Juli lowered her head, as if the story stimulated her and gave her the shivers. ‘That’s barbaric!’
‘Sometimes savagery is romantic. They ran into the nearest alley. Hei Chun pressed her against the wall, raised her skirt…that son of a bitch! You know, Shunyu loved him. Even if he tried to have her killed, she wouldn’t resist.’
Juli’s body retreated instinctively.
‘It’s all true. Nothing that happened was unusual at that time. That was Hei Chun’s revolution, and his romance. He said when the conflict ended he would marry Shunyu…’ A light fell on half of the living room as the rain stopped completely and the setting sun floated in. Mengliu squinted, paused for a moment, then said, ‘After Shunyu died, Hei Chun went missing, and the conflict ended.’
A person can close his eyes, but not his ears. The sound of flowers opening, night falling, birds singing, bones shattered by bullets, machine gun chatter, explosive missiles hitting glass, the pulsing moans and the fires punctuating the dark…these sounds were like a symphony that was both passionate and cruel as they blared in Mengliu’s mind.
Juli wiped water stains from the table with a towel. ‘You are still alive. It’s a pity you have run out of ideas.’
Mengliu didn’t speak. He felt blood on his tongue, and he tasted its salt. When he went out the door, the sun splashed over him. He heard Juli say, ‘the walking dead’, and his leg injury began to ache faintly. He walked alone, slowly, not knowing where he should go. Since moving out he had lost all sense of belonging. He still burned for Juli, but she didn’t display a trace of warmth. The ground was wet, the air cool. A curved rainbow hung over the hilltops in the mist. The golden forest stretched to the horizon. It was autumn, and there was a hint of a chill in the air. Mengliu sat under an acacia looking into the distance at a cluster of clouds on the mountains, watching the occasional fall of a yellow leaf. He looked at the wound on his leg. It had healed, now the pain was mostly in his mind. He was overcome with sadness, and had to breathe in deeply.
The appearance of Shanlai cheered him. He wore a dark-coloured lightweight jacket. It had been many days since they had met, and he had a new sense of maturity and calmness, as if he knew all the secrets. He met Mengliu with the warmth of an old friend. Mengliu had much he wanted to say, so when he saw Shanlai, it came pouring out of his mouth.
‘Shanlai, you once said the soul is a box. Where does this box go after we die?’
‘It turns into a star.’ Shanlai pointed to the sky. ‘When a meteor falls, a soul has disappeared.’
Mengliu looked at him. He turned into a fish, a mysterious black-and-white speckled furry fish. Its tail swung eerily, and its chocolate-coloured eyes flashed slyly, seeming to taunt the human inability to understand a fish’s world. Mengliu rose from his sadness, as if he’d suddenly remembered he had a meeting to attend. He was willing to go on sitting here, perhaps sitting forever. But he thought, You little shit. I’m treating you as a good friend, but you don’t understand the complexity of the world…
‘Head of a Thousand Households, the world is indeed complex, and always surprising.’ Shanlai seemed to read his mind. ‘They asked me to look for you and take you immediately to the hospital. I’ve heard that the machine data was mistaken, and that you and Rania are not the perfect couple…’
Upon hearing the machine had made an error, Mengliu was so happy he nearly laughed out loud.
The distant snow covered the mountain like a veil on a demure bride. The sky was so thin that a fingertip could poke through it. The moon floated out, transparent as a soap bubble, shiny as a coin. If one blew at it, a string of silvery whistles could be heard.
13
Mengliu had no interest at all in procreation. He considered his own life quite terrible, and always lived in confusion. To bring a child into this world would be irresponsible, even without considering the fact that the world was only getting worse, there was pandemonium and pollution everywhere. He had seen a lot and he was sick of it. He would rather be alone, free to come and go as he pleased, without care. It wouldn’t matter if he lived or died.
He was not anxious to go to the hospital, and dallied on the way there. He wondered what Rania being at the hospital had to do with him. She had Swan Valley, an omnipotent, meticulous and all-embracing government. It gave her the warmth of a husband, the dignity of a father, the omnipresence of God…
He seemed to see her lying on a white hospital bed, with a family of doctors and nurses for companionship, holding her hand, examining her body, stroking her forehead, their smiles calming and comforting her. So he was superfluous. His only value was that he had carried the genes and provided the sperm. He was special material. But someone like him would not be particularly favoured in Dayang for this reason. Dayang didn’t care for such things. They just wanted mediocrity, so long as you were servile enough, and stayed firmly fixed in your place until you were rusted on there. Even if you were versatile, useful, full of ideas, if you weren’t obedient you’d be ostracised until you were broken and then allowed to drift away.
From this point of view, living in Swan Valley was a blessing. Mengliu came to this conclusion for a moment, and the beauty around him deepened the conviction, as the clean air scrubbed the bitterness from his heart, and emptied his mind. His light, transparent body floated, as if the wind was carrying him on his way to the hospital.
The hospital was cool and quiet, shrouded by trees. A stream flowed under a wooden bridge, seaweed swaying and leaves floating on its surface like boats on a voyage. The courtyard was warm and orderly. In the garden patients in pink-striped garments were strolling, reading or telling stories to each other in controlled voices, and looking good. Mengliu walked through the garden and a hundred-metre-long hallway hung with paintings, past an art gallery, library and concert hall, and finally along a narrow path full of flowers. He arrived at the obstetrics ward. A scent like that of a lady’s bedroom surrounded him, and irritated his nose. He sneezed several times, as the sound of his footsteps disappeared into the sky-blue carpet.
He pushed open the door to the ward, and ran into a tall nurse who was just coming out. A pair of big black eyes gave him a fright. He had been engulfed by a dark sky with two lone stars twinkling in it. She looked like a giraffe, with her too-large eyes blinking as rhythmically as wipers on a windscreen, though in slow motion, which made her look lazy and arrogant, and somewhat knowledgeable. She knew who he was, and she forced him back a little as she closed the door before saying his name. Her speech was gentle and easy-going, and she said she had been hearing his name for a long time, and that she counted it as a privilege to meet him. She admired the fact that he was humble and unassuming, even though he carried good genes. And she adored poets. She rambled on, not allowing him to interrupt. Finally, in a whisper, she revealed a secret, some of the parties concerned had come to the scientific conclusion that she and he would provide a perfect combination of genes. As she spoke, she donned an expression of academic rigour, then turned to open the door, and made him sidle through the narrow opening into the ward.