The brothers went back and forth on whether it was indeed a shoe. They wondered if it might be a toy boat. In the end they concluded that it was a toy — not a toy boat but a toy shoe. Baldy Li and Song Gang happily carried the red high-heeled shoe back with them to their home, then sat on the bed examining it for a bit longer. They still agreed that the high-heel was a toy but of a sort that they had never seen before. Then they hid it under the bed.
By the time Baldy Li and Song Gang woke up the next day, the sun was shining on their bottoms. They rushed to the hospital, but Li Lan s bed was empty. As they were standing there in a panic, looking all about them and not knowing what to do, a nurse walked in and informed them that Li Lan was dead and laid out in the morgue.
Song Gang immediately burst into loud wails. Sobbing, he walked down the hospitals aisles toward the morgue. Baldy Li initially didn't cry as he followed Song Gang in a daze, but when he saw his mother lying stiffly on a concrete cot in the morgue, he burst out into wails too, crying even louder than Song Gang.
Li Lan's eyes were still open. She had wanted so badly to see her sons before dying, but the last glimmer of light disappeared from her gaze without her getting a final glimpse of her beloved sons.
Song Gang knelt on the floor in front of the concrete cot and wept until he shook all over, while Baldy Li, standing at the foot of the bed, wept and trembled like a sapling in the wind. Together they wept, calling out for their mama. It was not until this moment that Baldy Li truly understood that he was now an orphan and that he and Song Gang were all they each had left in this world.
Song Gang then hoisted Li Lan s body onto his back. With Baldy Li following behind, the three of them went home. Song Gang wept continuously as he carried Li Lan down the street while Baldy Li also repeatedly wiped his eyes. The two of them no longer howled, instead sobbed silently. As they reached the basketball court Song Gang cried out loud again, saying to Baldy Li, "Yesterday when we reached here, Mama was still talking to me."
Song Gang wept so hard he could not take another step. Baldy Li urged him to let him carry their mother, but Song Gang shook his head, explaining, "You're my younger brother. I have to take care of you."
Sobbing, the two youths made their way with the corpse down the streets of Liu Town. The body kept sliding down Song Gangs back, so Baldy Li propped it up from behind. Song Gang repeatedly stopped to bend down so that Baldy Li could gently hoist the body back up. Eventually Song Gang was doubled over with the effort, with Baldy Li trotting alongside helping to support the body. The two young men carefully tended to Li Lan s corpse as if she were merely asleep and they were afraid of hurting her. When people saw them, they were all heartbroken. When Mama Su and Missy Su saw them, tears trickled down Mama Sus face as she said to her daughter, "Li Lan was such a good woman. Its such a pity that she's now gone and left her good sons behind."
Two days later the two youths reappeared in the streets, this time pulling Blacksmith Tongs cart. Atop the cart was Li Lan in the coffin that she had selected herself. Inside the coffin was a portrait of their family, three pairs of ancients’ chopsticks, and dirt that had once been soaked through with Song Fanping's blood. Song Gang walked in front, pulling the cart, while Baldy Li followed, guiding it from behind. The two worried that the coffin might slip off the cart, so they both squatted down in order to roll the cart horizontally. Song Gangs body was bent over like a bow, as was Baldy Li's. Heads bowed, they walked in silence as the wheels creaked along the stone slabs on the street.
Seven years earlier another pullcart holding another coffin had passed down this same street, and the body lying inside had been Song Fanpings. At that time, it had been the old landlord pulling in front and Li Lan and the two children pushing from behind. This time the two boys were young men, and it was Li Lan who was lying in the coffin.
They walked out the southern gate and onto the dirt road leading into the country. Seven years earlier, this was the spot where Li Lan had said, "Go ahead and cry," and where all four of them had erupted in sobs, their wailing startling even the sparrows in the trees. Now the boys were again pulling a cart carrying a thin-planked coffin, and the fields were just as wide, the skies just as vast, but this time there were only two of them, and they had no tears left. With their backs bent, one in front and one in back, one pulling and one pushing, they were positioned lower than the coffin on the cart. From a distance they didn't resemble two people so much as an oversize cart.
The two young men escorted their mother to the village where Song Fanping was born and raised. Song Fanping had been waiting in his grave by the village entrance for seven years, and now his wife was finally here to keep him company. The old landlord waited at his son's grave, his entire weight resting on a tree branch serving as a cane; he looked frail and weak, as if he were also taking his last breaths and would have collapsed to the ground without the branch. The old landlord was so poor he couldn't even afford a cane, so Song Gang had fashioned this one by whittling down a tree branch. There was a grave already dug next to Song Fanpings, thanks once again to the poor relatives who stood there leaning on their shovels, wearing clothes just as tattered as they had been seven years earlier.
Once Li Lan s coffin was lowered into the grave, the old landlord, his face covered in tears, could no longer hold himself up. Song Gang helped lift him to a seated position. The old landlord leaned against a tree and watched as dirt was shoveled into the grave, sobbing over and over, "It was my son's good fortune to marry such a good woman. It was my son's good fortune to marry such a good woman. It was my son's good fortune …"
Li Lan s mound was now piled as high as Song Fanping's grave. The old landlord wept as he spoke of what a good daughter-in-law he had had: He said that Li Lan came every Qingming festival to sweep the grave, and every New Years she came to pay her respects to him. Song Gang asked Baldy Li to help his grandfather up and carry him back home. Baldy Li walked off with the old landlord on his back, and the poor relatives followed behind, carrying their shovels. Song Gang watched them walk away. Once he was alone, he knelt in front of Li Lan s grave and promised her, "Mama, don't you worry. Even if I only have one bowl of rice left, I'll give it to Baldy Li to eat, and even if I have only a single piece of clothing, I'll give it to Baldy Li to wear."
PART TWO
CHAPTER 27
THE DEAD had departed; the living remained. Li Lan headed into the netherworld, walking along a penumbral path in search of Song Fanping's spirit amid a sea of ghosts. She was no longer aware of her sons’ wanderings in the mortal world.
Song Gangs grandfather, the old landlord, was himself in his twilight years and confined to his bed. Every few days he would have only a single mouthful of rice and a few sips of water; as a result, he had been reduced to little more than skin and bones. Recognizing that he was about to expire, the old landlord would pull Song Gang toward him and hold him tight while staring out the door. Song Gang understood what his grandfather was trying to communicate with his gaze. Therefore, on clear, cloudless evenings, he would carry his grandfather on his back, and together they would walk past each house in the village as the old landlord gazed upon each familiar face as if he were bidding farewell. Upon arriving at the village entrance, Song Gang would pause under the elm tree, his grandfather still on his back, and the two of them would silently watch the sun set while standing next to Song Fanping and Li Lan s graves.