200 lines
22 KiB
XML
200 lines
22 KiB
XML
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
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<text>
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<p id="1">
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<s id="1:1">FATHER FINISHED HIS fistcake as he stood on the withered grass, turned blood-red by the setting sun.</s>
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<s id="1:2">Then he walked gingerly up to the edge of the water.</s>
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<s id="1:3">There on the stone bridge across the Black Water River the lead truck, its tyres flattened by the barrier of linked rakes, crouched in front of the other three.</s>
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<s id="1:4">Its railings and fenders were stained by splotches of gore.</s>
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<s id="1:5">The upper half of a Japanese soldier was draped over one of the railings, his steel helmet hanging upturned by a strap from his neck.</s>
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<s id="1:6">Dark blood dripped into it from the tip of his nose.</s>
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<s id="1:7">The water sobbed as it flowed down the riverbed.</s>
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<s id="1:8">The heavy, dull rays of sunlight were pulverised by tiny ripples on its surface.</s>
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<s id="1:9">Autumn insects hidden in the damp mud beneath the water plants set up a mournful chirping.</s>
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<s id="1:10">Sorghum in the fields sizzled as it matured.</s>
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<s id="1:11">The fires were nearly out in the third and fourth trucks; their blackened hulks crackled and split, adding to the discordant symphony.</s>
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<s id="1:12">Father's attention was riveted by the sight and sound of blood dripping from the Japanese soldier's nose into the steel helmet, each drop splashing crisply and sending out rings of concentric circles in the deepening pool.</s>
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<s id="1:13">Father had barely passed his fifteenth birthday.</s>
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<s id="1:14">The sun had nearly set on this ninth day of the eighth lunar month of the year 1939, and the dying embers of its rays cast a red pall over the world below.</s>
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<s id="1:15">Father's face, turned unusually gaunt by the fierce daylong battle, was covered by a layer of purplish mud.</s>
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<s id="1:16">He squatted down upriver from the corpse of Wang Wenyi's wife and scooped up some water in his hands; the sticky water oozed through the cracks between his fingers and dropped noiselessly to the ground.</s>
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<s id="1:17">Sharp pains racked his cracked, swollen lips, and the brackish taste of blood seeped between his teeth and slid down his throat, moistening the parched membranes.</s>
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<s id="1:18">He experienced a satisfying pain, and even though the taste of blood made his stomach churn, he scooped up handful after handful of water, drinking it down until it soaked up the dry, cracked fistcake in his stomach.</s>
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<s id="1:19">He stood up straight and took a deep breath of relief.</s>
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<s id="1:20">Night was definitely about to fall; the ridge of the sky's dome was tinged with the final sliver of red.</s>
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<s id="1:21">The scorched smell from the burned-out hulks of the trucks had faded.</s>
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<s id="1:22">A loud bang made Father jump.</s>
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<s id="1:23">He looked up, just in time to see exploded bits of truck tyres settling slowly into the river like black butterflies, and countless kernels of Japanese rice – some black, some white – soaring upward, then raining down on the still surface of the river.</s>
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<s id="1:24">As he spun around, his eyes settled on the tiny figure of Wang Wenyi's wife lying at the edge of the river, the blood from her wounds staining the water around her.</s>
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<s id="1:25">He scrambled to the top of the dike and yelled: 'Dad!'</s>
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<s id="1:26">Granddad was standing on the dike, the flesh on his face wasted away by the day's battle, the bones jutting out beneath his dark, weathered skin.</s>
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<s id="1:27">In the dying sunlight Father noticed that Granddad's short-cropped hair was turning white.</s>
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<s id="1:28">With fear in his aching heart, Father nudged him timidly.</s>
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<s id="1:29">'Dad,' he said, 'Dad!</s>
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<s id="1:30">What's wrong with you?'</s>
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<s id="1:31">Tears were running down Granddad's face.</s>
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<s id="1:32">He was sobbing.</s>
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<s id="1:33">The Japanese machine gun that Detachment Leader Leng had so magnanimously left behind sat at his feet like a crouching wolf, its muzzle gaping.</s>
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<s id="1:34">'Say something, Dad.</s>
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<s id="1:35">Eat that fistcake, then drink some water.</s>
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<s id="1:36">You'll die if you don't eat or drink.'</s>
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<s id="1:37">Granddad's head drooped until it rested on his chest.</s>
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<s id="1:38">He seemed to lack the strength to support its weight.</s>
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<s id="1:39">He knelt at the top of the dike, holding his head in his hands and sobbing.</s>
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<s id="1:40">After a moment, or two, he looked up and cried out: 'Douguan, my son!</s>
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<s id="1:41">Is it all over for us?'</s>
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<s id="1:42">Father stared wide-eyed and fearfully at Granddad.</s>
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<s id="1:43">The glare in his diamondlike pupils embodied the heroic, unrestrained spirit of Grandma, a flicker of hope that shone and lit up Granddad's heart.</s>
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<s id="1:44">'Dad,' Father said, 'don't give up.</s>
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<s id="1:45">I'll work hard on my shooting, like when you shot fish at the inlet to perfect your seven-plum-blossom skill.</s>
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<s id="1:46">Then we'll go settle accounts with that rotten son of a bitch Pocky Leng!'</s>
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<s id="1:47">Granddad sprang to his feet and bellowed three times – half wail, half crazed laughter.</s>
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<s id="1:48">A line of dark-purple blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.</s>
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<s id="1:49">'That's it, son, that's the way to talk!'</s>
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<s id="1:50">He picked up one of Grandma's fistcakes from the dark earth, bit off a chunk, and swallowed it.</s>
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<s id="1:51">Cake crumbs and flecks of bubbly blood stuck to his stained teeth.</s>
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<s id="1:52">Father heard Granddad's painful cries as the dry cake stuck in his throat and saw the rough edges make their way down his neck.</s>
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<s id="1:53">'Dad,' Father said, 'go drink some water to soak up the cake in your belly.'</s>
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<s id="1:54">Granddad stumbled along the dike to the river's edge, where he knelt among the water plants and lapped up the water like a draught animal.</s>
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<s id="1:55">When he'd had his fill, he drew his hands back and buried his head in the river, holding it under the water for about half the time it takes to smoke a pipeful of tobacco.</s>
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<s id="1:56">Father started getting nervous as he gazed at his dad, frozen like a bronze frog at the river's edge.</s>
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<s id="1:57">Finally, Granddad jerked his dripping head out of the water and gasped for breath.</s>
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<s id="1:58">Then he walked back up the dike to stand in front of Father, whose eyes were glued to the cascading drops of water.</s>
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<s id="1:59">Granddad shook his head, sending forty-nine drops, large and small, flying like so many pearls.</s>
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<s id="1:60">'Douguan,' he said, 'come with Dad.</s>
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<s id="1:61">Let's go see the men.'</s>
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<s id="1:62">Granddad staggered down the road, weaving in and out of the sorghum field on the western edge, Father right on his heels.</s>
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<s id="1:63">They stepped on broken, twisted stalks of sorghum and spent cartridges that gave off a faint yellow glint.</s>
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<s id="1:64">Frequently they bent down to look at the bodies of their fallen comrades, who lay amid the sorghum, deathly grimaces frozen on their faces.</s>
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<s id="1:65">Granddad and Father shook them in hope of finding one who was alive; but they were dead, all of them.</s>
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<s id="1:66">Father's and Granddad's hands were covered with sticky blood.</s>
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<s id="1:67">Father looked down at two soldiers on the westernmost edge of the field: one lay with the muzzle of his shotgun in his mouth, the back of his neck a gory mess, like a rotten wasps' nest; the other lay across a bayonet buried in his chest.</s>
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<s id="1:68">When Granddad turned them over, Father saw that their legs had been broken and their bellies slit open.</s>
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<s id="1:69">Granddad sighed as he withdrew the shotgun from the one soldier's mouth and pulled the bayonet from the other's chest.</s>
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<s id="1:70">Father followed Granddad across the road, into the sorghum field to the east, which had also been swept by machine-gun fire.</s>
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<s id="1:71">They turned over the bodies of more soldiers lying strewn across the ground.</s>
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<s id="1:72">Bugler Liu was on his knees, bugle in hand, as though he were blowing it.</s>
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<s id="1:73">'Bugler Liu!'</s>
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<s id="1:74">Granddad called out excitedly.</s>
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<s id="1:75">No response.</s>
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<s id="1:76">Father ran up and nudged him.</s>
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<s id="1:77">'Uncle Liu!' he shouted, as the bugle dropped to the ground.</s>
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<s id="1:78">When Father looked more closely, he discovered that the bugler's face was already as hard as a rock.</s>
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<s id="1:79">In the lightly scarred section of field some few dozen paces from the dike, Granddad and Father came upon Fang Seven, whose guts had spilled out of his belly, and another soldier, named Consumptive Four, who, after taking a bullet in the leg, had fainted from blood loss.</s>
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<s id="1:80">Holding his bloodstained hand above the man's mouth, Granddad detected a faint sign of dry, hot breath from his nostrils.</s>
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<s id="1:81">Fang Seven had stuffed his own intestines back into his abdomen and covered the gaping wound with sorghum leaves.</s>
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<s id="1:82">He was still conscious.</s>
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<s id="1:83">When he spotted Granddad and Father, his lips twitched and he said haltingly, 'Commander . . . done for . . .</s>
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<s id="1:84">When you see my old lady . . . give some money. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:85">Don't let her remarry. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:86">My brother . . . no sons . . .</s>
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<s id="1:87">If she leaves . . .</s>
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<s id="1:88">Fang family line ended. . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:89">Father knew that Fang Seven had a year-old son, and that there was so much milk in his mother's gourdlike breasts that he was growing up fair and plump.</s>
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<s id="1:90">'I'll carry you back, little brother,' Granddad said.</s>
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<s id="1:91">He bent over and pulled Fang Seven onto his back.</s>
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<s id="1:92">As Fang screeched in pain, Father saw the leaves fall away and his white, speckled intestines slither out of his belly, releasing a breath of foul hot air.</s>
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<s id="1:93">Granddad laid him back down on the ground.</s>
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<s id="1:94">'Elder brother,' Fang pleaded, 'put me out of my misery. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:95">Don't torture me. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:96">Shoot me, please. . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:97">Granddad squatted down and held Fang Seven's hand.</s>
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<s id="1:98">'Little brother, I can carry you over to see Zhang Xinyi, Dr Zhang.</s>
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<s id="1:99">He'll patch you up.'</s>
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<s id="1:100">'Elder brother . . . do it now. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:101">Don't make me suffer. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:102">Past saving . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:103">Granddad squinted into the murky, late-afternoon August sky, in which a dozen or so stars shone brightly, and let out a long howl before turning to Father.</s>
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<s id="1:104">'Are there bullets in your gun, Douguan?'</s>
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<s id="1:105">'Yes.'</s>
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<s id="1:106">Father handed his pistol to Granddad, who released the safety catch, took another look into the darkening sky, and spun the cylinder.</s>
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<s id="1:107">'Rest easy, brother.</s>
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<s id="1:108">As long as Yu Zhan'ao has food to eat, your wife and child will never go hungry.'</s>
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<s id="1:109">Fang Seven nodded and closed his eyes.</s>
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<s id="1:110">Granddad raised the revolver as though he were lifting a huge boulder.</s>
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<s id="1:111">The pressure of the moment made him quake.</s>
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<s id="1:112">Fang Seven's eyes snapped open.</s>
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<s id="1:113">'Elder brother . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:114">Granddad spun his face away, and a burst of flame leaped out of the muzzle, lighting up Fang Seven's greenish scalp.</s>
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<s id="1:115">The kneeling man shot forward and fell on top of his own exposed guts.</s>
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<s id="1:116">Father found it hard to believe that a man's belly could hold such a pile of intestines.</s>
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<s id="1:117">'Consumptive Four, you'd better be on your way, too.</s>
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<s id="1:118">Then you can get an early start on your next life and come back to seek revenge on those Jap bastards!'</s>
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<s id="1:119">He pumped the last cartridge into the heart of the dying Consumptive Four.</s>
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<s id="1:120">Though killing had become a way of life for Granddad, he dropped his arm to his side and let it hang there like a dead snake; the pistol fell to the ground.</s>
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<s id="1:121">Father bent over and picked it up, stuck it into his belt, and tugged on Granddad, who stood as though drunk or paralysed.</s>
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<s id="1:122">'Let's go home, Dad, let's go home. . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:123">'Home?</s>
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<s id="1:124">Go home?</s>
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<s id="1:125">Yes, go home!</s>
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<s id="1:126">Go home . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:127">Father pulled him up onto the dike and began walking awkwardly towards the west.</s>
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<s id="1:128">The cold rays of the half-moon on that August 9 evening filled the sky, falling lightly on the backs of Granddad and Father and illuminating the heavy Black Water River, which was like the great but clumsy Chinese race.</s>
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<s id="1:129">White eels, thrown into a frenzy by the bloody water, writhed and sparkled on the surface.</s>
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<s id="1:130">The blue chill of the water merged with the red warmth of the sorghum bordering the dikes to form an airy, transparent mist that reminded Father of the heavy, spongy fog that had accompanied them as they set out for battle that morning.</s>
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<s id="1:131">Only one day, but it seemed like ten years.</s>
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<s id="1:132">Yet it also seemed like the blink of an eye.</s>
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<s id="1:133">Father thought back to how his mother had walked him to the edge of the fog-enshrouded village.</s>
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<s id="1:134">The scene seemed so far away, though it was right there in front of his eyes.</s>
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<s id="1:135">He recalled how difficult the march through the sorghum field had been, how Wang Wenyi had been wounded in the ear by a stray bullet, how the fifty or so soldiers had approached the bridge looking like the droppings of a goat.</s>
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<s id="1:136">Then there was Mute's razor-sharp sabre knife, the sinister eyes, the Jap head sailing through the air, the shrivelled ass of the old Jap officer . . .</s>
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<s id="1:137">Mother soaring to the top of the dike as though on the wings of a phoenix . . . the fistcakes . . . fistcakes rolling on the ground . . . stalks of sorghum falling all around . . . red sorghum crumpling like fallen heroes. . . .</s>
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<s id="1:138">Granddad hoisted Father, who was asleep on his feet, onto his back and wrapped his arms – one healthy, the other injured – around Father's legs.</s>
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<s id="1:139">The pistol in Father's belt banged against Granddad's back, sending sharp pains straight to his heart.</s>
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<s id="1:140">It had belonged to the dark, skinny, handsome, and well-educated Adjutant Ren.</s>
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<s id="1:141">Granddad was thinking about how this pistol had ended the lives of Adjutant Ren, Fang Seven, and Consumptive Four.</s>
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<s id="1:142">He wanted nothing more than to heave the execrable thing into the Black Water River.</s>
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<s id="1:143">But it was only a thought.</s>
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<s id="1:144">Bending over, he shifted his sleeping son higher up on his back, partly to relieve the excruciating pain in his heart.</s>
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<s id="1:145">All that kept Granddad moving was a powerful drive to push on and continue the bitter struggle against wave after murky wave of obdurate air.</s>
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<s id="1:146">In his dazed state he heard a loud clamour rushing towards him like a tidal wave.</s>
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<s id="1:147">When he raised his head he spotted a long fiery dragon wriggling its way along the top of the dike.</s>
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<s id="1:148">His eyes froze, as the image slipped in and out of focus.</s>
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<s id="1:149">When it was blurred he could see the dragon's fangs and claws as it rode the clouds and sailed through the mist, the vigorous motions making its golden scales jangle; wind howled, clouds hissed, lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, the sounds merging to form a masculine wind that swept across a huddled feminine world.</s>
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<s id="1:150">When it was clear he could see it was ninety-nine torches hoisted above the heads of hundreds of people hastening towards him.</s>
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<s id="1:151">The dancing flames lit up the sorghum on both banks of the river.</s>
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<s id="1:152">Granddad lifted Father down off his back and shook him hard.</s>
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<s id="1:153">'Douguan,' he shouted in his ear, 'Douguan!</s>
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<s id="1:154">Wake up!</s>
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<s id="1:155">Wake up!</s>
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<s id="1:156">The villagers are coming for us, they're coming. . . .'</s>
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<s id="1:157">Father heard the hoarseness in Granddad's voice and saw two remarkable tears leap out of his eyes.</s>
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<s id="1:158">GRANDDAD WAS ONLY twenty-four when he murdered Shan Tingxiu and his son.</s>
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<s id="1:159">Even though by then he and Grandma had already done the phoenix dance in the sorghum field, and even though, in the solemn course of suffering and joy, she had conceived my father, whose life was a mixture of achievements and sin (in the final analysis, he gained distinction among his generation of citizens of Northeast Gaomi Township), she had nonetheless been legally married into the Shan family.</s>
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<s id="1:160">So she and Granddad were adulterers, their relationship marked by measures of spontaneity, chance, and uncertainty.</s>
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<s id="1:161">And since Father wasn't born while they were together, accuracy demands that I refer to Granddad as Yu Zhan'ao in writing about this period.</s>
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<s id="1:162">When, in agony and desperation, Grandma told Yu Zhan'ao that her legal husband, Shan Bianlang, was a leper, he decapitated two sorghum plants with his short sword.</s>
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<s id="1:163">Urging her not to worry, he told her to return three days hence.</s>
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<s id="1:164">She was too overwhelmed by the tide of passionate love to concern herself with the implications of his comment.</s>
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<s id="1:165">But murderous thoughts had already entered his mind.</s>
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<s id="1:166">He watched her thread her way out of the sorghum field and, through the spaces between stalks, saw her summon her shrewd little donkey and nudge Great-Granddad with her foot, waking the mud-caked heap from his drunken stupor.</s>
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<s id="1:167">He heard Great-Granddad, whose tongue had grown thick in his mouth, say: 'Daughter . . . you . . . what took you so long to take a piss? . . .</s>
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<s id="1:168">Your father-in-law . . . going to give me a big black mule . . .</s>
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<s id="1:169">Ignoring his mumbling, she swung her leg over the donkey's back and turned her face, brushed by the winds of spring, towards the sorghum field south of the road.</s>
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<s id="1:170">She knew that the young sedan bearer was watching her.</s>
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<s id="1:171">Struggling to wrench free of this unknown passion, she had a dim vision of a new and unfamiliar broad road stretching out ahead of her, covered with sorghum seeds as red as rubies, the ditches on either side filled with crystal-clear sorghum wine.</s>
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<s id="1:172">As she moved down the road, her imagination coloured the genuine article until she could not distinguish between reality and illusion.</s>
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<s id="1:173">Yu Zhan'ao followed her with his eyes until she rounded a bend.</s>
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<s id="1:174">Feeling suddenly weary, he pushed his way through the sorghum and returned to the sacred altar, where he collapsed like a toppled wall and fell into a sound sleep.</s>
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<s id="1:175">Later, as the red sun was disappearing in the west, his eyes snapped open, and the first things he saw were sorghum leaves, stems, and ears of grain that formed a thick blanket of purplish red above him.</s>
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<s id="1:176">He draped his rain cape over his shoulders and walked out of the field as a rapid breeze on the road caused the sorghum to rustle noisily.</s>
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<s id="1:177">He wrapped the cape tightly around him to ward off the chill, and as his hand brushed against his belly he realised how hungry he was.</s>
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<s id="1:178">He dimly recalled the three shacks at the head of the village where he had carried the woman in the sedan chair three days ago, and the tattered tavern flag snapping and fluttering in the raging winds of the rainstorm.</s>
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<s id="1:179">So hungry he could neither sit still nor stand straight, he strode towards the tavern.</s>
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<s id="1:180">Since he had been hiring out for the Northeast Gaomi Township Wedding and Funeral Service Company for less than two years, the people around here wouldn't recognise him.</s>
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<s id="1:181">He'd get something to eat and drink, find a way to do what he'd come to do, then slip into the sorghum fields, like a fish in the ocean, and swim far away.</s>
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<s id="1:182">At this point in his ruminations, he headed west, where bilious red clouds turned the setting sun into a blooming peony with a luminous, fearfully bright golden border.</s>
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<s id="1:183">After walking west for a while, he turned north, heading straight for the village where Grandma's nominal husband lived.</s>
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<s id="1:184">The fields were still and deserted.</s>
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<s id="1:185">During those years, any farmer who had food at home left his field before nightfall, turning the sorghum fields into a haven for bandits.</s>
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<s id="1:186">Village chimneys were smoking by the time he arrived, and a handsome young man was walking down the street with two crocks of fresh well water over his shoulder, the shifting water splashing over the sides.</s>
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<s id="1:187">Yu Zhan'ao darted into the doorway beneath the tattered tavern flag.</s>
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<s id="1:188">No inner walls separated the shacks, and a bar made of adobe bricks divided the room in two, the inner half of which was furnished with a brick kang, a stove, and a large vat.</s>
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<s id="1:189">Two rickety tables with scarred tops and a few scattered narrow benches constituted the furnishings in the outer half of the room.</s>
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<s id="1:190">A glazed wine crock rested on the bar, its ladle hanging from the rim.</s>
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<s id="1:191">A fat old man was sprawled on the kang.</s>
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<s id="1:192">Yu Zhan'ao recognised him as the Korean dog butcher they called Gook.</s>
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<s id="1:193">He had seen Gook once at the market in Ma Hamlet.</s>
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<s id="1:194">The man could slaughter a dog in less than a minute, and the hundreds of dogs that lived in Ma Hamlet growled viciously when they saw him, their fur standing straight up, though they kept their distance.</s>
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</p>
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</text>
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