Revelation of the Way of Heaven

Chapter 449 Lin Xia

When Lin Xia was released, she sat alone by the second-floor window, propping her head up with her hand and looking at the sunset through the glass. Her face was haggard, and she had dark circles under her eyes. The golden sunlight shone through the window and fell on her hair, giving it a golden hue. Just as Teacher Wang had said, she became unusually quiet.

Du Cheng carefully sat down next to her and quietly placed his favorite doll in her hand.

"Ah Cheng," the girl said sadly, "I want to become that cloud that has nothing, and then wander forever, not knowing where I'll end up, or where I'll drift off to, just wandering forever..."

At the age of 13, Lin Xia was adopted by a childless working-class couple. Her adoptive parents sent her to school, but she often drew in class and was criticized by her teachers. One day, she drew a canoe under the moonlight on her math test paper, which was discovered by her teacher. The teacher could no longer tolerate it and told her adoptive parents about her drawing in class.

That evening, her adoptive mother tore her paintings to shreds and yelled at her, "Can painting put food on the table? You're wasting your life painting in class! If you don't study hard now, how will you survive in the future? How will you support us in our old age?"

Seeing Lin Xia lower her head and remain silent, her adoptive mother took a deep breath, suppressing her anger, and patiently said to her, "Xia, you must study hard now so that you can get into a top high school at 15. After getting into high school, you must immediately enroll in an arts specialty class so that you can get extra points on the college entrance exam when you're 18, which will help you get into a top university. After graduating from university at 22, you'll have a stable job, and your future will be secure. Then we'll have someone to rely on when we're old. Do you understand your mother's good intentions?"

"An arts specialty class? Can I study fine arts?" Lin Xia asked.

"Of course you can do it then. I'd love for you to study hard." The foster mother smiled and said, "But your math grades are really bad right now. I have to enroll you in a math tutoring class. You'll have to go to tutoring every Saturday and Sunday from now on."

The year she was admitted to high school at the age of 15, she finally enrolled in an art class as she had wished. However, when she drew her masterpiece in class, the instructor criticized her in front of everyone, saying, "What are you drawing? It's completely haphazard! You have to draw like this to win awards in competitions, and only winning awards can give you extra points in the college entrance examination!"

From that day on, she began to hate drawing for the first time.

At the age of 18, she still failed to fulfill her adoptive mother's wish; she did not get into university. However, her adoptive parents made her continue to repeat her studies, getting up at 6 a.m. every morning to study and finishing her evening self-study at 10 p.m.

"I'm not repeating a year." One day, she couldn't take it anymore and voiced her protest, only to be met with an angry rebuke from her adoptive mother: "We brought you out of the orphanage, scrimped and saved to send you to school, and spent so much money on tutoring classes for you. You think you can just quit? What future will you have if you don't get into university? How will you support us in our old age? Don't you have any gratitude at all?"

She had no choice but to continue studying for the college entrance exam, but after a year of repeating, she still failed to get into university. Her adoptive parents then found her a stable and respectable job, but she didn't like it and often went to Du Cheng to complain: "Cheng, you know my dream is to pursue freedom. What's the point of living such a monotonous life for the rest of my life?"

The following year, her adoptive parents introduced her to a man with a stable job but who was somewhat dull and taciturn. She met with Du Cheng again. That day, she was wearing a white floral dress, sitting on a hillside, resting her chin on her hand, gazing at the distant fields, and murmured, "Cheng, you know I don't like guys who have no ideas, and I don't want to be tied down by marriage, becoming a caged bird that can never fly away again."

Du Cheng gazed at her long eyelashes and troubled face, took a deep breath, and said, "Lin Xia, actually...actually I...like you. How about we become a couple?" He then looked nervously at the girl.

Lin Xia turned her head and looked at him in surprise. After a while, she suddenly chuckled and said to him, "Acheng, don't joke like that. I'm your older sister. How can an older sister and younger brother be dating?" After saying that, she patted his head with her hand.

"But I..." Du Cheng wanted to say something, but his throat felt like it was filled with cement, and he couldn't utter a single word.

Lin Xia turned her head and continued to look into the distance, saying softly, "Acheng, I want to go south, to that place where the sky is always clear and the clouds are white, and where birds sing and flowers bloom everywhere."

"Then I'll go with you. We'll go south together and do what you want to do," Du Cheng said earnestly.

Lin Xia really went to the south. This was her second attempt at flying freely. She secretly quit her job, took the savings she had secretly saved, and jumped on a green train with Du Cheng to run away to the south.

When she first stood in the southern fields, blowing dandelions into the air and watching them fly, she opened her arms, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and happily said, "Ah Cheng, this is truly living."

In that place where spring reigns all year round, she fell in love with painting again. She found a relatively free job and spent her spare time painting in the fields. However, she soon fell into a predicament. The free job could not support her life and hobby, and no one appreciated her paintings. The most positive comments she received were "beautiful colors and lifelike." Even if someone pretended to appreciate her paintings, they were actually just attracted to her beauty. No one could understand her work.

Despite the harsh realities she faced, she persisted in pursuing her passion, day after day. Du Cheng watched this with heartache, yet felt powerless to help. Finally, at the age of 24, during her most difficult time, Du Cheng mustered his courage once again and said to her, "Lin Xia, marry me. I will love you dearly and give you a happy life."

"Ah Cheng, are you pitying me?" she stared fiercely into his eyes and questioned him.

"No," he hurriedly explained, "I just want to stay with you forever, until you find the freedom you desire."

Lin Xia looked at him, her gaze softening, and said, "Acheng, let's go to S City. It's an international metropolis, known as a paradise for art."

"Okay," Du Cheng agreed without hesitation.

So the next day, they took the train together to City S.

Her work did not find an audience in S City. The so-called experts commented that her paintings were "completely chaotic, with such bright colors, crude and vulgar." She was not convinced. Even if she had to live on the streets, she would still show her paintings. Finally, one day, someone said to her, "Your paintings are very beautiful. I can help you put on an exhibition."

"Really?" she asked happily, thinking that she had finally found someone who could appreciate her.

"Well, but you have to promise to be my girlfriend," the man said again.

That was the first time she felt that her ideals and passions had been tainted.

Later, she set up stalls on the street to sell her paintings. If someone genuinely liked her paintings, she would sell them without hesitation, even if the price was low. Eventually, someone took a liking to her paintings and bought them in large quantities. Although the prices were low, she was happy because finally someone appreciated her work. However, one day she discovered that her paintings were being used to impersonate other celebrities and make illicit profits.

It was raining heavily that day. She walked down the street, feeling dejected, when she saw a small dog that had been hit by a car, howling on the roadside, but no one paid any attention to it. She squatted down, hugged it in her arms, and a strange smile appeared on her face.

"You're so pitiful," she said to the puppy.

A few days later, when Du Cheng saw her, she had become very haggard. She was standing on the edge of the rooftop, and Du Cheng was watching her nervously from behind. The sky was very blue that day, and the white clouds in the sky were very light, which were blown away by the wind.

"Ah Cheng, are you tired?" she asked.

"I'm not tired," Du Cheng said without hesitation. "As long as I'm with you, I'll never feel tired."

"But I'm tired," she said, looking up at the sky and then down at the ground. Du Cheng's heart skipped a beat at her movements. "Why is it that we can never succeed? This world is a cage, and no matter how hard we try, we can't fly out."

So on that beautiful, sunny day, she ended her life and chose to fly.