For you, only life is of value, you have a lingering attachment to it, it continues to be interesting because there are still things to discover and amaze you. It is only life that can excite you. That is just how it is with you, isn't it?

55

One day, passing Drum Tower around dusk, he got off his bicycle and was about to go into a small eatery when someone called out his name. He turned. A woman stood there, looking at him. Uncertain about smiling, she was biting her lip.

"Xiao Xiao?" He wasn't sure.

Xiao Xiao gave an awkward smile.

"I'm sorry." He didn't know what to say. "I didn't think…"

"You can't recognize me, can you?"

"You're more robust…" In his memory, she was a young girl with a slight build and small breasts.

"I'm a peasant woman?" the woman asked sarcastically.

"No, you're just more sturdy!" he hastened to add.

"I am, after all, a member of a commune. But I am not that flower turning with the sun; it withered and died!"

Xiao Xiao was caustic. She was referring to a song in praise of the Party, which compared the members of a commune to a sunflower that turned with the sun. He changed the topic, "Are you back in Beijing?"

"I'm trying to get a residential permit. I've put down that my mother is ill and needs me to look after her, I'm the only child in the family. I'm dealing with the formalities for getting back to Beijing, but I haven't got my residential permit yet."

"Is your family still at the same place?"

"The place is a shambles. My father is dead, but my mother has come back from the cadre school."

He knew nothing of Xiao Xiao's family circumstances and could only say, "I went to the hutong where your house is, I went to see…"

He was talking about ten years ago.

"How about coming to my house for a visit?"

"All right." He agreed without thinking, although he hadn't originally intended to. That year, he had cycled many times through that hutong in the hope of running into her, but he didn't say this, and simply mumbled, "But I didn't know your house number…"

"I didn't ever tell you." Xiao Xiao remembered very clearly. She had not forgotten that winter night when she left before daybreak.

"It has been a long time since I've lived in that house. I was in a village for almost six years, and I am now living in a workplace dormitory."

This explained things, but Xiao Xiao didn't say if she had also tried to see him. He pushed his bicycle, walking for a while in silence beside Xiao Xiao, until turning into a lane. He had gone through this hutong on his bicycle many times, from one end to the other, then had gone into another lane, circled around, and come back from that end of the hutong. He had noted each of the courtyard gates, thinking that he might bump into her. He didn't know Xiao Xiao's surname, so he couldn't make inquiries, he thought Xiao Xiao had to be a name her classmates and her family called her. The hutong was quite long when it came to walking through it.

Xiao Xiao went ahead, through a gate leading into a big courtyard shared by a number of families. On the left, was a small door with a padlock hanging on it, and, next to it, a coal stove. She opened the door with a key. Inside was a big bed piled with folded bedding, the rest of the room was a mess. Xiao Xiao quickly grabbed the clothes from a chair and threw them onto the bed.

"Where's your mother?" He sat on the chair, and the springs in the seat cushion squeaked noisily.

"She's in a hospital."

"Why is she in a hospital?"

"Breast cancer, it's already spread to the bones. I hope she will last the year and a half it will take to get my residential permit issued."

After such a response, he couldn't ask anything else.

"Like some tea?"

"No, thanks." He had to try to think of something to say. "Tell me about yourself-"

"What about? What's worth talking about?" Xiao Xiao asked, standing right in front of him.

"About your years in the countryside."

"Didn't you also stay in the countryside, don't you know?"

He started to regret having come. The cramped room was a total mess, and destroyed the image of the young girl he had cherished in his mind. Xiao Xiao sat on the bed and looked at him, frowning. He didn't know what else he could say to her.

"You were my first man."

All right. He thought of her left breast, no, it was his left hand, so the tender red scar was on her right breast.

"But you were so stupid."

This hurt him. He immediately wanted to ask her about the scar on her breast to get back at her, but he asked instead, "Why?"

"It was you who didn't want it…" Xiao Xiao said calmly, her head hanging.

"But at the time you were only a middle-school student!" he explained.

"I became a peasant woman a long time ago. It was soon after I had been sent to the countryside, not even a year… People in the village couldn't be bothered with things like that!"

"You could have reported it-"

"To whom? You're really stupid."

"I thought…"

"Thought what?"

"I thought at that time you were a virgin…" Thinking back to that time, he had thought this, and so he didn't dare to defile her.

"What were you afraid of? It was I who was afraid… You were just a coward! I knew that, with my family background, nothing good would come of me, it was I who presented myself at your door, but you didn't have the courage to take me!"

"I was afraid of taking responsibility," he was forced to admit.

"I hadn't told you about my parents' situation."

"I could have guessed. It's too late now, how can I put it…" He said, "I'm married!"

"Of course, it's too late. I can also tell you that I'm a slut. I've had two abortions, two bastards that I didn't want!"

"You should have taken precautions!" He also needed to say things that would hurt her.

She snorted in derision. "The peasants don't carry condoms. It was my own bad luck that I didn't have good parents and didn't have anyone to turn to for help. Anyway, I can't keep going on like this in the village."

"You're still young, don't be so negative and cruel to yourself…"

"Of course, I have to go on living. I don't need you to preach to me about that, I've had enough of being preached at!" She laughed, laughed really hard, her hands gripping the edge of the bed, her shoulders shaking.

He laughed with her, as tears welled in his eyes. Xiao Xiao stopped him. Suddenly, he seemed to see in her face the gentleness of that young girl of the past, but, in an instant, it had vanished.

"Would you like something to eat? I've only got dried noodles. Wasn't it dried noodles that you made for me?"

"You made it," he reminded her.

Xiao Xiao went outside to cook the noodles on the coal stove, shutting the door behind her. He cast his eyes over the mess in the room. Even her dirty underwear was among the clothes she had thrown onto the bed. He had to completely destroy the dreamlike image that evoked tender feelings in him, he had to be debauched, he had to treat the woman like a slut he had picked up, a whore who had been used by the villagers.

Shoving aside things like grain-coupon booklets, keys, and other odds and ends, Xiao Xiao put the noodles on the table. He embraced her from behind, pressing his hands onto her breasts, and got the back of his hands slapped, but it was not a genuine slap.

"Sit down and eat!"

Xiao Xiao was not angry, there was no emotional reaction. Her relationships with men were probably like this, and she had become used to it. Xiao Xiao ate her noodles with her head down and said nothing. He knew she had sensed what he had on his mind. There was no need to talk about it, there were no obstacles.

Xiao Xiao quickly finished eating, pushed away her bowl and chopsticks, and, head held high, stared blankly at him.