Cyber Ghosts

“What?” Hao Ning was frightened when he heard the news, “How’s that? Auntie Zhou was so well before! No nonsense!”

“I’m not speaking nonsense.” Zhou Yuan took out his mobile, quivering, “It was my father who asked the old lady next door to give me the call!”

“Then why do we bother with an elevator?” Xiao Hong said hastily, “I’ll bring you on the Fire Flee. Tell me where to go!”

“No hurry.” Zhou Yuan stood up, timid, wiped his tears and said, “She was saved…”

“Eh, what a neurotic you are!” Hao Ning switched from being stunned to angry, “What’s wrong with you? Can you finish it once?”

“Then what do you want from us?” Xiao Hong was also so irritated that he lost his words. But he was mostly unsatisfied that Zhou Yuan occupied the time which could have been used by Hao Ning to find him a girlfriend.

“As for that…” Zhou Yuan, noticing the elevator reached basement level one, pointed at the parking space outside, “Let’s talk about it in the car.”

“Yuck!” Xiao Hong muttered while driving the car, “You begged me to save someone in your words, while you actually used me as a driver. Moreover, in my car!” But considering Zhou Yuan’s gloomy mood, and that he stayed in silence all the time while reserved in talking about it further, he just asked, “Tell us. What happened?”

“Just tell us.” Hao Ning noticed Xiao Hong’s temper towards Zhou Yuan and tried to persuade him, “Tell us and we’ll think up some solutions.”

“Ah…” Zhou Yuan sighed, “I don’t even know whom to blame.”

Then Zhou Yuan told the whole story: Zhou Yuan, after becoming the moment god, got much more capable in dealing with social relationships. But his family still held high expectations on him. Especially his mother, who kept repeating by his ears every day, “How about your future”, “Have a look at other children”, “Somebody is doing balabalabala”.

Though Zhou Yuan knew that after becoming a god his world view had changed and he despised what he once had pursued, he couldn’t tell his family that he was a god. Even if by showing a little divinity he would scare his family to death, let alone anything further. So the moment god suffered a lot between happiness when being away from home and the depression at home.

It had been well at the beginning. He’d had work to do with Hao Ning and Liu Shuai at night, or Zhang Chi Hang would come to find him and teach him the basic cultivating methods, so the family conflicts weren’t that pertinent. But the days before Zhou Yuan went back early, so that his parents grumbled more.

Zhou Yuan used to feel inferior to himself, so certainly he would let it go. But later he’d become a moment god with great pride, meanwhile, he wasn’t in a stable state at the beginning, so how could he endure those words?

Pushed too hard by his parents, Zhou Yuan ended up fabricating a Zhou Yuan, also the surroundings in his parents’ hearts with his talents. Since the fabricated Zhou Yuan behaved in the way exactly wanted by his parents, it solved both the contradictions in his heart and the expectations of his parents. He killed two birds with one stone.

While he hadn’t expected that his parents, after the fabricated Zhou Yuan fulfilled their expectations one after another, weren’t satisfied. On the contrary, they held even higher expectations. While the fabricated Zhou Yuan would have to continue fulfilling them based on the higher standard. It went this way for some time and Zhou Yuan’s status in his parents kept surmounting to an unbelievable level. Now in his parents’ imagination, Zhou Yuan had become the youngest, meanwhile the richest man in their country. He was influential in their region and he revered his parents. He’d dumped countless girlfriends whom his parents despised only for the wish of them ‒ though he had none in reality.

“It went too far…” Hao Ning pondered at this point, “But not far enough to make her take a suicide, did it?”

“Ah…” Zhou Yuan said with upset, “I didn’t expect that my parents, after being convinced that they had a rich son who repaid them a lot, should have…”

“Should have what?” Hao Ning couldn’t come up with any problem, “Even the youngest and richest son who respects his parents wasn’t good enough? You’ve done so much. What else do they ask for?”

“No…” Zhou Yuan covered his face, “I feel it shameful… For some reason, they began to doubt each other cheating in their marriage because of the fortune. While you know, my talent is to realize their thoughts in heart, so ‒”

“So, your parents really cheated in their marriage?” Xiao Hong stopped the car and turned back, staring at Zhou Yuan, “Like my dad’s relationship with an auntie fox?”

“You even call the fox auntie?” Hao Ning uttered without consideration. In Journey to the West, Bull Demon King did have cheated in his marriage, with a Jade Faced Fox. So, Xiao Hong’s appellation wasn’t wrong. But Hao Ning, after finishing it, began to realize that he went beyond the border and added hastily, “Sorry. It should be your business.”

“It’s all passed.” Xiao Hong’s eyes dimmed, “They love each other, anyway. Sure, my dad also loves my mum.”

“But they didn’t doubt each other, at least!” Zhou Yuan raised his head, “What tore me up was that, I don’t know where my parents picked up such a notion that their spouse would surely become unfaithful once they’d gained a fortune. Now, well. I was originally intended to deal with their dissatisfaction with me, but it ended up with their dissatisfaction with each other. Today it has been a big scene.”

“How? A fight?” Hao Ning thought that if they fought, he would give each of them two slaps on the face to calm them down, though he’d have another two from Zhou Yuan as a recompense.

“I’d rather they fought!” Zhou Yuan smiled bitterly, “My mum began to weep, yell and hang herself to death today. Because she doubted that my father was cheating on her, so the most logical plot following would be that when my mother took a suicide, my father didn’t care about her at all. So, the father in my mother’s heart really stopped caring about her! Then my mother thought, if you fell ill for a long time, certainly your son wouldn’t show his respect as much as before. So, the she in her imagination really fell ill, and I really began to betray her!”

“Eh, eh eh…” Hao Ning and Xiao Hong heard his words and lost their words, “Your talent really takes on people’s imagination! ‒ But the way of fulfilling people is too, stupid, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you identify it first? Women say a lot of opposite words!” Hao Ning teased, “She asks you to go, but you need to stay. She asks you if you’re busy, but she actually wants you to accompany her. She says you are cheating, but in fact, she wants to prove that you don’t!”

“Please!” Zhou Yuan covered his eyes, wordless, “Arts can’t beat the fate, and the fate can’t beat human’s hearts! What’s worse, it’s a woman’s heart. Even Manjusri Bodhisattva’s Hui sword couldn’t solve such a problem, so are you counting on a moment god as unreliable as me to sort it out?”

Hao Ning sighed. He had to admit that Zhou Yuan’s words made sense.

“If I had been at home, I could have managed to handle the situation,” Zhou Yuan went on, “But I have an important task today and overexerted my power. I didn’t keep my eyes on it. And in this way, my mum jumped into the river in front of my dad.”

“Jumped into the river?” Hao Ning pointed at the road urgently and said to Xiao Hong, “You’ve taken the wrong way. The river is there ‒”

“No need.” Zhou Yuan said, “Someone saved my mother. My mother had imagined that someone would save her, so he did.”

“Eh… Isn’t that good?” Hao Ning wiped his sweat, “The whole of your family was safe.”

“But in my mother’s imagination, the one who saved her is her first love.” Zhou Yuan said with a gloomy face, “While my father at the time also doubted that my mom would hope her first love to save her. But her first love has passed away for a long time.”

“So what?” Hao Ning was confused, “What would come to them?”

“They would get a divorce!” Zhou Yuan said with a face mixed with weeping and laugh, “My mum would like to be with the first love in her imagination and my dad gave up concealing and brought the girls who liked him in his imagination back and confessed everything to my mum!‒ Of course, all of this was only in their imagination, while they had nothing in reality.”

“To marry the first love in her imagination and to bring the girls in his imagination…” Xiao Hong drove, his eyes gaping at the front, and he uttered after quite a while, “Your parents are so good at looking for pleasures…”

“Eh…” Hao Ning took a deep breath, “So that is to say, your mum and your dad, because of their imaginative world, are to divorce from each other and be with their illusory partner?”

“Em…” Zhou Yuan hid his head into the knees.

“Ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha…” Xiao Hong burst into laughter abruptly. Hao Ning was about to laugh as well. Such ridiculous things. Though they’d jumped into the river and cried for a divorce, the affair talked by Zhou Yuan couldn’t arouse his sympathy at all.

“You even laugh here!” Zhou Yuan wore an upset face and was to wring Hao Ning’s neck, “Where’s your humanity? People’s lives are god’s concern, while my family is on the edge of breaking down!”

“I have a question for you.” Xiao Hong finished his laugh and asked calmly, “You gave them the world as they desired, while their desire broke your family. So, who is to blame?”

“I know. It’s their problem.” Zhou Yuan lowered his head and said, “Their desire boosted their wish and they finally couldn’t even believe the facts.”

“No.” Xiao Hong shook the head, “You still haven’t looked through it. The prime responsibility is on you.”

“Me?” Zhou Yuan asked in confusion, “I’ve been giving them the life they want, including myself, who have been struggling to change myself to correspond with their expectations! As a son, to please them, I’ve even lost my soul. What else do they want?”

“That’s your biggest problem.” Hao Ning patted Zhou Yuan’s shoulder, “You always want to cooperate with their expectations, for which you even used your soul and your power. But you ignored one thing, that they’re human, and you’re human as well. They have requirements, but you have requirements, too. To live as parents and sons, it doesn’t mean that one has to compromise, but everyone has to experience conflict and reach an agreement so that you all live the life you want. It’s important to obey your parents, but if you always compromise in order to fulfill your parents, they seem happy in the short term, but how about in the long term? Paper can’t cover the fire, and can the illusory compromise be covered?

“Samely, in reverse, if parents always give up their own daily life for their children,” Xiao Hong went on, “They will not only lose the pleasure in their life but also put more pressure on their children. In this way, both the parents and the children would lose themselves and become a slave of family love. To say the best, they could live through the whole life peacefully, while to say the worst, with it being like yours, they’ll hold each other and get ruined together.

“You…” Zhou Yuan listened to him and thought it reasonable, but in the end, he was still unwilling to admit that. He straightened his neck and said, “How do you know that? You don’t understand the love between parents and children in the real world…”

“Hey! What are you saying!” Hao Ning knew that Zhou Yuan didn’t really mean that, but he worried those words might hurt Xiao Hong’s feelings, so he lost no time in consoling Xiao Hong, “Don’t care about him. Zhou Yuan’s unstable now. He doesn’t mean that.”

Xiao Hong smiled, “Nothing serious ‒Zhou Yuan you’re right. My parents are in the book, not in reality. But I think the topic of parents and children actually goes across the border between reality and virtual world. When my dad and mom were alive, I could see that they were happy. Even auntie fox intervened in their marriage afterward, my father still loved my mother deeply. Because with Jade Faced Fox added, it still coincided with the normal morality at that time in the book. By the way, I’m very thankful to them. They allowed me for freedom when I was a child. But even that, I didn’t lose my respect for them nor betray them after I’ve become the chief of the mountain, and they didn’t judge me because of their over-concern. Of course, due to the fault I committed later, I got a lesson from Bodhisattva. But that was the world. Both in The Journey to the West and in the real world, we have to take responsibility for our faults, don’t we? My parents gave me birth and raised me up, but they couldn’t look after me all my life. I have to learn to adapt to the world, don’t I?”

“Xiao Hong…” Hao Ning didn’t expect Xiao Hong to give such a logical discourse, “Sorry, I’ve always thought you as…”

“As the naughty boy, the chief of the mountain who dared to eat Tang Sanzang and even set fire to him?” Xiao Hong rubbed his eyes and smiled, “Everyone grows up, I, you, and Zhou Yuan. Zhou Yuan, your parents should do as well…”

“You’re right.” Zhou Yuan nodded, “But how should I do with the thing here? Should I let them get a divorce?”

“I don’t know. Even the most virtuous judge finds it difficult to conclude the affair in a family.” Xiao Hong shook his head, “But you have to know that whatever comes to you in the end, everyone has to take responsibility for his or her choice.”

“You don’t know?” Zhou Yuan noticed they were approaching the district of his house and signed Xiao Hong to stop urgently, “Then what should I do?”

“Well,” Hao Ning, peering at the gate of the district, didn’t wait for Xiao Hong’s answer and asked in bewilderment, “Your mum was saved from the river, right? Why didn’t she go to the hospital first for a check-up?”

“As for that…” Zhou Yuan scratched his head and said timidly, “The river that my mum jumped into was imagined by her and my dad…”

“What?” Hao Ning, seeing that Zhou Yuan was about to get out of the car, dragged him and didn’t let him go. He got mad and scolded, “What are you doing? It’s all fake from the beginning to the end, then what do you want from us here? No, no. If it was all fake, then how did the granny next door know that your mum took suicide?”

“Certainly, my dad, who saw the illusion told her.” Zhou Yuan said, “Get out of the car, or we’ll be too late!”

“How can we be too late? You’re so funny.” Hao Ning was pissed off to laugh, “So your parents played a simulation game, and they took it real. They jumped into a fake river, took a fake suicide, met with a fake ex, found several fake girls, and now they’re up to a real divorce? How can we help? By watching Seventy Rounds Between Husband and Wife, or by playing Idle Big Sister Ma?

“No no no.” Zhou Yuan seemed reserved in his words, but he was obviously anxious, “Let’s go…”

“So, Zhou Yuan you finally realized that?” Xiao Hong said suddenly, “You realized that something was going wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Hao Ning asked in puzzlement, “All were fake. What could be right or wrong?”

“Zhou Yuan realized that the fake was even more terrible than the real.” Xiao Hong glimpsed at Zhou Yuan, “Am I right?”

“Em…” Zhou Yuan eventually nodded.

“Ah…” Xiao Hong sighed and whispered, “Bodhisattva’s been insightful to send me here…”