Preface

The Netherlands is known as the “wagoner of the seas”. The story told today is a love story related to the wagoner of the seas, but it belongs to the East, to China.

The Boat🚢

It is a small boat with two oars. From the moment it left the shipyard, it was defined as an ordinary cargo vessel with a load capacity of no more than 1 ton. The owner who built this boat hoped to support his family with it, but he was reluctant to spend more money on good timber to build it.

The Lighthouse

This is a lighthouse integrated with lots of high-tech. Its base can float on the sea, and an automatic balancing system keeps it as steady as a mountain amid the waves. The lighthouse’s parents are not far from this new lighthouse, forming a group of sea lighthouses that emit strong laser beams to mark the direction of shipping routes. This new lighthouse can also emit encrypted radio signals. It powers itself through its own solar shell and wind turbines, and it can also wirelessly receive electricity from the parent lighthouse group located along the harbor coastline to recharge itself. Whenever it feels its power is running low, it can move back into the wireless charging range of the parent lighthouse group to replenish its energy. Among the many lighthouses in the group, two ground lighthouses provide it with a stable power supply. This lighthouse is very happy. But this lighthouse likes to roam in the shallow sea area not far from its parents, within a range of no more than a few nautical miles from the lighthouses.

Encountering the Boat

In the same shallow sea area, one day this boat lost its way on a stormy night with strong winds and high waves. The mobile lighthouse discovered it and responded with exchanged light signals. Gradually, the boat learned to recognize the light beam emitted by this lighthouse, and gradually fell in love with this mobile lighthouse. The lighthouse also admired this boat — it could stand tall and not sink in such strong waves. But the boat knew deep down that it was a cargo ship, and only by carrying more cargo could its owner transform it into a larger vessel. The lighthouse saw the confusion in the boat’s eyes and said, “You can stay in the shallow sea area and carry ordinary cargo. Where my lighthouse parents are, there’s a port. They might have some small cargo for you.” The boat also wanted to stay near this lighthouse’s port and do some ordinary cargo transport, but the boat came from a humble background and was afraid the lighthouse’s parents would look down on it. Moreover, the port’s trade was very opaque — only boats with connections could get good cargo. The boat’s pride was deeply hurt, and it resolved that it must become a flagship before it would be qualified to pull containers weighing tens of tons at this port and win the respect of the lighthouse’s parents and the lighthouse itself. And so, after the storm that day, the boat left this lighthouse and joined many groups made up of boats like itself.

Drifting at Sea

Carrying completely overloaded cargo on the open sea, living a drifting life, with no relatives in sight and far from home. Because it overloaded every time, the boat always “slapped its swollen face to look plump” — hauling cargo it couldn’t handle. Every time it hit a reef, it was battered and bruised. Gradually the boat learned to repair and heal itself. In this way, the boat’s owner earned his first pot of gold and planned to upgrade this wooden boat into an ironclad warship. The twin oars were removed and an engine provided power. For some reason, the boat’s lighting system had a special ability with the light emitted by that lighthouse — its recognition rate reached 200%. But for the light beams of other lighthouses, it could barely reach 50% recognition. The boat’s owner found this lighting system useless as chicken ribs — a pity to discard, but of no real use. The boat, however, was content, knowing that as long as the light recognition system was still there, it would never lose its direction, it could carry heavier cargo, and it could see that lighthouse — that floating lighthouse.

Not long after resuming cargo transport, the boat sent a radio signal to the lighthouse, asking whether the lighthouse could, like itself, come to this large port to point the way. The boat had no confidence inside, not knowing whether the new port was good or bad; it was just that trade here was thriving and could accumulate more capital. The lighthouse sent back a signal expressing that it didn’t want to come to the new port. The boat was heartbroken and helpless — heartbroken because it was too weak, helpless because even if the lighthouse came, the boat couldn’t give it all the power and hope it needed. But the boat didn’t give up inside; only through hard work could it obtain everything it needed.

When the boat returned to port after its first cargo run, its hull had already been replaced from wooden planks to light iron armor, capable of carrying no more than 10 tons of cargo. When it first returned to port, the lighting system recognized the light beam emitted by that lighthouse with great precision — it could even simulate and change light colors. In the boat’s own heart, “I can even identify what the blinking speed and blink counts of that lighthouse mean, and most importantly, I can decrypt the encrypted signal she emits.” That lighthouse was also delighted — the very special boat responded to her quickly and accurately. Perhaps this lighthouse’s light was emitted specially for that boat.

The boat docked at the port for a week, then had to set sail again. During that week, the boat thought a lot: “Even if I can carry 10 tons of cargo, my motor still can’t reach the specified knots — the speed isn’t fast enough.” (A knot refers to the unit of a vessel’s sailing speed, similar to how a car’s horsepower is measured.) And so, saying goodbye to the lighthouse, it set sail once again.

While sailing, the boat kept thinking about one question: Why did I give up all this beauty? To live a better life? To forge myself into a flagship and haul cargo? Or because of poverty, do I need to redeem myself through escaping poverty and getting rich?

During its voyages, the boat would send radio waves to the lighthouse at intervals, thus proving its existence.

Over the years of sailing, the lighthouse was very lonely, and so was the boat. Then one day the boat learned from other boats that a new lighthouse had appeared next to the floating lighthouse. The boat was heartbroken — it would never have the chance to win the respect of the lighthouse’s parents. So the boat unloaded the old light recognition system and removed the radio transceiver. Until some time later, the boat installed a new radio and lighting system, and deleted all channels and exchange keys of that mobile lighthouse from its spectrum, thereby losing all contact with that lighthouse from then on.

Each cargo run took about a year of sailing. Every year the boat would return to the port in the shallow sea area once to gaze at that lighthouse from afar. But that lighthouse knew in her heart that the boat would come back here once a year — it just didn’t emit light anymore.

Then one day the boat heard that the new lighthouse built next to the floating lighthouse had collapsed due to substandard quality caused by a tight construction schedule and heavy tasks. The boat was deeply worried for the floating lighthouse: Is she okay? Should I say something to her now, comfort her? But my radio system no longer has her channel or exchange key. I’m even more heartbroken than she is — when she needed my light beam, I couldn’t send any beam she needed. The only consolation is that she still has her parent lighthouses providing ground power, ensuring she isn’t at risk of collapsing.

And so time passed for 4 years and 2 months. During those four years, on every night of sailing, the boat would dream the same dream from time to time — dreaming that the mobile lighthouse was emitting a light beam searching for it, and it responded to the lighthouse with the same beam and radio signal, and they hugged each other and cried. Every time he woke from the dream, tears would gather in the boat’s eyes (as I write this, tears have already fallen from my eyes). Every time it woke, the boat would send out a signal and record the time. In those four years, the boat dreamed of the lighthouse 15 times, and every time was heartbreaking. The boat perhaps could never understand what it had done wrong, how it could never forget that indelible radio wave, how it would never have the chance to win respect that belonged to it. During those four years, the boat kept perfecting its flaws, upgrading itself from a light ironclad into a cruiser. But the boat’s heart still held no joy at all — even if it could carry a thousand tons of cargo, with ten-thousand-ton displacement and thousands of knots of speed, becoming a battleship — what good would it do? Could it get that floating lighthouse back? No, because the boat had failed; perhaps its fate for a lifetime was to carry containers, to haul more cargo. The boat fell silent. The boat wanted very much to sink itself and stay submerged forever.

The boat tried to use its new lighting system to emit the light beam that lighthouse needed, and a new radio receiving system, to find the signal channels and spectrum of that lighthouse from friendly boats. Before long, it received a response from the floating lighthouse. The boat’s heart was torn — very happy, very bitter, very helpless. It learned that after the new lighthouse collapsed, the Marine Administration, together with the ground port and the parent lighthouses, had built a new lighthouse for the floating lighthouse, and fixed its base with steel cables so that she would never be lonely again, never sway in the baptism of wind and waves.

The lighthouse perhaps didn’t know that in the boat’s lighting system, only the filament, the lampshade, and the wiring had been replaced; the light chip was still the original one — only now it could recognize only 90% of that lighthouse’s beam. In its heart, the boat was happy for the lighthouse — she finally had everything she wanted. But the boat was perhaps very sad — its lighthouse had already collapsed, and could never again point the way for the boat at sea. The boat had no choice but to find the next lighthouse…

Ending

This boat is named “Lianggong”.

Adapted from a true story. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.