here?"

"Let's work for a few days."

"When are you planning to go back?"

"How about in a few days?"

"Damn it!" The older brother leaned back speechlessly, shaking his head and saying, "You're quite the character, kid."

"No, that's really my plan," I said casually, sitting behind him.

Just then, a worker bumped into the steel bar next to us, causing the corner to rattle.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"It's alright, just be careful! Not watching where you're going isn't a good habit on a construction site!" The older man waved to the apologizing worker and said casually, "Hey! Don't look at me like that. Let me tell you, people who slack off can't believe they're slacking off, understand? As long as you're assertive, people will think you're working here, and nobody will bother us."

"Yes, yes, yes." I grinned, shook my head, and sighed.

Although the process was somewhat tortuous, I finally achieved my monthly target.

"Brother, you continue to rest, I'm leaving now." Having finished my business, I had no intention of lingering here, so I waved and prepared to leave.

"Hey, wait for me, let's go together!" After taking the copper wire from me, the older brother seemed to find me particularly pleasing to the eye and even took the initiative to put his arm around my shoulder.

And just then...

"Damn it! You two, run!" A worker suddenly exclaimed from a distance.

"Huh?...Uh!"

While the older brother was still in a daze, I decisively turned around and buried my head in his chest. I didn't know what had happened, but I knew that finding a human shield was obviously more reasonable than running away.

Accidents at construction sites are nothing more than steel bars falling or collapses. If it's a collapse, my older brother will hold it for me, and I'll definitely be able to hold on until the rescue team pulls me out of the rubble unharmed.

So, the moment I buried my head in my older brother's arms, I grabbed his clothes and tried to use his body to protect my back as much as possible. Having worked for so long, I was actually quite strong.

Of course, these are of little use in the face of natural disasters.

A steel bar weighing several tons crashed down on us, and my mind quickly drifted away.

......

When I woke up again, I found myself standing in a strange place, like a tourist attraction in the Forbidden City, surrounded by people wearing strange clothes. Looking down slightly, I realized that my clothes were exactly the same as theirs.

"Welcome to the Shengdan Academy. I am Elder Jianshan, who will also be your master from today onwards."

Not far from the crowd, a tall, somewhat imposing old man spoke. Above his head hung a plaque with the words "Inner Gate" on it.

"hiss!"

A piercing pain flashed through my arm, and I instinctively pressed down hard, but the more I pressed, the more excruciating the pain became. Finally, I couldn't bear it any longer, so I released my grip, rolled up my sleeve, and discovered a line of neatly written bloody characters etched on my arm.

"A person who fits in with others is not blinded by their own desires."