Human Realm

Pioneering Works

of New Socialist Literature

in China

Liu Jiming

Translated by Chen Gang

Vero Publishing, Florida

First published by Vero Publishing, Vero Beach, Florida, 2025

The Human Realm By Liu Jiming Translated by Chen Gang

Copyright © 2026 by Liu Jiming All rights reserved

English Translation Copyright © 2026 by Chen Gang

This English edition is published by Vero Publishing under an exclusive authorization granted by the author on April 2, 2025

Published by Vero Publishing

5493 Antigua Cir Vero Beach, FL 32967

First Edition: March 2026

Library of Congress Control Number: 2026935783

ISBN:Paperback: 9798249228712

ISBN:Hardcover: 9798249226732

Printed in the United States of America.

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 Preface to the English Edition of The Human Realm

It has been exactly ten years since the publication of The Human Realm. In my original postscript, I reflected on its twenty-year gestation—a journey starting in the mid-1990s and concluding in 2015, accompanying me from my youth to the present. In the summer of 2015, I stayed in Changshengzhuang, a mountain village retreat for the Wansongpu College of Letters. There, amidst orchards and reservoirs, I rediscovered a long-lost earthy vitality; at night, under the vast starlit sky, I found a profound tranquility far removed from the clamor of the world. Upon returning to Wuhan, I completed the final revisions, restructuring the novel into its parallel paths for Ma La and Murong Qiu.

Upon its release in 2016, the renowned writer Zhang Wei noted: “The Human Realm allows us to rediscover the simplicity and dignity that contemporary literature once possessed amidst today's shallow clamor”. Later that year, critics at a Beijing symposium recognized the novel’s "stubborn growth" within a climate suppressed by capitalist production relations. Scholar Chen Fumin remarked that without such voices, this historical period would be a disgrace, linking the work to the inner spirit of the socialist movement. It was here that the critic Li Yunlei first proposed the concept of "New Socialist Literature," viewing The Human Realm as a profound exploration of "where China is headed".

"In a letter to me, Mr. Han Shaogong wrote: 'An unprecedented reconstruction of utopia, a comprehensive reckoning and quest for answers. In this sense, such writing is itself a momentous act of spiritual merit that deeply moved me. The topicality of this book is likely to be enduring, broad, and profound—far exceeding all our expectations.'"

Despite this acclaim and several awards, the mainstream literary establishment’s reaction remained lukewarm—a reflection of the long-standing marginalization of socialist themes. At the time, I viewed this novel as the "conclusion" of my literary career. However, at the urging of scholars who saw my characters as being in an "unfinished state," I eventually produced Black and White—a novel that many consider the culmination of the themes started here.

Now, one year after the English release of Black and White, The Human Realm is finally making its debut in the English-speaking world. I am deeply gratified and wish to thank Mr. Gang Chen and Vero Publishing for their unwavering support in bringing my work to a global audience.

— Liu Jiming, February 10, 2026

I build my cot within the human realm,

Yet hear no clamor of the wheel and rein.

You ask of me, how can this truly be?

A distant heart makes the place remote and free.

I pluck chrysanthemums beneath the eastern fence,

And see the Southern Hill in quiet dalliance.

The mountain air is fair as day descends,

While birds in flight return to seek their friends.

Within all this, a verity lies deep,

But seeking words, I find them hard to keep.

— Tao Yuanming (365–427 AD)

Part One

Chapter 1

The contours of his nose and lips stood out with particular sharpness, making his face look like a woodcutt...

It was around autumn 2000, a few days before the Ghost Festival [note: the Ghost Festival, or Zhongyuan Festival (中元节), falls on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, when the Chinese honor their ancestors], during a stretch of endless rainy days.

The streets of Hekou were nearly deserted. The shops along the road stood cold and empty, with scarcely a customer in sight. After several days of continuous rain, the sky hung gray and oppressive. The uneven roads were pocked with pools of water here and patches of mud there—step carelessly and you'd be splattered head to toe with muck, or worse, take a nasty fall. Even passing vehicles had to slow to a crawl, inching along like beetles, wobbling and lurching with exaggerated caution.

Fine threads of rain still drifted down from above, slanting and persistent, unhurried and patient as a silkworm spinning its cocoon. From daybreak to dusk, from morning through afternoon, it continued without cease, with a patience and stubbornness that called to mind some diligent farmer well-versed in the principle that slow work yields fine results. Yet by all appearances, this rain bore no resemblance to any farmer—quite the opposite, it seemed bent on defying those who depended on heaven's favor for their livelihood, determined not to rest until it had drowned the entire town of  Hekou and all the surrounding villages.

Such conditions inevitably brought to mind the catastrophic flood that had passed not long before. Hekou sat right along the Jiangjiang, and during that once-in-a-century deluge, the embankment had given way. Several polders and sandbars, including Shenhuangzhou, had been transformed into vast inland seas overnight. Even the town square's flagpole—once attached to the tallest building in  Hekou—had been submerged until only half of it poked above the water, and people could row boats and fish in the streets. Now, the old three-story building at the town's central crossroads, newly renovated after the flood, still stood firm through the curtain of rain, though even it looked bedraggled and dispirited, soaked through by the relentless autumn downpour.

On an ordinary day, this crossroads bustled with activity—crowds of people, streams of vehicles, all full of energy and life. Long-distance buses bound for the provincial capital Wuhan, or for Yichang, Shashi, and Yueyang, picked up and dropped off passengers here. Add to that the short-haul buses serving nearby townships and the county seat, all stopping at this same spot, and there was never any shortage of people boarding, alighting, or waiting. Every few minutes, one or even several vehicles would roll in from outside town or depart from here. When crowds swelled, fights and arguments over jostling to get on or off were commonplace. The town's professional pickpockets—idlers who spent their days lurking around the crossroads—seized such opportunities to work the chaos, lifting someone's wallet. The victim might be a farmer from a nearby village, or perhaps someone from out of town visiting relatives or conducting business. But whether local or outsider, discovering their money stolen, some would curse and shout, others wail and keen. And when they spotted a suspicious thief who hadn't yet managed to slip away, they'd naturally do everything possible to recover what might well be half a year's wages earned through backbreaking labor. Thus a dispute that was already intractable could easily escalate into an even more distressing conflict, sometimes serious enough to summon the town police station. The officers clearly knew this routine by heart—they'd haul the troublemaker to the station, rough him up, slap him with a fine, and call it done. Sometimes they wouldn't even bother beating or fining him, usually because the parties involved were old acquaintances with some subtle understanding between them. The "arrest" was purely for public show, to avoid accusations of dereliction of duty. But they'd release the person the moment they turned around. Within days, similar scenes would replay themselves at the crossroads, like students reviewing their lessons or the endless TV serials broadcast on television...

But on this rain-soaked autumn day, the pickpockets found no opportunities for their trade. Looking around, you could barely spot anyone at the crossroads. The food stalls and sundry goods stands that normally packed the streets on clear days had vanished as if swept away by a sudden gale, leaving the crossroads as empty as a threshing ground after the autumn harvest. Buses and waiting passengers were far fewer than usual. Often, you'd wait a good long while before seeing a single mud-splattered bus roll up. Several pedicab drivers, their business slow, had abandoned their vehicles to the wind and rain at the roadside and retreated to a small tavern nearby to drink tea, smoke, play cards, and chat away the hours.

Around three in the afternoon, the rain let up slightly, though there was still no sign of clearing. For a brief moment, a thin crack did appear in the overcast sky, but it closed again in the blink of an eye. This gave people ample reason to believe the heavens were merely catching their breath from the exertion of raining, and before long the downpour would resume.

It was at this moment that the long-distance bus from Wuhan bound for Yanhe County drove into Hekou. Buses like this, just passing through, rarely had passengers disembark in town—today was no exception. When the bus pulled to a stop, only one passenger got off. The door slammed shut almost at his heels with a bang, as if shooing him away, leaving him standing alone on the wet pavement before the bus hurried off impatiently.

After stepping down, the man watched the bus disappear into the distance, then bent to pick up a black wheeled suitcase. But he didn't walk away immediately. Instead, he tilted his face upward to check whether it was still raining, then glanced around somewhat uncertainly, as if unsure where to go. He was a middle-aged man of about forty, not particularly tall but sturdy and well-proportioned. His face was rather thin, giving an impression of tautness. The contours of his nose and lips stood out with particular sharpness, making his face look like a woodcut. What drew attention were his pupils—they were actually chestnut-colored, which made his gaze seem elusive, making it difficult for anyone to easily fathom what lay beneath, demanding extra care and attention. His appearance was unmistakably that of an outsider. Perhaps due to a long and exhausting journey, he looked somewhat weary. There was a touch of desolation in his bearing, and both his expression and manner seemed at odds with his surroundings. He looked, somehow, like a character stepped out from the pages of Thomas Hardy...

In Hekou, there had been quite a few outsiders coming and going in recent years, but most were salesmen of various stripes, smooth-talking and evasive. This man clearly wasn't one of those types. Judging by his somewhat bewildered expression, he seemed more like a wandering traveler. But what could bring him to this remote little plains town—a place with no famous scenic spots or historic sites, no former residences of notable historical figures worth visiting? Even stranger, unlike a newcomer searching for lodging, he hesitated only briefly before heading out of town.

This movement caught the attention of several pedicab drivers idling listlessly by the tavern door. They realized business had arrived.

A young man squatting by the tavern entrance smoking sprang into action with particular speed. Before the other drivers could react, he flicked away his cigarette butt and sprinted toward the stranger at a hundred-meter dash, waving and calling out in broken Mandarin: "Sir! Where are you going?"

The man stopped and looked at the young fellow who'd run up to him—a handsome face with a conspicuous horseshoe-shaped scar on his forehead, not at all what you'd expect from a country boy. This seemed to surprise him, so his gaze lingered on the young man's face a moment longer.

"Where am I going?" he echoed, as if finding the question odd. "I'm not going anywhere," he said expressionlessly. "I'm... going home."

The young man was momentarily taken aback. But he'd already detected a slightly rusty local accent in the man's voice. He quickly switched to the local dialect: "Oh, going home? Let me give you a ride. Where do you live?"

"Shenhuangzhou," the man muttered. "I was thinking of walking..."

"Shenhuangzhou? That's a good paoba li away!" [note: paoba li is local dialect meaning "ten-odd li," roughly 3-5 kilometers] the young man said. "In weather this awful, you'd never get home before dark."

The young man's authentic local dialect brought a rare flicker of a smile to the man's face. "All right," he said after a moment's hesitation.

The young man eagerly reached for the black suitcase. He hefted it—the thing was remarkably heavy, as if packed solid with gold or some other valuable cargo. "Good grief, this heavy, and you were planning to walk all the way to Shenhuangzhou!" He led the man toward a pedicab parked by the roadside.

The pedicab was rather worn, its canvas canopy punctured with several holes, though it could still manage to block wind and rain. Locally, this type of three-wheeled vehicle was called a mamu. They mainly served the rough country roads, so they deteriorated particularly fast. The young man loaded the suitcase onto the vehicle, then turned to help the passenger aboard, but the man waved him off and nimbly swung himself into the low cab with the agility of someone much younger.

"You probably haven't been back in quite a while, have you? The country roads are terrible now," the young man said, closing the door and brushing mud from his palms. "To be honest, if I hadn't failed to make even one fare today, you could offer me double and I still wouldn't dare go to Shenhuangzhou. You have no idea—when it rains, that road turns into an absolute quagmire..."

"Then I'll pay you double," the man said casually.

"Oh, listen to you—I was just making conversation..." The young man chuckled awkwardly, climbed into the driver's seat, and started the engine.

"Hold on tight!" he called back, tossing his long hair, and the pedicab lurched forward like a wild horse, swaying and bouncing.

The moment they left town, the autumn rain, which had paused for less than an hour, began pattering down again. The man sat in the cramped seat in a sort of "riding squat," hands raised overhead like he was doing parallel bar exercises, gripping the rusty railings to brace against the jolting, with the black suitcase wedged flat between his knees. The pedicab moved scarcely faster than a bicycle. He leaned slightly to one side, gazing out at the scenery slowly receding along both sides of the asphalt highway: a few rows of farmhouses nestled among trees, weed-choked irrigation ditches, and open fields stretching endlessly into the distance. The crops in those fields grew sparse and uneven—some planted with cotton, others left entirely bare, or abandoned after spring harvests of rapeseed and the like, bald as a mangy scalp. The cotton plants seemed to be doing reasonably well; though their stalks weren't especially robust and leaned this way and that, you could still make out cotton bolls in the distance that the farmers hadn't managed to pick before the rains. The continuous autumn rains had turned the once snow-white cotton black and moldy. In truth, it wasn't just the cotton that had spoiled—under days of soaking rain, everything seemed to be quietly rotting, darkening, and moldering. What feelings might such an autumn landscape—oppressive and rain-shrouded—awaken in the man's heart? Impossible to say. That sharply defined face revealed no expression whatsoever, and his chestnut-colored eyes, hidden beneath thick, heavy brows, made his thoughts even more inscrutable. In short, you could say he was deep in thought, or equally that he was thinking nothing at all. Ever since stepping off that long-distance bus, he'd worn this same cold, melancholy, unfathomable expression...

After traveling about five or six li along the asphalt highway, the pedicab crested a low embankment and turned onto a rutted country lane. The road hugged an irrigation canal, now bone-dry and exposing black, rotting mud. The banks were overgrown with reeds and wild grass taller than a man, interspersed with vegetable patches of various sizes like so many patches on worn clothing. This made what had once been a wide, straight road remarkably narrow. Farmers living along the route constantly dug up earth from the road, leaving the surface pitted and potholed. Some had even stacked rice straw and cotton stalks right on the road, blocking half the thoroughfare—even a pushcart could barely squeeze through. Add to that the accumulated mud and standing water from endless rain, and the pedicab hadn't struggled far before one wheel sank into a puddle and the engine stalled. The young man had to get out and push. "You see? Can you even call this a road?" he grumbled while pushing. "I remember when I was little, this road was wide enough for two cars side by side..."

"Yes, back then..." the man said, frowning thoughtfully. "I never imagined it would come to this. Need any help?"

"Oh, no need," the young man replied—he was quite strong, and by the time he finished speaking, he'd already pushed the pedicab out of the puddle, though he was splattered with mud and nearly slipped and fell. "Those village cadres are too busy squeezing money out of farmers all day to care about any of this. Of course, it's turned out this way!" When he climbed back into the driver's seat, he glanced at the man and added, "You've been away for quite some years, it seems. You really don't know what the countryside is like now..."

"That's right, I don't know..." the man murmured, surveying the landscape.

The pedicab lurched forward again. It bounced violently; at times the whole vehicle seemed about to tip over. The man swayed left and right inside, forced to grip the railings with all his strength or risk being thrown clear out of the cab. The pedicab struggled onward for a stretch before stopping yet again.

The man looked up and saw that the road ahead had been dug open—a gap several feet wide, with accumulated water from the fields rushing through and pouring into the canal.

"I really can't go any farther this time," the young man said, spreading his hands apologetically. "You'll have to walk the rest of the way."

"Can't blame you for that," the man said, picking up his black suitcase and climbing out. He paid the young man the fare.

"It's only another li or two to Shenhuangzhou. Lucky the rain's stopped for now—you'll definitely make it home before dark..." The young man pocketed the money and studied the man, unable to resist asking: "What's your surname, sir?"

"My surname is... Ma," the man answered after a slight hesitation.

"Are you... Ma La, Uncle Ma?"

"Yes..." The man's eyebrows twitched slightly. "How did you know?"

"I... I just guessed," the young man said, his face flushing slightly as he stammered.

Ma La made a small sound of acknowledgment, then took a closer look at the young man. "And you are...?"

"My mother's name was Yan Hongxia..."

"You're Hongxia's son?" Ma La said with some surprise. "Her son's this grown already! And your mother? How is she now?"

The young man lowered his head. "My mother died of illness five years ago."

"Hongxia... is dead?" Ma La seemed unable to believe his own ears. "She was two years younger than me. Back then..." He swallowed the rest of his words.

"My mother mentioned you to me..."

But at that moment Ma La's expression had turned rather sorrowful, his brow furrowing into a deep crease, as if he hadn't heard the young man at all. After a pause, he picked up the black suitcase and turned wordlessly to leave. After a few steps, he stopped, turned back, and asked the young man: "What's your name?"

"I'm called Bao Xiaoli."

Though it was only past four in the afternoon, the sky was veiled in misty rain, draping the surrounding fields and villages like a silvery-gray curtain, making it seem almost like dusk. Bao Xiaoli stood by the roadside, watching Ma La walk away toward Shenhuangzhou until he disappeared from view, then drove his pedicab back along the same road toward Hekou.

Chapter 2

Teacher Lu always spoke and acted in a free-spirited, do-as-he-pleased manner, with such leaps in logic that ordinary minds could hardly keep pace.

Going back twenty years, Ma La had been quite a notable figure.

Over twenty years ago, Ma La was studying at Yanhe Normal School. The Normal School was Yanhe County's highest institution of learning, situated at the foot of Wenfeng Mountain in the eastern suburbs of the county seat, facing the town across a lake. The lake was called Shandi Lake—not large, but unfathomably deep. Whenever the weather turned rainy, the surface would be shrouded in thick mist, like a beautiful woman veiled, inspiring endless reverie. But when the clouds parted and the sun emerged, the lake's surface would ripple with azure waves, crystal clear, with blue sky and white clouds, red walls and green willows all reflected within, like a fairyland. Long ago, there had been a bridge called Zhaoying Bridge over Shandi Lake. Legend had it that during the Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei of Shu had passed through here with Lady Sun, displaying their affection at the bridge. Unfortunately, Zhaoying Bridge had been destroyed in warfare ages ago, and nowadays if people in Yanhe wanted to glimpse its former glory, they could only search for traces in the county annals.

Though Yanhe Normal School was a secondary normal school, it had considerable pedigree. Its predecessor was the Yanhe County Rural Education Training Academy, funded and established by local worthies and gentry during the Republican era. During the War of Resistance, some distinguished scholars had taken refuge there from the chaos of war, adding considerable luster and cultural depth to this small private school. After 1949, Yanhe Normal School was nationalized, becoming a base for training grassroots educational talent for Yanhe and several surrounding counties. Naturally, its importance was far greater than in the past.

When Ma La entered Yanhe Normal School, it was the early 1980s. Whether in Beijing and Shanghai—cities at the political and cultural center—or in remote small county seats like Yanhe, everywhere was like a house whose doors and windows had suddenly been thrown open, receiving winds from all directions. Various new colors and atmospheres came flooding in, converging from all sides, leaving many people excited and overwhelmed. Ma La and many of his classmates were the same. Though they studied at merely a normal school in a remote county, their heads were filled with national affairs and cultural trends from around the world. They read voraciously, absorbing all kinds of new knowledge and information through newspapers, magazines, and radio. Before long, Yanhe Normal School's library, with its collection of fewer than ten thousand books, could no longer satisfy their overly voracious appetite. Some had to find other ways, asking acquaintances working or studying in big cities to buy books and send them.

Ma La had neither money to buy books nor acquaintances working or studying in big cities, so naturally he had no access to such shortcuts.

It was at this time that Ma La's teacher, Lu Yongjia, "opened" his private book collection to him.

Why did Teacher Lu open his private collection to Ma La alone? Besides the fact that Ma La loved reading and ranked at the top of his class, earning the teacher's appreciation, it also had to do with him being an orphan from the countryside. Ma La had lost his parents at an early age and for a long time depended on his older brother. But later, his brother died in a fire while rescuing the production team's seeds. After that, Ma La became truly an orphan. From middle school through normal school, his grain rations, living expenses, and tuition were all provided by the production team. Such experiences had made Ma La's personality silent and introverted from an early age, and also cultivated his habit of diligent study. All teachers liked diligent students, and Teacher Lu was no exception. So he made an exception and opened his private collection to Ma La.

When Ma La first entered Teacher Lu's study, he saw bookshelves lining all four walls, packed densely with books. Books were piled on the desk, on chairs, even scattered across the floor. Teacher Lu had studied Chinese literature, so his collection included not only classic literary masterpieces but also philosophical works still relatively unfamiliar to most ordinary readers, such as Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, Sartre's Being and Nothingness, Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, and Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. These books were then circulating only among intellectual circles and university students in big cities, and were rarely seen in remote small counties like Yanhe. Teacher Lu had obtained them through a classmate working in Beijing. Ma La felt as if he'd entered an ocean of books, with a dazzling sense of abundance. From then on, Ma La borrowed books from Teacher Lu once a week, two or three volumes each time. To finish them promptly, he read late into the night every evening. Within a year, he'd read through nearly all of Teacher Lu's collection.

In his second year, Ma La and classmate Ding Youpeng founded a literary society, with Lu Yongjia serving as advisor. The literary society held weekly activities, exchanging reading insights and reciting passages from classic works. Occasionally, they would invite Teacher Lu to participate and provide on-site guidance. Teacher Lu always came enthusiastically, never refusing the society's invitations. Sometimes he would even call Ma La, Ding Youpeng, and a few other core members to his home for special tutoring. Afterward, each person would casually take away a book or two to borrow. Back and forth like this, Teacher Lu's study practically became their "private library," and his home became the literary society's main venue for activities. Gradually, they gained a deeper understanding of Teacher Lu...

Lu Yongjia had once been a top student in the Chinese Department at Beijing Normal University, quite talented. In his freshman year, he'd already published work in a nationally famous magazine—among his classmates, he was truly outstanding, a cut above the rest. He'd always been arrogant and proud of his talent, not deigning to regard ordinary people. Upon graduation, he could have stayed in Beijing to work as a reporter for a major newspaper, but instead was assigned back to his hometown Wuhan, to work as an editor at a publishing house. Within two years, for some unknown reason, he was sent down to Yanhe Normal School. Some said he'd committed a political error, others said it was a problem with his conduct toward women. But whatever the reason, when a person suffers such a major setback, one would expect them to learn from the experience. Yet Lu Yongjia's nature remained unchanged. At Yanhe Normal School, he continued to act superior and do as he pleased, and his relationships with leadership and colleagues seemed even worse than before. His personal life was the same—even many of his students found it incomprehensible. Actually, by ordinary standards, Lu Yongjia could be considered quite handsome. With his tall frame standing at the classroom podium, he cut an impressive figure. When lecturing, he would range across past and present, citing classics liberally, speaking eloquently. He always kept a thick, dark beard, quite the artistic manner. Add to that his degree from a prestigious university, and by all rights finding a decent wife should have been easy. Yet Lu Yongjia remained unmarried past forty, always living in a bachelor's dormitory. Reading and drinking were his two great passions. Besides the jumbled piles of books in his room, there were bottles of all sizes and varieties. He often shut himself in his room drinking alone, and when the mood struck, he'd call in students he particularly valued to drink with him. When he was about seventy or eighty percent drunk, he'd stand like an actor in the center of the room, clear his throat, and begin reciting Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."

"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" When Lu Yongjia recited the final line, his arms raised high, his head tilted toward the sky—or more precisely, toward the ceiling—like a kunpeng [note: a mythical giant bird from Chinese legend] about to take flight, standing motionless in that pose. Ma La and every student present felt their blood surge, moved not only by Shelley's poetry but also by Lu Yongjia's aura of aloof independence and extraordinary distinction. Ma La and many in the literary society had seen the poet's portrait on the frontispiece of Selected Lyric Poems of Shelley. Now they discovered that Teacher Lu's melancholy and unconventional temperament closely resembled Shelley's.

Each semester, Lu Yongjia would mysteriously disappear from Yanhe Normal School for a period. Few people knew where he went. Supposedly, Lu Yongjia's father had been a major capitalist in Hankou before Liberation, fleeing to Taiwan at Liberation and leaving him and his mother alone on the mainland. So each semester he had to return to Wuhan at least once to visit his mother. Of course, besides visiting his mother, he also took the opportunity to visit former teachers and classmates in Beijing. Thus, when he returned to Yanhe Normal School dusty from travel with a bulging bag on his back, he would always call several core members of the literary society to his home to share all kinds of new information he'd learned from cultural circles in Wuhan and Beijing—things like the April Fifth Movement [note: the 1976 Tiananmen Incident], Scar Literature [note: literary movement depicting trauma of the Cultural Revolution], Educated Youth Literature, Misty Poetry, and so on. Ma La first heard about all these things from Teacher Lu. Each time he heard these unfamiliar terms, he felt excitement and agitation in his heart, even a kind of tension and unease. And Teacher Lu's expression appeared equally excited and agitated. "Do you know that after the 'de-Stalinization' in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, there was a cultural 'thaw' period? China is now at that stage. We must engage in a revaluation of values. Hmm, that's what Nietzsche said..." He looked at the students with penetrating eyes, saw their bewildered faces, frowned slightly, and said as if explaining a text in class, "What does revaluation mean? It means revision. Lenin revised Marx, and Mao Zedong revised Lenin and Stalin too. And then there's Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg—Lenin once praised Rosa as the nightingale of the proletariat—they all revised Marxism-Leninism as well. Hmm, without 'revision' there is no social progress. Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth! Students, you must keep pace with the times!" Lu Yongjia's gaze swept across each person's face in turn, his expression somewhat serious. Like a leader in a film, he waved his hand forcefully: "Students, it's a new era now. We can't just focus on those few books—On Contradiction, On Practice, and Das Kapital. We should also read The Wealth of Nations, A Theory of Justice. Not only should we know Keynes, but also Hayek, who wrote a book called The Road to Serfdom..."

Lu Yongjia's bold pronouncements were full of infectious power, making this group of normal school students in a small county feel a strong tide of the times rushing toward them. Actually, like most of his classmates, Ma La only half-understood Teacher Lu's constant stream of new terminology, but they still listened with great interest, which further stimulated their thirst for knowledge. That was an era of ideological liberation. While people were demolishing old political idols, they were also constantly creating new cultural idols that came rushing at them. Unknowingly, Ma La and his classmates came to regard Teacher Lu as their own idol. In their minds, Lu Yongjia was not just Yanhe Normal School's, but the entire Yanhe County's ideological "pioneer." Many new ideas and concepts gradually spread among the youth of Yanhe Normal School and even the entire county through him.

Among the literary society students, Ma La's closest friend was Ding Youpeng. Actually, whether in personality or background, the differences between Ding Youpeng and Ma La were considerable. Ma La was a student from the countryside, introverted, even somewhat shy. He usually kept his head down reading and attending class, rarely interacting with classmates. But his grades consistently ranked at the top of the class, especially in Chinese—several of his compositions had been used by Teacher Lu as model essays read aloud in class. As for Ding Youpeng, his father was a county official who had once served as Party secretary of Hekou Commune where Ma La's hometown was located. Though he didn't have the devil-may-care habits of some cadres' children, he loved being in the spotlight and was socially adept. Upon entering normal school, he became class monitor and student council president, frequently appearing at various school-wide activities, a conspicuous and active figure. Though Ding Youpeng also enjoyed reading novels, he couldn't be considered a true literature lover. His active participation in founding the literary society was nothing more than following fashion, keeping up with trends. In the early 1980s, the entire society was swept up in a literary fever. If a person, especially a college or technical school student, didn't read some fiction and poetry, they'd be viewed as backward and uncultured—even girls would look down on them. Actually, Ding Youpeng's main purpose in joining the literary society was to meet girls. Besides attending class, he spent most of his energy on female students—either holed up in his dorm writing love letters to some girl he fancied, or busy with dates, going to the county dance halls or the workers' club roller rink.

How could two people with such incompatible temperaments and interests become good friends? Ma La found it somewhat inexplicable himself. Later, reflecting on it, it was nothing more than his good grades, love of reading, and strong writing ability. Ding probably thought making friends with someone like Ma La could help him in some way. In fact, Ma La had indeed helped him. Once, when Ding Youpeng had fallen for a pretty girl at normal school, he asked Ma La to help write a love letter for him. Ma La refused without hesitation at first. He himself had never been in love, and in his mind, love was such a sacred word—how could he do something so fraudulent as writing love letters for someone else? But he couldn't withstand Ding Youpeng's persistent nagging and eventually compromised...

Back then, both Ding Youpeng and Ma La were young men in their early twenties, at the most malleable age in one's life. Lu Yongjia's unconventional personality and unrestrained manner won their deep admiration. At the time, works by the German philosopher Nietzsche were being translated into Chinese in large quantities, and their heads were full of concepts like "Apollonian spirit," "Dionysian spirit," "superman," and "will to power." They even felt Teacher Lu embodied the "Dionysian spirit." Ding Youpeng even imitated Lu Yongjia by growing a beard. But even after half a year, his beard couldn't match Lu Yongjia's thick, dark, luxuriant growth. Ma La mocked him about this more than once. "Teacher Lu is a genius, and how can geniuses be imitated?" He pointed at the sparse patch of light yellow whiskers on Ding Youpeng's chin and said, "I checked with the medical office—Teacher Lu has type B blood. Many geniuses in history had type B blood. Do you know what type B blood means?" Ding Youpeng pulled out a thin pamphlet and read with great seriousness: "The characteristics of type B people can be simply described as doing things their own way. They never care about others' opinions, refuse to be bound, aren't easily influenced by popular trends, have keen insight into matters, are absolute perfectionists—the same goes for their views on love and marriage. They dare to break with tradition, and if they can't find an ideal partner, they'd rather stay single their whole lives! Type B people in their careers absolutely refuse mediocrity, dare to pursue careers different from ordinary people and accept new challenges. Their 'libido' is also more vigorous than average, making them unsuited for traditional family life... Isn't this describing our Teacher Lu?" Ma La's words left Ding Youpeng somewhat dejected. He made a special trip to the school medical office to check his blood type, and discovered that, like Teacher Lu, he was also type B. This excited him for several days, and he felt more justified in growing his beard.

This philosophical and blood-type investigation made Ding Youpeng and Ma La understand Teacher Lu's eccentric habits even better. So later, when rumors occasionally circulated at school about Teacher Lu having ambiguous relationships with certain female students, they weren't at all surprised—they found it quite reasonable. "Teacher Lu is a genius! If a person's life doesn't involve some unconventional incidents, how can they be called a genius?"

In the small world of Yanhe Normal School, Lu Yongjia's personal life truly seemed too outrageous. He changed girlfriends almost regularly. His "girlfriends" varied in age, occupation, and location—there was a salesclerk from the county department store, a female worker from the county chemical fertilizer plant, an announcer from the county broadcasting station, and female students from Yanhe Normal School. The older ones were about his age, the younger ones under twenty, but without exception they were all beautiful and sexy. Supposedly, Lu Yongjia had a rule when dating women: by the third meeting, they had to sleep together, otherwise they'd break up. Ding Youpeng, who fancied himself the normal school's "prince of romance," admired this "rule of three" immensely and tried to imitate it secretly, but ended up being dumped as a "lecherous scoundrel" by the girlfriend he'd just started dating. This severely damaged Ding Youpeng's confidence, leaving him crestfallen for quite a while. Once, utterly perplexed, he asked Ma La: "How does Old Lu, at his age, have such great appeal to women?" Ding Youpeng privately always called Lu Yongjia "Old Lu." Ma La, seeing his sour expression, didn't know how to respond. Ma La had never been in "love," so answering such a profound question was truly difficult for him.

As Ma La was approaching graduation, a sensational scandal erupted at Yanhe Normal School: a female performer from the county arts troupe, impregnated by Lu Yongjia, attempted suicide by jumping into Shandi Lake near the campus. After being rescued, she reported Lu Yongjia to the county education committee. Lu Yongjia's messy "relationships with women" was hardly news. The school leadership, valuing him as talent, had always turned a blind eye. But this time Lu Yongjia had gotten someone pregnant, and supposedly the woman's family had powerful connections—the nature was different. The county education committee instructed normal school leadership to talk with Lu Yongjia, urging him to marry the actress, otherwise he would face severe disciplinary action. The leadership proposed this solution clearly to protect Lu Yongjia, but incredibly, Lu Yongjia stubbornly refused to marry the actress. The result was a serious warning, leading to his dismissal...

After graduating from Yanhe Normal School, Ma La was assigned to teach at Hekou Middle School, while Ding Youpeng remained to teach at Yanhe County No. 1 Middle School. Having transformed from a rural youth into a middle school teacher drawing a state salary after just two years of normal school, Ma La was fairly satisfied with his job. Therefore, during his first two semesters after starting work, Ma La worked day and night preparing and teaching lessons, approaching his work earnestly and conscientiously. At night, alone in his dorm room, thinking of those familiar, dear faces of teachers and classmates from Yanhe Normal School, an inexplicable melancholy and confusion would well up from the depths of his heart. But come daylight, he would throw himself wholeheartedly back into busy teaching. If nothing unexpected happened, he'd almost resigned himself to dealing with chalk for the rest of his life.

Life in the small town was lonely and desolate. For a young teacher like Ma La, just graduated and newly assigned, it was even more so. Each day after finishing classes and grading students' homework, Ma La spent most of his time shut in his room—less than ten square meters—reading books. The town middle school had no library, so for books he could only go borrow from the town's cultural center.

The cultural center wasn't far from the town middle school, located at the eastern end of town—a square courtyard with white walls and purple tiles. In the center of the yard was a well, and beside the well stood a large mulberry tree so thick that two people couldn't wrap their arms around it. In summer its shade was like an umbrella; in autumn its fallen leaves carpeted the ground. Each time he entered the cultural center, Ma La felt as if he'd entered a virtual world, similar to the atmosphere depicted in Ba Jin's novel Family: ancient, dilapidated, with a touch of romantic poetry. This accorded with the particular aesthetic sensibility of a normal school graduate who loved literature. In fact, it was at the cultural center that he read through Ba Jin's Turbulent Trilogy: Family, Spring, Autumn. The cultural center's reading room had an extremely limited collection—most were revolutionary and Cultural Revolution novels from before the 1970s that Ma La had already read. Besides a few literary magazines, there were very few new books published after the Cultural Revolution. But in all of Hekou, the cultural center was the only place with a cultural atmosphere. It seemed only at the cultural center that Ma La could feel that tenuous connection with the broader world outside. Even if he didn't borrow a single book, whenever he had free time, Ma La would involuntarily walk into that courtyard, as if drawn by some magnet...

Later, Ma La realized that the magnet attracting him wasn't just books—it was also the cultural center's librarian, Yan Hongxia.

Yan Hongxia was probably the prettiest girl in Hekou. About 165 centimeters tall, slender yet shapely, her long black hair cascading to her shoulders swayed gracefully as she walked, like a tall, elegant poplar in spring. She had a typical oval face, fair and smooth as a flawless piece of jade. Her long eyebrows and bright eyes brought to mind the poetic lines "Beautiful eyes glancing, a lovely smile." [note: from the Classic of Poetry] When she walked down the street, most passersby would stop and turn their gaze toward her. If she was in the cultural center's reading room, almost everyone borrowing books would let their eyes linger on her face for a while before reluctantly leaving. Some less proper men would frequently loiter at the lending window, shamelessly pestering her. She never got angry, just gently advised them not to disturb others borrowing books, and they'd slink away from the window.

The cultural center only subscribed to a few literary journals—People's Literature, Contemporary, October, Harvest, Youth, Mengya—and each new issue was in high demand. Several times, Ma La arrived just a step too late and could only watch helplessly as someone else borrowed those new issues. But later this never happened again. Each time, Ma La could borrow those journals he liked, and even if he was delayed several days by work, the new issues would still be there, as if specially waiting for him.

Yan Hongxia was deliberately looking after him. Ma La's heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

Actually, Yan Hongxia treated every borrower about the same—neither cold nor particularly warm, always seeming reserved, giving one a feeling that she was beyond reach. At least on the surface.

Yan Hongxia clearly knew she was beautiful, so she didn't deliberately dress up—sometimes she even seemed careless. Her hair was either casually pulled back with a red ribbon, or clipped behind her forehead with a yellow crystal hair clip, which somehow gave her an indescribable charm. She wasn't particular about her clothes either. During working hours, she almost always wore a red corduroy jacket with a sash at the back that perfectly outlined her graceful figure.

In the early 1980s, the pretty girl Yan Hongxia at the cultural center became the most eye-catching sight in Hekou. Her color photograph hung in the town photo studio's large glass display window, regularly drawing crowds of young men and even children to admire it. Ma La later learned that Yan Hongxia was the daughter of that pockmarked photographer at the photo studio. He puzzled over it for a long time: how could a man with a face full of pockmarks have such an ethereal daughter?

Ma La had read many novels depicting love—from Lin Daojing and Yu Yongze and Jiang Hua in Song of Youth, to Pavel and Tonya in How the Steel Was Tempered, to Arthur and Gemma in The Gadfly, to Werther and Charlotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther, and so on. He was often deeply affected by the poignant love stories of these Chinese and foreign protagonists, immersed in and lingering over the illusory literary world. But in life he'd never tasted love himself. Losing family members too early had made his personality introverted, even somewhat withdrawn, and especially when facing girls, he always felt an invisible sense of inferiority. He felt that for him, beautiful love was as unattainable as flowers in a mirror or the moon in water, even more illusory than love stories in literature. Until he met Yan Hongxia.

He didn't know from which day it started, but if Ma La didn't see Yan Hongxia for a few days, his heart felt empty, and he couldn't concentrate on work as before. Whether teaching students or grading papers, he was easily distracted. Yan Hongxia's lovely image would pop into his mind from time to time, and whenever he had a spare moment, he'd run to the cultural center. At first, he only went to the cultural center to borrow and return books on Saturdays, but gradually he shortened the borrowing and returning cycle to twice a week. Later still, he went to the cultural center almost every other day. When he had no books to borrow or return, he'd play table tennis at the cultural center. In the early 1980s, table tennis was quite popular among young people in Hekou, and the cultural center had just purchased a set of table tennis equipment that was occupied early every day. Fortunately, Ma La wasn't genuinely interested in table tennis. More often, he was watching others play. But his eyes were fixed on the table while his mind was on the reading room across from the ping-pong room, on that small window. His head was full of Yan Hongxia's pretty, charming face. He even had the wild fantasy that if he could become that window, he could surround that beautiful, lovable face all day long. This bold thought made his face flush and his heart race, as if he'd done something shameful, and he quickly pulled his gaze away from the window. Actually, Yan Hongxia wasn't even at the window at that moment...

Ma La realized he'd fallen for Yan Hongxia. This was the first time in his life he'd fallen for a girl. He felt nervous, excited, and confused. He didn't know how to face these hazy feelings. He didn't even know how to express them. While studying at Yanhe Normal School, he'd written love letters—but those were written for Ding Youpeng. Now, when it was his turn to fall in love, he found he didn't know how to write a love letter. For several days in a row, Ma La shut himself in his cramped dorm room, racking his brains, wasting several sheets of letter paper, but still couldn't write a complete love letter. This left him utterly dejected, feeling he'd read all those books for nothing. Later, he decided to find an opportunity to confess to Yan Hongxia face to face. To this end, Ma La shut himself in his room and rehearsed repeatedly, like when he'd participated in one-act play rehearsals at the literary society at Yanhe Normal School. That one-act play was collectively created by him and several classmates, titled My Sun, also about a love story. The male protagonist wrote a love poem for the female protagonist, which Ma La had penned. The classmates praised it highly, crowning him the "campus poet." Now, Ma La suddenly felt this poem was as if written for Yan Hongxia. He decided to dedicate the poem to her. He went to the supply and marketing cooperative's retail department in town and bought a stack of pretty letter paper. Using regular script, he carefully copied out the poem, and on the back of the paper wrote a line: "Tomorrow evening at 6:30, meet at the Hydrological Station entrance!" Then he quietly tucked it into a novel and gave it to Yan Hongxia when returning books at the cultural center.

The next afternoon, just past five o'clock, Ma La finished dinner early in the cafeteria, changed into clothes he normally couldn't bear to wear—a dacron short-sleeved shirt and light gray Western-style trousers, along with his only pair of leather shoes—and carried a copy of Youth magazine he'd just borrowed from the cultural center a few days ago. He left the middle school gate and headed straight for the hydrological station. Passing the cultural center, he saw from afar that the reading room door was already closed, meaning Yan Hongxia had also gone home from work. Thinking of the approaching rendezvous, Ma La felt his heart pounding. He kept swallowing, as if otherwise his heart would leap out of his chest.

On this June evening, the stone-paved street, scorched by the sun all day, gradually cooled. There were far fewer pedestrians on the street, and shops on both sides had begun closing. The middle school was at the eastern end of town, the hydrological station at the western end—to get there, Ma La had to cross the entire town. This was Ma La's first date with a girl, and his excitement and nervousness were beyond words. He walked hurriedly along the narrow street, looking no different than when he normally went to visit students' homes. When someone approached, he would involuntarily lower his head, as if afraid someone might glimpse the secret in his heart.

The hydrological station was on the river embankment at the western end of town—a square, two-story concrete building. Because it was surrounded by fields with no other structures, it looked rather solitary. When passersby normally walked past this building, they would invariably regard it with curious or strange looks, including the people living inside. The hydrological station's staff were all sent by the county. Their usual work was measuring the Jiangjiang's water level and installing or maintaining navigation lights. They had little contact with Hekou. So townspeople had always regarded them as outsiders, and unless there was something important, rarely approached that concrete building.

Now, Ma La approached that square concrete building. The hydrological station didn't have many people to begin with, and by this after-work hour, the main gate was tightly shut, the entrance empty, not a soul in sight. On the white wall was a conspicuous line of red characters: "Grasp the key link, govern the country, build the four modernizations!"

Ma La stopped under a poplar tree by the wall. Looking out, the embankment meandered, the fields stretched endlessly—a peaceful scene. This really was a nice spot for a rendezvous. He checked his watch—not yet six o'clock. That Shanghai-made Gemstone watch was something he'd bought after receiving his first salary at the town middle school, his most expensive possession to date.

Seeing there was still half an hour until the appointed time, Ma La sat down on the grass beside the hydrological station. He opened that Youth magazine, turned to an essay called "Rain in Jiangnan," read a few lines but couldn't continue. His whole mind was filled with Yan Hongxia's image—how could he focus on reading? He simply tossed the magazine aside.

The sun was about to set. Under the evening glow, the Jiangjiang shone brilliantly, like a golden dragon about to soar into the sky. The light was so intense that Ma La had to close his eyes, opening them only after a good while. By then, the sun was gradually sinking into the windbreak forest by the river. The scene before him finally became softer. Ma La stared fixedly at that round ball of fire slowly descending, and as the afterglow faded bit by bit, growing lighter and paler until it completely dimmed, only then did Ma La pull his gaze back to his watch. Several minutes had passed beyond the appointed time. Yan Hongxia hadn't come yet. He couldn't help but raise his head and look toward the town, hoping to see that familiar figure, but the road from town to the embankment was empty—not a soul...

Maybe Yan Hongxia wouldn't come? There's no understanding between us. I don't even know if she has feelings for me. Writing her a love poem and asking to meet—wasn't that too rash? Or maybe she only read the poem and never saw that line on the back of the paper! Ma La's thoughts ran wild, his head stuffed like it was packed with straw, a complete mess. Ma La stared blankly at the vast, desolate river surface. The last trace of sunset at the horizon had vanished, the sky growing darker and darker. An unprecedented sense of disappointment and shame seized Ma La. He felt as if his heart had a stone tied to it, sinking lower and lower, ever downward...

"Sorry to keep you waiting..." a familiar voice sounded behind him. Ma La's body jolted. He spun around quickly and saw Yan Hongxia standing before him. She'd clearly dressed up deliberately, wearing a pure white dress, her hair pulled back in a bunch with a red hair clip as usual, cascading over her shoulder—graceful and elegant like a fresh, refined narcissus.

"It's fine..." Ma La said, somewhat flustered. He was like a drowning person who'd just been pulled to safety. Due to nervousness and delighted surprise, even his voice trembled slightly. He didn't even dare look directly at her, his eyes fixed on his toes, at a complete loss. "I thought you wouldn't come..."

"At first I thought so too..." Her voice was very soft, almost like a whisper.

"But you still came." He couldn't hide his unexpected joy.

"I don't know what came over me. Just thinking of you waiting alone in the darkness for a long time, I felt I couldn't bear it..."

"Hongxia, you're so kind-hearted..." he couldn't help but praise, and raised his head to look at her. But by now it had grown dark, and he couldn't see Yan Hongxia's face clearly. He only felt those beautiful phoenix eyes were like two pools of clear spring water, sparkling in the dusk.

The two walked slowly along the embankment, chatting as they went. They'd gotten to know each other through books, so naturally their conversation centered on books. Later, Yan Hongxia mentioned the poem he'd written. "At dawn's window / I appear in your view as a blade of grass..." She recited two lines from it. "This poem is really well written, with a bit of Shu Ting's flavor." Hearing her mention Shu Ting, Ma La was somewhat surprised. "So you also like Shu Ting's poetry?" Yan Hongxia smiled. "Of course I do!" She casually recited two lines from "The Double-Masted Ship." Ma La felt that Yan Hongxia had read widely—some books even he, a normal school graduate, hadn't read. He felt he'd truly met a kindred spirit. Oh, not just a kindred spirit, but what the ancients called a "confidante"!

The sky had completely darkened. The evening breeze from the river caressed people's cheeks, cool as water, especially pleasant. Ma La caught a familiar fragrance. It was the scent of face cream. Years ago, he'd smelled it on a female educated youth. Now he smelled it again on Yan Hongxia. Ma La felt something deep within him being awakened. He felt a strange excitement, unease, even confusion. He thought, could this be the legendary feeling called love?...

Later, Ma La even took Yan Hongxia to see a Japanese film, Proof of the Man, at the town's newly completed outdoor cinema. He thought Yan Hongxia bore some resemblance to Mayumi in the film. Back then, he felt he'd truly begun to fall in love.

But just then, a shocking incident occurred in town: the pockmarked photographer at the photo studio—Yan Hongxia's father—was suddenly arrested by the police station! This was no less than an earthquake, startling the entire small town. Rumors about the pockmarked photographer quickly spread through the town like locusts. Supposedly he'd committed rape: exploiting the convenience of running a photo studio, he'd repeatedly raped women—from middle-aged women around his age to underage female middle school students. As long as they were somewhat attractive, he'd lured them into the darkroom where photos were developed and raped them. People in town simply couldn't believe it—this man who normally always wore a duck-billed cap and beige windbreaker, taciturn and serious, was actually such an old lecher! Many people directed their attacks at Yan Hongxia, who worked at the cultural center. Some even said such ugly words: "That old pockmark raped so many people, what a crime against heaven! How come no one raped his pretty daughter too..."

On the third day after the incident, Ma La went to the cultural center. But he didn't see any sign of Yan Hongxia. That small window of the reading room was tightly shut. It remained so for several days. Later, he made a trip to the photo studio. The studio's door was tightly sealed with official strips. In the glass display window by the entrance still hung Yan Hongxia's large color photograph. Ma La stared at it for a long time before returning listlessly to the town middle school.

Before long, news came from the county seat that made townspeople applaud with satisfaction: the old pockmark had been sentenced by the county people's court to fifteen years in prison.

Yan Hongxia still didn't return to work at the cultural center. During that period, Ma La went to the cultural center almost every day, neither borrowing books nor playing ping-pong. The reading room had long since been staffed by a short, plump female librarian, but in Ma La's eyes, that small window still flickered with Yan Hongxia's beautiful, lovely face.

After another period, Ma La heard news from the cultural center's new female librarian: Yan Hongxia had married. The man was the director of Hekou's winery, surnamed Bao, much older than her rapist father—already in his fifties.

Upon hearing this news, Ma La felt as if struck by lightning, unable to recover for a long time. That evening, he drank alone at a small tavern, getting completely drunk. He collapsed on the table sobbing. The tavern owner, who knew him, personally helped carry him back to the town middle school.

From then on, Ma La never set foot in the cultural center again. This originally introverted young teacher at the town middle school became even more taciturn.

One winter weekend, Ma La planned to return to Shenhuangzhou. Shenhuangzhou was a small village on the Jiangjiang, over ten li from Hekou. Ma La wasn't originally from Shenhuangzhou. His father had died early—he couldn't even remember what his father looked like. At age three, he and his brother Ma Ke had followed their mother, who was a tailor, wandering from the distant shores of Dongting Lake, finally settling in Shenhuangzhou. Within a few years, their mother died unexpectedly. Misfortunes never come singly—the year Ma La started middle school, the production team's warehouse caught fire, and his brother Ma Ke, then serving as production team leader, was burned to death while rescuing collective property, leaving Ma La utterly alone, completely orphaned. Later, the village's poor peasants' association chairman, Guo Dawan, took Ma La in, so he finally had a home again. Big Bowl Uncle's son, Guo Dongsheng, was the same age as Ma La. The two had been bare-bottomed friends since childhood, later attended school together, sharing a desk. After Ma La moved into Big Bowl Uncle's home, the two even shared a bed. But Dongsheng loved to play and his grades were always poor. Each exam he had to copy from Ma La's paper just to barely pass. After finishing middle school, he voluntarily dropped out. After Ma La went to board at high school in Hekou, the two gradually saw less of each other. A few days ago, Big Bowl Uncle had sent word through a villager that Dongsheng was getting married. Ma La felt he absolutely had to go congratulate him. Besides, he hadn't been back to Shenhuangzhou in a long time and wanted to visit Big Bowl Uncle too.

But just as Ma La was preparing to return to Shenhuangzhou, a tall, thin person in an army overcoat appeared silently in his dorm room, giving Ma La quite a fright.

The visitor was Ma La's teacher from normal school, Lu Yongjia.

Ma La never expected that Teacher Lu would appear before him as if descended from heaven. For a moment he was at a loss, yet felt overjoyed, so moved that tears welled up in his eyes. This was his mentor! Ever since graduating and leaving school, whenever he had free time, he would recall scenes in that room piled with books and wine bottles, where Teacher Lu would drink and compose poetry while commenting on current affairs and discussing literature with eloquence. Back then, phones were far from as widespread as now. Apart from government offices, there wasn't a single public phone in all of Hekou—to make a call you had to go to the post office. Ma La wrote to Teacher Lu almost every month, and Teacher Lu replied to every letter, sometimes just a few words, sometimes several thick pages. The teacher-student bond leapt from the page. Each time he went to the county seat on business, no matter how pressed for time, Ma La would make a point of dragging Ding Youpeng, who taught at County No. 1 Middle School, to visit Teacher Lu at the normal school. As usual, they'd drink and compose poetry, discuss past and present, staying up until dawn. Those scenes, ah...

Seeing Teacher Lu's somewhat solemn expression, Ma La guessed he wasn't just here to visit—he must have something important to discuss. He immediately abandoned his plan to return to Shenhuangzhou and accompanied Teacher Lu to a small restaurant across from the school. Teacher Lu loved drinking—what better place to talk than over drinks at a tavern?

The weather had turned somewhat cold. Ma La ordered a dog meat hotpot and a bottle of locally-produced Yanhe sorghum liquor. After slowly drinking a few cups with Teacher Lu, they warmed up. When Teacher Lu's stubbly face gradually showed a flush of red from its previous iron gray, his eyes began to shine brightly like flames beneath the hotpot. "Those who would accomplish great things must labor their sinews and bones... the time has come!" He chewed the not-yet-warmed dog meat, mumbling indistinctly. From those familiar, determined eyes, Ma La sensed that what Teacher Lu was about to say might be earth-shattering...

Sure enough, Teacher Lu lifted his head back, drained his cup in one gulp, wiped his thick black beard, and looked at Ma La with a serious expression. "Ma La, I can no longer endure the deathly stagnant life at Yanhe Normal School. If I continue, I'll go mad!" His gloomy face made Ma La think of that incident just before graduation. It seemed Teacher Lu hadn't emerged from the shadow of that disciplinary action. Ma La didn't know how to comfort his teacher. Having gone through life in Hekou, especially that aborted "secret love" affair with Yan Hongxia, his own mood had become unprecedentedly bleak, so he felt he particularly understood Teacher Lu's state of mind.

"I've decided to resign!" Lu Yongjia's voice was low, but to Ma La it was like a thunderclap. He couldn't help widening his eyes. "Resign? Why?"

"I'm going to start an enterprise." Like when lecturing in class, Teacher Lu habitually waved his large hand, his eyebrows twitching as if about to fly off. "I'm abandoning teaching for business!"

Teacher Lu's words and actions had always been free-spirited and willful, with leaps in logic that ordinary minds could hardly follow. But this decision was too sudden—Ma La couldn't immediately process it.

"Focus on economic development as the central task... This era, storm clouds are truly gathering. If we don't catch up, we'll be ruthlessly cast aside." Teacher Lu said thoughtfully. "When the river warms, ducks know first—we must dare to be the first to taste the crab. Only mediocre talents are content to lag behind. American President Franklin Roosevelt said: What is genius? It refers to those who are good at seizing opportunities that come their way... How well said!" Teacher Lu's mouth was full of aphorisms, his broad forehead glowing, as if filled entirely with inspiration and wisdom. Finally, he took off his faded army overcoat, revealing an old wool sweater with several holes, turned his gaze to Ma La's face, and said solemnly: "Ma La, come work with me! A magnificent enterprise must have outstanding young people like you join... Back then, if Liu Bei hadn't had Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Zilong, could he have achieved the great enterprise of dividing the empire into three?"

Ma La realized he was facing a major choice in his life's path, but he was completely unprepared—he dared not agree immediately, yet couldn't refuse outright. He needed to think seriously. Either deal with chalk his whole life in Hekou, or... follow Teacher Lu to brave wind and rain, forge a magnificent career—it had to be one or the other.

Yes, after two years of normal school life, Ma La had transformed from a shy, melancholy village youth into a young man capable of independent thinking, and that aborted romance with Yan Hongxia had made his personality even more introverted. But as his knowledge constantly expanded and enriched, he became increasingly confused. The hurricane of the times had uprooted everything he'd previously absorbed. He felt like a kite with a broken string, not knowing where he'd drift. The outside world was so vast, yet Shenhuangzhou where he'd lived, along with Hekou and Yanhe County, seemed so small—increasingly unable to contain his young, restless heart.

If during his time studying at Yanhe Normal School Ma La had always regarded Teacher Lu as his life mentor, then throughout his youth, his life mentor and role model was his brother Ma Ke. Like Dong Cunrui, Lei Feng, Wang Jie, and Qiu Shaoyun whom he'd known about since childhood, his brother had always been a heroic figure in his mind. His brother's existence filled the void left by losing his father at an early age. As the saying goes, the eldest brother is like a father—in a sense, his brother was his spiritual "father." But ever since his brother "heroically sacrificed" himself in that sudden fire (that's what the newspapers and radio said at the time), Ma La became an orphan again, a spiritual orphan. For a while, he felt his adolescent body had stopped developing. This was Ma La's difficult "weaning period." Not until he entered Yanhe Normal School and met Lu Yongjia did this situation fundamentally change: he had a new life mentor, and worshipped him from the depths of his heart, almost to the point of blind faith. Now, Teacher Lu was linking his future career with him—what precious recognition and trust! Ma La said to himself, what are you hesitating about? Dear Hongxia has disappeared like a beautiful shooting star. For him, Hekou was nothing but a barren desert—what was there left to miss?

Ma La felt like someone lost in the dark night who sees the dawn, a nearly solemn emotion rising in his heart. "Teacher, I'll follow you!" he said in a slightly trembling voice. Before he'd finished speaking, Teacher Lu's large hands reached across from the other side and gripped his firmly: "Well done, Ma La. From today on, you're no longer my student, but my... comrade and comrade-in-arms!"

That night, in Ma La's simple dormitory, he and Teacher Lu slept foot to head, like two underground revolutionaries about to launch a secret uprising, jointly sketching out the magnificent blueprint of their future enterprise. Too excited to sleep even late into the night, outside the howling night wind was like a pack of hungry dogs, constantly tearing at the plastic-covered window, but they didn't feel cold at all.

Ma La said: "Teacher Lu, perhaps someday we'll both become remarkable entrepreneurs!"

"Entrepreneurs?" Teacher Lu suddenly sat bolt upright from his end of the bed, snorting through his nose. "You must remember, becoming entrepreneurs is only the first step in our enterprise. Once we've earned enough money, we'll purchase an island and recruit a thousand young men and women from across the country—no, from around the world—to live on the island. I've already thought of it—the island will be called 'The Republic.' Everyone on the island will be equal, enjoying equal access to education, housing, and healthcare. Everyone can freely choose their lifestyle, but the premise is not interfering with others' lives. Regardless of socialism or capitalism, unbound by national restrictions or family constraints, just like what Morris described in News from Nowhere..."

That book Teacher Lu mentioned, Ma La hadn't read. But the vision he described made Ma La's heart surge with excitement. He also couldn't help sitting up. In the darkness, he couldn't see Teacher Lu's expression clearly, but could feel his agitation. He suddenly thought of his classmate Ding Youpeng and said: "Why not let Ding Youpeng join too?"

But unexpectedly, Teacher Lu waved his hand forcefully, refusing: "Why would you think of him? To do great things, people must be like-minded. Ding Youpeng is not one of us. His father is a deputy county Party secretary—they belong to another class. Yes, the bureaucratic class..."

Teacher Lu's grudge against Ding Youpeng wasn't without reason. Ma La had heard that the reason Teacher Lu received the severest disciplinary action was because Ding Youpeng's father, Ding Changshui, had firmly insisted on it at the county committee meeting.

Soon after, Ma La met Ding Youpeng in the county seat. By then, Ma La had formally resigned from his teaching position and was busy running around with Teacher Lu, working intensively to establish Yanhe County's first private enterprise. Ma La enthusiastically mentioned this to Ding Youpeng, saying with some regret: "If only you'd come work with us!" But Ding Youpeng dismissed it: "Teacher Lu approached me beforehand. I refused."

"Why... why?" Ma La was quite surprised. "Don't you trust Teacher Lu?"

"I never thought about starting any enterprise—that's not my interest. Besides, even if I were interested, I wouldn't rashly quit my job like you. As for our Teacher Lu... rather than calling him an ambitious person, he's more of a fantasist. Can great things really be accomplished through fantasy alone? Moreover, he was disciplined for problems with his lifestyle between men and women. He couldn't stay at normal school, which is why he resigned. You don't know how the male and female teachers at normal school gossip about him behind his back..." At this point, Ding Youpeng, in the tone of an old classmate, warned: "Ma La, your head overheats so easily! You and Teacher Lu are too similar—I could see that back at normal school. If you continue like this, you'll suffer. If things go wrong and it all comes to nothing, the loss will far outweigh any gain!"

Ma La hadn't expected Ding Youpeng to say such things, or to make such harsh assessments of Teacher Lu, whom they'd once worshipped together. He looked at Ding Youpeng with astonished eyes, wanting to debate with him. He remembered what Teacher Lu had said to him, and couldn't help feeling a touch of melancholy. Their "prejudices" against each other were so deeply rooted! Ma La thought, it seems only time will judge which of us is right...

Later events proved Ding Youpeng wrong. Teacher Lu was not only a genius at fantasy, but also a true entrepreneur worthy of the name. As Yanhe County's first private enterprise: Kunpeng Company. Just from Teacher Lu choosing such a magnificent name for the company, you could tell the scale of his ambition. From registration and establishment to initial startup, the company faced enormous difficulties and struggled at every step. Yet in just three short years, Kunpeng Company expanded from simple coal transportation and trading to construction, building materials, chemicals, and other fields. Its assets soared from a mere 30,000 yuan to over a million, leaping to become one of Yanhe County's major taxpayers. Its business scope also extended from within the county to outside, gradually reaching across the province and the nation. Teacher Lu thus became almost a household name in Yanhe County, praised by a certain county leader as "the leader in developing the private economy," and received the provincial title of "Top Ten Private Entrepreneurs." Back then, township enterprises had only just emerged, and private enterprises were still an unfamiliar, novel term in many Chinese people's eyes.

As Teacher Lu's capable assistant, Ma La participated in the entire process of creating this brilliant achievement from start to finish. By then, Ding Youpeng had transferred from County No. 1 Middle School to the county education committee, working as a clerk in the general education section—entering government service. This was probably where his "interest" lay. Once, he sought out Ma La, hoping they could donate to support the county's "educational cause." Teacher Lu happened to be away in the south negotiating a cooperative project with a large company, so Ma La was handling the company's daily affairs. Normally, Teacher Lu fully delegated authority on both major and minor company matters, letting him, the "deputy general manager," handle them. But for matters involving major financial expenditures like this, Ma La still didn't dare make decisions on his own. "Well, I'll have to wait until General Manager Lu returns to decide..." he said to Ding Youpeng, not evasively. Ma La still privately called him "Teacher Lu," but always referred to him publicly as "General Manager Lu." To avoid Ding Youpeng's misunderstanding, he added: "Don't worry, our Teacher Lu comes from a teaching background—he'll definitely support this. Just wait for good news!"

Ma La said this with good reason. Since the company's founding, Teacher Lu had more than once generously sponsored public welfare projects in the county. But unexpectedly, when Teacher Lu returned from the south and Ma La reported this matter, he sat behind that spacious desk, puffing on his pipe with a ba-da ba-da sound as he always did when encountering thorny problems, not saying anything for a long time. After transforming from teacher to entrepreneur, Teacher Lu had become like a different person in many ways. He'd not only shaved off his full beard but also quit drinking. In his own words, the marketplace was like a battlefield—you couldn't treat it as child's play. Drinking too much easily led to mistakes. From this you could see how strong this man's willpower was! However, after quitting drinking, Teacher Lu took up smoking—partly for business socializing, partly for thinking through problems. Teacher Lu always smoked using a large carved oakwood pipe, making ba-da ba-da sounds, a bit like Churchill or Stalin in movies, looking quite imposing, with an invisible commander's air. Finally, Teacher Lu removed the pipe from his mouth, gestured with it and said: "No, our enterprise is about to expand and implement a major strategic shift. We can't let these trivial matters tie our hands anymore! Besides, even if we donate money, who knows whether they'll really use it for developing education or just give themselves bonuses and build houses!"

Teacher Lu's words were decisive, leaving no room for negotiation. Besides feeling puzzled, Ma La couldn't help but think: was Teacher Lu still harboring a grudge over Ding Youpeng's initial refusal to join them? No, Teacher Lu would never be so petty. Ma La immediately dismissed this thought. But whatever the case, the knot between them had been tied. When Ma La evasively conveyed that message to Ding Youpeng, the other party only said: "It seems Teacher Lu doesn't acknowledge me as his student anymore..." and hung up.

Later, Ma La never found an opportunity to untie this knot between Teacher Lu and Ding Youpeng. Because not long after, with the development of business needs, the company headquarters moved out of Yanhe County to E City.

Just before Kunpeng Company's southern relocation, Lu Yongjia's mother passed away. Ma La represented the company at the funeral in Wuhan. That was the first time he saw Teacher Lu's home: a two-story Western-style house covered in ivy at the foot of Snake Mountain. The garden's two crabapple and white magnolia trees had long passed their flowering season. Under the grape arbor hung clusters of crystal-clear grapes. Next to the arbor was a vegetable plot where cucumber and bean flowers bloomed vigorously, attracting countless bees and butterflies dancing gracefully. This lush scenery somewhat dissipated the oppressive feelings Teacher Lu's mother's death had brought to Ma La's heart. When he saw Teacher Lu's mother's kind, benevolent face, he always felt she resembled his mother who'd died years ago. His nose tingled and he nearly cried. At that moment, Ma La felt he and Teacher Lu shared an intimacy that transcended the teacher-student relationship...

E City was a newly established special economic zone. The preferential policies given by the state attracted countless enterprises large and small from all over the country, making it, after Shenzhen, the investment hotspot most watched by people at home and abroad. The initial period after Kunpeng Company relocated to E City wasn't easy. Back then, the company rented several private rooms on Nanhang Road for offices. There weren't many employees, and there wasn't much real business either. Newly arrived, unfamiliar with the place, they were completely in the dark. Every day, Ma La accompanied Lu Yongjia visiting officials everywhere, often meeting with closed doors. During those days, Teacher Lu was in low spirits. After returning to the company for meals, he'd sit on the balcony in a daze. Not far from the company was E City Airport. Every half hour, a plane would either take off into the sky or descend from above. As planes taxied on the runway, the tremendous roar made people's eardrums ring. Ma La and Lu Yongjia often couldn't sleep all night, so they'd simply come out of their rooms and sit on the balcony watching planes take off and land. Teacher Lu held that huge carved pipe in his mouth. Like generals on the eve of great battles in films, he'd clasp his hands behind his back, occasionally pacing back and forth on the balcony. One moment he'd furrow his brow, mumbling indistinctly about something; the next moment he'd walk to the balcony's edge, raise his head to gaze at planes gradually disappearing into the sky, murmuring: "How severe the situation is..." He constantly wiped his cheeks with both hands. "Sailing on the ocean is very different from sailing on small rivers and lakes—treacherous waves, violent typhoons, and unpredictable weather! Any slight error could lead to catastrophic disaster..." He suddenly turned around, his unusually sharp, piercing gaze fixed on him. "Hmm, this is the market economy—it doesn't care whether you're socialist or capitalist! We must be careful in decision-making, bold in action, achieve victory through surprise tactics. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for us to gain a foothold in E City where strong competitors are everywhere!"

Teacher Lu's worried expression made Ma La realize they were facing an extraordinary test. But the company's development history had already given Ma La complete and unreserved trust in Teacher Lu's wisdom and courage. Ma La firmly believed that no matter how fierce the competition, since Teacher Lu had the courage to lead the company out of Yanhe County's small world, he would certainly overcome all difficulties and carve out an even larger domain in E City. Just like that phrase Teacher Lu often repeated: "The path is tortuous, but the future is bright!"

After a period of running around, Lu Yongjia finally secured a "major project" for the company: pooling all the company's funds to purchase two thousand mu of wasteland on the coast in western E City. This move by Teacher Lu caused no less than an earthquake inside and outside the company—even Ma La was shocked. Back then, E City's real estate industry was just beginning. Many well-funded large enterprises were still hesitant, maintaining a wait-and-see attitude. Yet Kunpeng Company, such an unknown private enterprise, had bet everything to purchase two thousand mu of land all at once—truly stirring up a thousand waves with one stone. Some worried for Kunpeng Company, others watched with ill intent, maliciously waiting for Kunpeng Company to lose everything and end up bankrupt. But Teacher Lu remained deaf to all this. On the third day after signing the property contract, he pulled Ma La along and quietly left the company, hiding away in a seaside resort called Dongjiao Coconut Grove not far from E City, spending a whole leisurely week as if above worldly concerns.

Dongjiao Coconut Grove was a newly opened resort nestled in a dense coconut grove by the sea. The scenery was extremely beautiful, with very few tourists. Apart from staff, it seemed like they were the only two guests in the entire resort. During the day, Ma La accompanied Teacher Lu sunbathing on the beach. At night, they'd sit by the sea admiring the moonlit ocean while listening to the sound of wind through the coconut palms like someone playing an ancient zither—that feeling of being in a paradise was almost like being immortals. But Ma La could see that Teacher Lu's heart wasn't as relaxed and carefree as an immortal's. After all, the company's entire assets were staked on those two thousand mu of wasteland! One night, well past midnight, Teacher Lu impulsively proposed going swimming. They came to the beach—the sand was completely empty, not a soul in sight. Teacher Lu stripped himself naked and dove into the ocean. That night the moonlight was exceptionally bright, with no wind. The dark seawater was boundless and vast, its surface as calm as a vast grassland, but the waves were like a pair of immensely powerful giant hands secretly controlling invisible currents that could swallow everything at any moment. Although Ma La had learned to swim in the Jiangjiang as a child, facing this unfathomable ocean, he still felt somewhat timid. He sat on the soft sand. At first he could still see Teacher Lu's extended arms as he swam and hear the splashing of waves, but soon, apart from the pitch-black sea surface and gusts of strong sea wind, he could see nothing and hear nothing. Ma La felt vaguely uneasy and called out twice: "Teacher Lu, Teacher Lu!" But his voice didn't travel far before it was swallowed by the sea wind and sea waves like an insignificant drop of water. He raised his voice and called several more times, still no response. In such a vast, unfathomable sea, extinguishing a person was as easy as drowning a grain of sand. A sudden unease and fear swept over him, and Ma La shivered. He couldn't help thinking of his brother Ma Ke, who'd once depended on him for survival, his brother who'd seemed so brave and full of strength in his mind, but had been devoured by that fire in an instant. For a long time, Ma La refused to believe this cruel fact, spending days wandering by that newly raised grave mound, wishing he could dig through the earth to see if his brother was really buried underneath. If Teacher Lu... Ma La was startled by this thought, suddenly feeling like a great edifice was about to collapse. Fortunately, at that moment came a splashing sound. He quickly looked up and saw Teacher Lu climbing ashore like a fish. By the white sand and brilliant stars in the sky, Ma La dimly made out Teacher Lu's still tall, robust body with no trace of aging, water droplets rolling and sparkling on it like pearls. An organ much thicker than normal men's swung back and forth between his thighs like a club. Ma La felt somewhat embarrassed and quickly averted his gaze from that thing, as if the naked person were not someone else but himself.

Lu Yongjia had a habit of swimming nude. Back when studying at Yanhe Normal School, when Ma La and several classmates swam with Teacher Lu in Shandi Lake, he was also completely naked. It was Ma La's first time seeing an adult man display the most private part of his body so brazenly. A strong sense of shame made his face flush—he wished he could find a hole to crawl into. Now, Ma La experienced that feeling again. But Lu Yongjia was completely oblivious, swaggering over to sit beside him. He seemed accustomed to exposing his body in front of others. What a strange man—everything he did was different from others. Could this be what books described as those "great men"? Ma La secretly marveled, realizing Teacher Lu's position in his heart. After losing his brother Ma Ke and becoming completely orphaned, his heart had found peace and joy in having support again, as if his entire life had merged with Teacher Lu's...

That night, after returning from the beach to their room and showering, Teacher Lu and Ma La talked for quite a while. Teacher Lu showed no signs of fatigue. Having finished his shower, wrapped in a white bathrobe, he sat cross-legged on the bed, his hair still undried and hanging messily on his forehead. Though he was about fifty, the muscles in his limbs looked as developed as a young man's, which secretly amazed Ma La. He remembered Teacher Lu mentioning that "island purchase plan." What an outstanding man! Both spiritually and physically...

Just then, someone knocked on the door. Ma La got up to open it and saw two heavily made-up girls standing before him. Ma La hesitated and asked: "Who are you looking for?"

"We're looking for you two!" One of them, an oval-faced girl, batted her eyes at Ma La. "We're here to chat with you. Welcome us or not?"

A pungent perfume smell made Ma La involuntarily step back. The two girls looked somewhat familiar. These past few days, some girls with ambiguous identities had been wandering around the resort—could these be among them? "So late, what's there to chat about?" He frowned and was about to close the door.

"Ma La, I asked them to come. Please let them in!" Teacher Lu said slowly from behind. Ma La hesitated, and the two girls seized the opportunity to slip into the room like fish.

When Ma La closed the door and returned to the room, he saw the two girls had already squeezed in on either side of Teacher Lu, sitting close to him on the bed. Teacher Lu, like a knowledgeable connoisseur, squinted as he looked at one, then the other, making vague exclamatory sounds in his throat. "Mm, how young, tender, and smooth they are—ho, just like apples hanging on branches, making one envious..." As he spoke, he smacked his lips as if admiring a table of delicious delicacies. "Beauty, youth... all of it is related to women. Think of Helen of ancient Greece and China's... Xi Shi. Ma La, think of Qin Guan, Li Shangyin, and Flaubert—every one of them was a master of brothels and pleasure quarters. If a man doesn't understand this, he can't accomplish anything!" Teacher Lu said to Ma La in an admonishing tone. Meanwhile, his hands like a masseur's kept kneading the two ladies' hands, arms, necks, and breasts. They watched Teacher Lu's peculiar expression, apparently finding it quite interesting, giggling endlessly. Ma La had never seen such a scene and for a moment didn't know what to do. Then he heard Teacher Lu instruct: "Go get another room," and pushed forward the round-faced girl on his left, giving her a meaningful look. "Keep him good company—he's a fine young man..."

Ma La saw Teacher Lu's large hand climbing like a vine onto the oval-faced girl's full bosom and quickly left the room. As he casually pulled the door shut and headed downstairs, he realized the round-faced girl was following close behind. Ma La stopped and said: "Why are you following me?"

"Didn't your boss tell me to keep you company?" the round-faced girl said, pouting.

"I don't need your company. Go do whatever you're supposed to do." Ma La waved her off, walked outside, and had just sat down on a stone bench in the courtyard planted with southern tropical plants like banana and sisal when the round-faced girl followed like a tail. "Not getting a room?" She sat down next to Ma La, asking softly. "It's so much cooler outside, why get a room?" Ma La shifted his body aside, feigning confusion. "Right here?" The round-faced girl looked at him doubtfully, muttering, "Fine, but you can't short me on the money..." Ma La forced a smile: "Okay, I won't short you a cent." But he was thinking, looks like I'm stuck with her today and can't shake her off.

"Beauty, youth..." He savored Teacher Lu's words. Yes, Teacher Lu desperately needed these things, especially at a time like this. Someone as outstanding as him probably had desires for such things stronger than ordinary people. Ma La thought. Although he'd heard back at normal school that Teacher Lu frequently interacted with the opposite sex and had ultimately been disciplined for it, he'd never been willing to conflate Teacher Lu with ordinary "lechery." While at normal school, Ma La had discovered a secret—Teacher Lu liked collecting pictures of beautiful women, both artistic nude photography and famous paintings from around the world, all clipped from pictorials, exclusively naked women, filling an entire box. "Do you know why I don't marry?" Once, drunk on wine, Teacher Lu said to Ma La with red eyes, "Marriage is the grave of love. How well Engels put it! Watching a youthful, beautiful, lively and lovely woman grow old day by day beside you until she becomes a mass of bloated, decayed flesh... My God, there's nothing more unbearable in the world, even more terrifying than death!" He muttered, covering his face with both hands as if afraid to see the scene he described. After a long while he removed his hands, and Ma La saw eyes full of pity. "Goethe spoke of the eternal feminine guiding us upward... How well said! Look at those great figures in history—without such guidance, they certainly would have accomplished nothing." That was the first time Ma La heard Teacher Lu discuss such topics. He was completely stunned by those peculiar, profound views...

On that early summer seaside night in E City, Ma La sat shoulder to shoulder with the round-faced girl whose name he didn't know in the courtyard outside the Dongjiao Coconut Grove resort guest rooms, like a couple on a tryst. Ma La's posture and expression looked somewhat awkward and stiff, as if they were having some quarrel. Lights were dim, tree shadows swayed. The air carried wisps of salty sea breeze and the fragrance of ripe coconuts. Occasionally a coconut would drop from a tree with a thud. Ma La checked his wristwatch every little while, or craned his neck to look at the window of the room he and Teacher Lu were staying in upstairs, silently calculating the time. Not until drowsiness attacked, making his head feel heavy as a thousand pounds. The round-faced girl had long since grown sleepy, her head tilted, half her body leaning against Ma La's shoulder. The girl's full, rounded body not only failed to arouse any impulse in Ma La but made his whole body tense, as if sitting on pins and needles, extremely uncomfortable. He closed his eyes, and another female's naked body and face floated through his mind: a beach by the river, a desolate brick kiln, a group of female educated youth swimming in the river, a stunning naked form, water droplets sparkling on flawlessly smooth skin... His face flushed, breathing grew rapid, limbs went soft. Suddenly a sharp "Who's there?" He felt his heart leap into his throat. He quickly fled that dilapidated little brick kiln. That night, Ma La dreamed all night long. The beautiful educated youth's naked body repeatedly appeared in his dreams, until he had a nocturnal emission. He was thirteen that year... The round-faced girl lay sprawled on her back sound asleep while Ma La gasped for breath like a drowning person, looking somewhat pained. He tried to push her away slightly, but before long she snuggled back over. Ma La looked at her greedy sleeping posture, like an innocent little girl. Actually she was probably not yet twenty herself? Still at an age of pure innocence, yet now nestled against a complete stranger. And that other girl was upstairs with Teacher Lu... What incredible youth! Ma La couldn't bear to push her away again. After thinking chaotically for a while, he too fell into deep sleep.

When Ma La was awakened by footsteps, he saw the oval-faced girl straightening her dress and hair as she walked out from inside. He quickly woke the round-faced girl beside him, and after sending them both away, hurried inside. Pushing open the door, he saw Teacher Lu still wearing only shorts, draped in a bathrobe, leaning against the bed smoking. Seeing Ma La enter, he laughed and asked: "How was she, that little round-face wasn't bad, right? She's so small, like a flower bud about to bloom..."

Ma La stammered: "It's almost dawn—aren't you going to sleep a bit?"

"Sleep? What sleep? Let's head back to the city right away!" Teacher Lu leaped up from the bed, stretching his limbs, looking full of energy with not a trace of fatigue.

Two years later, E City's real estate prices skyrocketed geometrically. Teacher Lu, seizing the moment, sold off that patch of weed-covered land by the sea and made nearly ten million yuan in one stroke...

Chapter 3

Ma La's mind was in complete turmoil, as if he were adrift in an ethereal dream, momentarily unable to tell where he actually was...

Was this really the Shenhuangzhou of his memory? That autumn afternoon, when Ma La returned to the homeland he'd been away from for so many years, he couldn't help but think this.

Everything felt so strange to him. Roads riddled with holes, muddy and impassable; crops here and there like patches, uneven and inferior; vast stretches of land overgrown with weeds lying fallow; stinking, desolate dried-up irrigation ditches and abandoned, dilapidated sluice gates; newly built houses standing in jarring discord alongside crumbling earthen-walled dwellings. The entire village looked as if it had been shaved bare—along the village paths and around houses, you could barely see any trees, or if there were any, they were thin and scraggly, unable to support even a single bird's nest. In fact, you could hardly see a bird in the village sky at all. When he was small, the village had been full of shade everywhere, covered with thick mulberry, willow, Chinese toon, poplar, chinaberry, paulownia, peach, and plum trees—tall and large. In spring they'd burst with green leaves and red blossoms, branches laden with fruit. In summer they brought shade to people, in winter they helped ward off the cold. They attracted countless birds that flew in flocks around houses and through the groves. Not only in the big trees—even under the eaves of villagers' homes, nests of all sizes filled every available space...

Apart from old people and children, the village had hardly any able-bodied adults. Looking around, desolation met the eye everywhere, like scenes from war-ravaged landscapes in films. Occasionally encountering a few people in the village, Ma La couldn't recognize a single one among those wooden, dull faces. No wonder—he'd been away so many years, nearly an entire generation. But why did they look at him with such wary, hostile eyes? The further Ma La walked, the more puzzled and uneasy he felt, as if he'd taken a wrong turn and arrived at a place he'd never been before. Ma La had originally thought the villagers must be living the comfortable life the newspapers described. But everything before his eyes seemed separated by two distant eras from those economically developed villages he'd seen in the southern coastal regions.

At the dam by the village entrance, several women sat around a table playing mahjong under an awning outside a small shop. On the shop's crude shelves, aside from daily necessities like salt, soy sauce, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and cheap cigarettes, the space stood empty. On the cement counter sat several blocks of tofu and two cuts of no-longer-fresh pork, flies crawling all over them. A group of children played hopscotch on the nearby open ground. Seeing Ma La approach, they all turned simultaneously to size him up. Ma La bent toward them, wanting to stroke one little boy's face, but he shrank back, tilted his head, and nimbly dodged away. "Whose child are you? Are you in school yet?" Ma La asked, his outstretched hand hanging in midair.

"I'm not telling you. Who are you?" The child stared with dark eyes, wiped his nose with a dirty hand, and gave Ma La an unfriendly look.

"Oh, quite fierce!" Ma La straightened up, smiling. "You don't know me, but your father might..."

"You're lying!" the child shrieked. "My father doesn't know you at all!"

"Then tell me his name—I definitely know him..." Ma La studied the child carefully, as if trying to find traces of some childhood companion in him.

"I'm not telling you." The child looked at him warily. "He went to Guangdong—you can't catch him!"

Why would this child think I want to catch his father? Ma La wondered, puzzled. Just then, a woman of about thirty sitting at the mahjong table turned her head and scolded the child: "Tadpole, what nonsense are you babbling? Watch out or I'll cut your tongue!" Then, glancing at Ma La, she asked in a cold tone: "You're... looking for someone?"

Ma La nodded, then shook his head, not knowing how to answer. He felt the woman looked somewhat familiar, so he searched hard through his memory: "Are you... Fennel from Guyu's family?"

The woman stopped playing, looked at him in surprise, and suddenly her eyes brightened: "Oh my! Aren't you Teacher Ma? You've... you've come back?"

Finally, someone recognized him. Ma La felt slightly relieved. Guyu had been his student at Hekou Middle School.

"Is Guyu not at home?" Ma La looked at Fennel, trying to find traces of that pretty, fresh young bride in her face, but the woman before him had a thin, coarse, sallow face that looked so haggard.

"He went out to work. Didn't even come home for New Year." Fennel glanced at the child from before, as if wanting to say more but holding back.

Ma La asked about several childhood companions from the village—most of them, like Guyu, had gone to work in Guangdong.

"Teacher Ma, it's so rare for you to come back—won't you come sit at my house for a bit?" Fennel said. But she remained sitting at the mahjong table with no real intention of inviting him.

"No, thank you. And Big Bowl Uncle? And Dongsheng—how is his family?" Ma La said. "I just came through the village and saw his house isn't there anymore. Did they build a new one?"

Fennel replied: "You mean Old Man Guo? He moved to the sentry shed on the embankment long ago..."

Ma La made a sound of acknowledgment: "He doesn't live with Dongsheng?"

"Dongsheng? You mean Secretary Guo? He lives in town now. Old Man Guo didn't want to go enjoy the good life with his son—what can you do?" As Fennel skillfully arranged her mahjong tiles, she continued, "Actually, Old Man Guo guarding the sentry shed isn't bad—living alone in such a big house, plus getting a monthly salary. If his son wasn't the village Party secretary, how could such a cushy job fall to him?"

Ma La detected an undertone in Fennel's words and wanted to ask more, but seeing her evasive expression, he fell silent.

Evening was approaching. Twilight mingled with the smoke from cooking fires rising from farmhouses, at first hanging between tree branches like patches of cloth, then gradually gathering and spreading like thick fog. The surrounding scenery became shadowy and hazy. The air carried the fragrance of scorched rice crust from someone's cooked meal, drilling straight into Ma La's nostrils. He couldn't help swallowing, his stomach churning with excitement. Oh, how many years since he'd smelled this aroma of rice cooked in an iron pot over a wood fire! When he was small, every evening when children playing wildly in the fields outside the village heard adults calling them home for dinner, they'd race back like a herd of cattle returning at dusk, grabbing bowls heaped high with rice and wolfing it down. Though the table might hold only two bowls of greens and turnips, it tasted better than a feast of delicacies. What a distant childhood... In Ma La's mind appeared scenes of when his mother led him and his brother, drifting from the distant shores of Dongting Lake to settle in Shenhuangzhou. Back then, Shenhuangzhou was still a vast, wild stretch of land, dotted with pools of water, overgrown with reeds, brambles, and countless wildflowers and grasses—an ideal habitat for wild rabbits and other birds and beasts. People said that even earlier, the sandbar had few inhabitants and had once been home to wolves and wild boars. Later, a grand, large-scale land-leveling campaign transformed this desolate, empty reed-covered wasteland into flat, boundless cropland. From that time on, outsiders gradually migrated here, building embankments and clearing wilderness on the sandbar, multiplying and thriving...

The village was just over a li from the river embankment, reached by crossing through a swamp-like muddy path.

Not far ahead on the embankment slope stood a spacious, imposing brick and tile building, five rooms in a row. From a distance it looked quite grand, but drawing closer revealed that wind, rain, smoke, and fire had left the walls and roof mottled and pitch-black, appearing so dilapidated it seemed a gust of wind could blow it over. On the wall facing the river embankment, a line of flood-prevention slogans, their characters faded and incomplete, could still barely be made out: "Strict vigilance and defense—where we stand, the embankment stands!"

Flood-prevention "sentry sheds" like this stood every kilometer along the embankment, with people dispatched from each village to guard them, responsible for watching over the windbreak forests along the river. When flood season arrived, they became the command posts for cadres and workers going up to the embankment for flood prevention. When he was young, Ma La and his playmates would go to the windbreak forests to cut branches for firewood, often chased around by the sentry shed guards. If they were unlucky enough to get caught, they'd be locked in one of the shed's dark rooms, waiting for adults to come fetch them. In Ma La and his companions' minds, this tall brick and tile building was so imposing, inspiring fear and trepidation.

In front of the building stood a thick paulownia tree, its spreading branches extending over the roof, withered autumn leaves covering the rooftop and, when the wind blew, carpeting the ground. On the nearby slope was a small vegetable patch planted with peppers, beans, and such. The season having passed, most had withered away, leaving only bare stems.

Standing before the sentry shed, Ma La had a feeling of being utterly displaced in time.

The door wasn't fully closed, a tree branch wedged through the rusty iron latch. Through the large gap, the inside was pitch dark—nothing could be seen clearly. Ma La was peering through the crack in the door when suddenly a dog barked behind him. He'd barely turned around when a short-legged dog covered in grass debris came lunging at him. He stumbled back a step and instinctively raised the black suitcase in his hand to block it. Unexpectedly, the dog was more nimble than a person, circling around the suitcase to lunge at him again from the side...

Just then, someone called out in a low, sharp tone: "Commune Member!" The dog seemed caught by an invisible rope and tumbled heavily back to the ground. Ma La turned to see an old man with frost-white stubble covering his head, pants rolled to his knees, bare feet caked with mud, a bundle of rain-soaked dead branches tucked under his arm, walking around from behind the building.

Ma La recognized him at once—this was Big Bowl Uncle.

Big Bowl Uncle had clearly aged considerably. Not only had his hair, beard, and eyebrows gone completely white, but his back was bent, making him seem shorter than before. His face was crisscrossed with wrinkles as deep and thick as mulberry bark. When he walked, his legs moved slowly, showing the decrepit gait of old age. This was completely different from the Big Bowl Uncle in Ma La's memory, whose voice had boomed like a bell and who'd walked as if his feet sprouted wings. Now he regarded Ma La impassively, his tone stiff as he asked: "Who are you... looking for?"

Ma La said: "Uncle, it's me, Little La!"

Little La was Ma La's childhood name.

"Little... La? You're Little La?" The bundle of branches under Big Bowl Uncle's arm tumbled to the ground with a clatter. He fumbled out a key, hands trembling as he went to open the door. "Come inside quickly, Little La. Look at you, you're nearly soaked through..."

Ma La picked up his suitcase and followed him in. The room was chaotic—aside from a bed and an old dresser with its paint almost entirely peeled off, there was nothing decent. The whitewashed walls had long since crumbled into a pockmarked mess. A laminated list of Shenhuangzhou Village Flood Control Command personnel was still quite legible. Among a string of names, he saw Guo Dongsheng's.

Big Bowl Uncle busily tidied up scattered miscellaneous items. "You haven't eaten yet, have you? I'll make food right now..." He headed to the kitchen to prepare the meal.

Though Big Bowl Uncle's body was far from as robust as before, he still worked efficiently. Before long, he'd washed the fresh turnip greens just picked from the field, took down from the wall a salted fish dried hard as a fossil, chopped it into several large pieces, then squatted down at the stove opening to start a fire. Days of continuous rain had left the firewood somewhat damp. Big Bowl Uncle puffed his cheeks and blew through a fire tube for quite a while, but the fire wouldn't catch. Thick black smoke poured from the stove opening, instantly filling the entire room. Ma La choked and coughed uncontrollably, tears and mucus streaming, nearly suffocating. That short-legged dog called "Commune Member" couldn't stand it either and fled outside barking.

Only after the stove fire finally crackled into flame did the smoke slowly dissipate. Ma La sat down on a three-legged stool, watching Big Bowl Uncle bustle about the stove like a farm housewife, his mind in a daze.

Nearly forty years ago, when Ma La, not yet three, and his brother Ma Ke had just arrived in Shenhuangzhou with their mother, they had nowhere to stay. Thanks to Big Bowl Uncle clearing out a production team warehouse, the family of three finally had a temporary shelter. For a long time, their mother supported herself and her two sons by sewing clothes for villagers. Mother's tailoring skills had been famous back in their hometown. Their hometown was on the shores of Dongting Lake, surrounded by reeds. Every spring, white reed catkins would fill the air, falling on the ground, rooftops, and in the grass—white as far as the eye could see, like a blanket of goose-down snow. The boundless Dongting Lake stretched green and vast. In spring it bloomed with lotus flowers, in summer it produced lotus roots, and year-round there were endless fish and shrimp to catch. Ma La's father made his living fishing. With just a small fishing boat, he'd not only married the youngest daughter of the Yao family—the prettiest girl within ten li who also knew tailoring—but supported an entire family. Ma La was born when his brother Ma Ke was about to start elementary school. That very summer, Dongting Lake experienced a once-in-a-century flood. In mid-August that year, the village men who'd gone out fishing on the lake still hadn't returned. During those days, Mother took Ma La and brother Ma Ke to the lake dock at the village entrance every day to see if Father had come back. This continued for half a month straight. Until finally, the terrible news arrived that Father and over a dozen village fishermen had perished in the lake waters...

After Father's death, Mother took Ma La and his brother and fled as refugees. Supporting them by mending clothes for people, after several moves, they finally settled in Shenhuangzhou. Mother's tailoring skills quickly gained some reputation there. Over time, people took to calling her "Tailor Yao," until they forgot her real name. Every winter, when people who'd been busy most of the year finally had leisure time, especially as Spring Festival approached, even the most strapped households would find a way to go to Hekou to buy a few feet of cloth and make a few decent outfits for adults and children. Mother had endless sewing work every day. Her sewing kit was simple—a ruler, a pair of scissors, plus a pair of skillful hands. Mother became the busiest person in Shenhuangzhou, with families requesting her services lined up in a long queue. Mother couldn't come home day or night. Brother Ma Ke attended Shenhuangzhou Village Elementary School, and often only Ma La was home alone. That temporary production team warehouse they lived in was a kingdom of rats—whether day or night, they ran about in packs upstairs and downstairs, their squeaking sounds making one's scalp tingle and heart race. Sometimes when Ma La was sleeping, they'd climb onto the child's head until they woke him, scaring him into wailing. Big Bowl Uncle's home was less than a hundred meters from the production team warehouse. One day passing by, hearing Ma La crying alone at home, he carried him back to his house. Big Bowl Uncle's son Dongsheng was only half a year older than Ma La. The two children quickly became close playmates. Eventually, Ma La going to play at Big Bowl Uncle's became routine. If Mother came home too late, when brother Ma Ke came after school to Big Bowl Uncle's to find his little brother, he'd simply start playing with them too. Big Bowl Uncle would then make a big pot of rice for them all to eat. They were as close as family. Big Bowl Uncle would sit to one side smoking, watching the children eat with big bites, his stubbly face breaking into a grin. That kindly expression made Ma La think of his dead father...

Big Bowl Uncle's wife had died from eating poisonous mushrooms. Every spring, the groves along the Jiangjiang in Shenhuangzhou filled with umbrella-shaped mushrooms. During those famine years, when villagers couldn't fill their bellies, they survived on wild vegetables and mushrooms. In April that year, it rained heavily for several days straight. The mushrooms in the riverside groves grew more abundantly than in previous years. Village adults and children all rushed to the groves to pick mushrooms. Big Bowl Uncle's wife washed the freshly gathered mushrooms until they were spotless, and even killed a chicken they hadn't been willing to slaughter over New Year, stewing a whole clay pot full, planning to properly nourish the family. That day, Big Bowl Uncle had gone to the commune for a meeting, and son Dongsheng had gone to his maternal grandmother's a couple days before—only their three-year-old daughter An'an was home. The rain that day was heavy. Big Bowl Uncle's wife finished stewing the mushroom chicken soup and waited by the stove until dark, but Big Bowl Uncle and Dongsheng still hadn't returned. An'an cried from hunger. Big Bowl Uncle's wife had no choice but to serve a bowl of mushroom chicken soup for her daughter and casually drank half a bowl of soup herself. When Big Bowl Uncle returned through the rain after fetching son Dongsheng from his grandmother's, what he saw was his wife and child lying by the stove opening, foaming at the mouth...

From then on, Big Bowl Uncle raised son Dongsheng alone, serving as both father and mother. Life was much harder than for ordinary families.

Big Bowl Uncle's parents had died when he was young. From age eight, he'd worked as a long-term laborer for wealthy households. Perhaps due to prolonged hunger, his appetite was larger than most people's. Every meal he always used an extra-large bowl—hence the nickname "Big Bowl." His employer, seeing the boy's small frame but large appetite, felt somewhat cheated and made him do extra work. If he didn't complete the assigned tasks, he'd be punished with hunger—the saying went "work as much as you eat"—so he could often only eat half-full, secretly munching turnips to fill his belly. The bowls Big Bowl Uncle's household used for meals were larger than ordinary families'. His appetite was large, and so was his strength. He could hug a stone roller weighing over two hundred jin [note: a jin is roughly half a kilogram] around the waist and carry it around the production team's threshing ground without his face changing color or his breathing growing labored—everyone who saw this stuck out their tongues in amazement, and no one dared challenge him. Because of this, Big Bowl Uncle commanded considerable prestige in Shenhuangzhou. During agricultural collectivization, he'd served as head of the elementary cooperative, and after the People's Communes, he'd been production team leader for many years. In Ma La's memory, Big Bowl Uncle always walked so fast that ordinary people had to jog to keep up. Except in winter, he seemed to go barefoot year-round, feet caked with mud, a shovel over his shoulder, wandering through Shenhuangzhou's fields and gullies, his loud voice assigning work to commune members. Seeing anyone slacking off, he'd darken his face and scold them mercilessly. Busy from morning to night, no one knew where he got so much energy. Later, after Ma La's brother Ma Ke became production team leader, Big Bowl Uncle "retired to the second line," becoming chairman of the Shenhuangzhou Brigade's Poor Peasants' Association...

Before long, a simple meal was ready, and the sky had completely darkened. The room filled with the fragrance of steamed salted fish—the smell was especially appetizing. Big Bowl Uncle lit the kerosene lamp sitting on the stove, then fumbled under the bed to find a bottle of sorghum liquor produced by the local distillery. He held it up to the dim lamplight and shook it twice, smiling as he looked at Ma La: "I've kept this bottle for over half a year and couldn't bear to drink it. Little La, today we two will drink it up..."

Ma La hadn't eaten in such an environment for years and felt somewhat unaccustomed at first, but seeing Big Bowl Uncle in such good spirits, he took the bottle and said: "Uncle, I haven't touched liquor in quite a while either. Today I'll drink a couple cups with you."

As Ma La poured the liquor into bowls, Big Bowl Uncle suddenly muttered: "Where's 'Commune Member'? Where's that wild thing run off to now?" He turned and walked to the door, cupped his hands like a megaphone, and called into the pitch-black wilderness: "'Commune Member,' come back and eat! Commune... Member..." The call traveled far and wide, echoing again and again. That familiar tone made Ma La's heart stir. When he was young, when he and Dongsheng played on the sandbar and forgot to come home for dinner, Big Bowl Uncle would call just like this. The difference was that now Big Bowl Uncle's voice was like a rusty bronze bell, much more hoarse than before...

Big Bowl Uncle called several times before "Commune Member" returned to the room, its fur damp with mist. As soon as it entered, it spotted the bowl of salted fish on the stove and reached out its paw to grab it. Big Bowl Uncle pulled it away in one motion, grabbed a piece from the bowl with his hand and tossed it at "Commune Member's" feet, scolding like he would a child with a stern face: "Off to the side! Don't you see we have a guest?"

The night wind pouring through the door crack made the kerosene lamp flicker and dance, its dim yellow light casting the shadows of Big Bowl Uncle and Ma La onto the rough wall—one large, one small, wavering and uncertain, like those elusive years he'd lived through. In a trance, Ma La was back in his childhood, after Mother and his brother had died, during those years he'd spent at Big Bowl Uncle's as an orphan. He and Dongsheng had shared a bed, eaten from the same pot. Big Bowl Uncle was busy with the production team from morning to night and couldn't look after them. Dongsheng naturally took charge as the leader of the children, often bossing Ma La around. Each time Dongsheng bullied him, Ma La would tearfully complain to Big Bowl Uncle. More than once, Ma La had fought with Dongsheng over this. When Dongsheng couldn't beat Ma La, he'd threaten as the "master of the house" to throw him out. Once Ma La really did leave in a huff, hiding on the sandbar for a whole night without returning. When Big Bowl Uncle found out, he whipped Dongsheng's backside with a broom handle until it was bloody and scarred—so that afterward the two of them didn't speak to each other for quite a while...

In Ma La's memory, Big Bowl Uncle's capacity for liquor was as large as his appetite—few people in the village could outdrink him. But clearly his tolerance was much diminished from before. He hadn't drunk much before his face began to flush. Ma La urged him to drink less, but Big Bowl Uncle clutched the bottle, mumbling: "Your uncle hasn't touched liquor for over half a year, Little La. Today I'm happy because you've come back! All these years I've only heard you were doing great things out there. Uncle is proud of you. If only your mother and brother were still alive... Little La, your uncle doesn't have your mother's good fortune. At least she had you, such a successful son. And me? Ah, who knows what sins I committed in a past life..." Ma La had wanted to ask Big Bowl Uncle why he didn't live with Dongsheng, but seeing his expression, he swallowed the words.

Big Bowl Uncle tilted his head back and drank another mouthful, wiping his gaunt chin with the back of his hand: "Little La, a few years ago I heard from villagers that something happened to you, that you'd been thrown in jail. I absolutely refused to believe it and gave that gossip a thorough scolding, but I still felt uneasy..."

Ma La stared at Big Bowl Uncle and said in a low voice: "Uncle, it's true."

"Whether it's true or cooked, you're fine now, aren't you?" Big Bowl Uncle started, but quickly changed the subject. "Little La, it's so hard for you to come back—surely you'll stay a few more days?"

"I do want to stay longer..." Ma La said vaguely. Actually, he had another sentence in his heart: I want to stay in Shenhuangzhou and never leave again. But looking at Big Bowl Uncle's wrinkle-covered face, his throat caught and he couldn't voice it.

Outside, the wind picked up, making the dead branches and leaves on the roof rustle. The surging river waters roared like fleeing beasts. Perhaps due to the alcohol, Ma La's mind was in complete turmoil, as if he were adrift in an ethereal dream, momentarily unable to tell where he actually was...

Chapter 4

Right up until he was sent to the labor reform farm inland to serve his sentence, he'd never heard any news of Antai Company facing legal prosecution.

Teacher Lu was struck down by illness at the height of his career.

By then, Kunpeng Company's business had expanded into real estate, tourism, agricultural product processing, and other fields. It had also acquired and merged with several small enterprises on the verge of bankruptcy. In E City, the company had gained considerable fame, and its scale and strength could no longer be compared to the past. Teacher Lu had given the position of general manager to Ma La, assuming the role of chairman himself, responsible for the company's overall management and major investment decisions. For a period, Teacher Lu had close dealings with prominent figures in E City's business world and key officials from relevant government departments. They frequently appeared together at high-end hotels and entertainment venues, their movements highly secretive.

One afternoon, Teacher Lu instructed him to reserve a banquet table at Taihua Hotel. Taihua Hotel was a five-star establishment that had recently opened in E City. Unless it was for important VIPs, the company rarely entertained at Taihua Hotel. Sure enough, Teacher Lu specifically instructed him to book the banquet according to the highest reception standards. "In any case, there must be abalone, bird's nest, and the like. As for liquor, of course Maotai—no, no, this brother-in-law of my cousin has seen the world. Maotai is too provincial. Better make it XO! Nowadays, people of status all prefer foreign stuff..." Ma La had assumed the banquet was for an important business client or some government official. Who knew it was for Teacher Lu's "cousin's husband"? He'd never heard Teacher Lu mention this "cousin's husband" before, and given such high reception standards, clearly this "cousin's husband" was no ordinary figure.

In the car to Taihua Hotel, Ma La, sitting in the passenger seat, couldn't help asking: "Teacher Lu, how come I've never heard you mention this brother-in-law before?"

"I only learned he was my cousin's husband when I met him this morning." Teacher Lu, sitting in the back seat, smiled. He'd just attended an important business event that morning.

"Speaking of it, my cousin and her husband were once sent-down youth at Hekou Commune," Teacher Lu said with interest. "The brigade where my cousin settled was in your Shenhuangzhou—perhaps you even know her!"

"What's your cousin's name?"

"Murong Qiu."

Hearing this familiar name, Ma La's heart couldn't help but skip a beat, his mind suddenly buzzing as if a swarm of bees had flown in. Murong Qiu. Sister Murong... Could it be her? Was it really her?

"So, do you know her?" Teacher Lu's voice came from behind, as if from very far away.

"Oh, I don't... don't know her." Ma La stammered. "I was still young back then, and with so many sent-down youth, how could I possibly know them all..." After saying this, he felt somewhat regretful, thinking: Why did I deny it? Why did I lie?

"My cousin is a university professor. Her husband is even more remarkable—he's now deputy general manager of Beijing Antai Company. His father is an old Red Army veteran—his background is no ordinary matter..." Teacher Lu said while sighing with admiration.

Over these past years following Teacher Lu around the business world, Ma La had learned that Antai Company was a company with significant connections. Industry insiders spoke of this company with great discretion. Though he sat in the front seat, he could imagine the excited expression on Teacher Lu's face. However, at this moment, Ma La's mind was disturbed by the appearance of the name "Murong Qiu," so that when the car arrived at Taihua Hotel, he still hadn't recovered. Only when Teacher Lu reminded him did he wake as if from a dream and open the car door.

Ma La and Teacher Lu waited quite a while in the luxurious private room before the guests arrived fashionably late. There were three people in total, full of airs, all speaking with Beijing accents. One man wearing sunglasses kept his face stern—perpetually stern—and barely acknowledged Teacher Lu's smiling welcome. Ma La heard Teacher Lu call him "Second Young Master." The other two flanked "Second Young Master" like bodyguards. On the left was a woman, strikingly beautiful with a tall figure and short hair, displaying a unique charm. The one on the right cut an impressive figure, standing straight in a brown leather jacket, his gaze cold and sharp, with quite the military bearing. Ma La later learned that this "Second Young Master" was the boss of Antai Company, the second son of a certain "chief." The woman was his assistant—actually his mistress, supposedly a former performer from the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe. As for the man with military bearing, that was Teacher Lu's "cousin's husband," Gu Chaoyang.

The enormous private room held only five people, but the table was laden with delicacies. Throughout the entire banquet, the conversation remained inconsequential, with not a word about business. Clearly, everything had been settled at that morning's meeting—this dinner was merely Teacher Lu's "thank you ceremony." Teacher Lu kept rising to pour drinks for "Second Young Master" seated at the head of the table. "Second Young Master" was about fifty, less than 160 centimeters tall, a head shorter than his female assistant beside him. He looked refined and unassuming, but his capacity for liquor was enormous. After a while drinking XO, finding it unsatisfying, he rolled up his sleeves and loudly demanded baijiu. Teacher Lu quickly had Ma La order a bottle of Maotai on the spot. He personally poured a full glass for "Second Young Master," and to demonstrate his sincerity, filled his own glass as well. Ma La knew Teacher Lu's drinking capacity—having drunk so much XO, now adding hard liquor, judging by this situation, he was truly going to sacrifice himself to keep the gentleman company. He couldn't help worrying secretly for Teacher Lu. Under normal circumstances, he could easily have gone over to finish that drink for Teacher Lu. At that moment, he really intended to do so. But just as Ma La prepared to rise, Gu Chaoyang, sitting beside him, reached out to press his shoulder and gave him a look—the meaning couldn't be clearer: This is between the two bosses; neither you nor I should stick our oar in!

Before this, Ma La had been observing Teacher Lu's "cousin's husband," searching through his memory to see if among the sent-down youth in Shenhuangzhou back then, he'd ever encountered this rather distinguished-looking man.

Gu Chaoyang also seemed to be observing Ma La. "Let's drink," he said, raising his glass and gesturing to the female assistant across from them, then deliberately clinked glasses with Ma La. They were drinking XO. Ma La wasn't accustomed to foreign liquor and only took a small sip. Then he heard Gu Chaoyang lower his voice and ask: "I just heard Director Lu say you're from Shenhuangzhou. Let me ask you about someone—do you know Ma Ke?"

Ma La's body trembled as if struck. He raised his head and met a gaze full of doubt and inquiry. He hesitated, then facing that gaze, said in a low voice: "He was my brother."

Gu Chaoyang's eyes lit up as if catching fire, but instantly dimmed. "Oh, what a coincidence!" he murmured with a strange expression, then tilted back his head and drained his glass in one gulp.

Suddenly, a crash came from across the table. "Second Young Master's" glass slipped from his hand and fell to the floor, shattering. He swayed to his feet, slurring indistinctly: "Director Lu, you're a real brother. Don't worry, this deal is settled. Just wait to count your money..." Before finishing, his body tilted and he collapsed on the floor like a puddle of mud. Gu Chaoyang and the female assistant rushed over to help "Second Young Master" up.

By then, Teacher Lu was also so drunk he lay in his seat, unable to stand. When Ma La went to help him up, he was still muttering: "Drink, Second Young Master, whoever doesn't drink is a bastard!"

Teacher Lu didn't wake from his drunken stupor until noon the next day. After coming to work that afternoon, he revealed to Ma La that "big deal" he'd negotiated with Antai Company the day before.

After listening, Ma La broke out in a cold sweat. He looked at Teacher Lu sitting behind the desk as wide as a billiard table and after a long moment muttered: "This... this is too risky, isn't it?"

"Risky? What do you mean risky?" Teacher Lu stared at him somewhat aggressively, then directed his gaze to a calligraphy scroll on the opposite wall—something he'd specifically commissioned from a famous E City calligrapher, Zhuangzi's Wandering at Ease. "...If you pour a cup of water into a hollow in the floor, a mustard seed will be a boat for it; but if you place the cup there, it will stick fast, for the water is shallow and the boat large. If the wind is not piled up thick enough, it lacks the strength to support great wings. Therefore, when the peng rises ninety thousand li, the wind is beneath it, and only then, riding on the wind, carrying the blue sky on its back with nothing to block it, can it plan its journey south..." He recited in the cadenced tones he'd used in normal school classrooms, leaning slightly forward, raising both hands high as if about to spread wings and fly. "Ma La, our kunpeng has already taken flight. Can we not take risks? In this era, everything has been smashed to pieces, everything is dividing and reorganizing—truly a time when everything needs to be rebuilt from scratch. And right now in E City, winds come from all directions... What excellent conditions! We've caught the right moment. We must seize every opportunity that comes our way, or we'll accomplish nothing!"

Ma La said: "But, Teacher Lu..."

"You needn't say more!" Before he could finish, Teacher Lu waved his hand and stood up from behind the desk, somewhat agitated as he unbuttoned his collar and paced around the room. Then he suddenly stopped before Ma La, lowering his voice: "Ma La, you've followed me so long, but your mind still hasn't transformed. You're so young—you can't be conservative! Hmm? Of course, you should know what an important figure 'Second Young Master' is—his connections reach to the highest levels! Moreover, with my cousin's husband as our 'inside man,' what do we have to fear..."

Ma La realized he had no way to persuade Teacher Lu. In the days that followed, he watched Teacher Lu frequently interact with Antai Company, often flying to Beijing without even saying hello, disappearing for several days at a stretch, as secretive as an underground operative in a film. Sometimes Teacher Lu would suddenly call from some mysterious place, having Ma La urgently transfer a huge sum to an unfamiliar account, then lose contact again for a long time. When he next called Ma La, he'd already be in another city or another country. The phone calls, of course, typically involved giving Ma La new instructions that left him somewhat bewildered, and each time after hanging up, there would be a solemn reminder: "Remember, absolute secrecy—don't reveal our cooperation with Antai Company to anyone, including company employees..."

This went on for a while until Teacher Lu appeared before Ma La as if fallen from the sky. When he walked silently into the general manager's office, Ma La nearly jumped out of his skin. Not having seen him for a while, Teacher Lu had lost considerable weight, his cheekbones suddenly more prominent, as if he'd become another person. His face was pale and listless, even his normally sharp eyes had dimmed. Ma La initially thought it was due to travel fatigue and quickly poured a glass of hot water and brought it over. "Teacher Lu, you don't look well." But he sat down on the sofa and gestured weakly: "It's nothing, I'll be fine after sitting a bit." Ma La noticed Teacher Lu's hand trembling slightly, making the teacup lid rattle twice. "The money will be transferred in a few days... using the company's backup account." He leaned askew on the sofa, telling Ma La in a voice like a whisper, his long, bony fingers twitching nervously on the armrest. "I really am a bit tired—it's like fighting a major battle. But there will be even more ahead of us, especially an urgent need for people who truly understand business management—master's degrees, doctorates... Oh yes, about the company's share restructuring, think it over first." He propped his head with one hand, his voice sounding extremely weak. Seeing this, Ma La urged: "Teacher Lu, you're too tired. These matters—why don't you go back to your quarters and rest properly before discussing them?" "All right." As he stood and walked toward the door, he staggered and nearly fell. Ma La rushed forward to support him: "Teacher Lu, what's wrong? Let me take you back to your quarters?" But he shook his head: "No need, I'm probably just jet-lagged, haven't adjusted to the time difference yet. Mm, the beauties in that country really are indescribably wonderful..." He muttered, pushing away Ma La's hand and walked out.

Watching Teacher Lu's tall, thin figure swaying away like a leaf, Ma La's heart was suddenly swept by a shadow of foreboding.

A few days later, Teacher Lu fell ill, alternating between high fever and vomiting. When Ma La brought a net bag of bananas and mangoes to visit him at his quarters, he saw him lying in bed, his eye sockets seemingly sunken overnight, looking even more emaciated than a few days before.

Ma La's heart sank. Without a word, he personally drove Teacher Lu to the hospital. The day the hospital diagnosis came out, the doctor called Ma La to the office, looked at him with a strange expression, and asked what his relationship was to the patient. Ma La hesitated, saying he was a student: "Teacher Lu has no other family. Doctor, whatever it is, just tell me directly."

"Very well then. The biopsy and serum test results show that your teacher has... and it's already advanced stage. He doesn't have much time left..." The doctor said in a reproachful tone, "Why did you only bring him to the hospital now?"

Ma La's head buzzed, stunned as if struck by lightning.

After Teacher Lu was admitted to the hospital, Ma La kept the test results hidden from him and instructed company employees who came to visit never to spread word of Teacher Lu's condition. Teacher Lu's body weakened day by day, yet he remained constantly concerned about the company's next development plans, continuously maintaining contact with the outside world using his "Big Brother" mobile phone. Teacher Lu was among the first few people in E City to use a "Big Brother." To let him rest peacefully, Ma La had to secretly hide away that brick-thick "Big Brother," provoking Teacher Lu's fury. Like a child, he clamored to leave the hospital, but just reaching the ward door, he nearly collapsed. When Ma La practically carried Teacher Lu back to the hospital bed, he felt how light his body had become and couldn't help but feel his nose sting, struggling to hold back tears.

At that time, due to that "major project" in cooperation with Antai Company, almost all the company's funds were invested, and even paying salaries required bank loans. Ma La was secretly alarmed by this reckless investment behavior and reminded Teacher Lu several times, but was always rebuffed. "You can't catch a wolf without risking the child. With 'Second Young Master' as such solid backing, what's there to fear? Just wait to count your money!"

But before long, the "major project" was exposed in Beijing. Soon, the central government dispatched a special investigation team to E City to begin investigating what was called the largest automobile smuggling case since E City became a special economic zone. Supposedly, officials from some important E City government departments, including customs, were implicated, as well as several high-ranking cadres' children with connections reaching to the heavens. Relevant State Council leaders issued instructions to "investigate and prosecute severely." For a time, E City's streets and alleys buzzed with discussion, many mysterious rumors spread without foundation, and journalists from various newspapers hunted like hounds for news related to the case. Kunpeng Company was suddenly thrust to the storm's forefront, constantly receiving interview requests. Each time, Ma La deflected them with "no comment." Meanwhile, the investigation team began frequently summoning relevant parties and dispatching people to investigate Kunpeng Company. They specifically asked to find Teacher Lu to "understand the situation," which Ma La firmly refused each time. "Our chairman is so ill—don't you have even basic humanitarian standards?" Once, he couldn't help but lose his temper. "I'm the company's general manager. If you have questions, ask me!"

Although Ma La had been mentally prepared, later, when the court issued a summons to Kunpeng Company and Ma La, as company general manager, was called in for questioning, he still found it somewhat unbearable. How could Teacher Lu, so ill, possibly endure such a heavy blow? Therefore, throughout the entire investigation process, Ma La kept everything hidden from Teacher Lu. To seal off information, he had the medical staff cancel all of Teacher Lu's newspaper subscriptions and sever all his contact with the outside world. Each time he went to the hospital and Teacher Lu asked about the company's situation, Ma La would evade the question or fabricate fictitious "good news." Seeing that familiar smile appear on Teacher Lu's haggard face, Ma La's heart would ache. But this only strengthened his resolve. He knew too well what the company's future meant to Teacher Lu. He would hide it as long as possible—in any case, Teacher Lu absolutely could not learn about the company's current predicament...

During Teacher Lu's final days, whenever Ma La had time, he went to the hospital to stay with him. The two talked together, and that intimacy and mutual understanding gave them the feeling that only exists between family members. By then, Teacher Lu had become fully aware of his condition. His initial restlessness disappeared, replaced by an unusually calm acceptance. Only occasionally, when discussing the company's future, would he show some sadness: "Since university I could recite entire passages of Goethe's Faust. I had a Mephistopheles inside me too, but to this day I don't know which of us won. He was too formidable—perhaps only Faust himself could defeat him, which is why the person I've admired most in my life is Faust. Ma La, you know that running a company was never my ultimate goal. How I hoped one day to purchase an island and build my Republic on it! But now..." He murmured, his gaze dimming, looking at Ma La without focus, saying in a voice thin as gossamer: "From now on, you'll have to walk the path alone..."

That look in Teacher Lu's eyes, mingling hope and regret, made Ma La think of the phrase "ambitions unfulfilled before death." Afraid he couldn't control himself from crying aloud, he abruptly turned his face away.

That "major case" hanging over their heads like a sword was no less than catastrophic for Kunpeng Company. Not long ago, Teacher Lu had instructed Ma La to liquidate the company's fixed assets—part was donated to a national private charity fund, the remainder distributed as severance pay to company employees.

Teacher Lu had also proposed giving Ma La the old house his mother had left him. But how could he accept such a gift?

Teacher Lu seemed to understand Ma La's concerns and gripped his hand tightly, saying: "You know I've been single all my life, with no legal heir. You're my favorite student. I've always regarded you as the inheritor of my spirit and career. After following me so many years, you've gained nothing, and might even end up going to prison in my place." He spread his hands with a bitter smile. "Look at me now, penniless. Aside from that old house, I really have no other way to compensate you..."

Facing those dying eyes, Ma La felt unable to refuse.

A few days later, late one night, Teacher Lu passed away under the torment of illness. At his deathbed were only Ma La and another colleague from the company. Watching Teacher Lu's once-tall body, now reduced to mere bones, lying on the white hospital bed, Ma La couldn't help but recall the scene of Teacher Lu wearing an old army overcoat, coming from the normal school to Hekou Middle School to find him. Teacher Lu's every word and smile seemed like yesterday, vivid before his eyes. An entrepreneur whose mind teemed with intelligence, who harbored extraordinary ambitions and constantly created miracles, had in a blink become a pile of cold bones. So many earth-shattering dreams would never concern him again! In Ma La's heart, he'd always regarded this man as his mentor, even as family. The bone-deep sorrow he'd experienced years ago when losing his mother and brother suddenly surged to his heart. His vision blurred...

The day after settling Teacher Lu's funeral affairs, Ma La was arrested by police on charges of "suspected involvement in Kunpeng Group's smuggling."

Half a year later, Ma La was sentenced to eight years in prison for participating in the Kunpeng Group smuggling case.

The major automobile smuggling case that had affected the entire nation thus came to a close. What Ma La found incomprehensible was that right up until he was sent to the labor reform farm inland to serve his sentence, he'd never heard any news of Antai Company facing legal prosecution. We were nothing more than their scapegoats, Ma La thought with bitter resentment. If Teacher Lu knew this beneath the earth, what would he think?

Chapter 5

His brother often borrowed books from Murong Qiu, and Ma La benefited considerably from this. How the Steel Was Tempered was one of them.

The next morning, when Ma La opened his eyes from sleep and saw the dim, damp walls and uneven floor, for an instant he thought he was still in the prison cell at the labor reform farm. He remained dazed for quite a while before remembering he'd returned to Shenhuangzhou and, having drunk quite a bit of sorghum liquor last night, had fallen asleep in a stupor on Big Bowl Uncle's bed.

Big Bowl Uncle had already gone out, and "Commune Member" was nowhere to be seen either. The room was utterly quiet, the door left ajar. Bright shafts of light streamed through the door crack and gaps in the roof tiles—the weather had clearly cleared. Ma La had indeed drunk too much last night, and his head still ached faintly. He lay in bed, spacing out for a while longer. The bed was built up with bricks, wide and sturdy, easily able to fit three people side by side. In the past, when flood-prevention workers were dispatched to the embankment, they all slept on these brick beds. The bedding and sheets were so old their original colors could no longer be distinguished—mottled with stains, patches here, holes there, exposing blackened cotton wadding. This reminded him of a text from elementary school: "New for three years, old for three years, mended and patched for another three years." It wasn't much better than the tattered bedding he and Dongsheng had burrowed into back then. These were probably still what the workers had used years ago, Ma La thought. Only the rice straw spread under the sheets was likely from this year's early rice harvest—thick and soft as a sofa, giving off a fragrance familiar to Ma La. Yes, this was authentic early grain straw. Ma La sniffed, his tongue slowly releasing a thread of sweet saliva. When he was young, after the Dragon Boat Festival when the weather was especially fine, the large and small paddies of Shenhuangzhou would turn golden, the rice swaying in the breeze, the air permeated with the fragrance of ripening early grain. Before dawn, commune members would head to the fields to harvest, too busy to return home—breakfast had to be delivered to them in the fields by family. Ma La was awakened almost every day by the bang-bang sound of threshing grain. Back then, Mother was still alive. Each time Mother finished making breakfast, she'd fill a large porcelain bowl, then untie her apron and wrap the bowl tightly, having him take it to his brother Ma Ke. Ma Ke was only fifteen or sixteen then, already working for the production team. He was tall and strong, and when working could match a full laborer. While his brother squatted on the field ridge eating, Ma La would sneak over to the threshing barrel, gazing in wonder at the golden grain piled like a small mountain inside, waves of fragrance making his mouth water, drool trickling from the corners of his lips...

Ma La got up. While washing, he saw a large bowl filled with cooked sweet potatoes on the stove, covered with a bamboo strainer—clearly Big Bowl Uncle's breakfast preparation for him. "Not enough grain, sweet potatoes make up the difference." Ma La still remembered this ditty he'd heard from adults as a child. He hadn't eaten this stuff in many years. Ma La ate several pieces, finding them fragrant, sweet, and especially delicious. Before leaving, he grabbed two more pieces in his hand and walked outside.

The sky had truly cleared. After the dark clouds dispersed, the sky was like a river channel after flood season—aside from a few remaining sail-like wisps and cotton-like white clouds, it stretched vast and clean, exceptionally pure. The sun had already risen more than a tree's height. The autumn sunlight was abundant as an energetic youth, blazing like flames, making the trees and grass thickets soaked by rain steam and hiss, radiating the vitality of summer. Yet in Ma La's eyes, this vitality was both wild and vigorous, yet also weak and feeble, like the final rally of an old person who'd suffered greatly, even carrying a bitter, patient, sickly quality. He walked along the muddy, weed-covered path. As far as his eyes could see, the wilderness stretched endlessly, utterly desolate. Not far away was an irregularly shaped wasteland that had apparently been planted with crops two years ago. For some unknown reason, the owner had forgotten or abandoned the already-mature jute, leaving it to collapse, wither, and rot in the wind and rain, giving off the smell of rotting, stinking vegetation. The exposed earth was like a sick person's failing organs, black with a tinge of yellow, merging with the surrounding weeds and shrubs into an indistinguishable mass. On a nearby slope stood three paulownia trees with sparse branches but unusually tall, straight trunks. They faced the poplar grove below the river embankment from afar, like warriors who'd won the final victory in a war and survivors of catastrophe, displaying an air of aloof independence, looking down on everything. Ma La squinted slightly, gazing at those three paulownia trees, feeling as if he stood on an ancient wilderness, as if time had reversed, something deep in his heart subtly touched. These trees with smooth bark but very coarse wood grew faster than ordinary trees, and the poorer the soil, the faster and more robustly they grew. In Shenhuangzhou they were usually considered worthless—not even fit for making coffins, only good for firewood. But Ma La remembered that when Mother died of illness and there was no money to buy quality lumber, they'd had to use paulownia trees from production team pigpen railings to make her coffin for burial. And after his brother was burned to death in the fire, it was Big Bowl Uncle who'd led several people to chop down a paulownia tree at the village entrance thick enough for two people to encircle, working through the night to make a coffin to lay him to rest... Paulownia trees! Ma La sighed softly in his heart. His thoughts drifted for a moment, making his steps hesitant and heavy, as if stuck in the mud at his feet. Each forward step required double the effort—like a city dweller who rarely traveled far suddenly arriving in the wilderness, his unfamiliar surroundings stirring melancholy. This feeling was clearly written on Ma La's angular face, laying bare the storm within his heart...

The seven years Ma La spent at the labor reform farm truly taught him the meaning of "days passing like years."

During the first two years, Ma La was locked up with a group of thieves, robbers, and rapists, eating, living, and working alongside them. Probably because they'd heard Ma La had been a company general manager sentenced for smuggling, they treated him as a rich man and an object for venting their hatred. They found every way to exploit and humiliate him—making him sleep by the urine bucket at night, forcing him to empty it daily. At mealtimes, they'd offer the extra portions of meat and fish to the cell boss. They stopped just short of sodomizing him. If he showed the slightest resistance, behind the guards' backs that bunch would viciously abuse him, cruel as demons from hell. Later, when the cell boss learned he'd been an orphan since childhood, and seeing that after nearly two years in prison he hadn't had a single visitor, he took pity on him. Ma La's days became slightly more bearable.

Ma La didn't know how he'd endured that period. Several times he felt he really couldn't take it anymore and truly wanted to end it all. He'd designed methods of suicide countless times: deliberately breaking his rice bowl during meals, secretly bringing ceramic shards back to his cell, cutting his wrists at night after others fell asleep; while working in the fields and crossing the road, suddenly breaking from formation and throwing himself at an oncoming vehicle; secretly hoarding the rat poison distributed to each cell by the guards until he'd accumulated a lethal dose, then taking it; or during bathroom breaks in daytime, using his belt to hang himself... He'd even meticulously planned each method, not overlooking any detail, fully considering any unfavorable factors that might lead to failure. His thoroughness was no less than when he and Teacher Lu had conducted market analyses in E City. Especially at night, though his body was exhausted from a day's labor, his nervous system became unusually active, his mind teeming with illusions. Scenes of suicide came one after another, as if he were sinking into a swamp, finding it increasingly impossible to extricate himself. This was the period in Ma La's life when he'd been most intimate with death.

Ever since his parents and brother died successively, death had hung over Ma La's entire childhood like an enormous net, making him like a helpless, isolated fish living constantly under death's shadow. This became the most direct factor in forming Ma La's melancholy temperament. The entire purpose of his life seemed to be breaking free from this net that had consecutively claimed his three family members. Cruel, gloomy, terrifying—this was Ma La's earliest understanding of death. From the day he learned to hate, he'd regarded death as his mortal enemy. But this enemy was so powerful that Ma La knew he stood no chance against it. The disparity between them was simply too great, so that he felt the only way to defeat his opponent was mutual destruction. This was both a desperate struggle and a final reconciliation between enemies. Generally speaking, this progression from fear and hatred of death to "reconciliation" only happens when people reach old age. Yet it had occurred in Ma La's mind while he was still in childhood and adolescence. But he was, after all, just a child, which meant this "reconciliation" could only become a sort of illusion in his life, possessing the ethereal, insubstantial quality of witchcraft and fairy tales.

When Father died, Ma La was still young and had no recollection of it. When Mother died, he'd already begun to understand things. Mother died in an accident. That winter, Ma La and his brother Ma Ke huddled around a fire of tree stumps, warming themselves while waiting for Mother to return home as usual. Outside, the cold wind howled and all was pitch black. On that very night, returning home from sewing clothes for someone, Mother fell from the wooden bridge at the village entrance into the irrigation ditch. The ice-cold water quickly froze Mother's limbs and froze the cry for help that hadn't yet left her mouth. In the dead of night, when Big Bowl Uncle led the brothers Ma Ke and Ma La to fish Mother from the village entrance ditch, she still gripped tightly in her hand the scissors and measuring tape she carried every day. Ma Ke and Ma La were not yet adults, so Big Bowl Uncle handled all of Mother's funeral arrangements. The village held a solemn memorial service for her. The eulogy was drafted by Ma Ke, who had only an elementary education. Ma La only remembered one line: "The death of Tailor Yao has caused the villagers of Shenhuangzhou to lose a good tailor, and has caused the brothers Ma Ke and Ma La to lose a good mother... Alas, the sorrow! May she rest in peace!" Upon hearing that last line, the brothers Ma Ke and Ma La, kneeling in mourning clothes before Mother's coffin, wept uncontrollably.

When Ma La was fourteen, his brother Ma Ke was burned to death in a sudden fire. For many days afterward, he wandered near the production team warehouse that had been reduced to ruins. The great fire that had dyed half the sky red seemed still to burn fiercely, and in his ears rang the wails of adults and children. When the fire broke out, Ma Ke was attending music class at the brigade elementary school. The sent-down youth Murong Qiu was teaching them the new song "Socialism Is Good." Guo Dongsheng, who was often late or absent, suddenly appeared at the classroom door drenched in sweat, not even bothering to wipe it as he shouted: "Ma La, the Fourth Team warehouse is on fire, your brother he..." Hearing this, Ma La froze, not yet fully comprehending, when he saw Murong Qiu, who'd been copying lyrics on the blackboard, drop her chalk. It fell to the floor and broke into several pieces with a snap. When Ma La and Murong Qiu rushed to the Fourth Team warehouse, they saw Ma Ke burned black as charcoal. Later Big Bowl Uncle said his brother Ma Ke, ignoring people's attempts to stop him, had rushed headlong into the warehouse already engulfed in flames and carried out several bags of rice seed, his entire body becoming a moving ball of fire... "Your brother sacrificed himself rescuing collective seed. The county revolutionary committee posthumously recognized him as a martyr and called on young workers and peasants throughout the county to learn from him..." Big Bowl Uncle's words made Ma La think of heroes like Qiu Shaoyun, Wang Jie, and Jin Xunhua, but didn't lessen the grief in his heart. His brother's death left him bereft of his last family member in this world. He became a true orphan. Once again Ma La felt death's terrifying power. Many years later, when Ma La encountered death again face-to-face through Teacher Lu, he suddenly gained a completely different understanding: "Death is never a person's opponent. They are twin brothers—or rather, it is the only reason for a person to live." This was perhaps the important revelation Teacher Lu's death gave him. It was also the beginning of his "reconciliation" with death. In fact, during those days when Ma La felt utterly desperate and lonely, Teacher Lu's ghost had visited his dreams more than once. Those earnest, intimate conversations seemed even more vivid and passionate than when Teacher Lu was alive, so that Ma La wondered whether Teacher Lu had truly died. He even had an illusion: as one of the principal culprits in a nationally shocking automobile smuggling case, Teacher Lu had merely fled to a place beyond the law's reach, where all worldly rules were abolished and he'd gained true freedom. Ma La felt this might be a reasonable explanation for his current status as a prisoner. Realizing this, he experienced a feeling of abandonment—the hidden pain he'd repeatedly felt after losing family members as a child. But at the same time, he felt some consolation, even a tragic sense of voluntarily ascending the altar of sacrifice, that he'd been able to accept and bear alone the burden from Teacher Lu's shoulders before he left this world! This ultimately became the real reason Ma La found to keep living. But the enormous void and loneliness that losing his intimate mentor had left in his life wasn't eliminated—rather, it gnawed at his heart like a giant beast. In his mind floated a line from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra that he'd read while studying at Yanhe Normal School: "O solitude! You are my home. Solitude! I have lived too long wild and strange in wild strange lands not to return home to you with tears. Now just threaten me with your finger as mothers threaten, now just smile at me as mothers smile, now just say to me: 'Who was it that once stormed away from me like a tempest?'" Yes, stormed away like a tempest. Hadn't Teacher Lu blown into his life like a sudden wind, then suddenly departed...

Later, when Ma La was transferred to work as librarian at the farm library, spending all day dealing with yellowed, dust-covered books, he felt like a wanderer who'd roamed for many years finally embarking on the journey home.

The farm library was broken-down and old, its collection pitifully small—not only due to lack of funds, but also because previous librarians hadn't kept pace with the times. Most of the collection consisted of revolutionary war novels published before the smashing of the "Gang of Four," and of course, plenty of works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao for the political education of reform-through-labor prisoners. Interestingly, though these books were old and outdated, they were preserved in perfect condition. Some looked almost new—not only rarely damaged, but without even a folded page or smudge. Ma La was secretly puzzled, but when sorting through borrowing cards, he discovered that some of the library's collection had never been borrowed even once. No wonder they looked so new!

Ma La realized this library, specially established for prisoners, had essentially no patrons. In other words, the library was purely window dressing to satisfy inspections from above. Ma La found this deeply regrettable, thinking what a waste of these books. However, this gave him a rare opportunity to read.

He discovered Anna Karenina and How the Steel Was Tempered in a pile of old books the previous librarian had nearly discarded as waste.

Ma La had read Anna Karenina while studying at Yanhe Normal School—even the same edition, the 1979 Shanghai Translation Publishing House version with a green cover, two volumes. As for How the Steel Was Tempered, that went without saying. He'd first read this Soviet novel in elementary school. The music teacher Murong Qiu was a sent-down youth from Wuhan. His brother said when she came to Shenhuangzhou, she'd brought a whole trunk full of books. His brother often borrowed books from Murong Qiu, and Ma La benefited considerably from this. How the Steel Was Tempered was one of them.

The farm library was silent as a tomb all day long, as quiet as a remote mountain monastery. It was in this environment that Ma La reread Anna Karenina and How the Steel Was Tempered.

Initially, Ma La was just trying to pass the suddenly abundant time. But as his reading deepened, he entered another world entirely—a long-vanished world. Ma La discovered that after so many years, having transformed from an introverted, sentimental youth into a middle-aged man who'd experienced many ups and downs, he now had completely different understandings and feelings about these two novels he'd once read. For instance, when first reading Anna Karenina, Ma La had been most interested in the romantic entanglement between Anna and Vronsky—passion and coldness, infatuation and falsity, loyalty and betrayal. Now, his reading focus had clearly shifted from Anna to Levin, whom he'd previously overlooked as a "minor character." Levin's honest, practical character, his distaste for Moscow aristocratic life, the series of reforms he implemented on his estate, and his lying on a haystack pondering seemingly impractical, profound questions about why people live and what kind of life is meaningful—all of this produced an unprecedented attraction for Ma La. He came to deeply appreciate this character Tolstoy had portrayed as somewhat eccentric and antisocial. As for How the Steel Was Tempered, Ma La also had an entirely new reading experience. Previously, he'd always felt Pavel Korchagin was a fearless, selfless proletarian revolutionary fighter. The heroic dream of becoming Pavel had permeated his entire youth, and shaping this youthful heroic dream was undoubtedly a batch of revolutionary novels represented by How the Steel Was Tempered. In Ma La's eyes, Tonya reeked of bourgeois young lady pretension, and Pavel's rebuke of Tonya and her husband at the construction site was so satisfying. By comparison, the beautiful, brave Komsomol cadre Rita was the revolutionary companion worthy of Pavel. Therefore, when the novel described Pavel pulling a gun at the train station to threaten the rowdy crowd trying to board—that "little hooligan" style—Ma La thought it was incredibly "cool"! However, years later, in the crude, empty library of the labor reform farm, when Ma La reopened How the Steel Was Tempered, his eyes hurriedly skipped over Pavel's experiences as a revolutionary baptized by blood and fire, settling on the latter half where he suffered from serious illness and recuperated at a sanatorium. Pavel sitting on a bench at the seaside sanatorium, immersed in memories of those tumultuous years, with an undying heroic spirit, and that passage about life: "Man's dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world—the fight for the Liberation of Mankind. Man must live life to the fullest, because sudden illness or tragic accident could end his life at any moment." Ma La suddenly gained a more genuine understanding of the "death" that had long plagued him. At this very moment, Ma La realized he was no longer young. Of course, perhaps more importantly: that red spiritual background that had accompanied his youth no longer existed...

Ma La spent his thirty-eighth birthday at the labor reform farm. Even by Dante's division, this age marked a man's entry into middle age. He felt it necessary to reexamine the path he'd traveled and contemplate how to live the latter half of his life. For him, this was truly a severe question.

Staying in the labor reform farm library, Ma La often spent long periods neither organizing the collection nor reading. He'd just sit there, his gaze fixedly staring at some spot, as if possessed. During this time, he developed an urge to write. However, he was no longer obsessed with the "writer's dream" as before, but felt his heart was filled with too much expressive impulse. He first wrote some scattered poems. These poems were completely different from the youthful sentimentality and rich romantic sentiment of his normal school days, instead radiating the contemplative beauty of someone who'd seen the vicissitudes of life and penetrated worldly affairs. He even wanted to write a book—a book about homeland and memory, fantasy and reality. But Ma La had barely started when he was transferred from the library and replaced by a reform cadre's family member.

Leaving the library, Ma La returned to the prisoners' midst, but he didn't participate in high-intensity field labor—instead, he was assigned to the farm orchard.

The labor reform farm's orchard was quite large, covering over a hundred mu, with not only citrus, apples, and plums, but also kiwi fruit, still uncommon in the market. This ugly-looking fruit was supposedly introduced from New Zealand and required relatively advanced cultivation techniques. The reform team cadres, probably considering Ma La's former identity as an intellectual and entrepreneur, had him work with several prisoners experienced in fruit tree cultivation to grow kiwi fruit. His former teaching career and entrepreneurial identity had given Ma La the habit of treating everything seriously, meticulously, and conscientiously. Before long, he'd gained deep, detailed knowledge of kiwi fruit's characteristics. Kiwi fruit was also called changchu, monkey pear, wood berry, yang peach, sun peach, vine pear, lianchu, two-dimensional fruit, fuzzy fruit, plus the latest Zhangzhen brands Shunyang and Hongyang. Americans called it gooseberry, the British called it Chinese gooseberry, the Japanese called it Chinese monkey pear. Through consulting materials, he was surprised to discover that kiwi fruit didn't originate in New Zealand as commonly believed—its ancestral home was actually China. Over a hundred years ago, a New Zealand female principal traveling in China discovered kiwi fruit and brought it back to New Zealand, beginning its immigrant life. After improvement, the kiwi fruit called "kiwi" gained international fame, then returned en masse to China with prices several times higher than Chinese kiwi fruit. Supposedly, kiwi fruit flesh was green as jade, fragrant and inviting. It tasted sweet with a touch of sour, extremely delicious, with the reputation of "Vitamin C King." Its nutritional value was extremely high, and in recent years it had become very popular in the Chinese market...

After a period of study, Ma La skillfully mastered kiwi fruit cultivation techniques. Under his careful tending, within two years, the kiwi fruit trees bore their first harvest.

That year, the labor reform farm's various fruits had a bumper harvest, including the most difficult-to-tend kiwi fruit. Ma La was also named a "technical expert" and received a one-year sentence reduction.

Just then, Ma La welcomed the first visitor to the farm.

This person was his old classmate Ding Youpeng.

When Ma La saw Ding Youpeng walk into the crude visitation room accompanied by a farm leader, he couldn't help being startled. For a moment he couldn't react. Several years of prison life had made his thinking somewhat slow. Later, when the farm leader politely let "Deputy County Magistrate Ding" stay alone with him for a while and left the visitation room, he still couldn't find appropriate words to say for a long time.

Ding Youpeng clearly was no longer the deputy section chief of Yanhe County Education Committee's general education section. Dressed in a suit, he seemed to have gained weight compared to before. His face tilted slightly upward, his back ramrod straight, every gesture quite befitting a deputy county magistrate. Only after the farm leader left the visitation room did Ding Youpeng completely drop his deputy county magistrate airs and come over to shake hands with Ma La. When Ma La grasped those fair hands, they felt soft and limp, somewhat like a woman's.

"I heard about your situation long ago and always wanted to visit, but could never find the opportunity..." Ding Youpeng looked Ma La over, carefully choosing his words. "This time I had business at the provincial reform bureau and took the opportunity to see you." Seeing Ma La remain silent, he continued, "Over a decade has passed in a flash—we've both reached middle age. Ma La, these past two years I've often recalled our days studying at normal school. You were always holding philosophy and literature books thicker than bricks, your head full of strange ideas. I figured even if you didn't become a philosopher, you'd at least be a writer or something. But I never imagined you'd follow Teacher Lu down that path..." At this point, Ding Youpeng's face showed an expression of deep regret. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes, extracted one and waved it at him. "You still don't smoke, right?" Without waiting for Ma La's answer, he stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it with a lighter, slowly taking a drag. "Recently I've been studying for a graduate degree at W University. I heard a professor lecturing—he called people like you and Teacher Lu in that first batch who 'plunged into the sea' of commerce the first generation of 'trailblazers' born from reform and opening up, saying they played a pivotal role in China's economic development, their contributions considerable. He used extensive data to prove this generation now occupies quite important positions in the current market landscape. Many CEOs of well-known domestic and international companies were from that same generation of 'trailblazers' who went into business around the same time as you. Of course, some had bad luck and were eliminated midway, like you and Teacher Lu..." As Ding Youpeng spoke, he probably realized his words might wound Ma La's pride and suddenly stopped.

Ma La listened expressionlessly throughout. Now, seeing Ding Youpeng fall silent, he looked at him with surprise, as if expecting him to continue. "Give me a cigarette," Ma La suddenly said.

Ding Youpeng's words had clearly touched Ma La. He recalled a film he'd seen many years ago, The Waves Wash the Sand. During the revolutionary tide of the early 20th century, a group of intimate young people who'd experienced the May Fourth Movement were swept into the era's torrent. Each had to make their own choices. They underwent severe trials and temptations of interest. Some became like-minded comrades or lovers, others became mortal enemies... Youth, faith, loyalty, betrayal. The idealistic atmosphere pervading the film had once made Ma La's blood boil with excitement. Now, facing his old classmate Ding Youpeng, a strange thought suddenly popped into Ma La's mind: if the two of them were placed in that film, what roles would he and Ding Youpeng each be playing?

At noon, Ding Youpeng treated Ma La to a meal at the labor reform farm's staff cafeteria. During the meal, they talked about Teacher Lu. "When I heard the news of Teacher Lu's death, I couldn't sleep well for days. What an outstanding man! Though he failed in business, he could still be considered a hero..." Ding Youpeng said with the solemn expression of someone at a memorial service. "As Yanhe County's first private entrepreneur, Teacher Lu made contributions to the county's development. Some people are alive, yet they are dead; some people are dead, yet they still live. Recently, when our county was revising the county annals, I even suggested writing Teacher Lu into the 'Yanhe County Gallery of Notable Figures.'"

Though Ding Youpeng's speaking style was like giving a report at a meeting, somewhat exaggerated, his expression seemed quite sincere. Apparently, he hadn't harbored lasting resentment about Teacher Lu's refusal to donate to the county education committee back then. After all, we were both Lu Yongjia's students, both received intellectual enlightenment from Teacher Lu, Ma La thought. The sense of estrangement that time and different life experiences had created between him and Ding Youpeng seemed to diminish considerably.

"However, no one is perfect, no gold is pure." Ding Youpeng sighed. "Our Teacher Lu also had weaknesses, made some mistakes, even quite serious ones. Even Chairman Mao made mistakes—how could Teacher Lu be an exception? As his students, we can't cover up for our elders!"

Ma La detected implications in Ding Youpeng's words. Thinking he was still referring to the smuggling case, he said nothing. But the other party suddenly lowered his voice and asked: "Do you still remember that woman whose belly Teacher Lu got big?"

Ma La looked at Ding Youpeng hesitantly, not understanding why he suddenly brought this up. "Wasn't she a performer from the county arts troupe?"

"She wasn't just any performer. Her name was Tang Lina—she played Xi'er in the dance drama The White-Haired Girl." Ding Youpeng smiled mysteriously. "But more importantly, her father was a recently retired deputy county-level cadre, a comrade-in-arms who went south with my father during Liberation... When father and daughter complained to the county Party secretary, Teacher Lu couldn't escape. Considering he was the normal school's star teacher, the county didn't dismiss him from public employment but only ordered him to resign—they left him some face!"

"So that's how it was?" Ma La murmured, still somewhat skeptical. But Ding Youpeng spoke with such detail, it didn't seem like a made-up story. "How did I not know any of this..."

"If you'd known, how could you have so wholeheartedly resigned and gone into business with Teacher Lu?" Ding Youpeng's words carried a hint of mockery.

"I want to know—was the child born?" Ma La suddenly asked.

Ding Youpeng hesitated before saying: "She was born, a girl. I heard she looks a lot like Teacher Lu, but unfortunately, the child never saw her own father..."

Ma La made a thoughtful sound of acknowledgment.

Before leaving, Ding Youpeng patted Ma La's shoulder like a leader with a subordinate, saying in an encouraging tone: "At normal school, your thinking was always more profound than mine. You read more books and were more learned than me. I don't need to say much else—just grit your teeth and persevere a bit longer. I heard you got a year's sentence reduction. The rest will pass in a flash. After you get out, if there's anything you need my help with, just come find me. After all, we're old classmates!" Ding Youpeng's tone was full of sympathy. "After all, to a large extent you took the blame for someone else—you went to prison for Teacher Lu..."

Hearing this, Ma La couldn't help feeling somewhat moved.

The following year, when Ma La's reform-through-labor life entered its seventh year, he was finally released.

Before his release, Ma La sought out the reform cadre who'd once looked after him and selected some old books from the library that had essentially been sitting idle, including Anna Karenina and How the Steel Was Tempered. They filled nearly an entire trunk.

The first thing Ma La did after leaving the labor reform farm was go to E City to handle Teacher Lu's ashes, fulfilling this long-held wish. Circumstances at the time hadn't allowed Ma La to handle this matter properly, so Teacher Lu's ashes had been temporarily stored at the funeral home. And the last matter Teacher Lu had mentioned before his death was hoping Ma La could scatter his ashes. "I have no descendants, and my hometown relatives never enjoyed any benefits from me, so I don't want to burden them with visiting my grave every year. So let me disappear from this world cleanly and completely!" Teacher Lu had said with philosophical detachment. "Scatter them anywhere—just don't leave a grave or tombstone..."

After so many years, stepping onto E City's streets again gave Ma La a feeling of being utterly displaced in time. When E City first established its special zone, the entire city had barely any high-rise buildings. But today's E City was filled with skyscrapers, each more magnificent than the last, full of modern grandeur. Walking among the densely packed buildings, people felt like they were in a mountain gorge. Cars flowed like water in an endless stream, yet pedestrians were few and far between—in stark contrast to the streets once crowded with job-seekers. Meeting Ma La's eyes were younger, more vigorous faces. This made Ma La realize that to this city, he'd become a complete stranger.

Ma La went to great lengths to track down several former subordinates from Kunpeng Company. Initially, due to Teacher Lu's sudden death and Ma La's imprisonment, Kunpeng Company had collapsed. Company employees had no choice but to scatter and seek their own fortunes. One named Hao Jian had been personally recruited into Kunpeng Company by Ma La. After some years of ups and downs in the business world, this tall, thin college graduate from Anhui who always blushed when speaking looked much more mature than before. He now ran a comprehensive chain of restaurants with several branches, business booming. His every gesture resembled a respectable businessman. However, unlike several other former subordinates who'd been aloof toward their former boss, Hao Jian personally arranged for Ma La to stay at E City's most luxurious five-star hotel upon meeting him. He not only treated him to a seafood feast costing several thousand yuan, but also arranged sauna and Thai massage, saying it would "loosen his muscles and bones." Ma La politely declined Hao Jian's abundant hospitality. In the end, he could only invite Ma La to famous Wanghai Tower Tea House for evening tea. In a tea room decorated in South Asian style, Hao Jian spoke of Kunpeng Company's chairman Lu Yongjia in reminiscent, regretful tones. "If Chairman Lu hadn't fallen ill, if Kunpeng Company hadn't been drawn into that smuggling case..." Hao Jian's mouth frequently produced such hypothetical statements. Ma La could actually hear another layer of meaning: if not for all this, he himself wouldn't be where he was today—he might still be working for Kunpeng Company. Hao Jian was an exceptionally shrewd young man. Back then, Ma La had seen just this quality in him, and within two years of joining Kunpeng Company had promoted him to marketing director. Hao Jian clearly remembered Ma La's appreciation and cultivation of him. "What are General Manager Ma's plans going forward? To rebuild Kunpeng Company's glory can only depend on you! If you need my help, just say the word..." Hao Jian's words reminded Ma La of what Teacher Lu had said before his death, gripping his hand: "The revolution is not yet complete, comrades must still strive. In the future... it can only depend on you!" He smiled bitterly to himself. Perhaps Ding Youpeng was right, he thought. I was never cut out for business. If not for Teacher Lu back then, perhaps by now I really would have applied for graduate school and become a scholar?

"Let me think it over, think it over some more," Ma La said evasively.

A few days later, Ma La left E City quietly without saying goodbye to Hao Jian. On the train back to Yanhe County, he scattered part of Teacher Lu's ashes along the railway line. Years ago, he and Teacher Lu had taken this very railway to E City to start their enterprise. The other part of Teacher Lu's ashes he planned to take back to his hometown...

Ma La believed that if Teacher Lu knew beneath the earth, he certainly wouldn't object.

Chapter 6

At that moment, the beliefs that had been so deeply rooted in his mind began to waver...

For several days in a row, Ma La wandered and drifted through Shenhuangzhou's desolate wilderness and along the banks of the Jingjiang that wound around the sandbar, like a ghost lost in confusion. His mind overgrown with weeds, churning with sediment and chaos, many long-sealed memories surged forth like a thawing river, rushing left and right through the channels of his recollection. Beside an abandoned, dilapidated brick kiln by the river, Ma La stood among moss-covered broken bricks and tiles, gazing for a long time at the river water at his feet, his eyes involuntarily growing sore.

For so many years, whenever Ma La thought of his brother Ma Ke who'd perished in the fire, his heart would ache faintly. After graduating from higher elementary school, his brother had returned to farm in the village. When working for the production team, he always took the lead and worked tirelessly without complaint, earning considerable respect from production team leader Big Bowl Uncle. His brother was not only outstanding at labor but also loved reading. Every evening when he had time, he'd hold a book under the kerosene lamp and read late into the night. Ma La, just starting elementary school and barely literate, often pestered him to tell stories. From his brother, Ma La first heard about Xu Yunfeng, Sister Jiang, and Cheng Gang from Red Crag; about Yang Zirong and Shao Jianbo from Tracks in the Snowy Forest; about the stories of Zoya and Shura; and about little soldier Zhang Ga and Wang Erxiao... His brother was truly a master storyteller. He brought those people and events from distant war years to vivid, lifelike reality, making Ma La feel for a long time that he lived among those characters. Later, a group of sent-down youth came from the provincial capital Wuhan and Yanhe County seat to settle in Shenhuangzhou. By then, brother Ma Ke had already become the brigade's Youth League branch secretary. Under his organization, the sent-down youth established a cultural propaganda team called "Ulan Muqir" [note: Mongolian term meaning "red cultural workers"], frequently performing for commune members in the fields. Wuhan female sent-down youth Murong Qiu's solo "Yimeng Folk Song" and Yanhe male sent-down youth Li Haijun's bamboo flute solo "Whipping the Horse to Hasten the Grain Transport" were regular numbers at every performance. Occasionally, brother Ma Ke would personally perform a section from the model opera The Red Lantern—Li Yuhe's aria "Nothing in the World Can Stump a Communist"—winning applause from commune members and sent-down youth alike. Before long, Murong Qiu became a music teacher at the brigade elementary school. Whether because Murong Qiu was beautiful, or because his brother often borrowed books from her to read at home, Ma La felt an inexplicable closeness to her. He often returned books to Murong Qiu for his brother, or after school, Murong Qiu would hand him a new book to take to his brother. He'd practically become their "courier." Ma La was naturally happy to perform this duty. Each time he received his assignment, like the little anti-Japanese heroes Wang Erxiao and Yu Lai, he felt waves of excitement and agitation. Gradually, Ma La developed feelings toward Murong Qiu similar to those between siblings. Sometimes when meeting her outside school, Ma La would call her "Sister Murong" rather than "Teacher Murong." Murong Qiu seemed to like this form of address too, responding with a happy "Yes!" and affectionately patting his head. At such moments, Ma La would catch a faint, delicate fragrance from Murong Qiu, like the scent of wild grass on the riverbank beach. It was the smell of face cream. City girls all liked using it. Once, when his brother returned from attending a Communist Youth League cadre meeting at Yanhe County seat, he gave Ma La a small box to deliver to Murong Qiu when returning books, instructing him not to let anyone else know. On the way to school, Ma La still couldn't resist his curiosity and secretly opened it for a look—it was a box of face cream. When Ma La arrived at school and handed the small box to Murong Qiu, a blush swept across her face...

If not for that fire, what would the outcome have been for his brother and Sister Murong? This thought flashed through Ma La's mind, and his heart suddenly ached like an old wound being reopened. He couldn't help but moan softly: "My brother..."

The autumn Jingjiang ran calm, shallow, and thin, like an idle bow, but Ma La's heart blazed with towering flames, just like that sweltering summer afternoon over twenty years ago. From his earliest memories, his brother had occupied a special position in his mind, serving as a "life mentor" like a father. Ma La had never seen Father, yet he always felt he'd found Father's shadow in his brother. This imagined "father" was tall and heroic, hardworking and resilient, steady and calm, full of wisdom—practically a mythical figure. For a time, Ma La would quietly observe his brother, secretly imitating his every move. Over time, Ma La's manner of speaking and acting increasingly resembled Ma Ke's. Once in class, when the teacher asked students: "Who do you admire most?" Many classmates answered they admired "Chairman Mao" or other great figures. Ma La answered: "I admire my brother most!" He'd never imagined his brother would one day suddenly leave him and this world, just as he'd never believed Chairman Mao could die. So when his brother vanished abruptly in that towering fire on that unbearably hot summer afternoon, an enormous void appeared in Ma La's heart. He always felt his brother's death was related to him: perhaps it was his own too-eager hope for his brother to become a hero that caused his death? His brother fulfilled his youthful dream but left him forever. For many years afterward, he constantly felt desolate, empty, pained, and guilty, becoming even more introverted. Like lacking oxygen and suffering malnutrition, his physical development seemed to lag far behind his peers. This condition persisted until Ma La was admitted to Yanhe Normal School and met Teacher Lu...

Teacher Lu was undoubtedly another "life mentor" Ma La encountered after losing his brother. With Teacher Lu, Ma La achieved the transformation from an ignorant youth to a modern young intellectual with independent consciousness. He was no longer that "Little Red Guard" whose head was full of revolutionary hero complexes, but had become one of the "new generation of the 1980s" who believed in Bacon's maxim that "knowledge is power" and advocated individual struggle. In his mind, his brother gradually became an increasingly blurred background, while Teacher Lu's image as "enlightenment mentor" grew daily taller, until it completely replaced the position his brother once occupied in his heart. This was why Teacher Lu's death had such a tremendous impact on him. He felt that all these years, he'd been like a kite Teacher Lu had released into flight. Though it seemed to fly far and high, someone had always been correcting and directing its course. That person was Teacher Lu. When Teacher Lu died, he, the kite, became like one with a broken string, swaying and wobbling, not knowing where it would drift.

Now, this kite with a broken string had finally returned to its homeland.

In any case, he should go pay respects at Mother's and his brother's graves, Ma La thought.

Mother's grave was in the burial ground at the village's west end. When she was buried, there hadn't even been a tombstone. Ma La had great difficulty finding Mother's grave among the large expanse of burial mounds. All around grew mugwort and reeds, with holes dug by rats and badgers—it looked utterly desolate. Following Shenhuangzhou custom, Ma La burned a stack of paper money and a stick of incense for Mother, then kowtowed three times. Through tear-blurred eyes, Ma La dimly saw Mother leading his brother and his young self as they drifted all the way from Dongting Lake to settle in Shenhuangzhou. Those were years of frequent disasters and widespread famine. People often couldn't even fill their bellies—where would they find energy to make new clothes? When Mother couldn't find tailoring work, the family of three had to go hungry. Sometimes they went a whole day without a grain of rice, so famished they saw stars, unable even to stand, let alone walk. It was under such circumstances that Mother and her two sons drifted to Shenhuangzhou. At the time, Shenhuangzhou hadn't fully emerged from famine either, but people still generously took in Mother and the two brothers. After Ma La became somewhat aware, he heard Mother say more than once: "If not for Shenhuangzhou, we three might have starved to death long ago..." Mother was someone who knew gratitude. In the days that followed, whenever she went to someone's house to sew clothes, Mother was always meticulous, not daring to be careless in the slightest, always thinking of the family's interests, unwilling to waste even the smallest scrap of fabric.

When Ma La's forehead touched the earth before Mother's grave, his nose stung sharply. Mother rested eternally in Shenhuangzhou, as did his brother. They had done right by this land, he thought.

Brother Ma Ke's grave was located not far from the river embankment, beside a grove of dawn redwoods. After more than twenty years of wind and rain erosion, the originally high mound had lowered considerably. The characters on the tombstone were blurred and illegible. Ma La carefully brushed away the grime with his fingers before he could make out the text:

Tomb of Martyr Ma Ke Who Sacrificed Himself Rescuing Collective Property

Ma La's gaze rested on the line: "Erected July 23, 1976." Not long after his brother's burial, the school had organized newly admitted Young Pioneers to march in neat formation to his brother's grave for a swearing-in ceremony. Ma La had been one of those new Young Pioneers. Leading their oath was music teacher Murong Qiu, who by then had already replaced his brother as brigade Youth League branch secretary. Taking over Murong Qiu's music teaching position was the local male sent-down youth from Yanhe County, Li Haijun. Ma La remembered that day it had drizzled. The fine rain wetted Murong Qiu's hair. Water trickled bit by bit down her lovely forehead and face. She stood at the front of the formation, facing his brother's grave, raising her fist to lead everyone in the oath: "Brother Ma Ke heroically sacrificed himself rescuing collective property. His death is weightier than Mount Tai. We must learn from his fearless spirit, study hard, love our motherland, love labor, and when we grow up become successors to the socialist cause..." In the misty rain, Murong Qiu's raised fist trembled slightly. When the oath ended and she turned around, Ma La saw moisture at the corners of her eyes. Was it rain or tears? At that moment, Ma La knew Sister Murong loved his brother just as he did. He really wanted to throw himself into Sister Murong's arms and cry.

That afternoon, Ma La stayed at his brother's grave for a long time. His mind was like an irrigation ditch whose gates had opened—sediment rose up, mud and sand rushed together, the past swept by like floating clouds. The questions that had plagued him at the labor reform farm began plaguing him again. Life, death, love, hate, loyalty, betrayal, history, individual, collective—these fragmented words and phrases, like shards of history, constantly knocked at the gates of his heart. Ma La recalled when studying at Yanhe Normal School, he and literary society classmates had discussed the Pan Xiao letter published in China Youth Daily: "Why Does Life's Path Grow Ever Narrower?" When Ding Youpeng spoke, he thoroughly disparaged the Lei Feng spirit. "Since people living are subjectively for themselves and objectively for others, the Lei Feng spirit is worthless. In a society that elevates the individual above the collective, collectivist concepts are simply laughable..." Ding Youpeng's words won unanimous agreement from classmates. Ma La had wanted to refute Ding Youpeng's views, but he hesitated and remained silent. He thought of a long string of heroic names he'd worshipped as a child, including his brother Ma Ke. At that moment, the beliefs that had been so deeply rooted in his mind began to waver...

All day long, Ma La added earth to Mother's and his brother's graves. Now, his brother's grave mound had an additional earthen hillock. Below lay the other half of Teacher Lu's ashes. Sitting beside the newly raised mound, Ma La lit a cigarette. Through the drifting smoke, he seemed to see his brother and Teacher Lu again—these two people who'd originally never known each other and were completely different, now keeping each other company. Ma La felt somewhat uneasy, a strange thought popping into his mind: would they often quarrel? Thinking this, he seemed to actually see Teacher Lu and his brother engaged in heated verbal combat.

Teacher Lu pointed at his brother and said: "For that bit of seed, you wasted your precious life—so not worth it!"

His brother asked impolitely: "According to you, then, those revolutionary martyrs who sacrificed themselves for New China—that wasn't worth it either? Lei Feng, Ouyang Hai, Wang Jie... they weren't worth it either?"

Teacher Lu sighed and said: "In any case, life comes but once to a person, or rather, is a person's most basic right. No great goal can deprive them of this right."

"That's thoroughly selfish philosophy and a bourgeois outlook on life!" His brother's sword-like brows furrowed habitually—his characteristic expression when angry. "Remember what Pavel said? When you look back on your life, you won't regret wasting your years in mediocrity..."

"Every man for himself, or heaven and earth will destroy him—even illiterates understand this principle, yet you turn a blind eye to it. You've been poisoned too deeply by that radical ideology." Teacher Lu shrugged, gazing at his brother with pity. "My friend, haven't you considered that in all these years since your 'sacrifice,' aside from some initial excitement, your grave has been cold and deserted these decades. How many people still remember you? Don't you know that you and those so-called heroes you worship are outdated, have become worthless?"

...

A gust of wind blew from the distant fields, stirring up the dust and dead branches and leaves before the grave, making everything appear gray and hazy. A speck of dust blew into Ma La's eye. He rubbed it a few times. The "debate" between Teacher Lu and his brother still rang in his ears. This was actually what Teacher Lu had said when participating in literary society discussions back at normal school. Ma La felt that all these years, Teacher Lu's words had always occupied his mind. The "argument" between his brother and Teacher Lu just now had actually occurred countless times in his own brain.

At this moment, sitting at his brother Ma Ke's grave, Ma La was once again seized by intense bewilderment and confusion. Ma La thought he must face again those questions that had troubled countless people and now repeatedly troubled him. But an even more severe question was: going forward, how should he live?

Ma La truly hoped the spirits of his brother and Teacher Lu in heaven could enlighten him. But dimly he seemed to hear a stern voice: "You must answer this question yourself—none of us can help you!" He couldn't distinguish whether this was his brother Ma Ke's voice or Teacher Lu's. If, in the already more-than-half-completed journey of his life, Ma La had always moved forward in the direction his brother Ma Ke and Teacher Lu had pointed out, then now, he must independently make his own choice about the latter half of his life. It seemed only today that Ma La realized he'd truly "matured." For someone already approaching the age of forty, wasn't this a bit too late?

The wilderness stood empty. Only a wisp of smoke rose lazily from that solitary grave mound, lingering long in the sky, like Ma La's drifting, uncertain thoughts.

As the sky darkened, Ma La shouldered his shovel and walked toward the river embankment. Before reaching the sentry shed, he saw from afar a person standing on the embankment with a mud-splattered Suzuki motorcycle parked beside him. This person was about Ma La's age but far more powerfully built, with a very broad face like a thick mulberry wood chopping block, slightly bulging eyes. Ma La recognized him at a glance—this was his childhood companion and classmate, Big Bowl Uncle's son, Guo Dongsheng.

Guo Dongsheng also saw Ma La, tossed away his cigarette butt, and strode quickly toward him.

"A couple days ago, as soon as I heard you'd come back, I wanted to see you, but yesterday there was a meeting in town all day..." Guo Dongsheng grasped Ma La's hand with those large hands trained in carpentry, shaking it vigorously twice, his gaze sizing up Ma La's face like a planing tool. "Went to pay respects at your mother's and brother's graves? Since you left Yanhe, we haven't seen each other at all, have we? Over a decade in a flash." Guo Dongsheng said in a reproachful tone, "You're still the same as before—come back and don't even come find me..."

"You can't blame me for that. The first thing I did when I got back was ask about you—ask Big Bowl Uncle if you don't believe me." Ma La earnestly protested. "I thought you still lived in Shenhuangzhou!"

"Are you still thinking about us fighting over the bedding?" Guo Dongsheng looked at Ma La and made a joke. "When we were kids, I got plenty of slaps from my dad. He always protected you, as if I wasn't his own son and you were his real child instead."

"That's right, you were insanely jealous of me over that!" Ma La recalled something, half-joking. "By the way, Dongsheng, why don't you have Big Bowl Uncle come live with you? His health isn't what it used to be. All alone, if he gets sick there's no one to care for him..."

"Hey, you know my dad's stubborn temperament. He's still like before—nothing I do looks right to him. Forget living together—even when I try to talk to him, he barely responds." Guo Dongsheng smiled bitterly, stammering, "Of course, you also know my wife's temperament..."

Ma La thought of Dongsheng's wife, who'd once been the brigade women's director, fell silent for a moment, then asked: "Is it just because... of these things?"

"Sigh, ultimately it's all about collecting retention fees for the village. Just because of this, my dad not only cursed me in public but even slapped me. Tell me, how can I continue being village Party secretary?"

"Big Bowl Uncle isn't someone unreasonable. I heard you locked a bunch of kids in the village elementary school as hostages, forcing parents to pay money to ransom them?"

"You can't put it that way, can you? What do you mean hostages? A few village cadres and I run our legs off every year and still can't collect it all. The town presses hard, so we have to adopt some coercive measures." As Guo Dongsheng spoke, his face flushed slightly. "You don't know how hard it is being a village cadre now! This village Party secretary position is really just a bill collector. All I do is thankless work. If we can't collect the various taxes, fees, and retention payments, we can't report to the town and county. But if we use some coercive measures on villagers, we offend the locals. They curse me as a bandit, a scraping party, all kinds of awful things—they stop just short of treating me like the puppet village chief in movies. It's really like Pigsy looking in a mirror—not human on either side!"

Seeing Guo Dongsheng's aggrieved expression, Ma La couldn't help needling him: "Listening to you, the villagers deliberately oppose those above, and you've become the greatest victim?"

"I'd never say such unconscionable things." Guo Dongsheng shook his head. "To tell the truth, the most suffering people in all of China right now are still the farmers. Who wants to be chased by debt collectors all day like Yang Bailao [note: suffering character from The White-Haired Girl], hiding here and there, not daring to come home even on New Year's Eve! Newspapers and TV reporting on rural areas always focus on those coastal regions and areas near big cities, as if farmers live better than city people. But you only need to look at these vast stretches of abandoned land in Shenhuangzhou, the village cold and deserted, to know what most rural areas are like..."

The two friends who'd been separated for many years talked as they walked along the embankment. After walking a stretch, they descended the embankment slope and walked along the riverbank into a wilderness. This used to be good cropland, but now it was overgrown with waist-high reeds and wild grass. Looking out, vast and boundless, it stretched all the way to the distant riverbank beach. Autumn sunlight poured down unobstructed, illuminating the wilderness as if it were on fire. After a sustained period of rainy weather followed by several consecutive clear days, the climate that had begun to cool had warmed considerably, becoming hot again like summer. This was what people commonly called "autumn tiger." Moisture stored underground evaporated, making a layer of pale purple mist permeate the wilderness. Under the sun's rays it turned resplendent with purple and crimson colors, giving one a sense of ethereal mystery.

Facing such a vast, uninhabited wilderness, Ma La's mind conjured scenes from spring planting and autumn harvest—those spirited work scenes of racing against each other, people jubilant and horses neighing. He couldn't help but murmur with some melancholy: "How did it come to this? How did it come to this?"

Guo Dongsheng's broad face, dark with a reddish tinge, had already broken out in sweat. He wiped it with his hand, flinging away a string of droplets like raindrops, then unbuttoned his collar, rolled up his baggy trouser legs, squatted on the ground, pulled out a grass root and stuck it in his mouth to chew, while saying to Ma La: "You've been away so many years, you don't understand the rural situation. It's not like when we had collectives or when fields were first divided to households. Cotton and grain crops are worth less and less. Every year higher-ups shout about reducing farmers' burdens, but public grain taxes and fees get higher year by year. Sometimes a farming household works all year and might even lose money. Tell me, who'd still farm this land?" He spat out the grass root as if questioning Ma La. For an instant, Ma La seemed to see again that youthful companion with the shaved head who loved mischief and playing tricks. When they were young, they'd often go together to the still-uncultivated sandbar to cut cattle grass, chase wild rabbits, catch hedgehogs. Dongsheng always led the way, wearing a silver collar around his neck, gripping an unusually sharp steel fork, moving with surprising agility. Later, after Ma La read Lu Xun's "My Old Home" in a middle school textbook, he felt Dongsheng back then really resembled the young Runtu.

"Such good cropland, what a pity..." Ma La still murmured. "Where are the village people? Have they all left? All gone to the cities?"

"Anyone with any connections has left. More than half of Shenhuangzhou's able-bodied workers have gone. Those who haven't left are mostly the old, weak, sick, and disabled. No matter how hard or tiring it is outside, at least you can earn some money—always better than staying home in poverty!" Guo Dongsheng lit a cigarette. "Even the former village Party secretary, unable to collect taxes and retention fees, threw down his burden and went to work in Zhejiang. I was originally working as a carpenter in Wuhan, netting over a thousand a month after expenses. But town leaders forcibly sent someone to call me back, saying personal interests must yield to national interests. Who told me I'm a Party member?" At this point, he smiled self-mockingly at Ma La. "My dad blames me for implementing policy too harshly, but I blame him too. If he hadn't coaxed me into joining the Party back then, would I now be stuck wearing this rotten yoke, suffering this kind of thankless squeeze from both sides!" He suddenly slapped his forehead. "Hey, look at me just talking about myself and forgetting what's important. This is your first time back to the village in over a decade, right? I thought you'd never come back. After all, you're not a native-born Shenhuangzhou person!" Seeing Ma La about to explain something, he waved his hand dismissively as he used to when they argued. "Shenhuangzhou still hasn't produced any notable figures—you're the first. I heard that back then, when our county leaders went to E City on business and wanted to visit you and that all-powerful Teacher Lu, they nearly got turned away. Was that true? I'd just entered the city looking for work, completely in the dark like a blind donkey running into walls everywhere. I really wanted to go to E City and ask you for a meal, but after hearing about that, I lost heart..."

"What are you talking about!" Ma La found this somewhat absurd. "I haven't told you yet—I just got out after serving several years in prison, have I?"

"I heard about that long ago." Guo Dongsheng said. "But so what? You got out, didn't you? The entrepreneurs in newspapers now—which one hasn't been in and out several times? Someone like you who dealt in automobiles, buying and selling thousands of mu of land at a time, who did great things on a grand scale—as long as the green mountains remain, there's no fear of lacking firewood. Sooner or later you'll make a comeback..."

"Is that so?" Ma La said vaguely. "I haven't thought about it that way."

"Don't play dumb with me. Afraid I'll come asking for trouble?" Guo Dongsheng gave him a look and said seriously, "Don't worry. When the time comes, if you still remember you're from Shenhuangzhou, just invest some money to help us pave that mud-pit road to Hekou with asphalt. This isn't me personally asking for help..."

Seeing Guo Dongsheng's earnest expression, Ma La couldn't help but smile slightly: "You as village Party secretary don't seem as bad as I initially thought—still thinking about securing some benefits for the villagers! But..." He paused slightly in thought. "Dongsheng, what if I told you that this time I came back to Shenhuangzhou planning to stay and not leave—what would you think?"

Squatting on the ground, Guo Dongsheng stared straight at Ma La after hearing this. Suddenly—whether burned by the cigarette in his hand or shocked by Ma La's words—he jumped up abruptly, walked before Ma La, and with those large hands accustomed to wielding axes, traced a huge arc toward the desolate sandbar before them, saying in a teasing tone: "Don't tell me you plan to stay in Shenhuangzhou to reclaim this abandoned grassland beach!"

"You guessed right, Dongsheng. These past few days, I really have been thinking this, and the feeling's growing stronger..." Ma La said in a serious tone. Then he turned to face that vast, boundless wilderness, spreading his hands outward, and like reciting poetry, softly intoned: "The fields and gardens will go to waste—why not return?" [note: from Tao Yuanming's "Returning Home"]

Guo Dongsheng didn't catch what he'd recited. He looked at Ma La like looking at a strange creature, his face full of astonishment.

Chapter 7

When faced with a person of such exceptional character, no matter how far he has fallen, you cannot look down upon or despise him.

Shortly after returning to Shenhuangzhou, Ma La made a trip to Yanhe County town.

Yanhe County town sits on the southern bank of the Jingjiang, located at the junction of the Jianghan Plain and the Dongting Lake Plain. It borders Huarong County in Hunan and has long been an important passage connecting northern Hunan and southwestern Hubei—a strategic military location since ancient times. According to legend, during the Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei held a ceremony here to marry Lady Sun. To this day, the county town still preserves many remnants related to this legend, such as the Shadow-Reflecting Bridge, Wife-Awaiting Rock, and Liu Lang Wharf. Although historians throughout the ages have questioned this legend, the people of Yanhe County believe it without doubt, and whenever they mention it to outsiders, they reveal a sense of pride. The local county gazetteer also spares no ink in recording and embellishing these stories. Back when Ma La was helping Teacher Lu establish the Kunpeng Company, Yanhe County was vigorously developing its tourism resources and planned to erect a statue of Lady Sun beside the Wife-Awaiting Rock by the river. The tourism bureau approached Teacher Lu, hoping he would provide financial support. Although the company was in its startup phase and funds were tight, Teacher Lu donated 3,000 yuan without hesitation. Yet Yanhe County never became a renowned historical city like Jingzhou Ancient City and other prefectural capitals from the Three Kingdoms era, remaining largely unknown—until several years ago during a catastrophic flood. Because Yanhe County was located in a critical flood-control danger zone, CCTV's weather and flood prevention programs reported on it daily, suddenly turning this obscure little county into the focus of national attention...

Compared to ten-some years ago, the county town had obviously become much more prosperous. When Ma La took the ferry from the north bank to the south bank and walked into the county town, he almost didn't recognize it. The town originally had only one narrow street, squeezed between the Yangtze River and Bijia Mountain to the east. The buildings were monotonous and low, with the tallest being the three-story cinema-theater built in the 1970s, which for a long time was considered the town's landmark building. Ma La remembered that during his first semester at teacher's college, he watched a film for the first time in the newly completed cinema-theater. The theater still emanated a pungent smell of fresh paint. The film had already started. He hunched over and tiptoed through the aisle, and when he settled into a spacious, comfortable seat, the screen displayed a gloomy, oppressive nineteenth-century English landscape—vast, boundless pastures, desolate, lonely countryside, a young woman in a black long dress and wide-brimmed sun hat walking alone. That was his first time watching a foreign film, and he was quickly captivated by this strange and exotic atmosphere. Then the scene cut to a rugged mountain path shrouded in deep blue mist. With the sound of urgent hoofbeats, a man with a hooked nose, heron eyes, and wearing a cloak came galloping on a fast horse. At a bend, the solitary woman and the mounted man met on a narrow road. The burly man reined in his horse, which reared up on its hind legs, neighing skyward, nearly throwing him off... Thus the two protagonists of the film became acquainted. The woman was named Jane Eyre, the man Rochester, and between them developed a moving love story. The film was Jane Eyre. After returning to school, for several days Ma La remained immersed in the film's melancholy and powerfully affecting atmosphere, with Rochester's deeply touching dialogue with Jane upon their reunion after he had gone blind echoing repeatedly in his ears. Later, Ma La borrowed the novel of the same name from Teacher Lu, but strangely, the novel didn't give him anywhere near the powerful impact of the film. Nevertheless, Ma La's strong interest in nineteenth-century foreign literature began from there...

Now, the cinema-theater had long been squeezed into an obscure corner by newly risen buildings, looking as shabby and dim as an impoverished fallen son from a declining family. The shops on both sides of the street and the dazzling array of product advertisements were eye-catching, and the level of bustling prosperity was not much inferior to Hanzheng Street in Hankou. The layout of the county town had also expanded by two or three times compared to before, developing from a single street in the past to several new streets radiating out around Bijia Mountain. Bijia Mountain had transformed from the edge of the urban area to the center of the county town, with a tall television transmission tower atop the mountain peak indicating that the cultural life of county residents had also entered the information age.

The county government had relocated from its original location to an imposing eight-story building situated in the center of the new district. After considerable effort searching around, Ma La finally found the county government office building.

Although the county government had no armed police with guns standing guard, the uniformed guards scrutinized every stranger entering the building more severely than police would. Ma La hadn't brought any identification—in fact, since entering prison to serve his sentence, he no longer had any documents that could prove his identity. According to China's household registration system, although he had lived and worked outside for many years, his household registration was still in Hekou, Yanhe County. The identity card issued by Hekou police station back then had long since been lost somewhere, and even if it hadn't been lost, it would have expired. However, he had always kept Teacher Lu's identity card. So when the guard asked Ma La for identification and questioned what he "did for a living," his face showed confusion, even some guilty conscience. Yes indeed, what do I do? For the first time, he discovered the ambiguous uncertainty of his current "identity." "Sorry, I didn't bring any identification..." Ma La mumbled. He realized he was lying, and his face reddened slightly. But the guard didn't notice this. He probably could tell from Ma La's dress and bearing that he wasn't the type to "make trouble" for the government, so he didn't rudely turn him away, but asked whom he was looking for. Ma La said he was looking for Ding Youpeng. The guard looked at him with a strange expression and said, "You're looking for Deputy...Deputy County Magistrate Ding? What's your relationship to him?" Ma La said he was his classmate. He scrutinized Ma La carefully once more, walked into the guard room and made a phone call. When he came back out after hanging up, his tone had become polite and courteous: "Please go to the fifth floor. Deputy County Magistrate Ding is waiting for you in his office..."

Ma La met his old classmate Ding Youpeng in a very spacious office.

Ding Youpeng looked even more ambitious and self-satisfied than when he had visited Ma La at the labor reform farm. Even the intimacy he displayed while shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries seemed somewhat exaggerated, as if performing before an audience or television cameras. While he talked with Ma La, the two phones on his desk rang incessantly like a battlefield command post in a movie. "You see, the moment I walk into this office, I can't get a moment's peace," he made a helpless gesture. "What can I do? I'm taking in-service graduate courses in sociology at W University while also managing my assigned work. Every time I return to the county, things have piled up into a huge mess. Right now we're in the middle of enterprise reform, everything's converged at once, and all day long there's endless wrangling—it's absolutely dizzying..." He suddenly thought of something. "Oh right, my master's thesis advisor is a woman, quite a well-known scholar. I heard her say that she was once sent down to our Yanhe County, and actually to your Shenhuangzhou! Isn't that a coincidence?"

Ma La asked, "What's her name?"

"Murong Qiu."

Ma La softly said "oh," feeling something deep inside being touched, and couldn't help feeling somewhat dazed. Ding Youpeng noticed and asked, "Do you know her?"

"I...I know her." Ma La murmured with a strange expression. "She was my music teacher at Shenhuangzhou Elementary School..." He also wanted to say that among the group of Wuhan youth sent down to Shenhuangzhou back then, Murong Qiu was the most beautiful, with a lovely voice—speaking was like a lark singing—and she especially loved reading books. His brother Ma Ke often borrowed books from her. Ma La would always secretly read through the books before his brother finished them...

Just then, Ding Youpeng finished a phone call and shrugged at Ma La, looking somewhat helpless. "No good, it's too noisy here. Let's change location and chat."

Ding Youpeng personally drove Ma La to the county government guesthouse. The guesthouse was Yanhe County's "state guest house," situated halfway up Bijia Mountain, nestled among trees, exceptionally quiet. In the past when working with Teacher Lu at the company, Ma La had entertained quite a few business clients here, but the guesthouse had obviously been renovated since then, with much-improved conditions compared to before. The newly built "VIP Building" especially, used for receiving superior leaders, was so luxurious it was no less grand than the star-rated hotels Ma La had stayed in previously in Nie City.

After sitting down in an unusually spacious suite in the VIP Building, Ding Youpeng deliberately turned off his mobile phone. "Even if the sky falls, I won't worry about it," he said, placing his phone on the coffee table and leaning back comfortably into the sofa. "Today I'm keeping you company the whole way... In any case, we need to have a good chat." He squinted at Ma La. Only at this moment did he seem to have the leisure to carefully observe his old classmate.

At this moment, Ma La, sitting on the opposite sofa, was also observing this former classmate. Ding Youpeng's crew cut, casual jacket, meticulously tied necktie, and gleaming leather shoes all made Ma La involuntarily think of those county magistrates and party secretaries he'd seen in novels and on television. He even recalled the scene in How the Steel Was Tempered when Pavel, after recovering from serious illness, found his old comrade Dmitri from their railway construction days in Kiev. Of course, Ding Youpeng had none of Dmitri's bureaucratic airs, nor did he put on any pretensions befitting a county magistrate. His warmth was impeccable. Yet Ma La still felt uneasy. He knew this was the effect of the "scissors gap" of time at work. He truly couldn't adapt to the long void left by those full seven years spent in the almost completely isolated labor reform farm. Ma La's gaze briefly met Ding Youpeng's before quickly looking away, landing on the mobile phone Ding Youpeng had placed on the coffee table. It was a newly released ultra-thin Motorola phone, as compact as a thin bar of soap. This was the first time Ma La had seen such a small phone... Teacher Lu's brick phone was big and heavy like an actual brick when held in hand. When did phones become this small? Ma La wondered in amazement.

Ding Youpeng noticed Ma La's mind had wandered, and from the moment he first saw Ma La, he had detected that lost expression on his face, along with the familiar sensitivity and self-respect hiding behind it. But Ding Youpeng continued making small talk as if he hadn't noticed. He had a server bring freshly brewed tea—this year's newly released premium Longjing. He personally poured it for Ma La. He noticed that Ma La's sitting posture on the sofa was still somewhat stiff, his back ramrod straight, as if he were still sitting on those hard wooden benches without backrests at the labor reform farm listening to lectures from supervisors. All of this produced an indescribable feeling in Ding Youpeng's heart.

The room was unusually quiet. This was a large suite of over thirty square meters, with thick jute carpeting on the floor—a product of Yanhe County Carpet Factory. The green floor-length curtains opposite undulated like waves in the breeze, and one could occasionally see the swaying branches and leaves of several oleanders on the hillside outside. Ding Youpeng had reported to provincial and regional leaders many times in this room, or accompanied leaders playing mahjong or cards, but now facing Ma La, he seemed somewhat at a loss. Ma La was still as taciturn and inarticulate as before. People who didn't know him might think he was slow or clumsy, but in reality, how acute this man's thoughts were, how rich his inner world—in this regard he was too much like their Teacher Lu! Back in teacher's college, it was precisely because of this that Ding Youpeng had always secretly envied Ma La while also admiring him immensely, thus forming between them an ambiguous friendship. When facing a person of such exceptional character, no matter how far he has fallen, you cannot look down upon or despise him...

Ding Youpeng quietly let out a sigh. At that moment, he obviously thought of the long-deceased Teacher Lu, but he was unwilling to bring up such sad matters at present. He raised his eyelids and looked at Ma La, saying, "Old classmate, you've finally come out. I've been looking forward to this day. Tell me, what are your plans? Are you preparing to go back to Nie City and make a comeback, or would you prefer to stay here in Yanhe County... I know you're someone who won't be easily defeated. With your abilities, which far exceed mine, sometimes I think, if you hadn't gone to Nie City with Teacher Lu back then, and we had worked together to build something here in Yanhe County, how wonderful that would have been..."

"You're giving me too much credit," Ma La said, a hint of self-mockery and irony appearing at the corner of his mouth. "I'm an ex-convict released from labor reform—how dare I compare myself to you, a dignified county magistrate?"

"Your words are still as caustic, same old temperament," Ding Youpeng said. "More than ten years, and you haven't changed a bit. You probably won't believe it when I say this, but although I'm a deputy county magistrate now, these years I've played grandson and father, dressed up as the King of Hell and then as a little ghost—even I don't know who I am anymore. Sometimes I'm exhausted to the point of panic and really want to throw off this official hat, be free as an individual, do what I want to do. But in the end I find I can't even find a friend to speak honestly with—I'm not as well off as a common citizen. If I'd known it would be like this, I really shouldn't have changed careers back then..."

Ding Youpeng's words perhaps had some sincerity, but were obviously somewhat affected. This seemed to be a peculiar "habit" of all leaders. The corner of Ma La's mouth showed his characteristic smile again: mouth slightly askew to the right, corners turned up, eyes looking sideways—a kind of mockery without malice. Back in teacher's college, whenever Ma La and Ding Youpeng argued over some issue, he would suddenly fall silent, this faint smile appearing on his face, causing Ding Youpeng to hang his head in deflation just as he felt victory was at hand.

In truth, without Ding Youpeng's own account, Ma La could imagine from his understanding of him how he had climbed from a minor Education Bureau clerk to the deputy county magistrate's seat. Besides his father Ding Changshui's background as a southbound cadre [note: cadres who moved south with Communist forces], it was undoubtedly also due to the social and organizational abilities he had displayed even in teacher's college. But what kind of "parent official" was Ding Youpeng in the hearts of Yanhe County people? One could be certain he wasn't like Li Xiangnan in New Star—the shrewd and worldly Ding Youpeng lacked that kind of idealistic passion, though back then he had so enthusiastically recommended the novel New Star to Ma La and practically made Li Xiangnan his idol. But in his bones, Ding Youpeng was the type who loved showing off and had a strong sense of vanity. In teacher's college, he couldn't even qualify as a proper member of the literary society! Ma La recalled the times he'd ghostwritten love letters for him and couldn't help wondering: Could such a deputy county magistrate accomplish anything noteworthy in Yanhe County?

Ding Youpeng noticed the expression on Ma La's face and stopped talking in time. He raised his wrist to check his watch. "Oh, it's almost noon. Let's go eat first and chat while we eat." With that, he stood up from the sofa.

They entered a rather elegantly appointed private dining room in the VIP Building restaurant. Ding Youpeng had obviously given the restaurant advance notice, wanting to treat Ma La well. As soon as they sat down, servers brought out food and wine. "Today I'm treating you privately, not on public funds," Ding Youpeng gestured to Ma La, half-jokingly saying, "You don't need to worry about me engaging in corruption!"

From entering the labor reform farm to serve his sentence until now, this was almost the first time in over ten years that Ma La had seen such a sumptuous banquet. His stomach, tortured by the labor reform farm's pig-slop-like unpalatable meals and worn unbearably rough, was now eagerly stirring with anticipation. Faced with his old classmate's generous hospitality, Ma La couldn't bother with courtesy. Therefore, throughout the entire dining process that followed, using terms like "wolfish devouring" and "glutton" to describe Ma La would not be the least bit excessive.

"Eat up, eat more. This is wild turtle—much more nutritious than the farmed kind." Ding Youpeng ladled a large spoonful of braised turtle meat into Ma La's bowl. He himself hardly touched his chopsticks. He smoked while watching Ma La eat, his expression like someone appreciating a work of art. He was obviously satisfied with the role he was playing at this moment. The once-famous Ma La, after enduring years of imprisonment, had sought out him, an old classmate whose career could be said to be at its zenith—wasn't such a scene exactly what Ding Youpeng had been dreaming of? But while his vanity was being satisfied, he also felt a kind of sympathetic compassion for Ma La. Without asking, he knew Ma La's current situation. He believed that Ma La, who had once had glorious days, wouldn't remain defeated after finally emerging from misfortune. Ma La's coming to see him must surely be hoping to receive his help, and he was of course willing to give this fallen hero a hand at such a critical moment. As an old classmate, it was his duty. Therefore, from the moment they met, Ding Youpeng had been secretly anticipating Ma La actively asking him for help. He thought that no matter what Ma La requested, as long as it was within his power, he would certainly agree without hesitation. He waited patiently. But at this moment, watching Ma La continuously eating with his head down, he was becoming a bit impatient. He felt Ma La didn't seem to have any intention of asking him for help at all. From meeting until now, he had even remained taciturn, rarely speaking, his absent-minded expression impossible to fathom. This instead left Ding Youpeng perplexed. Had the seven years of hard labor broken Ma La's courage to start over? Or was it still his old stubborn temperament at work? Ding Youpeng recalled how in teacher's college, Ma La's meal tickets always ran out by the end of each month, and to economize he often ate only two meals a day. Yet even when hungry, he never extended his hand to anyone, and when Ding Youpeng took the initiative to give him his extra meal tickets, he refused to accept them... Could it be that after so many years, Ma La in middle age still had that same old temperament?

"You didn't come find me just to eat a meal and not say a word to me!" Ding Youpeng challenged him. "Tell me, what are your plans? If you still want to work in your old trade and run a business, need a loan, I can..."

But before Ding Youpeng could finish, Ma La interrupted him. "If I wanted to work in my old trade, I wouldn't need to come back to Yanhe." He wiped his oil-stained mouth with a napkin, glanced at Ding Youpeng and said, "I don't want to do anything anymore. I just want to retire to my hometown and live a leisurely life..."

He spoke very seriously, not at all like he was joking.

"Retire to your hometown? But you're still a year younger than me!" Ding Youpeng said sarcastically. "This doesn't sound like something the executive president who followed Teacher Lu building an empire and made Kunpeng Company famous nationwide would say."

"I've forgotten all that old history, but you still remember it," Ma La said with a half-smile. "Now I'm just an ordinary citizen of Yanhe County. It's rare that you, County Magistrate, have condescended to host me—I'm already quite content..."

"Old classmate, stop playing games with me," Ding Youpeng said. "What do you need? Don't tell me you came back to Yanhe County to farm a few acres of land and become a farmer?"

"You guessed right, that's exactly what I'm thinking," Ma La said slowly. "The countryside is full of wasteland now, Shenhuangzhou alone... Anyway, it's sitting there abandoned—such a waste..."

Ding Youpeng looked at Ma La in astonishment, as if he had just met him for the first time. This wasn't the ambitious Ma La of before. He thought, could seven or eight years really completely defeat a person?

Ding Youpeng's seemed to search Ma La's gaunt, unshaven, somewhat down-and-out face for some clue.

Ding Youpeng looked at Ma La with suspicion all over his face. "You, this entrepreneur, always like to ambush me, just like when you suddenly told me you were resigning to go into business..."

The two men drank and chatted, both getting somewhat drunk. Suddenly, Ding Youpeng stood up and said, "Come on, I'm taking you to meet someone!"

"Who...who are we meeting?"

"My old man."

"The old man..." Ma La looked at Ding Youpeng, momentarily stunned, before remembering that Ding Youpeng's father, Ding Changshui, had once been party secretary of Hekou Commune.

The two men came out of the hotel. Ding Youpeng checked the watch on his wrist and waved his hand. "It's not far, less than an hour's walk. Let's walk!"

Ma La thought, an hour's walk isn't exactly close, is it? For him, this distance was nothing, but thinking that Deputy County Magistrate Ding Youpeng had a car at his disposal yet wanted to accompany him walking this far, he felt somewhat apologetic.

The two had just reached the hotel entrance when a black Santana pulled up beside them with a screech. A bald head poked out of the car window, saying to Ding Youpeng, "County Magistrate Ding, where are you going? Let me give you a ride!"

Ding Youpeng waved his hand. "No need, I'm taking my old classmate for a stroll around the streets." Saying this, he tugged Ma La's arm, and the two walked out of the hotel entrance looking quite chummy.

On the busy street, people came and went, and from time to time someone would greet Ding Youpeng with an expression full of surprise, walking past and then turning back to stare.

Ma La muttered, "Those people are looking at you so strangely..."

"They're just surprised! I usually go everywhere by car—when do I have time to stroll the streets?" Ding Youpeng laughed heartily, stretching his arms and legs as if he'd gained some kind of release, looking relaxed and carefree. After walking a bit, Ding Youpeng leaned close to Ma La's ear and asked in a low voice, as if revealing some secret, "Do you know why I'm walking to see the old man?"

Ma La was somewhat puzzled. "Exercise?"

"You and I aren't at the age where we need exercise to maintain health, are we?" Ding Youpeng glanced at Ma La, a trace of self-mockery appearing on his face. "Don't think that just because I act important in public and my word is law, in front of the old man I'm just an obedient child—where he points east, I dare not go west. Every time I visit him, I absolutely cannot take a government car. This is the old man's rule, even when accompanying guests—no exceptions. Once I had the driver drive me to a spot near where the old man lives and stop, then I walked over. But the old man saw through me immediately. 'You little rascal, trying to fool me! Walking for an hour, could your trouser cuffs and shoes have no dust on them?' The old man was a little Eighth Route Army soldier—even in his seventies he still has such sharp eyes. Though his hearing's a bit off, he always mishears things..."

Hearing Ding Youpeng repeatedly say "the old man," Ma La's mind conjured up an image of a middle-aged man with prominent cheekbones, a dark, weathered face, and burly build, wearing an old military uniform, a straw hat on his head, military canteen slung over his shoulder, trouser legs rolled up to his knees, holding a bamboo pole, striding energetically along a rural canal path under the blazing sun. That was Hekou Commune Party Secretary Ding Changshui in young Ma La's eyes. After thirty years, this image had become as blurred as an old negative. Once again, doubt arose in his heart: Why did Ding Youpeng want to take him to see this retired old man?

Ding Youpeng seemed to read his thoughts and said, "After retirement, the old man has never been idle. Not only does he watch the news broadcast on time every day, he also subscribes to People's Daily at his own expense—more concerned about national affairs than me, a deputy county magistrate!"

Ma La asked, "You don't live with your father?"

"We used to live together," Ding Youpeng said. "The old man retired from the position of County People's Congress director. He was allocated a 200-plus square meter apartment in the old county committee residential compound. Our whole family living there felt spacious and empty. Since my mother passed away a few years ago, the old man, for some reason, refused to live in the spacious house. Instead, he used his own savings to buy an old farmhouse on the edge of the county town and lives there alone. Every day he plants crops and vegetables, raises chickens and ducks, busy as can be. His days are fulfilling. The only thing he's not satisfied with is having no one to talk to, so I go over to keep him company every week. Once the old man's talk box opens, there's no end to it—can't get away for an hour or two..."

"So you're saying you want me to go chat with your father?" Ma La couldn't help interrupting him.

Ding Youpeng paused before answering, "Strictly speaking, the old man wants to see you."

"Your old man knows me?" Ma La didn't believe Ding Youpeng's words. Thirty years ago he was still in elementary school—how would a commune party secretary know him?

"The old man doesn't know you, but he knows your brother Ma Ke," Ding Youpeng said. "Once when I was talking with him about you and Teacher Lu, mentioning your brothers' relationship, unexpectedly the old man grabbed me and asked endless questions, telling me story after story about your brother..."

Hearing his brother's name, Ma La's heart skipped a beat.

"Since then, the old man reminds me every so often, 'When are you bringing your classmate—I mean Ma Ke's brother—to see me?' I got annoyed being pestered and snapped at him, 'He's still serving his sentence at the farm. If you really want to see him, figure out how to get him out early!' The old man's eyebrows knitted when he heard this, and he said sternly, 'That won't do—rule of law! We can't abandon principles!' Haha, the old man is just that stubborn..."

When Ding Youpeng talked about "the old man" he was cheerful, really like a big kid. For some reason, Ma La no longer minded being dragged along by Ding Youpeng to chat with his father, and instead felt somewhat eager to meet this "old man."

Not far down from the county's main road, through a chaotic residential area of varying heights, they reached the suburban zone. The houses here were crowded and disorderly, without any plan—some quite luxuriously renovated buildings with cars or trucks parked at their entrances; occasionally one could also see several dilapidated old houses, their entrances overgrown with weeds, piled with garbage, their crumbling walls still bearing slogans from decades past. Farmland and vegetable gardens were scattered like patches here and there, with crops and vegetables growing quite luxuriantly—rarely any abandoned land visible. This was, after all, a suburban area where the gold content of land was naturally higher...

"Every time I come I work up a sweat—the old man really makes me suffer!" Ding Youpeng pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead, pointing ahead. "There, that red brick bungalow."

The red brick bungalow had three rooms. It was clearly an old house, but aside from the wooden windows being somewhat broken, the four walls and roof looked fairly solid. The main door stood open. The main hall was kept quite clean, with the aged cement floor peeling in several places, exposing reddish-brown earth. The walls on both sides were bare, covered with cracks and smoke stains. In the center of the main wall hung a fairly new portrait of Chairman Mao, with a couplet on each side: "Spring winds and willow branches by the thousands, six hundred million in the land of Shun and Yao." [note: couplet from a Mao Zedong poem] In front of the door stood a large chinaberry tree, its trunk higher than the roof ridge, branches like a giant palm reaching toward the sky. Under the tree sat an old-fashioned wooden chair with armrests, blackened with age. In front of the chair was an equally old-looking long wooden table with a stack of newspapers topped with reading glasses, and beside it an enamel cup, its rim covered with brown tea stains.

"The old man must be busy in the yard," Ding Youpeng said as he walked toward the house.

Ma La hesitated a moment, then followed Ding Youpeng through the main hall, through the half-closed back door into the backyard, and his eyes couldn't help but light up. Before him was a vegetable garden enclosed by a hibiscus hedge. Calling it a "vegetable garden" wasn't quite accurate, because besides the already withered peppers, beans, cucumbers and other vegetables, the garden also grew sorghum, corn, sesame, and soybeans. Though the garden wasn't large—only about two or three fen [note: about 200-300 square meters] in area—these vegetables and crops were well-ordered and distributed very rationally, showing that the garden's owner was an expert at farming.

"See? This is the old man's 'masterpiece,'" Ding Youpeng whispered to Ma La. Before he'd finished speaking, a voice came from somewhere: "It's not 'visitation' time yet—why'd you come today?"

"The old man calls our weekly father-son meetings 'visitations,'" Ding Youpeng said, winking at Ma La. Ma La found this father and son quite amusing. He looked around but didn't see the speaker. Just as he was puzzled, the voice sounded again, with a heavy Shaanxi accent: "What are you standing there for? Come help!"

"Every time I come, the old man puts me to work..." Ding Youpeng made a wronged face at Ma La, thrust his briefcase into his hands, and walked into the garden. Ma La followed a few steps, only then seeing clearly the "source" of the voice: behind the hibiscus hedge squatted an old man, about seventy-some years old, full head of gray hair, face deeply and densely wrinkled like a firm walnut. He wore a faded old military uniform, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, on his head an Eighth Route Army cap that could only be seen in museums, equally old and faded beyond its original color. At this moment, he held several thin nylon ropes in his mouth, one knee on the ground, the other knee braced against the hibiscus hedge, working hard to pull together gaps that were too large and secure them with rope.

This job really required two people, so naturally the old man alone found it quite strenuous. Beads of sweat trickled down from the wrinkles on his face, dripping to the ground. He freed a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, while saying without looking up, "If I don't tighten this hedge, those bastard weasels will eat up all the crops..."

Ma La squatted down opposite the old man, taking the nylon rope he passed over. Father and son pulled a section of the hedge gap together. Only then did Ding Youpeng stop, pointing at Ma La: "Dad, look who I brought you today!"

Only then did the old man notice someone else standing there. His gaze rested on Ma La for quite a while, then turned to his son, muttering, "Who's this?"

"Didn't you want to meet my classmate? Today I brought him to see you!"

"You mean... Ma Ke's brother?" The old man's gaze turned back to Ma La, staring fixedly at him, repeating, "You're really Ma Ke's brother?"

Ma La nodded.

The old man suddenly stood up, throwing the bamboo strips and rope to the ground, dusting off his soil-covered hands. "Come on, let's go drink tea at the entrance!"

Seeing Ding Youpeng still squatting by the hedge, Ma La hesitated. Ding Youpeng gave him a look: "My dad's treating you as an honored guest—aren't you going?"

Only then did Ma La wake as from a dream and turn to follow the old man inside.

The old man bustled about, brewing tea and fetching stools, really like entertaining an honored guest. Ma La felt somewhat uncomfortable, as if the "honored guest" the old man was entertaining wasn't himself but someone else, and he was merely a substitute. This strange feeling made him even more anxious. Especially when the somewhat gaunt old man before him seemed so unfamiliar, completely unlike the burly commune party secretary Ding Changshui of his childhood memories, striding along with wind at his heels...

The old man brewed Ma La a steaming cup of fragrant tea and placed it on the long wooden table. "Thirty-year-old Pu'er tea—a gift from an old comrade-in-arms a few years ago. I've been reluctant to drink it..." He sat down in the old-fashioned wooden chair himself, continuously looking at Ma La. "My (pronounced 'è') eyesight is getting worse and worse—can't even see things right under my nose clearly." He muttered, picking up the reading glasses from the newspapers and putting them on, opening his eyes wide to continue examining Ma La. "Mm, the brothers really do look alike—not just facial structure, even their builds are similar, just not as sturdy as your brother, and eyebrows not as thick..." The old man kept murmuring as if looking at a painting. "Back then, the commune party committee had already selected your brother as part of the 'third echelon.' Know what the third echelon means? Successors. I was planning to promote him to commune Youth League secretary the following year. But who knew, not long after, that fire broke out." The old man spoke in a reminiscing tone. "I remember a female sent-down youth at Shenhuangzhou—what was her name? Right, Murong Qiu, that's it—she was the Youth League committee member of Shenhuangzhou Brigade, an outstanding young person who emerged from the sent-down youth. Back then your brother was in love with her—quite a novel thing. If it had succeeded, I was planning to be their marriage witness. But who knew... such a fine young man, sacrificed just like that." By the time the old man reached this point, tears glimmered faintly in his wrinkled eye sockets.

Ma La's heart warmed. His brother had been dead nearly thirty years, yet this old man spoke of him with such emotion. During these years of wandering outside, Ma La had rarely even thought of his brother. But now, a sense of pride, even honor, suddenly arose in his heart. He hadn't felt this way in many years.

"Oh, let's not talk about it. Decades ago, all just old, random stuff." The old man wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, smiled somewhat embarrassedly, and picked up the enamel cup to take a sip of tea. Ma La had just taken a sip—it was strong to the point of bitterness. But the old man was obviously accustomed to drinking strong tea. Moreover, his way of drinking tea was unusual—he swallowed the tea leaves along with the liquid, chewing them, only spitting them out after thoroughly chewing them to pulp.

Seeing Ma La observing him, the old man suddenly asked, "I haven't asked your name yet."

"I'm called Ma La."

"Ma... La." The old man repeated these two characters, examining him once more. "I've heard Youpeng mention your situation. The prodigal son who returns is worth more than gold. [note: Chinese proverb] In a person's life, taking some detours and falling down doesn't matter—the key is to walk the right path and follow the right people. Just like when I was young, if I hadn't joined the Eighth Route Army and had instead followed the Kuomintang, or even the puppet army, wouldn't that have been a big fall?" The old man spoke in an elder's tone, patiently instructing. "Ultimately, your mistake was in following your teacher down the wrong path."

Ma La knew the old man was talking about Teacher Lu. He wanted to explain something, mumbling, "But..." But as soon as he opened his mouth, the old man waved his hand, interrupting him. "That teacher of yours was just evil goods! Not only was his lifestyle corrupt, but his ideological concepts also had serious problems. At the time, some people in the Education Bureau and County Committee advocated lenient treatment, not realizing that if we showed such people one more bit of leniency, the Party's cause would face one more danger. That's why I insisted on strict treatment. Looking back now, my attitude wasn't wrong. He later not only walked down the capitalist path himself but also ruined the futures of young people like you. Just thinking about it is heartbreaking!"

Ma La wanted to defend Teacher Lu a bit. "Perhaps Teacher Lu wasn't as bad as you say..." Moreover, he didn't want to regret "following the wrong person," including all those years following Teacher Lu battling in the business world—that couldn't be summed up with the word "prodigal." After all, "capital, this fierce horse, always needs someone to tame it"—Teacher Lu's words back then weren't wrong. However, before Ma La could speak, the old man unceremoniously interrupted him again, like an orator, his diction sharp and aggressive, full of eloquence. Even when Ma La wanted to raise questions, he couldn't easily find any opening. This seemed to help him recall the image of that commune party secretary from years past. Ma La remembered Ding Youpeng's reminder on the way here. Indeed, reputation well-deserved—once the talk box opened, it couldn't be shut. He thought. Fortunately, the old man suddenly changed the subject at this point. "Ma Ke, what's your view on the current situation in rural areas?"

Hearing the old man call him "Ma Ke," Ma La knew it was a slip of the tongue and didn't correct him. But regarding the old man's question, he found it difficult to answer for a moment. "This question... You know, I stayed at the labor reform farm for seven or eight years and just got out." He cleverly turned the question around: "What's your view?"

The old man obviously hadn't expected Ma La to turn the tables on him, but having been a commune party secretary and county leader for many years, he had more than enough skill to handle this. "I'm about the same as you—after retirement I no longer concern myself with political affairs. Besides, even if I wanted to, no one would listen. Having a deputy county magistrate son doesn't help. Youpeng never tells me about government affairs, avoids me like the plague. But he's not wrong—that's organizational principle!" The old man said somewhat self-mockingly. "Chairman Mao said, 'No investigation, no right to speak.' Fortunately, these past few years I moved here. Besides growing crops, I've at least had some opportunities to interact with common people. I have at least some small right to speak. But this is still far from enough! Two years ago, I went back to my hometown in Shaanxi. Well, that was a real investigation..."

The old man's expression became grave as he reached this point.

"I'm from Suide in northern Shaanxi. Ever heard of Suide? 'Speaking of home, my home is famous—I live in Sanlishipu Village in Suide'—that's what they sing about in xin tian you [note: traditional folk songs of northern Shaanxi]. The xin tian you also sings, 'Mizi's wives and Suide's men'—that's the honest truth. Us Suide men are all top-notch, never produced a coward! Since Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang 'stirred up red' back then, just from our village over a hundred joined the Red Army. I was still small then, eleven years old, otherwise I definitely would have followed the Red Army too. Later came the Anti-Japanese War, right? The Red Army took off the five-pointed stars from their caps, put on Eighth Route Army uniforms, and when they were setting out for the front lines they happened to pass through our village and rested for two days. The Eighth Route Army's battalion headquarters stayed at my house—I seized the opportunity! The battalion commander's surname was Gu, given name Feng—I heard he'd been Chairman Mao's bodyguard. He had a square face, was very principled in everything he said and did. He paid for every bit of chili and garlic he used from my family. After much persistent pestering, Battalion Commander Gu finally agreed to let me join the army. That time, over a dozen people from our village joined the Eighth Route Army together. I was the youngest at just fifteen, not even as tall as a rifle... Am I going too far afield? Let me tell you about my trip home! After joining the Eighth Route Army, I only went home once. When the Liberation War started, I followed the Liu-Deng Army south, advanced a thousand li into the Dabie Mountains, and after being wounded in the arm I stayed to work in Yanhe, right? It wasn't until 1955, when my mother was seriously ill and the family sent a telegram for me to come back, that I had a chance to visit home. I was the youngest in my family. Father died not long after I joined the army. All these years Mother lived with my two older brothers and sister. The second day after I got home, Mother passed away. My brother told me that the only reason Mother refused to take her last breath was because she was waiting to see me once. For this one look, Mother waited decades. Of the over two hundred from our village who went out to join the Red Army and Eighth Route Army, only twenty or thirty survived. That I could go home to see Mother once made me quite fortunate. That time, after Mother's funeral, I stayed home two more days. Wasn't there a national cooperativization movement going on? Our village was no exception. From mutual aid teams to elementary cooperatives to advanced cooperatives, rolling forward wave after wave like Yellow River water. Of course, some people weren't willing. Take my brother, for example. During land reform he was allocated over ten mu of slope land, and in just a few years, not only was the whole family fed and clothed, he'd saved considerable surplus grain, money in hand became abundant, life was rising like sesame flowers blooming steadily upward [note: Chinese saying meaning continuous improvement]. Then suddenly he had to hand back the land he'd received—could he be happy about it? But later, after patient persuasion from the county and township work team comrades, he understood that establishing cooperatives didn't mean confiscating family land, but pooling it together, concentrating the strength of each household. Only this way could we avoid new landlords and rich peasants emerging in the countryside, avoid the poor eating bitterness twice and suffering twice, and walk the socialist broad road to common prosperity. My brother was a straightforward person. Once his mind opened up, his actions became swift. He not only quickly became an activist in the cooperative but even became vice director. When I went home that time, he was leading cooperative members planting fruit tree saplings on a barren salt-alkali plot on the dry plateau beside the village. This way they could both expand sideline production and resist wind and sand—all the villagers approved. Even I was infected by the villagers' fiery enthusiasm. Before leaving home, I followed my brother and family to the plateau and planted trees for half a day... I was telling you about going home two years ago—how did I get to '55? Ai, my brain is getting more and more disobedient. Let me talk about two years ago. I originally wanted Youpeng to accompany me back to northern Shaanxi, but he'd just become deputy county magistrate and was too busy with work, so I had Youpeng's second sister accompany me back. It had been over forty years since my last visit home, over twenty years since Reform and Opening Up. I originally thought the folks back home would all be living prosperous lives. But as soon as I entered the village, I saw it still looked shabby. Some families still lived in cave dwellings [note: traditional Shaanxi earth-sheltered homes] built decades ago. Old people sunning themselves at the cave entrances were still in ragged clothes. The village road was full of potholes. A donkey cart carrying water was stuck in a pit and couldn't get out. The old man pulling the cart gathered all his strength, but the wheels didn't budge at all. Looking at this scene, no one came over to help, because there was hardly a single adult man visible in the village—they'd all gone to the city to 'pan for gold.' Those left in the village were either women and children or elderly people who could barely walk. By farming, the villagers couldn't live decent lives. Unwilling to stay poor, they had no choice but to go out to make a living. Those with ability and good luck, after working outside for a few years, could come back and build a new brick cave dwelling, even build an impressive building. Most people didn't have such fortune. Working hard all year long, enduring humiliation and hardship, besides filling their own stomachs, when they returned home they couldn't even bring back decent New Year goods... My brother had aged until his teeth had almost all fallen out. Only he and my sister-in-law were left at home, still guarding that cave dwelling from over forty years ago that I'd stayed in during my last visit. Their two sons, grandsons and granddaughters were all working in the city, only returning for New Year. The old couple still went to the fields with canes every day to earn their own grain. Depending on the little money their sons sent back each year, they could only buy oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar. That time I only stayed one night at home before leaving. After returning to Yanhe, for a long time my heart felt blocked. When I was a county leader, from coastal areas to inland, from south to north, from east to west, I traveled to many places. In those economically developed regions dripping with wealth, many farmers' income from selling land reached tens of millions of yuan. The whole family didn't need to do any work, spending all day playing cards and drinking tea—couldn't spend it all in a lifetime. But in remote mountain areas like my hometown, life was still the same as decades ago, even worse. This kind of gap between rich and poor isn't an isolated case but a very common phenomenon. Our Yanhe is about the same. This is such a serious problem! From the day I joined the revolution, I knew the Communist Party's purpose was to fight for the poor. So many revolutionary martyrs shed their blood and sacrificed themselves for the sake of building a new society without exploitation, without oppression, where everyone is equal. But now, over fifty years after Liberation, over twenty years after Reform and Opening Up, we're not only no closer to our goal of struggle, but even farther than before. What's going on? Thinking about this, I can't sleep, can't eat properly. I'm not reconciled, so I can only reopen Selected Works of Mao Zedong and Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, wanting to find answers. The Center says Chairman Mao made mistakes, and now not many people believe what he said. But Comrade Xiaoping's words can't be disbelieved, right? He said that if our country experiences serious polarization and a new bourgeoisie emerges, our Reform and Opening Up will have failed. No matter what, I don't want Comrade Xiaoping's words to become reality. If that happens, we'll have truly betrayed our original ideals and won't have any face to meet those martyrs after death..."

Having said so much in one breath, the old man finally vented the depression piled up in his heart, but he didn't feel much lighter. He pulled off the old army cap from his head and held it in his hands, kneading it forcefully. The wrinkles on his face contracted together, looking very pained.

Regarding the old man's words just now, Ma La felt quite unfamiliar. Seven or eight years of labor reform life had already created a deep estrangement between him and this era. But he was certain that the old man was speaking from his heart. At that moment, he felt the old man seemed so lonely, even pitiable, stirring a trace of pity in his heart. He wanted to comfort the old man but couldn't say anything.

The old man probably saw Ma La's thoughts and smiled bitterly. "You don't need to say anything. That you can quietly listen to my innermost thoughts is enough for me. These years, finding someone to speak honestly with has been too difficult. Back in the day, when I was party secretary at Hekou Commune, at least a third of each year I was in the countryside, eating, living, and laboring together with farmers. After staying together long enough, feelings deepened. With deep feelings, how could work not be done well? The key is whether work is truly for the people's welfare or for personal advancement and wealth. This is a matter of principle. But Youpeng doesn't want to hear me nag. He thinks my brain is outdated, can't keep up with the times. Today's cadres are all like this, keeping their eyes on superiors and outsiders all day long—either asking leaders for appropriations or seeking bosses for investment attraction, rarely going to grassroots level even once a year. Not only unwilling to go to grassroots, but they take cars everywhere regardless of distance, getting fat at a young age. Take Youpeng—every time he comes from town to see me, just that little distance, he's unwilling to walk..."

Taking advantage of the old man's "complaints," Ma La got up and picked up the thermos to refill both their cups with boiling water. The old man looked up at Ma La and said "oh," then asked, "I haven't asked you yet—what are you planning to do next?"

Ma La hesitated before saying, "I haven't completely decided yet. But one thing is certain—I want to stay in Shenhuangzhou..."

"Good, staying is good!" The old man quickly took up the conversation, nodding repeatedly in approval. "After retirement I rarely went to the countryside. Two years ago, the County People's Congress organized old cadres for rural inspection. I followed along to several villages. What I saw was similar to what I saw at home in Suide—all elderly and children, hardly any young people. When I was party secretary at Hekou Commune, the countryside was the world of young people. Girls and young men sang while working—what was it called? Right, socialist labor competition! In the fields, songs rang out loud and clear, people were joyful and horses neighing—just thinking of that scene makes one's blood boil..." Reaching this point, the old man raised his arm and beat time, softly humming, "Socialism is good, socialism is good, in socialist countries the people's status is high..."

Ding Youpeng, taking advantage of the old man and Ma La chatting, had sneaked inside the house for a nap. Now, yawning, he walked out. "Dad, talked enough yet? If you delay him catching the ferry, you'll have to manage dinner too." Saying this, he gave Ma La a look. Ma La understood his meaning and set down his teacup, standing up.

The old man saw Ma La all the way to the roadside, looking reluctant to part, continuously waving as they separated. "We're kindred spirits—come often..."

The two men bid farewell to the old man and walked along the road for just a few steps when a black sedan came from the county direction and silently stopped beside them. Ding Youpeng said nothing and opened the car door to climb in. Ma La hadn't yet reacted and stood dumbly by the roadside when Ding Youpeng waved at him from inside the car, calling out, "What are you spacing out for? Get in!"

When had Ding Youpeng called for the car? Ma La thought—this son really had a knack for handling his old man. Thinking this, Ma La bent down and climbed into the car.

After the sedan started moving, Ding Youpeng grabbed Ma La's hand and shook it exaggeratedly a couple times. "Thanks for keeping my old man company and talking for so long today. You really worked hard."

"It's nothing, it was fine..." Ma La smiled faintly.

"Fine?" Ding Youpeng looked at Ma La's face somewhat disbelievingly. "If I had to listen to him rehashing all that old stuff over and over, I'd have gone crazy!"

"Why would you think that?" Ma La looked at Ding Youpeng with some surprise. "Actually, I found this afternoon quite rewarding."

"Rewarding? From the old man's outdated views?" Ding Youpeng couldn't help but nearly laugh out loud. "Maybe it's because you just got out of the farm and haven't had time to update what's in your brain yet!"

"Sometimes, not everything new is necessarily better, including knowledge and concepts," Ma La said thoughtfully, gazing out the car window.

"What are you saying?" Ding Youpeng was astonished by Ma La's words. "We're in the internet age—without new knowledge and new concepts, what kind of reform are we doing?"

"But 'reviewing the old to learn the new' hasn't become outdated, has it?" Ma La drew his gaze back to Ding Youpeng's face.

The two old classmates seemed about to have a good debate on this issue. But Ding Youpeng didn't seem interested. He stared at Ma La's face and suddenly said, as if discovering something, "No wonder you so patiently listened to the old man nag all afternoon. I've discovered you two really do have similar personalities!"

"Similar how?"

"Stubborn! In the words of Party School teachers, this is the problem of dogmatism! Dogmatism harms both the country and people. What use is clinging to dogma? 'Always stand with the majority of laboring people'—fine to say it, but does it work in practice? The Communist Party now is not only the vanguard of the working class but also the vanguard of all Chinese people. We don't just represent workers and farmers but also advanced productive forces. Entrepreneurs are representatives of advanced productive forces, so of course we must protect their interests! This is called advancing with the times. But the old man doesn't understand this. He's suffered his whole life from being stubborn. Otherwise, with his credentials of joining the Eighth Route Army in '38, how could he only be county-level at retirement? That Deputy Governor Han is younger and has less seniority than the old man, but as fellow subordinates of Gu Feng, he's already at deputy provincial level. That's quite a gap!" Ding Youpeng spoke convincingly, spittle flying onto Ma La's face. "You probably won't believe this, but from Education Bureau clerk to deputy county level, I didn't rely on the old man at all. He never pulled strings for me. All those old connections of his—old superiors, old comrades-in-arms—I connected with them myself..."

"In the end, aren't they still his connections?" Ma La couldn't help retorting.

Ding Youpeng fell silent. After a long while, he muttered, "Anyway, the old man's life has been too frustrating!"

"I think the old man is quite lovable, really!" Ma La said thoughtfully. "Old people like this are becoming rarer and rarer..."

"That's because he's not your dad!" Ding Youpeng glared at Ma La irritably.

The two old classmates looked about to start arguing when the car arrived at the county government entrance. The argument had to stop abruptly. Ding Youpeng punched Ma La's shoulder. "Since you like the old man so much, next time you come to the county seat, spend more time chatting with him!"

As they were parting, Ma La suddenly remembered something and asked Ding Youpeng, "By the way, do you know anything about Tang Lina's current situation?"

Ding Youpeng looked at him sideways, half-jokingly saying, "What, you want to go find our 'Teacher's Wife'?"

"No, I want to see Teacher Lu's child," Ma La said, lowering his eyelids.

"I didn't think you'd still remember this," Ding Youpeng said, seeing his expression and no longer joking. "Go to the department store and find a company boss named Li Haijun. This person used to work at the County Cultural Center, played a mean yangqin [note: Chinese hammered dulcimer], and was once Tang Lina's husband—though they later separated. But he should know Tang Lina's whereabouts. Find Tang Lina and naturally you can find that child..."

Li Haijun. Why did this name sound so familiar?

After parting with Ding Youpeng, Ma La went straight to the department store.

The department store was right across from the cinema-theater, also a three-story building. It too had once been a landmark building of the county town. Although it now looked so low and unsophisticated, back in the day it was the busiest place in the county. Those who went to the cinema were generally town residents. Those who went to the department store to shop included both town residents and rural people, so naturally it was more popular than the cinema.

Back then, Kunpeng Company dug up its second bucket of gold from the department store. At that time, the company had just been established, and in Teacher Lu's words, it was in the stage of primitive capital accumulation. As general manager's assistant, Ma La carried a briefcase full of various contracts, following behind Teacher Lu, traveling north and south, gaining considerable experience. Initially, they focused mainly on small and medium cities, dealing with township enterprises, drilling around in mountain gullies. After one business trip, they'd both turn gray-faced like guerrilla fighters in movies—just missing pistols at their waists. Actually, doing business really was like fighting guerrilla warfare, taking shots here and there. Agricultural, industrial, and commercial trading company—the business scope included everything: timber, bamboo, hides, steel, coal, buying low and selling high. Using old terminology, this was speculation and profiteering. But commodity economy—Marx called this extracting surplus value, Teacher Lu would say, parsing words carefully like lecturing in a classroom. Every business trip, Teacher Lu's luggage always included one or two economics books, including Marx's Capital. Once on a train, while Teacher Lu went to the bathroom, Ma La picked up that copy of Capital from his seat and flipped through it, finding it full of horizontal lines, some passages with marginal notes. One section read: "The circulation of commodities is the starting point of capital. The production of commodities and developed commodity circulation, namely trade, form the historical prerequisites for the emergence of capital. As money, money and as capital, capital first differ only in their different forms of circulation... As the conscious bearer of this movement, the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point of departure and the point of return for money. The objective content of this circulation—value augmentation—is his subjective purpose; and only insofar as the appropriation of ever more and more abstract wealth becomes the sole motive of his operations does he function as a capitalist, or as capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will. Use-value must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; nor must the profit on any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at. This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The never-ending augmentation of exchange-value, which the miser strives after, by seeking to save his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by constantly throwing it afresh into circulation." Teacher Lu had written a line beside it: "How profound Marx's words are! Without understanding this, one cannot grasp the mystery of the commodity economy and will forever remain only a small merchant, never becoming a true entrepreneur, capitalist!" Teacher Lu had also heavily circled the word "capitalist" three times. Ma La stared at these three little circles, pondering their meaning. When Teacher Lu returned from the bathroom and saw him dazed, he took the book from his hands and smiled: "I've read Capital three or four times. Every reading yields new discoveries. This is our 'Bible' for running enterprises—you should also read it carefully in the future. At least three times." He held up three fingers, speaking as seriously as if lecturing in a classroom. "One Communist Manifesto, one Capital—whether we were doing socialism in the past or doing capitalism now, we can't do without them. Marx was truly great. We must catch up on our lessons properly—time waits for no one, if we don't catch up it'll be too late..." Ma La interjected: "We're not doing capitalism now, we're doing socialism with Chinese characteristics." Before he could finish, Teacher Lu interrupted him, waving his hand as if shooing away a mosquito, laughing heartily, "About the same, about the same—just different wording, that's all, that's all." In the past in the classroom, whenever a student answered a question incorrectly, Teacher Lu would have the same expression. Before this former teacher, current boss, Ma La once again felt his own naiveté and shallowness. It was also on that trip that Teacher Lu voluntarily chatted with Ma La about his family background. Teacher Lu came from a capitalist family. His grandfather had once served as Director of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company under Zhang Zhidong. His father was the owner of Wuhan's largest shipyard. The ships their family built accounted for nearly half of all Yangtze River shipping. Teacher Lu's mother was his father's third concubine. Before marrying into the Lu family, she had been a popular young female lead in Han opera at Hankou's Minzhong Theater. From the time he could remember, Teacher Lu rarely saw his mother and father together. He and his mother stayed in a European-style villa at the foot of Snake Hill by Xiaodong Gate in Wuchang. Besides an elderly servant, they rarely saw anyone else. Teacher Lu said it was from that time he developed his habit of loving to read. On the eve of Liberation, his father fled with the family to Taiwan in panic, abandoning him and his mother. When leaving, aside from the villa they lived in, he left no other property...

This was about all Ma La knew of Teacher Lu's family background, but from these fragments he concluded that Teacher Lu's career change into business was no whim but something both inherited and gifted. This strengthened his determination to follow Teacher Lu and abandon teaching for commerce. Not long after, Teacher Lu dug up Kunpeng Company's "first bucket of gold." Leveraging the Lu family's old connections in Wuhan, he obtained contracts for coal procurement and supply lasting five years for several provincial and central large-scale enterprises and institutions in Han. Carrying these contracts, they rushed non-stop to a coal mine called Liujiachang at the junction of Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan, signing coal purchase contracts at low prices. Half a year later, Kunpeng Company's assets jumped from the 3,000-yuan registration capital at founding to 500,000. With this "first bucket of gold," Teacher Lu eagerly began planning to advance into larger fields. He set his sights on the then-nearly-bankrupt Yanhe County Department Store. At that time, the wave of privatizing county-level state-owned commerce was in full swing nationwide. Yanhe County's leaders probably also wanted to shed this burden early, so Teacher Lu acquired the department store's operating rights under Kunpeng Company's name for less than 50,000 yuan with almost no effort. The new department store was renamed Kunpeng Shopping Center. On opening day, the scene was unprecedentedly lively. Firecracker sounds echoed through half the county town. Leaders of the county's three major teams all attended. Teacher Lu, in a suit and tie with a plastic flower in his jacket pocket, delivered a brief but powerfully affecting speech at the ceremony. Many years later, Ma La still remembered his resonant voice: "The giant ship Kunpeng Company has set sail. It will depart from here, reaching the entire province, the entire nation, even the whole world. We will certainly achieve our goal, we certainly can achieve our goal!" From then on, the company's development entered the fast lane. Within a few years, Kunpeng Corporation's sign was hung in the provincial capital Wuhan and in Nie City, thousands of li away from Wuhan...

No matter what, this was Kunpeng Company's "Jinggang Mountain," the cradle of Teacher Lu's career... Ma La couldn't help thinking as he walked into the department store.

The department store's layout was quite different from before. The first and second floors were sales areas—clothing, electronics, furniture, all sorts of things. Shops crowded one against another like pigeon coops, bustling and chaotic, suffocating. Perhaps because rentals weren't ideal, the third floor, originally also a sales area, had been converted into office space. The stairway to the third floor had an entire wall covered with company signs hanging unevenly. Fortunately there were only a dozen or so companies. Ma La asked around and without much effort found the person he was looking for in a company with just two rooms.

"I'm Li Haijun." A man in a beige casual suit looked up from his computer, asking stiffly, "What do you want with me?"

While Ma La examined this Li Haijun—long face, thick eyebrows, meticulously trimmed hair, looking not much older than himself—he worked hard to search in his brain. From the depths of his memory gradually emerged a familiar shadow.

"Teacher Li!"

"You are..." Li Haijun was somewhat stunned by this form of address.

"I'm Ma La, I was your student when you taught at Shenhuangzhou Brigade Elementary School!"

Li Haijun said "oh," his expression changing rapidly. He stood up from the computer, stretching out a finger to point at him. "Ha, Ma La from Shenhuangzhou. I remember now—your grades were always in the top three in class, right?"

Ma La smiled embarrassedly. "You also taught me to play the bamboo flute. I can still play 'Whipping the Horse to Rush Grain' now."

"Right, right, I remember now. You had good comprehension, got it right away." Li Haijun grasped Ma La's hand and gave his shoulder an affectionate punch, pulling him to sit down on the sofa beside them. He even personally poured him a cup of heated mineral water. "Didn't you win third prize in the commune elementary and middle school arts festival?"

Ma La said, "Yes, the prize was a copy of Selected Diary of Lei Feng."

"Over twenty years in a flash! Since getting recruited to return to the city, I've never been back. Shenhuangzhou must have changed a lot, right?" Li Haijun looked at Ma La, saying with feeling, "You and your brother Ma Ke really do look exactly alike, just not as tall. Ai, he died so tragically. But, using the words of that time, his death was worthwhile. The County Youth League Committee issued a call for all county youth to learn from the good example of Comrade Ma Ke, a Jin Xunhua-type model, including us sent-down youth..." [note: Jin Xunhua was a model sent-down youth who died heroically in 1969]

Seeing Li Haijun immersed in reminiscing about the past, Ma La didn't know for a moment how to state his true purpose to the other party. Ma La remembered that there were two groups of sent-down youth at Shenhuangzhou back then—one from Wuhan, one from Yanhe County town. The two groups usually didn't get along and often picked fights with each other, even once having a mass brawl. As for this Li Haijun, he not only taught music for a while at Shenhuangzhou Elementary but also caused quite a stir by dating the brigade's barefoot doctor, so Ma La had an especially strong impression of him...

"By the way, Ma La, where are you working now? How did you find me?" Li Haijun brought the conversation back.

Ma La felt this was an opportunity and explained his purpose.

"So you worked with that guy named Lu?" Li Haijun turned his face to look at him. "How could you mix with an old lecher who seduced women everywhere?" His face showed disdain, even anger, his expression completely different from before, making Ma La somewhat embarrassed. He wanted to defend his teacher but what came out was incoherent: "Please don't say that..."

After Li Haijun finally calmed down, Ma La carefully asked, "So, Tang Lina..." But before he could finish, Li Haijun rudely interrupted him. "Don't mention that whore to me! I've had such bad luck in this life—not only did she get pregnant with someone else's bastard before marriage, after marriage she made me wear a cuckold's hat again. You tell me, could I keep living with her?"

Li Haijun's spittle flew as he stood up from the sofa, pacing emotionally around the office. Because his voice was so loud, a female employee from the next room poked her head in to look, but Li Haijun waved her away with a rebuke. He hung his head and sat back down on the sofa, looking somewhat dejected, like a different person from before. After a long silence, he finally collected himself. He probably realized his loss of composure, wiped his face, looked up and said, "How about this—I'll give you an address. It's from several years ago when Tang Lina left before going to Wuhan after our divorce. Whether you can find her is hard to say." With that, he got up, found a note pad on his desk, wrote down an address, and handed it to Ma La.

Ma La thanked him repeatedly. As they parted, Li Haijun saw him to the stairway, muttering, "When I have time, I'll definitely go back to Shenhuangzhou for a visit..."