Chapter 192 - The Duty Real and Fake (2/2)

“But in my mother’s imagination, the one who saved her is her first love.” Zhou Yuan said with a gloomy face, “While my father at the time also doubted that my mom would hope her first love to save her. But her first love has passed away for a long time.”

“So what?” Hao Ning was confused, “What would come to them?”

“They would get a divorce!” Zhou Yuan said with a face mixed with weeping and laugh, “My mum would like to be with the first love in her imagination and my dad gave up concealing and brought the girls who liked him in his imagination back and confessed everything to my mum!‒ Of course, all of this was only in their imagination, while they had nothing in reality.”

“To marry the first love in her imagination and to bring the girls in his imagination…” Xiao Hong drove, his eyes gaping at the front, and he uttered after quite a while, “Your parents are so good at looking for pleasures…”

“Eh…” Hao Ning took a deep breath, “So that is to say, your mum and your dad, because of their imaginative world, are to divorce from each other and be with their illusory partner?”

“Em…” Zhou Yuan hid his head into the knees.

“Ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha…” Xiao Hong burst into laughter abruptly. Hao Ning was about to laugh as well. Such ridiculous things. Though they’d jumped into the river and cried for a divorce, the affair talked by Zhou Yuan couldn’t arouse his sympathy at all.

“You even laugh here!” Zhou Yuan wore an upset face and was to wring Hao Ning’s neck, “Where’s your humanity? People’s lives are god’s concern, while my family is on the edge of breaking down!”

“I have a question for you.” Xiao Hong finished his laugh and asked calmly, “You gave them the world as they desired, while their desire broke your family. So, who is to blame?”

“I know. It’s their problem.” Zhou Yuan lowered his head and said, “Their desire boosted their wish and they finally couldn’t even believe the facts.”

“No.” Xiao Hong shook the head, “You still haven’t looked through it. The prime responsibility is on you.”

“Me?” Zhou Yuan asked in confusion, “I’ve been giving them the life they want, including myself, who have been struggling to change myself to correspond with their expectations! As a son, to please them, I’ve even lost my soul. What else do they want?”

“That’s your biggest problem.” Hao Ning patted Zhou Yuan’s shoulder, “You always want to cooperate with their expectations, for which you even used your soul and your power. But you ignored one thing, that they’re human, and you’re human as well. They have requirements, but you have requirements, too. To live as parents and sons, it doesn’t mean that one has to compromise, but everyone has to experience conflict and reach an agreement so that you all live the life you want. It’s important to obey your parents, but if you always compromise in order to fulfill your parents, they seem happy in the short term, but how about in the long term? Paper can’t cover the fire, and can the illusory compromise be covered?

“Samely, in reverse, if parents always give up their own daily life for their children,” Xiao Hong went on, “They will not only lose the pleasure in their life but also put more pressure on their children. In this way, both the parents and the children would lose themselves and become a slave of family love. To say the best, they could live through the whole life peacefully, while to say the worst, with it being like yours, they’ll hold each other and get ruined together.

“You…” Zhou Yuan listened to him and thought it reasonable, but in the end, he was still unwilling to admit that. He straightened his neck and said, “How do you know that? You don’t understand the love between parents and children in the real world…”

“Hey! What are you saying!” Hao Ning knew that Zhou Yuan didn’t really mean that, but he worried those words might hurt Xiao Hong’s feelings, so he lost no time in consoling Xiao Hong, “Don’t care about him. Zhou Yuan’s unstable now. He doesn’t mean that.”

Xiao Hong smiled, “Nothing serious ‒Zhou Yuan you’re right. My parents are in the book, not in reality. But I think the topic of parents and children actually goes across the border between reality and virtual world. When my dad and mom were alive, I could see that they were happy. Even auntie fox intervened in their marriage afterward, my father still loved my mother deeply. Because with Jade Faced Fox added, it still coincided with the normal morality at that time in the book. By the way, I’m very thankful to them. They allowed me for freedom when I was a child. But even that, I didn’t lose my respect for them nor betray them after I’ve become the chief of the mountain, and they didn’t judge me because of their over-concern. Of course, due to the fault I committed later, I got a lesson from Bodhisattva. But that was the world. Both in The Journey to the West and in the real world, we have to take responsibility for our faults, don’t we? My parents gave me birth and raised me up, but they couldn’t look after me all my life. I have to learn to adapt to the world, don’t I?”

“Xiao Hong…” Hao Ning didn’t expect Xiao Hong to give such a logical discourse, “Sorry, I’ve always thought you as…”

“As the naughty boy, the chief of the mountain who dared to eat Tang Sanzang and even set fire to him?” Xiao Hong rubbed his eyes and smiled, “Everyone grows up, I, you, and Zhou Yuan. Zhou Yuan, your parents should do as well…”

“You’re right.” Zhou Yuan nodded, “But how should I do with the thing here? Should I let them get a divorce?”

“I don’t know. Even the most virtuous judge finds it difficult to conclude the affair in a family.” Xiao Hong shook his head, “But you have to know that whatever comes to you in the end, everyone has to take responsibility for his or her choice.”

“You don’t know?” Zhou Yuan noticed they were approaching the district of his house and signed Xiao Hong to stop urgently, “Then what should I do?”

“Well,” Hao Ning, peering at the gate of the district, didn’t wait for Xiao Hong’s answer and asked in bewilderment, “Your mum was saved from the river, right? Why didn’t she go to the hospital first for a check-up?”

“As for that…” Zhou Yuan scratched his head and said timidly, “The river that my mum jumped into was imagined by her and my dad…”

“What?” Hao Ning, seeing that Zhou Yuan was about to get out of the car, dragged him and didn’t let him go. He got mad and scolded, “What are you doing? It’s all fake from the beginning to the end, then what do you want from us here? No, no. If it was all fake, then how did the granny next door know that your mum took suicide?”

“Certainly, my dad, who saw the illusion told her.” Zhou Yuan said, “Get out of the car, or we’ll be too late!”

“How can we be too late? You’re so funny.” Hao Ning was pissed off to laugh, “So your parents played a simulation game, and they took it real. They jumped into a fake river, took a fake suicide, met with a fake ex, found several fake girls, and now they’re up to a real divorce? How can we help? By watching Seventy Rounds Between Husband and Wife, or by playing Idle Big Sister Ma?

“No no no.” Zhou Yuan seemed reserved in his words, but he was obviously anxious, “Let’s go…”

“So, Zhou Yuan you finally realized that?” Xiao Hong said suddenly, “You realized that something was going wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” Hao Ning asked in puzzlement, “All were fake. What could be right or wrong?”

“Zhou Yuan realized that the fake was even more terrible than the real.” Xiao Hong glimpsed at Zhou Yuan, “Am I right?”

“Em…” Zhou Yuan eventually nodded.

“Ah…” Xiao Hong sighed and whispered, “Bodhisattva’s been insightful to send me here…”