In primary school, I lived my life outside the pale of the then current group happiness of collectivism that overrode the value of the individual, but although I was lonely, in the background, there was still a kind of indirect, shadowy illusion of belonging. But from the time I entered middle school, especially as the university entrance examinations drew near, I felt that I had become enmeshed in another extreme – the then current net of individualism, which lacked completely the warmth of the old collectivism. Companions were brought together in a single classroom, but were as cold and indifferent to one another as strangers. The shattering of old feelings of group identity plunged me into a genuine psychological isolation and sense of meaninglessness, where I felt the fear of being alienated from my companions and trapped within myself.
When I think back on it today, the collectivism of our youth, which ignored the individual, was in fact the hotbed that nurtured our present inhumanly arrogant individualism. Any phenomenon that is carried to an extreme will gradually lead to the emergence of its opposite.
I remember the morning of the last day of the winter holiday of the year that I graduated from upper middle school. Snowflakes as big as goose feathers were falling everywhere, as if the sky itself were coming down. I awoke to the soft swish of the falling snow, snugly nestled in my quilt, with no desire to get up.
I stuck one arm out from under the quilt to turn the clock on the night table so I could see what time it was. It wasn't eight o'clock yet. We had to go to school that day at ten o'clock to register.
When I saw that it was still early, I snuggled back down into my bed to indulge myself in my fantasies.
I noticed that the arm I stuck out had changed. Because of my heavy workload and the pressure of exams, I had been neglecting my private conversations with the misses Do and Don't for a long time. My arms and legs, once thin as sticks, had become plump and sleek without my noticing it. I began feeling myself all over, and discovered that my body had indeed been undergoing great changes. I was amazed by how unobservant I had been. How could I not have noticed this when I was bathing? My former familiarity with my body seemed truly a thing of the past.
My breasts, now round and soft, were like two peaches stuffed into the top of my pajamas. My groin had suddenly become broad and flat like a field that seemed big enough to grow lush and fragrant wheat. My buttocks now boldly asserted themselves, full, round, and heavy, curving out from my waist so that I couldn't lie flat on the bed anymore, and my thighs were long, firm, and lithe, like a pair of exclamation marks.
Under my quilt, I kept feeling my Misses Do and Don't. I felt very clearly that since I was becoming an adult I didn't want to spend so much time conversing with them. My inner discourses had already quietly developed in new directions, for example, with my neighbor the Widow Ho and with my only friend among my schoolmates, Yi Qiu – but especially with Ho. When I was alone, I often thought about when she was young and about how things had been between her and her husband, and if they had been happy together. She was almost the only light, the only support in my life. After a tasteless and depressing day, she would help me shuck off the pressure and the indefinable sense of emptiness that school engendered and let me enjoy for a moment the warmth of her conversation. We didn't have to be together for these conversations, nor did there have to be an actual exchange of words. We could meet in my mind.
Curled up there contentedly under my quilt, like a young heifer quietly chewing her cud, I savored my imaginary dialogues. It was as if I were building a house out of words, words chosen with meticulous care.
Then I became aware of the voices of my father and mother talking in the room next to mine. It sounded like they were "discussing" some problem. The reason I use the word "discuss" is that their tone was obviously neither sharp nor urgent enough for it to be an argument. It seemed more like they were casually discussing which brand of household appliance to buy. But I knew that my father never, either seriously or casually, exchanged views with my mother on the petty affairs of the household. When I cocked my head to listen more closely, I realized that Mother was talking about "divorce," and I could sense that she spoke of it freely and easily, as if she had been preparing for it for a very long time – although her voice had become less mellow, a bit hard-edged, with the seriousness of the subject.
Feeling very depressed and gloomy, I was on the edge of tears, but I hated letting myself sink into helpless despair, so I immediately shifted my focus of attention. I got up and dressed, sneaked into the kitchen for something to eat, then left for school with my winter holiday exercise book to report for registration.
A light breeze whispered unhindered through the gray debris and past the doors at the top of stone steps along the almost deserted street. Like a great white coat, the snow had covered the city's crumbling walls and its withered yellow patches of grass. A four-wheeled horse-drawn wagon passed in front of me, the horses' hooves as quiet as a cat, the only sound the scarcely heard groan of the heavy wheels as they turned, as if the wagon too were shrouded in an invisible net as it slowly and silently progressed. A wan light glinted on the branches of the trees and danced and flickered on the coarse brown wooden palings at the road's edge.
I like to go for a stroll when it is snowing. You cannot see the sky or the horizon, and your mind can freely wander along any path it chooses. The pristine white snow squeaks under your feet like fluttering sparrows. The sound makes you feel as if you are walking among the living, and when you look back at your footprints, you know that you are alive. When you feel this way, you are in touch with the spirit of all things. The heavy despair that I'd felt before leaving home was dispelled by the grandeur of heaven and earth, and the griefs and worries in my life seemed small and insignificant.
After walking in the snow for a while, I was able to push my parents' discussion of divorce that morning out of my mind for the time being, and I also managed to suppress my grief.
When I got to the main gate, I saw that our school grounds were deserted, a layer of milk-white snow covering the courtyard, the paths, and the walkways. Because it was overcast, the lights were on in all the offices. I entered Mr. Ti's office to find him smiling at me. It seemed as if he had been purposely keeping an eye out for me, waiting for my arrival.
And indeed, as I entered the office, he said, "I've been watching you through the window – every step of the way. You look like you stepped out of a fairy tale, you're so beautiful." As he spoke, he lifted his tall frame from his chair to greet me, as if I were a formal guest, not just one of his students.
His deep-set eyes revealed an uneasy urgency, as if he were suppressing all the things he had been longing to say over the entire winter holiday, and these things, clamoring for expression, were creating a tremendous pressure in his breast.
Just then, a number of my classmates arrived, including Yi Qiu, who came panting in, swinging her one bad leg.