‘SEE YOU MORNING’ 125 The Wind of Freedom
There was no one left on this continent that he cared for. Everyone had their own destiny, and Lin Yuhui had no regrets about the choices he had made in life. He understood that under those circumstances, he could not have done any better. In the arduous search, being able to hold onto one’s true self was already winning at life. As for those small imperfections and shortcomings, they were all scenery on the journey of life, imperfect yet perfect experiences. There was truly no need to correct them and start over, just like retaking the same exam to get a higher score—it was meaningless. Leaving this place of sorrow, heading once again to the other side of the ocean, he could not say why.
But this time, he did not want to trouble himself by going to the military base in the desert. He would rather fulfill the dream he never got to realize while alive—to see the world.
Elevating his position to expand his field of vision, he discovered a brightly lit metropolis in the night. American metropolises were different from Chinese ones. Although American cities covered a larger area, the residential areas, especially the suburbs, were all low-rise buildings—single-family homes or row houses, sitting in clusters, giving a monotonous and barren impression.
Indeed, the residences in this suburban area did look somewhat run-down. Perhaps it was a place where the poor gathered. But even though the houses were dilapidated, the faint glow shining from the windows in the deep night still made one feel the warmth of home.
For Lin Yuhui, physical matter was no longer physical. Walls, doors, bodies—he could see through them, and he could pass through them. In the cozy little family below, a mother was preparing dinner, and a little boy was listening to the radio. In 2063, not many people still listened to the radio. Lin Yuhui paid attention—it was ordinary guitar playing and singing, and the performer seemed to be a teenager too.
Where the heart goes, the body follows. Just as he wondered who was performing, his perspective had already shifted to another family. It turned out to be several kids running their own podcast in their basement—they should count as neighborhood stars. The band had a keyboardist, a drummer, and the lead singer was the guitarist. Cheerful but slightly immature, clearly they hadn’t found a bassist yet.
Leaving these somewhat noisy kids, Lin Yuhui wandered aimlessly through the neighborhood. Different families lived pretty much the same lives, nothing particularly special, all very ordinary. At that moment, he felt a trace of loneliness and sadness. Looking down, an old woman was alone at home, only her bedroom lit with dim light. Approaching to observe, he saw she was leaning against the headboard, flipping through a family photo album she had taken from the bedside table. Looking at the people in the album, he couldn’t quite make out who they were, but he could sense the old woman was browsing through photos of herself as a child with her parents, because she was reliving those happy times—sun-drenched beaches, palm trees swaying in the wind. Perhaps she had come from the Los Angeles coast. Sigh, the ocean had drowned the West Coast and drowned her childhood too. It seemed her parents were already gone. Didn’t she have any children?
Thinking of that, he teleported again. Did every thought he had now have to be acted on immediately? Lin Yuhui was somewhat puzzled. He didn’t quite understand his current situation either. After all, he had never died before, and he didn’t remember what it was like after dying before. It seemed he truly needed time to adapt. At the very least, he shouldn’t act on every thought the moment it came to him. Could he install a switch for himself? Don’t act if you don’t want to. Ah, but that switch was gone now—the body was gone.
Before him, he had arrived in another home. Same architectural layout, same somewhat dilapidated look, not far away it seemed. A middle-aged woman was arguing with her teenage son, who slammed the door and left, leaving her alone in the room, crying.
Lin Yuhui drifted closer. He seemed to feel she was the old woman’s daughter, and in his mind, he recalled the scene of her sitting by the bed looking at the photo album. Actually, he didn’t have a brain anymore either. What he called “thinking” seemed to be pulling the scene from back then to the location of his head here and now.
And this middle-aged woman also seemed to remember something at that moment. She stood up calmly, walked to the living room, picked up the phone, and dialed a number. What was astonishing was that they were still using a wired dial phone. The phone number had only four digits—it seemed it could only be used within this neighborhood.
“Mom, it’s Amie,” she said, leaning her tired body against the wall. She swallowed the tears that had just welled up and sniffed.
“Ah, Amie, what’s wrong? Did you argue with your son again?” The old woman had detected something very carefully.
“Yeah, nothing I say gets through to him. He just…”
“Oh, Samuel is a good boy. Let him come talk to me,” the voice on the other end said very seriously.
“Ha, yeah, I was just planning to come see you,” the daughter said, breaking into a smile through her tears.
They were reconciled, but it only stirred up the sadness in Lin Yuhui’s heart. He muted their conversation and drifted up into the sky alone. Between the cold starry sky and the lights of ten thousand homes, there seemed to be no place for him.
Feeling the taste of the wind in the city night sky, gently brushing past his weary form, it seemed he had already merged with this softness and coolness. Simple and pure acceptance—it never required you to love it, nor would it reject anyone. So simple that Lin Yuhui felt an unprecedented lightness. He could relax his body, his state of mind, stretch out and experience this world, experience this world free from emotional entanglements.
Staring at the starry sky, he stretched out his limbs and lay above the city lights. He could feel the sparse traffic on the roads, like ants crawling across his back, but he no longer cared about what the people in the cars were thinking. He could also feel the warm apartment lights passing through his arms, but he didn’t want to ask about their lives either.
In the silence, he felt he could even transcend the present moment, walking the same street through different seasons—watching leaves fall in the wind, lights glow in the rain, and seeing the buildings along the street change with the passage of time. If there was a moment he lingered on, he would hold his breath and stay in that stretch of time, watching the sunrise illuminate the green trees all day long, then the sunset glow paint the sky. There was the blazing midday sun scorching the earth, and the cool evening breeze, with home lights shining through windows, faintly illuminating the street in front.
Unintentionally, he gazed again into the depths of the starry sky, and inevitably thought of her again. She had said she wouldn’t leave soon. Yes, she hadn’t. But he had lost his body and still hadn’t been able to wait for her. Although deep in his heart he also knew that he might not be right for her, might not be able to give her happiness, and might not be able to help her much, there was always that one obsession in his heart—to silently stay by her side, forever.
And now, had the moment come to let go, to quietly depart? Why was the wish for eternal love so difficult to fulfill?