‘Frankly, I do not feel your goodness. You deprive others of freedom as a means of entertainment.’
‘You are so stubborn. But you will come to understand.’
‘I just want to go home.’
‘We are prepared to make you a cultural officer, and you still want to go back? You’d rather be a zombie, entangled in self-condemnation and guilt?’
Mengliu was secretly surprised. The robot seemed to have completely mastered both his past and his hidden inner world. Yes, he admitted to himself, he did live in a spiritual prison, and he knew beyond a doubt that he had no chance of being set free. He still remembered the day very clearly. Shunyu’s father had brought him the devastating news. The red rosebud appeared. He did not board the train and leave. He had gone in search of Qizi. If she was alive, he wanted to find her, and if she was dead, he wanted to find her body. There was no one at the Wisdom Bureau. The guard’s eyes were red. The horrors he had witnessed that night reverberated in his trembling words. He described the sounds of gunfire, the tanks, the fires, and the hand-to-hand combat, the wounded and the dead, the ambulances, and the chaotic spectacle, like something out of a movie. He bade farewell to the guard, then ran to other places where she might be found, but discovered nothing. The streets were full of people in uniform, patrols searching and cross-examining people. He went to Liuli Street and found it empty. The walls of the Catholic Church were full of bullet holes. The mouth of the injured street had been stopped up — the birds didn’t sing, nor was there a sound from the empty darkness of the broken windows. Beiping Street was even worse. The pavement had collapsed under the weight of the tanks, the surface of the road had been destroyed, stone structures and traffic signs ground into powder. Smoke-charred vehicles stood abandoned along the road. Some of the trees beside the road had been uprooted, and bullet holes filled the walls of the buildings on both sides. The tree trunks were covered in blood. He wanted to go along Beiping Street to Round Square, but was stopped by a man in uniform. He remained resolute, and got a blow from his gun butt as a result. He created an uproar. He wanted them to arrest him. Maybe if they did, it would be like the previous time, when he was locked up with Qizi. He begged them to take him, but they just chased him away. He was unkempt, one foot bare and the other shuffling along in a slipper. They thought he was crazy. In a daze, he sat down on the road beside a motorbike, which had been crushed to a flat, paper-like form stuck to the ground. He looked at it like it was a piece of meat. He knew the odds were against Qizi.
When he returned he just sat in the West Wing waiting for someone to come and arrest him. No one came for him, because the old landlord had told the police that Mengliu never left the house, and stayed in all day every day sleeping. On the third day, he went to the Green Flower, but the bar had been closed and Shunyu’s father arrested on charges of harbouring and abetting wanted criminals. No one knew where he had been taken.
Nearly two years later Mengliu received a letter from him. It was his dying testimony.
Unfortunately, we have no way of discussing together the question of the lady-charming xun. I promise you, it has been passed down from generation to generation in our family for six-hundred years. The words on its base, ‘meng liu’, were inscribed by my own hand. ‘Meng’ means to miss someone, and ‘Liu’ was a girl’s name. I had hoped we would be able to meet again…
The letter had been sent from a prison in the outer provinces. The envelope was postmarked with a date six months earlier.
So Shunyu’s father was the chuixun player his mother had met beside the river…Every time Mengliu thought of this, he felt suffocated and could not speak.
When your innocent relatives were killed by the guns of the nation, your own life had been taken over too. You were no longer yourself.
His voice softened. It was no longer so self-righteous. He did not want to go back to Beiping, but he was filled with a disgust that he could not quite understand. It didn’t matter if the robot of Swan Valley could capture the thoughts of people and understand a person’s past and future, the spiritual leader’s words still needed to be considered. What man did not want to possess power, status, and prestige? He would hold to his sense of dignity though.
‘Don’t try to tamper with my emotions. Even more, don’t slander my brothers and sisters. Whom you choose to breed with whom is your business. All I want is my freedom.’
‘You do go on and on! Today’s conversation ends here. Goodbye.’
The robot was annoyed. With a crackling sound, the machine ground to a halt. Then all was silent.
2
On Saturday mornings, there was usually a public academic report, followed by an open salon, where everyone could listen or speak as they pleased. Mengliu surprised himself by showing up at the event. He was in a daze and did not remember how he got there. He recalled what seemed to be a conversation with a robot, but could not figure out if it was real or a dream. He saw a flat space hewn out of the mountain, and on it an oval table encircled by bamboo chairs. Many young people were sitting there, and some he knew, like Esteban and Juli. They had serious expressions on their faces, which were as hard and cold as stones in winter. He noticed several girls of about sixteen or seventeen, including one with blonde hair and pink skin, a full figure, and long eyebrows above her wide eyes. She wore an indifferent, proud expression. There was also a handsome, elegant-looking young man. His facial features were perfect, delicate and gentle, with idealism flashing in his eyes. They called him Darae, and from time to time, he cast an appreciative glance at the blonde-haired girl.
The mountain breeze blew gently through the leaves on the trees along the slopes, making them sway, with the birds bobbing up and down on their branches. A mighty burst of drums sounded, as Darae presided over the reading of the conclusions of the academic report. The contents were in praise of the beauty of Swan Valley, though there was also mention of a handful of cases of theft, adultery, fornication, and other immoral actions.
‘These came about because people were unwilling to change their bloody values, and some even treated gold or diamonds as treasure. Such decadent ideas would seriously affect the development of civilisation in Swan Valley, hindering it in its quest to become the world’s most ideal place to live.
‘In some countries, there are fucking awesome princes, gold-dealers and loan sharks, and those who do not think of the good of the country or have any sense of crisis, and they all live an aimless, useless, bloody extravagant life. The wealthy all work hand in glove, making unauthorised use of the name of the state for their own bloody profit and enrichment. They exploit the poor, and the labourers and the carpenters and the farmers all have to toil endlessly. They are like bloody beasts of burden, barely making enough money to make ends meet. Their lives are a fucking misery. They suffer worse treatment than animals, but without their labour the country couldn’t survive. Even the beasts of burden are given a time of rest. They need not worry about the future. And what about the humans who are worse off than bloody animals? They labour and suffer, gaining nothing, and have to suffer pain and poverty in old age. But fucking hell, Swan Valley will never repeat those mistakes. Everything the government does is for the citizens of Swan Valley, for the citizen’s fucking lives, to do good, be optimistic and proud of the knowledge we possess. As long as everyone is pure and perfect in his or her spiritual life, this poetic lifestyle will be a reality in Swan Valley.’
‘Fucking’ and ‘bloody’ — such words kept popping up in the academic report, and Mengliu was stunned to hear them, even though he could not help but nod, the smile of a sleepwalker fixed on his face. He observed the others carefully, his eyes finally falling on Su Juli. She always looked grim, but at that moment even her hair was shining with the glory of idealism. He felt that on some nights her body must have trembled with wild joy, and that however sated she was on polite conversation, she too earnestly looked forward to the coming of midnight to lie with a man. On those hidden occasions her face shone with the elixir of love. Her hair was as smooth as silk. She would have taken off her lip ring way ahead of time, in preparation. As he thought of her warm moist lips, his body stiffened, but he immediately broke free of his absurd imagining.