THE WOMAN DANCING WITH A RED UMBRELLA

A Thesis

Presented to

The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirement for the Degree

Master of Fine Arts

Zhixia Zhang

May, 2018

THE WOMAN DANCING WITH A RED UMBRELLA

Zhixia Zhang

Thesis

Approved: Accepted:

______Advisor Dean of Arts and Sciences Dr. Christopher Barzak Dr. John Green

______Faculty Reader Executive Dean of the Graduate School Mr. Eric Wasserman Dr. Chand Midha

______Faculty Reader Date Dr. Robert Miltner

______Interim Department Chair Dr. Sheldon B. Wrice

ii

ABSTRACT

An innocent and beautiful country girl, Xiaoxia, lived in a comparatively simple and less corrupted environment before she went to college and experienced city life.

She was terribly unprepared for the ugliness and complexity in the city; she got bullied in her first semester in college. She was quick to learn, and she was brave. She won her first battle in the city, and she gained her wisdom and power. But, when she was forced to confront the corruption in the justice system and in politics, her wisdom and power could not help her win the tough battle. In the process of saving her parents who were victimized and sentenced to death in a famous high-rise explosion case, she saw the cruel and painful reality that she is still vulnerable in face of the big wheel of corruption controlled by the rich and the powerful. After all her efforts of saving her parents failed, which included writing to the president and the prime minister of China, she tried to protect her orphaned little brother and get a better life by making more money. She allowed herself to be seduced and become the lover of a young charismatic vice mayor. After she found out the vice mayor was the chief of the heinous “man-fishing” project, which killed the innocent people like her parents in order to fish out the real criminals for huge amount of money, she knew that she could not love the vice mayor despite that he lavished money and love on her. She tried to flee from him and the ugly corruption he represents. But the vice mayor was obsessed

iii with her innocence and her beauty; he would never let her go. She had to choose

murder to defend her dignity.

The murder is a strong symbol in this story—it symbolizes the horrible loneliness of an innocent and beautiful girl struggling in a country full of corruption

and lack of justice. The murder, for her, is not a revenge for her wronged parents and

her boyfriend, who was killed by a thug hired by the vice mayor; it is rather the only

option for her to live. What she saw and experienced made her realize that if she did

not kill the evil vice mayor, his evil and corruption would ruin her life. Therefore, she

conquered the hesitation she felt due to her Buddhist faith, and she designed a perfect

murder. The highlight of her design was on her dance—a seven-layer-scarf dance

inspired from Salomé’s seven-layer-veil dance.

Primitive dance in ancient China was associated with sorcery and shamanic

rituals. Xiaoxia loved dance and had a natural talent for dancing, but she never danced

in front of her family because of the conservative culture in her village; and she never

danced in front of her beloved boyfriend because she related dance with something of

dark attraction, like the siren’s songs. She made use of her dance to carry out a

well-planned murder, and to get freedom. Dance, for her, is a sharp weapon to fight

and win a battle, which is so fatal that she would die if she failed.

iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.. SHE IS THE BUDDHA BUT SHE DOES NOT KNOW….……...... ….1

II. SWEET SURRENDER IN THE RAIN...... …….………...………….12

III. UNDER THE HARD SHELL OF A LUXURIOUS SHIP..…...... ….33

IV. IF THE WORLD IS A FEMALE CICADA...... …………………...48

V. THE FATTEST PIG GETS KILLED FIRST ...... …………………….66

VI. IT IS HARD TO FIND TENDERNESS ...... ………………………86

VII. ALL THE BIG DREAMS CARRY BIG PRICE TAGS ...... …...105

VIII. WHY ARE YOU HERE...... ………………………………….125

IX. BEAUTIFUL BIRD IN THE HIGH MOUNTAINS ...... ……….. 141

X. WHY ME ...... ………………………………………………………145

v CHAPTER I

SHE IS THE BUDDHA BUT SHE DOES NOT KNOW

A white butterfly struggled against a spider web that was weaved among the

twigs of a red dogwood; the desperate, yet delicate, fluttering of the trapped butterfly attracted a small crowd.

“The spider will eat the butterfly if the butterfly cannot fly away,” a little girl gawked at the dogwood and let out an anxious scream, yet she didn’t make a move to save the butterfly. No one made a move to save the butterfly.

A muddy puddle sat between the road where the small crowd was gathering and

the dogwood on which the butterfly was struggling; to save the butterfly, one would

have to wade in the mud and climb up to the hilly dune where the dogwood was

perched. Neither the wading nor the climbing appealed to anyone in the crowd.

Everyone simply wanted to claim the fun that the city park promised with the entry

ticket priced twenty Yuan. The citizens who strolled in the park on that Sunday

morning loved their shoes and comfort too much to walk into the dirty mud for an

unfortunate butterfly.

1 The butterfly could have screamed if it had been given a voice. The butterfly

began struggling even more vigorously, but only in vain. A big black spider began to

crawl its way toward the butterfly.

“Do not eat the butterfly!” The little girl screamed again. The dramatic show

staged on the dogwood began drawing more attention. The eyes in the audience were

glimmering; many cell phones were raised high, ready to catch the imminent killing

and death.

Soon, the fluttering and the struggling of the butterfly slowed down and became listless. The fat, eight-legged spider, as if it was performing a quirky dinner dance

with unsteady steps, crawled excitedly toward the butterfly. The prey’s death was

largely looming. The spider web quavered in the cold breeze, and the green leaves on the red twigs rustled in soft sighs.

A young monk strode forth from a banyan tree that was behind the red dogwood.

His shaved head and long maroon gown caught the sunlight as if he were put on a

spotlight on stage. His face was smooth and serene, and his long, slim fingers

twiddling one of the ocher prayer beads threaded by a maroon string.

“The monk will save the butterfly!” the little girl shouted to the crowd.

“E Mi Tuo Fo,” the monk murmured his prayer to the struggling butterfly.

The monk raised his prayer beads in the sunlight, reciting the anti-killing mantra

his Shifu (master) had once taught him at the temple, which was made of the most

precious sandalwood and sat upon a high mountain. Praying that the mantra would

extinguish the killing will of the spider, and the butterfly would be saved by the

2 merciful hand of Buddha. With his eyes shut tight, the monk recited and prayed in

silence. The monk heard cheers and applauses. The Buddha is coming, he thought.

The cheering crowd didn’t see the Buddha; instead, they saw a young beautiful girl with a red umbrella.

The girl was petite. Her beauty did not stem from her stunning physical features,

but rather from a mysterious glamour emanated from her doe-like black eyes and the

profound sadness inside them. The girl carried her sadness just as the monk carried

his prayer beads; there was no trace of impatience but only serenity and silent

prayers—although their prayers were different.

The girl waded into the mud to save the butterfly. She jumped into the dirty puddle in her spotlessly white leather shoes and her white long-flared skirt. She ran towards the red dogwood, pushed open her red umbrella in front of her. The shelter made of the umbrella looked like a giant red shield.

Like all spiders, this black spider was also blind; it neither saw the girl nor her red umbrella. It kept crawling toward the white butterfly, its legs wriggling and its

appetite getting sharper and sharper by the second.

The tip of the red umbrella pieced the spider’s web, and with a determined push,

broke the slyly-weaved trap into pieces. The white butterfly was set free.

The monk opened his eyes to the roaring applauses. Then he saw the girl. He

saw her beautiful eyes and the deep sadness welling up in her marvelous beauty.

Buddha of Mercy! The monk put his palms together and worshiped the god in his heart.

3 The girl saw the monk and his palm-to-palm worshiping gesture. The girl said in a low voice, “You could have saved the white butterfly if you raised your hand to break the spider web, but you did not. Why?”

“I came to the city to see the fleeting vanity and cut off my attachment to the mortal life. My Shifu once told me I should never raise my hand to disturb a creature, and I should never be tempted by the false glory disguised as the honor of doing something good. I leave the butterfly to the merciful hand of the Buddha.” The monk avoided the girl’s bright black eyes; his heart was beating fast.

“Tell your Shifu, doing something good is not an honor, but a duty. The glory may be false, but the life is always true. To save a life is not a false glory; it is simply the right thing to do.” The girl twiddled her red umbrella, and shook off the scraps of the spider web from the silky fabric. The white butterfly flew back, circling around the red umbrella; Perhaps the white butterfly thought the umbrella was a giant red flower, blooming in its savior’s merciful hand; the butterfly began a merry dance to celebrate its survival and to express its joy.

The monk was speechless. At that moment, he wished that his Shifu were with him.

The girl turned her back on the monk and walked into the muddy puddle. Her white skirt brushed upon the dirty water, the mud swallowing up her white shoes, then letting them peep out with her swift steps. The young monk’s eyes followed the girl until she disappeared into the bustling crowd of the big city.

4 This big city was Shenzhen, the most prosperous city in China, famous for its

open-mindedness and its unstoppable momentum to make biggest money in the

shortest time. The monk had thought that he had come to the right place—a place full

of temptation and confusion, a place that could give him the toughest trial to test his

faith in Buddha and his tenet of curbing his mortal desire.

The monk soon learned that the biggest test was not from the chaotic city of

vanity, but from the beautiful girl and her wise words—the girl emerged during his prayers and saved the white butterfly with her red umbrella.

When the monk returned to his Shifu in the high mountains, three-hundred miles

away from Shenzhen, he thought that he had failed the test. Every time he closed his

eyes to meditate to the Buddha, he kept envisioning the girl with a red umbrella. The

monk was a novice, and he felt sad upon seeing his Shifu—he knew that he would

disappoint his master.

“Shifu, I failed the test. I can not become a monk. I cannot eradicate my mortal desire.” The novice knelt down to the old monk in the dark red gown, tall and slim, who sat crossed-legged upon the praying mat made of straw.

“What happened?” The old monk murmured in a slow soothing tone, his eyes

closed shut.

The young novice blushed.

“Is it about woman?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you think of her.”

5 “I think she is the Buddha.”

The old monk opened his eyes. “What?”

“I think she is the Buddha. Every time I try to concentrate on my meditation, I

see her.”

“Tell me when and where you saw this woman for the first time. Tell me

everything.” The old monk began twiddling his prayer beads and his eyes closed

again.

The young novice told the old monk about the white butterfly, the black spider, his own prayers and the girl with a red umbrella.

“You are right. She is the Buddha, but she does not know.” The old monk

opened his eyes and looked at the young novice with a sad smile. “Now, tell me. If

you meet her again someday, what would you like to tell her?”

“I would tell her that I love her,” the young novice said with bright eyes.

“Not as a monk.” The old monk sighed softly, “Go back to the cities, and find

her, marry her, suffer for her, kill for her, do evil for her, and die for her. She is the

Buddha today, but she can be a devil tomorrow because she does not know.”

“Shifu!” The young novice cried, “Have you ever seen the Buddha? If not, when

you see her, you would think she is the Buddha of mercy.”

“She will come here in one month. She will come here with her red umbrella.

You will see her. I will grant you permission to talk to her. That will be your last test.

After the talk, you can decide whether you will stay or leave.” The old monk closed his eyes again.

6 One month later, on one hot summer’s evening, the novice saw the girl on the

white stone steps to the temple built of red sandalwood. The girl was carrying her red umbrella, which was closed tight and serving her as a climbing stick.

“E Mi Tuo Fo!” the novice shouted his prayer loudly. He was so glad to see her.

“Where can I find the master monk of Guangyuan? I must talk to him for

advice,” the girl said.

“He is my Shifu. He let me to talk to you.” The young monk was disappointed

that the girl did not recognize him.

“You are too young,” The girl looked at the novice with her sad eyes.

“You, too, are very young. I am not too young for you.” The novice felt hurt.

“I am going to talk to the master about life and death; it is very important. Please bring me to him.” The girl walked towards the temple.

“My Shifu is on his one-month deep meditation. He told me he would not be

reached until his meditation is over.” The novice followed the girl. She looked pale

and sad in her ink-black shirt and ink-black long pants; but she was still so beautiful

that he wanted to touch her long shining black hair that was flowing over her slender

shoulders.

“Please tell the master that it is about life and death. I will donate one hundred

thousand Yuan if he can talk to me now.” The girl turned to the young novice,

appealing to him. Tears misted her beautiful eyes.

7 “I cannot find my Shifu. He has a private place for meditation; he did not tell me

where he is. But, he told me you would be here today with your red umbrella. He has

permitted me to talk to you.”

“Ah! So the legend about him is true! He can predict things! I must find him; he

will help me find my love.” The girl pushed open the heavy sandalwood door of the

temple and knelt down in front of the statue of the smiling Buddha. “I pray to you, the

Buddha of Mercy, please let the master help me. Please bring me to him right now.”

The girl raised her voice, as if she wished the whole temple to hear her.

The novice was struck by a brilliant idea. He walked away and entered the temple from the back door and hid himself behind the statue of the smiling Buddha.

He mimicked his Shifu’s slow and soothing tone: “I am here, talk to me.”

“Master, I fell in love with a man. His name is Yong. I love him more than

anything after I lost my parents and my litter brother. But, he disappeared one month

ago. I searched for him everywhere that I thought he could have gone to, but I could

not find him. I want to know where I can find him—dead or alive.”

“Love is pain, attachment is unwise. Forget about him; find comfort and peace

in Buddha,” the young novice curbed the pain in his heart, spilled out his mantra in

controlled rhythm.

“Master, I cannot live without him! If he was killed, I must find his murderer

and take revenge for him! Tell me that he is alive and tell me where he is.”

8 “Dead or alive, he does not belong to you anymore. Let it go and come to

Buddha. Cut off the unwise attachment. Show mercy to yourself. Show mercy to the

world. The mortal world is fleeting, only the Buddha is always here for you.”

“Master, I will donate one hundred thousand Yuan to the temple if you tell me

where I can find Yong. He is my love; I will die for him, kill for him. I cannot find

peace in Buddha if I cannot find Yong first. Please tell me where he is.”

“Do not try to make bargain with Buddha. Money is nothing but evil for Buddha.

Do not do evil in the name of love.” The young novice could barely control the tremble in his voice—in his young eighteen years of life, no one had ever talked about love like this girl had with such fierce tenaciousness.

“I know people who kill the innocent for money, and Buddha has never done a

thing to stop them. If my money is evil, please let the Buddha to burn it to ashes!

Please let the Buddha to burn all the evil-doers to ashes! Master, please let me know

what I should do; please tell me how I can find my love.”

“Buddha is merciful. Buddha does not burn or kill people; Buddha only saves

people.” The young novice found the talk harder and harder to continue; he could no

longer be sure of what he should tell her.

“I pray that Buddha saves my love and gives me mercy by telling me where I

can find Yong.”

“Buddha gives you mercy while giving you your fate.”

“What is my fate? Master, tell me my fate; tell me when I can see Yong again!”

9 “Yong does not belong to you anymore! The Buddha has prepared someone else

for you. You will marry another man: that is your fate.” The young novice sighed

silently. He put his hand into his mouth to stop his jumping heart.

“Master, where is Yong? If I cannot marry him, let me see him for the last time.

I do not care another man.”

“But, to marry another man is your fate. Buddha will love you more if you take

your fate with joy.” The young novice peeped out from the slit under the Buddha’s one loosely-hanging sleeve. He saw her large eyes brimful of tears, her delicate face

pale with sadness.

“I do not care for marriage. I will never marry another man. Master, please tell

me now: where is Yong?”

“Yong is dead.” The young novice gritted his teeth; he hoped he said the right

words—how he wanted her to cut off the unwise attachment.

“Oh! No!” she cried and collapsed in the dark shadow cast by the imposing statue of the smiling Buddha.

The young novice rushed to her, held her into his arms. He kissed off her tears

from her beautiful face. Then, he raised his head and saw the ever-smiling big eyes of

the Buddha. He knew his fate—he would leave his Shifu and he would go with the

girl in his arms.

She came to life after he fed her his Shifu’s “longevity water,” which was

blessed with many prayers and incantations. Then, when he bent towards her to kiss

her, she slapped him with all her might.

10 She rose to leave the temple. He tried to follow her, but she swished her red

umbrella to stop him. “If you dare follow me, I will kill you.”

He returned to the temple and disappeared for a few second. He reappeared in

the twilight of the evening and raised a red flashlight in his hand. He ran to her and

looked deep into her eyes, “Kill me if you want, but take the flashlight; it is getting

dark. You need the flashlight to watch for the road.”

The girl took the flashlight. She stooped over her red umbrella for support as if she lost her strength. But she braced up quickly, and looked around with alertness.

She didn’t look at him. She walked down with her red umber touching on the white stone steps. The novice felt that the sound of “tap, tap, tap” made by the sharp tip of her umbrella was hitting on his lonely heart.

The novice shouted to the mountains when the girl disappeared from his

eyesight, “I love you. I love you. I love you….”

His echoes span along the hard ridges of the dark mountains and lingered over

the top of the trees, joined by the enthusiastic chirping of the birds that were flying in

the softening light of the setting sun.

11

CHAPTER II

SWEET SURRENDER IN THE RAIN

In a small rose garden in the center of the city Shenzhen near the South Sea of

China, the white roses looked so pale and sick in the sizzling heat of the scorching sun.

The citizens in the most prosperous city of China never cared about roses. Most people in Shenzhen only cared about one thing—making more money. No one knew why the rose garden was there, probably it was just an afterthought of a drunken city designer who wanted romantic color, but the romantic color turned out to be too plain and out of place. Under the hot July sky, the white roses stooped and mourned together, lost in a piece of wrinkled shroud made of their pale faces; they looked like some depressing show of dried-up-tearless-sore-eyed post-tragedy fatigue. But among the silent fatigue, emerged the beautiful girl with a red umbrella, the girl saved a white butterfly one month ago during a young monk’s prayers to the Buddha of mercy.

The girl was walking towards a white rose. She was sobbing, her tears glistening in the sunshine, her beautiful face as pale as the white flower. She knelt down in front of the rose; her right hand was holding a bright-red umbrella which was closed tight.

“Where are you? Where can I find you? You gave me so many roses, roses as white as this. Please tell me, Goddess of rose, where is he?” Xiaoxia raised her head

12 from the white rose, her tearful eyes widened with horror---a black worm writhing out

from the center of the exquisite white petal, wriggling in the sunshine, like an ugly

scar torn open on the flower.

“God, I know. It is you: ugly worm! You made him disappear!” Xiaoxia dried

her eyes with the hem of her white dress, looking around with alertness, she saw a

grey magpie was swallowing down a fat worm under another white rose; no people

came to this rose garden at noon because there was no shady place to hide from the

scorching sun. She picked up the red umbrella from the ground and with a neat swing;

she flicked the black worm away from the white rose by the top shaft of the closed

umbrella. The worm dropped down on the dirt, writhing, and struggling to crawl away.

Xiaoxia poked the worm with her umbrella to the root of the white rose, and she

removed the red plastic case of the top shaft of the umbrella— the thin metal flashing

cold light, its top as sharp as an awl. She pierced the worm into the dirt with the “awl” on the umbrella, until the worm stopped writhing, became one broken black fuzzy thread. She pulled out the “awl” from the soil, stared at it for a moment and then cleaned the “awl” with a sanitary wipe, and covered the shining sharp weapon with the thick red plastic case. She opened her red umbrella, ran to a fountain which spurted water into the air, she danced under the sprinkling water, twiddling her open umbrella, crying without a sound.

The silkworm perhaps is the only worm in the world which tries so hard to

experience a resurrection from its self-imposed cozy prison made of its special sticky

sap. They seldom made it—resurrection is something too big for the small silkworm.

13 But when some lucky ones made it, they will get wings. They will get away from their

old cocoon, they will fly among the honeysuckle trees, and they will dance in the

fragrant air in a rose garden. Chinese people were curious about the silkworm, especially about its cozy prison; they wanted to know the secret of a silkworm’s

biggest design in its short life. A Chinese woman found the secret by boiling some

silkworm cocoons—she killed worms but she figured out how to make silk from the

loosening up cocoons in the hot water. She found a beautiful fabric when she pulled

out the sticky thread sealed up in the cocoons, and she weaved the fabric into a silk

scarf—the first piece of silk in the world. Silk is soft and shy, inviting for touch, but

elusive to a rude catch—it can look extremely alluring around a beauty’s slender neck,

but can be an ominous jarring mark of threat and death under a thug’s rugged jaw.

Xiaoxia got her first silk dress when she was twenty-two years old, a birthday gift

from her boy friend Yong on a warm spring day at the port city near the South Sea of

China. It was a bright red dress, simple and elegant, perfectly fit her small and slim

body. When she put it on, Yong stared at her and lost his tongue until she touched his

earlobes and kissed him on his trembling lips. He murmured: “The Ocean is singing a

love song as tender as silk.” They made love that night like the ocean flooded over

their heads, filled their lungs with salty water; their breath was smothered with waves,

and their world tightened into a soft prison of cocoon. They sank into each other with

silky longing and painful holding—they didn’t want to drown so quickly, but they

both knew they would stop struggling and surrender to the waves with a shared

sign—a sign of death and resurrection.

14 Yong always called Xiaoxia “my mermaid”, a mermaid can lead him the dance with the waves, but that night the mermaid lost her lead, blinded by the stormy ocean of silent kisses and silky wings. Xiaoxia wanted to tell Yong that night how her heart ached when she couldn’t see his face at that moment she was blinded by his love, how she felt like she already knew him for millions years when his nose lingered on her earlobe. But she didn’t tell Yong by words, she hoped he knew it. She didn’t tell Yong

“I am yours” or “I love you”; she wanted to be cool, she wanted to face the world the next day with sober eyes and strong will—she knew it was a very cruel world. She thought falling in love would make her weak.

“If I knew that is the last night you and I would be together, if I knew you would disappear, I would have told you how a mermaid can sell her voice to have legs to dance for her love, how I can kill a man to get my voice to say I love you.”

The red umbrella turned and tilted, the sprinkling water dropped down, sparkling in the sunshine, making a choking sound before disappearing into the scorched soil. Hot sun touched Xiaoxia’s white dress through the red umbrella, made the dress look like red burning cloud; like the real cloud, it gets heavy with water.

Xiaoxia’s dance broke down, part of her white dress darkened into the color of tarnished silver.

“Hi, beauty, you deserve a better dress, come to my boutique, we have the best silk dress in the whole city with the best price. Come on, have a look.” A young boy clapped his hands and blocked Xiaoxia’s way on the busiest street in the port city; the crowded street was flanked by colorful stores. The young boy’s face shining with

15 sweat and thawing sun-cream, his smile bright in the shadow of a marble column of a

long veranda which provided shade and artistic touch by its deep arch.

Xiaoxia knew every girl would be called “beauty” in this city. “Beauty” can be bought easily in this street like a bottle of mineral water. On the first day she came to this city, she saw a tourist guide with a loud speaker herding a bunch of tourists in front of a two-star hotel; wearing a bloody-red lipstick, the tourist guide shouted to

her speaker in a high-pitch: “My distinguished guests, this is Shenzhen, the richest

city in China. There is a limerick very popular here: the first-level beautiful girls went

abroad to be with the Americans, the second-level beautiful girls came to Shenzhen

and made big money, the third-level beautiful girls went to Beijing and Shanghai, being close to the powerful and the rich, and the fourth-level beautiful girls stayed at home as housewives, trying to make the best of their lives. My distinguished guests, here you can enjoy the best girls in the whole country for the best price!” Xiaoxia had gotten used to the fact that on this busiest street crowded with stores and boutiques, everything is promoted as “the best with the best price”.

“Do you have silk scarves? The real silk, not the semi-silk.” Xiaoxia asked the

young boy.

“Sure. We have the best silk scarves in the world with the best price.” The boy’s

eyes brightened, beaming with an ear-to-ear grin.

“Do not fool me with the semi-silk. I have been in the silk business for three

years; I sold silk beddings to the Americans. I know what the real silk feels like.”

Xiaoxia raised her chain, boasting and fabricating to impress the salesman with her “I

16 saw the world and don’t fool me” sharp coldness, ignoring the boy’s over-enthusiastic

grin.

“Oh, my beautiful miss, I bet you will have the best-quality silk here. Follow

me.” The boy bowed deeply before he opened the door for Xiaoxia.

“Oh, my dear lady, welcome to my store.” Another young boy in a white silk

Chinese gown opened his arms.

“Let me see your silk scarves.” Xiaoxia blocked his arms with her red umbrella.

“You came to the right place. But let me make a cup of fragrant tea for you first,

you must be thirsty—it is a very hot day. Take a seat, please.” The boy pointed an

ebony-like deep-carved low table on which there was one small dark-red tea pot

cuddled by four tea cups as tiny as pomegranate flower.

Xiaoxia sat down on the squatty stool which seemed to show off its former life

of wilderness by its numerous root-like ragged legs. Xiaoxia remembered Yong’s advice: “You should always be polite to those swindlers, because if you are rude, the swindlers can always find a way to screw you more cruelly. And remember, all the salesmen in the boutiques on the busiest street of the city are swindlers.”

“Lovely teapot.” Xiaoxia smiled sweetly and held her umbrella tightly in her

right hand.

“You have sharp eyes, sweetie. It is the real thing—made of purple sands by the

best artist in Shaoxing, the City of teapot. I think we can be good friends, I like you

very much—you strike me as a very refined person.” The guy began the Southerner’s

complicated ritual of serving tea with showy cool-handedness.

17 “Thank you. I would like to have some nice silk scarves. I hope you can help me

as my friend.” Xiaoxia managed her voice into a perfect combination of friendly

warmth and just-do-the-business coolness.

“You can have the best silk scarves in the world, I promise. May I ask how

many scarves would you like to have? My beautiful friend?” the guy shot sharp

glances across the raising vapor of the steaming tea.

“It depends what the scarves you have. I must have a look first. I am not picky,

but I don’t want the cheap semi-silk. I want the real thing.” Xiaoxia raised the tiny

teacup to her lips, but she didn’t drink the tea; her voice was casual and relaxed.

“May I ask why you want scarves in this season? You need the scarves to do

business, right?—you are a PR manager, and you purchase gifts for some clienteles who live in the North?” The guys sipped his tea with relish, and stared at Xiaoxia with

a glimmer in his small eyes.

“I want them for myself.” Xiaoxia said; the texture of her tone tightened but still

with the color of courtesy. Yong once told her, “If you say you are buying gifts for

your work unit, all the salesmen will coddle you into buy the fake stuff with high

price; they assume that you can get reimbursement from you employer, so they can

cheat you easily since you don’t care that much when you are spending your

employer’s money.”

“You came to the right place. You can buy a fake Rolex wrist watch with just three

dollars on the China-Britain-Street as an impressive gift for some rednecks. But a

beautiful girl like you deserves the best thing in the world.” The guy smirked.

18 “Let me see the scarves.” Xiaoxia stood up with a gesture of “teapot chat is over

and it is the time for business.”

“Sure.” The guy put down his teacup and shouted to another guy standing

behind a low counter, “You go to our storage room, bring me the best silk scarves. Be

quick.”

Xiaoxia smiled, she knew all the colorful scarves hanging over the counter are semi-silk, which look very glossy, but raw and stiff compared to the exquisite tender

light of real silk—their low price is effective bait for the gullible tourists who will buy

dozens of semi-silk scarves in a hot day, and think they are smart and lucky because

of the incredibly good bargain.

“How much is it?” Xiaoxia checked one red scarf on the top of the pile, which

the young guy brought from the storage room.

“One thousand Yuan. It is the best.”

“You are kidding me. I guess I would like to have some tea elsewhere.” Xiaoxia

walked toward the door.

“My Darling Sister, Please do not go. The price is negotiable. Please take a seat;

I will serve you the best tea.” The guy followed Xiaoxia, making a false whining.

“I will take seven scarves if your price sounds good.”

“Seven? Seven is a good number. I promise I will give you the best price.”

Xiaoxia bought seven silk scarves, each one with its own color—all the colors are bright and beautiful— the fiery red, the aqua blue, the tangerine, the purple, the silver, the emerald green, and the burgundy.

19 The guy in the Chinese gown gave Xiaoxia his card, “Please call me if you need

anything. I have several stores on the prosperous streets, and I do many businesses. I

have some friends working for the government in important positions.”

“Thank you. Do you know some guys working in a hair saloon?” Xiaoxia asked

without any hope that this sly guy would know something about Yong.

“Yes. My cousin is the manager of a famous hair saloon.”

Xiaoxia’s heart jumped, “Really, where is the saloon? I want a haircut.”

“Just around the corner; you want me to call him to make an appointment now?”

“Yes.” Xiaoxia’s hands twisted nervously together on the handle of her

umbrella.

The guy talked over his cell phone in the Guangdong dialect, and talked to

Xiaoxia in Mandarin again, “You can talk to him now.”

“Could you use the speaker, then both of us can talk to him.” Xiaoxia closed her

eyes, scolded herself silently, “Do not be ridiculous, it couldn’t be him.”

“Hello, rabbit, here is the beautiful lady who wants a haircut.” The guy talked to his phone in Mandarin.

“Hello, how are you?” the voice over the phone was dry and husky, was

definitely not Yong’s voice.

“Sorry, I changed my mind. I must go now.” Xiaoxia rushed out of the store, her

white sandals hit the concrete road with loud sound, her red umbrella dragging along

like a broken wing.

20 Xiaoxia lay down on the beach. Her face was hidden in the shadow of the red

umbrella, a few starfish scattered around her bare feet like the sea was decorating the

bare beach with tangerine stars; her sandals, dirty and wet, rocking in a pool of sea

water. One seagull gave a sharp cry, and swooped down on one of the starfish which was embedded at the feet of a small sand dune. Xiaoxia sat up quickly and flung her

opened umbrella toward the seagull to scare it away for the starfish. The seagull gave

another sharp cry, flew away towards the sea.

“It will eat anything, alive or dead,” a handsome young man stood in front of

Xiaoxia, smiling, his voice tinted with sadness, “The starfish died so quickly, I saved

some of them, but it is a hot day, starfish cannot make it if you cannot throw them back to the sea in time.”

Xiaoxia frowned, she didn’t know this man and she was not in a mood for

chitchat. Forty-four days passed since Yong disappeared after that night, the night he

turned her body into silk and songs, she surrendered herself to his kisses like the restless sea surrendering to the sunrise and storm. Forty-four days passed without a trace—that night soaked in her dreams and tears.

“I want to write a song about starfish, how they live in the sea and die under the

hot sun, die at a place of not their home.” the young man talked to Xiaoxia like he

knew her for a long time.

“It is strange,” Xiaoxia thought, “a song about starfish? I never heard of a song

about starfish.”

21 “So you are here for your song, not for saving the starfish?” Xiaoxia gazed at

the gloomy sea surging under the ruthless sun.

“It is not my song, it is their song. I am here to ask for a favor.” The young sat

down beside Xiaoxia, “Do you mind I sit here?”

“No.” Xiaoxia lay down again, ignoring the man, she felt tired and fury: why this strange guy talks nonsense to me!

“Last week I went to Beijing. At the Embassy Area I found a very good CD in a small Music Bar, and I persuaded the boss of the bar to sell it to me. I want you to

listen to it with me. It is really good.” The young man sat down beside Xiaoxia,

murmured like in a dream. He was wearing a tiny red swimming trunk, his barely

naked body was deeply tanned; the muscles on his arms bulged in the sun with

boldness.

Are you fucking crazy? I don’t know you. Xiaoxia wanted to shout, but said

nothing. In the richest city of China, Xiaoxia learned how to control her emotion in

front of strangers.

“Hi, how about I throw all these starfish into the sea, and then you go with me to listen to the CD?” The young man jumped up and began throwing the starfish with alacrity. Xiaoxia noticed that his one ear was pierced, and a tiny silver cross hanging as his erring.

Yong got his one ear pierced too. Xiaoxia asked him why he only got one ear

pierced, and he never wore an erring. Yong said he did it for his role in a drama

performed in his college theatre, and the role is gay.

22 “Are you gay?” Xiaoxia teased him. “Yes, before I met you.” He covered her with ferocious tenderness.

Ha! Perhaps this guy’s talking of starfish and music is a way to practice his girl-talk or to rehearse a role in a drama; how many strange things the life can have in store for you! Xiaoxia laughed to the hot sun, wanted to leave, to go somewhere she could be totally alone.

“The music is composed by a French guy, very romantic and noir. You will like it. My friend, who is an actor and got picky ears for music, he likes it so much that he wants to use it in his play.”

Xiaoxia felt dizzy, “Your friend is an actor?”

“Yes. He is very good actor. A good-looking guy with bad teeth.”

Yong had perfect teeth; his smile looked much more pleasant than all the versions of “flashing perfect whiteness of your enamel” in those commercial advertisements for toothpaste on TV. It couldn’t be him. Xiaoxia’s eyes darkened again. Why I am wasting my time on this loony guy?

“I finished my savior’s mission. Could we go now?” the young man was beaming, flashing his perfect teeth.

“No.” Xiaoxia closed her umbrella, picked up her sandals.

“No? That is the most beautiful music in the world! You don’t want to miss it.”

“I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you.” Xiaoxia said curtly.

“God, you are the first person I have met in my whole life who said to me ‘I don’t trust you’, but you will know soon how wrong you are.” The young man washed

23 his hand in the air, and then smelt his hands deeply, “How amazing it is—the smell of starfish is much better than the perfume of my landlord.”

Xiaoxia broke into a smile; she remembered how many times she complained to

Yong about the repulsive smell of the fat woman from whom she rented the apartment.

Yong used to say: “the fat lady must be the favorite person of the Imaginative Cat.”

“Why the Imaginative Cat?” Xiaoxia asked. “Every time the Imaginative Cat hugs her, he thinks of his favorite dish,” Yong laughed.

Catalyzed by Xiaoxia’s smile, words gushed out between the guy’s perfect teeth, piled up many kinds of goofy talk, which Xiaoxia felt repulsed yet enchanted.

“My name is Hui, but you can call me Regret. I felt so regretful that I cannot

save all the starfish. I regret that people tried so hard to take care of themselves but

seldom tried to take care of the nature. I regret that people wrote so many songs about

their emotion, and never cared to listen to the songs of nature. No one wrote a song

for the starfish.”

“I don’t think the starfish will give a damn about it.”

“Good point. But I love starfish. When you love someone, you want she gives a

damn about everything you care.”

Xiaoxia sighed. She thought of how she was proud of her choreography of

“seven-layer-scarf Salomé dance”, she never danced it in front of Yong. Although she

secretly hoped Yong would like it, she was afraid he might think the dance is cheesy.

“What is the song the starfish would like to sing?” Xiaoxia asked.

“Salty water, the home they love.” Regret stared at the ocean longingly.

24 “Maybe they got tired of their home, they want something different.” Xiaoxia

stared at the ocean with hollow eyes.

“And they died for the something different; they died of an empty dream.”

Regret got excited, “Come on, let’s go now for the music, music is my dream filled

with notes.”

Xiaoxia thought Regret perhaps was a swindler. She felt exhausted and dazzled

by the sun. She vomited on the beach—all her vomit was the mineral water she drank

all the day, she ate nothing; she didn’t feel hungry.

Regret put his hands on the back on Xiaoxia, patting gently, “You will feel better

after throwing up the salty water.”

“Don’t touch me.” Xiaoxia shouted sharply.

“Sorry.” Regret retreated and ran away. A few minutes later, Xiaoxia found her bare feet were twitching; she was attacked by a rare spasm, she could not move. “I will die here like the starfish.”

Xiaoxia dialed a number on her cell phone, that’s Yong’s number, she dialed it

thousands of times in the forty-four days, but no one answered it. “Hello,” a woman’s

voice, sweet and soft; Xiaoxia’s heart tightened, “Could I speak to Yong? I am one of

his relatives from the countryside.” “Wrong number.” The woman hung up.

Only if he is alive, I wish he is alive, I don’t care if he is living with another

woman. I don’t care at all!

Xiaoxia massaged her twitching feet, tried to stand up, but collapsed heavily on

the sand.

25 “Are you okay?” Regret bent over her, holding a medicine box and two bottle of

mineral water.

“Take me home.” Xiaoxia gave him a long sad look—she would take the risk of

trusting a potential swindler, she wanted to live. In this big city, everyone is stranger for her after Yong disappeared from her life.

“You will be okay. I promise. I am a doctor.” Regret knelt down in front of her and looked deep into her eyes, “Trust me.” She allowed him to hold her in arms, feeding her water and dabbing the “crystal-cool oil” on her temple.

Regret took her to his home. She stayed at his home for seven days. Regret was

not a swindler; he was a lonely pediatrician who thought his vocation was in the field

of romantic music. He lived in an apartment on the highest floor of a high rise close to

the ocean.

“Here you can see the full moon making love to the sea at the mid-autumn night

or two full moons teasing each other—one on the sky, one in the ocean.” Regret showed off his big clean window and the ocean view.

“Regret, let me listen to the music, the sweet surrender in the rain.” Xiaoxia sat on the white carpet, eating litchi from a green bowl; she was in a red T-shirt, long and big, covered her legs. His shirt.

“I knew you would fall in love with it.” Regret put down the purple velvet curtain.

Music entered the room, flowing and enchanting in the purple light. Xiaoxia closed her eyes.

26 She had been listening to the CD many times; her face became solemn while

she was listening.

If not for the music, Xiaoxia would have left this goofy guy two days ago when

he tried to make love to her in a ridiculously clumsy way—he insisted doing a massage on her feet every night, and one night he raised her foot to his lips: “What a cute little dove”, and he kissed her toe before she pull her foot away.

When Xiaoxia was crying in her dreams, he would stand by the bed, sigh and

sigh again, and then tiptoe out of room, write a song about his sighs.

“You are a nice guy. But I have a husband, sorry!” Xiaoxia lied. And she refused

his foot massage after the toe-kissing incident.

“It doesn’t matter to me. It matters that I can see you and feel the wonder being

with you,” He grabbed her hand and raised it to his hot lips.

“Stop it. I must go.” Xiaoxia would collect her things, would be ready to go.

“Please do not go. Your feet need more rest.” He would beg her to stay in all his

goofy clumsy ways.

She stayed for the music, for the CD with a title “sweet surrender in the rain.”

On the seventh day, a raining Sunday, Regret was playing his guitar, singing a song he

wrote for starfish: “How many ways you can kill me, how many ways you can love

me. If you gonna take my life, kill me with a sharp knife. If you gonna kiss me, kiss

me in the falling rain. Oh, kiss me in the falling rain….”

When his riff got too sentimental, his glances lingered on Xiaoxia’s face for too

long, Xiaoxia covered her ears with hands, shaking her head to let him stop.

27 “Regret, can I ask you a favor?” Xiaoxia said when the starfish song stopped.

“Anything, including my heart.” Regret flashed his grin.

“If I give you one hundred Yuan, could you sell me the CD?”

“I will give you the CD as a gift if you like it so much.”

“Thank you. I love the music.”

Xiaoxia said “good bye” to Regret and ran into the falling rain with her red umbrella and the CD in her purse.

“How many ways you can kill me,” Xiaoxia laughed in her own room, imitating the terribly artificial tone of Regret, “How many ways you can love me.”

She danced in front of a large mirror, cautiously managed and measured her steps; sometimes she jumped very high like a scared antelope, sometimes lowered down her body into floor like a willow leaf floating on the surface of a lake.

In the deepest darkness of the midnight, Xiaoxia listened to the “Sweet

Surrender in the Rain” playing in her CD player, she curled up in the corner, holding her umbrella tightly in one hand. She was immersed into the music and into a big design of killing the darkness with the elusive and determined notes of sound and silence.

Ten days passed, Yong had disappeared sixty days ago. In the ten days, Regret kept calling Xiaoxia every day, and talking about his new song of starfish until

Xiaoxia blocked his number.

In the ten days, Xiaoxia completed her new version of “seven-layer-scarf

Salomé dance”.

28 Xiaoxia flew back to her home town, a sleepy city in North China, named

Stoneville which was exploded with the news and anecdotes of the youngest and the most capable vice mayor, the first vice mayor who hold a Ph.D degree in Law. On the slick wall of the airport, there was a big poster on which the dashing and beaming vice mayor was giving a speech about “how to make the inland city open up to the new ideas and new tech innovations.” Xiaoxia held her red umbrella tight, and ran

quickly to the bathroom and vomited violently.

Xiaoxia booked a room in a two-star hotel, and called to the vice mayor with a pay phone in a telephone booth. She called to the vice mayor’s office although she knew his private cell phone number.

“Would you like to see the seven-layer-scarf dance?” she said with a soft casual tone; her eyes staring hard at the top of her red umbrella.

“Where are you, are you back? Yes. I want to see you.” The vice mayor’s voice

was controlled, but Xiaoxia recognized the familiar tremor of excitement in it.

“Meet me in the lobby of the Victoria Hotel. I will sit at the table near the big

China Vase.” Xiaoxia hung up. She knew he would come to the hotel wearing his dark

sunglasses, pass the revolving hotel door, fast and inconspicuous like a ghost.

Xiaoxia was wearing a dark-red long dress, a white hat with three silk red

hibiscus flowers on the white silk hat band, and she put on a pair of huge dark

sun-glasses before she entered the five-star hotel.

The vice mayor came to her table, whispered: “Let’s get out of here. Meet me in the Blue Cat bar behind the hotel.”

29 “I can’t. Sit down please. I will come to your villa five days from now. I’m

having a very hard time now—I got my period, and I am suffering anemia. I need rest

after my flight.” Xiaoxia took off her hat, her long black hair flowing down upon her

slender shoulders.

“Okay. Here is a card, a gift card; you can use it in every big store in this city.

Where are you living now? I will pick you up at eight o’clock five days from now.”

The vice mayor slipped a small blue card into Xiaoxia’s hand.

“I will go to your villa, give me the door pass and the key. I live with my aunt. It

is not good for you if she sees you and your car—she has big mouth.”

“Here is the key and the door path. Come to me at night, eight o’clock.”

Xiaoxia did a long careful makeup—she thickened her eyebrow, and made her

lips fuller and swelling by using a special lotion. A false round mole spiced up her beautiful face, her messy curly wig covered her left eye; her right eye looked so bright with the dark mascara. She put on a pair of over-padded large-size red bra. She passed the young security guard who stood at the gate of villa and gawk at her curvy figure, tried hard to see her face which was hidden in the shadow of her red umbrella. In the vice mayor’s villa, Xiaoxia danced in front of a mirror with the seven scarves layered on her shoulders.

The vice mayor lounged on a red leather sofa, watching her; he was trilled to see

that Xiaoxia was showing him a new version of her Salomé dance with new music—a

concerto titled “sweet surrender in the rain”, composed by a French guy. Xiaoxia

opened her red umbrella, under the red shade, she danced. She threw away the silver

30 first, then the aqua blue, the tangerine, the purple, the burgundy, the emerald green,

and then the music turned into allegro, with the storm-like heavy and tense rhythm;

she flew and spun, she pulled the red scarf up from her shoulder, and covered her face.

The tone of the music became bolder and brighter; she flounced and raised one of her

legs high—he shot his impatience glances towards the red G-string silk panty under her red dress. She pulled down the scarf and revealed her face, a strange smile quavering on her lips. She shook the red scarf fast, making red waves of it with the music. She closed the red umbrella and put it down at her feet. The music slowed down into a melodious adagio. She spun around and threw up the red scarf into the ceiling, and she caught it in the air and fanned it out on the white carpet; she made a bridge over the scarf and picked up the scarf with her teeth; with the fiery red dangling down from her full-lipped mouth, she raised her body slowly. The music highlighted a note from the harp, like a trembling feather fluttering down in the rain, still flying but heavier with wetness. The vice mayor’s eyes brightened and darkened, his stare became less sharp and stickier; he took off his clothes: mauve Pierre Cardan shirt, and white Amani pants, he walked towards the fiery allure of curve and color.

Swish! A red umbrella blocked his way, Xiaoxia brandished the closed umbrella, whispered “We will do it in the rain.” The vice mayor blinked his eyes: “You mean we will do it on the open balcony?” He couldn’t do that—he must keep his public image as a moral model, but he toyed the idea he would do that if she opened her like a flower on his newly-gained water bed in the dark, in the balcony, in the rain and wind.

31 “In your bath tub under a shower sharing an umbrella as lovers do.” She

murmured, twiddling the red umbrella.

The vice mayor lay down in the bath tub under a warm shower. Xiaoxia open

the umbrella, “Close your eyes, I will warm you up.” He closed his eyes. Her kiss was

silent but the sound of shower hitting on the umbrella was loud. An icy touch stirred

his burning blood-rushing underbelly; he opened his eyes and saw the red umbrella inverted; he couldn’t see her face, “What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer him; she pierced the awl-like sharp point of the umbrella into

his belly, and covered his face with a wet towel which muffled his howling. She

pierced five holes under his belly button. She rinsed her red umbrella under the

shower, blood and water flew down into the draining hole.

She put on a pair of red glove, took out the CD from the vice mayor’s CD player.

There were some words on the CD: “sweet surrender in the rain”. She cleared her

makeup and took off her wig, and changed into a white cotton dress. She put her

seven scarves, her red dress and the red umbrella into a red plastic bag. When she left

the villa and passed the security guard, she looked like one of those country girls who

wore the old-fashioned pigtail and who did part-time cleaning job in the villa.

32

CHAPTER III

UNDER THE HARD SHELL OF A LUXURIOUS SHIP

Christian wanted to hear my story. “You are the first Chinese girl I have ever met in my life; I want to know you like I want to find the oriental pearl hidden in the depth of the Asian sea.” Christian’ blue eyes glistened under the stars, his voice low

and soothing like the gentle waves singing lullaby to the giant cradle of the sleeping

sea. Christian is not my boyfriend; he is a foreigner, a guy from Finland with a giant

and nimble figure like an ideal image of Tarzan. Every Chinese girl in this luxurious

cruise ship thought Christian is my boyfriend because he not only bought me flowers

every day but also looked at me with that look a guy only gives to his

girlfriend—intense and shy, warm and tentative, drunk with joy but alert and cool

enough to keep romantic ritual and abide by propriety. Christian asked what day my

birthday is, asked what my favorite flower and fruit is. I told him I forgot my birthday

and I don’t know what’s my favorite flower and fruit; Christian seemed astonished,

“What happened on your birthday? Why are you trying to forget your birthday? Who

ruined you favorite flower and fruit? Why are you not happy? Tell me your stories.”

Christian is a guy who sees a lot of the world, and has seldom been astonished,

“I have been on the sea for seventeen years, and I heard a lot of stories. Even the

33 ocean becomes too shallow when you compare it with human’s heart. Sometimes the stories of a small man are bigger than a whale; sometimes the stories of a little girl are deeper than the ocean. Tell me your stories. Why did you always carry this red umbrella with you even there was no rain and the sun was hidden behind the cloud?”

Christian cannot speak Chinese, but his English is fluent. He talks like a poet or for me he sounds like a poet. English is not my mother tongue; it is not for me to judge. I like Christian’s talking—his long sentences jumped and danced gracefully with elegant rhythms and gentle inflections. My English is not good, and I don’t want to tell Christian my stories; and even if I want to tell, I know that I only can tell him a heavily-revised and cautiously-cut version of my stories—false stories dressed with sugar coats. I could never tell him the true story; the core of my stories is untouchable.

The narrative of the truth even in silence can torture me into tears, I know if I try to tell Christian my stories in English, I will lose my control of words and emotions, I will break down. My loss of control will only confuse him, my struggling and stumbling in the pain may frighten him. No art of storytelling is sharp enough to pierce through the thick shell of the hard story which wraps up the soft and the unspeakable.

Christian sent me red roses today. I know the flower on this cruise ship is extremely expensive. I want to tell Christian “You needn’t spend all this money on these roses, I don’t like rose at all.” But I know it is a lie—I like rose and especially white rose. Should I tell him that I like white rose better than red rose? I had better not.

I don’t want to see white rose any more, white rose only makes me sick.

34

Christian wanted to hear my story—after he gave me the bouquet of red roses,

he lingered at my dorm, said: “Xiaoxia, let’s go to the open-air bar on the deck, we

will talk.” I don’t want to talk, but I don’t want stay in my tiny dorm and stare at the

white wall either—I know the windowless little white cell will drive me crazy. So I said: “Christian, we will go to the deck, and you will talk, I will listen to you.”

Christian smiled, “As you like.”

On the deck, the wind from the sea, salty and strong, hit on my eyes. I felt giddy

and I held on my umbrella for support. Christian stopped his giant stride and looked at

me: “Are you okay?” I wanted to cry, to throw myself into the sea, to disappear, to

float among the waves, to become a dolphin. But I heard my calm voice: “Yes. I am

good”, and I saw my red umbrella caught the sunshine, and the bright red, delicate

and intense, looked so beautiful.

“Hi, Christian and this beautiful young lady, how can I help you?” bartender Ed beamed. Ed is also from Finland; Christian told me Ed was his best friend.

“Water, please.” I said.

“Scotch.” Christian’s glances, long and tender, touched me tentatively, “Do you

want something with your water?”

“No.”

The sea was raising and falling, pushing and tearing the sunshine on the waves. I sipped my water, listening to the seabirds shrieking in the wind. Christian cleared his throat, began, “Xiaoxia, I divorced nine years ago, and I have a ten-year-old daughter

35 and she is living with her mother.” I didn’t respond. I was listening to the waves. “I

have a large farm in Finland; my father gave it to me when he died twenty years ago.

Have you seen a farm? Xiaoxia?” He sipped his scotch, talking and talking. I felt

giddy, his voiced mixed with song of waves. I didn’t want to answer him. My

thoughts flew away from me, rambling and roaring on the waves, my thoughts about my lost home.

Christian stopped his talking. He was looking at me, his eyes, sad and bright,

“Xiaoxia, let’s go.”

I sat on a swivel chair in Christian’ office surrounded by monitors; Christian is

the security manager in this cruise ship. On one of the monitors’ screen, I saw the

deck and the two empty chairs in the open-air bar we just left from. Christian made

one cup of hot chocolate for me, and handed the large china cup to me in silence. I

had never drunk hot chocolate before, but I liked the smell and the warmth passed to

my hands from the large cup. I sipped the chocolate; it tasted so sweet. I like it.

“Christian, thank you.” I like Christian too, but I know I will never tell him my story.

On some starless nights, when the wind from sea got wild and was hollering like

hungry wolves, I told my stories to the white wall in my tiny dorm. I must hear my

own voice, I know if I keep staring at the white wall and do nothing, and the cold

whiteness on the empty wall will drive me crazy.

I am twenty two. I am Chinese. I dropped out of college when I was a

sophomore, I had to. I found a job at this cruise ship as a waitress. The salary is good,

but the job is not interesting. My job is setting the tables in the main dining

36 room—spread clean white tablecloths over the round tables, put a slim white vase on

the table, and make sure the false red tulip in the vase is spotless. And I must speak

English when I wait at the table to cater to the guests from all over the world. I must

wear a burgundy uniform and one pair of thin-heeled faux leather black shoes; I must

comb my long hair, make it look slick and neat with a shining black net wrapping it

up into a loose bun—chignon in French, one French guy told me the word when I

waited at his table. I must use the perfume provided by the cruise company, make sure

I smell good. I must present a happy smile all the time—that is the hardest part.

Sometimes I want to quit my job, and go to college again, but I know I couldn’t—I

must leave the land behind me, and I must live on the ocean, and there is no college

on the ocean. Although it is lonely as hell for me to live on the ocean, I cannot go

back to the mountains where I used to be happy; there is no home in the mountains

any more. Land and mountains, they are far away from me now. It is better for me to

live on the water, with no place to land, floating everyday like the waves.

I was six years old. My grandpa made a fire under his Kang—the bed made of

clay-bricks and mud edged with smooth stone tiles. He made the fire in the big hole

he dug out from the front wall of the Kang, and tried to heat the clay bed and make his

tattered quilt warmer—he couldn’t bring himself to lie under a cold quilt in a winter

night, and that winter was extremely cold. I helped grandpa poke the wood and make

the fire burn better, and I felt hungry—I always felt hungry when I was a little girl.

My mom only gave me corn bread at the low table make of the dead elm tree in our courtyard, the rough low table served as the “meal table” for my family; and mom

37 forbad me to grab food at any time except the three formal meals she prepared for our

family everyday, “Only brats without discipline and decency glutton like pigs all the

time. A nice girl should control her appetite and never touch food except at the proper

time.” My mom said to me in a stern tone. I thought Mom was trying to impose a

discipline on me. I didn’t know at that time Mom was strict with my eating habit

because there was not enough food in my home; I didn’t know the droughts or the

fierce storms and hales would destroy the wheat and corn in our farm, and the big clay

urns in our barn would look empty without the golden corn and white wheat to fill

their big belly. I was so hungry that I hunted food in the wood, in the valley and in the

mountains. I ate the tiny eggs raw I found in the quails’ nests on a small hill, I sucked

the white sticky juice from the snails I poked out from the mossy wall in the shady

corner of the wood, I chewed the crispy shells sloughed by the cicadas on the barks of

the trees, I burned the mute female cicadas, and swallowed their hard meat greedily, I

left the noisy male cicadas alone because some villagers told me that the meat of male

cicadas was poisonous. I was proud that I was a cautious cicada-eater. I was proud that I always knew how to distinguish the male cicada from the female cicada—the male is noisy singer, and the female is humble and never dares raise her voice, she keeps silent all her life. I loved the female cicadas better because they were edible.

But sometimes I was not that cautious. I followed other kids in my village, hunting food in the creek. There were small fish and tadpoles swimming in the muddy water.

One ten-year-old boy, nicknamed “Potty” said: “You should not eat the small fish raw, they will grow up in your stomach and pierce you belly by biting, and you will die.

38 But you can eat tadpoles; they can do no harm to your tummy.” Following him I

cupped some water in hands with tiny tadpoles swimming in the green mossy net in it,

swallowed down the soup-like food with one gulp, and the next day I got sick. My

tummy hurt like burning, my mom had to feed me two fried eggs to stop my crying.

In spring, I would check the fruit trees I found in the wild—the apricot, the pear, the

plum, the persimmon, the crab apple and the Chinese date. I would check whether the

flowers on these trees were in good shape, whether the bees sang happily and sucked

on the flowers, I would make a mental note about which tree would bring me good

fruit in summer or autumn, and in summer and in autumn I would claim my fruits

according to my notes about the flowers. I was seldom disappointed—I always found

the right tree and got a lot of edible fruits. In summer, I relished the golden sweet

apricots, I bit into juicy cool pears, and I had to restrain my appetite for the sour

plums—they could make my tummy heavy and twisting as swirling stone if I ate too

much. If I got tired of fruit, I could sneak into the wheat field, sucked the half-ripened

green ear until the milky juice soaked my tongue, the fresh fragrance and the gentle

sweetness elevated me into a glorious elation in feeling happy and full. In autumn, I used a long bamboo rod to knock down the Chinese dates which hung high on tiny twigs of a slim date tree, and chewed the Chinese dates into a meaty jam and savored

the sweet silky fiber with joy. In deep autumn, I climbed up the rough persimmon tree,

picking up the red mini-lantern-like fruits, and put them away in a clay basin in my

grandpa’s room, and add one autumn-pear into the basin to boost up the taste and

mellow them up quickly. I controlled my appetite by my rule “one persimmon one

39 day”, because I heard my grandpa said once, “Eating too many persimmons can

destroy your intestine, and you will die miserably.” But winter was harsh, no fruits, no

cicada and no snail, no way to find food in the wild. I felt extremely hungry in winter.

My grandpa sometimes brought me “honey finger” from the town where he bought

seeds and farming tools. The “honey finger” was made of dough and white sugar,

deep fried in corn oil, sweet and crispy, I thought it was the best treat for every kid in

my village, because when I said “honey finger”, every kid’s mouth began watering.

Once I ate up the whole bag of “honey finger” in one minute, my stomach couldn’t

adjust to the sudden glutton of sugar and oil, I vomited and suffered like hell, I never

touched “honey finger” ever since.

My grandpa made fire to heat his Kang, the rectangle clay bed I slept on the other half. Grandpa knew I was hungry. He poked the burning wood and hay, his large gaunt hand steered a long iron chopstick into the fire and in the corner of the hole, and he dipped the chopstick under the grey ashes and clipped a loaf of golden dough out of fire.

“I would like to give you a may-the-piglet-like-it,” he dangled the inviting baked

dough in front of me. “What is may-the-piglet-like-it?” I swallowed my saliva,

pretending I was not tempted at all. “May-the-piglet-like-it is the thing that makes a

naughty piglet wag her little tail.” Grandpa’s deep-set eyes sparkled in the orange

light of fire, he looked very young. “Can I eat the dough?” I couldn’t resist the good

smell of the golden food, my mouth began watering. “Yes, if you wag your tail first.”

Grandpa teased me, hiding the dough behind his back. I racked my little brain to

40 finger out where was my tail, then I was struck with a brilliant idea—I grabbed my pigtail in my hand, and flung it in small circles, appealing to my grandpa. My grandpa laughed, “Here you are, enjoy your may-the-piglet-like-it.” He gave me the golden dough, and I ate as voraciously as a hungry wolf.

Grandpa knew how to make a good fire to heat our Kang, but he was old and he didn’t know how to warm up his cold dying body. When the fire died under the Kang, the whole room became cold and dark. I saw grandpa put his gaunt hand into his tattered quilt, and flinched with a hiss, “Still so cold” he murmured. Grandpa didn’t have an electric mattress to heat up his bedding for whole night like those senior citizens living in the city; there was no electricity in our small village. Grandpa put some cheap kerosene into a glass bottle, and made a wick by twisting some cotton threads into a single cord, and made a humble lamp by putting one end of the cord into the kerosene, and one end above a tiny iron lid after pulled through the small hole in it. The light of the lamp was never steady, flickered in the wind, spattered like dying when the cord could not suck enough kerosene and burned itself into a black knot. Under the dim light of the kerosene lamp, I saw grandpa was sad, his deep wrinkles twisted and contracted, he was going to cry. “Grandpa, tell me a story.” I said. I didn’t want my grandpa to cry, I must distract him from slipping into the deep darkness of bad mood.

“There was a beautiful woman, very beautiful. She married a farmer who was sixteen years her senior. The farmer loved her very much, she was the apple in his eyes, and he swore to Buddha that he would die for her if something bad happened to

41 her. She loved sewing beautiful clothes; he bought her a nice sewing machine, the best he could afford, and that was the first sewing machine in their village. Every man in the village laughed at the farmer, they thought he spoiled his wife; every woman in the village envied the beautiful woman, they thought she lived like a queen with the luxury of owning a sewing machine, at that time a sewing machine was more expensive than a strong horse. The beautiful woman designed and sewed beautiful clothes for her and her husband; they were the happiest couple in the world. One day, the beautiful woman saw a picture on an old newspaper—the picture of Chiang

Kai-shek’s wife, and she liked the dress in the picture very much, and she made a same styled dress on her sewing machine—that was the first “QiPao” in the village, the most stylish clothes favored by the rich ladies. She wore her “QiPao” and she looked more beautiful. She didn’t know many women in the village envied her so much that they wanted to destroy her. The cultural revolution came like a storm, the jealousy they held towards the beautiful woman was let out like fierce brute—they said the beautiful woman was a spy working for the Americans, she dressed like

Chiang Kai-Shek’ wife because she was corrupted by the poisonous ideas of capitalism. They beat her in her face; they beat her to death in the name of defending the purity of Chinese revolution, in the name of punishing a traitor. The farmer saw her being beaten, he could do nothing, he must live and protect their son—a twelve-year-old little boy; if he rushed to his beautiful wife, he would be beaten to death too. He didn’t want their son to become an orphan. He saw his wife was beaten and died in front of him. He didn’t die for her like he swore to Buddha.” Grandpa’s

42 voice dwindled into silence, his gaunt hands were trembling. I saw Grandpa’s

trembling, I thought he was cold. I put my hands into his quilt, it was cold. So I said

to my grandpa: “I will warm up your cold quilt, I heard Potty’s father said that little kids’ bottoms are warm like fire even in winter, I will warm up your quit with my

bottom.” And I put my small body into grandpa’s cold quilt, praying to Buddha let my

bottom give as much warmth as possible to my grandpa’s quilt. I prayed when my

grandpa lay down under his quilt, he would feel warm and would not tremble any

more.

My grandpa blinked his eyes and sighed deeply, “Thank you. Xiaoxia, you are

such a sweet girl, just like your grandma.” I didn’t know at that moment, the beautiful

woman in my grandpa’s story is my grandma.

In winter, the sleeves of my bulging winter coat would become shining and hard

like metal. That was the natural result of scrubbing my flowing nose in wind with my

sleeves—there were no handkerchief for kids, no napkins; all the kids in the village

cleaned their nose and mouth with their sleeves; the sticky white or yellow snot and

the various stuff stuck around our greedy mouth after every meal would end up on our

sleeves, and the winter would make them solid and smooth by its persistent touch of

cold wind and icy air. Our sleeves would shine under the cold sun. Some kids would

gladly hold a contest in which they would choose the most shining and the smoothest

sleeves, the winner would laugh and jump—we were happy and we didn’t know we

were poor.

43 In that cold winter, Grandpa was very sick. My father drove the horse carriage

and sent grandpa to the only hospital in the town. Grandpa was suffering from a bad

liver—the doctors call it cancer. Grandpa refused to be hospitalized and forced my father to drive him back home—he said he would like to die in his home. But the villagers gossiped in the mud street, whispering that my grandpa didn’t want to spend money on treating his disease; he wanted to save some money for his future grandson.

My mother was expecting, according to some custom, everyone in the village said it would be a son, because my parents wanted a son so badly, they would shun anyone who said “It might be a girl” as a plague, no one wanted to be a plague. I was curious—what if my mother will give birth to a baby girl, what if I will not have a little brother? I asked my neighbor, Potty’s mother nicknamed Fatty-sassy: “What would happen if my mom will have a baby girl?”

Fatty-sassy smirked: “Your mom will sell the baby girl.”

I was frightened, “Why? Just because it is a girl?”

Fatty-sassy spat on the mud street, and laughed: “Yes, of course. Your mom tried to sell you when you were a baby girl.”

I spat on the mud to show my contempt, “You are a liar. I don’t believe you!”

But when I calmed down, I prayed to Buddha that my mom would have a baby

boy, I would have a little brother—I wanted my mom to be happy.

My mom seemed not happy most times. She scolded me severely when I ran fast

racing with my dog Swift, she yelled at me: “You are not a boy, remember you are a

girl. Don’t run like a boy! Don’t wear off your shoes like a wild brat! I would not

44 make new shoes for you if you break your shoes and expose your big toe!” She

slapped me on my back when I took a cold bath in an iron basin giggling and

splashing the water to the chickens—the chickens loved playing with me, they

thought I was throwing them food with the water. “Behave yourself, sassy girl! Don’t

mess with the chickens, they will peck you eyes out and eat them!” After a heavy slap

on my back, my mom would curse the chicken, saying bad words towards the poor creatures. My mom lost her temper when I asked her to sew a sand ball for me like the

one Potty had, “Everyone has a sand ball, mom. Please make one for me. I want to

play, but they won’t play with me if I don’t have a sand ball.” I pleaded with tears. My

mom shouted with red face: “You are liar. Everyone has a ball! How such a tiny little

girl uses the big word! Everyone! Everyone has two hands—use your hands, make a

ball by yourself! I am too busy to serve you. I am busy with feeding the whole

family!” I made my own sand ball on that same day. I picked up the smallest and the

useless corn in the barn, pulled off the tiny corn from the cob as my sand—the filling

of a ball made of rags. I played with the kids, no one laughed at my ugly ball—the clumsy stitches, the shabby dark old cloth.

My mom quarreled with my dad loudly, shrieking and screaming; my dad beat

her on her mouth. I stood between them, holding my ugly sand ball, trying to settle

their battle with words: “Everyone knows couple should not shout at each other;

Fatty-sassy spanked Potty, but she didn’t fight with Potty’ dad, her husband. She said

being a couple even only for one day their love is deeper than the ocean.”

45 My dad laughed and stopped his beating. My mother shooed me like she

shooed the chicken: “Get out of here!”

When my grandpa came back from the hospital, he brought me some delicious

cake: the famous “Fragrant Seeds Cake”, the best cake in the eyes of all my villagers.

“He is dying, his eyes turned into yellow, and his face became purple.” Fatty-sassy

whispered among a small group of gossipy wives. I overheard her whisper, and I

knew she was talking about my grandpa. I warmed up grandpa’s quilt with my body

every night before he was sent to hospital, but after he came back he slept in his cold

quilt all day and all night, he didn’t need my help with his quilt anymore. My grandpa

called for my mom and dad, and asked them to make a promise, “Don’t touch the

Fragrant Seed Cake, promise me. I bought the cake for Xiaoxia.” That night, even the

best cake couldn’t distract me from worrying about my grandpa—his eyes looked so

yellow, and his face became dark and purple like an aubergine shrinking under bad

frostbite.

“Grandpa, do not die. I will make a fire to warm up your Kang; I will bake you

a golden dough.” I said.

I cried into a chaotic dream, in the dream I saw grandpa was buried under heavy chunk of ice—he was trembling, he was cold; I was searching for dry branches and

wood to make a fire around the ice, but I could not find any dry wood—it was raining,

every branches and every piece of wood was soaked in cold water. I couldn’t make a

fire to save grandpa. I was heartbroken. I was awakened by my own crying.

46 “Xiaoxia, wake up. Put on your warm clothed to call Potty’s mother, I need to talk to her.” My grandpa said in a feeble voice.

I didn’t know my grandpa let me leave the room because he didn’t want me to see him die.

It was dark, I couldn’t see grandpa’s face, but I felt something bad was happening. I didn’t want to leave grandpa there alone, I wanted to fight for him, but I didn’t know how.

I put on my winter coat, “Grandpa, I will find some dry wood and I will make a fire to warm up the Kang.”

I left the dark room, ran into the cold air under the starless dark sky. I shouted in the courtyard to my parent’s window: “Get up, Mom and Dad. I need your help; I need some dry wood to make a fire for Grandpa!”

Grandpa died before I made the fire at that night. That was the first time I saw death with my own eyes. I was six years old. I hadn’t gone to school yet; I didn’t know there is ocean outside of my village; I never imagined I could stand on a cruise ship talking to a foreigner in a foreign language. This foreigner would never know the little girl who cried so sadly for the first death she saw, could conjure up a bad death someday with a solo dance.

47

CHAPTER IV

IF THE WORLD IS A FEMALE CICADA

When Xiaoxia was six years old, she overheard some toothless old villagers

talking about something strange and mysterious.

It was in a hot summer day. Xiaoxia caught two female cicadas from an old

apricot tree in her grandpa’s orchard. She knew the two cicadas were female because

they were silent and they didn’t make a sound even when the horse hair hoop fastened

around their neck and they were struggling desperately to escape. Xiaoxia always

remembered her father’s contempt for the female cicada: “Only the male cicadas can

sing; the female cicadas are dumb!” her father told her many times. But, she still

loved the female cicadas; and she never liked the male cicadas because she knew the

male cicadas’ meat not only is inedible but also poisonous. She loved the female

cicadas better because they were edible and could be very delicious when there was

no food in the kitchen. She caught the female cicadas with a long bamboo rod. On the

thin and flexible tip of the bamboo rod, she glued one horse tail hair and bent it into a tiny hoop ending with a delicate knot. After she got a glimpse of two silent female

cicadas among the dappled leaves of the apricot tree, she held up the rod firmly and managed to trap the cicada into the tiny hoop which tied up the cicada like a lasso on

48 a horse neck. She gave the rod a quick yank. The knot tightened and the hoop

contracted like magic with the cicada’s fluttering and struggling. The cicada ended up

in Xiaoxia’s small hand, half dead from fear. Xiaoxia put the cicada under a big iron

thread sifter under the apricot tree and waited until the cicada recovered from her panic and began fluttering again; then Xiaoxia raised her bamboo rod and a few seconds later had another female cicada tied tight within the horsehair hoop.

“Xiaoxia, off you hand from it!—it is not right for a little girl to play with a long stick,” a long-faced old Chinese man with a long white goatee yelled out a high-pitched dialect while he limped towards the old apricot tree. “You know nothing about the girl’s ordinance; it is high time for you mother to teach you. What are you hiding in your hand? Be a good girl, come here and show me your hand.”

Xiaoxia knew this old man, everyone in her village knew this man. This toothless old man talked to every man, and petted every dog he saw in the village; he had a nickname “Shouting Donkey” because of his long face and his loud shrieking voice. Xiaoxia never liked talking to the Shouting Donkey— she thought he was a noisy bore like those ever-howling male cicadas. Xiaoxia opened her hand and with a quick swing of her wrist, the second cicada she caught and the lucky one awoke from panic and flew away with a swish. Shouting Donkey was taken aback by the sudden brush of the cicada’s wings against his left ear; he staggered, sizzling with fury,

“Damned disgusting worm! Xiaoxia, you are playing with the damned cicadas again!

I will tell your father and he will spank you!”

49 Xiaoxia jumped and ran toward a circular shrubbery made of five Chinese

prickly ash trees, and hid herself behind the lush leaves. When she saw a squirrel

scampering in front her, she thought: “I am sure I can catch a squirrel with my

bamboo rod. I just need make a larger hoop with some light-colored Nylon rope, and

a knife to cut a notch on the rod to fasten the rope in,” and she realized she dropped

her rod before she made the run. She wanted her rod back. She peeped through the

twigs and saw Shouting Donkey’s long face was above the tip of the her bamboo rod,

and getting nearer and nearer to the horsehair hoop; there was something funny on his

face: all his wrinkles were doing a drunkard’s dance—twitching, lurching, loosening

and finally stiff as dead.

“My God! My Buddha! It is impossible! It is impossible!” the old man cried. He

wiped his eyes with the hem of his ragged shirt and stared at the horsehair on the rod;

his toothless mouth gaping and his gray lips trembling. He looked so stupid. Xiaoxia

wanted to laugh, but she kept as quiet as possible—she wanted to see what made

Shouting Donkey become so strange and so stupid.

“Hi, Donkey, what are you doing? Did you find gold bar on that bamboo rod?

Look at you—your eyes are bulging like they are on a dragonfly’s head!” a small old

man with white beard entered the orchard and walked toward the old apricot tree; he

talked to Shouting Donkey in a casually teasing tone. Xiaoxia knew this old man—he was her grandpa.

“It’s about your granddaughter. She is not a regular girl. She is some kind of

incarnation of a fairy or a devil! Look at this! Could you believe it? She made a magic

50 knot with horsehair! And she is only five! Unbelievable!” Shouting Donkey shook his

head; his bulging eyes still glued on the tip of the bamboo rod.

“Xiaoxia is six now, and Xiaoxia is not an incarnation of a fairy or devil! Do not

talk nonsense, Donkey.” Xiaoxia’s grandpa sat down, cross-legged, smoking deeply

from a long dark pipe with a bright copper holder. He didn’t want to talk about his

granddaughter for many reasons. One of them was that all villagers knew that when

Xiaoxia was two-year-old, her parents tried to sell her to a rich city couple who

offered a large amount of money, and it was he who slapped Xiaoxia’s father and

stopped the baby-selling. He knew that all the villagers thought he made a huge

mistake—to keep the baby girl, he slapped a grown-up man, his only son; and to keep

the baby girl, he lost the large amount of money which could buy him fifteen horses.

“Who taught your granddaughter to make this magic knot with horsehair? If no one taught her, then she is a devil.” Shouting Donkey’s voice was low and intense, not like his usual shrill at all.

“Do not talk nonsense, Donkey! Xiaoxia is a very smart kid. She is not devil.”

Xiaoxia’s grandpa puffed out a long smoke, “Xiaoxia is very quick to learn new

things. Maybe she saw the magic knot somewhere and she figured it out. She is very

curious.”

“Then she is a devil. You should have sold her when she was a baby girl for that

money. Now I see why that rich couple offered that huge amount of money to buy

her—they must have seen something singular in her. She is not a regular girl. She

caught the cicadas with a magic knot!” Shouting Donkey raised his voice.

51 “Donkey! Stop it. Xiaoxia is a normal girl. There is nothing wrong about

catching cicada with a bamboo rod. She is just a little girl who wants to play.”

Xiaoxia’s grandpa became worried—he didn’t want Xiaoxia to look too special in the

villagers’ eyes; he didn’t want her to get killed like her grandma.

“Why does she play with cicadas? A worm with wings is the messenger of devil!

Do you know what she did with the cicada? She hid it in her hand and then she set it

free. There is something dark in it! You must talk to her, ask her about it!” Shouting

Donkey’s long face looked gloomy, his shrieking voice quavering with excitement.

“Shut up Donkey! You are talking nonsense! Who told you cicada is the

messenger of devil? Xiaoxia is a good kid; she takes care of five chickens to help her

mother. She feeds the chickens with worms and cicadas to save the corn for our family.

She saved the corn for her mother to bake more bread for our meal.” Xiaoxia’s grandpa raised his sleeve to dab his moistened eyes; he smothered the trembling in his

voice with loud coughing as if his smoking nearly choked him.

Xiaoxia didn’t want to hear her grandpa coughing like that. She felt sad and she

didn’t want to hide from her grandpa. She thought it was the dark cloud of smoke that hurt her grandpa’s throat and made him cough so badly. She wanted to help him. So she ran back to old apricot tree and said to her grandpa: “Grandpa, you wait here for me, I will find something to cure your throat.” She sprinted towards her home which was seventy feet away from the orchard; she came back a few minutes later with a big green pear in her small hand. “Grandpa, eat the pear. It is good for your throat. I just picked it from the tall pear tree in our courtyard. It is very fresh.”

52 “Xiaoxia, my throat is good now. You eat the pear yourself. It is a hot day.

Remember, Xiaoxia, don’t run so fast on a hot day. You are sweating. You’d better eat

a pear to cool your body down.” Xiaoxia’s grandpa gave the pear back to Xiaoxia,

with smiles in his moistened eyes.

“Grandpa, you eat it. I just drank one gourd of cold water; I am not sweating.”

Xiaoxia put the pear on her grandpa’s lap and ran away quickly.

Xiaoxia didn’t run very far. She wanted to see her grandpa enjoying the

pear—she knew it was his favorite fruit. She hid behind the thick trunk of an old

walnut tree at the far corner of the orchard.

“Xiaoxia is a good kid.” Her grandpa caressed the pear carefully as if it was a precious treasure.

“A good girl should not play with cicadas,” Shouting Donkey said, his voice low

and husky.

Xiaoxia wanted to laugh—“I don’t play with cicadas, I eat them!” she wanted to

shout, but she knew she wouldn’t say it to anyone. It was a secret—even her grandpa

didn’t know.

“Xiaoxia didn’t play with cicadas. I already told you—she caught cicadas to

feed the five chickens. She is helping her mother. She is a good kid.” Her grandpa

raised the pear as if he wanted to have a good look at it—the pear looked so fresh and

green in his gaunt yellow hand.

“Okay. But my grandson Potty told me Xiaoxia tried to eat the small fish

swimming in the Old Stone creek, and she was going to swallow the fish raw if my

53 grandson didn’t stop her. She is wild. She beat up all the boys in the sand ball games.”

Shouting Donkey blinked his small eyes, shooting short sneaky glances on the fresh

pear which Grandpa held carefully in his hand like a valuable jade.

Xiaoxia wanted to laugh again. She remembered how she easily defeated every

boy in a dodge-and-catch sand ball game—she jump quick and high, so she dodged

the ball successfully with ease; and she made a good catch every time by managing a

right move on the right time. She won the game like she caught the cicadas—with

carefree joy and yet with calculated craft.

“Donkey, could you stop it? Xiaoxia is only six years old; she is just a little kid.

Why are you so harsh with a little kid? I love Xiaoxia more than anything in the world.

If anyone dares raise a finger against her, I will beat him up with all my breath and

blood.” Xiaoxia saw her grandpa blowing his white beard, and his gaunt hand tautened into a shaking fist. Xiaoxia knew her grandpa was very angry with Shouting

Donkey, so she picked up a withered green walnut on the dirt, aiming at Shouting

Donkey’s wrinkled neck. “If this old bore will say anything annoying to my grandpa again, I will hit him on his ugly neck,” she thought.

Shouting Donkey sighed, “Every one knows you love your granddaughter too

much! She is only a girl. One day she will fly away like a bird and never think about

you.”

“That is nonsense!” Xiaoxia thought. “I will always stay with my grandpa. I will

find the sweetest pear and bake the tastiest golden dough for him.” She was ready to

shoot with the walnut but two old men blocked her target. The two old men were

54 walking toward the old apricot tree. One of them was thin and tall. He looked like a

bamboo stick. He had a braided white untidy pigtail. The other man looked like a

Greek Urn—small head, thick neck and a huge bulging belly; he had a greasy tattered

white towel wrapping his white head. They both stooped and staggered, spitting out

tobacco-contaminated saliva and smacking their thin colorless lips with little noises.

Xiaoxia dropped the walnut and hid behind the tree more cautiously. She knew the two old men were the most respectable men in her village—the one with the pigtail was the nicknamed “Old Intellectual” because he could recite some philosophical lines written by Confucius and Zhuangzi and write calligraphy so beautifully as if drawing plum-flowers; the other with the greasy towel was the

Storyteller whose toothless mouth could spurt out witty words so fluently as if his tongue was driven by a swirling water wheel.

The Old Intellectual and the Storyteller sat down under the apricot tree beside

Xiaoxia’s grandpa. They both fished out a long piper from their pocket, and began

smoking and smacking their lips with more noises.

The Old Intellectual cocked his head toward Shouting Donkey: “Hey, Donkey, have you heard the famous line by Confucius ‘A big-hearted man loves the mountains;

A wise man loves the seas.’?”

“Nope.” Donkey shook his head, and raised the bamboo rod, “But I saw

something extraordinary on this stick.”

55 “The stick is long and thin, just like a donkey’s face. There is nothing

extraordinary about it—it is stiff and knotty, just like a donkey’s bray.” The Storyteller

chuckled.

“Look! There is a magic knot made of horsehair!” Shouting Donkey swung the

tip of the bamboo rod in front of the Storyteller’s face.

“Donkey, stop it!” Xiaoxia’s grandpa’s voice was darkened with sullen threat.

“His granddaughter made a magic knot with horsehair on the tip of the rod, and

she caught a lot of cicadas with the magic knot! She is only six!” Shouting Donkey

smirked.

“Let me have a look!” the Old Intellectual pouted his toothless mouth, “A magic

knot symbolizes a high-level of intelligence. It is not a play thing for the long-hair-short-wit!”

“Indeed! And the horsehair is not a play thing for a girl! Horsehair is the flag of

Yang Spirit for a running stallion. It is not right for a girl to touch a horsehair!” the

Storyteller ranted with a serious face.

Xiaoxia got confused—why it is not right for a girl to touch horsehair? She cut

the horsehair with a small scissor from the tail of the horse Chestnut. Although

Chestnut was considered the strongest horse in the village, Chestnut was always very

gentle when he saw Xiaoxia and always neighed joyfully when Xiaoxia touched his

neck and combed his mane with her fingers. It never occurred to Xiaoxia that

Chestnut would belittle her just because she was a girl. So after one-minute confusion,

Xiaoxia decided the Old Intellectual and the Storyteller were both talking nonsense.

56 “And she not only caught the cicadas with the magic knot, she also played with

the cicadas—she caught them and then set them free. How did she learn to make the

magic knot? No one taught her! Why did she play with the cicadas in this orchard by

herself? It is strange!” Shouting Donkey’s wrinkles were twitching; his voice,

shrieking and strident, his beady eyes glistening with malicious sparkles.

“Get out of here! You stupid Donkey! Get out of my orchard!” Xiaoxia’s

grandpa raised his long copper pipe, and knocked at the dirt ground heavily. The bowl

of the pipe was buried under the dry soil with the hit.

Shouting Donkey shook his narrow shoulders with horror and fled away as fast

as a rabbit. Xiaoxia wanted to laugh but restrained herself—she was curious about

what the Old Intellectual and the Storyteller were going to talk about her.

“Donkey is stupid! He is a frog living in the bottom of a well. Xiaoxia is a clever girl, and a clever girl knows how to sing a song to the horses and to the cicadas.

A clever girl can touch the horsehair because she knows how to touch the horse’s heart. A clever girl can catch cicadas because she catches them in a clever way. She catches them with a perfect tool. According to Laozi’s philosophy, she conquers the

solid and the unyielding with the soft and the yielding.” The Old Intellectual

murmured in a low voice; he was staring at the horsehair loop with a dreamy smile.

The Storyteller touched the horsehair with his fat index finger, and put his finger

to his nose cautiously. “How do you know it is horsehair? I heard stories about a hair

from a dragon’s beard and a hair from a phoenix’s head can do magic. The hair is

probably the magic hair of some powerful spirit. I heard that Xiaoxia was born on a

57 sunny morning after a three-day heavy snowstorm, and the colorful clouds and the

golden sunrise turned the white snow into a rainbow-color carpet. Perhaps Xiaoxia is

the girl chosen by a goddess. Xiaoxia caught the cicadas and set them free because the

goddess was teaching her something magic….”

“Shut up! If you keep talking nonsense, I will knock your head off with my

piper bowl!” Xiaoxia’s grandpa pulled out his piper from the soil, and cut off the

storyteller’s rambling with his piper hashing a swish in the air.

“Relax, old buddy! Do not threaten us with your piper. We know you love your granddaughter. But your granddaughter is too clever to stay in our small village for

her whole life. She will get tired of the mountains, and she will go to the big cities and

she will see the big waters. As Confucius said ‘A big-hearted man loves the mountains;

A wise man loves the seas.’ She will leave you someday to see the big waters like a

wise man will do. I heard that a lot of city girls can swim, and they love the water. I

heard that some city girls’ feet look like the duck’s feet—the fingers linked together

like a web. Someday, your granddaughter will swim in the sea and her feet will look

like a duck’s feet. Someday, she will go to the city and live a different life and never

come back to you, no matter how you love her. Confucius once said: ‘It is hard to

keep a villain and a woman.’ A clever woman will change into something totally

different like a crawling nymph changes into a flying cicada. So do not love your

granddaughter too much—she will change and she will leave you.” The Old

Intellectual puffed out long and swirling smoke, talking in a monotonous and

high-pitched tone.

58 Xiaoxia’s grandpa closed his eyes; his back leaning upon the apricot tree and his

mouth half open, he pretended to snore loudly to cut off the Old Intellectual’s

rambling.

Xiaoxia never thought about the connection between a crawling nymph and a

flying cicada until that moment. It was hard for her to imagine that a flying female

cicada had a former life in which she must live in a slimy underground hole in darkness and she must crawl clumsily as the easy target for many attacks from all kinds of creatures—birds, chickens, snakes, and ants. She never liked to touch the

nymphs because they were always fat and ugly. Their slimy legs squeezed together and their slow movements looked so ridiculously slothful and so pathetically weak.

She admired the beautiful and transparent wings of the cicadas—they were long and

light; they covered the cicadas’ body like the shimmering twilight covered the dark

mountains at sunset.

In Xiaoxia’s eyes, the high and dark mountains around the village sometimes

looked like a giant female cicada, only her wings were more magnificent—they were

made of the sunlight and their color changed like miracles. Xiaoxia tried to imagine

the big waters the toothless old man was talking about; all she could see in her mind

was the muddy shallow creek named Old Stone which cut the edge of her village

caroled by solid mountains and patrolled by flying clouds. She couldn’t imagine how

she could swim in the big waters and “sea” was a strange word which didn’t ring any

bell in her small brain. She wondered how her feet could become webbed like a

duck’s feet; she wished she could see some city girls and ask them to show her their

59 duck feet, but “city” was a strange thing for her too, and she didn’t know what those

city girls were like. She wanted to ask the Old Intellectual, “Why does a wise man love the seas? Why will a clever girl leave her village and go to the big cities? Are the

big cities better than the village? Are there any cicadas there? Are the cicadas in the

big cities the same as those I saw in the apricot tree?” But she knew she shouldn’t ask.

She was afraid that when she asked, the Old Intellectual would call her

“long-hair-short-wit” and shoo her away with contempt. And she knew she couldn’t spit on the mud to throw the contempt back to him, because she would be spanked by her mother for insulting a respectable man in the village.

The Storyteller put one of his fat fingers to his thin lips and smirked to the Old

Intellectual: “Why waste your words on one pair of dead ears? He doesn’t know what

his granddaughter is. One day I saw the little girl climbing up the high phoenix tree to

put her hand into a magpie nest. I warned her: ‘don’t touch the nest, the magpies will

eat your eyes like eating the worms!’ she laughed: ‘I will not touch the nest, I just

want to see how many eggs they have!’ I thought she was silly, but a few minutes later

I knew she was clever. I saw her taking something from her pocket and putting it into

the nest. I asked her what she was doing, she said: ‘The mother magpie will lose one

egg so I put my white glass ball to soothe her.’ And I saw she put something back to

her pocket—it must be the egg. If she ate that egg, she would be extremely lucky—an

egg in a high phoenix tree can bring good luck to a girl. So I followed her to see

whether she ate that egg or not. She ate it with a purple flower she picked from a

hibiscus tree. So she would be very lucky. And a lucky girl will fly away from our

60 small village. But this old buddy doesn’t want to see it. When the little girl gets a pair

of wings singing in a high tree like the cicadas, the old man will be under the ground

with the worms.”

Xiaoxia’s grandpa snored louder, but still holding the green pear in his hand like a treasure. Xiaoxia was struck by a strange feeling, and she wanted to ask the big-bellied Storyteller, “What is the good luck? Why does the magpie egg in the

phoenix tree bring good luck? How can I get wings?” But she was not sure whether

she should trust the Storyteller—she knew her grandfather didn’t like the Storyteller;

and she knew grandfather’s false snoring was an obvious way to dismiss the

Storyteller’s talking as nonsense.

Xiaoxia sat down under the walnut tree, cross-legged, mimicking the meditating

Buddha she saw on a picture her grandpa put on the clay wall inside a little niche; she tried to recall what really happened to her, to sift the Storyteller’s rambling through her first meditation, so she could find some enlightenment. The passing time already made her memory hazy like a picture on a paper blurred by the mist; she couldn’t remember how many days passed since she ate a magpie egg under a hibiscus tree.

But she saw something in the picture despite of the fuzzy blur and her lack of confidence in her first meditation. She remembered she was very hungry that afternoon, and she remembered her father and her mother were quarreling and fighting the whole day, and there was no food in the kitchen. She remembered she didn’t want to eat the magpie egg and she tried to return it back to the nest; but she was too weak to climb back to the high phoenix tree, and hunger was roaring loudly

61 in her small stomach, so she sipped the egg eagerly to stop the roaring. She didn’t

notice that she was followed by the Storyteller; she noticed there was a long yellow

stamen in the center of the purple flower which tasted like raw almond. She didn’t

know the purple flower had a name “hibiscus.” She called it “Summer Purple” and she thought it was the most beautiful flower in the world. She ate one “Summer

Purple” with the magpie egg, because she believed that the purple flower had the

miraculous anti-poison power and the flower could save her in case the magpie’s egg

was infected with some germs which sounded very dangerous according to what she

overheard from the country doctor. She never thought about whether she was lucky or

not while chewing the hibiscus flower and praying to Buddha that she would not die

from an uncooked magpie egg.

“Lucky or not lucky, I don’t care. I just want to catch more cicadas today; the

chickens must be fed soon; if I can’t find enough worms and cicadas, they will make a

lot of noise, and my mom will lose her temper because of the noises.” Xiaoxia

stopped processing the Storyteller’s nonsense talk and came back to her reality. “I

must get my bamboo rob back.”

Xiaoxia tiptoed towards the old apricot tree, and before the Old Intellectual and

the Storyteller could notice her approaching, she made a charge and grabbed her

bamboo rod. With her cicada-catching weapon in her hand, she presented a sweet

smile to the toothless old men: “I learned to make the magic knot when I saw how my

grandpa tied the horse to the rail stand in the barn. I don’t play with cicadas; I catch

them for chicken food. Shouting Donkey doesn’t like cicadas because a flying cicada

62 rubbed his ear and he got very scared. But the chickens like cicadas because eating

cicadas can make them fly high!” She mimicked the Storyteller’s dramatic tone with a

serious face, her one arm shaking up and down like a fluttering wing.

The two old men could not help laughing; even her grandpa stopped his fake

snoring and smiled. Xiaoxia saw deep wrinkles squeezing together on the two old

men’s yellow faces and sticky saliva dripping from their toothless mouths; she felt

sad—why do people look so old but the cicadas always look so young, with no

wrinkles to damage their smooth face? Xiaoxia also saw her grandpa’s smile—the

wrinkles made a blooming chrysanthemum on his gaunt face, the sparkling smile in

his deep-set eyes jumped with joy; he looked so young. Xiaoxia smiled to her grandpa,

“Eat the pear, Grandpa. When your throat gets better, you can tell me a new story.

Now I must go to the woods to catch some worms and cicadas for the chickens.”

Xiaoxia didn’t linger on the thought of wrinkles and being old. At the moment

when she saw how her grandpa’s joyful eyes made him look so young, she was struck

by the idea that joy must be the anti-aging medicine. She saw her first enlightenment in that afternoon: “I will never become old if I can have the joy with me all the time.”

She was tickled by her amazing insight, “I will look young forever like the female

cicadas if I am happy every day!”

Xiaoxia had a very joyful time that afternoon—she caught nine cicadas with her

bamboo rod within an hour. She put the nine cicadas into a green sachet made of wire

mesh, and returned back to the old apricot tree in her grandpa’s orchard. She was so

glad to see the Old Intellectual and the Storyteller were gone; and she found the big

63 iron thread sifter was still there with the silent female cicada in it—the cicada she caught in the apricot tree. She laughed: “No one noticed this cicada under the sifter because she is so calm and so quiet. She never made a sound like those noisy male cicadas.” She felt she should show her respect to the female cicada’s wise silence and she thought the best way to respect her was to let her live. So she uncovered the sifter and saluted to the air while seeing the cicada flew away.

“What are you doing?” her grandpa asked her. He was trimming the over-growing Chinese prickly ash trees with a long scissor.

“I set this cicada free, Grandpa,” she said. “But I still have nine cicadas in my sachet. That is enough for the chickens.”

“Why did you set it free?”

“Because she is very wise and patient. She never talked nonsense like the Old

Intellectual and the Storyteller, and she did not lose her temper after she heard all the nonsense.” She laughed.

“That is very true.” her grandpa laughed too.

If the world is a female cicada, there is no doubt that Xiaoxia can conquer it with grace and appreciate it with joy. But the world is anything but a silent sap-sucking worm, which only can live one summer. The world is drenched in potential. And Xiaoxia would need something more than a bamboo rod to explore the potential, and the potential would lead her to see the big waters and the city girls with duck feet. She would learn something more interesting than making a magic knot with a horsehair; she would figure out that the city girls whose feet looked like duck feet

64 were the girls who wore a pair of nylon socks or silk socks instead bare-foot like herself, and she would find out that many city girls were so plain that no one would pay attention to them even they were wearing silk socks. She would get another tickling enlightenment when she entered the city nine years later, her bare feet inside a pair of cheap plastic sandals, her long pigtail brushing along her home-made cotton trousers—some of the strange and mysterious things mentioned in the Old

Intellectual’s rambling and in the Storyteller’s ranting could be true or could find resonance in the noisy and the messy cacophonies of the city life. The day when she caught eleven cicadas and set two of them free would come back to her and tell her that the big waters and her good luck would catch her like she caught a female cicada with a magic knot on a horsehair.

65

CHAPTER V

THE FATTEST PIG GETS KILLED FIRST

The vice mayor of Stoneville city was worshiped as an idol by many beautiful

girls and ambitious boys. The vice mayor was the youngest vice mayor in the long

history of the Hebei Province, and the only vice mayor who had a Ph. D in Law from

the best university in China. He looked like a professional athlete—long flexible legs,

strong arms bulging with tight biceps and muscles, broad shoulders and slender waist,

light-tanned honey-colored perfect skin. Volcanic vitality unleashed out from his body

when he played his favorite sport—golf, especially when he made a beautiful swing

of his golf club—his tautened body looked like a perfect masculine show. He had an

impressive name: Tai. In the Chinese dictionary, Tai means extremely lucky or

extremely big; the most famous mountain in China is named Tai Mountain about

which there were so many poems praising its majestic scenery and incredible height.

Tai was a very handsome man—or handsome is not the proper word; Tai’s

handsomeness was associated with something legendary. A professor in Chinese

literature wrote an article to salute the vice mayor’s extraordinary and unforgettable

looks. He wrote: “His high brow shines the wisdom and determination of a strong-willed man, his bright eagle eyes flash the flames of passion and charisma, his

66 high Greek nose bears much similarity with Napoleon’s nose in his famous portrait

‘Crossing the Alps’ by the Jacques-Louis David, which is associated with the heroic

conquering and victory. His rough and angular jaw carries an invincible masculinity,

which seamlessly joins his intellectual grace and his young boy’s disarming

dimples….” In other words, the vice mayor’s face was glorified with a great man’s

legend; his face was laced with many appealing and profound meanings. A famous

and beautiful actress praised the vice mayor’s eagle eyes in a saloon frequented by the

celebrities and the journalists: “I was dazzled by his bright eyes. His eyes remind me

of the eagle—so sharp and so confident! He is the kind of man that strikes you as a natural leader; you will be very happy when he looks at you because you will feel the magic in his eyes. You simply want to follow his lead—you can’t resist the power in his eyes!”

The vice mayor received countless love letters from beautiful girls, including the

famous actress who was dazzled by his eagle eyes. But the vice mayor never bothered to finish reading even one of those letters. “I am too busy to read this silly nonsense.”

And he threw those letters to his secretary. The secretary of the vice mayor was a young man who graduated from the first-rank university, with a bachelor’s degree in

Chinese language and literature. He laughed and cursed a lot while reading the love letters addressed to “my dearest Tai”. He was surprised that so many young girls build up an idol in their illusion; he found the naiveté and cliché in most of letters disgusting yet amusing.

67

“My dearest Tai:

You don’t know me, but it doesn’t matter. I just want you to know that I love you. I love you more than I love the rainbow in a clear sky; I love you more than I love my own life. I fell in love with you when you gave a lecture at the auditorium in my university. You were awesome! I am eighteen. My idol used to be 007, the legendary James Bond, but after I saw you, all of 007’s charm became a repulsive farce for me. You are my sun, my true love. I love your black hair and your small lovely dimples. I love your voice. Every time I hear your voice, my heart jumps. I recorded your lecture so I could listen to you even I couldn’t see you in person. But I can’t listen too often—my heart jumps so fast and so fierce, I am afraid I will die. But if you want me to die for you, I would die right now. It is my honor and my ultimate happiness to die for love—you are my love….”

On a hot summer morning, the secretary of the vice mayor became very nervous.

The vice mayor didn’t show up for two days. In the two days he called the vice

mayor many times, but no one answered his call; he left “emergency messages” such

as, “The mayor called, where are you? Please call me back as soon as possible,” but

he didn’t get any replies. There was an important meeting scheduled at ten a.m. that

morning. The vice mayor was supposed to chair the meeting and give the main

speech about public security and the enforcement of law. It was past ten-thirty. There

were many very important people waiting in the main meeting room in the city hall,

including the chief of the public security department and the director of the city TV

68 station. But the secretary couldn’t find the vice mayor. The secretary knew the vice

mayor had two phones—one was for work, another was for personal affairs. But the

he didn’t know the number of the vice mayor’s personal phone, because the vice

mayor never told him.

The murmuring sounds of confusion got louder in the meeting room after the

secretary told the attendees the vice mayor couldn’t be reached. The chief of the

public security department checked his Rolex wrist watch—it was past eleven a.m.

The chief of the public security department was a close friend of the vice mayor; he

called the vice mayor’s personal phone, but no one answered him except the

automatic voice saying “the number you are dialing couldn’t be reached.”

At noon, the secretary called the mayor and the governor, asking them what he

should do with the scheduled meeting. He was told the meeting should be canceled

and he should call the police to look for the vice mayor.

The chief of the public security department was a thin, short man with a loud,

thick voice. He shouted at the secretary: “You stupid pig! Why did you call the

mayor and the governor? I am in charge of the police department. You should tell me

first when Tai didn’t show up the first day. Why didn’t you say anything until the

third day? I will tell Tai to fire you immediately when I find him!”

The chief of the public security department found Tai in the most expensive villa

at the suburb of the city, the area originally named Pig’s Dale, and renamed as Swan

Lake by Tai. He found Tai in Tai’s spacious bathroom, but Tai was dead.

69 The chief of the public security department shuddered and screamed with horror

when he saw the dead Tai. He had seen many dead men and many horrible deaths,

and he thought he would never scream like a squeamish woman, but he couldn’t control the shock. He screamed for a long time in face of what death did to the most

handsome man in the city. Under the touch of death, the legendary, the most handsome man, became another thing—an ugly corpse.

The corpse was a naked grey-yellow thing soaked in reddish water in a huge tub

in an enormous bathroom. The water spurting out from shower head was hitting the

belly of the corpse. The arms and legs were swollen and looked flabby and spongy,

as if they were not flesh but false limbs made of trashy materials; the vice mayor’s eagle eyes were half open, distorted and shapeless; most of the eyelashes were gone,

the horrible glaze was covered with water. The most horrible part was the belly—it

was not as swollen as the limbs, but sank down as if the water from the shower head

had crashed it down with enormous weight. The sound of water hitting the belly was

very strange—loud but embedded with some muffled notes. The water dropped upon

the belly, and converged upon the hollow beneath the navel, and in the hollow there

were five deep, small holes!

The chief of the public security department noticed the five holes because they

were of strange purple color against the big chunk of grey-yellow. The four purple

spots were small as needle heads; the layout of those spots looked like the four tips

of a small cross. At the center of the cross was a bigger spot— but not bigger than a

regular thumbtack.

70 It was a murder. The chief of the public security department pulled out his gun

and locked the bathroom with trembling hand. He was afraid the murderer was still in the villa. It was a big villa: two stories and a furnished basement. He knew Tai’s villa was where Tai hid his secrets and his treasures; Tai hired a famous designer to

add some secret rooms and some niches in the basement. He shuddered with the

thought that there might be more than one murderer—those secret rooms and niches

could hide dozens of killers.

He made a call in the locked bathroom, crouching behind the bathtub where

Tai’s corpse was hit by the spurting water for the shower. He called the most capable

vice squad, telling the captain to bring the best police men and equip them with the

most advanced weapons. “The murderers are very fierce. Be quick!” his voice was

low and husky. He controlled his trembling and crouched lower behind the tub,

enduring the stinking smell from the corpse, gritting his teeth tight.

With all the newspapers giving their front page to the reports and the information of the vice mayor’s unexpected death and horrible murder, the city began quivering under the pressure of “catching the murders so soon as possible” voiced by Tai’s many fans and admirers. The city was strewing with strange excitement. On one popular show at the city TV station titled “City Focus,” a beautiful young girl sobbed with tears streaming down as if she was heartbroken, “I cannot believe Tai is gone. To me, he is always alive like a god. He is the most handsome man in the world. He is always living in my heart.” She raised a zoomed-in huge photo of the vice mayor in which he was flashing his boyish

71 disarming smile, and his eagle eyes, sharp and bright, looking at the audience with

charismatic charm and confidence.

A sixteen-year-old boy was interviewed by the most famous journalist Mr. Xie

who was also the director of the city newspaper “Stoneville Daily.” The boy had been

the caddie in the best golf club and the boy said he loved Tai more than anyone in the world. “He is the best golf player I have ever seen; everyone who played golf with

him would call him Tiger Woods with respect. He always won. It was a great honor to

be his caddie.” The boy tried to hold back his tears, “I can’t believe that he will not be

playing in the court anymore.”

Mr. Xie handed the boy a box of Kleenex, and asked in a gentle voice, “What do you miss about our vice mayor most?”

“His smiling face when he took the ball from my hand. He was the most

handsome man I have ever seen.” The boy broke down, holding the Kleenex to his

mouth, his voice choked by his sobs.

A dashing actor was throwing a party in his villa in the same area as Tai’s villa

was located—Swan Lake but the local farmers still called it Pig’s Dale. He raised his

crystal wine glass to the flat screen of a HD TV: “To the most handsome man in the

world,” his tone was cold and sarcastic, “What a pity he is dead. I wonder who could bring herself to murder him. There must be a very interesting story behind this handsome man’s death.”

72 “How do you know the murderer is a she?” a plump and beautiful woman cocked her head, blinking her long false eyelashes, “It seems that every girl in the city loves him.”

“Yeah. Every girl in the city loves him as the Diamond Bachelor. He played his role as the vice mayor and as the charming prince very well. He was a good actor. But according to a mysterious rule, the charming prince always dies in the hand of a woman.” The handsome actor winked at a girl in a vermillion silk dress who stood beside a dark-green bonsai pine tree in a huge blue china vase. The girl caught the wink but didn’t respond—the girl was smart, and she tried her best to ignore all the conversations about the dead vice mayor. She was an expensive prostitute and she had sex with the vice mayor for two days. Now she was the new mistress of the handsome actor who threw a party just to impress her.

“Why do you call him the charming prince? I did an interview with him; I knew that his father was a cheap laborer in a fertilizer factory. He was born in a shabby slum,” a short stout middle-aged man shouted out, his fat hand tapping a big cigar on a red agate ashtray on a small white table. The man was the famous writer who won the best prize for his TV screenplay “All Time Champion.”

“You are a writer, I cannot believe you never heard about the vice mayor’s

nickname. He was a VIP cardholder in the Red Skirt massage saloon; every girl in that

saloon called him Charming Prince.” The handsome actor sipped his red wine, a

sarcastic smile rippling across his face.

73 “You mean he conquered every girl in that saloon with his charm? I wonder how

often he got his massage; it seems that he really knew how to enjoy life.” The fat

writer shot a sneaky glance to the girl in a vermillion dress; he imagined his fat hands

upon her curvaceous body whispering to her about a special “massage”.

The girl walked away, pretending to refill her glass.

The writer watched the handsome actor with envy, “I wonder how many girls he fucked.”

The handsome actor laughed, “Probably very often. He bought the most

expensive villa in Swan Lake.”

“How could he afford it? He was just a public servant, according to the

high-minded words in the newspapers; his salary is much lower than a professional

actor.” The writer smoked his cigar and stared at the actor with more envy.

“He bought it not with money. He bought the villa with his words,” the actor

sneered. His contempt quivered across the chandeliers and the fragrant candles,

jumping in the air. Every guest in the room turned their heads and asked, “What

words?”

The actor took the stage with grace, he presented a mysterious smile, “He erases

some words, and he sold some new words to the property developer who built the

villas.”

“What words?” everyone was enchanted.

“He erased the village’s name Pig’s Dale, because the property developer

thought it was too vulgar for a luxurious area graced with villas. So the smart vice

74 mayor told the chief of the village to forget the old name, and he gave the village a

new name, Swan Lake. He sold the new name to the developer, and the developer

liked it so much that he gave the smart vice mayor the most expensive villa as a gift.”

“Why Swan Lake? I didn’t see any swan here!” the plump woman shrieked

with high-pitched laughter, her false eyelashes thick and heavy—she used to be a very

famous actress. But her heyday was long gone with her real eyelashes and her youth.

“It is said he told the city zoo to send two swans here. The chief of the zoo

brought three swans to please him, but the three swans flew away at the very moment

they were set free on the reservoir. And they never flew back.” The actor presented a

showy shrug.

“Ah Ha! Since there is no swan, there is no point to call it Swan Lake! I will call

it Pig’s Dale. I like the simple rural flavor better than the unfounded swanky exaggeration.” The fat writer puffed a wisp of thin smoke.

The plump woman laughed, “No one living in the village wants to call it Pig’s

Dale again. They love the new name; and they love the vice mayor. They will mourn

him for a long time.”

“How do you know they love him?” The handsome actor was staring at the TV

screen on which there was the dashing image of the vice mayor and the eulogy about

his unforgettable achievements voiced by a female anchor in a sweet and solemn tone.

“Because they watch TV. Because they thought they knew him,” the plump

woman blinked her long lashes coquettishly, thinking she said something really smart.

75 The girl in a vermillion dress smiled at the handsome actor; her well-trained hard–to-achieve Mona Lisa’ smile tickled her new lover.

The actor turned off the TV, raised his red wine, put on a sad face,” Every one loved the vice mayor, but he could not love everyone. The villagers may think they knew him, but no one really knew him. No one really knows why he changed Pig’s

Dale into Swan Lake.”

The girl smiled again. The girl in a vermillion silk dress thought she was the only person in the room who really “knew” the vice mayor.

The girl saw the vice mayor put her in front of a big mirror, holding her hands high in the air, his strong thigh wedging into her legs. She saw him sitting on the bed, naked, commanding her to raise her butt higher. She remembered with shame and pride that he promised that he would give her ten thousands Yuan if she made a bridge and told him every feeling she felt when he fuddled her vagina to test the solidity of the flesh bridge. She made the bridge for him, and he busted her bridge with his libido explosion like a savage. He bit into her breast to hear her scream. He fucked her in a cold shower, parted her legs wide open to see the water and her sap mixing together.

He fucked her on the hard tile floor with an electric fan blowing hard into her hair. He tied up her hands and gagged her with a red towel, playing a raping game with her. He did everything with her but he never pretended he liked her. He never called her

“honey” or “bitch.” His eagle eyes would become very sharp and cold when he said

“you are a pretty girl”, but there was no warmth, no tenderness softening his hard gaze. She thought she loved him—her body would became soft and wet when he

76 walked towards her to tear off her dress. She would do anything to please him. She

even danced a mixed version of belly dance and lap dance, with a purple thong or just with a pair of high-heel red shoes. “He was so good.” She sighed deeply when she

thought of him, “and he was so bad.” And she remember how she was shocked to see

the money he paid her—a high stack of brand new cash tied up with a red silk tape:

the thirty thousand Yuan in color and in concrete existence of three dimensions. At

that moment the heady excitement hazed out her cold boundary between being a

prostitute and her customers, she rushed to him and kissed him on his lips, but he

pushed her away.

“It is over. I don’t want to see you anymore. You can take the money now but on

one condition.” He already put on a deep blue suit with a robin blue shirt and a golden

tie; he was tall, and looking down at her with icy cold in his sharp eyes.

“What is the condition?” she shuddered under his cold eyes.

“You should remember that you have never come here and you have never seen

me. Otherwise, you will be put into prison for prostitution and you will never see your money again.”

“But I love you,” she whispered. She never felt shame so sharply. She wanted

mercy from him even if the mercy was just a tiny trace of politeness.

“You are a prostitute,” his voice was low and dark, “now take the money and get

out of here!”

That was two years ago.

77 Two month later she ran into him in the Blue Cat bar nearby the Victoria Hotel;

she smiled at him, but he ignored her. And she saw the bartender made a call when he

saw the vice mayor. After the call, a tall and thick-built guy came to the bar talking to

vice mayor in whisper, then the guy escorted the vice mayor to a door at the other end

of the bar on which there was sign “staff only.”

That night, she received a threat call, “Bitch, if you cannot control your fucking

face, if you flaunt your fucking smile like a whore at our bar, I will kill you. And

before I kill you I will smash you ugly face into a soup.” The voice over the telephone was husky and stiff. It was a stranger’s voice, hardened as a thug’s rehearsed threat.

She was really scared. She finally realized he never liked her as a person; in his eyes,

she was only an ugly prostitute. After receiving that threatening call, she never went

to the Blue Cat bar again.

The girl felt someone was staring at her. She hoped it was not the fat disgusting

writer (it was!). She turned her head to the big window from which she could see the

calm surface of a reservoir. She remembered the vice mayor once called the reservoir

Swan Lake during his role-playing sex game in which she played the naked swan and

he played choreographer and the seducer in his villa where the view of the reservoir

was much better. But she didn’t know why he called it Swan Lake, and why he wanted to erase the village’s original name Pig’s Dale.

The party was fizzling out with some guests lounging on the couches, their faces

glowing but their eyes dim and lazy. The conservations rambled into various topic, but

the death of the vice mayor still was the host’s favorite subject; he was making the

78 topic more interesting by getting rid of his sarcastic tone and adopting a comedian’s funny battering.

“Did anyone hear that it is the most handsome pig that gets killed first?” the

handsome actor beamed, sweeping long glances across the guests’ faces.

“Never heard of it,” the plump woman blinked her false eyelashes quickly. “I

know there is an old saying goes ‘the fattest pig gets killed first.’”

“Yeah. The old saying was very popular in the village of Pig’s Dale before the

vice mayor renamed it as Swan Lake.” The handsome actor sipped a cup of pineapple

juice with honey, the special drink his maid prepared for him. He was tipsy but not

drunk; he thought he was in the perfect state to take the center of stage.

The tipsy actor began a story, a story that barely covered his teasing and irony

about the “the most handsome man in the world.” The girl in a vermillion dress

presented her Mona Lisa’s smile again. She knew why the handsome actor hated the

vice mayor so much, she knew the shallow actor hated the vice mayor for one

reason—he thought the vice mayor robbed the honor of “being the most handsome

man” from him, and he couldn’t get over the hurt.

The handsome actor told the story in a sweet and dreamy tone. The tickling

pleasure of doing an anti-eulogy to the most beloved vice mayor made him bubble

with words.

There was a tiny village at the suburb of Stoneville city. The village was very

poor but very beautiful. The villagers lived a simple and peaceful life by farming and

raising pigs. There was nothing special about the farming except it was terribly

79 primordial, depending on horses and weather. But the pigs became famous. The pigs were raised in the fresh air near a clear river and a lush wood of tall oak trees. The pigs were strong and big because they drank the clear water and ate nutritious acorns.

In the farmer’s market, the pigs from Pig’s Dale were the most popular pigs. There was a lot of praise about how good the pork was, and there was even one rumor saying: “Eating the pork from Pig’s Dale can keep you young and give your longevity.”

One day, our beloved vice mayor drove his car to the village; he saw the

amazing pigs roaming along the river. He told the villagers: “The pigs are very

handsome. You should make them a tourist’s attraction. And you can make a lot of

money from the tourists!” Inspired by the vice mayor’s suggestion, some villager

came up with a good idea to attract tourists—they would hold “The Fattest Pig

Festival” just a week before the Spring Festival. In the festival, they would let the

tourists choose the fattest pig among the rambling pigs near the river; they would

catch the chosen pig with a grass rope, and they would kill it and cut its meat for the

tourists.

The “Fattest Pig Festival” turned out to be very successful. So many tourists swarmed into the village that all the parking places were full and some tourists had to park their car on the dirt roads near the river. In the center of the village, the villagers built a stage on which there was a big brick stove and a huge pot on it. On the center of the stage there was a long wood table with a long sharp knife on it. Every tourist only need spend ten Yuan for the privilege to choose the fattest pig. If the tourist’s

80 name is Wang, the pig he chose would be tied on its left ear with a name tag “Wang’s

Pig”. Not everyone chose the same pig as the fattest. So there would be many “fattest

pigs” as the champion candidates.

Who had the honor to choose the champion for the festival? There would be a

competition with money—an auction for the privilege to name “the real fattest”

among the selected pigs.

One year, the vice mayor came to the village again, and it happened to be one of

the joyful days of the “Fattest Pig Festival.” The chief of the village recognized the

handsome vice mayor, and asked him to choose the champion pig for the festival. The

vice mayor chose a pig no one noticed because the pig was hiding in the dark shadow

of a huge rock. The vice mayor’s sharp eyes found the pig. The pig was

extraordinarily “handsome”, that was the exact word the vice mayor used to praise the

champion. The pig’s eyes were bright and shining, his long eyelashes were curling up, and his jet-black bristles glistened like an advertisement for pigs’ best hair saloon. The pig was also quick. It took twelve strapping farmers to catch it. They caught the pig with a thick rope, and they tied a cute red pennant around the pig’s ear with the calligraphy “The Most Handsome Pig” to honor the vice mayor.

“The Most Handsome Pig” didn’t want to die. He cringed and struggled to flee

the long table and the sharp knife on the stage. But all was in vain. The chief of the

village decided the pig should be the first pig to get killed that day because it was the

vice mayor’s chosen pig.

81 When “The Most Handsome Pig” was killed on the stage with joyful applauses from the big crowd; the villagers set off fireworks and firecrackers to highlight the festival joy and to honor the graceful presence of the vice mayor. The chief of the village announced with excitement, “Anyone around the stage can get a free piece of the blood cake made of the most handsome pig’s fresh blood.” The pig’s blood was held in a big iron basin and the blood was plenty. The villagers put the basin on the stove to make the blood cake. The crowd shared the blood cake and smacked their lips saying, “It is so delicious!” And the kids from the village rush into the stage to compete for the pig’s bladder—they all wanted the champion’s bladder because it was said blowing the bladder into a big balloon could bring them good luck. The vice mayor conducted a lottery drawing, and gifted the pig’s bladder to the lucky kid who won the lottery. The lucky kid blew the bladder into a big balloon, and invited all the kids to toss the bladder-balloon like a volley ball. The vice mayor joined the playing.

Everybody loved the vice mayor at that moment; the festival became the most enjoyable festival in the long history of the small village because he chose the right pig—the most handsome pig that had the most delicious blood.

“What is the point of the story?” the plump woman with the false eyelashes whispered to the fat writer who squinted at the tipsy actor, an arrogant smile quivering on his thick lips.

“The point is that it is the most handsome pig that gets killed first.” The writer said in a loud voice.

82 “And the killing of the most handsome pig made a festival! Cheers!” the tipsy actor laughed, nodding to the fat writer.

Everyone in the party raised their wine glasses automatically to an imaginable festival—a festival without the most famous person in the Swan Lake area.

If the chief of Swan Lake or Pig’s Dale was attending the handsome actor’s party, he would provide another version of “The Fattest Pig Festival”. In his version, the vice mayor didn’t praise his chosen pig as “handsome”, instead the vice mayor tied the pennant with the words “the fattest pig” around the champion pig’s ear; and the vice mayor didn’t eat the blood cake. The setting off of fireworks and firecrackers were the routine shows for the festival, not for flattering the vice mayor. The vice mayor allowed the photographer to take his picture with the fattest pig before the pig was killed on stage, and the photograph was used as the front page picture in the newspaper Farmer’s Daily. The fattest pig the vice mayor chose was a good choice—the pig produced the biggest amount of meat in the village’s long history.

The most auspicious item in that festival was the pig’s head. According to popular superstition, the one who owns the best pig head will get rich and powerful very soon.

A rich tourist driving a brand-new BMW raised a plate which read “offer one thousand Yuan for the honor to have the champion pig’s head.” And the vice mayor whispered to the chief of the village: “I offer ten thousand Yuan for the head; I chose the pig and I want its head as a memento.” All the farmers on the stage loved the vice mayor, they suggested that the chief of the village give the champion pig’s head to the vice mayor as a gift. So the chief of the village whispered to the vice mayor: “I will

83 send you the pig’s head in a big cooler to your villa tonight, and make sure it looks

tidy by freezing it first.”

The chief of the village didn’t want to give the champion pig’s head away as a gift; he wanted to keep it for himself because he wanted to get rich and powerful very much. But he had to—the vice mayor was much more rich and powerful than himself; he could not afford to offend him. And at that moment he was influenced by the hazy illusion that everyone in the village loves the vice mayor, and the gift-giving was the wise strategy for him to keep his popularity in the village.

But not everyone in the village loved the vice mayor. One hot summer day two

years ago, the vice mayor commanded that the villagers kill all the pigs strolling along

the river, fat or not fat, and the tourist attraction “The Fattest Pig Festival” must shut

down forever. He wanted to change the Pig’s Dale into a luxurious villa zone named

Swan Lake. So all the pigs were killed in a week according to the vice mayor’s plan,

and a lot of villagers lost money because the pork price dropped to the lowest that

summer and the pork market was already overstocked. The strong smell of the pig’s

blood drew swarms of flies; Pig’s Dale became Flies’ Paradise. The fortune teller in

the village shook his big head, “It’s a bad sign. The Fengshui would turn bad if they built up villas in the dale. The dale belongs to the pigs!” But the villa zone was built

up despite the fortune teller’s disproval, and the pigs and “The Fattest Pig Festival”

were gone forever.

The vice mayor was the first person murdered in the villa zone. When dozens of

policemen and an orange warning line appeared in front of the tall wrought iron gate

84 of the villa zone and the news of the vice mayor’s murder was confirmed by the newspapers and the anchors on the TV screens, the first sentence the fortune teller said to the chief of the village was “the fattest pig gets killed first.”

The chief of the village grinned to the fortuneteller, “Perhaps the fattest pig didn’t learn how to swim in a Swan Lake.”

The fortuneteller spat on the grass, “Swan Lake is just a new stage for ‘The

Fattest Pig Festival’; the fattest pig must complete the show with its lusty blood!”

85

CHAPTER VI

IT IS HARD TO FIND TENDERNESS

If Tai were still alive and still at the position of vice mayor of the Stoneville city,

he would defeat all the rumors about his death; he would convene a press meeting to

defend his spotless reputation as a public servant, a high-rank leader who took his

integrity very seriously and never surrendered to temptation.

At the press meeting, he would announce that his villa in Swan Lake was legally bought and his money was clean. He would present the contract of purchasing the villa signed by him and the property developer; he would call the two notaries who signed the paper testifying to the validity and legality of the contract. He would take very right step to protect his villa and his good reputation. He would make good use of his knowledge of the law to shoot off the rumor of bribery and elevate his public image to a new height which belongs to an incorruptible icon. He would say that he bought the villa not because he was rich and wanted to live like a rich person, but for his poor parents. He would show the picture of the shabby apartment his parents lived in; he would tell the audience with teary eyes and trembling voice that his parents both suffered from high blood pressure, and they were both old and physically feeble, and they had to climbed up seventy-five steps to the fifth floor where their tiny

86 apartment was; every time before they climbed the steps, they would remind each

other to bring the medicine for hypertension because they were afraid they would

collapse on one of the seventy-five steps from a broken blood vessel. He would say in

a tender voice that his mother once told him that her biggest dream was living in rural

area near a wood or a creek; he bought the villa because he thought it would be his

mother’s dream place—the villa was in a small village “The Pig’s Dale” and near an

oak tree wood. He would break down and stoop heavily in his seat, murmuring: “I

should have brought my parents to the villa one year ago. But I am always busy, always busy…. I am not a good son….”

And he would make a subtle narrative arch, channel the audience’s attention to the most brilliant performance among his colorful rainbow show of vice mayor’s achievements—his deft handling the super-sensitive case of the devastating high rise explosion which claimed two hundred forty nine lives. He would remind the audience of his most eloquent and most powerful public speech, the speech he gave in the City

Hall and was played live in every channel of the city radio and the city TV station, the speech mourning the two hundred forty nine people who died in the explosion, calling for a “blood for blood” iron-handed crushing down the perpetrators by sharpening and wielding the weapon of law. The speech had flicked many young citizens’ hearts into a big blaze to burn down all the injustice by the power of law; the speech was so successful that it was quoted many times by the TV and the newspapers for its

“emotion-charged bravery” and “its righteous dignity.” After cleaning up the splotches on his reputation and setting up a spotless plateau to lay out his artful performances,

87 after magnetizing the all the spectators’ gazes onto the most magnificent feat he achieved by his reminder of the high-rise explosion, he would play humble, and he would make sure that his rainbow show would shine in perfect brightness; he would say in a moderate and controlled tone: “I would rather die than let my people down. I will not let you down. I want to be the best vice mayor by serving you whole-heartedly, by fighting for you with all the blood in my veins and all the power I could have in law and justice.”

He could play all these necessary parts and talk to all the sharp-eyed journalists with glamour and skill. He was a good player in the waves of mass media as well as on a golf course. He had won a lot of admiration and applauses as the best golf player in the golf club; everyone who watched his play called him Tiger Woods to praise his perfect swings. He could answer many hard questions raised by the journalists with confidence and clarity. If some journalist asked: “Why did you change the village’s name from Pig’s Dale to Swan Lake?” He would say: “Because there are no pigs in the dale any more. The economic development in the village is growing fast, and the village is very beautiful. Swan is the perfect symbol for the flying beauty that is the village. Swan Lake is the home for the swans just as the village is the home for many beautiful and talented people.” But he could not be clear and confident if he encountered the question everyone in the Stoneville city wanted to ask: “Why were you murdered?”

88 Tai could not imagine he would get killed even in his wildest dream. Tai had

been pursuing a wild dream with all his zest before he lay down in his bathtub and got

killed by an inverted red umbrella.

His wild dream was about an endless fantasia on the alluring tenderness of

beautiful women.

His first fierce encounter with the thrilling note of the fantasia was when he was

twelve-years-old. During one of his aimless and carefree walks after school on an early summer evening, he came to a wood which shimmered verdant green with the quavering leaves of aspen trees. The air was mellow and fresh, he was humming a song. He saw a beautiful little bird flew away from a mulberry tree to the sky. He followed the bird, whistling while opening his arms mimicking the bird’s flying. The bird disappeared among the pink clouds hanging above a squadron of tall poplar trees.

He tripped over a small dune made of gravel on the rough dirt road and he groaned loudly, “Ouch! The damn bird brought me bad luck!” He held one of the tall poplar trees, standing awkwardly on one foot—his left ankle hurt badly, he only could manage standing on his right leg. Then he saw her—a black-haired girl wearing a red skirt and a pair of white sandals. She was so beautiful! In his twelve-year-old boy’s eyes, she was the incarnation of the beautiful fairy in the books. But she was not an ethereal fairy, she was a country girl who was searching for certain herbs in the wood; she wanted the herbs so she could sell them as valuable Chinese medicine in the country market. The girl was sixteen-years-old, slim and fresh. Her black eyes were sparkling with concern but she was shy. She stood beside a tall poplar tree, one hand

89 holding a little hoe, another hand on her heart as if she was scared. He looked at her,

holding his breath; for the first time he felt the world was swirling and the center of

the universe was unveiling itself to him—she is the center of his universe! He forgot

the pain in his left ankle; he walked toward her as if he was under a spell. She

watched his limping steps, her long eyelashes lowered down and curved up as if she

could not believe what she saw. He saw her parted lips—cherry red, silky, as fresh as

the first ray of sunshine on a morning glory. He wanted to cry—not because of the

burning pain in his twisted ankle, but because of the first thirst he felt for the invisible

yet perceived nectar on the girl’s lips. He was taller than most of his classmates, he

looked older than his age. He didn’t know how to make friends with her; he just wanted to be close to her and see her better. So he walked toward her, closer and closer, like walking into a sweet dream.

He collapsed under her feet. Before he fell he was dazzled by something he

never noticed before—her delicate earlobes, the small pit above her collar bone and

the fine and firm curves of her breasts outlined neatly by her tight red dress. He

looked up at her again while his legs went wobbly and sat heavily down on the dirt

ground—he saw her bare legs under her skirt, and he closed his eyes; he thought if he

kept his eyes open, he would be blinded. She dropped her little hoe and extended her

hands—she thought he was sick and needed her help. He held her hands. He felt that his very existence depended on her small hands; he felt his heart was jumping out of his chest and curved up inside her warmth. She helped him lean upon the trunk of a poplar tree, and she left him. He cried out, “Do not go! I am dying.”

90 She turned back with a big basket, smiling to him, “You are not dying. I am

going to fix your ankle.”

She took out some purple herbs from the basket, and put the purple herbs into a small white satchel made of thin linen. She squeezed the small satchel between her hands until the purple juice seeped out from the linen. She dabbed the purple juice on his ankle and massaged it on his swollen skin gently. The evening turned into a pink symphony—the pink cloud dyed the poplar’s quavering leaves, the birds chirped cheerful songs with their wings brushing the pink air. She was composing another symphony on his burning ankle—her slim fingers pressed down warm notes, a soothing tune released from her soft palms, and the invigorating beats jumped on her beautiful arms. He saw the color of her symphony: it was bright and fiery red—dazzling and exhilarating. He felt something he had never felt before: he wanted to be totally wrapped by her hands; he wanted to become a note—a lucky note that could be absorbed into her symphony. She was so near to him, he could see a tiny mole peeping out on the nape of her neck; and she was so far from him too, he picked up his ear trying to catch a clue to pull her closer to him; he felt he was shut out of the

door of her mysterious chamber. He knew she was helping him, but he didn’t want

this help; he wanted her to open the invisible door and guide his jumping heart to rest

in her chamber. He wanted to melt himself into her symphony. Her caring expression

and her gentle massage only made him feel more helpless. He was only

twelve-years-old and he hadn’t seen the world yet, but at that moment he would give

up the whole world to follow her.

91 He didn’t follow her when she left him, not because his hurting ankle held him

back, but because she didn’t want him. She said to him, “Go back home. Your mother

might be worried about you.” She didn’t ask for his name. He wanted to ask hers, but

he was shy.

That night, he cried under his blanket. He knew something extraordinary happened in his life; he knew he would not be carefree any more. He cried because he didn’t know what it was—he didn’t know what the name was for it. He cried because he could not talk about it to his parents.

Tai’s parents never went to a concert, and never listened to a symphony. Tai’s

parents lived a life of two meals a day, a newspaper once week and a lot of gossip.

Tai’s father was a cheap laborer working in a fertilizer factory, and his mother was a

part-time seamstress and full-time housewife. Tai’s father had to go to work at six

o’clock every morning. Tai’s mother didn’t want to get up that early to prepare him

breakfast so she compensated the missed breakfast with a large lunch and a good

dinner; the whole family settled down to the two meals a day without complaint. Tai’s

father didn’t finish primary school and his reading speed was slow, but he pretended

to be an intellectual by buying the city newspaper. He couldn’t finish reading the newspaper on a daily basis because of his slow reading speed, so he only bought a newspaper every Monday and kept reading it for one week.

Tai learned his sense of fashion from his mother. His mother was a very talented

seamstress; she made fashionable clothes on a tight budget and dressed Tai like those

rich young men she saw in the movies. Tai’s classmates assumed Tai was from a rich

92 family because he always looked decent and trendy. When they finally saw Tai’s father, they realized Tai’s family could not be rich. Tai’s father was fat and ugly, and he looked sapless and cringing with his bald head, stooping narrow shoulders and his flabby pot-belly. Tai’s father never cared about fashion. He wore his thread-bare colorless work uniform every day; there were many holes in his cheap nylon socks, and his shoes with the worn-out soles were the cheapest shoes in the country market.

After seeing the obvious loser’s image in Tai’s father, Tai’s classmates began laughing at Tai’s tidy and dashing appearance. They called him “Fake Prince.”

Tai’s family was not rich, they lived in a tiny apartment rented from the factory’s estates, and the bath room in their cheap apartment was so tiny that Tai’s fat father

could barely make a turn in it. He had to use the big public bathing house to take a

good bath. When Tai was five years old, his father took him to the public bathing

house to show him what a good bath meant. He and his father, naked, soaked their

bodies in a big pool full of warm water; he felt the buoyancy and a kind of excitement

from the warm wrap of the water around his small body. He was stirred by a strange

attack—a big naked man took his tiny penis with a leer on his hairy face, “tiny birdie,

delicious birdie!” the man licked his thick lips. Tai felt ashamed. He looked at his

father but his fat father didn’t protect him; his father presented the most ingratiating

smile to that hairy man who was the manager of the factory. The manager grabbed his

birdie for a long time; he felt the shame was going to swallow him. He burst into tears

and cried loudly. Through his tears, he saw his father still wearing the obsequious

smile on his fat face, lowering his bald head toward the manager like a flunkey. He

93 realized his father could not help him, he must help himself. He bent down his head and bit into the hairy hand with all his strength. The manager cried “ouch!” and removed his hand immediately. He won his first battle by a bite in a public bath pool, his small teeth stained with blood, and he felt proud of himself. And he was smart enough to hide his contempt for his father.

After the “birdie and bite” incident, his father apologized to the manager who jumped out of the pool to treat his bloody hand, “Sorry. It is my fault. I will spank my son. He is spoiled by his mother.” He glared at his father; “If he dares spank me, I will kill him with my mother’s long scissors,” he thought.

But his father didn’t spank him after they went back home. His father tousled his hair with a strange expression—his smile was sad but his eyes were sparkling with joy. “Good son. You did it right! You are great!” his father praised him.

He was surprised, “Dad, why didn’t you bite the bad manager yourself?”

His father sighed, “Because he is my manager. He can fire me if I bite him. You should never offend the man who has the power to fire you.”

His father’s flunky smile in front of the manager and frustration at home made him learn the first lesson about being a man. He saw that how important power was to a man—being a man without power is pathetic and only brings shame and misery to his family. He knew he would never want to be his father—his father was powerless.

At the dinner, his father said to his mother with a weird expression: “The manager is impotent, and it is said grabbing little kid’s birdie can help him regain his manhood. It is a superstition. But poor guy, he will try everything to get cured.” His

94 father shook his head, smacking his lips with relish, speaking in a tone both sardonic

and complacent, as if he was talking about something repulsive yet flavorful.

He felt sorry for his father. He wondered whether his father had manhood or

not—his father’s belly was so big and so high, that he guessed that his father could

barely see his own birdie. At that moment, he learned another lesson about being a

man—he grasped the connection between manhood and birdie; he realized that his

powerless father was laughing at the powerful manager because the manager’s birdie

didn’t work. According to his little kid’s simple logic, he drew a conclusion that even

if a man has the power to fire someone, he can still be made fun of by a powerless man if his birdie is weak.

He grew up wearing trendy clothes like the rich teenagers in the movies

because of his mother’s deft seamstress’ hands, bearing the nickname “Fake Prince”

because of his father’s powerlessness and loser’s image. He learned his lessons

without consulting his parents. He wanted something he could not tell his parents—he

knew that if he spoke out to his poor parents about his dreams, he could only make them feel sad—colorful dreams could only make the powerless loser feel more

depressed in face of the dreary and grim reality. He wanted to be powerful, to have

good birdie and respectable manhood, to be rich, and to have big houses, to take a

bath in his own big bath room, and to feel the buoyancy in his private big bath pool.

He might have never seen the biggest dream in his life if he didn’t roam among

the wood in that early summer evening, if he didn’t meet her, the country girl in a red

skirt emerging like a fairy among the popular trees. He would always remember that

95 moment when the shimmering pink cloud was caressing the poplar leaves, which

were quavering and murmuring in the wind, and his heart was jumping. At that

moment, he realized something foggy and big stirring inside himself, which he had

never noticed. He knew the girl was not a dream; the girl treated his hurting ankle

with a certain purple herb and her gentle massage. But his feeling about this encounter

was a dream, a dream growing and expanding into a fantasy, haunting and alluring,

wrapping him in an indescribable thirst and confusion. He cried over the dream

because the dream made him feel extremely lonely—he could not talk about it with

his parents like he could not talk about his dreams about the big house and the private

bath pool, but this unspeakable dream was really different: it licked his little heart,

and raised his twelve-year-old body into the pink cloud, its magic rhythm galvanized

his heartbeats; his nervous indulgence in it some nights gave him such an fantastic buoyancy, which was one thousand times better than floating in a bath pool.

The fantasy growing from the dream guided him to do something he would

never have imagined could be on his to-do lists. The next day after he met the girl

under the popular tree, he bought a potted flower which wore the color of girl’s fiery red skirt. He watered the flower with mineral water he bought with his parsimonious

allowance for snacks; and he watered the flower in the early morning after his father

went to the factory and his mother was still in sound sleep. He stared at the slim stems

and little delicate twigs of the red flower with a riveted intensity. His eyes followed

the water swirling and gurgling down into the thick soil; his mouthed opened when he

saw one red flower jolting in the morning breeze, eagerly opening to bright sunshine

96 with a powdery yellow stamen lit up in the little dent. He tentatively touched one

half-opened red bud, tickled by the silky firmness of the petal and the rough hardness

on its calyx. One full-moon night, he tiptoed to the balcony where he put the red flower, he felt the allure of the elusive fragrance so acutely that he put his tongue into one red flower’s little chamber. That night he dreamed of the girl who wore a red skirt

and a pair of white sandals, and who conjured up a red symphony in a pink evening.

In his dream, his body melted into the mineral water that gurgling down to the root of the red flower, and the girl was smiling and her face immersed into a red silky sea of flowers. He wetted his bed that night, not with urine but with milky cloud produced from his restless dream. His silent and secret adoring of the red flower finally drew the attention of his mother. His mother worried that he might be sick or in the wrong direction of gender sense; and his mother told her worries to his father. His father uprooted the red flower from the pot, and threw it into the trash bin. He said nothing; he just smashed the flower pot and threw the shards on the floor. His father raised his hand to slap him, but he ran away into the wood where he saw the girl in his red-flower dream. He thought he would stay in the wood and never go home again, but his mother found him and begged him in tears to go home with her.

He went back home, but he seldom talked to his father from then on. Six months

later he went to the book store in the factory residential area and tried to find some

books about the red flower or the milky cloud that wetted his bed, but he found

nothing about that. He stumbled into a strange book, a book about oil paintings

written by a Chinese musician; he held his breath when he saw the picture in which a

97 beautiful naked girl emerging from a sea shell among the waves. He didn’t know the

name of Venus or Botticelli, and he didn’t care. He bought the book with all the

money in his pocket. He looked at the exquisite lips of the Venus in Botticelli’s

painting for a long time. He wondered why an Italian painter who died a long time ago could catch the same wonder he saw in that summer evening—the Venus’s lips in the picture looked exactly like the lips of the girl who stirred up his dream of the red flower. He hid the book under his bed; the book became his prayer book—he was not religious, but he prayed every night before he went to bed that the girl with the Venus’ lips would enter his dream and send nectar into his breath. He became pale and quiet; he began to lose weight. He drew red flowers and Venus’ faces in the margin of his textbooks. He wetted his bed with milky clouds and he washed his sheet without shame. He got the dream he prayed for—he felt the intoxicating symphony again, and

there were new notes in it with the Venus’ perfect breasts and legs.

His mother found his often-washed sheet and his prayer book. She didn’t tell her

husband about it. She took the book away and burned it in the open balcony when he

was in school. He didn’t know he lost his book when he saw the ashes; when he

finally knew his loss at that night, he asked his mother with a panic, “I bought a book

about fine arts for school, have you seen it?” His mother didn’t say anything; she gave

him a long icy look while she swept away the ashes. He felt extremely sad—she was worse than his father. He realized he was totally alone with his own dreams; he must

set a rock-solid barrier to prevent his parents from killing the red flower and the

nectar on Venus’ lips. He was estranged from his parents because they were so

98 determined to destroy his precious dreams. He began to imagine a life in which he could enjoy all the fancy dreams and beautiful flowers he liked—a life without meddling parents. He added another item into his want-list—he wanted total freedom and total control of his life, so that no one would laugh at his dreams, no one dare mess with his sacred fantasia.

When he was fifteen, he thought he found a way to get power and total freedom.

His neighbor, a factory worker nicknamed “iron fists” because of his invincible records in street fighting and bar room brawling, was shot and killed by a rich teenager in a fight over a pretty dancing girl in a night club. The teenager’s uncle was the chief of the city police department. The teenager was acquitted because his father hired a famous lawyer who defended the teenager with an eloquent speech on the physically weaker one’s “self-defense” and “natural reaction in a life-and-death moment,” described the “iron fists” as a dangerous thug and his death a result of his own damaging violence. Hearing the helpless and pathetic howling of the neighbor’s family, Tai was struck by an unprecedented awe for the killing power of a gun and the power the lawyer had over life and death. He decided to study law and he wanted to achieve a position which could give him access to the most powerful gun. He began to study very hard and became the top student in his class. With his excellent academic performance and his ever-trendy dressing style, he stood out as an admirable boy with a great expectation. Some girls in his school fell in love with him, giving him shy glances and smiling at him nervously. He ignored them. After connecting deeply in his numerous dreams with Botticelli’s stunning Venus and the fairy-like girl emerging

99 among the popular trees in that pink evening, he set his bar very high. All the school

girls were too mundane to live up to his fancy dream made of red flowers and thrilling

fantasia.

When he was seventeen, he wanted to see the world after he read a book about

all the surprise and excitement in traveling. He went to the best hotel in Stoneville, the

nearest city to his father’s factory. In the big ballroom decorated with huge crystal

vases and blooming red roses, a pompous wedding was swinging up to its climax

moment—the bridegroom was going to kiss the bride. He saw the bride and he heart

jumped—she was so fresh and beautiful; her sweet sparkling eyes reminded him of

the girl he met in the wood when he was twelve. And then he saw the bridegroom; he

couldn’t believe his eyes: he was ugly and old, deep wrinkles wriggling around his

big mouth when he cracked his crooked smiles. He could not understand what he saw

a few seconds later: the ugly old man was kissing the fresh beautiful girl, and a lot of

people applauded and raised their glasses to congratulate them. He asked an old

woman who wore five gold rings on her hands, “Why can such an ugly man marry

such a beautiful girl?”

“Because he has power. He is the vice mayor who is in charge of the industry and business in this city,” the old woman said every word with emphasis as if she was proclaiming an important tenet.

After he saw how the beautiful bride was willingly holding the ugly man’s hand

and smiling as if she was very happy, he figured out that he must get power first

before he could fulfill his dream of Venus and red flowers, and the only possible way

100 for him to get power was through education and meeting powerful people. He canceled all his plans of traveling, and concentrated on his studying. He was admitted to the best university in China when he was eighteen; he was the first student who was

admitted by the prestigious university in the forty years’ history of his high school.

It was in the best university that he learned the name for his dream and his

thrilling fantasia; the name was “tenderness”. He encountered the word “tenderness”

in the lyric of a love song. That was on a full-moon summer night, he lounged in the

grass near a lake, listening to the radio. A soft tune caught his attention, and a mellow

song zoomed in and floated along the tune, began tickling his ears. He lingered on the

lyric, and he felt the moonlight was going to set ablaze on the lake. The lyric touched

his heart like the girl touched his burning ankle with her massage. The lyric gave the

frame and the shape of a hazy clue he had been pursuing in his dreams for many years.

The lyric was soaring in the bright moonlight. “The gentle waves, the swirling flower

on the restless sea, the sigh of the poplar leaves, the feather under the throat of a

canary, the pink cloud around the setting sun, the color in the center of a lotus flower,

the dream of a butterfly upon a dandelion, the jade warmed up by the sunshine, the

morning dew on the red azalea….Oh, the tenderness. Oh, the tenderness from you….”

He felt his body was lifted up and dropped down by the song. He wanted to cry.

He wanted to melt his body into the moonlight and flee away from the song. But he

stayed. The song opened a secret door within his body, from which all the blood and

sap rushed out into his loin—he got an arousal, an overflowing arousal. He saw the

round face of a perfect moon; he heard the shout-out between his legs that forced him

101 to face the obvious connection between dream and reality—between the soft

tenderness and his hard-up masculinity. He wanted tenderness, the miraculous

tenderness of a beautiful woman. He was going to search for it with giddy longing and

clear-eyed determination. He was going to take action—the action to play every note

in his ever-growing fantasia.

The first object of his masculine exploration was the best student in his law school—the girl who had a nickname “studying machine”; she was always studying

hard and she always got the highest score. He seduced her by playing guitar for her

and writing her poems (he copied a lot of love poems from some famous foreign

authors). He had sex with her in his bunk bed in the dorm. The “studying machine”

turned out to be very human; she sweated, farted, and she reeked from her armpits. He

couldn’t finish the sex without vomiting beside his pillow. He called her “skunk” in

his mind and ditched her. He learned that best score doesn’t mean best sex.

His second girl smelled good, he would not have her until he could make sure

she had a good smell. The girl was studying musical in a drama school. She had a

beautiful voice and a curvaceous contour; her wasp waist was small and incredibly

alluring, like siren’s song. He loved her delicate lips; the curves of them were so

exquisite and mysterious, he imagined that only the most beautiful poetry deserves the

moving of her perfect lips. But during the sex, she said dirty words all the time. Her

words were so unspeakably dirty that he slapped her on her face. But the slapping

only made her more excited, more salacious. He called her “slut” in his mind and

ditched her.

102 His third girl was a school teacher teaching moral codes. In her large bed, she lay down and opened her legs, but she never changed her gesture. She was so stiff and cold that he couldn’t finish it without thinking of mummies or corpses. He called her

“cold corpse” and ditched her.

His fourth girl was a sweet nurse who beamed all the time. She looked so neat

and elegant. He loved her perfect manicure and her small dimples. He thought her

sweet femininity was going to lead him to see the wander land. But she sprayed Lysol

on the sheet before having sex with him, and her standard of hygiene was much higher than his. Her body oozed out Lysol instead of sweat. He called her

“over-deodorizing weirdo” and ditched her.

His fifth girl was a PhD candidate in biology; she was very knowledgeable

about sex. She talked a lot about organisms and love potions. But in bed she was too

bookish to be original. After sex, she put on her glasses and opened a book—she took

this sex as the new material for her research. “Too much empty terminology and too

little details,” he dismissed all her research as pretentious false pose. He called her

“stupid bluestocking” and ditched her.

He stopped dating girls for a long time. After he got his PhD in law and got a decent job in the municipal government, he began playing golf and he was a very good player. He hooked up with a voluptuous female coach in a golf club. He wanted the best sex. He put all his colorful imagination on this alluring woman who played

golf so well and who swung her bottom so romantically. He was not disappointed to

some degree—she was very experienced and she taught him many things. But she was

103 a soprano on bed—she shrieked out high C screams. Her high-pitched exhilaration

scared him. He called her “salacious high C” and ditched her.

He was struck by a serious sexual frustration and he couldn’t get an erection for

one year. He went to see a doctor, and the doctor recommend Viagra. He got more

frustrated after he left the doctor’s office. He read books and searched online, trying

to find a cure for his ennui. He found a special cure—stag blood. After drinking up a

big bowl of raw stag blood, he got a hard-on immediately. He called a hooker. And he

called a lot of hookers after that. He watched a lot of porn and read a lot of porn books.

He loved the books better. He was obsessed with a sentence in a book: “The fairy-like,

feather-like, fire-like, rain-like, cloud-like, death-like thrill of sex.” What does it feel?

He was so eager to know, but he never knew until he met that girl in the “Red Skirt”

massage saloon. He never thought the girl would kill him in a rainy night after she

danced the “seven-layer-scarf-dance” for him.

When he was gasping in his big bathtub for last breath, when the heavy shadow

of death was swallowing the last glaze in his eagle eyes, he finally realized he had

never got the miraculous tenderness from her. What he got was just his own fantasy

about the Botticelli’s Venus, and his blind burning for his dream in which he could hold the girl and immerse with her into red flowers. But he didn’t know why the girl

wanted to kill him and killed him in such a way he couldn’t imagine even in his

wildest dream.

104

CHAPTER VII

ALL THE BIG DREAMS CARRY BIG PRICE TAGS

Tai could have never thought he would die such an ugly death, and his death

would evoke such horror and many people would lose sleep for it. Tai was an all time champion in terms of fashion and style; Tai always looked great, and Tai always kept

his trendy and elegant style. He went to the best hair saloon and talked to the best

hairdresser; he ordered his shirts and his perfume from Paris, and he bought the genuine leather shoes made in Italy.

Tai’s secretary whispered his wonder at Tai’s luxurious apparel in his diary:

“The vice mayor was wearing a robin egg blue Gucci T-shirt today, and yesterday he

was in a purple Hermes shirt. His briefcase is a Bottega Veneta. I once saw a small

gold bottle he took from his briefcase—Clive Christian No. 1; I didn’t know what it

was, and now I know it is the most expensive cologne in the world. I wonder how he

can afford all these things. He is a vice mayor but not a millionaire; his salary is

higher than a factory worker, but much lower than a CEO in an investment company.

He is busy with the job as a vice mayor, I don’t think he is doing part-time business.

Everybody called him Diamond Bachelor—assuming he is rich and attractive; but I

smell something fishy about him—I wonder where he got his diamonds….”

105 Tai was not rich at the beginning of his job in the government, and he didn’t

have a rich uncle who was an American citizen and who would bequeath him a lot of

money. But Tai found the way to get rich in a short time.

“The best way to learn is to be humble; the best way to get rich is to have something salable. The most valuable thing in the world is a human’s life, but sometimes the human’s life can be salable too.” Tai wrote in his notebook after his one-week internship in the police department in Stoneville. During one week, he made good friends with the chief of the police department, Mr. Hong.

Mr. Hong patted Tai’s shoulder and said in a sardonic voice: “Why do you, a

smart guy with a Ph.D from the best university want to come here to do your

internship? You want to dig dirt and write a book about the dirt to get famous?”

Tai patted Mr. Hong’s shoulder with a serious expression, “Mr. Hong, I heard

that the best lesson a man could learn is in the place of life-and-death. I think I came

to the right place.”

One week later, Mr. Hong took Tai to a bar; the name of the bar is Blue Cat.

“Why blue cat?” Tai asked. Mr. Hong gave him a mysterious smile, “Blue cat only

comes out in the dark night. Blue cat plays hard but always plays safe.” In the bar, Tai met an expensive prostitute; she was beautiful but she was sly, “Could you pass the napkin for me?” she said to him, giving him a small wink.

Mr. Hong was looking at him with a strange expression, encouraging and

teasing. Tai realized that this was the important test Mr. Hong set up to measure his

ability to handle things.

106 “Sure.” He passed a package of napkins to the girl.

The girl wrote a price on one piece of napkin, it read “5000 Yuan.”

He looked at Mr. Hong, but Mr. Hong avoided eye contact with him. He didn’t like the prostitute—she was beautiful; but he felt she was false in her every cell. He crumpled the napkin into a ball and threw it into the trash bin, saying in a small voice to the girl, “Not tonight.”

“Why not? I promise I will give you a perfect night.” The girl brushed his hand coquettishly.

“Because I am with my father. And my father will spank me if he finds out.” He pretended to be shy. He played it very well.

The girl left him alone and never bothered him again that night. Mr. Hong was deeply impressed with his performance. “I will introduce you to some big shots in our city.” Mr. Hong took his hand and gave it a friendly squeeze, “You are a very smart guy.”

The next day, Mr. Hong drove his private car, a brand-new Audi, and brought him to a big villa among hundreds of apricot trees near a clear creek in the suburb of

Stoneville. In the villa, Tai saw nine men whom he had never seen. The nine men were the big shots in the city. They were millionaires and high-rank officials. That day,

Tai was wearing his best suit; he spent three hundred Yuan on it: all his scholarship money allowed him to spend in one month. But he saw the obvious contempt in one big shot’s small eyes when Mr. Hong introduces him as “the new intern, a smart guy.”

The big shot was a real estate developer and a billionaire. The billionaire was wearing

107 a white silk Chinese gown and a pair of black Kung Fu shoes, a gold Rolex shining on his fat wrist. The billionaire owned the big villa.

“What is your opinion about making money, smart guy?” the billionaire asked

Tai in a teasing tone.

“Big money sometimes gets dirt on it; a smart man can make it clean.” He was swirling a cup of red wine, his voice, calm and confident.

“Really? How?” the billionaire was interested; he walked closer to Tai, flashing a warm smile.

“By making good use of the law.” Tai looked deep into the billionaire’s eyes. Tai played the right card. Tai was welcomed into the elite circle at the end of the cocktail party that day.

“Good job.” Mr. Hong hugged Tai in front of his Audi, “You will have a great career. I can see all the big shots were deeply impressed.”

“Not as a lawyer,” Tai said flatly. Tai wanted something bigger—something that allowed him to look down at the billionaire who dared show his snobby contempt just because he was wearing a cheap suit.

Tai applied for a government job and was admitted to the administration office in the city hall. Mr. Hong said he would help Tai get high position if Tai could help him with some legal issues during his handling of some sensitive cases. Tai agreed—he knew Mr. Hong had a lot of connections; he should never offend the man who could pull strings in many fields. He gave Mr. Hong advice about how to lawfully cover the unlawful secrets, how to take advantage of the grey areas and the

108 legal loopholes. One day, Mr. Hong took him to the Blue Cat bar again, and gave him

a small blue package. When he came back to his small apartment he rented in the

university area, he locked the door before he opened the package. Inside the package,

there was a stack of brand-new money. He counted the money many times—it was eighty thousand Yuan, more than what his father made in eight years. He rewrapped the package with the money in it, and put it away under his bed.

He felt bad about the money because the way Mr. Hong gave him the money

made him feel like an outsider at a big game. He wanted to join the game. He wanted to have his own say in the amount of money he received. He doubted that the eighty

thousand Yuan was a joke—perhaps he was just a joke for those arrogant and snobby

billionaires. He wanted to know how much dirt he helped clean from the colorful

money those billionaires gained in the game. He called Mr. Hong and told him they

needed to talk. During the talk, Mr. Hong threatened to kick him out the city. Tai

calmly produced a notebook made of copies, “I recorded every case for which I gave

my advice; if I disappear for two days, my friend will publish the original records and

your name will be in it.”

Mr. Hong laughed. “Of course you will be in the game. You are the smartest

person I have ever met.”

One week later, Mr. Hong passed him a small blue card and whispered a

password to him. When he checked the card, he found there was a bank account under

his name, with one hundred and twenty thousand Yuan in it. After the talk, Mr. Hong

treated him like a real friend—he invited Tai to his own home, and his wife cooked

109 good meals for Tai. He introduced Tai to his son, who was the owner of the most

expensive golf club in the city. And with the help of Mr. Hong, Tai joined the big

game.

In the golf club owned by Mr. Hong’s son, Tai realized that he was only a small

fish in a big pool. He was powerless. He saw the sugary-sweet smile the waitresses

and the caddies presented to certain people. Those people never paid for the expensive

wines they ordered in the bar. They only needed show a little golden card. He learned from Mr. Hong’s son that all these people (not so many, he only saw five people) were

VIP members, and the golden card was the VIP card.

“What’s the qualification for a VIP holder?” he asked.

“If you are the mayor of the city, you will be a VIP.” The young club owner

laughed, “The only qualification is power.”

Tai sighed in his heart. He encountered the cruelty of the game face to face: he

didn’t have a golden card because he was powerless. He planned to take action to get

the card of power; he wanted to be the mayor of the city.

He began to read books and took notes about how to get power. He figured out

two important tenets for fulfilling his power-pursuing dream: the first is that big

success stems from small details; the second is that favorable image helps open the

door. His meticulous detail-controlling project started from his purchase of two

machines: he bought the best washer and drier in the city. He wore snow-white

spotless shirt and deep blue Saint Laurent suit; he went to a man’s nail saloon and got

his nails polished; he tried some expensive cologne and settled down on Clive

110 Christian No.1, because he thought the smell was attractive but never too aggressively attractive. He changed his shirt and suit every day, and made sure his style kept on the level of being elegant but never too swanky. He used the best shampoo and conditioner, and his black shining hair always smelled good. His hair style was the

“gentleman’s style.” It was also a better version of the current mayor’s hair style. He got up at six o’clock every day and he was always the first person that arrived at the office in every morning. All his colleagues liked him, thinking he was diligent and generous. He bought a good quality tea maker for the office, and he made tea for everybody at lunch break. He became the most popular person in the city hall. One year later he was promoted to be the director of the law office in the city government.

He was twenty-nine, and he was the youngest director of the office in the city’s history. He wrote a book about the city law and the importance of the city law’s enforcement, and paid a publishing house fifty thousand Yuan to get the book published. He attended every important conference about penal law and submitted academic articles to the conference; his articles were acclaimed as well-written and effective with convincing support of realistic cases. His name was listed together with the most famous scholars on penal law. He was invited to give speeches about law enforcement in the city hall.

When he was thirty-three years old, he made good friends with the mayor and the governor. He won the mayor’s heart by playing golf with him. He would beat the mayor in the first game and then pretended that he lost his momentum and let the mayor defeat him in the following games. The mayor would pat Tai’s shoulder and

111 said: “You are really good, no wonder everybody calls you Tiger Woods. But you

know what: I am the tiger-hunter!” The mayor would be intoxicated with his victory

and his metaphor, and Tai would smile humbly, pretending that he tried his best and

he had a lot to learn from the victorious mayor.

Tai built close connections with the governor since he attended a birthday party held by the governor’s family. It was a long and boisterous party to celebrate the governor’s fiftieth birthday. Many rich and powerful people were invited. Some of them got drunk and vomited under the dining table. He helped the governor’s wife clean the dining room and did the dishes after the party. Tai’s “detail-controlling” tenet made him take out the garbage, vacuum the carpet, and spray air fresher in the dining room and bath room to dispel the unpleasant smell from the vomit and other things. He stood out among the rich and the powerful, and struck the governor as a sober and reliable young man. The governor’s wife fell in love with him and said many good words about him in front of the governor. One week later, the governor called Tai to have dinner. During the dinner he asked Tai what his hobby was; Tai said

“playing golf and reading books.” Tai asked the governor, “What is your favorite thing to do except being a powerful man?” The governor said: “collecting calligraphies.” Tai spent seventy thousand Yuan on a calligraphy work written by a famous calligrapher, and sent it to the governor as a birthday gift.

Catapulted by the favor from the mayor and the governor, and with the right

string Mr. Hong pulled for him, Tai was nominated as the vice mayor in charge of law

and justice one year later. He was thirty-five; he was the youngest vice mayor in the

112 city’s history. His name became a legend in the street gossip and in the city’s social media.

But Tai paid a high price for being a legend. Mr. Hong’s son, the owner of the

best golf club, gave Tai a golden card and a golden key after Tai was nominated as

the vice mayor. Tai knew the golden card was the VIP card, but he had no idea what

the golden key was for. Mr. Hong’s son led Tai to a white door on the fifth floor and

smiled: “Have a good time.” Tai opened the white door with the golden key; inside the door, there was a suite with red carpet, red wall paper, red curtains and numerous

red lanterns hanging from the red ceilings. Tai didn’t like the style, but he was

curious—his eyes lingered on the overwhelming redness; he remembered his dream

of the red flowers. He stared at the balloon-like red lanterns, hoping for a thrilling

encounter. He opened another white door to the bedroom, there she was—a naked

woman wrapped in a red veil with the showy gesture of the Velázquez’ s “Venus in

front of a mirror.” The woman opened her legs to him; he was dazzled by what he

saw—the red flowers in his dreams blossomed at the woman’s secret part, the red

flowers glimmering with rose water. He wanted to bite into his own arm to make

sure it was not a dream. But the woman’s voice saved him, “Please take off your

clothes.”

He tried to calm down; he reminded himself that he should be cautious—every

favor carries a price tag. What does the woman want from me?

113 “Don’t be nervous, handsome. You got a golden card; every golden card holder

is treated with a ‘red-luck’ feast. I am just one dish of your feast.” The woman unveiled her face: she was very beautiful.

He took his dish. He didn’t speak a single word to her in the two hours they

were together. He covered her face with the red veil; he was reclaiming his

red-flower dream when he plunged into the red cloud under the red lanterns. He used

a condom, but the woman did something strange—she rolled the condom off his

penis and smeared all his semen on her red veil.

The next day, Tai received a call from Mr. Hong. “You are accused of raping a

girl in the golf club. The girl had your semen as her proof.”

Tai knew he fell in the trap set up by Mr. Hong and his son; he had to ask them

for help as if they were his best friends. “Please help me. I will be very grateful if

you help me get out of this situation.”

Mr. Hong said, “Meet me at the Blue Cat bar at nine o’clock.”

That night, Tai and Mr. Hong reached a new deal. Mr. Hong would protect Tai’s

honor and public image, while Tai would help Mr. Hong cover up some ugly deals

and make the corruption look lawful and clean.

From then on, Tai was forced to keep silent in some sensitive cases; he had to

ask Mr. Hong’s permission before he accepted invitations to give a speech on certain

cases. And he was introduced into the heinous “man-fishing” project.

Before Tai knew about the “man-fishing” project, Tai’s dream was having a golden card. He channeled his emotion and philosophy to pursue his dream. He wrote

114 in his diary, “You’d better take the grey areas for granted. No fish can live in water which is too pure; no man can make friends if he is too ethical.” He thought there was a pragmatic wisdom in the lines. But when he saw the core of the “man-fishing” project, he shuddered. It was not about grey areas, it was about red blood and irrevocable blackness. The first case in the “man-fishing” handling was clear-cut. Mr.

Hong allowed Tai to see everything. A thug was caught blood-handed: he killed one couple and their eleven-year-old daughter. The thug was the owner of the Blue Cat bar.

The thug killed the couple because they refused to be relocated when he offered to buy their house to start a casino business. He killed the daughter to destroy the only witness. A vagabond cuddling in the shadow of the house saw the crime and called the police. The thug was convicted murder and would be shot in six months. But the thug was the nephew of a billionaire and the billionaire was an important member of the

“man-fishing” project. The thug was fished out by one million Yuan two months later; and the whole case was rewritten— the vagabond was the true murderer. Mr. Hong shot the vagabond to death one night, claiming the vagabond was too violent to be caught. Tai saw the whole procedure but said nothing. The thug invited Mr. Hong and

Tai to a secret room in the fully-furnished basement of the Blue Cat bar, offered special free service to them, including three hot prostitutes and the best French wines in the bar. Tai declined, saying his mother was hospitalized and he was too worried to enjoy the service. The thug said he admired Tai, and he would kill anybody for Tai.

Mr. Hong asked the thug: “Why do you admire Tai so much?”

115 The thug said: “Tai is a natural leader. Tai looks like a noble king. There is

something magic in him that makes everyone willing to die for him.”

“How about letting Tai be the chief of the ‘man-fishing’ project?” Mr. Hong

sipped the French wine, his small eyes, sparkling and sharp.

“That would be the greatest idea.” The thug clapped his hairy ugly hands.

Tai thought it was a joke. But it was not. The thug’s uncle, the billionaire called

Tai the next day saying that he prepared a special gift for Tai in the Victoria Hotel, the

five-star hotel in the city. Tai didn’t want to go, he already learned his lesson at the

golf club—even a small favor carries a big price tag. But Mr. Hong found him in his

office, and said in a dark and husky voice, “You are the noble king. Everybody loves

you. But if they found their king doesn’t love them, they will be very disappointed.”

“Why me?” Tai controlled his shiver, asked casually.

“Because you are the best,” Mr. Hong’s voice softened.

Tai went to the hotel with Mr. Hong. Tai became the chief of the “man-fishing”

project. The king’s seal or the chief’s scepter was a little red fan with a jade fob

dangling from the fan tail; inside the jade fob there was a small chip which stored all the precious information about the “man-fishing” project. Tai was enthroned as the

new owner of the red fan. Tai could hardly hold his laughter when he saw the

billionaire kneeling down in front of him to present the fan was the very billionaire

who had thrown contempt on his cheap suit at the cocktail party seven years before.

Tai set new rules. The first rule was no one could ever call Tai at Tai’s office; the

second rule was that no one could ever mention the red fan. And the punishment for

116 breaking the rules was very severe. The owner of the Blue Cat bar became Tai’s

informant and secret bodyguard; his murderer’s brutality would help Tai straighten

things up. The new business spunk and shrewdness Tai introduced into the

“man-fishing” project was generalized as “Not every life was created equal. Small

fish have a small price; big fish have a large price.” After some serious research, Tai

set up the third rule: the smallest fish’s price was two hundred thousand Yuan, and

there was no price cap for the big fish—the higher, the better. Tai opened new bank

accounts in his father’s name (he made up a story that his father had a brother living

in American who was a billionaire); money flew in like a flood. Tai felt that he had

totally gotten rid of the shame of “False Prince” and his cheap suit; he would never

need to mimic the trend and style in the Chinese movies. He would lead new trends

and new style which was majestic and unparalleled only belonging to a king.

All the members of the “man-fishing” project were deeply impressed by Tai’s

leadership style. Tai dazzled them by his masterful “detail-controlling.” “Forget about the good and the bad method, find the right method; never rewrite a case, settle the

case right in the first place.” Tai whipped out his hard-core tenet onto the round table

surrounded by the rich and the powerful. Tai saved many lives with the right methods,

but many lives died as scapegoats for his glory as the chief “savior.”

Tai’s fame soared high and hot as the sun at noon on a summer’s day after he took on a big case. The case was the extraordinary high-rise explosion in which two hundred and forty-nine people died. Hundreds of journalists from thirty-eight TV stations flooded into Stoneville to take pictures of the ruins of the fourteen-story

117 apartment building destroyed by the explosion. The telephone rang all day and all night in the media coordinator’s office, and all the telephone calls tried to get an interview with the famous vice mayor Tai.

Tai took a cold shower, ordered a white cotton tie from a small shop, and bought a cheap black shirt and a black suit in the city department store: the cheapest thing he had even bought since he became the “king.” He ordered the best white chrysanthemums in the best flower shop. Tai was ready to present an image of a considerate mourner at next day’s press conference.

In the city hall, long elegiac couplets written on white paper and white cloth hung on the wall; big wreaths of white chrysanthemums and white gardenia were put on a long table, like a big iceberg. Every journalist held their breath when Tai appeared on the podium. Tai was wearing a white cotton tie; Tai’s black suit and black shirt perfectly fit his well-built body, a snow-white beautiful chrysanthemum perched on his left chest like a royal emblem. Tai looked like a noble prince mourning with profound sadness. Some young journalists burst into tears—the vice mayor touched their hearts from the first minute.

Tai gave the famous speech, which was played live at thirty eight TV stations.

“In a moment like this, all the words fail to describe the grief and the fury in our hearts. Our hearts are bleeding from the ache and irrevocable loss; our blood is burning with indignation and righteous anger toward the brutal atrocity. We are calling for a fierce enforcement of law and justice. We will catch all the perpetrators; there will be a lot of death penalties…. The explosion is an extraordinary brutality; it

118 deserves the steepest punishment. I promise you, my people, we will hunt down all

the perpetrators involved in the explosion and put them behind bars in no more than

two weeks….”

The speech was a great success. All the journalists and camera men for the thirty

eight TV stations applauded for the speech for a long time. Tai’ fame flew over

Stoneville and crossed the boundaries of the provinces. Tai became a national star.

Mr. Hong got very nervous after watching Tai’s speech on the big TV at his

police department.

“Damn it! Son of bitch! How can I catch some fierce and crazy cats in such a short time? No more than two weeks? Tai is fucking killing me!” Mr. Hong gritted his teeth, hitting his fists on the TV table.

Tai didn’t know he overplayed his role—he thought he played it perfectly. He

received so much praise and flattery. Even the governor called and praised him,

“Great speech! Good job!”

Ten days passed. Mr. Hong had no clue where to find the perpetrators to settle

the explosion case. Tai was worried too.

“There is no finger print, no witness, no trace. Just a pile of God damn ashes and gravels. How can I know who is the fucking killer? You must have been out of your mind when you gave your fucking promise in your fucking sensational speech!” Mr.

Hong thundered at Tai in the secret room in the Blue Cat bar. The owner of the bar was frowning at Mr. Hong—the thug loved Tai very much, and he had become Tai’s secret bodyguard.

119 Tai smiled: “You can always find the person who is supposed to be the criminal.

I trust you. Remember the vagabond you shot to death? How about you find another vagabond—a poor dog no one cares about? There are so many homeless people in the city, find a man who cannot talk, find a lunatic. This time, remember: you must not shoot him to death with your excuse “too violent to be caught.” We need a living breathing thing as the bloody target for the furious mass to shoot at. The citizens need revenge.”

“Bravo!” The thug applauded for Tai.

Two days later, Mr. Hong caught the killer—a homeless lunatic. Hong said the

lunatic would be the perfect target to be stoned. He was tall and skinny; he had beady

eyes full of hatred, he had no eyebrows, his bald egg-like head made him look like an

evil plotter. Mr. Hong showed Tai the lunatic’s picture with pride.

“Perfect!” Tai was excited. “Perfect murderer! But we need perfect witness and

proof too.”

Mr. Hong sneered, “I will torture this guy to confess everything.”

“Two hundred and thirty-nine lives lost, and thousands of people were friends

and families of the killed. I think we need more than one death penalty to settle the

case.” Tai lowered his voice, looking tentatively at Mr. Hong.

“But what can we gain by catching more people? No one will pay us.” Mr. Hong

shook his head.

“I will pay you,” Tai said with a serious face.

120 “Why?” Mr. Hong was really confused; Tai never paid him since he became the chief of the “man-fishing” project. Tai only gave commands and got paid for it.

“I will pay you two hundred thousand Yuan if you catch more perpetrators. We need at least three death penalties to soothe the boiling emotions stirred up by this fucking case.” Tai held Mr. Hong’s hand tight. Tai was dead serious.

The next day Tai gave Mr. Hong one hundred thousand Yuan in cash. “I will pay you the other half when you catch all the perpetrators.”

On the thirteenth day after Tai’s famous “blood for blood” speech, Mr. Hong arrest two more perpetrators. The two perpetrators were poor peasants from a tiny village tucked in the high mountains that were one hundred miles away from

Stoneville. The peasants were a couple; they were both illiterate. They were both forty-one years old.

The couple was from the small village of Horseshoe in the high mountains, the couple was Xiaoxia’s parents.

The case was settled in two weeks as the vice mayor promised. The published version of the case was clear and concise: The lunatic tried to find a job as a cleaner in the apartment building. He didn’t get the job because the interviewer investigated him and found he had committed thefts. The lunatic hated the interviewer and hated the people living in the building. He bought some explosive material from a country market and exploded the building because of his lunatic hatred. And the greedy couple who sold the lunatic explosives never tried to stop the heinous crime; they just wanted the money and never cared for other people’s life and safety. They deserved death too.

121 The newspapers also published some tributes to the vice mayor. Many long and

wordy articles were teemed with praises, saying the vice mayor was an efficient

official; his cool-handed handling of the explosion case won more love and respect

among the working class.

Tai paid Mr. Hong another one hundred thousand Yuan in cash after the

newspapers confirmed that the case was successfully settled.

One month later, Tai received a call from the billionaire who gave Tai the red

fan—the king’s scepter. The billionaire said that he was wondering whether Tai

wanted to build up a new apartment building at the same place where the explosion

made the big ruin; if yes, he would like to be the contractor to do the construction, and

he would give Tai thirty percent of the benefits made from the construction project.

Tai knew Mr. Hong caught the wrong perpetrator, and Tai knew Mr. Hong knew it too.

“I am in a big game. And the game is a big wheel. Even if I want to stop I

cannot stop the wheel now. I must go with it, otherwise I will be crushed.” Tai said

silently to himself in front of the mirror in his big bath room.

Tai thought the billionaire was stupid and pushy. Tai didn’t say Yes and Tai

didn’t say No either over the phone. Tai said he would give the billionaire the best pie

to bite at the suburb of Stoneville. Tai launched a new project—the Swan Lake Villa

Area. The billionaire bit the bait. Tai got forty percent of the benefits from the project.

Tai bought the biggest villa in the Swan Lake area. Tai turned his villa into a king’s palace. In the basement of his villa, Tai built up three secret rooms for cash and sensitive files. Mr. Hong showed much more respect to Tai after settling the high-rise

122 explosion case; he brought Tai five best guns as gifts, saying that it was his humble

way to show his loyalty to the “king” and the “chief.”

Tai got everything he wanted. But wait—Tai still felt very empty every

full-moon night. He had not yet found the most precious and most mysterious thing,

which colored his dreams—the tenderness from a beautiful woman.

One full-moon summer night, Tai lay down naked on his king bed, listening to

the enthusiastic chirping of the summer insects; his birdie was restless in the silver

moonlight and got bigger and bigger. He dreamed with open eyes—he saw the girl in

a red skirt and white sandals who massaged his twisted ankle when he was twelve.

She was floating above him, her eyes were bright, her breath was warm. He raised his

arms with longing, trying to pull her to him. But it was hard to catch her. Her swirling

skirt opened like a red flower, she spun her slim body in the air like a ballerina

showing her stunt, spinning away from his fingertips, further and further. Her face and

her neck were shining in the moonlight; her bare arms were opening like wings. She

flew up like a fairy, landed on a silver cloud beside the moon, looking at him with a

mysterious smile. His heart soared up to the silver cloud to melt into her. But his

birdie became heavier and more demanding. He wrestled with his birdie until he

conquered it; when he got rid of the distraction to follow her, she was gone. Sad

moans spurted from his dry throat: he saw there was no silver cloud beside the moon;

there was only some milky cloud stuck on his belly. He wanted to cry, and he wanted

to laugh. Am I a king? A chief? Am I rich? I have nothing! I am thirty five, I am getting old. I never found it. I must find it! I will find it tomorrow!

123 The next day, Tai received a VIP card as a gift from the billionaire. The VIP card was for the service of a massage saloon. Tai’s eyes lit up when he saw the saloon’s name: “Red Skirt.” Tai found the saloon in a narrow street near the city rail station.

The words “Red Skirt” were written in black on a red lantern hanging above a red narrow door. Tai entered the narrow door with large strides.

124

CHAPTER VIII

WHY ARE YOU HERE

Tai was wearing dark sunglasses and a mauve flannel shirt when he appeared in front of the reception counter of the Red Skirt massage saloon. He showed the receptionist his VIP card. The receptionist was a smiling round-faced woman wearing tight red dress and sparkling pink lipstick; she looked at Tai with a mysterious smile:

“This is your first time here. You can have your pick tonight. Please follow me.”

Tai was led into a round room with a big fake olive tree and a tall half-naked

female mannequin wearing a red mini skirt under the tree t. The smiling woman

handed Tai a red envelope, “You need the password to access our special files. You

can pick any girl you like in the files. Here is the computer.” She bent down and

picked up a white laptop under the feet of the mannequin.

The receptionist left after Tai turned on the laptop and opened the files. The files

were categorized pictures of young girls. Under the name “massage level one”, Tai

saw the pictures of five girl wearing bras and thongs with provocatively sexy gestures.

Tai clicked on the “massage level two”, he saw pictures of girls dressed up like

characters such as “spicy girl”, “snow white”, and “Cleopatra.” Tai didn’t feel

attracted to any of those pictures—he thought they were as false as the mannequin. He

125 turned off the laptop and left the room.

At the door the smiling receptionist stopped Tai with a deep bow: “Have you found the girl you like?”

“Sorry, I just want a good massage. I guess I came to the wrong place.” Tai

walked towards the exit.

At that moment, a red lantern was lit up. A soft song was floating from the dark

corner. Tai slowed down; he knew the song—the song of tenderness. “The color in the

center of a lotus flower, the dream of a butterfly upon a dandelion, the jade warmed

by the sunshine, the morning dew on the red azalea….Oh, the tenderness. Oh, the

tenderness from you….” Then Tai saw her—the girl who was carrying a red lantern.

In the dim hall decorated with false flowers and fake trees, the girl emerged like the

magic music played by Orpheus, filling the air with fresh light and heart-throbbing elegance. She raised the red lantern and was trying to hang it up on a white pillar. Her extended arms and tautened body in the red lantern light looked as enchanting as Tai’s red flower dream. Tai stopped and gazed at her through his dark sunglasses. The girl tiptoed in her white shoes, stretched her body into full tension to reach the lantern hanger; she was petite and the hanger was too high for her. She didn’t give up—she raised her right leg and tiptoed on her left foot to extend further. Tai noticed that she was wearing a red skirt and white shoes. The song of tenderness strummed Tai’s heart like warm fingers. Tai felt the spinning of his dream—the dream at the full-moon night in which he longed for a girl so desperately but the girl flew away from him.

“No! I would not let her go this time,” he thought. Tai took off his dark glasses, wore

126 his charming smile, and walked toward her. “Let me help you.” He took the red

lantern from her hand and hung it up on the white pillar with ease. But he lost his ease

and words when he finally saw her face—she was beautiful, more beautiful than the

picture of Venus in Botticelli’s paintings he saw when he was twelve.

The girl murmured a soft “Thank you” and disappeared behind a wooden screen

carved with the pattern of a flying phoenix and blooming peony flowers.

“Do not go!” Tai cried in his heart. But he said nothing.

Tai put on his dark sunglasses and returned to the reception counter. The smiling

woman was so eager to please him that her whole face was piled with enthusiastic

attention. “If you don’t like the girls in the special files, we have some new girls. They

can do the basic massage. They are on our trial course, they are very young.”

“I saw a girl who looks like my cousin. I wanted to talk to her. She hung up the lantern there.” Tai said in a casual tone.

“Oh. That is Xiaoxia. She is new. I will bring her to you.” The receptionist

winked at Tai in a knowing way.

Xiaoxia was brought to Tai by the smiling woman. Xiaoxia knew the man who

wore a pair of dark glasses was very rich: she saw his golden Rolex watch on his left

wrist when he was raising the lantern to hang it on the pillar. Xiaoxia was twenty, she

didn’t have many chances to know the rich people before she dropped out of college,

and she never cared about it. After she dropped out of college, she worked to support

her little brother and take care of his medication for his asthma, she began to pay

attention to the rich customers who spent money in a way she never imagined could

127 exist in human civilization. She learned to infer people’s economic standing by the

things they wore and the way they carried themselves. And her inferences helped her

to talk to the people with right words and make them happy to get her good tips.

Xiaoxia knew the man was very wealthy, but she was not sure who he was. He must

be famous to some degree—that is why he wore sunglasses even at night in a dimly lit

massage saloon. Xiaoxia told herself to be cautious with him.

Tai saw the girl in his dreams when he saw Xiaoxia standing in front of him

wearing a soft smile. He looked at her intensely through his dark glasses, his throat

burning dry, his eyes moistened. He extended his hand, “So nice to meet you.

Xiaoxia.”

Xiaoxia took his hand, “So nice to meet you. How can I help you?”

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to you if you have time….” Tai stammered. He

felt it would be rude to ask her to give him a massage. “She is so exquisite. She

should be a princess to be served by loyal maids instead working on a random guy’s

muscles with her beautiful hands,” Tai thought.

The receptionist smiled her sugary smile: “Of course she has time. Xiaoxia,

bring our distinguished guest to the best VIP room. Here is the key.” She handed

Xiaoxia a pink card.

In the VIP room, Tai took off his sunglasses. He felt like he was twelve

again—vulnerable with a hurting ankle, waiting for the girl to save him with the

exhilarating allure of her red symphony. Except that his ankle was fine, his desire was

not fuzzy but focused and clear, and his loin was thirty-five man’s loins: fussing

128 painfully, demanding a massage.

In the center of the VIP room, there was a king bed covered with white satin

bedding with a peach-pink embroidery of big heart embellishing it. A pearl white

Meridian Serena sofa was between the bed and a long arched window veiled in

peach-pink silk. In front of the sofa, a Louis XIV style small table stood delicately

with three curvaceous legs. On top of the table two rows of fancy-shaped bottles were

laid out neatly—they were the massage lotions and atmosphere-boosting perfumes.

Tai sat down on the Sofa, staring at the pink heart on the bed, and then stared at

Xiaoxia who stood in front of him; Tai blushed like a little boy.

“I will do the massage for you. What kind of lotion would you like to use?”

Xiaoxia said.

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to you.” Tai whispered.

“We can talk after the massage. There is sandalwood oil and the Neroli oil on

the table. They are very good. Do you want music? You can pick the massage music

from the menu.” Xiaoxia pointed to small silver remoter beside the perfume bottles.

“Xiaoxia, why are you here?” Tai sighed, his eagle eyes closed a second, and

opened large with eagerness.

“I am here because I know how to do a massage,” Xiaoxia said. She opened her

white purse, took out an amber comb, and tied up her long black hair into a round chignon. “I am ready to work.”

“If I pay you, could you talk to me? I mean the real story. I will pay you now in

cash.” Tai took out his wallet, a Louis Vuitton Bleu Marine.

129 “I don’t sell my story. I am here to do my job.” Xiaoxia raised her chin. Her polite smile disappeared. Her eyes were cold.

“I am sorry.” Tai sighed again. “Then give me the best massage you could give to a man.” Tai said in a husky voice.

Tai took off his shirt and his Khakis, his golden Versace briefs flaunting a king’s crown design with the bulging boldness in the yolk-yellow light from a lamp beside the king bed.

Tai stood in front of the girl in his dreams, the spring night air warm and meek around his strong body; Tai showed off his desire for her without shame.

“Go to bed with me.” Tai said curtly.

“For the massage.” Xiaoxia said.

“Take off your clothes.” Tai walked towards the girl in his dreams.

“No! I will call other girls up if you want something else more than a basic massage. There are a lot of girls who do that for money. Not me.” Xiaoxia turned to the door.

“Please do not go! I am so sorry. I just want to talk to you. You look like my cousin.” Tai whined.

“You want a basic massage or not?” Xiaoxia asked curtly.

“Yes. I want a basic massage. I promise I will be good.” Tai lay down on the bed, looking at her with a sheepish supplication in his eyes.

130 “I will play you the music flower, river, spring night and full moon. It is very soothing. I will use the lavender oil, it will help you relax.” Xiaoxia put down her

purse on the sofa, clicked on the silver remoter.

The music streamed in. It was very soothing, but Tai was too excited to calm

down.

Tai felt the air was burning when Xiaoxia took off her shoes and sat on the edge

of the bed. He saw her red skirt unfurling and floating down on the white satin. He

saw her perfect legs and her delicate small feet in a pair of silk socks when she moved

to the center of the bed and bent down to him.

“I would give up the whole world to have this girl.” Tai heard his own heart

beating thundering drums in his own ears.

“Turn around. I will begin from your back,” Xiaoxia said.

“No. I want to see you.” Tai controlled the buzzing commotion surging from his

loin, looking at the girl with willful longing.

“Then I will begin with your feet.”

Xiaoxia took Tai’s left ankle, giving gentle massage to the arch of his foot.

Tai felt it for the first time in his life—the tenderness he had been looking for so

hard and never found. He closed his eyes and saw in his restlessly burning cells “the

color in the center of a lotus flower, the dream of a butterfly upon a dandelion, the

jade warmed up by the sunshine, the morning dew on the red azalea….”

Tai let out low and happy moans.

131 “Thank you! Thank you so much!” Tai wanted to say to the girl who he just met

but gave him something so precious.

Tai was greedy. He wanted something more. He wanted her.

Tai became a sly tiger, waiting for the right moment to bite into his prey.

The moment came soon. Xiaoxia was bending upon his chest to give him a

shoulder massage. Tai pulled the girl to him and kissed her on her lips. Tai kissed her

tentatively with calculation and rhythm. Tai was proud of his skill of conquering; he

thought he made the move at the right moment. The girl didn’t resist, the girl just

closed her eyes. Tai saw her eyelashes were trembling. Tai felt the irresistible power

surging up in his blood to open up her closed eyes and lips, to melt into her trembling

beauty.

Tai intruded his tongue into her mouth, wrapped his strong leg around her slim

waist.

Xiaoxia open her eyes, and pulled her head away from Tai’s fierce kisses, said:

“If you want me, please tell me who you are. Tell me your real name. Treat me like a friend.”

“I am Tai, the vice mayor of this city. I thought you must have recognized me.

I’ve been on TV many times.”

“Why are you here? You can have room service like those big shots did. You just

give a call and pick the girl in the special files, and the girl will go to your place.”

“I am here to meet you. You are my Venus, my love.” Tai whispered.

132 Xiaoxia recognized Tai the moment he took off his sunglasses the second time—the time after they entered the VIP room. She saw him on TV when he gave that crappy speech about “blood for blood” and saw his pictures in the newspapers with the articles praising his cool-handed handling of the high-rise explosion case.

Xiaoxia had every reason to pay attention to the man who was in charge of law and justice in the city—Xiaoxia’s parents were sentenced to death and shot as the perpetrators in the high-rise explosion.

Tai seduced the girl in his dreams with all the knowledge he learned from the countless girls he had been disappointed with; Tai was having her in his eager arms to disperse all the disappointments and claim the magic tenderness he had been longing for since he was twelve. Tai was unstoppable.

Xiaoxia allowed him. She felt a sharp pain—she was wounded from inside. Her virgin blood seeped in the peach-pink heart in the white satin; the heart looked like it was bleeding too.

Tai was crying with triumph, his body drowned in the tenderness, rising high in a dazzling glow. Tai soared up to pursue the girl in a red skirt flying to the full moon.

He finally caught her on the silver cloud in the bright moonlight. He held her tight and entered her secret chamber where the enchanting music flowed out and played the fantasia in his dreams.

Tai lost his words. He gazed at the bleeding heart on the king bed; he couldn’t believe his eyes.

133 “Why you are here?” he wanted to ask but felt any words at that moment would

be an anticlimactic blunder. He kissed her silently on her forehead.

Xiaoxia would not answer him if he asked.

“Why am I here?” Xiaoxia had been asking herself that since the first day she

came to the “Red Skirt” massage saloon. This was her seventh job since she dropped

out of college.

Xiaoxia knew the answer. And the answer was so clear and simple. But the answer was also unspeakable.

In Xiaoxia’ white purse, there was a small purple notebook in which she wrote

something she would not have told anyone. Her handwriting was in a light-blue ink,

neat and beautiful, but the words she wrote down were bleeding like the peach-pink

heart.

It took me five months to figure out what everyone in this city tried to tell me with ambiguous smiles or cold sharp sneers—work was for suckers. The fiery epiphany struck me at a mermaid bar where I dressed up in a purple-blue over-tight dress, tossing my long hair, waiting at a table as an alluring mermaid: “How can I

help you?” I added sugary cheer into my intonation of the usually-sound-stiff

standard Chinese Mandarin, with a hope that I could hold my sixth job long enough

to get one-month salary. The customers—four big guys, squinted their blood-shot eyes,

their sticky glances loosened and thickened, buzzing with unsteady stings on my cheap

thin mermaid dress. “Where is your tail?” Dirty hands patted and lingered on my

bottom. I wanted to spit at those blood-shot eyes and kick those greasy ugly fat faces,

134 but I knew I couldn’t afford it—my fragile little brother needs medication for his

troubled lung and medication requires money. I shuddered at the thought that the

relentlessly blowing north wind in the cold winter might snatch him away from my

life—his asthma, his collection of grasshoppers, his drawings of triangles, his smiles,

his long neck and fingers, his sweet angel face would torture me forever with the

bitter bites of memory. I knew I couldn’t take risk. I would be very cautious with my

work, any kinds of work I could get. I was one of the mermaids, a special waitress

equipped with charm and catering skills, which the trainer also of the owner of the

bar generalized as “all the skills are about being a pleasant and desirable female

body.” I could kill the world to save my little brother, but I knew I couldn’t save him

without money. I knew I must kill my own pride at this moment—a winter night in a

warm bar dealing with the icy cold and the ugly heat of boisterous animals with

human skin.

“Where is yours?” I flashed a quick smile, and shook off the dirty hands with

small fox-dance step. I flirted with these animals that didn’t care to hide their tails; I

sold my mermaid charm with pain and skill, and I sold it so cheap—I saw the price of

one bottle of wine the fat guys ordered: it is three times more expensive than my

one-month salary. How mean they were! How they flared up their contempt and sneer

when they asked: “Do you want to make big money tonight, Pretty? Do you know you

will have a BMW soon if you go with me now?” In their eyes, I was dumb or mentally weak: “Why a girl like you works here?”

135 At that moment I began asking myself why I couldn’t hold my former five jobs. I

found the conclusion very depressing, I couldn’t. I worked as a journalist for a magazine at my fist job. I quit two weeks later without getting a salary when I found out the editor-in-chief’s trick—he insisted give me a big hug every time he saw me and then he pretended to faint and collapsed on me with his two-hundred-pound meat and smell. I worked as a tutor for a thirteen-year-old girl. I quit one week later after her father wanted to show me “some pictures” in his bedroom.

I could not hold the tour guide job because when I was giving a tour to a group

around a famous general’s tomb, all the tourists wanted to hear was not history but

dirty jokes.

“Tell us the most popular one! Tell, tell!” they roared. When I said I didn’t

know, they laughed. “You are a liar; every tour guide digested two boxes of dirty jokes

in her belly. That is a fundamental skill.”

The only job I thought I was going to hold for more than one month was working

in a pharmacy as a cashier. That is until the manager tried to promote an expensive

weight-losing medicine. She put me onto the marketing team, “Xiaoxia, You will get a

lot of money if you act as the image ambassador for this medicine, telling everyone

you have this slim figure because you’ve been taking this medicine for years.” I didn’t

want to be a bloody liar, so I quit.

I quit when a customer in a Karaoke bar raised a complaint about me, saying I

was cold when I served him drinks and refused to sing a song with him; I didn’t tell

the boss that this customer asked me to sit on his lap to serve him and sing the cheesy

136 trashy song I hate most (I knew that is also the boss’s favorite song). I never raised a

complaint, I just quit. But I knew I couldn’t quit this time.

I brought another bottle of the expensive wine to the four fat guys, then another.

“Hey, mermaid, I will pay you if you drink with me. Name an amount, I will pay you now.” I couldn’t help being curious—how could they be so careless about spending money? “May I ask where do you guys work? It is a very lucrative job, I guess?” I asked. “Work? I’ve never worked a single day in my whole life!” the fattest guy guffawed; “Work is for suckers!” The other three guys laughed like they won the biggest prize in the world. I thought that could be a famous line in a modern poem, T.

S. Elliot could have written in his Waste Land: “A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many; I had not thought there walked so many suckers.” I was one of those suckers.

Instead of living in London, I was living in Stoneville, a big city in North China. I could not live in my small village anymore, although I wanted to be with my little brother, taking care of him everyday; I couldn’t stay home at the farm because my little brother would die if I couldn’t make money with good harvest to pay for his medication. I did not know how to have a good harvest—I went to college, I read

Shakespeare and the English bard didn’t tell me how to make use of farmland. I didn’t have the farming skill to make enough money to support my little brother. I came to the city. I got jobs which, while, not about reading drama, tested my strength and ethic as a human being. They are much harder and crueler than Shakespeare’s dramas. I quit five jobs. I can’t quit this time; I determined to be a sucker if being a sucker can bring some money for my little brother’s medication.

137 A mermaid sold her voice for a pair of human being’s legs not because she wanted legs but because she wanted love. I was a mermaid that night in that mermaid bar, a fake one, but I wanted to play real. I would sell my pride for one thousand Yuan, not because I want money, but because I want my brother to get rid of his asthma and get well. “Just one drink, five hundred Renminbi,” the fattest guy smacked the money on the table, “Please do me a favor mermaid, drink with me.” I saw the glistening red wine in his cup; the crystal cup was smaller than a nectarine. “Mermaids never drink something cheap; mermaids only drink the exquisite elixir!” I mimicked a showy contempt and spurned him with a gesture which was so sharp and rude; it only belonged to a drama. The guy got hurt. “I can get you fired right now! My dad is the mayor of this city. I am doing you a huge favor to ask you. Who do you think you are!” I didn’t flinch, I played on. “My dad is the chief of my province, and I work here to honor your city. Please tell your dad about it. ” All the guys at the table opened their mouth, “Ah! Where are you from?” “Bohai, the North Sea of China.” I said very politely. They relaxed and laughed like crazy, “Yes! You are water creature! You live in the sea. Oh! She is so cute! Let’s pay her more!” The fattest guy took out his wallet, and added more money on the table, “Hey! Mermaid, one thousand Yuan, one gulp!

Deal?” “What if I say no?” I saw their oily fat faces, their sharp white teeth, I knew they could be fierce and brutal.

“No? If you say no, you will get fired. Trust me,” the fattest guy said. “Just one gulp, do it for me, mermaid.”

138 “Put the money into a red envelope. Mermaids only take gifts, Renminbi is

nothing for a mermaid,” I said.

I got the red envelope with one thousand Yuan in it, and I quit the job that night.

That was the sixth job I lost in the city. And I paid a heavy price for the one thousand

Yuan—not only with my pride but also with my health. I nearly died that night. After I gulped down one glass of the most expensive red wine, all my skin turned to crimson.

I took a taxi to the city hospital. I was scared. All the doctors were scared too, they didn’t know what to do except say “it is a serious alcohol allergy.” They gave me some anti-allergy pills, and were anxious to get my phone number to write about me and my special allergy. The pills didn’t work very well. The crimson color stayed for two hours, and I vomited many times. The doctor gave me some pills to soothe my stomach. But all the pills were in vain to quench the horrible feeling in my heart—I worried about my little brother. What if I died now? If I died my little brother would be totally alone in this world. Who was going to take care of him, love him, and sent him money to cure his asthma? Who was going to write letters to him, telling him “Do not worry. Be happy. You will get well. Do get well. I love you.”?

I came to the massage saloon because I received a letter from my little brother.

In that letter he told me the doctor gave him a physical check and found out he had a

very bad anemia. The doctor told him he needed a new medication. I knew a new

medication meant more money. I had to find a job immediately; and I knew I would

never work in a bar after I knew my allergy.

139 I overheard a customer in the mermaid bar boasting he tipped two thousand

Yuan to a girl who gave him a back massage. I could do a good massage; I learned it from my grandma. So I went to the prosperous street near the rail station and found the “Red Skirt” massage saloon. I prayed to God I could get the job immediately. And

I did.

I asked the first customer whether I could get two thousand Yuan as a tip if I give him the best back massage. I need the money to save my little brother. He gave me three thousand Yuan and his name card. I read his name in the newspaper: he is a billionaire.

He asked me to go with him to his villa. I said “my little brother was hospitalized; I must go to see him.” I lied. I lied because I knew I would have no power to refuse him in another way after I took his money.

140

CHAPTER IX

BEAUTIFUL BIRD IN THE HIGH MOUNTAINS

Xiaoxia was herding six cows along a creek. It was deep autumn; the air was

chilly and crisp. Kai, Xiaoxia’s little brother, wanted to catch some grasshoppers from

the cornfield across the creek; he crossed the creek by jumping from one rock to

another which were scattered in the shallow water. Xiaoxia was twelve, wearing

home-made clothes and with a short pigtail; her brother was six, pale and thin in a loose yellow cotton shirt and a one-size larger jump-in suit. Xiaoxia picked up the

yellow shirt for Kai in the country market, and paid for it. Xiaoxia made the money by

selling some herbs she collected in the high mountains as an ingredient for Chinese

medicine. Xiaoxia was always anxious to make sure Kai had warm clothes. Kai had

serious asthma, every autumn and every winter, his coughs made Xiaoxia worried

about him. Xiaoxia prayed to Buddha three times every day, asking Buddha to cure

Kai’s disease. But Kai was always sick, sometimes with a bad cold, sometimes a

troubling stomach, and his ever-fussing asthma never let him go.

It was Saturday. A few tourists from the city were bicycling on the other side the

creek, at the feet of a high mountain. Xiaoxia didn’t want to cross the river because

she disliked the talk of those city people—they talked to her with that false smile and

141 real arrogance. But Xiaoxia had to follow her little brother: she loved him and always worried about his health condition and safety. Xiaoxia whisked a willow twig as her whip to hurry the slow cows to cross the creek. The cold running water chilled the hooves of the cows, and stirred up a horror and the horror drove them crazy; the six cows began to stampede, running toward the cornfield, and Kai was in their way.

Xiaoxia sprinted to save her little brother. She saved him by carrying him and putting him on the crotch of a persimmon’s thick branches. When the cows sweated and calmed down, and the stampede stopped, the stunned tourists rushed toward Xiaoxia who was holding the trunk of the persimmon tree, talking to her brother with a soothing voice.

“You are a brave girl,” the tourists said; all of them held up their cameras to take pictures of Xiaoxia. Kai was proud of his sister and said, “Sister, you will be a star.”

One of the tourists, an old man, was a photographer for an outdoor magazine; he took a beautiful picture of Xiaoxia, and published it on his magazine, with a weird title “beautiful bird flying in high mountains.”

Xiaoxia’s parents quarreled and fought with all their ignorant self-importance and their natural born stubbornness. Sometimes they were involved in a fight so intensely, they totally forgot about their kids. During those intense fights, Xiaoxia’s mom would not cook for two days, and Xiaoxia’s father would smash a lot of old dishes and rickety furniture.

142 When her mom was screaming and her dad was cursing, Xiaoxia would cover

Kai’s ears with her hands, and hold Kai in her arms like a mother. Xiaoxia would find food for her little brother, feed him, and watch him to take medicine on time.

Kai followed his sister like a pale moon following a warm sun. He could not imagine a life without his sister.

When Xiaoxia was seventeen, some soldiers entered the small village. Xiaoxia was curious when she saw the soldiers camping along the creek, and she was interested in their “speedy-and-tough” trainings. A young soldier, who was nicknamed

“Apple-face” because his face was fresh with rosy color, saw Xiaoxia. Apple-face asked Xiaoxia whether she could speak English, Xiaoxia said proudly: “I always got the highest score in my English class.” Apple-face whispered in English: “You have the most beautiful eyes in the world. I like you very much.” Xiaoxia was amused.

Xiaoxia taught Apple-face how to grill the most delicious corn with fire made from dry branches and twigs. Apple-face was attracted to Xiaoxia, and he planned to seduce her. He pretended he would play harmonica if Xiaoxia would go to the depth of the cornfield with him. It was a Sunday night, a night of full moon. In the centre of the cornfield, Apple-face hugged Xiaoxia and whispered to her: “We will do a holy rite for the full moon before I play the harmonica for you.” He took off his clothes and coaxed Xiaoxia to take off hers: “We will do a special rite for the goddess of Moon.”

Xiaoxia was not stupid but she was too curious—she took off her clothes. Apple-face swooped upon Xiaoxia and tried to rape her. Xiaoxia fought with all her strength, but the soldier was much stronger.

143 Xiaoxia’s little brother came to the cornfield to search for his sister; he had been searching for her since she left home for the soldiers’ camp. Kai was only eleven, he couldn’t defeat the soldier if he fought with him. But Kai was clever. Kai picked up

Apple-face’s harmonica, and played loud alarm music and scared the rapist away.

From then on, Kai was struck by a strange idea—he wanted to marry his sister, to protect her, and to love her forever.

Xiaoxia loved her little brother as an indulgent mother loves her favorite—all his talents were her pride, all his shortcomings and weakness were her reasons to love him more. In Xiaoxia’s eyes, Kai was a genius. Kai always got the highest scores in mathematics and in biology. Xiaoxia was proud of Kai’s compassion for animals and his love for the nature. Kai loved birds, frogs, grasshoppers, chipmunk, dragonflies and butterflies. And Xiaoxia saw Kai’s potential in art and adored his creative talent.

Kai could carve all kinds of figures out of wood and stone. But Xiaoxia knew when

Kai would need her help the most—that was when Kai was shy in front of some people. Kai was very shy. Kai’s shyness was his weak point—it bothered him, he couldn’t talk to stranger, so he had to ask his sister to accompany him when he needed to buy pencils or notebooks in the store located in another village. Xiaoxia always said “yes” when Kai asked her to speak for him in front of strangers.

144

CHAPTER X

WHY ME

Xiaoxia could not believe her ears when her little brother told her over a

long-distance call: “Mom and Dad have been arrested. They were put in a police car

and driven away. I saw the writings on the police car; it belongs to the Stoneville City

Police Department.”

“It must have been a mistake! Mom and Dad will be sent back soon. The

policemen must have made a mistake!” Xiaoxia’s hand on the receiver was trembling,

but she fought to her voice under control; she did not want her little brother to become

more worried. She knew her little brother’s physical condition was too fragile to stand

something as shocking as this.

“They handcuffed Mom and Dad. They said Mom and Dad have committed a

big crime. They treated Mom and Dad very badly.” Xiaoxia’s little brother began to

sob.

“Kai, please do not cry. I will call the police station, and I will ask a lawyer to save Mom and Dad. You take care, Kai. Wait! You cannot stay home alone; go to

Grandma’s house, and stay with Grandma. Listen, Kai: do not worry, and take your medicine on time. I will go back home soon. I will see you at Grandma’s house.”

145 Xiaoxia would never forget that day—May 13th, 2002. That was on a Monday,

and Xiaoxia would have three classes on that day. When Xiaoxia was in her

mathematics class, the dean of the Department of Economics appeared in front of the

classroom door, saying, “Xiaoxia, come with me. Your brother has called to my

office.”

Xiaoxia immediately became worried. Her brother had never called her because

there were no telephones in their village, and Xiaoxia did not own a cell phone.

Instead, Xiaoxia wrote letters to her little brother, and he read the letters to Mom and

Dad, and her little brother wrote back to her about how things were going in their home; Xiaoxia’s parents could neither read nor write. It took seven or eight days for her letters to arrive at the little village where her family lived, and it took longer than eight days for her brother’s letters to reach the university that she attended. Xiaoxia’s stomach tightened when she heard her brother’s voice over the phone; she thought her brother was sick or hurt or robbed by bad men. She knew her brother must have ridden at least seven miles on his rusty bicycle to the town to find a public paid phone.

Therefore, this phone call must have been very urgent. But, Xiaoxia would never have thought it to be such black news. She could not believe that her parents would do

anything illegal, not to mention committing a big crime.

It must have been a mistake! Xiaoxia bit into her lower lip, her big black eyes flaring. They must set Mom and Dad free immediately.

Xiaoxia was twenty-years old at the time she received the call at the dean’s

office, and she was a sophomore at the university, located in a city eight-hundred

146 miles away from her home. Xiaoxia was the first girl to go to college in the long

history of her village. It took Xiaoxia fourteen hours in a dirty overcrowded train to

travel from the Stoneville rail station (the nearest rail station from her village) to the

city where her university was located. Xiaoxia knew that she could not go home by

herself. She knew that even if she could get home immediately, there was no one in

her village who could help her. No one in her village knew the law; all the villagers

were low-educated farmers. She needed someone who knew the law and who had a

voice to talk to those policemen who had arrested her parents. She did not know

exactly whom she needed to ask for help, but she knew that she must find a lawyer

first.

Xiaoxia did not go to class after receiving her brother’s call. Instead, she went to

the Department of Law at her university.

“Let me talk to the best lawyer in the department,” Xiaoxia said to the secretary

of the office.

“Who are you?” the secretary was an old, fat lady with a long face; she shot

suspicious glances at the beautiful young girl standing in front of her.

“My parents have been arrested by mistake. I want the best lawyer to help my

Mom and Dad. Please!” Xiaoxia bowed to the old lady, her tears dripping down her

face.

“I do not know who the best lawyer is. But, I know Professor Lee is very

famous; he has written five books about penal law. He may help you.”

147 “Thank you. Can I talk to him now? Please tell him it is really urgent; it is about

life and death.” Xiaoxia held the old lady’s hand; her teary eyes were bright and

sharp.

The old lady brought Xiaoxia to Professor Lee’s office.

Professor Lee was a good-looking middle-aged man with high brows and

deep-set big eyes.

“Why me?” Professor Lee smiled, his long fingers tapping on his table, as if

playing an invisible piano.

“Because you can help me. You know how to talk to the policemen. You can

save my parents,” Xiaoxia said, and she told professor what had happened to her

parents.

“Are you going to hire me as your parents’ lawyer?” Professor Lee narrowed his

eyes, his fingers playing at the table slowly to an adagio rhythm.

“I am asking you for help.” Xiaoxia said. Xiaoxia knew she could not afford a lawyer—all she had was eighty Yuan, which was wrapped in a white scarf hidden

under her pillow.

“I thought that you would pay me.” Professor Lee’s smile became warmer and

sweeter; his fingers stopped playing.

“Sure, I will pay you. But, please make the call first. Please tell them it is a

mistake.” Xiaoxia’s heart ached. She could give everything to save her parents, but

she realized that what she had was so little.

148 “I do not think that they will listen to my call until I tell them that I am your

lawyer. I cannot help you until you hire me as your lawyer.” Professor looked at

Xiaoxia with a mysterious expression—alert, cautious, yet very bold.

“Okay, I hire you as my lawyer. Please make the call right now.” Xiaoxia cried.

“Young lady, I am not going to be hired by you like that. If you want me, you

should sign a contract. I will show you the contract if you like.”

“Okay, show me the contract, and I will sign.” Xiaoxia felt something was not

right, but she did not care. She just wanted him to make the call as soon as possible.

“I left the folio at home; we must go to my home to have the contract signed. I

can give you a ride.” Professor Lee’s finger was flying in the air, as if playing a

fantasia.

“I want to know what the price is. How much should I pay you?” Xiaoxia stared

at the flying fingers; she felt nausea rising from her stomach.

“You will see soon. Not very much; you will be delighted.” Professor’s voice

lowered, and his eyes flickered into dark flame.

“I do not understand. Why do you not make the call here first?” Xiaoxia

repressed the nausea and tried to control her voice; she tried to be calm and cool.

“You will understand; you are a smart girl. Let us go now, and I will make the

call after we have the contract signed.” The professor stood up and walked towards

Xiaoxia.

“I cannot pay you now, but I will pay you in three years. I will get my bachelor’s degree in two years, and I will find a nice job. I will pay you with my one year’s

149 salary. Please talk to the policemen now.” Xiaoxia raised her face, her tearful eyes were pleading to the dark shadow in front of her.

“Do not cry; you are so beautiful, so beautiful. I will help you; I promise. I do not care about money; I just thought we should know each other better. I will show you something at my home, so please go with me.”

The professor took Xiaoxia to his home.

Xiaoxia slapped the professor when he put his mouth to her earlobe, murmuring that he wanted to see her naked body in a candle light.

“Make the call right now, otherwise I will report about this to the Department of

Law.” Xiaoxia stood in front of the door. Her face was red with rage, and her lips were pale and trembling.

The professor called to police department in Stoneville and asked whether a couple from the Horseshoe village had been arrested and placed confinement. A man’s loud voice said, “Yes, they are the suspects of the high-rise explosion case. Who are you?”

The professor hung up and shrugged his shoulder in a dramatic manner. “Your parents are in the most famous case in the whole country. Read the newspaper and watch the TV; everyone knows the Stoneville city’s high-rise explosion in which two-hundred forty-nine people have died. You parents need the best lawyer in the country. I wish I can help you, but I am not good enough. I am sorry.”

“You are not being modest. You only refuse to help because you assume I cannot pay you. I am from a village, so I am poor. But, if you can help me, I will give you my

150 gratitude and respect for my whole life. I will fight for you like I would fight for my

parents. I will value you more than I value my parents because you give me the help

that they could not give.” Xiaoxia’s beautiful eyes were burning with appealing

solemnity, and her voice was clear and cool.

“I only asked you one thing, but you spurned me. I will not ask you to fight for

me; I just want to know you better as a woman. If you go to bed with me now, I will

teach you all the things I know. I cannot help you until I can make sure you are

willing to take me as your friend. I want you to show me how you trust me with all your beauty and brain. I do not need your gratitude and respect; I need you.” The professor walked towards Xiaoxia closer and closer, his long finger caressing

Xiaoxia’s chin, and his deep-set eyes shooting sticky glances to Xiaoxia’s lips.

Xiaoxia slapped him again before slamming the door behind her.

The thunder and the rain were blasting and bluffing like lunatic bullies.

Xiaoxia’s blue shirt was soaked with dirty rain, dripping down with pigment, dyeing her white pants into a soiled painting of blue tears. But, Xiaoxia herself did not cry. “I must call the man who has arrested my mom and dad; I must tell him that he has made a mistake!” Xiaoxia strode fast among the grey concrete buildings which dominated the city, as if gray giants had taken over the land and tinkered out many gray toy houses. Xiaoxia’s pale face was whipped by the heavy rain, her long black hair clayed on her head, wet and listless, dripping down streams of dirty rain.

A black car pulled over in front of Xiaoxia. The driver was a thick-necked

young man with a pair of golden glasses. He rolled down the window and beckoned to

151 Xiaoxia, “Please, come on in. You will catch a bad cold if you walk in the rain like that!”

Xiaoxia did not look at him. Xiaoxia opened the front door and entered the car, then said curtly, “Please take me to the university immediately. I must make the call.”

The driver was taken aback by Xiaoxia’s tone. He looked at Xiaoxia again, and again, then said: “Are you an actress? Are you rehearsing a scene? It is my honor to know an actress.”

“I am not an actress. I am a student at the university on Hong Yee Road. I must go back to the university immediately.” Xiaoxia stared at the falling rain with hollow eyes.

“You need warm up your body first. I know of a bar nearby; they have good wine and good snacks. It would be my honor to buy you a drink and get to know you.” The driver shot Xiaoxia long glances, his long narrow eyes glistening with excitement.

“No, I must go back to my university and made the call.” Xiaoxia did not look at the driver; she was staring at the gray sky intensely, as if she saw something extraordinary in the dull vast gray.

“To whom do you want to make the call? Your boyfriend?” The driver sat still in his seat; his car stayed at the same spot.

“The police department. They have caught the wrong person, and I must tell them that they have made a mistake,” Xiaoxia said.

152 “Oh, I see. That is really important. You can use my phone.” The driver handed

Xiaoxia a huge cell phone—a green Nokia as large as a six-inch bread.

Xiaoxia took the cell phone with caution. That was Xiaoxia’s first time holding

a cell phone, and she did not know how to use it.

“How do I use it?” Xiaoxia handed the cell phone to the driver. “I need call

Hebei Province; it is a long-distance call. I am afraid it will cost you a lot of money.”

“Do not worry about that. Are you from Hebei Province? That is a long way for

you to come here! You are the first person I met who comes from Hebei Province! I must buy you a drink! You must let me take you to the bar!” The fat driver became excited, his face glowing, and his voice rising to a high pitch.

“Call the Stoneville City Police Department and tell them it is about a couple

from the Horseshoe village.” Xiaoxia cut off the driver, her voice was husky and low.

“Okay, it is my honor to be at your service.” The driver dialed the number and

handed the phone to Xiaoxia.

Xiaoxia grabbed the phone tightly, and put it to her left ear, which was striped

by small strands of wet hairs.

“Listen, I am calling from Bengbu, some city eight-hundred miles away from

Stoneville. I am calling to tell you that you have caught the wrong person, and you

have made a mistake. The couple that you caught this morning is innocent. They are

good farmers; they are my mom and dad. My mom and dad raised two kids—my little

brother and I, and they had us educated well: I study at a university, and my little

brother is in middle school. My mom and dad had been feeding one horse, two dogs,

153 three pigs, six cows, and eleven chickens before you took them away. They have been

working on the farmland for more than twenty years, and they have never done any

harm to anyone. My mom picked up the cotton in the field on days so hot that the

scorching soil could boil an egg; my mom fainted with her cotton bag tied around her

waist with forty pounds of cotton inside it. I found my mom lying in the field when I

was only twelve-years old, and I did not know what to do. I cried and cried, my tears dropping on my mom’s face. Then, my mom opened her eyes, saying, ‘bring me some water.’ I ran to a ditch, where there was some rain water in the ditch, and I took off

my shirt and soaked it with the water and brought the shirt to my mom—she drank the

water by sucking on my wet shirt. She survived because God loves her, and God saw

how hard she worked for her family. My dad has been staying up many nights,

waiting for his turn to use the stint water from an aqueduct to get the farmland

quenched. One night, it was very dark, and his flashlight was broken. He could not

see, and he dropped down into the aqueduct, in which he nearly drowned. He climbed

onto the branch of a tree floating on the water, and he floated with the branch in the

aqueduct for three hours until someone found him and pulled him out. When he was

saved, he was eight miles away from home. The good man who saved him said, ‘you

need a good sleep,’ my dad said, ‘No! I need go home; I do not want my wife and my

kids to worry about me.’ He came home early in the morning barefoot. My mom and

my dad are the best parents. They are poor, and they have never eaten at a

restaurant—they wanted to save up the money. But, they sent me to college, and gave

me all the money they could give. They got up at five a.m. in the summer to work on

154 the farmland: to weed, to cultivate, and to harvest. They never went to Stoneville.

They spent all their time in my village. They could not have caused harm to anyone in the city. You have arrested them by mistake. Now, please release them immediately!”

“I am sorry. But, I think you are talking to the wrong person. I have no power to release anyone. I am just a clerk in the reception office. Your parents will be released if they are innocent. Do not worry!” A young man holding the receiver said in a slow and soft tone. He felt a deep sympathy for the girl whom he had never met and whose voice was so touching that it made his heart ache.

“Please let me talk to the one who has the power to release my parents!” Xiaoxia shouted.

“The chief of the police department is in a meeting, he cannot be reached now.

You can call tomorrow; I am sorry.”

“Please tell him that he has made a mistake and go find him in the meeting; tell him now! My little brother is only fourteen-years old, and he needs my mom and dad.

Let the chief of the police department send my mom and dad back to my little brother….”

Tears welled up in Xiaoxia’s eyes, and the sobs choked up her voice. Xiaoxia did not notice that the Nokia cell phone beeped a sharp warning, and it died off because of the lack of battery.

The driver kept a solemn silent while he drove Xiaoxia back to her university.

155 The gray sky thickened and darkened, and heavy rain was pouring down

ferociously in thick and chaotic hits on the wet cement ramp to a gray gate, on which black words flourished on it like flying black birds: The University of Bengbu.

“Are you okay?” The driver’s narrow eyes blinked quickly. He tried very hard to

restrain his strong impulse to hold this girl to his fleshy chest and print hot kisses on her sad beautiful face.

“Pull over and drop me at the gate.” Xiaoxia said. She did not look at the driver;

her eyes were fixated on a tall man standing at the gate holding a large black

umbrella.

The man was wearing a white shirt and a pair of long deep-blue pants. He stood

there in a model-like pose, as if someone was taking pictures of him for a magazine

cover—quiet, yet restless. He held his umbrella with his left hand, a large gold watch

shining on his left wrist, and a golden sleeve clip flaunting a dashing image of a long

arrow piercing into a little heart. His right hand combed his shining black hair, as if he

wanted to make sure that he would look tidy and proper enough for the important

show.

When he saw Xiaoxia stepping out of the car, his eyes lit up. He ran to her and sheltered her with his large umbrella. He insisted to pay the driver.

“Thank you; I have been very worried about her. Thank you very much! Please

take it!” He put a bill of one hundred Yuan into the driver’s hand.

The man was the dean of the Department of Economics of the university.

Xiaoxia was a student majoring in economics, and the dean always found a proper or

156 a plausible reason to ask Xiaoxia to his office for a talk. Xiaoxia never trusted the dean, but Xiaoxia knew that she should never spurn a man who had the power to give her a hard time if he wanted to, so she tolerated him with politeness, and kept a certain distance from him with alertness. But, the dean thought that he could dismiss the distance and mash Xiaoxia’s clear-cut politeness into a soft blur by a sharp aggression at the right occasion. The right occasion that he chose was the Faculty and

Student Party held in a club on a spring night. The dean asked Xiaoxia to dance with him to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2 that he requested the DJ to play. During the dance, he whispered into Xiaoxia’s ears: “You are the best dancer that I have ever seen.” Xiaoxia thought he was lying because that was Xiaoxia’s first Waltz dance; until then, Xiaoxia had never heard about Dmitri Shostakovich’s music. That night, the dean said many sweet words with the sweet music that he asked to the DJ play for the occasion: he promised Xiaoxia that he would give her the best scholarship in the department if she chose to go traveling with him on his book tours as his private assistant. When the lights were extinguished one by one, the climax of the party reached its peak with a red candle lit up in the dark corner; to honor the climax, many of the dancers’ whispers were hushed, many hands were held tighter, and many bodies became entangled and brushed more boldly. The dean put his hand on Xiaoxia’s bottom, and lingered there for two seconds, then moved back to her slim waist in long caresses, his other hand giving Xiaoxia’s fingers a tentative squeeze.

157 Xiaoxia wanted to stop his sneaky intrusion, but she did not know what to say.

Her politeness restrained her rash reaction—to slap him. Xiaoxia left the party

immediately after the red candle light dance.

Two days later, the dean asked for Xiaoxia to his office, saying that he wanted

an important talk with her. In front his dark red genuine-leather sofa, he showed a

piece of paper to Xiaoxia.

“I wrote this for you. I have written five books, but I have never written a poem.

This is my first poem—and you are my muse. You must read it.” The dean walked

toward Xiaoxia and put his hand on her slender shoulder.

It was a love letter in a guise of modern poetry. “I forgot all that I had learned

during that melting waltz with your hands intertwined in mine. I wanted to die, die in

the sweet darkness of a spring night, with your beauty guiding me into a paradise,

where I can taste the wonder of the best wine….”

The dean put his other hand on Xiaoxia’s shoulder, and turned her body to him;

his hot breath was burning her face.

Xiaoxia saw a wolf in his sticky glances, and she decided to bluff this wolf away by making a bold move.

“I would like to tell you; I am your son’s girlfriend.” Xiaoxia took the dean’s

hands off of her shoulders.

The dean did not believe her. “How did you know my son?”

158 “I met your son at the basketball court. He is a good player; he has offered to teach me how to play basketball. We became friends three weeks ago,” Xiaoxia said calmly.

“Liang never told me that he had a girlfriend.” The dean shook his head. “This is

incredible. I will ask Liang about it.”

“You should know that Liang is very shy. Do not ask him. We have just begun dating; we decided to keep it as a secret for a while. I just think that you should know

it.” Xiaoxia smiled with her clear-cut “do-not-mess-with-me” politeness.

“Aha! You really are an amazing girl. Liang has had many friends, but he has

never had a serious relationship with a girl. If you are dating him, you will be his first girl.” The dean crumpled up his bad poem and threw it into the trash bin.

“I am his first girl, and he told me so,” Xiaoxia said with pride.

No one had ever taught Xiaoxia how to deal with a man’s aggressive intrusion.

In Xiaoxia’s small village, if a girl was harassed by a man, it was always the girl’s

fault; there was an old saying addressing such matter: “The flies only swarm on the

rotten eggs. Good girls always keep their chastity like good eggs keep their good

smell.”

When Xiaoxia was fourteen years old, she was stopped on her way back home

by a boy from another village. He had murmured to her with a deep blush: “You are

beautiful, and I like your dimples.” Xiaoxia found this funny, and she told her mother what the boy had said to her. Her mother reacted by raising a broom and hitting the broomstick on Xiaoxia’s bottom. “You are a girl; a girl should always be humble! Do

159 not talk like a slut! The boy talked to you like that not because you are beautiful, but

because you made him think that you are a rotten egg! A good girl always knows how

to behave herself. No flies will mess with a good girl!” So, when Xiaoxia turned

fifteen and met a dirty old man at an apple orchard who asked her to raise her skirt to

show him her underwear, she neither screamed nor said, “I will tell this to my

mother.” She said to the old man in an extremely flat tone, “If you want to see a girl’s

underwear, why not ask your own daughters?” She learned to behave herself

according to her own judgment. She knew that the old man had three grown-up

daughters, and she knew that he loved his daughters more than anything. Of course,

she knew that the old man would never ask his daughters to raise their skirts for him.

The old man thought she was young and easy to be taken advantage of, and she made the old man to realize he was wrong. She thought that the old man was disgusting and stupid, but she learned to keep her thoughts to herself; she did not tell her mother about the old man.

At the dean’s office, Xiaoxia knew that the man who had written five books and

one bad poem was much cleverer than the old man who had asked her to raise her

skirt at that apple orchard. Xiaoxia knew she could not hold the wolf at bay forever by

fabricating a story. So, Xiaoxia made another bold move: sighing with a sad smile she said, “Liang and I will meet at the open-air basketball court near the honeysuckle tree this Saturday night. I hope you will not blame him for not letting you know. I am a country girl; I would have told my mom if my mom were here.”

160 The dean’s expression changed. He smiled gently, and said, “I will not blame

Liang; he is shy. And, I believe he will treat you well; he is a good kid.”

The next day was a Tuesday, the day of the basketball match between the

university and the city’s community college. Xiaoxia saw that Liang’s name was on

the list of the university team. Xiaoxia had once watched a basketball match, and that

was when she noticed the tall handsome boy who scored the most points for his team,

and someone had told her that he was the dean’s son, and that he was a junior at the

business school. At that moment, Xiaoxia vaguely felt that she liked him, but she was

not very sure. But, on that Tuesday night, Xiaoxia saw Liang running and jumping

around the field, and witnessed his graceful and swift moves, his broad yet slender

shoulders, his young, taut body, and his handsome joyful face taking over the show as

the most appealing image—he was shining like a star; his athletic vitality dazzled the

audience. Xiaoxia had to tell herself, He is so handsome! He is too lovely to be my weapon to bluff away the wolf!

But, Xiaoxia could not help herself. She ran towards Liang after the match and said, “Would you be available on Saturday night? I want to talk to you! It is not about

basketball. It is about how to beat up wolves!” Xiaoxia’s face was glowing with

excitement; her voice was rising up and down, as if singing a mellow song.

Liang stared at her in awe and held his breath for a few seconds. My God! She is

so beautiful; why is she talking to me like this?

“My name is Xiaoxia. I know that your name is Liang. You are a star! Shall we

meet under the honeysuckle tree near the open-air basketball court this Saturday night?

161 How about eight o’clock?” Xiaoxia did not know how huge of a risk that she was taking; she simply felt an unstoppable warmth from her heart—Liang’s gentle eyes and his quavering long lashes made her forget that she should be humble, like a good girl as her mother had always warned her to be.

Liang smiled. “Yes, I will be there. I know of the honeysuckle tree. But, Xiaoxia, why me?”

Xiaoxia saw her own smiling face in Liang’s sparkling eyes. “Because you know of the honeysuckle tree. Because I think that you will be interested in being beaten up by a girl in a basketball court.”

“I guess you are right; I am very interested.” Liang was beaming.

On Saturday evening, Liang took a thorough shower, sprayed cologne on his wrist, and put on his favorite shirt—a white silk shirt that he had bought in Hongzhou.

His father watched Liang with melancholy. “Where are you going?”

“To see a friend,” Liang said casually.

“A girl?” the dean asked, his voice tentative and small, and his eyes intense.

“Yeah,” Liang avoided his father’s eyes. Liang was shy.

“Who is the lucky girl?”

“Xiaoxia; she is very beautiful.” Liang said proudly.

“I bet!” The dean’s eyes darkened with more melancholy.

Liang and Xiaoxia met under the honeysuckle tree that night, and they fell in love with each other so eagerly that they both thought their words were too pale to describe their strong feelings.

162 “I wish that I were the honeysuckle tree so that I could have known you earlier,”

Liang whispered.

“You do not wish to have met me earlier—I used to beat up all the boys who

dared to talk to me except for my little brother.” Xiaoxia began to wonder whether she

was in a dream—she was dazzled by this unpredictable fate: how Liang, a guy she

knew so little of, could occupy her heart in a way like no one else did; even her deep

love for her little brother felt less real compared to the overwhelming presence of joy

that lifted her into the air and drew her into a new universe—and, in that universe, she

could not see her little brother; she could only see Liang.

“You said that you were going to beat me up; I am still interested.” Liang held

Xiaoxia’s hand and marveled at how delicate she looked in the moonlight: the exquisite angle of her chin, the perfect curves of her rose-bud lips, the large starry black eyes…. she looked like a fairy!

“I changed my mind; I do not want to beat you up now. I want to protect you.”

Xiaoxia’s eyes were brimful with joy, but her voice tinted sadness.

“You are a fairy! It is a great honor to be protected by you. But, why me?”

Liang felt as if he were in a dream; during his twenty-two years of life, he had never dreamed of meeting a girl like Xiaoxia in this way, and the words from this girl were so enticing.

“Because you are my fate, you will save me someday.” Xiaoxia raised her chin,

as if whispering a prayer to the stars in the high sky.

163 Liang wanted to hold this girl into his arms, to feel her warmth, to prove to

himself that it was not a dream. Liang held his breath; the smell of the honeysuckle

was so alluring, and the breeze was caressing his face. Liang lost his words. He

thought, God! I am in love! He was not sure whether he could save her someday or

not, but he believed that he was saved at that moment—he would wake up to a new

world the next morning, and he would feel more precious and stronger; he would love

the world more with all his dreams about her.

For Liang, that night was so short, and it was simply shining with one image—her. For Xiaoxia, that night was the beginning of the complexity in which her life unrolled in front of her in a mysterious rhythm.

Two weeks later, Liang invited Xiaoxia to his home, and introduced Xiaoxia to

his father as “my girlfriend.” The dean said to Liang with a serious face when they

were in kitchen making tea for Xiaoxia: “Take a very good care of her; she is a

treasure.”

The dean was fifty years old. He looked much younger than his age and he

always received a lot of flatteries, such as, “How do you look so young? What is your

secret?” He replied in a teasing tone every time: “The secret is enjoying good feelings.

And, the best feeling is falling in love.” Xiaoxia thought that the dean would not write

poems for her again, since the he knew that she was his son’s girlfriend; Xiaoxia was

wrong. On one Friday night, the dean asked for Xiaoxia to his office for a serious talk,

to which Xiaoxia said, “No.” The dean said it was about Liang. Xiaoxia was too

curious, so she followed him.

164 “Liang loves you. But, he is too young to know how to make you happy. I love you as a father loves his daughter, and I will protect you. I know you are from a village, and you are poor. I know you want many things that you cannot afford. So, I will help you. Liang may want you to be with him all the time, but you should say

‘No’ to him sometimes. Do not sleep with him. If you let him get you too easily, he will become careless with you. I love my son, but I love you more.” The dean talked as if he was giving a lecture, eloquent with a well-measured pace.

“Thank you. I love Liang; I do not think he will like to have heard what you just said about him. Liang is a sensitive man, and he is much better than you think he is.”

Xiaoxia said coldly.

“Xiaoxia, Liang is a city boy; he grew up in a rose bed, and he knows nothing about what rural life is like. When he saw you, he saw an angel! He does not know that you need check the price before you decide to buy your meal. He does not see that you are a girl who lives in a strange city with no one to turn to. Xiaoxia, you need help. And, I will help you.”

“I am poor. But, I will not sell myself, especially not to my boyfriend’s father!”

Xiaoxia cried. Tears spilled over her starry eyes, glistening and quavering on her long lashes.

“I am sorry! I did not make myself clear; you misunderstood me. I am not meaning to hurt you. I applied a scholarship for you; here it is. You just sign your name here. I just want you to be happy.” The dean stammered; his eloquence deserted him.

165 Xiaoxia saw the words on the paper—it was a need-based scholarship. And she

saw the number: two thousand Yuan. More tears welled up in her eyes—she could not

refuse. She needed the money, not for herself, but for her grandma’s lost gold

wedding ring and her little brother’s ever-troubling asthma. In Xiaoxia’s pocket was

the letter she had just received from her little brother. She read it so many times that

she could recite it.

Dear sister:

How are you? Mom and dad are fine. They sometimes quarrel a little bit, but

nothing serious, so do not worry about it. Chestnut is good. You know that he is an

outgoing type: he neighs every time he saw me. And, he always has good appetite:

eating like a horse. The dogs and chickens are good too, but I guess they miss you. I

miss you, too. Mom said she saw you in her dream last night, and she said it was not a

good dream. She is worried about you. I have told mom, do not worry, a dream is a

messed-up picture sent by imps; do not bother with it. I have told her that you are fine.

You are in college, and college is another sky. You are flying high with gods in that sky.

You are learning amazing things. I am fine, too. Do not worry about my asthma. The doctor gets a little bit fussier about it recently, telling me to try a new medication. The new medication is much more expensive—he told me it would cost at least one thousand Yuan for one effective course of treatment, and I think he is crazy. I am fine with the old medication….

Xiaoxia could not stop worrying about her little brother ever since she had

received the letter. Her little brother had nearly died the last cold winter because of his

166 asthma. Her father had sold one horse to get the money to send him to hospital. He

fortunately recovered, but his physical condition had not been steady since then; he

had to take his medicine every day. If the doctor had said to her little brother that he

needed a new medication, Xiaoxia knew that her little brother was not fine at all,

although his letter had always sounded so carefree and joyful. Xiaoxia needed the

scholarship.

“My little brother must have the new medication.” Xiaoxia wiped away her tears.

Xiaoxia signed her name.

The dean gave Xiaoxia a large manila envelope. “Buy something nice for

yourself. You need a white dress. White is Liang’s favorite color.”

Xiaoxia did not buy a white dress. Xiaoxia sent the two thousand Yuan home

with a letter.

Kai,

I am sending you two thousand Yuan. I was given a good scholarship, so I have

received money. Please try the new medication. I am sure the doctor is sober; he loves

you, and he wants you to get well as we all do. I am fine. I am not flying high with gods, but I will fly with joy when I hear from you that you are trying the medication and that you are getting well. Send my love to Grandma. Tell her that I will buy her gold wedding ring back one day when I get a job. Did I tell you that Grandma sold

her gold wedding ring for seven hundred Yuan and gave me the money for my tuition?

She would never tell anyone. She felt very bad about it; she thought she would

embarrass Grandpa by losing her wedding ring. Grandma loves me so much, and she

167 had wanted me to go to college; she sold her wedding ring without consulting

Grandpa. But, grandpa knew of it, and he told me that he would buy the ring back for her. I knew I should buy it back for both of them. I love them so much! I tell you this

because I know you will love them more and you will get well sooner with your love

for us. Do get the new medication and do get well….

Xiaoxia knew that love was heavy, that love can torture you with bad dreams

and bite your heart with worries. She knew that love was good, too. She had felt so

happy when she received another of her little brother’s letters, saying that he was on

the new medication and that he felt much better.

The dean also thought that love was good; he wanted Xiaoxia to fall in love with

him. He wrote new poems, and he felt young and good when writing the poems for

“her”—a daughter, an angel, a girl kissed by his son, a girl soon to be touched by his

considerate love and persistent passion.

Two weeks after giving the scholarship, the dean asked Xiaoxia whether she had

bought a white dress.

“Not yet,” Xiaoxia said.

The dean figured out Xiaoxia’s “Not yet” meant that she would not buy it. So,

he bought her a white silk dress with a well-known brand name and presented it to

Xiaoxia as a birthday gift.

“But, it is not my birthday!” Xiaoxia declined.

“I know. It is a late birthday gift; please take it.”

168 The dean was gentle and patient. He waited. Xiaoxia opened the package. From the expression of her face, he knew that she could not resist it. But, Xiaoxia surprised him again.

“I cannot take it. It is beautiful, but I cannot take it.”

“If it was from Liang, you would take it?” The dean felt hurt.

“I do not know.” Xiaoxia shot the dean a stern glance. “Please stop it. Please do not play with me! I am dating your son, and he loves me!”

“How about we say that I did this for Liang? He should have done better. He should love you better. Take it as a gift from my son.” The dean’s face turned red with rage; he had never felt so humiliated. He had never been spurned by a girl with such a stern look.

“Talk to your son first, if you did this for him.” Xiaoxia said.

“I am sorry. I do not have a daughter. I did not know that loving a daughter could be so hard.” The dean’s tone was sarcastic; he tried to defend his honor.

“I am sorry, too. But, my father would never buy me a silk dress in a fancy package such as this. My father taught me how to feed a horse and how to herd the cows. My father would have told me never to wear a dress in the cornfield.” Xiaoxia noticed the dean’s red face; her voice softened.

“Xiaoxia, could I ask you a question?” The dean began calming down; his eyes were clear and bright.

“Go ahead.”

“Did you send the scholarship money to your family?”

169 “Yes.”

“Ah! You are such a good girl. I wish that I could have had a daughter like you.

You declined the dress because it is from me, and I am not your family. Now, I am

asking you to take me as your godfather; take me as your family. You would take a

gift from your family, right?” The dean’s voice was gentle, and his smile was sad.

Xiaoxia was touched. She looked at the man who was taller than her father and

who wore an elegant hairstyle that her father would have never dreamed of wearing;

she did not know how to respond.

“Xiaoxia, my daughter. There is no cornfield here; you are not in that village

anymore. You should wear a dress. Take it as a gift from your family. If you do not

want a godfather, think about you and Liang will get married someday, and you will

become my daughter-in-law. We are family!” The dean took out the white dress from its package and put it into Xiaoxia’s hands.

Xiaoxia did not resist. She held back her tears and smiled. “Thank you.”

Xiaoxia took the white dress as a gift, but she never wore it; instead, she put it

away in her suitcase with some dried purple flowers, a natural fragrance that she

collected from the high mountains near her village.

The dean began acting as if he was Xiaoxia’s father. He asked about Xiaoxia’s

diet and advised Xiaoxia to take Vitamin C and Fish Oil. He bought Xiaoxia a wrist

watch and suggested Xiaoxia to make a schedule for every day, and that she had better

to give her schedule to him to seek his thoughts on it. He bought Xiaoxia three bottles

of good quality sun cream for the hot summer.

170 He wrote poems saying, “I love her, and I could not help it. I know I am sick,

loving her like a father, but I know that I will die if she ever spurns me as a bad

lover.”

Xiaoxia never trusted him, but she never spurned him either. She tolerated his

love as if tolerating a bad weather. The dean gave Xiaoxia his cell phone number, saying, “If something happens, call me. You can reach me anytime.” But, Xiaoxia

never bothered to remember his number, and she never called him. She knew that the dean had a wife—Liang’s mother was Japanese, and she spent a lot time staying in

Japan. Xiaoxia’s ethic was very simple: if you have a wife, you should love her and be faithful to her; if not, give her freedom and a nice divorce; but you should never cheat on her. So, Xiaoxia never trusted the dean.

Xiaoxia stood under the black umbrella of the man whom she never trusted. The

rain was getting heavier, the sound of thunder became threatening, a whip of flash

tore open the sky, and the sky poured down gray tears of implacable sorrow. Xiaoxia

realized that she had no one to turn to in this city, which was eight-hundred miles

away from her hometown and her little brother.

171