đź“– Chapter 1085 - Old Beggar!
Time passed. It had already been thirty years since Sun De finished telling the story of All and Ancient.
For a mortal, thirty years was basically half a lifetime. Anything could happen. In the small town, several batches of children were born, grew up, got married, and gave birth to children of their own.
But there were also batches of people who declined, despaired, grew old, and even died.
However, the town itself remained unchanged. The buildings didn’t change, nor did the city walls. The administrative compound remained the same, as did… the teahouse of that year.
Everything was the same. Although there might be some damages, overall, there weren’t many changes. At most, it was things like a house having some broken tiles, some cracked bricks in the city wall, a few missing plaques from the administrative compound, or… a storyteller missing from the teahouse.
Over the years, additional people and things had also appeared in the town. Additional shops appeared on the streets, additional towers appeared on the city walls, additional drums appeared in the administrative compound, additional customers appeared in the teahouse, and… beneath the bridge east of the city, an additional beggar had appeared as well.
This beggar had a head of hair as white as snow. His clothes were filthy and ragged, and his hands were so caked in dirt that it seemed to be growing from his skin. He was leaning against the wall behind him, and in front of him was a broken wooden table with a black wooden board on it. The old beggar looked at the sky in a daze with murky eyes, and his whole body was caked in filth. However, his wrinkled face… remained very clean.
It seemed that this was the one and only decency he afforded himself.
However, this clean face of his made for a jarring contrast with the other filthy beggars around him, and it was also incongruous with the bustling crowds in the surroundings.
But the beggar didn’t seem to care. After a while, clouds covered the sky, and the old beggar let out a strange sound. It was as if he was laughing, or maybe… crying. Lowering his head, he picked up the black wooden board and knocked it on the table. The crisp bam of that year sounded out once more.
“Yesterday, we were talking about the time 90 million kalpas before the destruction of the Vast Expanse Dao Domain. Beyond heaven and earth, in the depths of an endless and unknown starry sky, there were two Almighties who had existed since time immemorial battling it out for the throne of the Immortal!
“The one named All raised his right hand and grabbed the Heavenly Daos, about to crush them…
“Ancient was even more astonishing. Turning around, he began to reverse time…” The old beggar’s voice rose and fell. He shook his head, seemingly completely immersed in telling the story. His murky eyes seemed not to see the crowds of people passing by in a hurry. Instead, he was far away, in the teahouse of back then, watching his audience listening with intoxicated expressions…
Even though the other beggars glared at him when he spoke, he still knocked the black wooden board in his hand on the table and continued speaking.
“Damn old man, you’ve been telling this story for thirty years already. Don’t you have anything new?”
“Bastard Sun, hurry and shut up. You woke me up from my nap, are you asking for another beating?!” The voices of dissatisfaction grew louder and louder. Finally, a middle-aged beggar with a ferocious appearance stepped forward and grabbed the old man by the collar.
“Old Man Sun, do you still think you’re the Mr. Sun of back then? I’m warning you. If you dare disturb my rest one more time, this place… will no longer welcome you!”
Although the old beggar’s eyes were dim, he still glared at the middle-aged beggar who had grabbed him.
“Bold! I am Mr. Sun, I am a seeded scholar, I am famous all over the world, I…”
“Fucking lunatic!” The middle-aged beggar raised his right hand and was about to slap him. But at that moment, a low shout suddenly rang out from the distance.
“Stop!”
An old man holding a child of five or six years old slowly walked over from the other side of bridge.
When he saw the old man, the middle-aged beggar quickly let go and the savagery on his face turned into flattery. He quickly spoke some obsequious words.
“So, it’s Official Zhou. This little one offers my greetings.”
“Stand back.” The man surnamed Zhou frowned and tossed out some bronze coins. The middle-aged beggar quickly picked them up with an obsequious smile and hurriedly stepped back.
Official Zhou ignored the middle-aged beggar and turned to look at the old beggar surnamed Sun with a complicated gaze. The old beggar had straightened his clothes and resumed knocking the black wooden board on the table.
“Mr. Sun, if you have some time, please tell me the next part. I want to hear the part where Ancient fell victim to All’s 90-million-kalpa plot.” Official Zhou said softly.
The old beggar blinked and glanced at Official Zhou. Then he looked around, and a faint smile came to his face.
“So it was the waiter. Is everyone here?”
Official Zhou chuckled. He seemed to be lost in reminiscence for a while before replying.
“Mr. Sun, everyone’s here. We were just waiting for you to wake up.” He put down the curious little boy in his arms. Then he stepped forward and wiped the broken table with his sleeve.
The old beggar smiled triumphantly and picked up his black wooden board again, knocking it against the table with a crisp bam.
“Last time, we talked about…” The old beggar’s voice echoed among the sounds of the bustling crowds. He seemed to have returned to the past, and Official Zhou was the same. Finally, once dusk fell, the old beggar fell asleep. Official Zhou took a deep breath and looked at the darkening sky, then took off his coat and covered the sleeping old beggar. Bowing deeply, he left behind some money before bringing the child away.
As they walked into the distance, the child’s curious voice could be heard.
"Grandpa, who is that old beggar?"
“He is… Mr. Sun. When Grandpa was still working as a waiter in the teahouse, he was the person I admired most.”
“But why is he here? Doesn’t he need to go home?”
“Mr. Sun’s dream is to travel the world and observe the lives of the common people. He… must be tired, so he’s just taking a little rest here.” The old man’s melancholy voice mixed with the child’s innocent one as they walked further and further away.
He didn’t see that the sleeping old beggar behind him was slightly shivering. Tears were dripping down the beggar’s clean face, and as thunder boomed in the dark sky, drops of cold rain descended to the world.
The raindrops were cold, very cold… The shivering old beggar slowly opened his murky eyes and picked up the black wooden board on the table, caressing it gently. This was the only thing that had accompanied him from the beginning to the end.
As he touched the black wooden board, the old beggar looked up at the sky, remembering the rainy day from thirty years ago when he had finished his story.
The rain back then was also cold, cold and indifferent, just like the eyes of fate… After the story of All and Ancient, he didn’t have any more dreams. The stories he made up later, about the Devil, about the Demon, about the Eternal Will, about the Half-God Half-Immortal… none of them were exciting enough. At first, everyone had looked forward to his new stories, but they soon grew impatient, and in the end, no one cared anymore.
He had tried many different versions, but all of them were failures. His failure as a storyteller caused his status at home to plummet. His father-in-law became dissatisfied with him, his wife became more and more disgusted by him… in his bitterness, he could only bet everything on the imperial examination.
But… he failed.
His constant failures pushed Sun De down a dead end. Finally, he had no choice but to tell the story of All and Ancient again. This allowed him to return to his original high for a short period of time, but… seven years later, no matter how good the story was, it couldn’t be sustained. Gradually, everyone had already heard it who-knows-how-many times, and when other people started copying him, Sun De’s path was broken.
He lost his income, lost his reputation, and lost his dignity. After countless harsh words, his wife ended up entering the arms of another man right in front of him. They divorced, and his former father-in-law helped his ex-wife remarry.
Sun De also suffered from his initial deception about his identity. He was beaten up and had his legs broken before being thrown out of his former house. That day was also a cold and rainy one.
After losing his family, losing his career, losing his dignity, losing everything, and even losing his legs, sobbing in the rain, Sun De… couldn’t take it any more. He went crazy.
To put it another way, he had no choice but to go crazy. The higher his peak was, the worse it felt when he plummeted to the ground after losing everything. This gap was not something that ordinary people could bear.
After going crazy, he relied on the pity of his former listeners, who occasionally looked at him and sighed with reminiscence, to survive. Gradually, he became nothing more than a beggar, a beggar who lived in his own world where he was still a storyteller.
Many times, he had thought about dying. However, he was unwilling to die, and he always struggled to survive one more day. Through all of that… the only thing that accompanied him was his black wooden board.
Caressing the black wooden board in his hand, Sun De looked at the falling rain. Today, he felt colder and more lonely than usual, as if he was the only one left in the entire world. His vision began to blur… but then, faint voices and blurry figures seemed to emerge in his surroundings.
“Mr. Sun, hurry up and speak.”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Sun, we’ve all been scratching our heads since yesterday. Don’t just stand there, hurry up and keep telling the story!”
“Mr. Sun, our Mr. Sun! You kept us waiting for quite a while, but it was completely worth it!”
Listening to the enthusiastic voices all around him, looking at the crowd’s imploring gazes, Sun De smiled. But his body was growing colder, and his smile was fading into eternity…
However, he suddenly saw two extremely clear figures in the blurry crowd. They were a white-haired middle-aged man and a little girl in a red dress. The middle-aged man’s eyes were filled with sadness, and as for the little girl… although her dress was a lively color, her complexion was wan, and her figure was a little illusory. It was as if she would disappear at any moment.
The two of them stared at him intently as they sat there. When Sun De looked over, the white-haired middle-aged man stood up and bowed deeply.
“Senior, please save my daughter. This Wang is willing to pay any price!”