The day he was taken off work to write a confession, it was as if he had the plague and everyone was afraid of catching it. No one dared to talk to him. He didn't know what they were investigating, so when he saw a close friend heading for the mud-walled lavatory, he followed him in, undid his trousers and, pretending to urinate, said in a low voice: "Why are they investigating me?"
The friend gave a dry cough and, putting down his head as if he were totally engrossed in shitting, didn't look up. There was nothing for him to do but leave. It turned out that even when he went to the lavatory he was being spied on. The joker who had received the letter to implement the investigation on him was outside the mud wall, pretending to be deep in thought.
A meeting to "help" him was held on the cement drying ground. To help was to use mass pressure to force a person to admit to mistakes, and mistakes were the same as crimes. The masses were like a pack of dogs slinking off to bite as the whip directed, thereby ensuring that they themselves would not be lashed. He was familiar with this infallible key to mobilizing the masses.
The scheduled speeches became more intense and vicious. Each speech was prefaced by quoting from the little red book that was used as a cross-reference for a person's words and actions. He put his notebook on the table and made it clear he was taking notes. This was the signal he wanted to give: he had taken a stance, and he was recording everything. When the day came and things changed, he was not going to forgive anyone. The past years of constantly changing political movements had turned people into revolutionary gamblers and scoundrels. The winner was a hero and the loser was the enemy.
He took notes rapidly and tried not to miss a single sentence. He made it no secret that, right then and there, he was hoping for the day when he would seek a tooth for a tooth. That bald-headed, prematurely senile Tang so-and-so was making a speech, getting himself more and more excited by quoting venerable Mao's exhortations to fight against the enemy. He put down his pen and looked up to glare at this joker. Tang's hand, clutching his little red book, started shaking, probably a habit he couldn't control, and getting more and more flustered, sprayed spittle as he spoke. In fact, Tang's behavior came from fear. With his landlord family background, he could not join any of the people's organizations, and he was merely taking the opportunity to put on an act to score some good points for himself.
He had no choice but to pick on a weakling like this, someone who was terrified and just trying to survive. He swore, put the cap back on his pen, announced he was not taking part in this sort of meeting until his problem was clarified, and forthwith left. Apart from the few company and platoon cadres dispatched by the army officer, most of the hundred or so present were from his old rebel faction and, for the time being, the atmosphere was not right for launching a criticism against him. He had risked taking a stance to allow his faction to steady itself, but, of course, he knew this would not be able to stop him from being charged with a raft of crimes. He had to flee the cadre school before the net closed around him.
At dusk, he went off on his own to a distant village, leaving the precincts of the cadre school within that endless long line of cement posts tied with barbed wire.
Alongside the village was a kiln for slaking lime. He approached the kiln where he saw some peasants douse kerosene on the stack of coal inside and light it. Soon thick smoke was billowing out. They sealed up the opening of the kiln, let off a string of crackers, and left.
He hung around for a while and saw that no one had followed him from the cadre school.
It was gradually getting late, the sun was a ball of orange, and the rows of huts on the farm had already become blurred. He walked toward the setting sun, passed ridges of corn fields that had not yet started to turn green again, and kept going. Some sparse, withered plants grew on the white saline land, and the soil underfoot became loose and soft. Before him were stretches of swamp. Wild geese called in the limp, yellow reeds as the sun turned crimson to set somewhere further off along this ancient watercourse of the Yellow River. In the darkening mist, it was all mud underfoot, and there was nowhere he could sit down. He lit a cigarette and thought about where he could seek refuge.
His feet were sinking into the mud. He had smoked one cigarette. His only option was to have a peasant family take him in. It would mean revoking his city residential permit and having to live the rest of his life as a peasant, and this had to be done before he was declared the enemy. But he did not know anyone living in any village. He thought hard, and suddenly remembered that his classmate at middle school, the orphan Rong, had been among the first batch of urban educated youth to go off to "establish new socialist villages" ten years earlier. Afterward, Rong had settled in a small county town in the mountains. Through this classmate, maybe he would be able to find some place to go.
When he got back to the dormitory, everyone was busy having a wash and getting ready for bed. The old and the weak were worn out and were already lying down. Without bothering to go to the well to fetch water for a wash, he crawled into bed. There was no time to waste. That night he would have to go to the county town to send a telegram to Rong. It was forty kilometers there and back, and it would be impossible to get back before dawn. He would first have to sneak off to a village outside the farm to borrow a bicycle from Huang, a cadre who worked in his platoon. Workers such as Huang, with elderly relatives and children, were settled in the homes of peasants in nearby villages.
After the last person lay down and the lights went out, he waited until there was a rhythmic sound of snoring. In the dark, the old cadre next to him tossed and turned, making the chaff mattress rustle; probably he could not get warm enough and couldn't fall asleep. He quietly told the old man he had diarrhea and was going to the lavatory. The underlying message was that should the night warden ask where he was, that was how to get rid of the man. He didn't think the old man would betray him: prior to the announcement that he was to be investigated, he was the leader of his work squad and he always gave the old man the lightest chores. He had the old man repairing loose hoes and guarding the drying square to make sure neighboring peasants didn't come with a sack to casually fill it with grain, then run off. The old man was a revolutionary from the Yan'an period and had a doctor's certificate for high blood pressure. However, when his faction was targeted in the movement, his military credentials weren't recognized and he, too, was sent here to the cadre school.
Dogs were barking everywhere in the village. Huang opened the door with his padded jacket slung over his shoulders. His wife was on the earthen kang under the bedcovers, and his little girl, awakened by the knocking, was crying. He hastily explained his desperate predicament and promised to get the bicycle back before daybreak. He said that he definitely would not implicate them.
Rain had not fallen for a long time on the dirt road into the county town. It was thick with dust and so uneven that the bicycle was shaking all the time. A wind started up, blowing dust and grit right into his face. He was choking and could hardly breathe-oh, the wind and grit that March night in early spring…
While at middle school, he and Rong, this classmate from whom he was seeking help, used to discuss the meaning of life together. This began with a bottle of ink. Rong had been taken in by an elderly widow without any children, and lived nearby. So, after school, Rong often came over to his place and they would do their homework, then listen to music. Rong played the two-stringed erhu well, and was crazy about the violin, but there was no question of his buying one. Rong could not even afford to buy one of the very cheap tickets for special student movies during the summer holiday break. He once bought an extra ticket for Rong, but Rong kept making excuses. He couldn't understand, but when he said the ticket would be wasted, Rong finally explained that if he saw one he would want to see another, and he would become addicted. However, Rong did not refuse to come to his house to play his violin.