After she spoke, Li Lan was the first to break out crying. This was the first time that Baldy Li and Song Gang heard her piercing wails. She wept without restraint, as if she wanted to rip out her throat with her sobs. Song Gang dropped his hands and also began to sob out loud, and Baldy Li immediately followed suit. The four of them sobbed loudly as they walked, no longer worrying about being seen. Amid the vast fields and under the distant sky they wept together, as a family. As if she were gazing into the sky, Li Lan raised her face and sobbed; Song Fanping's elderly father bent over and wept, soaking the earth with his tears. Baldy Li and Song Gang repeatedly wiped away their tears, splashing them onto Song Fanping's coffin. They cried wholeheartedly, their howls sounding like a series of land mines, startling the sparrows from the trees lining the sides of the road.
The four walked and wept for a very long time, until Song Fanping's elderly father could walk no farther. He put the cart down and knelt on the ground. He had wept until his back hurt, and he could no longer move. They stopped, and gradually their crying abated. Li Lan wiped away her tears and said that she would pull the cart. Song Fanpings father refused, saying that he would accompany his son on his last journey.
Afterward they no longer wept but walked on silently. There was only the sound of the carts creaking wheels. They arrived at the village where Song Fanping was born. A few shabbily clad relatives stood at the village gate. They had already dug the grave under an elm tree at the edge of the village and stood there with their shovels. As Song Fanpings coffin was lowered into the grave and a few relatives covered it with dirt, his father knelt nearby, picking out the rocks. Li Lan knelt down and did the same. After the grave was filled and covered with a mound of earth, the two of them slowly stood up.
They all then made their way to the fathers thatched hut. Inside there was a single bed, a battered armoire, and a worn table. The relatives sat around the table and ate, and Baldy Li and Song Gang joined in the meal of pickled vegetables and rice. Song Fanpings aged father sat on a low stool in a corner of the room and wiped at his tears, not eating a single bite. Li Lan didn't eat either. She removed Song Gangs clothes from the travel bag, folded them neatly, and placed them inside the old battered armoire. Baldy Li saw that she also placed the bag of White Rabbit candies inside the armoire. After she was done, she didn't know what else to do, so she stood by the armoire and watched the two boys.
This was an afternoon of silence. After the relatives finished eating and left, the four of them sat wordlessly inside the hut. Baldy Li caught sight of the trees and pond outside the house. He also spied sparrows singing in the trees and swallows flying from the beams. Song Gang saw these things, too. The boys very much wanted to go outside to look around, but they didn't dare to; instead they sat on the bench stealing glances at the sad figures of Li Lan and Song Fanpings father. Finally Li Lan spoke. She said that they ought to be going if they hoped to make it back to town before dark. Rising with difficulty, Song Fanpings father made his way to the battered armoire and took out a small can. He grabbed a handful of fava nuts and stuffed them into Baldy Li's pocket.
Once again they returned to the edge of the village. A few leaves had fallen on the mound that was Song Fanpings grave. Li Lan went over and picked them off, throwing them to one side. She did not cry, and the boys heard her softly say to the grave, "Once the boys grow up, I'll come keep you company."
Li Lan turned, walked up to Song Gang, and squatted down to caress his face as he caressed hers. Li Lan hugged him tight and couldn't help bursting into tears. "Son, take good care of Grandpa. Grandpa is old now, so he wants you to stay by his side. Mama will come to see you often…"
Song Gang didn't understand what Li Lan was talking about. He nodded, then looked over at Baldy Li. Li Lan wept with Song Gang in her arms, then wiped her tears and stood up. Looking over at Song Fanping's father, her lips moved as if to say something but no sounds came out. Finally she took Baldy Li's hand.
Li Lan led Baldy Li down the dirt road. She didn't look back. Her steps were as heavy as two mops dragging across the floor. Even at this moment Baldy Li still didn't realize that he was about to be parted from Song Gang. As Li Lan led him down the road he turned to look back at Song Gang, wondering why he wasn't coming with them. Song Gang's grandfather held Song Gang's hand as Song Gang stood in front of his father's grave, watching in confusion as Baldy Li and Li Lan slowly walked away. He also didn't understand why he had been left behind. As Li Lan and Baldy Li walked farther away he saw that Grandpa was waving farewell to them. Hesitantly he also lifted his hand and waved. Baldy Li kept turning back to look at Song Gang, and when he saw that Song Gang was waving at him, he also started waving.
CHAPTER 22
FROM THAT POINT, Baldy Li was on his own. In those days Li Lan left early and returned late. The silk factory where she used to work had stopped production in order to carry out revolutionary activities, but since Song Fanping had left her with a landlady designation, every day she had to go to the factory to receive criticism. Without Song Gang, Baldy Li no longer had a pal. All day, every day, he wandered the streets, as adrift and aimless as a leaf floating down the river and as pitiful as a scrap of paper blowing in the wind. He didn't know what to do, knowing only to walk about, sit when he was tired, drink from a faucet when he was thirsty, and go home to eat leftovers when he was hungry.
Baldy Li didn't know what was happening in the world as more and more people were forced to parade through the streets wearing dunce caps and wooden placards in the name of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mama Su from the snack shop had also been dragged out to be struggled against. They accused her of being a prostitute, on the ground that she had a daughter and no husband. One day Baldy Li glimpsed a red-haired woman standing on a bench on the street. He had never seen someone with red hair, so his curiosity led him over. When he got closer, he saw that her hair was actually stained red with blood. She stood, head lowered, on the bench, a placard hanging around her neck. The woman's daughter — a girl named Missy Su, who was only a few years older than Baldy Li — stood by her mother's side. Only when Baldy Li had walked directly under Mama Su and looked up at her lowered face did he recognize her as the owner of the snack shop.
There was another bench next to Mama Sus, and on it stood longhaired Sun Wei's father. Even this man — who had once brawled with Song Fanping and had stood guard in front of the warehouse wearing his red armband — was now wearing a dunce cap and a wooden placard. Sun Wei's grandfather had owned a rice shop in Liu Town before Liberation. The shop had gone bankrupt during the war, but as the Cultural Revolution struggles delved deeper and deeper, Sun Wei's father was now also dug out as capitalist, and the placard hanging around his neck now was even bigger than the one Song Fanping had worn.
Sun Wei was now as alone as Baldy Li. Once his father was labeled a class enemy, his erstwhile buddies, Victory Zhao and Success Liu, immediately distanced themselves from him. Whenever they ran into Baldy Li, they would leer at him. Baldy Li knew that they wanted to practice their sweep-kicks on him, so he would dash away, or if he couldn't, he would plop himself on the ground, saying, "I'm already down."