Sun Huirong did not come again, and he never saw her again. No, he did see her once, at the beginning of winter. The night she came to the school was at the start of the autumn chill, so it was probably three months later that he passed by the Sun family house and the girl was in the main hall. She had clearly seen him, but, unlike in the past, when, without fail, she would shout out for him to come into the house for a rest and a cup of tea, she turned around straight away and went to the back of the hall.

Just after the New Year, a girl in his class was crying and had her head on the desk even after the bell for the start of class. He asked why she was crying. None of the boys would say, but when he asked one of the girls, she told him that at the end of the previous class the boys said to her, "Why be so stuck up? When the time comes, you'll be just like Sun Huirong. Just wait until Hunchback gets you pregnant, then you'll do as you're told!"

After the class, he asked the principal, "What has happened to Sun Huirong?"

The principal mumbled, "It's not easy talking about it, I don't really know the details, but she's had an abortion! Whether or not it was a case of rape, I would not hazard to guess."

It was only then that he thought back to when the girl had come to see him, maybe she was trying to get him to save her. Had it already happened prior to that? Or did the girl sense that it was about to happen? Or had it happened, but she hadn't yet become pregnant? She had not said anything of what she wanted to say, because she didn't know how to say it. It was all in the girl's eyes, she wanted to say it, but she had stopped herself. It was all in her hesitation, in the sour sweat of her body, in her movements. She kept looking at the door of his room, what was she looking at? What was she looking for when she avoided his eyes to size up his room? She could have had a very clear plan. She had come on the night when there was no electricity, so that she wouldn't be seen. She said nobody had seen her coming, so clearly she had been on the alert. Was there some secret she wanted to tell him about? If, at the time, he had shut the door and had not been so careful-she clearly wanted him to shut the door-would she have told him everything, and this tragic event have been averted? She didn't want him to turn up the lamp, could she only talk about it in the dark? Or did she have something more complicated on her mind, something that would get him to sympathize with her and save her, stop or interfere with what was about to happen or had already happened?

The people of the small town all knew that the Sun girl had been raped by Hunchback, and that her mother had taken her to get an abortion, but that was all he could find out. There was a big brass padlock on the Sun house. He visited the police station. In the past, he'd had drinks with the public security officer, Old Zhang. Zhang was chastising an old peasant who had been selling sesame oil, and had confiscated the man's little galvanized bucket and his basket.

"Grain and oil are goods that are bought and sold exclusively by the state. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, yes."

"Then why are you selling it? Don't you know it's against the law?"

"But I grew it in my own garden!"

"How can I tell if you grew it yourself or stole it from the production brigade?"

"If you don't believe me, then go and ask!"

"Ask who?"

"Ask in the village, the brigade leader knows."

"All right, all right, get the brigade leader to write a note and then come to collect these things!"

"Comrade, let me off this time, I won't sell it again, all right?"

"The state has laws about this!"

The old man squatted on his heels, refusing to budge. While he sat watching all this, he finished smoking a cigarette and thought it was unlikely that the matter would be resolved soon, so he got up and said he would come around some other time. However, Zhang was very polite, and stopped him to ask, "Did you want to see me about something?"

"I'd like to find out about the case of my student Sun Huirong," he said.

"The dossier is right here; if you want to, take it and have a look. Even if you are a teacher, you can't do anything in these matters. She's a local girl, and there are many more such happenings with girl students who have come from elsewhere. If the person and the parents don't make a legal complaint, and no one is killed, every effort is made not to take matters any further."

Zhang opened the document cupboard, found a dossier folder, and handed it to him, saying, "Take it with you, the case is already closed."

He examined every scrap of paper in the dossier. There were handwritten records of the separate testimonies of Sun and Hunchback. Hunchback had his thumbprint to his, and Sun had both signed and put her thumbprint on hers. There was also a record of the interrogation of Hunchback's wife. Attached to it, was a letter in a girlish handwriting, written to Hunchback. It had been written on paper torn from a student notebook, and there was a postmarked envelope addressed to the commune for a certain comrade who was Party secretary of Zhao Village Brigade: Hunchback's name was written there. The letter started off with "Dear Elder Brother." Hunchback was over fifty, but the girl was not yet an adult. There were only two lines in the letter, but the gist of it was as follows: I love my elder brother but it is impossible for me to see him. What happened has ended like this, but I will never have regrets. The word for "regret" had been written incorrectly, but the letter clearly bore Sun Huirong's signature, and it was dated after the matter had become public.

The record of the interrogation of Hunchback's wife said: "That slut seduced my man, the shameless hussy even wrote him a letter. The little whore only wanted to get herself merit points so that she would be able to get a work permit." Hunchback's wife had intercepted the letter and was so angry that she delivered it to the commune! However, the matter became a problem because of Dr. Wang at the commune health clinic. The record of the interrogation of Dr. Wang stated that the girl's mother had begged him to come to her home to induce an abortion. She said that if the girl went to the clinic to have it done, the whole neighborhood would know, then how would the girl find a husband later on? Dr. Wang said that he did not do illegal work like that. If word got out that he had not followed proper procedures and had privately carried out an abortion, how would he be able to continue in his profession? What was more, wouldn't rumors spread through the village and people think that he was involved with the girl himself? Dr. Wang put it quite bluntly that he was not going to do anything illegal.

How the matter came to be public was not mentioned in the materials on the investigation. Hunchback's testimony was very simple: Rape? Rubbish! He never did wicked things like that! It wasn't just his wife, sons, and daughters, that he'd have to face, how would he be able to face going on being Party secretary? Also, he couldn't sabotage the Red Flag Brigade, and he had to live up to the expectations of the various levels of leaders of the Party who had nurtured him over the years! This girl student is cunning, don't be fooled by the fact that she is young, her scheming is very adult. She was clearly inside, taking a bath, and there is nothing wrong with taking a bath. But the latch is on the inside, and the door is very solid, so if she didn't open the door herself, how could someone charge in? If she wasn't willing, why didn't she scream? How many times did it happen? Best ask her, every time it was in her bed! It wasn't in the fields. Now, can such a big latch drop off by itself? If she'd been raped, why didn't she report it earlier instead of waiting until her belly started to get big? She was trying to get a work permit, and you can't blame her, what young student doesn't want to get a job instead of working a lifetime in the fields? If a person wants merit points for a work permit, it's not an offense to give a gratuity now and then. It's the same for everyone, the brigade can only make a recommendation, it's the commune that issues the permit, he can't, can he?