Having said good night to his daughter, he returned to his room. Hard as he tried, he couldn't fall asleep. The reed mat under his back was cool, but too hard to be comfortable. Besides, it was only eight o'clock, and the twilight outside wasn't dim yet. Someone was playing a fiddle in the village, the broken music quite jarring. Lin kept his eyes shut and tried not to think of anything. Gradually he grew a little drowsy.

A knock on the door woke him and he turned his head. Hua stepped in with a white toweling coverlet over her shoulders. "Dad, can I sleep in your room? I'm scared. That room is too quiet. With so many things gone, it feels spooky in there."

He remembered she had slept in her aunt's room since Shuyu left. "All right, you use the other end of the bed. Did you put out the incense?"

"Yes." She climbed onto the brick bed, whose breadth was the same as that of the room, and lay down on the other end. Without a word she closed her eyes.

Lin looked at her face carefully. Her nose was straight like his, but thinner; her forehead was full and her skin dark but healthy. When she was exhaling, her lips vibrated a little. He was amazed by her pretty looks, which she probably was unaware of. He was certain she would soon become an attractive young woman in the match plant. Why wouldn't she forget that boy in the navy? She could easily find a man who'd love her more and take better care of her.

As he was thinking, Hua opened her eyes. "Dad, what's Muji like?"

"It's a big city, with two parks, three large department stores, and six or seven movie theaters. "

"My friends told me that there were lots of moons in Muji at night. That isn't true, is it?"

"Of course not. They must have meant neon lights."

"What are neon lights? They look like the moon?"

"Not exactly. They're colorful, blinking all the time."

"That must be scary. Is my mother afraid of walking alone in the city?"

"I don't think so." He regretted having answered in an uncertain tone, but on the other hand, he had never known how Shuyu felt when she was walking alone. "Hua, will you keep your mother company when she goes shopping in the city?"

"I will," she replied with her eyes shut. After a brief lull she said, "Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Were you scared when you left home alone? You were just a teenager then. "

"Not really. "

"Didn't you miss your friends in Wujia after you left?"

"I had few friends."

"Ah, I have so many here." Her voice turned pensive.

While father and daughter were conversing with their eyes closed, the night thickened. The table and chests in the room became obscure. Suddenly somebody yelled from the yard, "Come out, you pale-faced wolf!" It was Bensheng's hoarse voice.

Lin climbed out of bed, put on his pants, and went out. As he opened the door, sour, alcoholic fumes assailed his nose. Bensheng, in large white shorts and stripped to the waist, pointed at Lin's face and said, "Elder bro-brother, I want to settle accounts wi-with you tonight."

"What's this all about?"

"I want you to come h-home with me."

"All right."

Hua came out too, in a pair of pink pajamas. Her uncle waved his hand and croaked, "You're all su-such heartless beasts, so-so ungrateful."

"You've drunk too much, Bensheng," Lin said. "Let me take you – "

"No, my head isn't muddled. Everything is cl-clear in here." He pointed his thumb at his temple, but his legs buckled, shaking.

"Uncle, please go home. "

"You're ungrateful too. You don't e-even want to eat m-my food. Your aunt made lamb dumplings for you, b-but you wouldn't show your face."

"Oh, I didn't know that!" Hua wailed.

"Tell me, how come Handong doesn't de-deserve you? Where can you find a better lad, a real scholar?"

"I've told you I don't want to think about him, Uncle."

"He loves you."

"I told you I don't want a bookworm."

Lin felt bad for Bensheng. "My brother," he said, "we were wrong, all right? Please – "

"Don't brother me! You snatched away my sister. Now you're taking Hua away from me. You bully me be-because I don't have a child. You, you're my born enemy. I want to get even with you." He collapsed to the ground, sobbing like a little boy.

"Uncle, don't be so upset. You can visit us and I'll come back to see you and Aunt. I promise. "

"Don't sweet-talk me. I know you think I'm dirty and greedy, but my heart is pure, like gold." He thumped his chest with his fist.

As Lin bent down to help him up, Bensheng's stout wife appeared from the darkness, wearing a white T-shirt and mauve slacks. "My old devil," she cried at her husband, "you come home with me."

"Leave me alone," he grunted.

"Get up right now!"

"Okay, my little granny." He tried to climb to his feet, but his legs were rubbery, unable to support him.

His wife turned to Lin and said, "I told him not to make any trouble here and let you and Hua leave in peace, but he sneaked out after a pot of horse pee."

"He can't walk anymore. Let me carry him back." Lin squatted down; Hua and her aunt lifted Bensheng by the arms and put him on Lin's back.

Lin carried him piggyback toward Bensheng's house, which was three hundred yards away, while Hua and her aunt followed, casting their long shadows ahead. As Lin plodded along in the damp moonlight, Bensheng breathed out hot air on the nape of his neck, making his skin tingle. Whenever Bensheng let out a feeble moan or a broken curse, Lin was afraid he would open his mouth to bite him. Hua was saying something to her aunt, her voice hardly audible.

Soon Lin began panting as the load on his back grew heavier and heavier.

4

Hua was hired by the Splendor Match Plant a week after her arrival at Muji. For the time being she stayed with her mother in the hospital at night. She liked her new job, which was lighter than any work in the village – just gluing a slip of paper on the top of each matchbox and wrapping every ten boxes into a packet. Besides, she made more money now – twenty-eight yuan a month. In her heart she was grateful to her father, but she never said a word about it.

A month later the plant assigned her a room in one of its dormitory houses; so one Sunday morning her mother moved out of the hospital to live with her in town. Lin bought bowls, pots, and some pieces of furniture for them, and he made sure they had enough coal and firewood. From now on, mother and daughter would be on their own. But their life was not worse than other workers'; Hua's earnings and the alimony Shuyu received could help them make ends meet each month.

After Shuyu and Hua had settled down, Lin began to attend to his own affairs. One day in October, he and Manna went to the Marriage Registration Office downtown. They gave each of the two women clerks a small bag of Mouse toffees. Without delay the older woman, who looked wizened and limped slightly, filled out a certificate for them. It was a piece of scarlet paper, folded and embossed with the golden words: Marriage License.

Then the preparations for the wedding began. They were allocated a one-bedroom apartment, which needed a lot of cleaning. For a week, in the evenings they brushed the cobwebs off the ceilings, scrubbed the floors and doors, painted the rusty bed that Lin had borrowed from the Section of General Affairs, and scoured the cooking range. They cleaned the windowpanes, which were speckled with fly droppings, and sealed the cracks around the window with flour-paste and strips of newspaper. The northern wall of the bedroom had some crevices; when it was windy outside, cold air would surge in, making the wallpaper vibrate with eerie noises. Two masons were sent over by the Logistics Department; they filled the crevices with mortar and then whitewashed all the walls.