Five kilometers away, near Route 114.
Inside the Gu family ancestral home, the red lanterns used during New Year were being cleared away.
In her day, Qin Zhixin had been a professor at the Soviet Higher Institute of International Communication, after returning to China, she was specially hired as dean of the Social Sciences College at Qingbei University. When the Cultural turmoil struck, she simply stepped down to peacefully enjoy her twilight years.
She was tidying up and chatting with Aunt Du, who was helping, when she suddenly heard urgent knocking at the gate.
Aunt Du removed her gloves and went to open the door, seeing the young girl who had come to dinner at the house before. She smiled and said: “Have the day off today?”
Xiangzhi glanced back, squeezed inside the gate, and said: “Aunt Du, close the door quickly.”
Although Aunt Du was bewildered, she followed Xiangzhi’s wishes and barred the large gate shut.
Xiangzhi felt relieved once it was closed, she estimated that Lu Jianping would soon discover she was gone. Having nowhere else to go, he would naturally come here seeking reinforcements.
Qin Zhixin was wearing a long-sleeved jacket in green. Hearing the commotion, she came over, saw Xiangzhi drenched in sweat, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped her forehead, saying: “Look at you, what are you in such a rush about on a cold day like this?”
Xiangzhi pointed toward the sent-down youth station’s direction, gasping for breath: “Cao Xiangqin’s parents are coming to take me back to get married!”
Qin Zhixin found this statement strange and hesitated, saying: “But are you not Cao Xiangqin?”
At this point, Xiangzhi could not hide it. She told Qin Zhixin everything, from how Lu Jianping had been prompted by lust to how he had set trap after trap. Then she also told her the cover story that she was not actually Cao Xiangqin but rather “someone oppressed back home who fled and lost her memory for a time.”
This was something You Xiu and the other female sent-down youth had helped her concoct. A situation like this easily stirred pity and moved people to lend a hand.
“I see,” Qin Zhixin said. In the time she had spent with Xiangzhi, she had come to know this girl was not greedy or scheming. Nor was she deliberately getting close to her with thoughts of climbing the social ladder.
She thought for a moment and said: “Even if you are not Cao Xiangqin, the Cao family’s arranged marriage is not right. Moreover, Lu Jianping is pressing his case aggressively and offering five hundred yuan as a price—that does not look like sincere courtship.”
Aunt Du, listening from the side, felt her heart quake. She said immediately: “This is not sincere courtship at all, it is simply using money as leverage, not like paying a bride price at all, more like buying a concubine—buying her outright with a large sum, one cut and done.”
Qin Zhixin thought that Xiangzhi was a black household caught in this mess and suggested: “There used to be a girls’ missionary school in the provincial capital, now it has been converted into a provincial charity house with both children and elderly. Why not let me introduce you to help out there for a while?”
Xiangzhi had no wish to go to such a place, where she wanted to go was to Gu Wenshan’s military unit.
She said softly: “Aunt Qin, do you think you could introduce me to the 114 Regiment?”
Qin Zhixin was stunned and let out an involuntary laugh: “I am not a cadre in the military, how could I introduce someone in without cause?”
Xiangzhi hung her head, thought for a moment, and asked: “What kind of person can get into a military unit?”
Aunt Du interjected from the side: “Besides soldiers, there are military families—dependents of military personnel. Do you understand? The families of military people. Otherwise it is a military forbidden zone, entry without invitation.”
Xiangzhi pondered the words “military dependent,” looked at Qin Zhixin, and said: “Once someone becomes a military dependent, can they be invited in?”
Qin Zhixin patted Xiangzhi’s back soothingly: “Do not think too much for now. I will ask around to find a good doctor, and you first recover your own memories. Later, Auntie will introduce you to a military officer, and you will not fear being oppressed by your family. After following the army, you can stay in the military compound as long as you wish. But it is too early to speak of this now, let me first call the charity house—”
Xiangzhi’s small nose wrinkled, and tears welled in her eyes: “It is not early, and if we do not go soon, it will be too late!”
Qin Zhixin quickly took her hand and coaxed her: “Good child, speak slowly about what troubles you. Young girls should not cry so easily.”
Xiangzhi gripped her hand tightly in return, looking into Qin Zhixin’s eyes, and said: “Auntie, it is my fault for hiding things from you. Actually, actually I did not want to! I simply have nowhere left to turn!”
Qin Zhixin’s heart sank, she had an intuition that what came next would not be good news.
Xiangzhi released her hand, and silent tears rolled down her cheeks one by one. She said in regret: “Forget it, let me just waste my life with that bastard Lu Jianping!”
“That will not do!” Qin Zhixin, seeing her reaching for the door, rushed to stop her and said: “Good girl, do not worry me, what are you hiding?”
Xiangzhi grasped her garment hem with both hands, uncertain whether this tactic would work and feeling some guilt, but as she said, she truly had no other choice now.
Qin Zhixin hurried, pulling at her arm: “Speak quickly.”
Aunt Du also chimed in from the side: “Whatever it is, just tell your Aunt Qin. As long as it is not your fault, she will definitely help you sort it out.”
Qin Zhixin nodded and said: “If you have any grievances, tell Auntie and Auntie will decide for you.”
With this promise, Xiangzhi lowered her head and fidgeted with her garment hem, saying shyly: “Auntie, actually I… I have gotten together with Gu Wenshan.”
Qin Zhixin said nothing for a long moment, staring at Xiangzhi intently. Just as Xiangzhi thought she would get angry, Qin Zhixin let out an exasperated laugh and said: “I know my son too well, it is impossible he would be with you. Not that you are not good, it is just that he has no such intention.”
“How could he not?” Xiangzhi stepped closer and said softly: “Gu Wenshan’s mind is entirely on me.”
Qin Zhixin said helplessly: “Are you saying this because you think the military is safer than the charity house? Or else, let me have him arrange a place for you to stay for now? But the military is absolutely impossible—”
Xiangzhi glanced at Qin Zhixin, lowered her head, and said quickly: “Gu Wenshan has a small brown mole on his chest, right next to another small mark.”
“Goodness!” Aunt Du covered her ears, her old face burning with embarrassment. She stomped her foot and said: “Child, how can you say such things!”
She remembered that Gu Wenshan as a boy had often wanted to pick off that little mole, and later the elders tricked him by saying if he picked it off he would grow an extra breast, so he stopped. Aunt Du frowned and asked: “Wait, how, how do you know he has a mole on his chest?”
Xiangzhi’s lip corner twitched slightly, she had licked it several times, so how would she not know? The thing right before her eyes—she was not blind.
Qin Zhixin said nothing for a long time, her entire body going numb. If Gu Wenshan had a mole on his chest, then her chest was now burning with a roaring fire.
And Xiangzhi went on, pressing her advantage: “When he sleeps, he always frowns, I was startled the first time I saw him.”
Qin Zhixin asked, feigning calm: “His snoring is loud—does sleeping with him mean you cannot sleep well?”
Xiangzhi scratched her head and recalled: “He does not snore.”
“That is right, he does not snore,” Qin Zhixin closed her eyes, trembling with rage: “That goddamn beast!”
Xiangzhi, realizing a moment too late that she had been tested, did not get angry, instead, she added fuel to the fire: “He can be quite beastly sometimes.”
Qin Zhixin was helped by Aunt Du to sit on a stone bench. It seemed the young girl was not lying. Recalling the time when she had wanted to introduce Aunt Qin to introduce other female comrades to her son, Xiangzhi had shuddered, at that moment, she had found it strange.
Now it was clear—the two of them already knew each other!
Oh well, no wonder he refused to accept introductions to other female comrades, he was doing big things in silence behind the scenes!
Qin Zhixin understood Gu Wenshan, especially knowing that he would absolutely keep distance from female comrades in ordinary times. For Xiangzhi to speak of his private life, the two of them must have done something.
Qin Zhixin clenched her back teeth, still had to appear calm before Xiangzhi, for fear of frightening the young girl.
What concerned her was: Xiangzhi had no one here to rely on, not even a proper household registration. Could it be that this little rascal Gu Wenshan had not publicly acknowledged her because she would not pass the military’s political examination?
Then what was he treating the young girl as?
“Stop crying now, good child. Aunt Du, bring her inside to wash her face and have a cup of hot tea. I will go make a phone call to the regiment.”
Xiangzhi held the handkerchief to her face, pretending to wipe her tears: “Auntie, will you really stand up for me?”
Qin Zhixin said gravely: “Rest assured, whether he agrees or not, you are now my daughter-in-law!”
Xiangzhi was overcome with gratitude, after Qin Zhixin left, Aunt Du pulled her into the reception room to rest.
Qin Zhixin walked swiftly, her heart ablaze.
At the brigade office, the cadres were all at the sent-down youth station trying to break up a fight. She grabbed the telephone and called 114.
The switchboard operator connected 114 Regiment Commander Gu’s office, the one answering was his orderly.
“The commander is out with the soldiers on cross-country training, he is not here now.”
Qin Zhixin told the orderly: “You tell him directly that he needs to hurry back and take his wife away immediately! What the hell has this rascal been doing, he is too much of a scoundrel! Taking advantage of the girl having no one to rely on, are you?!”
What?!
A wife? A scoundrel?
The orderly’s eyes nearly popped out, he stammered into the telephone: “Yes yes, rest assured, once the commander is done, I, I will definitely have him come home to pick up, pick up sister-in-law!”
Qin Zhixin calmed herself and said: “Tell him: this marriage either gets married or gets married.”
The orderly had never seen Qin Zhixin pressing a marriage match like this, he felt as though bewitched. He asked carefully: “Then where should he come to pick her up?”
Qin Zhixin said: “His home village!”
After hanging up the telephone, Qin Zhixin leaned on the table and stood there for a long time. She pressed her chest, feeling her heart disease might be triggered by her rage.
But one thing was good: she had known Xiangzhi for just over a month and understood the girl’s character and nature. At first, she truly had not thought of it that way, later, after that time with Secretary Zou, she did entertain such a notion in her heart.
But it was only a passing thought.
After all, Xiangzhi looked barely eighteen or nineteen, seven or eight years younger than Gu Wenshan. She looked like a delicate girl, while Gu Wenshan was crude and irreverent, would not sweet-talk, would not bow and scrape. If the girl married him and faced cold, indifferent Gu Wenshan, would she not suffer?
But despite all her calculations, Gu Wenshan had struck first.
This beast, he’d grown too big for his britches [1]he’d grown too big for his britches (chibang ying le, 翅膀硬了) Idiom, to have grown independent/bold enough to act without deferring to authority (lit. “his wings have hardened” jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3398840_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3398840_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });), he dared not act like a proper person now?!
Next time, she would definitely have his father beat him soundly!
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