Chapter 29 Encore: Additional Extra (Finale)

The young nurse came back to see Fatty later, wearing a short skirt instead of her nurse outfit. She looked young and lovely, but Fatty didn’t see it.

The young nurse sat in the restaurant, refusing to leave, but I was the only one who was finally able to persuade her to go back.

As she was leaving, the young nurse asked me why I wasn’t encouraging my friend even though she came all the way here. Was he the type of man who didn’t dare take this kind of opportunity?

I didn’t know how to answer.

But even I couldn’t encourage Fatty, let alone Fatty himself.

In fact, such things happened all the time. Fatty could be considered attractive among fat people—probably because he was funny—but he no longer cared about such feelings.

In his words, it wasn’t that he was dead set against it, it was just that the time had passed and he had to be more considerate to the other party.

In the past, I used to think that I’d see Fatty waiting for me to come back, smoking a cigarette and looking at me like he was saying goodbye to the one he adored, but in fact, that never happened once. Fatty would always fall asleep, not even thinking about what he had missed.

Fatty was getting better with the cats. I seemed to remember that he didn’t like cats before and always thought that they were spoiled animals. He liked dogs because they were obedient.

When we weren’t busy, he and I started playing Chinese chess in front of the restaurant. Both of us drank beer and were soon reclining on the couch, sleeping until a visitor came and woke us up.

The village secretary’s father-in-law passed away, so on this day, we went to help out with the funeral. We also took care of the dishes for the banquet, which was commonly known as Chixi.

Fatty and I cooked a big pot of food and watched as the old man’s coffin was lowered into the ground.

The old man had been very kind to us, so after he was buried, we lit some incense for him. If the old man knew our identities, he probably would’ve shivered in fright.

The next day, some family’s kid was getting married. We cooked the same old dishes and added a little red soy sauce before we passed them off as wedding dishes.

Fatty no longer sighed with emotion; that was just how life and death were. I always felt that Fatty had changed, but I couldn’t say how.

Later, we went to get physical exams and met the young nurse again. She treated us very well but seemed estranged from Fatty.

We also saw that she had a boyfriend now, who appeared to be a colleague. The two were quite the match.

“They won’t last long,” I said to Fatty as we were leaving.

“I think they’re a perfect match,” Fatty said.

Poker-Face didn’t come to the physical examination. He didn’t need it and he wasn’t interested in getting one anyways.

That plot of land next door to us, which Fatty and Poker-Face had been taking care of, now had a good harvest.

It was mainly rice, but there were many vegetables as well.

Rice you had collected yourself and wine you had fermented yourself really did taste different.

I sent a lot to the young nurse without telling Fatty. In fact, it was nice to have a familiar person in the hospital, so we needed to maintain our relationship with her.

Later, the nurse broke up with her boyfriend and came to Xilaimian again, sitting alone outside the restaurant.

The scene was really heartbreaking, but Fatty remained hard-hearted. He cooked lots of food for her but didn’t come out of the kitchen. Then, the young nurse said that she wanted to quit her job, so Fatty came out cursing and persuaded her to give up the thought.

Later, the young nurse got married, but I couldn’t tell whether it was for love or not.

She didn’t post as much in WeChat Moments.

Then, she had a baby and excessively shared the pictures on her social media. At that time, we basically weren’t in contact with each other, but we could see that she was looking happier later on. Even if she didn’t marry for love at that time, we could tell that she finally got along with her husband and fell in love.

Fatty was as immovable as a mountain, so we also didn’t say anything.

Then, on a very special day, the young nurse brought her husband and child to have dinner with us. They appeared to be on a trip. We discovered that her husband was from the northeast, which was hard to imagine since a marriage between the north and the south wasn’t easy.

Fatty was holding her baby and chatting happily.

He said that the meal was on the house, and the young nurse didn’t refuse.

At that time, we were certain that she was happy.

Everyone drank a lot of our Yuanshan wine, and after we finished eating, I watched it all quietly from the side.

I actually wanted to ask Fatty, “All of this could have been yours. Now that you’re looking at it, do you regret it or feel sorry that you gave it up?”

But I didn’t ask; I knew what Fatty would say.

The husband from the northeast was actually a bit similar to Fatty, so while I was daydreaming, it was like I could see Fatty living a happy life in that man’s place with Poker-face and I watching from the side.

I could see all this, so Fatty could probably see it even more realistically.

Time passed by and the young nurse didn’t visit again. It seemed that she had been transferred to Zhejiang.

Fatty was the same as usual. In fact, we were all the same as usual.

We just continued to mind our own business.

Heaven is when nothing disturbs our minds. Those who drink wine alone are also immortals.

I paced alone on the road across the field while the sunset was hiding its last gold like a miser.

The daylight sank deeper and deeper into the darkness, and the widowed land, whose harvest had been reaped, lay silent.

Suddenly a boy’s shrill voice rose into the sky. He traversed the dark unseen, leaving the track of his song across the hush of the evening.

His village home lay there at the end of the wasteland, beyond the sugar-cane field, hidden among the shadows of the banana and the slender areca palm, the cocoa-nut and the dark green jack-fruit trees.

I stopped for a moment in my lonely way under the starlight and saw spread before me the darkened earth surrounding with her arms countless homes furnished with cradles and beds, mothers’ hearts and evening lamps, and young lives glad with a gladness that knows nothing of its value for the world.

-Tagore⁽¹⁾

<Chapter 28><Table of Contents><Part 3 Chapter 1> 

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TN Notes:

(1) Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian poet and writer. This is titled “Home” from the “Crescent Moon” collection, which Tagore translated from Bengali himself. I took it straight from here.

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So uh…we’re caught up? lol. Just took about a year and half but we’ve finally made it. ヽ(*⌒▽⌒*)ﾉ There are probably a few extras we need to do (here’s lookin’ at you “Queen of the West’s Ghost Banquet” that has nothing to do with the still-not-updated sequel to “Ten Thousand Mountains”) but that’s for another day. Once those extras are done, I’ll go back and FINALLY finish fixing Vol 8 and all the others after that. It’s been a great ride people. Thanks for the continued love and support even though it’s edited MTL (⌒ω⌒) I’ll keep checking to see if the sequel gets updated, or if there are any extras, but it’s NPSS so don’t hold your breath.

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