“Raise your little hands and hop around, spin around and twist your bodies…” On the broad, flat threshing ground, rows of children standing in formation, looking like soft little glutinous rice dumplings, hopped and stretched in unison, following the lead of a slightly older girl standing at the front. Though each child moved to their own rhythm, every face wore a look of earnest focus, not a single one going through the motions carelessly.
Shushu was among them. She stood in the front row, flanked by children either younger than her or roughly her age, while those behind were all older including Chen Dafei and Shouhou. Today marked the very first day of the newly established preschool class in Fengyang Village. Following requests submitted by Ke Xiaohua and the others, the village chief had approved their proposal to set up the class, granting them use of a classroom in the newly built primary school that had not yet officially opened its doors. He also permitted them to use the threshing ground as an outdoor space whenever it stood empty.
This gathering was called a preschool class rather than a proper kindergarten for good reason: the eldest “teacher” here was only nine years old. It met none of the official requirements and had received no formal recognition whatsoever, so it could hardly qualify as a real kindergarten.
In truth, it was little more than an elaborate game of make-believe played by a group of children. Ke Xiaohua and the others had created this class with one purpose above all: to provide Shushu with some early education. In fact, aside from the younger children gathered here, every other “pupil” had long since grown up in their previous lives and had absolutely no need for lessons of this sort.
As for where the younger children had come from? They had been brought along by their older brothers and sisters in the group.
This was the way things were in almost every household: older children looked after the younger ones, many had practically been raised by their siblings while their parents worked to provide for their families.
Since caring for children was unavoidable anyway, everyone agreed that looking after them together was far more enjoyable than tending to them alone, and it even allowed for occasional moments of rest.
And so, those with younger siblings had brought them along to join the class. Put simply, it was a gathering where children came together to play, and incidentally to learn a thing or two from one another.
For all its air of play, Ke Xiaohua and the others approached the running of the class with great seriousness of purpose. They had even drawn up a proper schedule.
Attendance was entirely voluntary: aside from Shushu, anyone who wishes to learn might stay, and anyone who does not is free to leave. Classes ran Monday through Friday. From nine until nine-thirty each morning was set aside for morning exercises.
A fifteen-minute break followed. From nine-forty-five until ten-thirty came the first lesson, its subject determined by whoever had volunteered to teach that day. The second lesson ran from ten-forty until eleven-thirty, following the same arrangement. Subjects offered included language, mathematics, English, art, music, and safety awareness, among others.
Instruction took place only in the mornings; afternoons were left free for everyone to attend to their own affairs, and Saturdays and Sundays were designated days of rest. Since the class was intended only for early childhood learning, and Ke Xiaohua and the others had their own responsibilities to attend to, they had no wish to burden the children with an overloaded curriculum.
In time, there would be plenty of schooling ahead of them, all the learning they might desire, with no one to stand in their way and every encouragement and praise they could wish for.
As the children continued their exercises, a tractor carrying several people rumbled past the edge of the threshing ground. The noise inevitably drew every eye. Those riding aboard the tractor looked down curiously at the group below.
“What do you suppose those children are up to?” asked a young man in his early twenties, dressed in a white shirt and with his hair neatly parted in the prevailing fashion. He pointed toward Shushu and the others, his tone one of keen interest.
“Dancing, perhaps?” ventured to another young man beside him, of roughly the same age.
“I believe they are doing morning exercises,” replied a young woman sitting a little further back, her hair cut in a neat student-style crop.
“So they are,” agreed the first young man after observing their movements more closely. What had appeared at first glance to be dance proved upon closer inspection to include many of the same movements performed by pupils in urban primary schools, calisthenics designed to strengthen young bodies. Before they might watch any longer, the driver silently accelerated, and the vehicle rumbled away, carrying its passengers out of sight.
“Are those the new sent-down youth?” Shouhou leaned over to Chen Dafei, lowering his voice even as he met a sharp look from Ke Xiaohua for breaking ranks.
“Indeed,” replied Chen Dafei. He noted the direction in which the tractor was heading, straight toward the compound built for sent-down youth in the village. Taken together with the earlier announcement that new arrivals were expected, their identity was easy enough to deduce.
“Dafei,” Shouhou murmured, “do you suppose any among them might have been given a second chance at life, as we have?”
“I think it unlikely,” Chen Dafei replied quietly. “The village chief and the others have already discreetly questioned the two groups who arrived previously and found no one else reborn. These newcomers carry themselves with the bearing and manner of people their age. Their eyes and movements show none of the depth that comes with having lived another life.”
Though Chen Dafei had never served as a criminal investigator, he had assisted in solving more than his share of cases and had developed a keen eye for reading people. A person’s true age was written not only in their face, but in their manner, their bearing, and most of all in their eyes, much like the difference between a university student and a graduate already in the workforce.
Even when separated by only a few years, those who had weathered the ways of the world carried themselves quite differently from those who had not, and the difference was often plain to see at a single glance.
Of course, Chen Dafei could not know anything for certain based on a fleeting glimpse. But he had full confidence that the village chief and the others would make thorough enquiries of their own, and that this was not a matter that children such as themselves need to concern themselves overmuch.
And indeed, he was right. Even before the new arrivals had been escorted into the village, the village chief had personally led a small group to meet them and make discreet enquiries. None of them were reborn. In truth, how could they be? Everyone in Fengyang Village who had been granted a second life owed that blessing entirely to Shushu.
Sent-down youth came to the village for a few short years and then departed; their futures were never intertwined with Shushu’s, and so they were never part of the destiny that touched her and those around her.
One might wonder: did none of the sent-down youth remain in the village? In truth, not one. Fengyang Village had once been exceedingly poor, so poor that its people often went hungry. Yet hardship had never bred wickedness in their hearts. The villagers were by and large honest and kind, and the village officials were good men who looked out for their neighbours.
The sent-down youth who came to the village had never been mistreated; on the contrary, they had received every kindness and assistance the villagers could offer. But the village was simply too poor, and life was hard for everyone including them.
And so, whenever any secured permission to return to the cities, the village chief gave his consent readily, never seeking to hinder them. Those who lacked such opportunities remained for a time, until the nation began its reform and opening-up; then they too were free to depart. Even those who had married and started families in the village eventually left, never to return.
By the time the very last sent-down youth departed Fengyang Village, Shushu had not yet sat for her university entrance examinations. She had never been in their care, nor had they ever benefited from the blessings that touched her life.
The arrival of the new sent-down youth changed little in Fengyang Village. The villagers went about their lives as they always had. If anything, there were merely a few unfamiliar faces seen working in the fields, and none of those faces concerned Shushu. Whether by design or instinct, the villagers took care that the sent-down youth kept their distance from the child. They did so subtly, never making a great show of it. On those rare occasions when the entire village gathered, for grain distribution, or community assemblies, the sent-down youth might catch sight of her. But having had little opportunity to speak with her, they knew her only as a quiet village child, and she regarded them as strangers who had come to dwell among them.
They could not help but wonder who her family might be, and why she seemed to stay now in one household, now in another.
Fortunately, Fengyang Village had historically been so poor that few had married outside the village; most families were connected through ties of kinship. And so the child’s peripatetic ways were easily explained: she was simply visiting relatives, as children did.
She was unusually beautiful, and so gentle and well-behaved that everyone adored her. It seemed perfectly reasonable that families should compete to have her stay in their homes for a few days at a time.
When morning lessons ended, Shushu went to the household where she was to take her midday meal.
Afterward, she set out with Chen Dafei and the others, accompanied by their large yellow dog, heading toward the woods to seek out cicada nymphs. In truth, the best time to find them was after dark, but the children were too young to be allowed out at night, especially not with Shushu among their number. And so they had no choice but to search by daylight.
Through the trees came the call of adult cicadas, yet the nymphs remained well hidden. After searching in vain for some time, they found only a handful between them. Discouraged, they gave up the hunt. They passed their few finds to one of their number who did not shrink from eating them, while the others turned their attention to the swings.
It seemed, Chen Dafei reflected as he watched them, that people grew more timid as they grew older. Things one had not hesitated to eat in childhood often became unthinkable once one had lived through the passage of years.