Lu Meiyan looked at Qin Ziheng’s tall, straight back, resentment and jealousy coiling into a knot in her chest, surging until it nearly spilled over. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her two sons crouched by the door puffing away, and her heart felt as though a bottle of vinegar had been knocked over inside it.
If a green-eyed glare could be eaten as a meal, Lu Meiyan would never want for food or drink her whole life long.
Qin Ziheng went to the Wei family’s.
The Weis had been waiting for him and were delighted to see him at the door.
In the old days, when Grandpa Qin came back late from herding cattle, Grandma Wei would often slip Qin Ziheng buns, or five-cent candies, to tide him over, and Grandpa Wei would often drive him into town on the three-wheeler on rainy days.
The years spare no one.
Grandpa Qin was gone.
It was like a signal, like a beginning. After that, the village’s old folk departed one after another, the grandfathers and grandmothers he’d called out to as a child had now dwindled to a single one, the doddering, ancient Grandma Liang.
Every year when Qin Ziheng came back, he would come to burn a stick of incense for the two Wei elders. The Wei uncle’s son worked in another province, his wife and children with him, they wouldn’t get home until evening and could only sweep the graves tomorrow. Qin Ziheng had to hurry back and naturally couldn’t wait, so he could only come to offer incense.
The Wei uncle and aunt had grown old too. Once he’d finished the incense and made his three bows, Qin Ziheng pressed two red envelopes into their hands, then went home and fetched a case of milk, a bag of nutritional powder for the elderly he’d specially brought back, and a box of fruit, and went to visit Grandma Liang.
Grandma Liang held onto him and wept and wept.
As the saying goes, a close neighbor beats a distant relative. [1]meaning: neighbors nearby matter more in daily life than kin far away jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2954290_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2954290_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); Living close by, they were as good as family. Grandma Liang had watched Qin Ziheng grow up. An old man raising a grandson alone, Grandpa Qin inevitably had times when he couldn’t manage the care, and Grandma Liang had mended plenty of little Qin Ziheng’s trousers and shirts. When he was two, Grandpa Qin would often leave him with Grandma Liang or other families in the village while he herded cattle, asking them to keep an eye on the boy.
And Qin Ziheng was well-behaved, at other people’s homes he’d sit quietly and watch the grandmas and grandpas work, never running about, perhaps aware that he was living on others’ kindness.
Grandma Liang treated him like her own grandson.
Now Grandma Liang gripped Qin Ziheng’s hand and asked whether he’d found a wife yet.
Elders loved asking this sort of thing, every year, without fail, they’d ask again. Qin Ziheng sat beside her and answered patiently, “Not yet.”
“Why haven’t you found one yet?”
“Work’s been a bit busy.”
Grandma Liang asked again, “So when do you plan to find one? You’re twenty-seven, it’s time. It’s good to have a wife by your side, someone to know when you’re cold or unwell. Otherwise a man alone doesn’t seem to be living a proper life. Out there all on your own, Beijing so far from home, no one at your side, if anything happened, no one would even know.”
Not a trace of impatience showed on Qin Ziheng’s face, nor did he brush her off just because she was old. “Once things ease up, I’ll find one. When I do, I’ll bring her back for you to see, how’s that?”
Coaxed by those few words, Grandma Liang was delighted and kept saying, Good, good.
Her eyes were failing now, and her ears couldn’t hear well either. Qin Ziheng had been sitting close to her already, but she kept telling him to sit closer, she hadn’t seen him in so long, she wanted a good look.
Qin Ziheng pulled the little wooden stool nearer and sat down. Grandma Liang studied him carefully, and before long a smell drifted out. Auntie Liang, keeping them company at the side, caught it too, and said, mortified, that Grandma Liang had soiled herself.
Qin Ziheng went still, and then his face turned a little pale.
Auntie Liang thought he was disgusted, and said hurriedly, embarrassed, that she’d take Grandma Liang back to her room to clean up. But Grandma Liang wouldn’t let go of Qin Ziheng’s hand, throwing a tantrum like a child.
Nothing Auntie Liang said got through to her, and for a moment she didn’t know what to do, at a loss.
Qin Ziheng stood. “Which is Grandma’s room?”
“Ah?”
“Let me help clean Grandma up,” Qin Ziheng said, and looked at Grandma Liang, asking whether that was all right.
Grandma Liang nodded, willing.
Auntie Liang was far too embarrassed, how could that possibly do?
Qin Ziheng helped Grandma Liang to her feet. “It’s fine. When I was little, Grandma washed me plenty of times too.”
Auntie Liang stood there stunned.
Grandma Liang was already incontinent and now wore diapers. She slept on the ground floor. The room was kept very clean, yet a smell always lingered, whenever she came out to sit by the door and soak up the sun, Auntie Liang would open the window to air it out, but the smell never changed.
Qin Ziheng acted as though he smelled nothing. By the time Auntie Liang carried the basin of water in, he’d already closed the window, taken off Grandma Liang’s diaper, and wiped her clean, but no matter how clean the wiping, she still needed washing, or the smell would remain.
Auntie Liang set the basin on the floor, inside lay a worn old towel.
Qin Ziheng tested the water and found it just right, then wrung out the towel and wiped Grandma Liang down.
Auntie Liang watched him, not so much as a furrow in his brow, working earnestly, his hands fair and long, sleeves carelessly rolled up, his costly watch splashed with the dirty water without his seeming to care in the least.
These were not hands that looked as though they’d ever done rough work.
Yet at the work they were so practiced, as if he’d done it many times, until it was second nature.
This child, truly, he never forgot a kindness.
Somehow Auntie Liang’s eyes stung.
Once the clean diaper was on, Grandma Liang seemed to feel comfortable. She didn’t sit up, just closed her eyes. Qin Ziheng bent down and softly asked whether she was sleepy.
She nodded.
“Then get some good rest, Grandma.” Qin Ziheng drew the quilt over her, and as he turned to leave, Grandma Liang suddenly caught his hand.
“Grandma, what is it?”
Grandma Liang suddenly began to cry.
Qin Ziheng sat on the edge of the bed, pulled a tissue and gently dabbed the corners of her eyes, then asked again, “Grandma, does something hurt?”
Grandma Liang said, “Bao Wa’er.”
Qin Ziheng’s throat bobbed. His mouth opened, but not a single word came out, he only managed an “Mm?”
Grandma Liang said, “Grandma probably won’t get to see you anymore after this.”
Happiness must be paid for with a price equal to or greater than the joy itself, but sorrow can arrive all at once. Qin Ziheng’s breath caught in his chest.
Auntie Liang was startled.
Grandma Liang was already well past eighty. Before this she hadn’t had the strength to get up, but today, knowing Qin Ziheng was coming back, she’d made a fuss, insisting Auntie Liang help her to the village entrance to wait.
The old know their own bodies. At that age, sometimes one sleep is all it takes never to rise again.
Knowing she was already incontinent had weighed heavily on Qin Ziheng, hearing these words now, he felt worse still. He said it wasn’t so, Grandma would live to a hundred.
Coaxed by him, Grandma Liang drifted off to sleep. Coming out of the Liang house, Qin Ziheng stood at the crossroads and suddenly didn’t know which way to go.
The dirt road he and his grandfather had once trodden was gone. Now the cement road was clean, no need to fear the mud on a rainy day, and Grandpa… no need to fear him slipping and falling anymore either.
Memories everywhere.
Yet everywhere unfamiliar.
Just nine years, and everything had changed beyond recognition.
Nine years in which the economy had raced ahead outside, and this little village had not been left behind either, those earthen walls and roof tiles could now be found only in memory.
The people he’d once known well, one after another, had departed in a steady stream, all of them buried up on the mountain. Yet the village’s population grew larger year by year, all unfamiliar faces, the old familiar ones nowhere to be seen.
He went off to the right and stopped beneath an old banyan tree, took a cigarette from his pocket. The lighter took several tries before it caught. Leaning against the old banyan, cigarette held between two fingers, he smoked one, and then another.
He wasn’t much of a smoker ordinarily, however great the pressure at work, he wouldn’t smoke. Only now and then, when he was especially afraid, especially unsettled, would he light one up.
Qin Ziheng’s gaze fell, a little unfocused, on the vegetable plot not far off. In a daze he recalled that the plot had once been the Zhao family’s house, he’d heard they’d torn the old place down and built a new house at the head of the village.
Speaking of the Zhao family’s old home, he felt they’d been quite generous. Their old house had once stood right beside his. Zhao Chenggong and Qin Ming had been among the first young men in the village to go out to work with the times, and Zhao Chenggong was honest and hardworking, so the Zhaos had been the first family in the village to own a color television.
Back then Grandpa Qin often left him with the Zhaos. Zhao Chenggong’s son and daughter were only a few years older than him and treated him easygoingly. Before the sun went down, they’d bring in the corn laid out to dry, feed the chickens, and then, waiting for six o’clock, crouch by the TV with the remote, flipping to the children’s channel, watching Rainbow Cat and Blue Rabbit, Ma Sanniang, Little Chef Fu Gui, and The Adventures of the Little Carp and Digimon.
He didn’t like Four-Wheeled Brothers, and he didn’t like the Teletubbies with their few lines either. But the Zhaos’ eldest grandson loved Dragon Ball and Four-Wheeled Brothers, and was always fighting the Zhao girl for the remote, every time, Grandma Zhao would give him a whack. That boy was mischievous, when he got hit he’d point at Qin Ziheng and the Zhao girl and vow he’d never play with them again, yet every time he bought a popsicle he’d call them over to share, a bite for you and a bite for me, no one minding anyone, and on rainy days he’d climb over the courtyard wall to help bring in the grain.
Qin Ming and Tang Juan weren’t around back then, but he wasn’t sad. After Rainbow Cat and Blue Rabbit, when it grew late, Grandpa would come to fetch him home, and then, finding the house too hot, they’d move the dinner table into the yard to eat.
There were no fine dishes, just a small plate of peanuts, a steamed egg custard, and a stir-fried cabbage. Grandpa never let himself drink much, he’d only sip a little before putting the liquor away. Back then Qin Ziheng always thought: if only he’d grow up fast, then he could earn money and buy Grandpa liquor and meat, let him drink as much as he wanted, and buy popsicles to share with the Zhao brother and sister.
Now he had the means, could afford the liquor and meat, yet he still felt no contentment.
He’d once thought the bitterest thing this life had in store for him was being abandoned by his parents. Who’d have known fate would play him a far crueler joke.
The old man he’d wanted to care for had left him far too soon.
His friends, one married off to a distant place, the other never grew up, drowned in the river while still a boy.
They had all become passersby, unable to keep walking the road alongside him.
A friend had once asked him: he’d earned so much money, what did he want? Why not buy himself a villa and enjoy life?
He didn’t want a villa, didn’t want a lover, didn’t even want feasting and merriment. He only wanted his grandfather to still be here, wanted his companions to come back to life and play with him again. If they were still here, that would be enough.
These years his life had been a mess. He’d come to live a respectable life, held a job everyone envied, but he still missed the old patched-and-repatched trousers of his childhood, and that pair of yellow rubber sandals he’d worn year-round, even though in winter his feet would freeze bright red, even though he rarely got meat more than a few times a month. Those days, he missed them terribly.
When Qin Ziwen came to find him, Qin Ziheng was leaning against the banyan, right leg bent, in a black overcoat, head tipped slightly back, exhaling a mouthful of smoke.
Smoke curled all around him. Seen from the side, his nose was straight and fine, but his whole figure gave off a loneliness Qin Ziwen had never seen in him before, as though an inescapable sorrow hung about him, as though he were about to merge with this old banyan of who-knew-how-many years, the tree no child gathered around to play beneath anymore.
Qin Ziwen couldn’t say why, but he suddenly felt a little uneasy.
“Big brother.”
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