At first, Jiang Du hadn’t noticed the red marks on her arm.
Not until a rainy day, when Wei Qingyue asked her: mosquito bites? She heard his voice through the curtain of rain — a casual, conversational tone — the two of them sitting together discussing mosquito bites, and Wei Qingyue explaining, as he explained everything, exactly why this happened.
At the time, she hadn’t known: Wei Qingyue’s explanation was perfectly correct. The problem was the two red marks themselves.
The red marks wouldn’t go away. She developed a fever — she assumed it was a cold — but the high temperature wouldn’t break.
Her belongings had already been brought home, but she hadn’t gone to Third High School either. She lay at home, and had more than enough time to miss Wei Qingyue — someone she could no longer see. She missed him ceaselessly, day and night, like a long wind that doesn’t know how to stop.
Because of the fever, she kept seeing airplanes in her mind — roaring and thunderous, shooting straight into the sky. Jiang Du had never been on a plane, but she knew that passengers could look out the window and see a beautiful sea of clouds. Would Wei Qingyue be able to see it? He definitely would.
But what about having to speak English in a foreign country — how would he manage? Would his mother look after him? He wouldn’t be able to eat braised chicken with mushrooms anymore, or drink crucian carp and tofu soup. He had said the fish soup was so fresh and flavorful — it was a pity Grandfather couldn’t make it for him anymore. When he comes back — when he comes back the first thing she would do was take him for genuine home-country cooking. Jiang Du thought this, and felt a little happier.
Wei Qingyue had given her a new Tweety Bird. She couldn’t bring herself to use it, so she tucked it away inside a tin box that had once held candies — the box was brightly colored, like a vivid rainbow. Most girls had probably had the experience of finishing a candy and not being able to throw away the beautiful wrapper or tin.
When Grandmother mended clothes, Jiang Du thought the buttons were lovely — smooth and glossy — and saved one. Wang Jingjing went to the seaside on a trip and came back with shells for her; Jiang Du loved them and put them in the box. Grandfather came back from the hometown and brought several long wild pheasant feathers; she thought they were charming and added them too. Over time, the box filled up — and for every item inside, she could recount its history in detail.
Now she had placed inside it the thing she treasured most of all.
But still, still — it was so heartbreaking. The more Jiang Du thought, the more she cried. Wei Qingyue had lost an organ. For a person to lose an organ — what a devastating thing. His body had been given to him whole by his parents, but because of her, he had lost his spleen.
Jiang Du cried until her head ached. She held her candy tin close, pressed her face into the pillow, her forehead burning hot, as though only ice under her arms could give her any relief.
And then things took a sudden turn for the worse. She didn’t know what happened, exactly. She only knew she couldn’t focus on books anymore. The magazine Wei Qingyue had left — she had finally read one of them carefully, copying out sentences she liked into a notebook, writing down the good books mentioned in the articles, planning to buy them all after the university entrance exams and read them at her leisure.
Grandfather and Grandmother took her to the provincial hospital. After she was admitted, she underwent a great many tests.
When the results came back, the hospital advised them to go to Beijing.
Grandfather said: Doctor, this illness is beyond what you can treat here, isn’t it? The doctor said: The condition has advanced too quickly, and with the patient’s underlying heart problems this further complicates treatment. Take the child to Beijing — the sooner the better.
What kind of place was a hospital in Beijing? A Beijing hospital was the place you went when there was no other option, when you had exhausted every road, when there was nowhere left to turn.
Grandfather understood this clearly.
He was wearing a clean, freshly washed white undershirt and a new pair of cloth shoes he had just bought. He had always been a dignified-looking old man, living his retirement like a small and comfortable kind of paradise. In a summer like this, he should have been downstairs playing chess with the old friends he’d gotten to know, playing mahjong, shifting their small table and stools in and out of the shade as the sunlight moved. Instead —
He exchanged a glance with Grandmother through the door of the hospital room. The old woman understood at once, and slipped out quietly.
The doctor says they can’t treat it here. We have to go to Beijing, Grandfather said, his eyes clouded and weary.
Grandmother’s lips trembled without stopping. She looked at her husband like a frightened child, and slowly, uncontrollably, her whole body began to shake along with her lips.
I’ll go buy a wash basin… Grandmother said. Her tears became a sudden flood — the words gave out — but mechanically her mind filled with lists: you need so many things in hospital. A basin. A towel. A thermos. A toothbrush and toothpaste. And you’d need to bring bedding.
Buy it when we get to Beijing, Grandfather said. What are you buying it now for? We can’t bring it on the train — it’ll be in everyone’s way. Too much to carry.
Grandmother’s mouth opened. The sound that came out was like a child sobbing without breath — a long silence between each cry.
I’ve got one foot in the ground already — why can’t I bear this suffering in her place? Why can’t it be me? Grandmother asked Grandfather again and again, the knobbly joints on the back of her hand jutting out sharply — joints that had also reached their twilight.
Grandfather had no answer for her. He had lived through everything a life could throw at a person, and still he had no answer.
When he was young, he had been plain-spoken and had offended people without realizing it. He had always been the most skilled technician at the factory, yet he was endlessly passed over and pushed aside. Then their daughter was born — their beautiful, brilliant daughter — and she was destroyed by a creature not fit to be the maggot in an outhouse.
Even through that enormous suffering, he had still told himself: be a law-abiding citizen; let the law settle it. The law did uphold justice. But his daughter could never be made whole again.
Her reputation was ruined. Everyone gossiped that his daughter had been dirtied.
The most terrible thing was that his daughter’s belly grew larger day by day. Because of her condition, the pregnancy couldn’t be terminated. In her madness she tried to end her own life. The two of them had knelt on the ground and begged her — child, don’t die; stay alive for the sake of your parents; and once the baby is born, we’ll drown it. Don’t you die — if anyone dies, it will be this baby.
Perhaps it was that belief that kept their daughter going until the day arrived.
The child was truly born — such a soft little bundle of life. Red and wrinkled, she cried, she breathed, she had hands and feet, and her hair was dark. Grandmother wrapped her in a small swaddling cloth and wept as she asked Grandfather: how do we drown this baby? How do we drown this baby?
Grandfather wept too.
He also didn’t know how to drown this baby — a perfectly good life, living and breathing. How do you drown her?
But their daughter, lying in the bed, was also flesh of their flesh. And she was still waiting for her parents to keep their promise.
And so they told her: the baby is dead; we put her in a plastic bag and threw her away without letting you see — it wouldn’t be good to see. Their daughter wept in relief. Only with that child gone could she go on living.
In the first years, they fostered the child in their hometown, leaving the details vague when they handed her over. Later, when she was old enough for school and couldn’t stay behind in the village any longer, the two of them had no choice but to bring her back. Grandfather gave her a name: the character du — crossing over, passage. When he held that bundled, new little life and looked into those dark, clear eyes, he said: child, you’ll be called Jiang Du — you’ve come to help us cross the tribulation. Life is bitter, so very bitter — but if you taste every flavor the world has to offer, you’ll come through to a life that is peaceful and smooth.
Time passed in this way. What cannot be hidden will not stay hidden. Their daughter discovered the truth — and severed all ties with her parents. Neither of them dared look into their daughter’s eyes after that. Those eyes, red as blood.
Am I not your child? she said in despair. You did this to me? Do you not know what her existence means to me? I will never, never forgive you.
For a full five years, they did not see their daughter again.
Not until Grandfather was injured at the factory and hospitalized did their daughter appear again. From that time on, certain terms were agreed: she would come back twice a year, at the major festivals. But with conditions. She would not, in this lifetime, lay eyes on that child — if she ever saw her, she would never come home again.
Grandmother had wanted to tell her: you don’t know how beautiful this child is, how obedient, how sensible, how much she loves books and writing just like you did when you were small. Grandmother never said any of it.
Such a resemblance was too cruel.
Memories flashed past like a lantern show, one scene after another, unfolding before him again.
Grandfather had grown old — like the sun sinking in the west, drawing close to the mountain peak. Old enough to have tasted every bitterness and sweetness life had to offer. Old enough to have heard and confirmed every piece of wisdom there was. And still there were things he could not answer.
If there was an answer, it must be that heaven was punishing the two of them — that those tearful words spoken so long ago had come true at last as a curse.
Now, that baby might truly be about to die.
He told Grandmother: go and look after the child. Make absolutely sure she doesn’t find out. I’ll go ask the doctor what we need to prepare for the journey to Beijing.
He turned away. All at once his eyes streamed with old men’s tears. The world lurched and pitched with dizzying violence. The old man steadied himself against the corner of the wall, his aged hands trembling without pause. He worked to find his breath again.
Some things are destined to be impossible to hide.
From the moment they told her she was going to Beijing, Jiang Du knew.
Even as Grandmother smiled reassuringly and told her: the provincial hospital’s technology isn’t as advanced as Beijing’s — we’ll go to Beijing and have it sorted in no time.
Jiang Du bore the pain that seemed to live in every part of her body, and smiled and said: alright. She pretended to believe what the two elders said. Grandmother asked: sweetheart, are you in pain? Speak up if you’re in pain.
Then Grandmother’s eyes went red.
Jiang Du said: I’m not in pain. Grandmother, could you bring me my mathematics materials? I can’t fall behind on my schoolwork.
Grandmother said: yes, yes — and when she turned to find the materials, tears fell, soaking the maths problems. She hurried to blot them dry with a tissue, absorbing every drop.
This was July of 2007. The last night before they left for Beijing.
Grandfather had cooked all her favorite dishes — a table full of them. Jiang Du had very little appetite by then. Through the burning that had become her constant companion, breathing had grown difficult, her thoughts sometimes confused — but she persisted and drank a bowl of fish soup.
She didn’t ask what illness she had. She would not make things difficult for anyone on her account.
But the surging fear, like moss, had already grown over every surface of her young heart.
Grandmother wanted to sleep beside her. Jiang Du said: I’m alright — I’d like to sleep alone tonight. Grandmother said: sweetheart, don’t keep reading and working on problems — you can study again when you’re better. She said, weakly: alright.
As a small child she had loved writing observation journals: how a ladybug opened its soft wings in the sunlight and flew away from her fingertip; how fresh and tender the plane tree leaves were in spring; how lightly the hem of the language teacher’s skirt rippled in the wind.
Jiang Du sat at her desk and took out her childhood diaries, turning the pages one by one with gentle hands. All the old memories of childhood were laid out before her, vivid and clear — gleaming, spinning pearls, scattered across the floor, no longer able to be strung together.
At last she picked up her pen and wrote the first entry of her illness diary.
July 25th, Wednesday, sunny
The weather is very hot. My classmates are all on summer break — they must be so happy.
I am very frightened.
A fear that cannot be put into any words. I am not brave at all.
Frightened to the point of not knowing what to do with myself.
I want to live.
No other thought. I want to live. I don’t want to die.
I am truly very frightened.
Before, when I used to go with Grandfather to sweep the graves of his parents — once before Qingming, once in autumn, the way things are done in the hometown, burning paper. Willow trees grew tall beside the graves, so green in spring. Grandfather would gesture and say: when we planted this, it was only this long and this thin — just a stick, really; now look, in three to five years, it’s grown this tall. His expression was one of deep feeling. I know what that feeling is called: even the tree has grown, and how much more so must a person age and pass. I never met his parents, but at grave-sweeping time, I always felt very sad. Birds flew across the edge of the sky, wild flowers swayed on the ground, the sky was so blue, the grass so green — and yet Grandfather’s parents lay in the earth, unable to see Grandfather, unable to see the colors of this world. Were they afraid? Would their bodies be nibbled at by small insects? In the dark underground — would they miss the sun? I used to have countless imagined ideas about this.
And now I might come to this myself.
How unreal this truth feels.
How did I get sick? I don’t understand.
I can’t work it out at all — why me?
I know I have many faults, but I think I’m not a bad person. Why me?
Isn’t it when people are old that they get very serious, frightening illnesses?
Maybe I was wrong. People get sick at any age. Some babies are sick from birth and die. I remember now — I’ve heard of this — only I’m so sad and so ill right now that I forgot. It’s not only the elderly who get severely ill.
Then is there truly a god in this world? Who is in charge of this? Who gets sick and who doesn’t? I want so badly to find him, and I would kneel and beg him without any dignity at all — please don’t let me be sick, I want to live, I cannot die before Grandfather and Grandmother, I can’t, please — even if my forehead were to split and bleed from kowtowing, that would be fine, as long as I’m not allowed to die.
I still want to see him.
I don’t need to write his name. His name is my sanctuary.
Writing this will not make me see him.
This is the part that hurts me most. Will I see him again? I don’t know. I truly don’t know. Because I know what this not-knowing means, that is why I feel the pain even more sharply.
I have no control over my own fate at all. I want to beg fate to be kind to me — but what have I done to deserve fate’s special mercy? Who can tell me, who should I go and ask?
I will not see him again.
Just as I know I will never see my mother.
No — I have no right to say that word. You would not want to hear it. Even written on paper, it would be a kind of harm to you — and I don’t want to cause you harm. I want to tell you I have never wanted to hurt you. I know my existence has caused you pain, and I am truly not that terrible a person, to want to cause you pain. I have never wanted to hurt anyone — let alone you. I have never met you, and yet I love you, I care for you so much — how strange, that we have never met and yet I have such deep, deep feeling for you. I am truly sorry.
I am suffering now, not only in spirit — it is as though I have been dropped into a furnace, burning inch by inch, uncomfortable no matter what I do. I want to cry out, but I can’t — if Grandfather and Grandmother heard, they would grieve. How can there be someone like me, who only brings pain to others? I have never disliked myself as much as I do right now.
And you — will you dislike me? I will get sick and become ugly. My hair will fall out. Right now I feel like throwing a tantrum. I’m in so much pain, I miss you, I really miss you, I was already missing you when I wasn’t sick, I’m so foolish, I still thought I would get to see you again, won’t someone let me see you one more time, who can let me have one more time, I don’t want to lie alone in the dark earth, I’m afraid, I only want to see you, want to see you, want to see you, want to see you, don’t let me die alone, I’m so lonely, I want to see you, want to see you, want to see you, want to see you
Several times in the middle she had to stop — crying until she could no longer see what she was writing — and rest before she could continue. Tears soaked through the pages of the diary. By the end, she had fallen entirely into a state of fevered agitation and ceaseless pain, with no strength left to add punctuation.