It took two whole days of walking for me to finally make it out of the valley, and it took another two days until I stumbled upon a small village.
Fortunately, when I fell off the cliff, all my belongings stayed with me. I exchanged some copper coins for some grain and a donkey. With better nothing to do, I prepared for the donkey to carry me for the rest of the journey.
Over these past few days, I kept thinking of Psycho, especially in the dead of night before I fell asleep. The jade pendant resting on my chest felt really warm, as if it were directly burning my heart.
At the end of the day, I comforted myself by thinking that I had been with him for over three months and developing some type of feelings over that long period of time was perfectly normal.
I stayed overnight in the small village, planning on getting a night"s rest before heading out on the road the next morning. However, that night I had a dream.
The dream was very clear, as clear as reality. It was as if I was floating in mid-air, watching in a third person perspective of what had happened in the cave over the three months.
Every moment was replayed, without the slightest difference.
I fell off the cliff, then Psycho saved me, then I had a fever, then he took off my clothes and held me to keep warm. Obviously I was a big man, but he seemed to mistake me for some delicate, unmarried, young girl; so he decided to take responsibility for seeing my naked body, and thus I became his "woman."
I didn"t know whether to cry or laugh during the fake pregnancy scene.
When the dream showed the part where I was preparing to leave the cave, I thought that the dream would be over, but no, it kept on going, showing me something that I did not experience.
I saw the maniac. He was carrying a fish back to the cave happily. There weren"t many fish in the valley, and it was even harder to catch one in this season, so for him to catch one must have taken a long time.
"Darling!" He shouted at the entrance, as if he were afraid that I didn"t know he was back.
Afterwards he walked in, and I suddenly got a bad feeling that whatever would happen in the next few moments would make me feel terrible. I willed myself to wake up, but I was too late. I floated above the entrance and watched the psycho running out of the cave, shouting my "name."
His complexion looked awful as he stood in front of the cave entrance, panting for air, and scanning each direction carefully to catch a glimpse of me.
"Darling!"
"Darling, come back!"
"Come back Darling!"
He searched for a long time, from dawn to dusk. He climbed whatever that could be climbed-trees, stones, slopes. He went as high as possible for a chance to find even a trace of my trail.
He searched for me for two days, not even stopping to eat or sleep; and just when I thought that he, who had boundless amounts of energy, would never give up on looking for me, returned to the cave where we had lived.
His footsteps were unstable. The gra.s.s woven shoes had been destroyed due to the days of running around. His feet were covered in mud and countless cuts and wounds.
He finally seemed to be exhausted. His knees wobbled and gave out, softly collapsing onto the gra.s.s in front of the cave. He faced towards the sky and let out an anguished shout, scaring away the nearby birds. When he vented out his grief, one could hear that in his roar contained an endless amount of pain and suffering. After the roar, he unexpectedly collapsed forwards, and with a "pu," coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Shocked, I struggled to go forward towards his fallen body, but my eyes opened during that moment.
I was awake, but was still in a state of shock and disbelief. My head was filled with Psycho"s collapsed form.
This dream was so realistic, was it my imagination or did it really happen?
I held onto the black jade pendant on my chest, my mind was still in disorder.
I stayed in this disarrayed state until I had been on the road for about an incense amount of time, and I realized that I had been traveling in the wrong direction.
I told myself, since I had already gone in the wrong direction, it"s better to just go back and check up on the Psycho.
I"ll just go back and take a look. It"ll only take a day or two. If he"s fine, then I"ll leave, the delay won"t really make a difference.
In the end, I was still worried about the maniac. I slapped the donkey to make it go faster.
What I didn"t expect was that when I returned to the valley, everything in the cave, including Psycho had disappeared. I found the doe in a bush nearby the cave. I don"t know if she had been used to being kept as a pet, since when she saw me, she didn"t make an effort to hide.
"It seems like he had left you go." I was dazed for a moment, watching her walk towards me. I quickly waved at it, trying to drive it away, "Go, run away now. You are quite fortunate to survive that calamity, now don"t be stupid enough to be caught again."
The doe cried at me twice and eventually walked into the woods.
I sighed and waited another day inside the cave, but still Psycho didn"t make an appearance.
I was afraid that something had happened to him and he just collapsed somewhere, so I left the cave and searched everywhere in the valley, but still wasn"t able to find him. I feel like I am overlapping with the Psycho from my dreams, both of us searching anxiously for each other.
After another day, I had to accept the fact that the maniac may not be here anymore. I went back to the mountains, and took donkey, who was lazily grazing on the edge of the cliff, and left again.
I have a hunch that after this time, I won"t ever come back.