Hair Coiling Chapter 5 Pre-existance

         ‘You …, you damned devil!’ I got away from him, trembled with anger. I was blushed and felt my face burning terribly when thinking I was lured by a 3-year-old baby and was obsessed with him so much just now.
  ‘Honey …’ little baby threw himself over again. ‘Don’t call me honey!’ I was shamed into anger and stopped him with my hands.
  ‘Why? But you surely agreed to marry me!’ Little baby was hurt, he curled his lips and seemed to weep again.
  ‘You dare say that!’ I thundered, ‘How could I agree with you if you didn’t cheat me under such a disguise?’
  ‘I didn’t cheat you, that was how I would look like when I grow up.’ Little baby held my legs, tears filling in his eyes, ‘Honey, I didn’t cheat …’
  Anyone would feel weird seeing a two or three-year-old baby holding a woman of 30 and called her ‘honey’. People might think I was bullying him. I signed, stooped down, watching into his eyes, tried to reason things out. ‘So you have understood it is the appearance after you grow up, Ming Yan, which means you are still a child, now. I’m 30 already, so how can I marry a 3-year-old baby?’
  ‘I’m not 3, I’m 300 already.’ He interrupted, bearing tears in his eyes, accused me unyieldingly, ‘How could you judge me by my appearance? My intelligence is several dozen times higher than people of your age.’
  ‘But you look as 2 or 3, only.’ Only high IQ? Certainly wouldn’t do. There was another thing in this world called ‘emotion quotient’. I restrained my temper and continued to talk sense with him, ‘Ming Yan, human world is far more complicated than the place where you are living and the heart of human is far more difficult to observe than those of ghosts you are living with. Even though you are 300 years old, you are as pure and innocent as a human child and this is the difference between you and me. If you have the opportunity to experience human’s life on earth in the future, you will understand what I’m saying now.’
  ‘I don’t understand …’ He cut in, weeping, ‘I just like my wife and want to be with her forever, can’t I?’
  I signed again, holding his little body tightly; my heart was soaked with bitterness. Honestly, it was not that I wasn’t moved by his word – there was someone who liked me so purely, without any filth in his likeness – maybe only a child could achieve this; however, just because he was a child, there might be many changes of him on the way of his growing which would be too much for me to undertake. Child, I dared not to risk, my heart had been badly damaged and could not bear any toss and turn.
  ‘Ming Yan, how long is forever, do you know?’ I asked him softly, the later stunned, ‘How long is forever? I … I don’t know …’
  ‘Neither do I.’ I smiled slightly, gently looked at him, ‘Forever can be a long, long period of time, or a very short one. If it means very long, can you assure of your likeness unchanged after a hundred, a thousand or even 10 thousand years? Don’t rush to answer, boy. It will be a real long time within which mountains can be leveled into plains, seas can be changed into mulberry fields and human’s feelings will change along with the world outside. It’s natural and blameless. Now you like me, very much, because present you like present me; once we changed, and you were not present no more and neither of me, the likeness would dimmed by time and nothing would left after a thousand years, no one would know that you had been fond of me very, very much and you might even not remember it at all.’
  Little baby was completely dis-oriented and confused at my long-winded speech. Seeing his stunning look, I didn’t know whether he had understood me or not. Anyway, as he said his IQ was so high that he should know what I was talking about, so I continued, ‘Forever can also be short, too short before people can realize what’s going on. You took over my case yourself and you should know clearly the life of my preexistence. In my previous life, there was a man I loved so much, I thought the love would exist forever till I realized it was my money not me that he was chasing for all the time. After I was deceived once, I still trusted him only because I loved him, then I was hurt even harder after being deceived for the second time. At the beginning when I was with him, I thought it might be the start of our future, but I would never know, for the day he get along with me, for him it was the end of our relationship once and for all.’
  So I didn’t believe in love. Love was permeated with lies and cheating, with sordid affairs and conspiracies. After I broke up with that guy, I’d been through uncountable blind-dates. Men caviled at your face, figure, style of conversation, education, work, family background, or, at least possessing a wallet with which they could calculate at any time they wished. So, your mind, your talent and your moral character were nothing for men and love could be no more than a loincloth for them to cover their actions of squeezing anything in favor of them.
  Little baby looked at me gently, holding my hands. I smiled and continued, ‘Later I was along with a man who claimed he had fallen in love with me silently for more than 10 years, but just before the wedding, I was diagnosed breast cancer at a company’s routine health examination. Once he heard that I would have a breast cut off, he was scared and ran away without even a word of good-bye. It’s not that I don’t want to believe in love, Ming Yan, I don’t have the confidence to believe. As I don’t believe, how can there be a marriage for me?’
  ‘That’s all because they are not good guys. They are not suitable for you. I am not of their kind, honey.’ Little baby looked at me seriously and said.
  ‘I know,’ I gently held his small soft hands; ‘I believe you are different. But even a good man may not suitable for marriage, don’t you remember my father? The marriage of my parents was the result of love, but only love was not enough for marriage. Because my father was eccentric, lazy and unsophisticated, my mother had been sustaining the whole family for 30 years by working hard all day in the company and running household at home in the evening. Anything concerning with family wouldn’t do without her, so that my family was collapsed when she was gone and since my father, as strong and healthy as ever, was no longer able to look after himself due to his idleness, he married again one week after the death of my mother – he needed a nurse to take care of his life. What funny! My father, he didn’t want love, no marriage, either, just a nurse. However, he couldn’t afford the charges for nurse, so he wanted a wife – a nurse for free, so he wanted a marriage. Although he didn’t need money to hire a wife, he needed love to lure her, so he wanted love. The reason of his present existence was all due to his need. What a joke! You know, my father was not a bad man, but he could bring misery to others. Ming Yan, this is marriage, it is so worldly and vulnerable for selfish people. Since it’s such a horrible thing, how do I dare to accept it?’
  ‘Not everybody is like him.’ Little baby stroked my face pitifully, his look was so soft as if water was about to drop from his eyes. ‘Honey, don’t be so extreme, I won’t be like him.’
  ‘I know, I know.’ I echoed with him in blank dismay, didn’t protest. ‘Ming Yan, I know I was extreme, not every man is like my father and not every man touches me in order to deceive me. I’m just scared, the more I scared, the more sensitive I become, so I don’t want any love and no marriage, either, then nothing can hurt me.’
  ‘Just because they hurt you so bad, you didn’t want to be reincarnated and only sought having your body and soul destroyed completely?’ Ming Yan lowered his eyelids and spoke softly.
  I smiled, thinking that I was died of cancer cell spreading and sent to Hades, feeling no more interests in starting a new life to undertake all those sufferings again, I firmly refused reincarnation and only applied to have myself destroyed forever. My obstinateness finally drew Ming Yan’s attention. He might think I was an interesting toy to play with, which made him having a quite session with me.
  ‘But you cheated me by telling that I can corpse revive! I thought I could time-jump like those girls of time-jumping stories described in Jinjiang who enjoyed comfortable life ever after and had a good handful of hotties to seduce with, I thought I could truly live a happy lazy life, yet I never thought I would be in such a damn body.’ Thinking I was easily deceived by Ming Yan, I couldn’t control the rage. ‘Other girls time-jumped for a happy life, but I for sufferings, you bastard!’
  ‘I just wanted you to know that those men were bad and I was better than anyone of them.’ Ming Yan hugged me tightly, ‘Is it the reason you begged to have your memory preserved before you revived, to suffer no more in the coming life?’
  I signed. Though I didn’t agree with his method, I could see he didn’t mean any harm to me. ‘Yes. For me, those are valuable experience. Why should I pant along to learn that again from beginning and to feel the ugly nature of life?’ I smiled and said gratefully, ‘I thank you, Ming Yan, for making me suffer less.’
  ‘You don’t need to thank. I just didn’t want you to forget me, so I kept your memory.’ Little baby was dropping tears, ‘I did it all for myself, so I am selfish, too, right? In fact I am not different from them. You didn’t want to marry me, but I kept messing around and forced you to marry me. I sent you to corpse-revive, to the most evil man just wanted you to understand that men in this world were all bad, but I never thought you would be hurt. You wouldn’t suffer if I was not that selfish. I’m sorry, honey.’
  He still insisted calling me ‘honey’, even when he was confessing. I didn’t know whether to laugh or blame. He was a real child – children always wouldn’t let go of their loving toys. A question came into my mind suddenly, ‘Ming Yan, am I dead again?’ I asked out of curiosity.
  ‘Dead?’ He widely opened his eyes, didn’t know why I was asking, ‘Of course not. It’s not so easy to die.’
  ‘Then why could I see you?’ I was surprised, ‘Are you not Junior Yama?’
  ‘I’m in your dream, my silly honey.’ He cackled.
  Dream? I understood, pretended to be angry and said, ‘I have privacy, little devil, don’t get into my dream again at random.’
  ‘No!’ He cried anxiously whose face flaming with blushes, ‘Otherwise I will never have chances to see you.’
  ‘But I can’t always let you in when I fall asleep!’ I gave him a wry face.
  ‘Not always. I have to deal with a lot of business everyday and can only come to you in my spare time. However, if you miss me or need my help, I will drop business and come over all at once.’ While he was talking, he drew out from his pocket a black jade stringing by a red cord and hung it on my neck. ‘Wear it, honey, when you miss me, you call my name in your mind and I will know it.’ He said, like swearing an oath.
  I picked up the black jade. It was carved into the shape of a dragon which body was all black. It was strange that the color turned into natural red at the corner of dragon’s opening mouth, which was carved by a wonderful workmanship into a flame spurting out from the dragon’s mouth.
  ‘It’s so beautiful,’ I admired, ‘but it must be valuable very much, what if I drop it?’
  ‘You won’t. This jade is intelligent. It can recognize its master. Once I gave it to you, then you were its master, see? You can’t drop it even if you want to.’ There was a sense of arrogance in his voice, unintentionally. Was it the confidence to his self-capacity and the fairy treasure?
  ‘Thanks.’ Holding the jade, my heart was filled with gratitude. It was obvious a real amulet for me and there upon, I would have someone to turn to when I was in hard times, no matter how danger it might be.
  Ming Yan shook his head, ‘It was I who made you in such a worse body and made you face so many troubles. But, as you have revived already, I can’t control your life any more until you finish your life-span. Honey, I want you to know, whatever you will encounter, you are not alone.’ He said regretfully.
  I wish I could thank again before tears dropped which were wiped off by his chubby little hands. ‘Honey, I can’t stay outside for too long, I got to go. Is there any other things I can do for you?’ He had to say, though not willing to.
  I thought for a while and asked, ‘My family, how are they now?’
  I wanted to know about my brother Yezi of my pre-existence – the only relative in my heart, and my hateful father – though the hurt be brought to me was far greater than the family relationship, he was my consanguinity after all.
  Ming Yan waved his hands and an image appeared before me. I saw Yezi shooting wedding photos with his lovely girl friend in a photography parlor. There was happiness written on their faces. Yezi was going to have his own family, how fast! One year had passed in the world while I was spending one day in Hades. Maybe the sorrow my death brought to him had dimmed away. Scenes changed, I saw father sitting at desk playing with internet and his remarried wife was busy in the kitchen – all the same as before.
  ‘They are fine, aren’t they?’ I gave a hug to Ming Yan’s body, grinning. ‘Thank you, Ming Yan.’
  ‘Honey, I’m leaving.’ His eyes were as clear as crystal where tears were twinkling. ‘Can you kiss me again?’
  I smiled, lowered my head and kissed his shining eyes softly. It was a mild refuse. He knew it, and I knew, too. He threw himself over, tightly holding me, letting his tears fall on my neck. ‘Honey, no matter what happened, you are always the one I loved most. Even if you don’t want to marry me, in my heart, you are always my dearest wife.’ He choked out through tears.
  His body shrank into a ball of light and disappeared gradually in my arms. I sit still, clenching the black jade pendant that was hanging from my neck, smiled quietly.