One December evening, Furina arrived in the poorest province in the south, Saint-Denis Province.
This was a forgotten place.
There were no railways, no factories, no schools, and no hospitals.
There were only barren hillsides and dried-up riverbeds.
People lived in low houses built of stone and mud, wearing tattered clothes and eating moldy bread.
Furina stood on the threshing floor at the entrance of the village.
The threshing floor was not large, barely able to hold a few hundred people.
But after the news spread, people from several nearby villages rushed over.
Some had walked over ten miles of mountain roads, some carried children on their backs, and some supported the elderly.
The sky gradually grew dark.
Someone lit a torch, and the firelight flickered in the evening breeze, stretching everyone’s shadows long and thin.
Furina stood on a wooden crate, looking at the faces below.
Those faces tanned dark by the sun, those faces covered in wrinkles, those faces so thin their cheekbones protruded.
They looked at her, and in their eyes was something she had never seen before—not anticipation, not hope, just curiosity.
They didn’t even know what hope was.
She took a deep breath and began to speak.
“Fellow countrymen.”
Her voice carried through the night wind, illuminated clearly by the light of the torches.
“My name is Furina.
I come from Paris.”
No one in the audience spoke.
They just looked at her.
“Before I came here, someone told me that Saint-Denis was the poorest place in France.”
“I didn’t believe it.
So I came personally.”
She paused for a moment.
“Now I believe it.”
Someone in the audience gave a bitter smile.
She looked at those faces, faces flickering in the firelight, and an indescribable emotion welled up in her heart.
“I saw a person on the road.”
She said.
“An old man, lying on the side of the road, covered with a tattered newspaper.”
“I knelt down and touched his forehead; it was frighteningly hot.”
“I wanted to call a doctor, but he shook his head and said in an almost inaudible voice: ‘No need, girl.
I’ve lived enough.'”
The audience was very quiet.
“I stood on that street for a long time, until his breathing stopped.”
“I didn’t know his name, didn’t know where he came from, and didn’t know what he had experienced in his life.”
“I only knew that he had died.”
“Died on the side of the road, covered by a tattered newspaper, with no one knowing.”
“At that moment, I was thinking: if this is France, if this is our country, then what is the purpose of our country’s existence?”
The light of the torches danced on her face, and those heterochromatic eyes were exceptionally bright in the night.
“I know that for you, the words ‘eating one’s fill’ sound like a joke.”
“You haven’t been able to eat your fill for a long time, have you?”
Some people in the audience nodded, some lowered their heads, and some wiped the corners of their eyes.
“But I don’t think it’s a joke.
I think eating one’s fill is a person’s most basic right.
Just like breathing air, just like drinking water.”
“A person, from the moment they are born, should have food to eat.
This is not some profound theory; it is common sense.”
Her voice became a little softer.
“I have a dream.”
“A dream that all people of France can eat their fill.”
“A dream that all people of France can have a house to live in.”
“A house that can shelter from the wind and rain, a house that allows the elderly not to freeze to death in winter, a house that gives children a place to write.”
“A dream that all people of France can live with dignity.”
“Dignity—you may have already forgotten what those two words mean.”
“Dignity is that you don’t have to beg to survive.”
“Dignity is that your children don’t have to lose their fingers in factories just to get enough to eat.”
“Dignity is that when you are old, you don’t have to lie on the side of the road waiting to die.”
Someone in the audience was crying.
“I have another dream.”
She raised her voice.
“A dream that all people of France can obtain justice.”
“Justice is that those who farm can get a return, those who work can get respect, children of the poor can go to school, and people in the countryside can afford medical care.”
“Justice is that the rich pay more taxes and the poor pay less.”
“Justice is that every person in France is equal before the law.”
She paused for a moment, looking at the tear-stained faces below.
“However, to realize these dreams, we need to do one thing first.”
“What thing?”
Someone asked.
“Kick away those who are blocking the path.”
She took a deep breath.
“Do you know?
In Paris, in those luxurious palaces, there is a group of people.”
“They eat delicacies every day that you have never even seen, wear clothes you couldn’t afford with a year’s wages, and live in houses you could never enter in your entire life.”
“They do nothing, they create nothing.”
“But they take away the grain you grow, the cloth you weave, and the coal you dig.”
“Then, they turn around and tell you:”
“‘You are poor because you are lazy.
You are miserable because you are stupid.
You deserve it.'”
“Bullshit!”
“Yes, bullshit!”
Furina’s voice was almost a roar.
“They also say my policies are reckless, extreme, ignorant, and childish.”
“They say, what does a twenty-year-old woman know about politics?”
“They say, by what right does an actor run for president?”
“They say the policies I proposed are madness, and that I want to ruin France.”
“They have thought of every method, used every means.”
“Now, they have run out of tricks and can only use the most despicable ways to smear me.”
“They call me a whore, say I used my body to climb up, say I sleep with every man.
Do you believe it?”
“No!”
Hundreds of people shouted at the same time.
“I don’t believe it either.”
Furina smiled; there was bitterness in that smile, but also pride.
“But the more they do this, the clearer I am about one thing: they are afraid.”
“They are afraid of me, afraid of you, afraid that this country will truly change.”
“Because they know that if my dream comes true, their good days will be over.”
She raised her voice.
“When all the politicians in France treat desire as an ideal, sophistication as maturity, numbness as depth, cowardice as stability, and slickness as wisdom, it can only mean one thing.”
“The bottom line of this society has already been shattered by them!”
“Therefore, they have no right to call my courage recklessness, my persistence extremism, my pursuit of truth ignorance, or my passion childishness.”
She looked at those faces, faces flickering in the firelight.
“When those scoundrels who peddle social experience cast a contemptuous smile at my dream.”
She took a deep breath.
“I will reply to him without hesitation: Fuck you!”
The threshing floor was silent for three seconds.
Then, a thunderous cheer erupted.
“Furina!
Furina!
Furina!”
Hundreds of people shouted her name at the same time, the sound echoing through the valley, startling the birds in the distant woods.
Torches waved in the night sky like a flowing sea of stars.
Furina stood on the wooden crate, watching all this, tears blurring her vision.
She remembered Grandpa Grandpa Pierre, remembered him saying, “There is light in your eyes.”
She remembered Clemenceau, remembered him saying, “Your standing there is enough for them to live on.”
She remembered the children who lost their fingers in factories, the elderly waiting to die in alleys, and the shells of people lining up at the relief center.
She remembered the man standing on the bridge, who said, “Good people cannot save this country.”
She didn’t know if she could save this country.
But she knew that at this moment, in this forgotten mountain village, in this place that couldn’t even be found on a map, there was light in the eyes of hundreds of people.
That light was hope.