Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Love Story of the Heavenly Staircase

Just like the legendary Martial Arts Tournament, the members of the Beggars’ Sect’s Jiangnan Branch gathered in front of the Jiangnan Broadcasting Bureau.

Off-duty workers passing by frequently stopped to watch the spectacle.

The homeless of Jiangnan City seemed to be faring quite well—so why were so many people holding exquisitely packaged lunchboxes, gazing up at the sky at a forty-five degree angle, crying in silence?

Could it be a new trend in performance art?

Ha ha ha, young people these days are really something.

...

Naturally, the commotion at the doorstep caught the attention of the TV station’s news team right away. The reporters from the local affairs column quickly arrived for interviews, sorting out the whole story and drafting the latest news release to hand to their superiors. This was an event both grounded in reality and destined to boost viewership.

So, at nine that evening, the station broadcast the news, which was simultaneously shared on Weiblog.

Ren Qian had no idea that such a righteous and gratifying event had unfolded in Jiangnan that night. He was absorbed in his kitchen endeavors.

Amid the chaos and exhaustion, he finally understood the old adage: “You regret not having read more when you need it most.”

Why hadn’t he studied the principles of food compatibility before? It’s said that certain dishes, when combined, produce a magical chemical reaction—resulting in substances that make men shy and women blush.

Aha!

Though he couldn’t win over the nurse girl just yet, surely she wouldn’t refuse if he bought her new clothes?

When there was time, he could take her shopping for a teacher’s uniform, a police uniform, a nurse’s uniform, and a businesswoman’s suit...

With her figure, she would look absolutely stunning in all of them. Just imagining it made his heart race.

Ren Qian grinned lecherously, shook two bottles of red wine, and set them gently on the table.

A perfect life was nothing more than this.

He sat down, logged into Weiblog, and turned on his computer. Taking advantage of this rare leisure, he uploaded the audio and video he had recorded that afternoon.

Ding!

Your music has been successfully uploaded to Memories Music Platform...

Ren Qian fiddled with the computer for a while. Upon hearing that sultry notification sound, he got goosebumps all over and quickly shut down his computer.

He picked up his phone and began browsing Weiblog.

In truth, there are many things in this world far more meaningful than playing with your phone.

Don’t believe it? Try turning off the internet and setting your phone aside: read a few pages of prose or poetry on a lazy afternoon,

Or stroll beneath the bright, cheerful sun,

Or race a bicycle along a winding mountain path,

Or, when night falls, meet up with two or three old friends in a modest restaurant, drink a little, and chat about everything and nothing.

But after a fulfilling day, you’ll realize—damn, playing with your phone is still the most fun!

...

The trending topics on Weiblog changed at breakneck speed; the top spot was usually overtaken within three days. Back when Ren Qian had topped the trending list, the competition was fierce.

However, the “Ladder of Love” story of Liu Guojiang and the beautiful widow had held the number one spot for a week.

Countless netizens had sighed over their love story, countless others had praised them, and many more had written essays and novels about the couple.

Once, a reporter interviewed the two elders:

“That day, firecrackers exploded and the suona horns blared.

She came to the village in a grand bridal sedan, and he, still a boy, was playing with a group of children. Spotting the sedan, he followed behind.

A few days earlier, he’d chipped his front tooth.

There was a village custom: children who lost a tooth had to let the bride touch their mouth, and a new tooth would grow. He desperately hoped this bride would grant him this blessing.

His aunt carried him to the sedan. The bride reached out, her fingers slender and delicate as green onions, and placed them on his lips. He couldn’t help drooling and, nervous, bit her finger. The sedan curtain was lifted, and the face of an immortal looked down at him, gentle and amused.

Long after the sedan had gone, he stood there dazed...

That year, he was six; she, sixteen.

He could only hear the thumping of his own heart, and next to him, a sister-in-law teased, ‘What’s gotten into you? When you grow up, you’ll want a wife as beautiful as her.’

That night, he listened to Buddhist chants until dawn—not for enlightenment, but to search for a trace of her presence.

That month, he turned all the scriptures—not for salvation, but to touch her fingerprints.

That year, she prostrated herself in the dust—not to worship Buddha, but to feel close to her warmth.

That lifetime, he crossed a hundred thousand mountains—not to cultivate for the next life, but just to meet her on the path.

In that moment, he ascended to immortality—not for eternal life, but to bless her with a lifetime of peace and joy.

From then on, no matter who asked what kind of wife he wanted when he grew up, he always answered seriously, ‘Someone just like Aunt Xu.’

The young girl who helped his tooth grow became the only bride in his heart.

Yet, by the time he grew into a fine young man, he only dared to steal glances at her from the corner of his eye.

To him, she was so noble that even a direct look felt like desecration.

By then, he was sixteen, she twenty-six. Her husband died of acute meningitis, and she became a widow.

Her in-laws blamed her for her husband’s death and left her to fend for herself.

She raised four children alone. When there was nothing to eat, she carried the children to the mountains to pick wild mushrooms. She couldn’t afford even three cents for a pound of salt, so she wove grass shoes to sell for five cents a pair.

At sixteen, he saw and worried. He wanted to help, but feared rejection and ridicule.

Until the day she and her children fell into the river—he leapt in to save them, and for the first time met her gaze head-on.

After that, his courage grew. He often helped her carry water, chop wood, and tend to household chores.

Four years passed, feelings deepened.

But she was ten years his elder and a widow with four children.

Gossip wrapped around them like a suffocating net, branding their relationship as outrageously improper.

They could barely breathe.

So, one morning in August 1956, the villagers found that she and her four children had vanished—along with the nineteen-year-old boy.

More than forty years later, in the Mid-Autumn of 2001,

A group of outdoor adventurers, exploring the depths of a remote mountain forest, discovered two elderly people living in utter isolation.

They seemed to be living in the Stone Age—using kerosene lamps he made by hand, dwelling in humble mud huts, farming the land themselves and living entirely self-sufficiently.

The two elders had lived atop that mountain, cut off from the world, for fifty years!

Afraid his wife would fall when traveling the mountain path, Liu Guojiang began, from the year they moved up, to carve a “Ladder of Love” for her—chipping away at the cliff, step by step, among ancient vines.

Fifty years, more than six thousand steps, over twenty iron picks worn to stubs—and he, once a young man, had grown old and wrinkled.

‘I feel for him, but he always said that once the path was finished, it would be easier for me to go down the mountain. Truth is, I hardly ever left in my life.’

Caressing the calluses on her husband’s hands, she spoke through her tears to the “ordinary folk” who’d come to interview them.

She added, ‘Not a single step grows moss, because after every rain, he wipes them clean by hand so I won’t slip...’

‘I can still move!’ Liu Guojiang reached out to wipe away her tears.

Oblivious to the others present, the two doted on each other, lost in their own world.

‘I never let her do hard labor. She’s older than me; I always fetch the water for her foot baths,’ Liu Guojiang said.

‘We’ve never spent a day apart,’ Xu Zhaoqing beamed. In fifty years, Liu Guojiang never once left her alone overnight at home.

They had never been to the county seat, and Liu had only been to the small town a few times.

If one of them had to leave the mountain, the other would always wait at the footbridge by nightfall, so they could climb the “Ladder of Love” home together—the world of ordinary people lay across that bridge, but they almost never crossed it.

When he finished reading, Ren Qian’s eyes were moist with tears. Unable to help himself, he hummed the song “Ladder of Love” and uploaded his recording from today’s “I Am a Singer” show to Weiblog.

After days of silence, his new post stirred up a thousand waves!