My Good Life - Chapter 6.1

After meeting the mysterious person whom I fell in love with at first sight, I began to dream every day…not a spring dream though, which was a pity. 

It didn’t even have anything to do with stories like romance, love, girlish heart, etc.

The scenes I dreamed of were fragmented and chaotic. Sometimes the cannon fire flew over, and the huge explosion would wake me up. Sometimes it was a very peaceful image of a woman in the same sweltering weather as the summer in this mountain slope town humming a children’s song I had never heard before. Sometimes it was as if I were on a battlefield, a general wearing a black armor carrying a heavy sword licking the enemy’s blood off my lips.

I think it was because after being frightened by zombies, my brain was over excited and it came up with different stories. Since I couldn’t finish drawing during the day, it was reflected in my dreams at night. , and I couldn’t finish painting during the day, so it was reflected in my dreams at night. I drew scenes in my dreams as much as possible. 

I actually thought that God opened the eyes of heaven and had given me inspiration every day, until one day, when Li Peipei was on a vacation and I went out with her to walk the dog.

It was a rare sunny day in Chongqing and the warmth from the spring sun made me comfortable. I stretched out and looked at Li Peipei next to me. She’s wearing a big sun hat, huge sunglasses that nearly covered her whole face, a face mask and fully armed with a sun-protective shirt.

“Why are you out when it’s obviously troublesome…”

I asked her and let go of the leash. Mangzi ran wild with his tongue hanging out. Li Peipei pushed her sunglasses up and. “It would be a waste if I spent my vacation without going out and taking Mangzi for a walk.”

I pursed my lips and stopped myself from saying anything.

Li Pei is a vampire with wind in her bones and sea in her soul, and without waves, she cannot survive. Being behind closed doors was an imprisonment for her free soul. After she took leave from work, she’d been staying at home these past few days. It seemed like she couldn’t hold it in anymore and didn’t have a choice but to walk her dog in the middle of the day because…

She is afraid of ghosts.

Yes, even though the word vampire has a ghost character in it,^[1] and that they’re both supernatural creatures that terrified humans, she’s still afraid of ghosts.

Especially the ghosts in Chinese legends and ghost movies. The fear got worse after the zombie encounter that day.  

After I was bitten by a zombie and she realized that zombies were haunting the neighborhood, she didn’t dare go out to work alone at night.

She wouldn’t admit to it though so I kept my mouth shut when she asked me to walk the dog with her for a while. I sat on the chair under the tree with her and pondered on yesterday’s dream. 

I always felt that some scenes in my dreams could be connected, so after drawing them, I would take pictures for me to review when I’m bored. Who knows, maybe I could find some other inspiration from it.

Li Peipei didn’t have as much energy in the daytime as she had at nighttime. She walked around the tree and sat down beside me, laying her head on my shoulder and gasping for breath just like Mangzi.

Although she’s a daywalker like Li Weiwei, she’s not as strong as him. Walking in daylight tired her out and made her a panting mess sooner than later. After settling down her breathing, she looked down at my screen. “Wow. That old Chongqing scene is very well drawn. It’s so nostalgic…”

My finger paused over the screen as I turned my attention to her. She didn’t notice it though and instead reached out her hand and swiped the screen to see other pictures. 

“You also drew the bombing that year[2]… That’s so realistic, Xiaoxin. Have you been drawing historical themes lately? Meimei said her neighbor just came back. Did you let the old man take you to the past to play?” 

Of course not.

I wasn’t familiar with the old man who can travel through time and space after all.

As for the old Chongqing and the Chongqing bombing, I only have the basic understanding based on what I’ve learned in high school hiatory class. Now many years later, I only remember the incident on May 35th and the Great Tunnel Disaster because the air defense siren would reverberate in the city on June 5 every year.  

In this context, I thought carefully about Li Peipei’s words, and I couldn’t help but feel a little shaky.

“Peipei…” I asked her, cautiously, “The corpses that had gone missing…The zombies driven from Xiangxi… which era did they come from?” 

“Well, based on the report, it looks like it’s from the Republic of China. Oh! That’s about the same time as in your drawing.”

“This is the scene I dreamed of for the past few days after I was bitten.”

Li Peipei and I looked at each other, and as our eyes met, heavy silence befell us.

Translation Notes:

1. vampire – ??  ghost – ? ?