253: Chapter 253 Love is the Only Ferry

This international train bound for Sarajevo was clearly a veteran of the rails.

The couplings between carriages groaned with a teeth-grating 'creak' as they rode the undulating tracks.

It felt like a world apart from Vienna, that gilded capital of music.

Lin Que sat by the window, the hood of his grey sweatshirt pulled low.

He rested his chin on one hand,

his gaze seemingly fixed on the pine forests speeding past outside, yet his peripheral vision never left the seat opposite.

Sitting across from him was a typical old East European man.

Probably in his sixties or seventies, his face was a map of deep wrinkles.

He wore a dark brown jacket polished to a shine by wear, his fingers rough and knuckles enlarged,

the black grime of machine oil stubbornly lodged under his fingernails.

At this moment, these hands that looked fit only for gripping wrenches or shoveling coal

were cradling a book with a dark blue cover with utmost care.

It was the German edition of *the ferryman*.

The old man read slowly.

He would pause for a long time after turning each page,

often taking off his reading glasses, held together with tape, to carefully wipe the lenses with the hem of his jacket, then rubbing the back of his rough hand against the corner of his eye.

Lin Que withdrew his gaze from the window, unscrewed his water bottle, and took a sip.

Then, in accented English, he spoke up as if making casual conversation.

"Is this book popular lately?"

His eyes fell on the prominent crease on the cover as he softly broke the silence:

"The pages are dog-eared. Seems like a good story."

The old man's movements halted.

He slowly raised his head. His muddied, grey-blue eyes were webbed with red veins.

He glanced at Lin Que, then looked down at the book in his hands. His voice was a hoarse rasp, like two sheets of sandpaper grinding together.

"Popular? Perhaps."

The old man put his glasses back on, his fingers gently tracing the name 'Dylan' on the page:

"You young folks probably see it as just a nice love story.

But for an old man like me, half in the grave already..."

"It's medicine."

"Medicine?" Lin Que raised an eyebrow.

"A painkiller."

The old man gave a self-deprecating smile, revealing teeth stained yellow by tobacco.

He turned his head to look out at the grey, overcast sky, his eyes unfocused.

"I worked as a conductor on this railway line for forty years. I've seen countless people off on their journeys home, and countless others leaving."

The old man's voice was soft, fragmented by the thunderous roar of wheels against rails.

"A year ago, my wife, Martha, passed away on this very line.

A heart attack. It came on too fast. I was checking tickets in the next carriage. By the time I got to her... she was already gone."

Lin Que's grip on the water bottle tightened slightly.

"This past year, every time I close my eyes, I see her lying alone on the cold carriage floor."

The old man clutched at his thinning white hair in anguish.

"I keep thinking, she was so timid, afraid of the dark, never traveled far. How scared must she have been, walking that road to death all alone?

I wanted to join her, but the priest said suicides don't go to heaven, that I wouldn't see her there."

At this point, the old man took a deep breath, held up the book in his hand, and a flicker of light finally appeared in his eyes.

"Until I read this." The old man's rough fingers stroked the page.

"There's a ferryman in the book, named Tristan. He didn't abandon that young girl.

No matter how terrifying that ghostly place was, even at the cost of himself, he protected her all the way through."

The old man's eyes reddened again, his voice choked:

"And I thought... maybe Martha had her ferryman too.

Maybe in that world I can't see, there's someone like Tristan, protecting her as she crosses the wasteland, guiding her to her home on the other shore."

"Just thinking that she's not walking that dark road alone... it eases the pain in my heart."

Only the thunderous roar of wheels on rails remained in the cramped carriage.

The old man said no more, just bowed his head and wiped the corners of his eyes roughly with the back of his hand.

Lin Que watched the hand stained with oil grime, watching him in silence.

These past few days in Vienna, he had heard enough praise.

The sales reports Wang De'an sent, the grand narrative of so-called 'cultural export' in the media,

even Ye Xi's performance at the Golden Hall—it had all made him feel somewhat light-headed.

Those numbers were cold. That applause was distant.

But here, now.

In this swaying, dilapidated, musty-smelling carriage, he finally touched the true weight of words when they land.

Stripped of all commercial packaging and cultural halo, they had become a hand,

smoothing out the deepest wrinkles in the heart of an old man in the twilight of his life.

This was the meaning of writing.

Not to carve one's name on a monument,

but to pass a match to a broken soul on some cold night.

"She will have one,"

Lin Que said softly, his tone certain:

"That world may be desolate, but its rules are fair. A kind soul will always meet the most responsible ferryman."

The old man was taken aback for a moment, then nodded gratefully:

"Thank you, young man."

Perhaps the confession had drained his energy, or perhaps the rocking of the train was too hypnotic.

Not long after, the old man, clutching the book, began to nod off, his head tilting against the seat back as heavy snores escaped him.

The book he treasured, *the ferryman*, lay open on the small, scarred table.

Lin Que glanced out the window.

The train began to slow. A stream of unintelligible Bosnian came over the intercom, mixed with a faint English station announcement.

Sarajevo. They had arrived.

Lin Que stood up, fishing a pen from the side pocket of his backpack.

He glanced at the sleeping old man and did not wake him.

The pen tip hovered above the book's title page.

Lin Que's wrist moved slightly.

With the sway of the carriage, the nib glided across the paper.

In German, he wrote a line:

【Liebe ist die einzige Fähre.】

(Love is the only ferry.)

Finished, he capped the pen.

Lin Que did not linger.

He shouldered his backpack, pulled his cap lower, and like the most ordinary traveler, moved with the surging crowd toward the door.

"Clack-clack-clack—screech—"

The train came to a complete stop with a final, piercing shriek of brakes.

The sudden jolt of inertia startled the sleeping old man awake.

"Huh... are we there?"

He wiped his mouth hastily, instinctively reaching for the book on the table.

The moment his palm touched the page, he froze.

On the originally blank title page, there was now a drawing and a line of text.

The ink was still wet, glistening with a moist sheen under the carriage lights.

The old man rubbed his eyes, thinking his vision was playing tricks.

He leaned in closer.

The old man leaned in for a better look; the ink wasn't fully dry yet.

"Love is the only ferry." He jerked his head up. The seat opposite was empty, save for a crumpled plastic water bottle.

The young Eastern man who had listened so quietly was gone.

To write those words, and to be an Easterner with a German edition at this very moment...

An incredible thought flashed through the old man's mind.

Trembling, the old man lunged toward the window,

pressing his cheek against the cold glass, his clouded eyes frantically searching the grey sea of people on the platform.

Amid the bustling crowd, a tapestry of different backs interwove.

He couldn't find him.

"Thank you... thank you..."

Clutching the book, the old man's tears broke through once more,

but this time, not from pain.