Chapter 98 The Little Prince - Teaches You the Ability to Love

"When I was a child, I was only 6 years old, I read a book called "True Story" which described the spectacular scenes of the primeval forest. There was a wonderful illustration in the book, which showed a big python swallowing an animal."

"The Little Prince" tells the story of "I" who met the Little Prince after a plane crash in the desert.

I have only painted two paintings in my life.

My first work is this:
I showed this masterpiece to the adults and asked them if my painting frightened them.

They answered me, "What is there to be afraid of about a hat?"

My second work is as follows:
"I" told them that "what I drew" was not a hat, but a python digesting an elephant.

This time the adults responded by suggesting that I put aside the drawings of what looked like pythons with their bellies ripped open and focus on geography, history, math, and grammar.

Whenever I meet an adult who I think is a little clear-headed, I take out my No. 1 work that I carry with me to test him.

“I” wondered if he was really capable of understanding.

But whoever I tested would say, "It's a hat."

Therefore, I would not talk to them about boa constrictors, primeval forests, or stars. I would lower myself to their level and talk to them about bridge, golf, politics, and ties.

So the adults were very happy to know a sensible person like me.

But when "I" met the little prince, he recognized it at first sight. The first painting was an elephant in a python's belly.

-

Li Mu was quickly attracted to the storybook.

At first, he thought it was a fairy tale book for children and had no expectations for its quality.

But he found that this was not the case. The book was full of various metaphors and symbols, and the philosophical thoughts were as brilliant and numerous as the gems on the dome of Western palaces.

But its text is extremely simple and pure, so simple that even preschool children can understand it.

Li Mu turned the pages one by one, and the fragrance of the new book slowly spread.
-

It took me a long time to understand where the little prince came from.

He comes from the asteroid B-612, which is not much bigger than a house.
-

Little Prince, just like this, I gradually came to understand your sad life. It turned out that for a long time in the past, your only pleasure was to silently watch the gentle evening scene of the setting sun.

This new detail was known to me on the morning of the fourth day.

At that time you said to me: "I like sunsets. Let's go watch the sunset together..."

-

On the little prince's planet, there used to be some very ordinary flowers with only one circle of petals. These flowers were very small, took up no space at all, and never bothered anyone. They bloomed in the grass in the morning and withered peacefully in the evening.

But suddenly one day, a seed came from nowhere and grew into a new flower.

This flower hid in its green room, reluctant to reveal its beautiful face. It took a long time to dress itself up. She carefully selected her future color, slowly dressed up, and adjusted the position of the petals one by one. She didn't want to be like the poppy in the wild, with wrinkles all over her face when she was born. She wanted to come into the world dazzling and gorgeous. Yes, she cared a lot about being beautiful. She spent many days dressing up like a fairy.

Then, one morning, just as the sun was rising, she revealed her true face.

She had spent so much time preparing herself, but she yawned and said, "I'm so sorry... I just got up... Look at my hair, it's still messy..."

The little prince could no longer restrain his admiration:

"Oh, you're so beautiful!"

"Of course," the flower replied leisurely, "I was born at the same time as the sun..."

-

So, on the little planet, the rose had its own little prince, and the little prince also had his own rose.

But soon the flower began to torment the little prince with her somewhat sensitive and suspicious vanity.

-

One day he told me:

"I shouldn't have taken her words seriously, and I shouldn't have listened to the flowers. We just need to appreciate the appearance of the flowers, look at the flowers, and smell them. My flowers fill my planet with fragrance, but I am not happy about it and I don't enjoy it. What the flower said about the tiger's paw made me very angry. In fact, she was just acting coquettishly, but it made me annoyed..."

He also told me:

"I knew nothing! I should have judged her by her deeds, not by her words. I should never have run away from her, when she was so fragrant and made my life fragrant and colorful. I should have guessed how much tenderness was hidden behind her amiable tricks. How contradictory the thoughts of flowers are! I was too young and did not know how to love her."

-

Li Mu suddenly remembered his first love. He was too young at that time and did not know how to love.

She always sets up various tests, asks various stupid questions to annoy him; gives various choices to make him guess her thoughts; says she hurts here and there to win his sympathy; posts various trivial things every day, such as what she ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and waits for his response.
He always complained that she was acting like a bitch, that she was clingy, that she didn't understand him, that she didn't give him space, that she didn't give as much as he did, and that she didn't take the initiative to admit her mistakes often.
He should have guessed long ago that there was so much tenderness hidden behind her sensitivity, suspicion, jealousy and clinginess.

-

When he watered the flower for the last time and was about to put it in the glass dome for protection, he felt like he was about to cry.

"Goodbye," he said to the flowers.

But the flower did not respond.

"Goodbye," he said again.

Huaer coughed for a while, but it was not due to a cold.

She finally said to him: "I was so stupid in the past. Please forgive me. I hope you can be happy."

The little prince was surprised that the flower did not blame him. He stood there holding the hood, at a loss. He did not understand why she was so gentle and peaceful.

"I do love you," the flower said to him, "but it is my fault that you never knew I loved you. That is no longer important. But you are as foolish as I am. I hope you will be happy in the future. Put the cover aside; I have no need of it."

“What if the wind comes?”

"My cold is not that bad... The cool night breeze is good for me. I am a flower."

"What if there are bugs and beasts?"

"I want to know butterflies, so I can't stand the presence of two or three caterpillars. I heard that those butterflies are very beautiful. If there were no butterflies and caterpillars, who would come to see me? You would have to go far away. As for big animals, I am not afraid of them. I have my claws."

Then, she innocently showed her four thorns, and then said, "Don't dawdle like that. Since you have decided to leave here, don't make me sad. So, go quickly!"

She said this because she was afraid that the little prince would see her crying. She was a very proud flower...

-

Li Mu felt so sad that he was about to cry.

The little prince left, and only the rose was left alone on the planet.

Without the little prince's protection, what if the wind comes? Will she catch a cold? What if big animals come? Will she be eaten?

Yes, she has four thorns, but what is the use of them?
Flowers are weak and simple. They always try to protect themselves, thinking that having thorns can show their strength.

Similarly, Li Mu wondered, after he left, would she still be there? Would she be able to survive the dangers of society? Would she meet a man who treated her badly, deceived her, or hurt her? Is she happy now? Has she made new friends? Is she doing well?

-

小王子离开了，他发现邻近自己的星球还有小行星325、326、327、328、329和330。

Thus, the little prince began his journey by visiting these neighboring planets.

He met "the king", "the vain man", "the drunkard", "the businessman", "the lamplighter" and "the geographer" respectively. These characters are each absurd in their own way, some are power-hungry, some are vain, some are decadent and greedy for alcohol, some are obsessed with money, some are stubborn and out of touch with reality.

The little prince's reaction when he met these people was: "Adults are really strange."

But Li Mu saw the pity that the little prince and the author had for these people, as they had lost their inner peace and happiness because they were too focused on external things.

-

Finally, the little prince arrived on Earth.

On Earth, the little prince met the rose garden and felt very sad.

His flower had told him that she was unique in the whole universe. But in this garden alone there were five thousand flowers exactly like her!
"If she saw this," he thought, "she would be so ashamed... She would cough even more, and to avoid being laughed at, she would pretend to be dead. Then I would have to pretend to take care of her, because if I didn't do this, if I didn't kowtow to her, she might really die..."

Then he thought: "I thought I was very rich and that I had a unique flower in the whole world, but all I have is an ordinary flower. This flower, plus three volcanoes that are only as high as my knees, and one of them may be extinct forever, all this does not make me a great prince..."

So he lay down in the grass and cried.

——Li Mu rubbed his sore eyes and adjusted his sitting position.

He felt sorry for the rose again.

She must have loved the little prince very much, so she told him that she was unique, and she wanted the little prince to cherish and love her more.

But she was so naive, telling a lie that could be easily exposed.

-

Just as the little prince was crying, the fox appeared.

"Come and play with me," said the little prince.

"I cannot play with you," said the fox, "for I am not yet tamed."

"What is taming?" asked the little prince.

-

The key to the whole book appears - taming.

-

"That's something that's often overlooked," the fox said. "It means 'making connections.'

The Little Prince: "Establish a connection?"

The fox said, "To me, you are nothing more than a little boy, like a hundred thousand other little boys. I do not need you, and you do not need me either. To you, I am nothing more than a fox, like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, we shall be indispensable to each other. To me, you shall be unique in the world, and I shall be unique in the world to you."

"I have come to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think it has tamed me..."

The fox continued, "My life is very monotonous. I catch chickens, and people hunt me. All the chickens are the same, and all the people are the same. Therefore, I feel a little bored. But if you tame me, my life will be full of sunshine. I will recognize a unique footsteps. Other people's footsteps will make me hide underground, but your footsteps will make me come out of the cave like music. Besides, look! Do you see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread, and wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields don't make me feel anything. And this is really disappointing. But you have golden hair. Then, once you tame me, it will be wonderful. The wheat is golden, and it will remind me of you. Then, I will even like the sound of the wind blowing through the wheat waves..."

The fox looked at the little prince for a long time.

"Please tame me!" it said.

-

Next, the fox told the little prince how to tame it.

"First you need to be patient," the fox replied. "At first you should sit in the grass a little far away from me. I will secretly watch you out of the corner of my eye, and you should not say anything. Language is the root of misunderstanding. But every day, you should sit closer to me..."

The next day, the little prince came again.

"It would be better if we came at the same time," said the fox. "For example, if you came at four in the afternoon, then from three I would begin to feel happy. The closer the time gets, the happier I would feel. At four I would be restless; I would have to show you how happy I am. But if you came at any time, I wouldn't know when to get ready..."

-

Li Mu thought, this is the core of love: giving and responsibility.

To love a person is to devote time and energy to her, and slowly approach her from a distance. "Come at the same time every day" means that you have a responsibility to her. You cannot love her today and stop loving her tomorrow. Only continuous and firm love is true love.

-

In this way, the little prince tamed the fox, but they were about to be separated.

"Ah!" said the fox, "I shall certainly cry."

"It is your fault," said the little prince. "I did not mean to cause you any pain, but you asked me to tame you..."

"Yes, that's it," said the fox.

"You are going to cry again!" said the little prince.

"Of course," said the fox.

"But you didn't get any benefit."

"I benefited from the color of the wheat," said the fox.

-

Li Mu felt as if a piece of his heart was dug out, and he couldn't stop feeling sad. Why did he feel sad just reading a fairy tale?

He thought, maybe it's like what it says on the title page: Dedicated to all children and adults who were once children.

He is the adult who was once a child.

-

The little prince came to the rose garden again, and he finally realized that his rose was the only one in the world.

"You are beautiful," said the little prince, "but you are empty. No one could die for you. Of course, an ordinary passer-by might think that my rose was the same as you. But she is more important than all of you put together, because I watered her, because I put her in the canopy, because I protected her with a screen, because I killed the caterpillars on her (except two or three that I left to become butterflies), because I listened to her complaints and her boasting, and sometimes even listened to her silence, because she is my rose."

-

Li Mu thought that she was no different from other people at the beginning.

But because the excitement when she first met the person she liked, the nervousness when she first tried to communicate, the joy when she first felt that she was paying attention to her, the anxiety when she first discovered that she had a competitor, and the sadness after her first quarrel were all given to her, so she became that unique person.

-

Before leaving, the fox told the little prince a secret: "You can only see clearly with your heart. Important things are invisible to the eyes."

"What is important is invisible to the eyes," the little prince repeated, so that he could remember it.

-

In the penultimate chapter, the little prince is going back to his own planet.

He said: "You know... my flower... I am responsible for her! She is so weak! She is so innocent. She has four insignificant thorns to protect herself and resist the world..."

And the way to leave is to let the poisonous snake bite him to death.

He said, "It's a long way, you see. I can't carry this body with me. It's too heavy."

He said: "It will be like I'm dead, but it won't be real..."

"But it's like old bark peeling off. There's nothing sad about old bark," he said.

Finally, he didn't scream, but fell gently to the ground like a tree being chopped down, without making any sound, probably because of the sand.
-

After reading the last chapter, Li Mu closed the book gently, feeling a great sadness coming over him.

He wanted to comfort himself. The little prince returned to his planet and finally found the rose he had been longing for. He stayed quietly by her side, fetched a pot of clear cool water every day to water her; every night he put her in a glass cover to protect her from the wind and too cold.

The rose was no longer lonely, because she had her own little prince. She could talk about her thoughts, exaggerate herself from time to time, and make harmless jokes.

But Li Mu couldn't convince himself to agree with this interpretation.

He had probably lost the ability to see the lamb in the box.

He is an adult now, he knows that some injuries cannot be healed, some things cannot be forgotten, and some people cannot turn back!
The price of separation may be that you may never meet again in your lifetime.

He still likes roses, but he can never go back to his original planet.

-

He pushed the door open and walked out of the study. His wife was still awake. She was sitting on the sofa, playing with her cell phone and waiting for him.

Seeing him come out, she quickly turned off her phone and walked happily to the kitchen: "Are you done with work? I'll go heat up some food for you."

Li Mu's voice was a little dry: "No, no need!"

He remembered the words of the fox in the book: "You are now responsible for everything you have tamed, you are responsible for your rose..."

He walked forward and held his wife in his arms. In front of his wife's surprised and astonished eyes, he rested his head on her shoulders and said:

"You are my fox, but I will not leave you. I love you."

The wife's body softened. She didn't know what the fox meant. Tears welled up in her eyes and she hugged Li Mu tightly, crying inconsolably.

-

Later, Li Mu edited a title and sent it to his leader:
"The Little Prince - Teaches You the Ability to Love"

　Thanks to the big brother [Kai A Yu] for the reward of 845 Qidian coins. The update was a little late today, and the illustrations were always inserted unsuccessfully. I just figured it out now.

　　Ps: If you think this is too good, you can join the group to grab the red envelope. I don't mean to be too good. I just think it's more interesting to write like this, and you can feel the charm of the original book more.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)