Just the butterfly is unwilling (Collection of Li Bihua's Works 14)

Author: Li Bihua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: Li Bihua writes prose like poetry, like the concise and elegant sentences of Song Dynasty literati. Every word is meticulously crafted, revealing the gray humor and cunning thoughts of urban dwellers in a series of witty observations. Excerpts from the text:
When a child falls, if they glance around and see no adults nearby, they might not cry and simply get up on their own—someone who cares about your pain makes it even more intense. Without such care, you owe yourself dignity, but you must strive to be strong. The wise are happy—only those who think they are wise are melancholic. This needs to be clear. Strangely, wonderful things often have unattractive appearances—like hairy crabs. The fastest, most hurried, and most impatient people in the world are just those who have recently learned to walk—they’re almost like newly rich people. Decades pass, and it’s just like a sigh in the night. The reason there is steadfast love and the spirit of loyalty and righteousness is that time is too short to sustain them. A long illness in bed leaves no filial children—prolonged hardship is difficult. The beauty of everything lies in the fact that there’s no time for it to go bad.
Watching a movie, children pretend to be adults—it’s truly terrifying. Even more terrifying is when adults pretend to be children. Hard work is just for the hope of having time off. If you have days off every day, you even lose the basic hope of having a break. Why do many people ask strangers for advice, and why are newspaper letterboxes always full? Because strangers can be “insensitive” and give you blunt criticism. Towards the characters in my writing, “I love them as if I want them to live, and I hate them as if I want them to die,” and I put these feelings into action. How can reality be as carefree as in movies? The timing in reality is always off—being able to say your last words at the moment of death? Having someone just happen to support you before you faint? Being able to grab a suitcase on the go when you run away from home? Accidentally breaking a wine glass when about to drink poison? The police arriving in time to catch the criminal in a crisis? Slapping a man’s face and hitting the mark every time? And after stepping out on the street, you just happen to catch a taxi? Scary?
I don’t think traditional Chinese medicine and herbal medicine are good, but they are romantic. For example, the red brick floor of the shop—every time it’s washed, it seems to draw blood, watching those bricks sink deep red into the bone marrow. People who don’t concern themselves with my well-being have no right to ask me to endure, so I refuse to submit. I endure those who are good to me, those who care about me, and even my enemies. I accept my enemies with their arrogance.