It Rained
Early in the morning, the sky was originally extremely sunny and cloudless, nobody expected that soon after, when the villagers were preparing to return home and had walked half-way, the sky would suddenly become heavily overcast.
“Quick look! It’s raining over there! Huang Shulang pointed at a distant spot with his chubby fingers while his eyes were opened wide in a stare.
I leisurely opened the umbrella, not even paying the least bit of attention to the changes in the weather. In the morning, when I got up, the fluctuations in the World’s Primordial Qi had already informed me about this forthcoming rain.
The Villagers stared blankly at me standing beneath an umbrella.
Grandpa had already become used to these abilities of mine, and as far he was concerned, his grandson was the best. It didn’t matter to him if it was me from before, or the present me.
The villagers looked at me reverentially. However, very quickly they no longer had the inclination to care about me. It was because the heavy rain had already started pouring.
Raindrops as big as soybeans left behind blurs in their path, only to crash down onto the ground later and in the subsequent collapse break down into small pearls of rain and together with the dust rising from the splashes managing to form mist.
“Run fast!”
However, it was already too late, the village was already more than one li away by road. Even if one runs all the way home, he would still end up like a drowned rat. That leaves only one option, run to the nearby woods, look for a big tree with big branches and leaves and take shelter from the rain. It was only that with such heavy rainfall, even if one were under a big tree, it would still be nigh impossible to completely block the rain water.
My Grandpa and I walked through the forest while keeping our umbrellas propped up, while everyone else looked on enviously as we slowly moved towards the shabbily brick houses on the outskirts of the village. However, the clothes on Huang Shu Lang’s fat body had been completely drenched in the rain water making them see-through and the books in the school bag had also probably met with calamity.
Huang Shulang’s eyes were blankly staring at me, but I simply didn’t hold them in my eyes.
At the time we returned home, our ox had rammed and broken the wooden bolt, and had come out of the cattle pen. It came running straight at me, and arched its head to be petted by my hand.
It had already become fond of me, since i would always pat my hand, infused with Primordial Qi, on its head when going for cattle grazing. After all this time of accumulation, it had become quite different from other oxen in appearance. The color of its coat had turned yellow and each time it came out, so long as it bellowed loudly, there wouldn’t be a single cow in the village which could control itself.
The raindrops fell on the Ox’s body, but couldn’t penetrate the dense ox hair. The slender hairs were actually the ox’s natural raincoat. The raindrops on the ox’s body had trickled down to converge into a stream. The ox mischievously shook his body, and made the rain scatter all around like a flower, which made me and grandpa move to dodge hastily.
“You should have killed this Ox!” Grandpa said in a scolding tone, but had a smiling expression on his face.
An Ox is an important labor force for an agricultural family, and it is actually the basis of an agricultural family. Without this ox, even an expert of agricultural techniques would find it very difficult to plough the entire farmland after harvest is reaped. Even so, it is the year 1999, farmland is no longer as important to farmers, young people have all migrated in search for jobs, leaving behind only the old, weak, sick and the disabled in the villages.
The Ox was feeling very cheerful in the rain, apparently it was enjoying the baptism of the heavy rain. I could also sense that the heavy rain was bringing with it even purer Primordial Qi in the environment, and mixed within it was the aura of frightening thunder. For a moment, I once again became immersed in an oddly fantastic state. I also burst out into the rain, and began leaping about with the Ox. My pace was very bizarre, as if it were some kind of ancient ritual.
Grandpa looked at me, astonished, and wanted to rush out into the rain to pull me back to under the eaves. However, although my pace looked slow, Grandpa wasn’t able to catch me consistently in a pattern. He simply couldn’t even touch the hem of my clothing and instead looked like he was also jumping about in the rain like me.
The Big fatty Huang Shulang, after having managed to return to the village while braving the heavy rain, finally saw the scene of me, Grandpa and our family’s ox, jumping about crazily in the rain.
“Crazy! Crazy! Their whole family is crazy! Even the Ox is crazy!”
Huang Shu Lang did not see me even though I was jumping crazily in the rain. However, the raindrops cascading down from the sky seemed to have grown eyes. When the raindrops had almost touched my body, they made a turn as if they were alive and not a drop of water stained my clothes or shoes. [TLNote: Thanks to GT for helping me with this para]
However, it was different for my Grandpa, his whole body was drenched with the pouring rain water. Grandpa suddenly stopped, and stared at me with eyes wide open. He saw that I was strangely joyous as I jumped around, but there wasn’t even a single drop of water on my body.
“Ai!” Grandpa dejectedly walked back to beneath the eaves, and returned back into the house to change clothes. He had no other option but to accept the fact that I was quite different from other kids. He would prefer if I were an extremely ordinary kid. Looking at at the scene from earlier, had made him feel extremely frightened in his heart.
The ox was very intelligent, it was much more sensitive to Primordial Qi than humans. As I was jumping about in the rain, the Primordial Qi in the surroundings began to converge onto me. Therefore, it kept following my footsteps from the beginning to the end, delightedly breathing in the Primordial Qi in the surroundings.
Jumping and Leaping, the rain finally stopped. In the distant mountain side, a beautiful rainbow could be seen hanging. I had also stopped. I could feel that within my body a special seed had already begun to sprout slowly. I know that more than two years of meditation, had planted a very special kind of a seed within my body. It was only later I learned that the seed was called, Dao.
I had stopped, only to discover that a lot of villagers had already encircled me on all sides. They were looking at me with strange looks in their eyes. I could see that they were afraid of me. Perhaps, they suspected that some kind of dreadful spirit had taken control of my body.
I ignored their gazes, and just patted the Ox’s head before saying: “Go graze!”
The Ox very obediently walked over to the ridge. This fellow was very intelligent, and started grazing on the ridges eating one mouthful at a time, patiently waits for the stubble left behind after eating to become of the same height as the previous time before eating it a second time.
The Villagers seeing that the grass on the field ridges looked fresh and tender, wanted to pull their cows to graze on the grass on the ridges too, but who could have imagined that those cows refused to eat in the same region as where my family’s ox was grazing. Everyone already knew that I was evil, now they had even connected our family’s Ox to be evil.
Seeing our family’s Ox walking hastily towards them, the villagers left for home in a hurry, stepping aside from the way and letting our family’s cow pass.
The look in Grandpa’s eyes had been different from that of villagers from the very start. Other people looked at me only with dread, but Grandpa looked at me only with love and affection. He worried that one day I would turn back to how I was before, not speaking for two years. He was also worried that if I get infected by unhygienic things, then I wouldn’t be able to live long in the future.
“Yang Yang, come in!” Grandpa called out in a clear voice from behind me.
Once I entered through the door, Grandpa slammed the door shut. Grandpa didn’t like others looking at me as if they were looking at a freak.
“Grandpa.” I called out to him.
“In the future, you must not jump about like you did today.” Grandpa didn’t leave me any room for resistance.
The only person who I was concerned about right now is Grandpa, and Grandpa’s words for me were like inviolable imperial edicts.
Attending school, my life became more systematic.
At school, I still didn’t talk much. There would always be some hands pointing fingers at me behind my back, but I had already become accustomed to it. The Teachers regarded this special student with a special fondness. This instead made me even more free. To be honest, my grades were not bad, and the contents of the elementary school textbook appeared to be too simple. Therefore, the classrooms had become somewhat dull. After some thought, making a young person spend one and a half years time to memorise the addition table by heart was indeed a boring and dull task. However, after going to primary school, this had become my everyday life.
In the first grade of elementary school, on the first page of the language and literature book, one studies the phonetic letters a, o, e, and students try to earnestly follow the teacher’s pronunciation, I also felt it was interesting. However, my way of thinking was different from an ordinary child. I was thinking that each and every one of these simple sounds, was capable of moving the worldly primordial qi. When I tried to pronounce a, o, e, while trying to draw on the world’s primordial qi, perhaps the utterance was not correct and thus the effect was also not good.
In the class, there was a child named Ma Jindong who stammered, his mouth was open for a long time but he was unable to utter anything, and anxiously tried to stamp his feet. Seeing his mannerisms all the children in the class except for me and Ma Jindong began laughing hysterically. Guo Daoying, the class teacher and language & literature teacher, also couldn’t help but smile with pursed lips.
However I was greatly enlightened, since pronunciations are unable to move the world’s primordial qi, then what about matching footsteps? That scene of jumping about in the rain came to my mind again. As someone who was just seven years old, without any apprehensions in my mind whatsoever, I quickly began to act on my thoughts. I got up and walked to the vacant area at back of the classroom and started jumping. Combining with it the pronunciation of a, o, e. This time the rhythm was in sync, and suddenly all the primordial qi in the surroundings came bubbling at me like a tide.
The Class teacher Guo Daoying and the classmates were at first astonished to see me going insane at the back of the classroom. When Guo Daoying wanted to stop me, she suddenly discovered that the classroom had begun shaking.
Guo Daoying face changed, and was frightened to the bottom of her heart: “Earthquake!” Suddenly her balance became unsteady, she ended up sitting on the ground. The students in the class were not much better, each and everyone was rolling on the ground. The entire classroom was in a complete disarray.
I was immersed in that fantastic feeling, I had assimilated with all living things in the world.
Animals are much more sensitive to the world’s primordial qi compared to humans, so they are able to more keenly discern changes in the environment. Villagers working in the vicinity of the school were surprised to find that large swarms of butterflies looking like a cloud of multicoloured flowers was moving towards Ba Jiao Primary School. Nobody knew what had exactly happened at Ba Jiao Primary School.
The butterflies poured into the classroom through the window, only to stick to the wall, on the glass, on the blackboard, on the ceiling, on the chairs, and even on people. The whole classroom had turned into a butterfly ocean.
However, I was completely unaware of any of this. I was still immersed in the jumping.
So much activity, had already alerted all the teachers and students in the Ba Jiao Primary school.
The primary school students squealed in excitement at seeing the butterflies flying about as far as the eyes could see. The teachers also exclaimed in astonishment. They also were not inclined to go and bother the merrymaking children. Unfortunately, in this age, and in such a small mountain village, people still don’t carry mobile phones.
On the school roof, on the eaves, there were traces of butterflies everywhere. However, it was the classroom of the first grade where the butterflies were in the highest concentration.
Headmaster Mr. Han had come out of a classroom, he couldn’t understand what exactly had happened.
The first grade’s classroom was the most peculiar, all of the butterflies were engaged in life and death struggle to make it to the first grade’s classroom. Mr. Han walked over, and saw an astonishing scene in the classroom.
“Quickly Stop !”
Just like a thunderclap, I awakened from the state of ecstasy. Looking around at everything in the classroom, I wasn’t entirely sure what I had done.
It Rained
Early in the morning, the sky was originally extremely sunny and cloudless, nobody expected that soon after, when the villagers were preparing to return home and had walked half-way, the sky would suddenly become heavily overcast.
“Quick look! It’s raining over there! Huang Shulang pointed at a distant spot with his chubby fingers while his eyes were opened wide in a stare.
I leisurely opened the umbrella, not even paying the least bit of attention to the changes in the weather. In the morning, when I got up, the fluctuations in the World’s Primordial Qi had already informed me about this forthcoming rain.
The Villagers stared blankly at me standing beneath an umbrella.
Grandpa had already become used to these abilities of mine, and as far he was concerned, his grandson was the best. It didn’t matter to him if it was me from before, or the present me.
The villagers looked at me reverentially. However, very quickly they no longer had the inclination to care about me. It was because the heavy rain had already started pouring.
Raindrops as big as soybeans left behind blurs in their path, only to crash down onto the ground later and in the subsequent collapse break down into small pearls of rain and together with the dust rising from the splashes managing to form mist.
“Run fast!”
However, it was already too late, the village was already more than one li away by road. Even if one runs all the way home, he would still end up like a drowned rat. That leaves only one option, run to the nearby woods, look for a big tree with big branches and leaves and take shelter from the rain. It was only that with such heavy rainfall, even if one were under a big tree, it would still be nigh impossible to completely block the rain water.
My Grandpa and I walked through the forest while keeping our umbrellas propped up, while everyone else looked on enviously as we slowly moved towards the shabbily brick houses on the outskirts of the village. However, the clothes on Huang Shu Lang’s fat body had been completely drenched in the rain water making them see-through and the books in the school bag had also probably met with calamity.
Huang Shulang’s eyes were blankly staring at me, but I simply didn’t hold them in my eyes.
At the time we returned home, our ox had rammed and broken the wooden bolt, and had come out of the cattle pen. It came running straight at me, and arched its head to be petted by my hand.
It had already become fond of me, since i would always pat my hand, infused with Primordial Qi, on its head when going for cattle grazing. After all this time of accumulation, it had become quite different from other oxen in appearance. The color of its coat had turned yellow and each time it came out, so long as it bellowed loudly, there wouldn’t be a single cow in the village which could control itself.
The raindrops fell on the Ox’s body, but couldn’t penetrate the dense ox hair. The slender hairs were actually the ox’s natural raincoat. The raindrops on the ox’s body had trickled down to converge into a stream. The ox mischievously shook his body, and made the rain scatter all around like a flower, which made me and grandpa move to dodge hastily.
“You should have killed this Ox!” Grandpa said in a scolding tone, but had a smiling expression on his face.
An Ox is an important labor force for an agricultural family, and it is actually the basis of an agricultural family. Without this ox, even an expert of agricultural techniques would find it very difficult to plough the entire farmland after harvest is reaped. Even so, it is the year 1999, farmland is no longer as important to farmers, young people have all migrated in search for jobs, leaving behind only the old, weak, sick and the disabled in the villages.
The Ox was feeling very cheerful in the rain, apparently it was enjoying the baptism of the heavy rain. I could also sense that the heavy rain was bringing with it even purer Primordial Qi in the environment, and mixed within it was the aura of frightening thunder. For a moment, I once again became immersed in an oddly fantastic state. I also burst out into the rain, and began leaping about with the Ox. My pace was very bizarre, as if it were some kind of ancient ritual.
Grandpa looked at me, astonished, and wanted to rush out into the rain to pull me back to under the eaves. However, although my pace looked slow, Grandpa wasn’t able to catch me consistently in a pattern. He simply couldn’t even touch the hem of my clothing and instead looked like he was also jumping about in the rain like me.
The Big fatty Huang Shulang, after having managed to return to the village while braving the heavy rain, finally saw the scene of me, Grandpa and our family’s ox, jumping about crazily in the rain.
“Crazy! Crazy! Their whole family is crazy! Even the Ox is crazy!”
Huang Shu Lang did not see me even though I was jumping crazily in the rain. However, the raindrops cascading down from the sky seemed to have grown eyes. When the raindrops had almost touched my body, they made a turn as if they were alive and not a drop of water stained my clothes or shoes. [TLNote: Thanks to GT for helping me with this para]
However, it was different for my Grandpa, his whole body was drenched with the pouring rain water. Grandpa suddenly stopped, and stared at me with eyes wide open. He saw that I was strangely joyous as I jumped around, but there wasn’t even a single drop of water on my body.
“Ai!” Grandpa dejectedly walked back to beneath the eaves, and returned back into the house to change clothes. He had no other option but to accept the fact that I was quite different from other kids. He would prefer if I were an extremely ordinary kid. Looking at at the scene from earlier, had made him feel extremely frightened in his heart.
The ox was very intelligent, it was much more sensitive to Primordial Qi than humans. As I was jumping about in the rain, the Primordial Qi in the surroundings began to converge onto me. Therefore, it kept following my footsteps from the beginning to the end, delightedly breathing in the Primordial Qi in the surroundings.
Jumping and Leaping, the rain finally stopped. In the distant mountain side, a beautiful rainbow could be seen hanging. I had also stopped. I could feel that within my body a special seed had already begun to sprout slowly. I know that more than two years of meditation, had planted a very special kind of a seed within my body. It was only later I learned that the seed was called, Dao.
I had stopped, only to discover that a lot of villagers had already encircled me on all sides. They were looking at me with strange looks in their eyes. I could see that they were afraid of me. Perhaps, they suspected that some kind of dreadful spirit had taken control of my body.
I ignored their gazes, and just patted the Ox’s head before saying: “Go graze!”
The Ox very obediently walked over to the ridge. This fellow was very intelligent, and started grazing on the ridges eating one mouthful at a time, patiently waits for the stubble left behind after eating to become of the same height as the previous time before eating it a second time.
The Villagers seeing that the grass on the field ridges looked fresh and tender, wanted to pull their cows to graze on the grass on the ridges too, but who could have imagined that those cows refused to eat in the same region as where my family’s ox was grazing. Everyone already knew that I was evil, now they had even connected our family’s Ox to be evil.
Seeing our family’s Ox walking hastily towards them, the villagers left for home in a hurry, stepping aside from the way and letting our family’s cow pass.
The look in Grandpa’s eyes had been different from that of villagers from the very start. Other people looked at me only with dread, but Grandpa looked at me only with love and affection. He worried that one day I would turn back to how I was before, not speaking for two years. He was also worried that if I get infected by unhygienic things, then I wouldn’t be able to live long in the future.
“Yang Yang, come in!” Grandpa called out in a clear voice from behind me.
Once I entered through the door, Grandpa slammed the door shut. Grandpa didn’t like others looking at me as if they were looking at a freak.
“Grandpa.” I called out to him.
“In the future, you must not jump about like you did today.” Grandpa didn’t leave me any room for resistance.
The only person who I was concerned about right now is Grandpa, and Grandpa’s words for me were like inviolable imperial edicts.
Attending school, my life became more systematic.
At school, I still didn’t talk much. There would always be some hands pointing fingers at me behind my back, but I had already become accustomed to it. The Teachers regarded this special student with a special fondness. This instead made me even more free. To be honest, my grades were not bad, and the contents of the elementary school textbook appeared to be too simple. Therefore, the classrooms had become somewhat dull. After some thought, making a young person spend one and a half years time to memorise the addition table by heart was indeed a boring and dull task. However, after going to primary school, this had become my everyday life.
In the first grade of elementary school, on the first page of the language and literature book, one studies the phonetic letters a, o, e, and students try to earnestly follow the teacher’s pronunciation, I also felt it was interesting. However, my way of thinking was different from an ordinary child. I was thinking that each and every one of these simple sounds, was capable of moving the worldly primordial qi. When I tried to pronounce a, o, e, while trying to draw on the world’s primordial qi, perhaps the utterance was not correct and thus the effect was also not good.
In the class, there was a child named Ma Jindong who stammered, his mouth was open for a long time but he was unable to utter anything, and anxiously tried to stamp his feet. Seeing his mannerisms all the children in the class except for me and Ma Jindong began laughing hysterically. Guo Daoying, the class teacher and language & literature teacher, also couldn’t help but smile with pursed lips.
However I was greatly enlightened, since pronunciations are unable to move the world’s primordial qi, then what about matching footsteps? That scene of jumping about in the rain came to my mind again. As someone who was just seven years old, without any apprehensions in my mind whatsoever, I quickly began to act on my thoughts. I got up and walked to the vacant area at back of the classroom and started jumping. Combining with it the pronunciation of a, o, e. This time the rhythm was in sync, and suddenly all the primordial qi in the surroundings came bubbling at me like a tide.
The Class teacher Guo Daoying and the classmates were at first astonished to see me going insane at the back of the classroom. When Guo Daoying wanted to stop me, she suddenly discovered that the classroom had begun shaking.
Guo Daoying face changed, and was frightened to the bottom of her heart: “Earthquake!” Suddenly her balance became unsteady, she ended up sitting on the ground. The students in the class were not much better, each and everyone was rolling on the ground. The entire classroom was in a complete disarray.
I was immersed in that fantastic feeling, I had assimilated with all living things in the world.
Animals are much more sensitive to the world’s primordial qi compared to humans, so they are able to more keenly discern changes in the environment. Villagers working in the vicinity of the school were surprised to find that large swarms of butterflies looking like a cloud of multicoloured flowers was moving towards Ba Jiao Primary School. Nobody knew what had exactly happened at Ba Jiao Primary School.
The butterflies poured into the classroom through the window, only to stick to the wall, on the glass, on the blackboard, on the ceiling, on the chairs, and even on people. The whole classroom had turned into a butterfly ocean.
However, I was completely unaware of any of this. I was still immersed in the jumping.
So much activity, had already alerted all the teachers and students in the Ba Jiao Primary school.
The primary school students squealed in excitement at seeing the butterflies flying about as far as the eyes could see. The teachers also exclaimed in astonishment. They also were not inclined to go and bother the merrymaking children. Unfortunately, in this age, and in such a small mountain village, people still don’t carry mobile phones.
On the school roof, on the eaves, there were traces of butterflies everywhere. However, it was the classroom of the first grade where the butterflies were in the highest concentration.
Headmaster Mr. Han had come out of a classroom, he couldn’t understand what exactly had happened.
The first grade’s classroom was the most peculiar, all of the butterflies were engaged in life and death struggle to make it to the first grade’s classroom. Mr. Han walked over, and saw an astonishing scene in the classroom.
“Quickly Stop !”
Just like a thunderclap, I awakened from the state of ecstasy. Looking around at everything in the classroom, I wasn’t entirely sure what I had done.
