As they passed through the town downstream, the reeds grew wildly, swaying with frenzied energy. The wind swept through, causing the vast expanse of reeds to bow northward as if driven by the May gales, eager to settle wherever they were blown, flourishing abundantly once more. The rustling of the reeds filled the twilight air with a suppressed clamor, akin to a hundred thousand soldiers poised for battle. According to Xiao Boluo’s plan, they could spend the night at the dock in the downstream town.
This ancient town had thrived for two millennia, existing even during the excavation of the Han Canal by King Fuchai of Wu. Today, it serves as the administrative center for the salt trade, with government offices standing solemnly amidst a myriad of shops. Both Han Xin, the Marquis of Huaiyin in the Han Dynasty, and Wu Cheng’en, the author of “Journey to the West,” were born here. Xiao Boluo took a stroll ashore and immediately caught the scent of tea cakes.
Tea cakes were a local specialty, made by hand-stretching dough into thin threads and coiling them into palm-sized rounds, deep-frying them until golden and crispy, melting in the mouth with every bite. Holding a paper-wrapped bundle of tea cakes, Xiao Boluo wandered through the cobblestone alleys, unable to resist the temptation to indulge further. The residences of Han Xin and the great literary figure eluded him, as the bustling scenes of daily life dominated his view. The clamor from tea houses and taverns alone made him want to linger and never leave.
However, Lao Chen suggested anchoring for the night at Qingjiangpu, twenty miles away, where the ten-mile-long street promised even more excitement. More importantly, they could pass through Qingjiang Lock at daybreak. Situated along the canal, Qingjiang Lock was renowned as the “throat of seven provinces” and the “thoroughfare of nine provinces.” Its significance in terms of geography was undeniable, but its treacherous waters earned it the reputation of a perilous “throat.”
Approaching the lock, the water surged fiercely, and navigating through the lock gate posed a challenge that required full concentration. As a semi-local, Xie Pingyao agreed, emphasizing the importance of passing through the lock with utmost focus. During his years in Qingjiangpu, he had witnessed numerous boats inadvertently colliding with the lock walls. There was a local saying, “Lose your sight, leap the lock,” implying that the lock entrance was perilous; once you jumped in, you risked being sucked into the whirlpool, and your chances of survival depended solely on luck. Xiao Boluo nodded in agreement, opting to heed Lao Chen’s advice.
Lao Chen, also known as Chen Gaoyu, the old hand, was the captain of the boat they were currently hiring, hailing from Fanshui Town. After being abandoned by Lao Xia’s boat in Gaoyou, Xie Pingyao sought out a friend involved in the transport business in Gaoyou, who recommended Chen Gaoyu. They were relatives. The friend explained that it was precisely because they were relatives that he made the recommendation; regular boat owners would never dare head north.
Running north, especially with a foreigner on board, could easily lead to trouble, even death. The current situation was clear: someone had died, and they needed to catch a ride on a boat. This relative happened to be strapped for cash, so he took the risk. However, there was one condition: his wife had to come along. For the Chinese, this was a stipulation; it was considered unlucky to have a woman on board during long voyages, as women were seen as harbingers of disaster, akin to bad luck.
Xiao Boluo paid little heed to such superstitions. Amidst water and boats all day long, surrounded by men, having a woman around would be a welcome change, even if he couldn’t understand her speech. However, upon boarding the boat, Xiao Boluo couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed. Lao Chen’s wife, Madame Chen, in her forties, had developed swollen joints from years of labor on the water, her bones riddled with rheumatism. The vast expanse of water seemed to amplify her voice, making every call she made, even a simple “boarding now,” resonate with a trembling echo throughout the dock. As for her appearance, after spending so much time on the water, it hardly mattered anymore; the river winds had etched fine wrinkles onto everyone’s faces.
Lao Chen announced, “We’ll rest at Qingjiangpu.” “Sons, hoist the sails.” Lao Chen had also brought along his twin sons, both twenty years old, Big Chen and Little Chen. Just by their faces, if you covered the small dark mole on Little Chen’s nose, besides the Chen family themselves, outsiders couldn’t tell which was the elder and which was the younger. The two brothers had one more subtle difference: when they wore their braids coiled atop their heads or wrapped around their necks, Big Chen’s habit was from left to right, while Little Chen’s was from right to left. As they worked, under the relentless sun and wind, their skin took on a deep tan, muscles rippling beneath their arms at the slightest movement.
The wind from the reed marshes whipped against the two sails, one large and one small, both fashioned from flour sacks from Minneapolis, now imbued with a sense of urgency. Xiao Boluo stood at the bow, pipe in hand, as if about to compose a grand poem. A small boat emerged from the reeds, heading straight towards them. Five individuals occupied it: two rowing, two seated at the stern, and Sun Guocheng standing at the bow with his arms folded. Xiao Boluo immediately crouched down and sat on a chair beside Xie Pingyao.
“The ghost is back. That guy again,” he muttered.
Xie Pingyao saw it too. They were far from Rivertown now, with Qingjiangpu still a distance away, a perfect spot with no villages in sight and no nearby shops, a prime location for their short-sleeved shirts. Xie Pingyao called out to Lao Chen, urging him to move full speed ahead and pay no attention to anything else. Lao Chen spotted the glint of a large knife beneath the feet of the two men at the back of the boat. The last remnants of the evening glow reflected off the blades like dried blood. Big Chen and Little Chen took their positions on either side of the boat, raised their oars, and silently recited their signals as twins, rowing in perfect rhythm. The small boat dared not obstruct them and quickly veered aside. Sun Guocheng shouted, “I told you we’d meet again.”
No one paid him any heed. The large boat passed by them. The small boat immediately turned around, but with only two people rowing, it couldn’t match the speed of the large boat’s two sails. As the large boat drifted farther away, one of the men at the stern of the boat walked to the bow, wielded a flying claw, and latched it onto the stern of the large boat. He then pulled on the rope, reeling it in, until Lao Chen noticed and attempted to cut the rope with a knife. However, by the time he realized it, the small boat had caught up. Sun Guocheng took a short run-up and leaped onto the large boat. Then, one by one, the other four men followed suit. The small boat trailed behind, tethered by a single rope, drifting emptily in the wake of the large boat.
Lao Chen said, “Brother, are you robbing us in broad daylight?”
Sun Guocheng replied, “Stop the boat, let’s talk.”
“What if we don’t?”
“You can try and see.”
Except for Sun Guocheng, the other four men each had a large knife tucked into their waistbands, with a worn and discolored red cloth strip hanging from the knife handle.
Xiao Boluo considered retrieving a gun from the cabin, but a man blocked his path with just a few swift steps.
Xie Pingyao waved to Lao Chen. Big Chen and Little Chen ceased rowing and proceeded to lower the two sails. Lao Chen took the helm and slowly steered to the right, docking by the shore. “The Office of the Inspectorate of Transportation isn’t far from here,” Xie Pingyao said. “Think carefully, everyone.”
“Even if they ride over on horseback, all they’ll see here is an empty boat,” the man with the flying claw said. “Besides, they can’t even clean their backsides properly.”
Xie Pingyao thought about it. Killing someone would only take a few seconds, and by the time the lazy officials from the yamen arrived, they would have more than enough time to sink the boat. The man was right. Who had the energy to worry about such things when they couldn’t even manage their affairs properly? “Is that all?” he asked Sun Guocheng.
“My brothers here only want this foreign gentleman,” Sun Guocheng pointed to Xiao Boluo. “You can go wherever you want.”
Xiao Boluo turned to Xie Pingyao. “What’s he saying?”
“They want to thank you for helping at Shao Bo Lock. They have a pile of good food as a token of appreciation.”
“Is this how you Chinese people entertain guests? With knives, like you’re robbing them?”
This conversation seemed to be going nowhere. Xie Pingyao asked directly, “What do you want?”
The man who had thrown the flying claw spoke up. “Several of our brothers were killed by the foreign devils in Beijing. This debt must be repaid.”
He had a Hebei accent, while Sun Guocheng had a Shandong accent. Another man chimed in, “Support the Qing and exterminate the foreigners, and there will be peace in the world.” This man had a Tianjin accent.
Xie Pingyao understood. They weren’t from the same faction; they had just faced repression together in Beijing and fled together. Xie Pingyao asked Sun Guocheng, “Were your brothers also killed by foreigners? Do you also seek revenge?”
“Their brothers are my brothers,” Sun Guocheng replied.
Sure enough, they weren’t naturally on the same side. Xie Pingyao said, “How do you know that the ones who killed your brothers are Mr. Di Marco’s brothers? Italy, Russia, America—they’re all a half-year journey from where we’re heading.”
“That doesn’t matter,” the man who threw the flying claw said. “They all look the same and they all come to bully us.”
Another person spoke up, uttering his first words since coming aboard. “They’re all foreigners.”
Xiao Boluo asked again, “What are you talking about?”
Xie Pingyao replied to him, “They’re saying you’re a foreigner.”
Seeing the situation and drawing on the bit of insight he had gained since coming to China, Xiao Boluo realized he had become a representative of a new country called “foreign.” Once he understood this, he also understood what these people wanted to do. “They want me to go with them?”
Xie Pingyao remained silent, tacitly agreeing. He couldn’t think of a good solution at the moment either.
“But I have no connection with them,” Xiao Boluo said nervously. From Italy to now, he had heard of no less than thirty cases of “foreigners” being killed. What was terrifying wasn’t just one death but the variety of strange and peculiar ways in which they died.
“Your brother killed their brother,” Xie Pingyao said.
“My brother?” Xiao Boluo widened his eyes, immediately understanding that they meant his “foreign brother.” “What—what should we do now?”
“We’ll stall for a while,” Xie Pingyao said in English. He glanced to the left and right, and Xiao Boluo understood, checking for any approaching boats on either side.
Xiao Boluo understood, and so did Sun Guocheng and the others. The man who threw the flying claw said, “Don’t dream. Even if a boat comes, no one would dare to stop.”
Xie Pingyao thought about it. Traveling was hard enough; who would provoke trouble for no reason? Even if it were an official boat, it might not intervene in this matter. The imperial grain was barely edible, but one’s own life was more important.
As darkness descended, there wasn’t a single boat in sight, near or far. The reed marshes grew louder, and a chill rose from the water’s surface in the May twilight. Xiao Boluo shivered; he couldn’t escape. In the end, Xie Pingyao accompanied Xiao Boluo onto their small boat. The reason was simple: Xiao Boluo and they couldn’t understand each other, so there had to be a messenger. The man who threw the flying claw said it was good; the boss would want to say a few words to him, even if it was just to curse him, he needed to know what he was being cursed for. Before boarding the small boat, Xie Pingyao instructed Lao Chen and Shao Changlai to wait at Qingjiang Lock. There would be a solution.
The short-sleeved sweatshirt was Sun Guocheng. The man who threw the flying claw was called Lao Qiang. There were three other people, nicknamed Chentuo, Leopard, and Li Dazui. On the boat, they called each other by these names. They loosely tied Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao’s hands behind their backs, not worried about them escaping but concerned they might accidentally drown themselves by plunging into the water. The boss wanted them alive. Sun Guocheng and Lao Qiang also placed black bags over their heads, and when the night fell completely dark. Xiao Boluo expressed his fear and anger in Italian while cursing these bandits in his hometown dialect. Lao Qiang tapped Xiao Boluo’s face through the bag and told him to shut up. He then told Xie Pingyao, “Tell him, the more he speaks, the quicker he dies.”
In Xie Pingyao’s perception, they meandered through the reed marshes for a long time, with bent reeds constantly rebounding onto him. The sound of wind, water, conspiracies among the reeds, and the reeds hitting the boat filled the air. Whenever a wild bird startled and flew away, Chentuo, Leopard, and Li Dazui excitedly howled in low voices. Eventually, the sounds of the reeds ceased, and they were lifted by the neck and brought to the dock. On land, they continued to be led, circling several times. They heard unfamiliar voices and were led into a room. Looking out from under the black bag, they saw flickering, hazy lights. Someone removed the black bags from their heads, and the light pierced their eyes, forcing them to shut them quickly.
“Kneel!” a man with a northern accent ordered.
They opened their eyes. It was an empty warehouse, dimly lit, with piles of goods stacked in the corners. Sitting on a tilted high-backed chair in front of them was a big-bearded old man, wearing a red headscarf and a crumpled yellow robe, with a red belt tied around his waist, and a shiny nose. He looked like a Boxer. Standing on either side of the big-bearded man were two young men, without red headscarves, yellow robes, or red belts, just casually dressed, but they were both powerful and massive in build.
“Make him kneel!” the big-bearded man said again, pointing at Xie Pingyao. “You too, kneel.”
A middle-aged man emerged from the shadows, and as Xie Pingyao stepped into the light, he noticed that the man’s left arm was only an empty sleeve tucked into his waistband. The man leaned in close to the big-bearded man’s ear and said something. The big-bearded man nodded slowly and said to Xie Pingyao, “Forget about it, he’s one of ours. Make this foreign demon kneel.”
“Foreigners don’t have such customs.”
“From now on, they do.”
“He won’t kneel.”
“Tell him. He’ll kneel.”
Xie Pingyao informed Xiao Boluo about the kneeling demand, but Xiao Boluo vigorously shook his head, causing his cheeks to jiggle.
“He won’t kneel?” the man on the left side of the big-bearded man asked.
Xiao Boluo continued to shake his head.
“Really won’t kneel?”
Xiao Boluo still shook his head. The man said, “Chentuo, teach him.” Chentuo walked over with a stick and swung it at Xiao Boluo’s knee. Xiao Boluo screamed and fell to the ground, but as he fell, he twisted his posture and ended up sitting askew on the ground.
“Can’t learn in one go? Then we’ll do it again.” Chentuo shook the stick and prepared for a second strike.
Xie Pingyao stood between Chentuo and Xiao Boluo. His hands were still tied behind his back, unable to intervene. Xie Pingyao asked the big-bearded man sitting on the high-backed chair, “Does it have to be like this?”
“Not necessarily,” the big-bearded man scratched his chin as if searching for lice in his thick beard. “There’s something more important. Tomorrow is my son’s birthday, and I’m going to sacrifice this foreign demon to my short-lived son. Light the sky lanterns, split open his heart, everything the foreign devils did to my son, I’ll return in kind.”
The middle-aged man with the empty sleeve approached once again, his fist clenched, and said, “Big brother, not only does the revenge for our eldest nephew need to be taken, but also the revenge for all our fallen brothers. Big brother, be careful with your waist. You should go back and rest first. We brothers will keep an eye on this foreign devil. Big brother, just relax.”
Xie Pingyao then noticed that the big-bearded man had been holding his left hand against his lower back the entire time. The injury from his waist hadn’t fully healed yet, especially with the recent days of rain. Now, he straightened his back and stood up from his chair. “Alright then, brothers. Prepare some food and wine for this foreigner. Let’s not use a starving ghost as a sacrifice for the child. That wouldn’t be dignified.”
Assisted by his two brothers, the big-bearded man left the main building. The man with the empty sleeve instructed Sun Guocheng, Leopard, and Big Mouth to stay behind, while the others dispersed to attend to their tasks. There wasn’t a need for so many people to guard two prisoners; they couldn’t defy fate. As everyone scattered, the man with the empty sleeve instructed Leopard to start a fire in a large iron pot, to dispel the dampness and mustiness in the warehouse and to add some warmth to the night.
Both the guards and the captives would spend the night in this vast warehouse. The roaring fire blazed in the center of the room. The wind blew in through the wide-open door, causing the flames to flicker and dance, and the entire warehouse seemed to sway along with it. This scene was laden with symbolism, reminding Xiao Boluo of the medieval religious executions in Europe.
Although Xie Pingyao hadn’t translated the words about lighting sky lanterns and cutting open hearts to Xiao Boluo, he had a premonition that they were in deep trouble. He told Xie Pingyao that if they couldn’t leave the warehouse alive, Xie Pingyao must inform him beforehand.
“Relax,” Xie Pingyao said, “Until we’re dead, no one can die.”
This utterly nonsensical logic didn’t comfort Xiao Boluo. He said, “Damn it, I’m not done living yet. I have a lot of things to do.”
The man with the empty sleeve squatted down in front of them. “I once met an American missionary who, before he died, asked for some time to write his last words. He wrote: ‘They are closing in on us. Dear Mom and Dad, I never look back. If God spares my life, I will continue to move forward.'”
“He died,” Xiao Boluo said.
“What I’m trying to say is, you don’t need to be so afraid,” the man said.
“I am afraid. I have important things to do. I can’t die,” insisted Xiao Boluo.
“Everyone has important things to do,” the man with the empty sleeve stood up. “We need to make sure you eat and drink well. Leopard, Big Mouth,” he pulled out some money from his pocket and handed it to his companions behind him, “buy three jin of liquor, four jin of pork head meat, one jin of pickled vegetables, and five jin of pancakes.”
Xiao Boluo glanced at Xie Pingyao. Xie Pingyao said, “I’ll buy the food for you.”
“Alright. What’s the best dish here?” Xiao Boluo asked.
“Sour fish balls, stewed shredded pork, chicken with vermicelli, lion’s head meatballs, and soft-shelled long fish,” Xie Pingyao replied.
“One serving of each,” Xiao Boluo said. “Not enough money? I’ll pay.” He instructed Leopard to check his pockets for money.
Leopard said, “We might not have lion’s head meatballs. That’s a dish only the wealthy can afford.”
“Then we must have it,” Xiao Boluo handed his pockets over to Leopard. “And also, some spicy dishes. Mapo tofu, stir-fried pork, spicy beef, anything spicy.”
Leopard glanced at the man with the empty sleeve, who said, “The foreign gentleman is so generous, don’t bother with formalities.” With a smirk, Leopard grabbed all the money from Xiao Boluo’s pocket. “In that case, let’s get more liquor. Both of you have had a hard time.”
In the warehouse, only Xiao Boluo, Xie Pingyao, Sun Guocheng, and the man with the empty sleeve remained.
The man with the empty sleeve grabbed Sun Guocheng and made him kneel beside him and Xiao Boluo, but Sun Guocheng resisted. The man with the empty sleeve kicked him, not managing to knock him down, but Sun Guocheng still complied with the man’s request and knelt on one knee. Sun Guocheng was confused, and so was Xie Pingyao. The man with the empty sleeve said, “Sir, forgive us for startling you. You might not remember me, but I remember you.
Last year, a few of my brothers and I went to the shipyard to find work. We left behind a few people. I lost my arm, and a few of my disabled brothers were kicked out. They didn’t even want us to guard the factory buildings. We were so hungry that we thought about going to a nearby restaurant for food, but the owner set dogs on us. You couldn’t bear to see it. You left extra money on the table and asked the owner to serve us, making sure we were fed. I had four bowls of noodles that day.”
It was common to pay for someone’s meal when they couldn’t afford it, but Xie Pingyao couldn’t recall meeting this man with the missing left arm. All he could say was, “It was nothing, just a small gesture of goodwill.”
“The master can’t remember properly. At that time, I was just one of several brothers, freshly arrived, having escaped hardship all the way here. I was drained of spirit, only thinking of hiding whenever I saw people if it weren’t for the sake of a meal. Later, settling down, I often saw you at the shipyard, and that’s when I knew you were someone important there. Kindness received should be repaid with overflowing gratitude. I’m Sun Guocheng, and this is my brother Sun Guocheng. Guocheng, we thank you, sir.”
Sun Guocheng reluctantly lowered his head towards Xie Pingyao. Xie Pingyao urged them to rise quickly. A few bowls of noodles, hardly worthy of such a bow.
The two brothers stood up. Sun Goulv said to his younger brother, “We need to figure out how to get these important people out of here.”
“Brother, we’ve spent a lot of effort on this foreigner.”
“I don’t care about other foreigners, but not this one.”
“How do we explain this to our big brother?”
Sun Guocheng slapped his brother. “I’m your big brother!”
“Brother!”
Sun Guocheng slapped his brother again.
“Why do you keep hitting my left cheek?”
“You can’t have just half a face.”
To Sun Guocheng, this meant: “I’m not alone; I have you, my brother.” So he said, “Brother!”
“You forgot how you carried me out of the pile of corpses?”
“So we must kill the foreigner! How many brothers have died under the foreigner’s weapons?”
His brother slapped him again. “Wrong! You forgot that only the two of us are left in this world; our parents are dead. Did you forget what Dad said before he passed away?”
“I haven’t forgotten. Our father said: ‘It’s just you two now.’ After that, he passed away.”
“It’s rare that you still remember. You’re the only brother I have left. I want you to go back, and return to our hometown. Take back our family’s house, take back our family’s land. I also hope that on Qingming Festival, you can tidy up our relatives’ graves.”
“What does this have to do with the foreign devils?”
“You need to stay alive. Your blade must not taste another drop of blood.”
A notice was posted in the yamen: “Those who kill foreigners, will be killed.”
“But what about our fallen brothers—”
“Are they related to this foreigner?” Sun Guocheng raised his hand, then let it drop. He said to his brother, “I want to tell this foreigner about another missionary. We’re all keeping a blurry account. In the town of Erliban in Cangzhou, that Belgian man. The day you and the others went to another town. That Belgian man’s name was Delting, thirty-five years old—”
At that time, Sun Guocheng’s left arm was still intact. They, along with over eighty boxers, followed the instructions on the wanted poster to Erliban, to inspect the “mission” of the missionary. Someone had informed them beforehand; the foreigner knew what to expect. They traversed the arid wilderness and dusty roads, arriving at the small church in Erliban at dusk. The leader kicked open the slightly ajar door. The Belgian man was sleeping on the narrow bed in the cramped bedroom.
They ordered him to get up, but he didn’t move. The leader grabbed his collar to pull him up, only to realize he was holding up a stiff body. The Belgian man, dressed neatly, was already stiff. He had completed his “mission.” Until now, Sun Guocheng didn’t know how the Belgian man had killed himself, but he and the other boxers had witnessed Delting’s last words. Written on a piece of paper, folded by his pillow. Delting’s Chinese was quite good, though his handwriting in Chinese was a bit rough, but he managed to convey what he wanted to say:
“To find other lost sheep in this remote village is a joy beyond measure. The small amount of Western medicine and my limited medical knowledge have been put to good use. Truly, seeing their suffering, just like when I first met them, I feel deeply saddened. The work of this day is done, and the hour hand points to that time. I have bid the workers to return home and rest. I am prepared. If this is the will of the Lord, I die without regrets. I don’t regret coming to China, my only regret is that I’ve done so little. Farewell.”
At that moment, Sun Guocheng didn’t dwell much on it, but it was another ostentatious display by the foreigners. All foreigners deserved to die; there was nothing more to say. They carried Delting’s body outside the church and stacked up firewood to prepare for the burning. Sun Guocheng noticed a crowd of locals gathered under a withered tree about thirty feet away. As the fire ignited and flames grew, he watched as nearly a hundred men, women, and children began to move, circling the tree repeatedly. When the fire died down, they stopped and gathered again under the tree. Night fell. Sun Guocheng approached them and asked what they had been doing. An old lady suddenly burst into tears, saying, “He was a good man. He saved our lives.” Soon, Sun Guocheng heard a chorus of stifled sobs.
Returning to the camp of the boxers, their leader asked, “What were they up to?”
Sun Guocheng replied, “He saved many lives.”
Xie Pingyao said, “There are bad people everywhere, but there are also good people.”
The leader scoffed, “Nonsense! With a hooked nose like an eagle’s and eyes so deep they could keep fish, how could someone like that be good?”
Someone nearby chimed in, “Different appearances, different hearts. How could poison and honey be the same?”
Sun Guocheng remarked, “They may seem like good people, but they harbor evil intentions. They mix poison in with the honey.”
The leader nodded, “Exactly, these people have been deceived by their honey.”
Sun Guocheng said, “Guocheng, can you find this Italian’s poison for me to see?”
Xiao Boluo interjected, “What are you all jabbering about?”
Xie Pingyao replied, “They’re saying not a single foreigner is a decent person.”
Xiao Boluo retorted, “But I am a decent person.”
Sun Guocheng quipped, “Well, after running through half of China, we finally come across one decent person.”
Xie Pingyao cautioned, “Wrongdoings must be punished severely. But we must also be careful; there’s no legitimate reason to justify indiscriminate killing.”
Sun Guocheng agreed, “What the master says is true. We once devoted ourselves to removing the foreigners, and now the yamen is after our lives. There’s no such thing as absolute loyalty; it’s all about the circumstances.”
Just then, the heavy footsteps of Leopard and Li Dazui could be heard approaching. “Brother Guocheng,” Leopard shouted before even stepping in, “the booze and meat are here!” Li Dazui chimed in, “Brother Guocheng, I guarantee you’ve never tasted such delicious spiced jerky.”
Sun Guocheng turned to Xie Pingyao and said, “I’ll go along with my brother’s idea. Would you mind making sure this foreigner ends up sprawled on the ground, mouth twisted and eyes askew?”
Xie Pingyao relayed the message to Xiao Boluo. Xiao Boluo assured them it wasn’t a problem; he was skilled at this. His facial muscles instantly adjusted, his features contorting as if grasped by an unseen hand, and he began to hum as if in pain.
They drank from large bowls and feasted on meat chunks. Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao watched on, saliva pooling in their mouths. Leopard asked Sun Guocheng if they should also drug them. Sun Guocheng replied, “We’ll see when there’s some left.” Leopard and Li Dazui’s tongues swelled first, then their eyes glazed over. By midnight, they couldn’t straighten their backs, eventually toppling over and falling asleep. Sun Guocheng loosened Xie Pingyao’s restraints with one hand.
He instructed his brother to untie Xiao Boluo’s ropes, and Sun Guocheng reluctantly followed suit. There was no time to waste; they had to leave now. Sun Guocheng told his brother to take Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao along the canal, as far as possible. He would go to the mouth of Qingjiang Lock to inform Chen Gaiyu. Tomorrow morning, they would pass through the lock, and the boat would meet the three of them downstream. Sun Guocheng’s brother asked, “Brother, what about you?”
“I owe our big brother a proper explanation for leaving.”
“Then I’ll come back after seeing them off.”
“You can’t come back,” Sun Guocheng turned to Xie Pingyao, “If you trust him, and if you need someone strong by your side, please take my brother with you. He’s strong and skilled in combat; no one can get close to him. The north isn’t safe, and there are many uncertainties on the water. Perhaps Process can lend a hand.”
Sun Guocheng’s brother didn’t agree, insisting on seeing them off and then returning. Sun Guocheng lifted his lone arm, shaking it and then letting it drop. “This is my final word,” he said. “At the Sun family’s ferry crossing, you’re the only one left. Even if it’s tough, you have to swallow it.”
“But brother!”
“Take the gentlemen and leave quickly. Take the food with you.” Sun Guocheng placed his right hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Process, it’s up to you now.”
They parted ways in the dead of night. According to their previous itinerary, they were supposed to spend a few days at Qingjiangpu, as there were many things worth seeing. Xie Pingyao also intended to go home and see his family. Children grow so fast; in two months, the two little ones would have surely grown a bit taller. His wife was a local from Huai’an. Despite the help from her family and friends, managing the lives of their two children still required effort.
Especially their eldest son, just starting school, beginning to recite texts and poems while also becoming a bit mischievous without his father’s presence. Faced with a petite-footed mother, he couldn’t help but be a little disrespectful. However, his wife, although having bound feet, was an educated woman, understanding of propriety and righteousness, as well as her husband’s frustrations and worries. Therefore, she fully supported his decision to make this long journey north.
Because of his wife’s thoughtfulness, Xie Pingyao felt even more ashamed for not going home. But there was no choice; when entrusted with a task, one must be faithful. He had to escort Xiao Boluo to Beijing.
Staying an extra hour at Qingjiangpu meant an extra bit of danger. Sun Guocheng explained, that “Big Beard” was one of the earliest boxers in Huai’an. In May of last year, when the first Boxer Rebellion notices appeared in front of Shanyang County yamen, “Big Beard” was involved. He had been one of the leaders of the local transport gang for many years. When rumors of trouble in northern China started, he rallied his men to arms. However, he didn’t personally lead the charge north; it was his only son who did.
The young man, in his early twenties, was reckless, disregarding both the foreigners and their guns. Shortly after entering Shandong, he was shot in the head during a skirmish with missionaries and died on the way to quell the rebellion. When his son’s body was brought back home, “Big Beard” swore that for the rest of his life, he would kill any foreigner he came across, one by one, or two at a time if necessary. He instructed his gang members to report any encounters with foreigners.
This time, coinciding with his son’s memorial day, upon hearing from Sun Guocheng about the arrival of a foreigner, he was so excited he got up in the middle of the night to sharpen his knives. There was no chance of letting them go; this was also why Sun Guocheng was eager for Xie Pingyao and the others to leave.
Exiting the warehouse, Xie Pingyao realized that he wasn’t unfamiliar with this place; it was just that being blindfolded and led in circles had disoriented him. The large warehouse where they were held captive was once part of the Fengji Warehouse, used to store grain for transportation in the past. Over the years, with the shift to maritime transportation for grain, the once bustling warehouse gradually emptied, with most of it repurposed. Even the remaining empty spaces fell into disrepair, now only inhabited by scurrying mice, hungry for the days of plenty enjoyed by their ancestors.
The city was peaceful at night, with only scattered lights near the docks. From a corner of the night came the faint sound of a rustic violin, playing the tune of exorcism and offering to gods and ghosts, its mournful notes echoing through the air. It seemed a fitting background for their departure. Sun Guocheng lifted his lone arm for the second time, placing his right hand on his brother’s shoulder, and said:
“Process, the safety of the two gentlemen is in your hands.”
Sun Guocheng led them through the streets and alleys of the late-night city. Xie Pingyao didn’t recognize any of the narrow, winding roads. Despite living in Qingjiangpu for years, he now realized he was far from truly understanding this place. Meanwhile, Sun Guocheng, having been there for less than half a year, navigated the dark streets and alleys with the familiarity of reading his palm. Xie Pingyao couldn’t help but feel some admiration. Sun Guocheng knew which street was closer and which alley was safer. Passing by a house in the wilderness, the sound of a donkey’s sneeze echoed from the livestock shed. Sun Guocheng stopped Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao. As they approached in the darkness, they found not one, but two fully-grown donkeys. Xie Pingyao expressed concern, but Sun Guocheng retorted, “You scholars are too pretentious. What’s more important, your lives or the donkeys?”
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Xiao Boluo said, “Of course, our lives are more important. I’ve never ridden a donkey before, it’s intriguing.”
They led away the two donkeys, enough money was slipped through the door of the owner’s house to buy four donkeys. Sun Guocheng helped Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao onto the smooth backs of the donkeys, ensuring they grasped the reins tightly and settled in. He gave each donkey a pat on the rear, and off they trotted, their hooves clopping rhythmically. Xiao Boluo squealed quietly all the way, while Sun Guocheng ran alongside. By dawn, the donkeys and Sun Guocheng were sweating profusely, and Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao were drenched in nervous sweat. They arrived at a small dock by the river, where they had fried cakes, dough sticks, and soy milk. They were now beyond the reach of “Big Beard’s” influence, allowing them to travel in peace while awaiting Old Chen’s boat.
As evening fell, Old Chen’s boat caught up with them. Sun Guocheng sold the two donkeys on the spot. Before boarding the boat, he apologized to Xie Pingyao for the trouble they had encountered since Wuxi, nearly costing the foreign gentlemen their lives. If the two gentlemen couldn’t forgive him, he would turn back. Xie Pingyao assured him there was no problem and that going back would only cause trouble for Sun Guocheng.
Xiao Boluo chimed in, forgiving him readily, saying, “After riding donkeys all the way, what’s there not to forgive?” However, he couldn’t help but grimace and touch his sore behind. “These donkeys are too skinny; my butt is chafed.” Sun Guocheng remarked that the donkeys further north were even skinnier. He made two small mud mounds by the riverbank, inserted two reeds as incense, tears welling in his eyes, and bowed three times in the direction of Fengji Warehouse. He knew that he would never see his brother, Sun Guocheng, again in this lifetime.
The boat cut through the water, and Qingjiangpu grew increasingly distant. Most of the time on the boat, Sun Guocheng sat at the stern, only moving for meals, sleep, or when someone called him. Of course, he handled disembarking for supplies or accompanying Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao for walks onshore, chasing wild dogs, and dispersing onlookers and ill-intentioned individuals with ease. When he was at odds with Xiao Boluo, he was arrogant and provocative, but now, aligning himself with this northern-bound group, he became humble and reserved once more, speaking less.
When he gazed at the water from the stern, his face often showed a sorrowful expression, usually when he thought of his brother. He and Shao Changlai shared a cabin, with Sun Guocheng making a bed on the floor. He was accustomed to sleeping on his side, which allowed him to hear the sound of the canal more clearly. In his vague understanding, the environment must be able to permeate into one’s blood and consciousness. For instance, in his family, generations had lived by the water.
According to his father’s stories, their family originated from Wenshang, Shandong. Standing on the roof, one could see the massive fish-mouth-shaped “Water Spur” at Nanwang Dam. He had earnestly described this Water Spur to Xiao Boluo before, considering it a marvel in the history of water conservancy. During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di relocated the capital from Nanjing to Beijing. This posed a problem for food supply, as a large quantity of imperial and military grain needed to be transported to the north.
However, in the preceding years, the Yellow River had burst its banks, and the Grand Canal had silted up. Particularly at Nanwang, the riverbed had risen so high that boats couldn’t climb it. Zhu Di tasked the Minister of Works, Song Li, with dredging the waterway. Song Li diverted water from elsewhere to Jinan, but it didn’t solve the problem of the disparity in water levels between the south and north of the canal. Frustrated, he was at a loss, until an elderly man named Bai Ying arrived.
The old man suggested building a dam nearby to block water, and then dug a canal called Xiaowen River for eighty li, allowing various water sources to converge into the Wen River. Collecting small streams formed a mighty river; the Wen River became robust and vigorous. It rushed towards Nanwang, where Bai Ying’s Water Spur divided it in half: seven parts flowed towards the imperial capital, heading towards Beijing, while three parts flowed southward, welcoming the boats from the land of plenty.
Back then, the Sun family both tilled the fields and lived off the water. They had a small boat; during busy farming seasons, they worked the land, and during leisure times, they engaged in small-scale transportation business across the surrounding areas. As years passed, the sediment in the Yellow River continued to accumulate, the cost of dredging the river increased, and bulk shipping became the primary means of transportation. This section of the canal was eventually neglected by the court, allowing the riverbed to rise and the water level to drop.
Eventually, the canal became a relic, and the remaining water was too shallow even for fish and shrimp. The boats of the Sun family’s ancestors were stranded on the shore, slowly decaying. The decision to relocate was made. Naturally, they moved to a place with water. By the time of Sun Guocheng’s great-grandfather, one branch of the family settled in Liangshan. When Sun Guocheng mentioned Liangshan, Xie Pingyao inserted a segment from “Water Margin,” telling the story of the heroes gathering at Liangshan during the Song Dynasty. Particularly, the likes of Lin Chong, Lu Zhishen, Li Kui, and Wu Song deeply fascinated Xiaobo Luo. Of course, Xiaobo Luo also admired Zhu Bajie, Hu San Niang, and Lin Chong’s wife, Zhang Zhen Niang.
In his imagination, these two remarkable women must possess not unique personalities but also exquisite beauty. Recovering from the ordeal in Qingjiangpu, the romantic spirit of Romeo and Juliet of the country folk reawakened. Sitting at the bow of the boat, drinking tea, smoking, reading, writing, and taking photos, whenever he saw young women on the shore or passing boats, he couldn’t help but wave and say “Hi.” Sometimes, watching Aunt Chen busy on the boat, he would stroke his beard and mutter to himself: “Even if she were fifteen years younger, she would still be great.”
Let’s talk about Liangshan’s eight hundred miles of watercourses. Sun Guocheng’s great-grandfather moved here and settled by a streamside ferry crossing. Farming, fishing, and boating, two or three generations multiplied. A few people died in famine, a few in epidemics, and a few accidentally drowned by the water’s edge. The male descendants of the Sun family have been single-line for two generations: Sun Guocheng’s grandfather was the only survivor, and so was his father. Fortunately, both Sun Guocheng and his brother Sun Golu survived.
Their father thought the prosperous times had come for the family, but two years ago, they encountered a drought that hadn’t been seen for many years. A severe drought. The drought shrank Liangshan’s eight hundred miles of watercourses by more than half, leaving only about a quarter or a fifth as shallow puddles. The diverse species of fish in Liangshan wished they could grow legs to crawl in the shallow pools that barely covered their backs. Centenarian turtles gasped for air as they emerged from the mud, only to find it hardened like iron from the sun, breaking their claws and bruising their heads. The vast reed marshes turned yellow at the beginning of summer as if suffering from a seasonal disorder.
Under the noon sun and the deadening breeze, they whispered and ignited, burning in large swathes. A severe drought brings great disasters. Countless locusts descended from the sky. Zhuangzi wrote in “The Carefree Excursion” that there is a fish in the northern sea called the kun, which transforms into the peng bird, and when it flies, “its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky.” When the locusts arrived at Sun’s new home in Liangshan, it was this scene. If they didn’t devour crops, the spectacular sight would have some beauty. The problem was they not only ate crops but also consumed grass stems, tree leaves, and moss, leaving no trace of greenery wherever they went.
The entire Liangshan seemed to have been shaved bald in an instant, plunging into the desolate and harsh winter of northern China. Sun Guocheng said, “People say locusts don’t eat meat, but that’s only when they’re not hungry.” He showed Old Chen his right ear. There was a series of serrated notches along the edge of his earlobe, bitten by the locusts like scissors. His gesture of holding his head was irregular, and his right ear was inadvertently exposed. The buzzing of locusts everywhere entered his ears, and he felt a piercing pain. At first, he was amazed at the power of the sound, but when the locust army passed, he touched his ear and found it covered in blood, realizing that these winged creatures sometimes ate flesh too.
Fields had to be replanted after being eaten, and the land needed irrigation after a prolonged drought. It was during the irrigation that they had a falling out with the Zhao family, who lived at another exclusive gate of the ferry crossing, because of the involvement of two missionaries from the German Society of the Divine Word in the neighboring village, which led to the utter destruction of the Sun family. This was how the story continued with Sun Golu and Sun Guocheng joining the Boxer Rebellion the following year, heading to Beijing to support the Qing and eliminate foreigners.
Sun Guocheng sat at the stern of the boat, chatting with Old Chen. After several days of travel, they entered the territory of Pizhou. The weather became hot. Facing the wind at the bow, after the sunset, the deck was mainly occupied by Xiaoboluo and Xie Ping, waiting for the new batch of books. Xie Ping missed the opportunity to return home and couldn’t get a new set of books. There were no decent bookstores at the small docks along the way. Before waiting for new books, he planned to learn Italian with Xiaoboluo.
However, Xiaoboluo didn’t seem enthusiastic, especially when he was writing and drawing in his new notebook in his native language. Xie Ping’s interest waned, and he turned to reread works by Gong Zizhen, Kang Liang, and others. If he wasn’t reading, he was copying books or practicing small characters according to the “Lingfei Classic”. Or he would chat with Xiaoboluo, seeking his advice on European current affairs. The sun was still high in the sky.
If Xiaoboluo wanted to sit on the deck, Dachen and Xiaochen would set up a huge oiled-paper umbrella on the deck to provide shade. As long as they moved the recliners and tea tables carefully, Xiaoboluo and Xie Ping could sit in the shade all the time. Sun Guocheng sat at the stern, and Old Chen also liked to sit at the stern. All boat captains liked to sit at the stern. Old Chen felt sorry for this young man; he knew Sun Golu was probably in trouble. So he comforted Sun Guocheng, saying that in this world, accidents were always possible. He didn’t talk much normally, but he was willing to talk to Sun Guocheng a little more, such as about the shipping routes in the north. Old Chen’s operating range was limited to the south of the Huai River.
The creaking of wheels sounded, and two oxen pulled a cart full of sand up onto the riverbank, while behind them, another cart followed, with sand trickling down into the river. There was yet another cart behind that one and a third behind it. Sun Guocheng reminded Old Chen to be careful and keep the boat as close to the center of the river as possible. In this section of the canal, several feet of fine yellow sand had settled at the bottom of the river, which had a rich color and a smooth texture, making it a good material for road construction, building houses, and landscaping gardens and ponds. Therefore, many sand dredging boats were active in this area, digging the river deeper and deeper. The bottom of the water was uneven, and ships often ran aground or even sank.
“Wouldn’t dredging the river make navigation safer?” Old Chen, who was not familiar with this kind of sand dredging on the waterways in the south, couldn’t understand.
“Dredging the riverbed creates one deep pit after another,” Sun Guocheng gestured, “One side deepens, and the other side becomes a shallow bank. If you can’t tell the depth clearly, you may be sailing smoothly in one place and run aground as soon as you turn your head.” He gestured for Old Chen to look at the river water, which was much murkier than several miles away. “There must be dredging boats not far ahead.”
“Doesn’t the government regulate it?” Old Chen inquired.
“They might regulate today, but not necessarily tomorrow. They might regulate during the day but not at night. There are always times when they can’t regulate. Who has the leisure to patrol all the time?” Sun Guocheng replied.
The boat continued on its way. Simple grass sheds appeared on the bank, with groups of thin, dark men sitting inside. Some people also sat under the shade of big trees.
“What are they doing?” Xie Ping asked on behalf of Xiaoboluo on the deck.
“Towing ropes,” Sun Guocheng replied on behalf of Old Chen.
Even Old Chen couldn’t help but be surprised. This section of the river looked picturesque, with calm water and a wide surface. Where were the ropes to be towed?
Suddenly, the houseboat slowed down and veered slightly to the right. Sun Guocheng shouted to Dachen, who was steering, “Be careful!”
Dachen replied, “A big boat is coming from the opposite direction.”
A majestic double-masted merchant ship approached, its bow arrogant and its masts towering high above theirs. They had to give up part of the waterway. Several middle-aged men dressed in fine clothes stood on the deck. The one with the longest beard was smoking a long, slender water pipe made of silver, while a hunched servant beside him held up the smoking pot.
The houseboat continued to veer to the right until the merchant ship passed by. Sun Guocheng urged Dachen to quickly turn the helm and return to their previous course. But Dachen’s turn was too late, as if time suddenly froze, and the boat came to a sudden stop with a loud clang. Due to inertia, Xiaoboluo and Xie Ping fell from their chairs onto the deck, and two covered teacups slid off the table and fell to the ground.
They had run aground. Old Chen, his son, along with Sun Guocheng, all pitched in, each taking their respective duties, trying to turn the helm, adjust the sails, and use poles to push off. The towmen formed a team and came over. With their experience, they knew it was best to hire towmen when they ran aground. There was no point in struggling aimlessly.
The riverbed terrain was much more complex than on land. Old Chen and the others had indeed wasted their efforts. Even if they managed to move the boat a few steps, it would run aground again soon. They didn’t have enough strength to get the houseboat back to the middle of the channel.
This unexpected expense prompted Old Chen to consult Xiaoboluo. Xiaoboluo let Xie Ping decide, and Xie Ping let Old Chen handle it. Old Chen was familiar with the costs of towing in the South but not with hiring towmen. He said Sun Guocheng had experience, so Xie Ping let Sun Guocheng take charge. Sun Guocheng jumped into the water and swam to the shore, negotiated with the head towman about the number of men and the price, and then swam back to the boat with three ropes as thick as two fingers tied around his arms. One rope was fastened to the top of the mast, and the other two were tied to the bow and stern of the boat. He warned the people on the boat to be careful as the boat would tilt soon.
Xiaoboluo had never seen such a scene and didn’t understand why the boat needed to tilt. He sat back happily in his chair and watched. Sun Guocheng stood beside the helm, waved to the towmen on the shore, and shouted commands. The rope tied to the mast suddenly exerted force, and the boat began to tilt. The teacups that had just been tidied up fell to the deck again.
This time, luck wasn’t on their side. One saucer shattered, and the lid of another cup cracked in half. As the boat tilted, the two ropes at the bow and stern also pulled taut, with slightly different directions of force. Sun Guocheng shouted commands, and the towmen joined in. The boat moved a little. Xiaoboluo scrambled to pick up the teacups, but as soon as he sat back in his chair, the second tilt began. He fell with the two teacups and the chair onto the deck. Old Chen was worried he had offended Xiaoboluo, but to his surprise, Xiaoboluo lay on the deck, laughing heartily, slapping the deck with one hand. He found the whole situation hilarious.
As the houseboat tilted, it was always accompanied by two other forces slanting forward. There was a slight gap between the boat’s bottom and the riverbed, causing it to be dragged forward a short distance, and this repeated. Sun Guocheng told Xie Ping that the towmen had just said they had bad luck, encountering the easiest section to run aground. Tilt, drag; tilt in another direction, drag. After half an hour of repetition, the boat finally returned to the safe channel. Xiaoboluo thought the towmen would cheer collectively, so he was the first to wave his hands and cheer loudly.
But he was the only one cheering. The towmen all sat down on the beach, panting quietly, their clothes soaked with sweat, looking as if they had just been pulled out of the water. To the surprise of Xie Ping and Xiaoboluo, there were three women among the towmen, who had worked hard for years, and their figures and faces were becoming more and more masculine. Four children ran over from a distance, looking for their towman mothers. Xie Ping’s heart warmed, and he called Sun Guocheng over, handing him a handful of copper coins to give to the children.
Understanding what Xie Ping intended, Xiaoboluo also took out some change from his pocket and asked Sun Guocheng to give it to the children as well.
Sun Guocheng swam to the shore and distributed the money to the children. The towmen stood up at this moment and began to cheer, waving hundreds of hands towards the houseboat, saying thank you.
A mile ahead, they saw a sand dredging boat. Small boats surrounded the large boat, with workers holding a strange tool—a long handle with a giant funnel made of steel at the bottom. The workers inserted the funnel-shaped tool into the riverbed, then stepped off the small boat directly onto the crossbars on the long handle. After balancing themselves, they rotated their bodies and exerted force downwards, causing the funnel to sink deeper and deeper.
When the funnel was lifted from the bottom of the water, the water flowed out from the small holes around it, leaving behind shiny golden sand. The sand was poured onto a large conveyor belt connecting the small boat and the large boat. By turning a handle, the golden sand was transported to the large boat. Several small boats were operating simultaneously, with workers on each one, and the sand pile on the large boat grew higher and higher.
When the sand dredgers saw a foreigner sitting at the bow of the opposite boat, wearing a fake Qing dynasty queue hairstyle, they found it hilarious and teased Xiaoboluo. Xiaoboluo first waved friendly, saying “Hello,” but then he raised his middle finger in contempt.
At the lunch table, Xie Ping, on behalf of Xiaoboluo, gave Sun Guocheng a thumbs up. “You’re amazing, understanding all about towing ropes.”
“It’s common to run aground when heading north, the water’s shallow,” Sun Guocheng said, feeling a bit embarrassed. “A few years ago, I was with my uncle in Cangzhou and towed ropes a few times.”
At fifteen, Sun Guocheng went to Hejian Prefecture with his uncle to seek a living, settling in Cangzhou. Usually, he hung around the docks with his uncle and a group of older men. When business was slow, he helped his uncle tow ropes for others.
His uncle was a practitioner of martial arts, having learned leg-fighting techniques in Linqing when he was young. This was a form of boxing focused on leg extensions, and for many years, there had been a saying in Shandong Zhili: “From Nanjing to Beijing, leg-fighting is taught in Linqing.” It was said to be created by an Imam who was proficient in all eighteen martial arts. One day, they came across two roosters fighting. One was fat and robust, while the other was skinny, with feathers unable to cover its body. The fat rooster fiercely pecked at the skinny one, which was covered in wounds but still fighting as if the torn flesh and blood belonged to the other rooster.
As the sun set, the fat rooster finally cornered the skinny one against a wall. With no retreat, the skinny rooster suddenly lay flat on its back, and its skinny claws rapidly kicked at its fat opponent. The fat rooster’s chest feathers fluttered as if they had been planned to be plucked, and its feathers fell, blood spurted, staining the ground even more than before.
The fat rooster was frightened by its blood and fled in defeat. After pondering for a long time, the Imam was inspired and created a martial arts style that combined fists and legs. Because most of its practitioners were Muslim Hui people, it was called leg-fighting in the Linqing mosque. Sun Guocheng’s uncle, being Han Chinese, had learned leg-fighting martial arts as a youth while working in the mosque. Later, when he took his nephew to Hejian Prefecture, he passed on his skills, and Sun Guocheng also became proficient in leg-fighting.
Playing with Zhongfan on the Nan Yunhe was a lucrative business—exciting, thrilling, and lively. The flags were colorful, and embroidered with various auspicious and majestic characters and images. The flagpoles could also be decorated with ribbons, tassels, and bronze bells. The majestic Zhongfan danced over the heads, foreheads, brows, temples, shoulders, arms, wrists, palms, hips, backs, thighs, knees, and toe tips of the performers, passing and tossing between them, much to the delight of onlookers.
Sun Guocheng learned to play Zhongfan with his uncle, often hearing the elders talk about the industry’s glorious years. Emperor Qianlong enjoyed it and bestowed two flag faces upon Antou Village, one with the inscription “Dragon Soars, Phoenix Dances,” and the other with “Joy Shared by Humans and Gods.” Emperor Xianfeng also took a liking to it and similarly bestowed two flag faces—one with “Smooth Winds and Gentle Rain” and the other with “Country Prosperity, People’s Peace.” Sun Guocheng and his uncle quickly mastered Zhongfan. Zhongfan originated from the masts and sails of ships.
Walking on the canal inevitably led to loneliness, so the boatmen entertained themselves by playing with the mast, developing various styles and techniques. After improvements and innovations, it became an independent performing art known as Zhongfan. The uncle and nephew grew up by the river and spent their childhood on the water. Playing with the mast was as natural to them as using chopsticks. Transitioning from the mast to Zhongfan, they quickly became adept. After a year of practice, Zhongfan seemed to be an extension of Sun Guocheng’s body. His physique and muscularity were developed through playing Zhongfan. It required skill and strength, making it both an art and a physical endeavor.
For several years, Sun Guocheng had a decent business, earning some money. With this money, he bought over a dozen mu of land from Zhao Mantuo’s family to irrigate the fields. In tough times, when the market for selling cloth wasn’t doing well, Sun Guocheng and his uncle resorted to pulling cargo boats along the canal, using brute force to make ends meet, hoping for better times to revive their cloth business. As long as the canal existed, there would always be boat pullers. In the northern region, where the terrain was elevated, the riverbed was high, and not all boats could navigate the water.
Some boats would inevitably run aground; during the dry season, navigation became even more challenging. Depending solely on sails and oars in some stretches of the river was nearly impossible. Even when the water flow was abundant, there was no guarantee of safety, especially in sections like the one in Xuzhou where the river had been dredged: unseen pitfalls lay beneath the water, and encountering them would mean sheer luck if you escaped unscathed.
Boat pullers were like canals walking along the shore. They lifted stranded boats, and moved them, allowing the boats to be boats again, to sail on water, rather than remain as stationary buildings, warehouses, or immovable ruins. Along the canals of northern China, a large number of boat pullers could be seen along the banks. Depending on the size of the boat or the urgency of travel, there could be as few as fifty or as many as several hundred or even thousands of boat pullers. Large cargo ships, official vessels, merchant ships, and tower ships were often pulled by teams of boat pullers, their bodies almost parallel to the ground, straining with every step.
Each boat puller had a loop of rope around their shoulders, padded with leather and cloth to distribute the pressure, preventing the rope from cutting into their flesh. During the spring and autumn seasons when boats could sail freely, the boat pullers wore minimal clothing, even just a single layer to cover their bodies, which became soaked once the rope was on their shoulders; in summer, or even in decent weather during spring and autumn, some of them wore only shorts, while others were completely naked, moving awkwardly like eels among their equally bare comrades.
Sun Guocheng and his uncle often found themselves in such a group. As the weather warmed, his uncle would strip down naked, but Sun Guocheng couldn’t bring himself to do the same; he would at least wear shorts. His uncle and the older men would jest, saying, “The bird in Guocheng’s crotch is precious; it hasn’t seen the light of day from a woman yet.”
In 1898, they had planned to return home to reunite with their family, but two days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, his uncle had an accident. As they were pulling up a mid-flag, his uncle reached out but missed, and the flagpole came crashing down on his head. His uncle fell softly to the ground, and Sun Guocheng saw a mixture of red and white fluids flowing from his head. His uncle smiled at him and said, “Let’s go home.” And then he died.
The day before they went to pull cargo boats, the riverbank was strewn with stones. His uncle stepped on a round stone, slipped, and fell onto the rocks, cutting his knees and elbows, blood flowing. The next day, despite the injury, he took on the job of pulling cargo boats. He thought he could manage, but the injured knee affected his stride, causing him to misstep, and the cargo boat flag fell erroneously.
Sun Guocheng returned to Liangshan carrying his uncle’s ashes, six days after the Mid-Autumn Festival had passed. He didn’t return to Cangzhou; his elder brother, Sun Guolu, helped him arrange a room. He decided to stay in Liangshan and cultivate over a dozen mu of land with his parents and siblings.
As the year turned, they faced a severe drought.
By May, the drought was evident; the fields cracked, and the wheat heads drooped before ripening. With the entire family pitching in, they managed to water the fields twice. Luckily, the river was nearby. By the end of June, they had to harvest what little they could; the wheat stalks were already dry. They harvested a few bushels of grain. In July, they began plowing and planting rice seedlings, but water became a bigger issue. The wheat stubble was as hard as slate, impossible to plow.
In previous years, water would flow from the canal into the fields, but now, the small and large ditches were dry. Only the canal, twenty or thirty yards away, had some water left, but even that was nearly dry, and larger boats couldn’t navigate. Sun Guocheng’s father discussed with Zhao Mantuo, the neighbor from the adjacent field, and they decided to dig a canal between their rice fields, drawing water from the canal to irrigate the fields. It was a massive undertaking, and the rice seedlings couldn’t afford any delay. Cooperation between the two families was their best bet.
At the water crossing, most of the villagers were surnamed Jiang, while only the Sun and Zhao families were single households. With a lack of security as single households, they had to work tirelessly to earn money. Ironically, they ended up owning the best two pieces of land by the canal. Zhao Mantuo fully agreed with Old Sun’s proposal. Together, the two families dug a canal. The next step was to channel the water. Since the water level of the canal was lower than that of the rice fields, they had to flip the water upwards. Building a water-flipping device would attract too much attention, and the authorities wouldn’t allow it, so they resorted to manually pulling buckets of water upwards. Sun’s family pulled on the left, Zhao’s on the right, each opening a hole at the same position in the canal to divert water evenly into their fields.
The conflict arose when Zhao Mantuo’s wife secretly opened another inlet for their own fields, placing it in front of the two existing ones. While the men pulled buckets, the women monitored the water flow in the fields. Sun Guocheng’s mother walked along the canal with an iron shovel, and when she saw the second inlet from Zhao’s side, she didn’t say a word but casually blocked it. The next time she checked, a new inlet had been opened, and she blocked it again.
When the new inlet appeared for the third time, Sun Guocheng’s mother couldn’t hold back: this wasn’t cooperation; it was clearly an attempt to take advantage. If the women were getting involved, the men wouldn’t stay quiet either. Zhao Mantuo tried to justify his wife’s actions: opening another inlet wasn’t unreasonable since their land was only half the size of Sun’s; if their fields were filled, they would still have to pull buckets, which was unfair. Sun Guocheng’s mother argued that it wasn’t just about one round of watering; continuous water flow was needed to saturate the soil properly. Zhao Mantuo and his wife understood this logic, but they stubbornly held their ground, and the dispute escalated bit by bit until it turned physical.
The Zhao family wasn’t a match in the fight; Sun Guocheng was skilled in martial arts, and Sun Guolu was strong. Zhao Mantuo couldn’t outmaneuver them. Zhao Mantuo’s wife went to her parents’ home for reinforcements. Though the population had dwindled, her brother had joined the German Society of the Divine Word in the village, often mingling with two German missionaries. The missionaries had over 180 followers and ten rifles, serving as a formidable backing.
However, there was a condition: only those who converted to their religion could seek their help. Those who believed in the faith were generally looked down upon by the villagers, especially at the water crossing. No one dared to take the first step into that realm. Zhao Mantuo’s wife, however, wanted to convert. Unable to accept defeat, she found excuses for herself, spreading rumors that she was converting because Sun’s family had a “Bai Lotus Cultist,” and God could protect good people. Everyone knew that Sun’s second son had been wandering around for years, learning martial arts, so whether he was a “Bai Lotus Cultist” was uncertain.
At the time, the Bai Lotus Cult was a suppressed cult by the government; just hearing those three words made people shiver. Who dared to get involved? When the Sun family tried to refute and resist, they went to Zhao Mantuo’s house, providing an excuse for the Divine Word Society to deploy their rifle squad: they were being bullied even at their doorstep.
Sun and Zhao’s families agreed to settle their dispute on the night of the full moon at the threshing ground behind the village. The losing party would concede, and the matter would be resolved. That night, Sun’s family gathered all their relatives and friends, and through their relatives, they brought twenty-eight members of the Big Knife Society from the neighboring Dongping County as reinforcements, armed and ready at the threshing ground. Zhao Mantuo and his relatives stood in the front row, armed with kitchen knives and wooden sticks. Behind them were the followers of the Divine Word Society and the newcomers they had recruited, also fully armed. In the third row stood the rifle squad, with all ten rifles present.
It was only afterward that Sun Guocheng and Sun Guolu, his brother, learned that only three of the rifles were loaded, and even then, it was just for a show to intimidate Sun’s family. The missionaries of the Divine Word Society were not foolish; they were aware of the rising anti-foreign sentiment in North China. They didn’t want to be the catalyst for violence or become scapegoats, but they couldn’t suppress their pride and arrogance.
They had to stand up for Zhao Mantuo; they were determined to make this happen. Based on years of missionary experience, they understood that winning converts required more than just sweet words about the greatness of the Lord; there had to be tangible benefits. In their view, no one cared more about worldly benefits than this group of yellow-skinned, black-haired people.
In China, money could make even ghosts grind flour for you; in China, with money, you could fabricate another God and have them worship you. They wanted to show these Chinese people what kind of powerful backing they would have once they converted and joined their society. Hence, they sent out ten rifles, but only three were loaded; they needed the show, but they also had to be prudent.
Without those three rifles, Sun’s family, outnumbered but not outmatched, would have held their ground. Sun Guocheng, armed with two large knives, fought off twenty young men wielding guns and sticks. But as Sun Guocheng pushed through to the last row of Zhao’s family, a gunshot rang out. Following the missionaries’ instructions, the three rifles were not to be aimed at people; they just needed to be fired to create a noise.
Two of the rifles followed the directive, but the third was held by a coward, who, in his panic, aimed it at Sun Guocheng for self-protection. At that moment, Sun Guocheng, who had not yet joined the Boxers with his brother and hadn’t trained in the “Golden Bell Cover” or “Iron Cloth Shirt,” and his father, who had no idea about such strange martial arts, rushed in front of his son just as the third rifle was aimed at him, taking the bullet himself.
The gunshot echoed, startling the few remaining nocturnal birds amid the drought, causing them to flee from their perches. The moon was full and bright, casting its vast light. The coward who fired the shot was so frightened that his eyes were about to pop out, with the reflection of the big white moon in his eyes. The rifle fell to the ground. The combatants paused, maintaining their previous postures for a brief moment, unsure of what to do next—whether to stop fighting or continue. The threshing ground was as dry as fried noodles, and the dust kicked up and settled slowly.
The wounded began to cry out. Sun Guolu called out to their father before his younger brother; now, Sun Guocheng cradled their injured father in his arms. Sun Guocheng didn’t cry; he handed their father over to his brother and marched toward the rifle squad, each step resolute, kicking up dust with every stride. Another gunshot rang out behind them, and they turned to see the county magistrate leading a group of soldiers riding toward them.
The feud between the Sun and Zhao families at the water crossing sent the county magistrate into a panic. He rewarded the informant and quickly assembled a team, even bringing along the servants from the county yamen who served his wife. This matter was far from trivial; it involved a religious dispute, and both the Big Knife Society and the foreign missionaries were embroiled in this mess, far beyond a simple rural brawl. Though the “Juye Religious Case” two years ago didn’t happen in his jurisdiction, he, like all governors and magistrates in Shandong, couldn’t escape the consequences.
Because two missionaries were killed at the Zhangzhuang Church in Moye County, the German emperor threw a fit, directly leading to the signing of the “Sino-German Treaty of Jiaozhou Bay,” which resulted in the German occupation of Jiaozhou Bay. He couldn’t be bothered with national affairs, but the dismissal and permanent disqualification of Li Bingheng, the governor of Shandong and his superior, concerned him. The “Juye Religious Case” told him that if he mishandled this matter, he would fare worse than Li Bingheng. As he rode out of the county yamen with his team, his wife reminded him from behind that he hadn’t put on his official boots. He replied irritably, “Whether I can keep the official hat is another matter. I don’t have time to worry about damn boots!”
The equipment of the county magistrate’s team wasn’t as good as Zhao Mantuo’s side, but the authority of the county magistrate’s team was unquestionable. The county magistrate shouted, commanding the Sun family to the east and the Zhao family to the west, damn it, line up properly! After separating the two sides, the county yamen’s team stood in the middle, completely isolating the two families. After his subordinates checked and reported that both sides had suffered injuries, the county magistrate had a clear idea. He hadn’t expected Sun Guocheng’s father to die the next day, so he made his judgment on the spot:
The brawl ends here; anyone who provokes or strikes first will be considered an enemy of the county yamen;
Since the injuries were roughly equal, neither side is to compensate the other, and they are not allowed to cause trouble for each other again;
Both sides privately diverting water from the canal, damaging the waterway and transportation, deserve severe punishment. Given that this brawl inevitably harmed both sides’ wealth and vitality, the county decided to overlook past offenses. However, they are not allowed to privately open water channels or steal river water in the future;
The water channels in the fields will be overseen by the county magistrate. Until both sides repair them, they are not allowed to cross these routes. From now on, each side will manage their affairs.
Then the county magistrate announced, “This night ends here. Go back to your homes and mind your own business.”
The night, of course, didn’t end there; the latter half of the night was still long, but both sides did disperse. Sun Guocheng’s father’s last words, before being carried away from the threshing ground, were also his last words in life: “Go home.” Lying in his son’s arms, he mustered his last strength and consciousness to smile at his two sons and say, “Go home.” Sun Guocheng remembered his uncle; his uncle’s last words before dying were also “Go home.”
As the threshing ground at the water crossing was left with only the county yamen’s people, the county magistrate mounted his horse, stepping on the back of a yamen servant. With a wave of his hand, he muttered, “Damn it, let’s go back to the mansion.”
Back at home, Old Sun didn’t speak again, nor did he open his eyes. The next day, lying on his bed, he passed away. The outcome was expected, but when it comes to death, we always hold onto hope. The family hoped that Old Sun would wake up, but when he didn’t, their anger toward the foreigners and the church intensified. Anger and grief filled the two sons with determination, but it crushed their mother. For fifty-four years, this bound-footed woman had never left Liangshan.
She collected firewood, planted rice, and served her in-laws; she gave birth to ten children, of whom only a pair of brothers survived. When her husband went out to earn a living when they were young, she buried eight stillborn babies by herself in the middle of the night, then sat beside each small grave until dawn; in her middle age, her two sons spent most of their time away, she followed the news of wherever they went, feeling that she had traveled a long way in her life; she and Old Sun relied on each other, hoping to live a few more good days, but her husband passed away.
As an illiterate woman, she couldn’t understand, yet couldn’t accept, her anger and grief like a malignant disease spreading in her frail body. Two months later, one early morning, she lay silently on her bed and passed away. Every other moment of her life, she rose silently from bed to begin another day of tireless toil. When she died, the rice fields by the river were riddled with intricate cracks, each a half-foot wide. That year, they had no harvest. That year, Zhao Mantuo’s family also faced famine, surviving on the charity of the church but barely. However, Sun Guocheng and Sun Guolu weren’t going to let them off.
In just over two months, both parents passed away, and the fields yielded nothing. The funeral expenses drained all savings and food reserves. As in previous years, a poor harvest meant rationing was inevitable. The day the rations ran out, the brothers realized they couldn’t stay at the ferry crossing any longer. They decided to leave after resolving the situation. Packing up their house, they locked the door, each carrying a bundle and a knife slung over their shoulders. The dusty road, marked with hoof prints, emitted a pungent smell of burnt earth. Autumn insects croaked hoarsely in the darkness. Little remained in this world, including in their stomachs; there were few in the ferry crossing who could eat a full meal.
It was nighttime, and the streets were devoid of the comforting aroma of cooking smoke long ago. Zhao Mantuo’s house stood with its door wide open. The brothers walked straight into the courtyard. A single room emitted a dim light, reminiscent of a rusty blade. Sun Guocheng kicked open the door with determination. Despite the dim light, he could still make out the two breasts of Zhaomantuo’s daughter, who sat on a thin bench, openly breastfeeding her child. Since he was fifteen, he had often dreamed of these breasts.
She was two years older than him and developed early, and her breasts could not control their softness and expansion even if they were wrapped tightly. In his dreams, he saw these breasts liberated from the corset now and then, flourishing and leaping, like two white rabbits that couldn’t be bothered. In his dreams, he could smell the flesh. At that time, his brother also fancied her, and their mother even considered arranging a marriage proposal with the Zhao family. However, Zhao Mantuo married her off to another village, one with an additional two acres of land compared to theirs.
Now, he finally beheld these breasts, starkly different from his dreams and fantasies. They hung like two deflated sacks, devoid of their former softness and vitality. The enticing aroma of flesh surely vanished, and the rabbits seemed thin and gray-haired. The two-year-old child still clung to one breast, kicking its slender legs fervently as it sucked. Due to the child’s petite stature, its head appeared disproportionately large.
The sound of the door being kicked open didn’t startle her, nor did the light reflecting off the blades of the knives held by the brothers. She just sat there, cradling her child in her arms. Beneath her disheveled hair, she wore an expressionless face. “There’s nothing left,” she said. “The child is still sucking.” She didn’t even glance at the two knives they held up. “There’s nothing left at all,” she repeated. Returning from her in-laws’ home to her parents, she hadn’t grown any less hungry. As the baby wailed, unable to suck anything, she pressed its mouth against her breast once more.
Sun Guocheng still held his knife, stunned by the sight of her breasts. Anger overcame his embarrassment, but it couldn’t quell his shock. His brother cleared his throat and pressed down on his hand. The knife was put away. Sun Guolu untied the bundle, took out half of their remaining money, and placed it on the nearby dressing table. As he tied up the bundle again, Sun Guocheng took out the other half of the money and put it beside his brother’s half on the table. The brothers turned and left. The younger one said, “How can a man not live?”
The child cried again, the hunger making the cries disjointed. The brothers heard another door open, and Zhao Mantuo’s wife grumbled, “What’s all the fuss? Once asleep, you won’t be hungry anymore.”
They were already out of the door, heading straight for the church in the neighboring village.
The church stood at the northwest corner of the neighboring village, outside the village fairground. It was good that it was secluded there; no one in the village would know what they were up to. They jogged all the way there. The church was dark inside and out. The brothers had ventured inside out of curiosity before and remembered a candelabra hanging from the ceiling, with candles lit on each branch. With two or three dozen flames in a circle, it was bright enough to illuminate the temple, originally dedicated to Laozi, Shakyamuni Buddha, and the Mother of God.
“Let them die with clarity,” the older brother said.
The younger brother knocked on the brass door knocker. They heard footsteps from inside, so Sun Guocheng positioned the knife in his arm’s bend. A male voice asked courteously from inside, “Are you here for Pastor or Reverend?”
In the darkness, the brothers glanced at each other. No foreign devils? Those two missionaries indeed had adopted Chinese names for themselves: one named Hang, meaning “travel with God,” and the other named Zhu, blessing everyone with the presence of the Lord. The door opened, and even in the darkness, they could see a face as flat as a brick. It wasn’t a foreign face. It was a middle-aged Chinese man, “Who are you looking for?” he asked with a local accent.
“Where are the foreign devils?” Sun Guolu asked.
The man’s neck jerked when he heard this as if he wanted to retreat into the house, but Sun Guocheng grabbed him and pulled him outside.
“Speak, where are the foreign devils?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” the man said. He was short and thin, and if it weren’t for the stubble on his lips, you might have thought he was an underdeveloped boy in the darkness. “I’m just a church member. No, I’m not a church member. I’m just the gatekeeper.”
“Where are the foreign devils?”
“They went to Juye to meet the church members. No, they went to Juye to meet the foreign devils.”
“When will they be back?”
“I don’t know, sir. It should be tonight, maybe tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow.”
When Sun Guocheng let go, he pushed the man, who fell onto the stone steps. “What should we do?” he asked his brother.
“We can’t wait. Burn it!”
Sun Guocheng said, “This is our ancestors’ temple.”
“Our ancestors? They’ve long been desecrated by these bastards. This temple now belongs to the foreigners!”
Sun Guolu agreed and took out a fire sickle, feeling his way into the church in the darkness. Soon, light emanated from the church. The light grew larger, changing from a dim yellow to a fiery orange, becoming brighter and brighter. The thin man sitting on the ground tried to get up, but Sun Guocheng blocked his throat with the knife. He sat back down and shouted:
“Don’t burn it, please don’t burn it! The foreign pastor will kill me!”
Sun Guocheng said, “If you shout again, I’ll kill you first!”
The man immediately covered his mouth. Then, he spread his fingers apart, letting out a small voice from between his fingers. “Brothers, they will kill me.”
“Tell them the ones setting the fire are the Sun brothers from the ferry crossing.”
“They won’t let you off.”
“We didn’t plan on letting them off either. Tell them we’ll be back.”
“Brothers, let me shout twice more.” After a while, the man whispered again, “Otherwise, the foreign pastor will blame me for being irresponsible.”
It was pitch black all around, and not even the third living thing could be seen. “Fine, then shout.”
The man suddenly raised his voice and shouted, “Fire! Everyone come and put out the fire!”
Sun Guocheng immediately stopped him, “Lower your voice!”
“A quiet voice is as good as not shouting.”
“Then wait until we leave to shout again.”
The man covered his mouth again.
Sun Guolu emerged from the church, and flames were already licking at the roof. The brothers sheathed their knives.
“Shall we go?” the younger brother asked.
“Let’s go,” the older brother said.
The blaze illuminated half the sky, and they headed north.
The man behind them wailed as if mourning the dead, “Fire! The church is on fire! Someone set fire to the church! Come quickly to put out the fire!”
In the village fairground, people started banging drums, basins, and wooden barrels. Some shouted about the fire, while others yelled about getting water. They were heading to Dongping County. There, the Big Sword Society existed, a group of brothers who, like them, were wanderers and enemies of the foreigners. By the time they reached Dongping, merging into the current like a tributary joining a river, the Big Sword Society had evolved into the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists,” under the banner of “Support the Qing, Exterminate the Foreigners.” They would continue northward. Now, they began their journey northward, with the blaze burning at the edge of their vision.
The older brother said to the younger one, “We’re leaving, but it’s to come back.”
For many days, Sun Guocheng couldn’t understand how there could be a professional like Xiao Boluo, someone who simply sat on a boat and looked around. Of course, they also disembarked and roamed the streets and alleys. He had only seen two types of people do such things: second-rate wanderers in the countryside, idling away their time, and officials. After the Boxer Rebellion reached Beijing, as one of the strongest Boxers, he was always assigned to stand at the forefront during the inspection by imperial officials.
The officials would pass by him with their hands behind their backs, occasionally glancing at him, sometimes patting his belly, asking him to open his mouth to see his teeth, and casually commenting, as if perusing livestock in a market. Then they would shake their heads and tails and continue walking, slowly circling their camps. You never knew what they saw, but their mission was just to look around. Xiao Boluo was even more excessive than the second-rate wanderers and imperial officials; he had to travel along the canal from the south to the north.
Sun Guocheng tried hard to find something concrete from Xiao Boluo’s daily life, but in vain. Xiao Boluo ate when he needed to eat, slept when he needed to sleep, and the rest of the time, he sat at the bow drinking tea, reading, writing, and chatting with everyone. When he felt like it, he played with his camera, or he wandered ashore, walking wherever he pleased and returning promptly when tired. Life could be lived like this, not with seeds sown to sprout, not with banners unfurled, pulled down, and money earned, and certainly not with hands raised and heads rolling to the ground. Day after day. He knew that traveling required a process, but Xiao Boluo’s purpose was not to travel; all he wanted was to look around. A vague, intangible, aimless look that couldn’t reach any conclusion.
This kind of job that led to emptiness and the unknown made him feel hollow inside. He walked into the cabin from the stern, where Shao Changlai was lying on the bed with his legs crossed. Most of the time on the boat, when not cooking, Shao Changlai lay like this with wide-open eyes. He couldn’t sleep; he had never been this fat before. Proudly, he told Sun Guocheng, “They say the Shaos inherit thinness; not a single fat person in eighteen generations of ancestors. We just haven’t had good days.”
“Are these days good?”
“Good!” Shao Changlai sat up in one go. “We get to eat and drink for free, and the wind and rain don’t bother us. Is your brother tired of it?”
“I mean, this Mr. Dimak, are we just wandering around like this?”
“Just wandering around. Others are doing big things, and we don’t understand.”
“If you don’t understand, how do you know they’re big things?”
“I understand another principle: spending money desperately means it’s a big deal; like us, desperately making money means it’s a small thing.”
Sun Guocheng thought there was some truth to it, but he still felt uncertain. How big of a thing was it? He came out of the cabin, gritted his teeth, and walked to the deck where Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao were drinking coffee. It was already June, and they were sailing smoothly on the Weishan Lake. There was a stretch of the canal crossing this famous body of water. Lotus flowers bloomed on the edge of distant islands, with lotus leaves reaching to the sky, covering half the lake in green. Fishermen casting nets waved to them from outside the river channel.
Sun Guocheng only discovered coffee after boarding the ship. Xiao Boluo mainly drank tea and made coffee only once every ten days or so, as it was in short supply and needed to be rationed. The sun was exceptionally bright that day, and the vast expanse of the lake, with its majestic waves, excited Xiao Boluo like never before. The saliva secreted by his salivary glands took on the taste of coffee. He urged Shao Changlai to hurry up and make some. Shao Changlai felt proud to be able to make coffee as if it were some profound skill. Before bringing the cups to the deck, he finally decided to take a sip but scalded both his upper and lower lips.
He clenched his lips tightly and brought the two cups over, struggling to swallow the strange taste all the way, but unable to do so. Xiao Boluo asked, “Did you add sugar?” Shao Changlai had to speak, and as soon as he opened his mouth, he swallowed the coffee. “Sorry, Sir, we’ve run out.” The taste of coffee was so strange that Shao Changlai immediately coughed and bent over. That night, when they stayed at an inn in Nanyang Ancient Town, Shao Changlai said to Sun Guocheng, “Just a bunch of lies, it’s just some herbal soup, what’s it called, coffee!” But Sun Guocheng said, “It smells good. After the bitterness, it’s all fragrance.”
Xiao Boluo insisted that Sun Guocheng take two sips, one after the other. Xiao Boluo instructed him, “Close your eyes, swallow slowly, pay attention to the sensations on the tip of your tongue, the surface of your tongue, the back of your tongue, your throat, and how it feels in your stomach. Open up all your taste buds. Yes, open up, don’t close them, and certainly don’t shy away from them. Only by opening up can you fully enjoy it.” With guidance from Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao, Sun Guocheng spent as much time drinking two sips of coffee as he would have to drink a full cup. In his imagination, the herbal soup gradually turned into brown silk, flowing slowly from his lips to his stomach, with bitterness inching its way into sweetness.
“This is the result,” Xiao Boluo told him, prompting him to open his eyes. “The process of enjoying a drink is enough to become the purpose and the outcome of drinking.”
Sun Guocheng smacked his lips, not entirely grasping it yet.
“You have to start by drinking,” Xiao Boluo said.
“What if it’s still bitter in the end?” Sun Guocheng asked.
“Then you’ll know that, for you, bitterness ultimately can’t turn into sweetness,” Xie Pingyao translated for Xiao Boluo. “But why must we establish a connection between the initial bitterness and the final bitterness and sweetness? Starting with bitterness, there’s only continuation, no endpoint, isn’t that good too? Like taking photos—”
Xiao Boluo held up his box camera in front of Sun Guocheng. “Choosing the scene, focusing, pressing the shutter.” Through a small frame, Sun Guocheng saw a part of the world, but it was upside down: a small boat in the distance, a fisherman with a pipe in his mouth, holding a bamboo pole and driving more than a dozen cormorants into the water; those cormorants plunged into the water, their webbed feet swaying on the surface, and after a while, they floated to the surface, one by one, jumping onto the boat in turn; each cormorant had a fish in its mouth, some with fish heads or tails protruding from their mouths; the fisherman lifted a cormorant with his left hand, pinched its neck with his right hand, and a fish slipped out of the cormorant’s mouth, falling into the boat.
Xiao Boluo decisively pressed the shutter. In the frozen moment of the picture, Sun Guocheng noticed a bright iron ring around the cormorant’s neck. “Iron ring!” he exclaimed.
“What?” Xie Pingyao asked for Xiao Boluo.
“Iron ring. Around the cormorant’s neck,” Sun Guocheng repeated.
Sun Guocheng grew up around the Liangshan waters, and he couldn’t count how many times he had seen people using cormorants to catch fish, but it was the first time he noticed an iron ring could be fastened around a cormorant’s neck. When he was young, he often asked his parents the same question: Why don’t the cormorants eat the fish they catch? His father’s answer was: They do eat, but then they get squeezed out by the fishermen. His mother replied: They can’t swallow it, the cormorant’s throat is shallow. Now he realized, beyond his parents’ explanations, there was a third reason: because of that iron ring, even if they wanted to swallow, they couldn’t. Perhaps for many years, many cormorants around Liangshan Lake had such rings on their necks, he just hadn’t seen them. He looked, but he didn’t see.
“You looked, but you didn’t see,” Xiao Boluo finished his last sip of coffee and lit his pipe. “The camera lets you see. I pick up the camera, am I aiming to capture a masterpiece? No, just casually picking it up, then casually focusing, and it lets you see.”
“An unintentional act can still achieve something,” Xie Pingyao chimed in. “A seemingly useless thing can serve a great purpose.”
Xiao Boluo was about to put away the camera, but Sun Guocheng wanted to take another look. Xiao Boluo handed it to him. This time, Sun Guocheng didn’t look through the viewfinder, but flipped the camera around in his hand, trying to pry it open whenever he saw a gap. Xiao Boluo quickly stopped him, afraid the film inside would be exposed.
In a low voice, Sun Guocheng asked Xie Pingyao if there were children’s eyes in the camera. He had heard many rumors in the Boxer Rebellion, saying that foreigners in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Hubei, and other places liked to capture Chinese children, and after capturing them, they mixed their brains with milk to drink, used their flesh to extract oil for cooking, and put their eyeballs into cameras. You could see the world clearly through the viewfinder because a pair of eyes had already looked ahead for you. What you saw was what was in their eyes; because those were children’s eyes, everything you saw was smaller than in reality; because those eyes were installed in the camera in the opposite direction, all you could see was an inverted world.
The absurd and intense rumors left Xie Pingyao amused and perplexed. He tried to adjust his expression to one that Sun Chengcheng could accept, then earnestly and firmly replied, “There’s absolutely no truth to it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Xiao Boluo retracted the extended lens and put away the camera. “You guys talking about the camera?”
Xie Pingyao said, “Chengcheng suspects there might be a pair of eyes hidden in the camera.”
Xiao Boluo burst into laughter. Years ago, when he first encountered a camera, he too had wanted to find a pair of eyes inside it. He reached out to shake hands with Sun Chengcheng, unaware that they were referring to entirely different kinds of eyes. Sun Chengcheng withdrew his hand behind his back, casting a skeptical glance towards the stern of the boat. Suddenly, thunder rumbled in the sky, causing the entire boat to tremble. The waters of Weishan Lake seemed to convulse violently in response.
Sun Chengcheng would always remember that afternoon; it was in the Year of Xin Chou when he heard his first thunderclap. Hail followed the thunder, and the first hailstone to hit the boat happened to strike his freshly shaved forehead. The hailstone was as large as a thumb, leaving his head buzzing and forming a swelling the size of two thumbs. Even during his acrobatic performances, he had never taken a hit like that to the head. His forehead protruded noticeably. Shao Changlai remarked that it looked good, resembling a venerable elder. Elders always had prominent foreheads.
He remembered that afternoon’s hail and the ensuing heavy rain because it was from Xiao Boluo that he finally grasped the idea that even the most aimless of actions could hold significance; that meaninglessness itself might be its own meaning. He couldn’t quite explain the convoluted reasoning behind it, but he did start to gradually relax and not take everything so seriously.
That afternoon, he solved the most significant question of his life—that a wandering and wavering existence might still be worthwhile. Embedded firmly in the memory of that afternoon was a camera. Several years later, that camera would be passed down among his descendants. But that afternoon, like everyone else on the boat, he had to contend first with the unexpected hail and heavy rain.
The hail pounding on the boat sounded like beating on a small drum. Old Chen, accustomed to the weather of the South, was taken by surprise. He was usually adept at predicting the weather—just a glance at the sky and he could make a good guess. It was a skill honed over many years of living on the water. But this time, he was blindsided. Only moments ago, the sun was shining brightly, and he had planned to have his two sons row the boat into the lotus pond to impress the foreigners from Italy.
He heard his youngest son, who had spent a few years in a private school, mutter a few lines of poetry: “In the south, one can gather lotuses, with lotus leaves spreading far and wide. Fish frolic among the lotus leaves, fish frolic east, fish frolic west, fish frolic south, fish frolic north.” Going around in circles like that, and he called it poetry? It sounded more like a game of dominoes.
But the little fish darting around among the lotus leaves did indeed provide some amusement. Little did he know, in the blink of an eye, a thick blanket of clouds swept in like a dirty rag obscuring the sun, and hail started pelting down. He instructed his sons to adjust the sails and set up the oars. They weren’t far from Nanyang Town.
Halfway there, the rain started, accompanied by hail. By the time the hail on the boat had accumulated to the thickness of two fingers, it turned into heavy rain. Fine mist rose from the surface of the lake, making Weishan Lake appear even more vast and imposing. The iconic building of Nanyang Town, Grandma Tai Shan Temple, and the boats behind it suddenly seemed farther away. By the time they reached Nanyang Town, Old Chen and his family, clad in raincoats, were all thoroughly soaked through.
The rain continued to trickle down for a while, and before dusk even settled, darkness descended. Old Chen found a relatively spacious dock to moor the boat, facing a low old house with a signboard hanging above the door: “Kangxi Imperial Banquet Hall.” Along the way, even in slightly decent towns, one could find several establishments with the word “Imperial” in their signage, ranging from places to eat, drink, stay, to play, making it difficult to discern the genuine from the counterfeit. There had been too many emperors on southern excursions. A waiter, his face obscured in the shadows behind the rain curtain, shouted to them:
“The place where Emperor Kangxi sat is reserved for the esteemed guests!”
Xiao Boluo wanted to see what the place where Emperor Kangxi sat looked like, so they all entered the Imperial Banquet Hall. After battling with hail and heavy rain for half a day, Old Chen’s family was exhausted: three men had been rowing the boat, while Mrs. Chen had been bailing water from the boat, leaving her with aching muscles and a sore back.
If it hadn’t been for the help of Sun Chengcheng and Shao Changlai, she would have been working until midnight, with water flooding into the cabins. Given the heavy moisture inside the cabins, Old Chen suggested that Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao find an inn to stay for the night, while they would make do on the boat. Xiao Boluo agreed, but eating first was a priority. Upon entering the Imperial Banquet Hall, they ordered about ten bowls of ginger tea to ward off the damp chill.
When the foreign guests arrived, the boss hurried over to personally attend to them. He shuffled the two tables in the middle to the side, leaving space for Xiao Boluo and his group to sit. Xie Pingyao conveyed Xiao Boluo’s concern that it wasn’t appropriate, but the boss insisted, saying he was in charge here. After they were settled, the boss leaned in close to Xie Pingyao’s ear and asked, who would sit facing the empty table in front, him or the foreign guest? That empty table was where Emperor Kangxi had sat, surrounded by a red ribbon and with red silk tied to the legs.
Sitting in the middle, facing south and with his back to the north. Whoever sat facing the empty table would be considered sitting opposite Emperor Kangxi. It was a good spot—officials sitting there would be promoted three ranks, and businessmen would see their wealth multiply. The boss subtly hoped that their people would sit there, so he whispered to Xie Pingyao first, knowing the foreigners wouldn’t understand anyway.
Xie Pingyao quickly suggested that Xiao Boluo should take the seat. Just the thought made him nervous; all the candles in the restaurant were lit, yet it still felt somewhat dim. If he sat there, he might glance up and imagine even the late Emperor picking up his chopsticks in the dimness—how could he possibly eat then? He told Xiao Boluo that sitting there was akin to dining with Emperor Kangxi himself, partaking in an imperial feast. Xiao Boluo happily took the seat opposite Emperor Kangxi.
This meal was the busiest for two people: Xiao Boluo, busy eating, and Sun Chengcheng.
Nanyang Town sat nestled within Weishan Lake, a long and narrow strip of land with a canal running through it. Living off the water meant two things: firstly, living off passing boats—food, clothing, shelter, transportation; you had to spend money somehow. Secondly, it meant truly dining on the water, with most of the dishes being lake delicacies. The boss of the Imperial Banquet Hall boasted that while much of the country had suffered from drought a couple of years ago, leaving people hungry and struggling to eat, Nanyang Town remained abundantly supplied with food and clothing.
True, Weishan Lake’s water level had indeed dropped significantly, leaving many places bone dry, but despite the drought, there was no shortage of fish. Everywhere else might be famine-stricken, but the people of Nanyang Town remained plump and well-fed. Two bowls of fish soup and their cheeks would be as rosy as if they had just applied rouge. Therefore, the boss told Xiao Boluo that he absolutely must try the fish from Nanyang Town. So, Xiao Boluo busied himself with eating fish, sampling various types of fish meat and fish soup.
Italians rarely ate freshwater fish, but Xiao Boluo didn’t mind. He welcomed whatever was served. However, his fish-eating technique was nothing to praise—he cautiously picked at fish bones, eating with both dedication and difficulty, steam rising from his forehead. He took a sip of liquor after a few bites of fish. The boss explained that fish from deep waters brought cold, while liquor warmed the stomach, and only when fish and liquor were combined could yin and yang be balanced. Every time he drank, Xiao Boluo would raise his glass towards the empty table opposite him, as if toasting to the invisible Emperor Kangxi. “Cheers!” he exclaimed.
Another busy person was Sun Chengcheng. The restaurant was crowded and noisy, and there were always odd looks when people saw foreigners. Unlike the South, where two years ago, during the Boxer Rebellion, the northern half of China had seemed to explode, prompting the southern half to enter into a “Southeast Mutual Protection” agreement, thereby diverting attention away from anti-foreign sentiments among the populace, so even if foreigners walked the streets at midnight, they were mostly safe.
But beyond the Huai River, it was different. He positioned his knife conveniently by his feet, ensuring that if he accidentally stepped on the blade, the handle would bounce back to his hand immediately. Xiao Boluo was within the protective range of his big knife. Because he was busy keeping an eye on everything, he could only seize safe moments to quickly stuff a few bites into his mouth, nearly choking himself in the process.
As dinner was winding down, Sun Chengcheng noticed two young men repeatedly glancing over in their direction. Whenever their eyes met, the two quickly pretended to be engrossed in conversation. Their posture and movements concealed a sense of tension; they were on edge, unlike the other diners who lounged loosely on their stools, looking relaxed. Sun Chengcheng became increasingly suspicious of these two individuals, running through various possible scenarios in his mind. When the two men stood up, they bowed to the boss behind the counter and left. They wore identical round-toe thick-soled black cloth shoes, their steps hinting at a subtle elasticity.
After finishing their meal, Xiao Boluo burped a few times, and Shao Changlai went to settle the bill. He also extended the invitation to Old Chen’s family. Shao Changlai put the change into his specially made money pouch, standing in front of the counter to inquire about any good inns in town. Just then, three people entered, two of whom were the young men who had just left moments ago. The difference was that this time, they were armed with official waist knives. The third person, appearing to be in his forties, was dressed in official attire and wore a hat adorned with scattered red tassels. Sun Chengcheng stood up abruptly, his hand reaching for his knife. But he saw the two young men bowing to him with a slight smile.
The man in official attire and hat was a subordinate of the Nanyang garrison commander, sent specifically to invite the foreign guests to the garrison commander’s residence for a chat. Visiting the garrison commander’s residence would establish a connection with the authorities. Sun Chengcheng felt uncertain and sought Xie Pingyao’s opinion. Having spent many years in the yamen, Xie Pingyao was well aware of the intricate procedures involved, and he preferred to keep things simple. But the official in the hat extended two plump white hands from his wide sleeves and bowed to Xie Pingyao:
“My apologies, but the foreign guests may have to come.”
Xie Pingyao glanced at Xiao Boluo, who shrugged and spread his hands, saying, “Why not?” Being invited by the garrison commander was quite an honor in his eyes. Xie Pingyao told him that the garrison commander held the rank of fifth grade—a significant position. This delighted Xiao Boluo even more, and he spent the journey calculating where a fifth-grade official in the Qing Dynasty would rank in Italy.
Sun Chengcheng leaned close to Xie Pingyao and asked if they should follow along. Xie Pingyao understood his concerns. Their past association with the Boxers was both significant and delicate. Xie Pingyao reassured him, saying, “Don’t worry, as long as I’m here, you’re with me.” This statement deeply touched Sun Chengcheng, leaving a lasting impression on him.
The garrison commander’s residence was not far away, as Nanyang Town was relatively small. They walked along the cobblestone road by the river, passing various shops and businesses illuminated by lights. The rain had stopped early, and boats of various sizes plied the river. The air was filled with the scent of cooking, shouts, and vendors hawking their goods. Fresh fish, shrimp, and vegetables were displayed in front of shops, on boats, and on the steps of the docks, with merchants carrying small lanterns to ward off the wind.
They didn’t bother with scales; they estimated weights with their hands, and that was close enough. The entire Nanyang Town resembled a bustling night market. They turned a corner past the “Golden Standard” pawnshop and walked another three hundred steps. Two stone lions sat in front of the crimson gates of the garrison commander’s residence, emitting a glossy black glow in the dampness.
Possibly due to the limited space of the island, the garrison commander’s residence wasn’t as large as one might imagine. Upon entering, they walked along a paved path, with the sound of many horses neighing coming from the courtyard walls. Even on a rainy night, there was still the lingering smell of horses. Why did the layout of yamen courtyards all seem the same—horses neighing upon entry and horse-tying posts visible? The official with the hat explained that it was convenient for official business; they could simply mount their horses and ride out. Turning right onto a brick path, they entered a long corridor, at the end of which was the reception room of the garrison commander. Lanterns with wind-resistant covers illuminated the way. The garrison commander, a robust figure, stood at the door to greet them.
The reception room was brightly lit. The garrison commander and Xiao Boluo sat in the two main seats at the head of the room, while Xie Pingyao and the garrison commander’s subordinate in the hat sat in the lower seats. Sun Chengcheng and the two guards stood outside the door. The garrison commander, with his upturned mustache ends, asked Xiao Boluo what he would like to drink—there was wine, coffee, and tea available. Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao were both surprised to find coffee in the garrison commander’s residence.
The garrison commander chuckled and remarked that even though Nanyang was small, people from all over the world passed through here, leaving a bit of something behind. Holding an exposition showcasing these items from around the world shouldn’t be too difficult. Xiao Boluo opted for tea because the garrison commander mentioned it was a special Taiping Houkui harvested during the Grain Rain season, just delivered a few days ago.
The maid brought in the tea, and its flavor was indeed exceptional. They began with casual conversation, discussing how people lived in Xiao Boluo’s country, what business brought them to China, whether they were accustomed to it, and how they felt about their experiences so far. As they talked, the garrison commander kept twirling the emerald green jade thumb ring on his right thumb. He wore a ring set with blood-red agate on the ring finger of his left hand. The maid came back to refill the water, her steps graceful, occasionally revealing the tips of her dainty feet from beneath her skirt. The garrison commander asked if they had any other questions. Xiao Boluo then inquired about bound feet:
“Do women here have to bind their feet?”
“Yes, they do,” replied the garrison commander, twirling his thumb ring faster, causing the two tips of his feet to tremble rhythmically. “If women’s feet are liberated, they become strong. Men are already strong, and strong women uniting with them would pose a threat to the court.” The garrison commander stopped twirling his thumb ring, turned slightly towards the north, and clenched his fist.
Xie Pingyao chuckled first, followed by Xiao Boluo. Then the garrison commander and his subordinate joined in the laughter. Sun Chengcheng leaned forward to peek inside and saw the garrison commander laughing so hard that he accidentally splashed the tea on the table. A guard standing by the opposite door coughed sternly, and Sun Chengcheng quickly withdrew his head.
After three rounds of tea, the garrison commander got to the point. He first praised Mr. Liu, who accompanied them, thanking him for his effective surveillance. “There are orders from above,” the garrison commander said, bowing slightly. “All foreign visitors passing through our province must be registered to ensure your safety. Mr. Dimak must be aware that the Boxers have caused much havoc in the past two years, harming many innocent civilians and some foreign visitors. The court, the emperor, and the empress dowager are furious about this.
Therefore, it is ordered to ensure the safety of foreigners at all costs. Our great nation of China, if we cannot even guarantee the safety of our foreign friends, wouldn’t it be a disgrace? Inviting Mr. Dimak to visit our humble abode is to inform you that within our jurisdiction, your safety is assured. You can eat, sleep, and enjoy yourselves without worry. If you need anything, Mr. Liu will take care of it. Isn’t that right, Mr. Liu?”
Mr. Liu stood up, “I am at the service of the garrison commander and Mr. Dimak at all times. I am willing to serve as a loyal servant.”
“Indeed, now is a perfect time to explore Nanyang and Lake Weishan. Mr. Liu, if you’re free tomorrow, you can take Mr. Dimak and his party around for a stroll. Although it’s a small town, it has everything you need. There’s Kui Xing Pavilion, Wen Gong Temple, Da Yu Temple, Er Ye Temple, and the Yang Family Archway, all worth seeing. Because we are located at a strategic point for canal transportation, Emperor Kangxi and Emperor Qianlong have stopped by here multiple times during their trips to the south, leaving behind many precious historical relics.
You’ve already dined at the Imperial Banquet House, but there’s also the Imperial Palace and the Imperial Granary. Emperor Qianlong was quite fond of it and even inscribed a plaque for the Ma Family Shop. The threshold he stepped over is still there; you can also go and pay your respects. Mr. Dimak, if you have any other requests, feel free to mention them.”
The garrison commander spoke slowly. Xiao Boluo couldn’t understand and kept zoning out, forcing himself to sit there with nothing to do. After finishing his tea, he scooped out the Taiping Hou Kui tea leaves from the teacup, spreading the long, slender leaves out on the table. As Xie Pingyao finished translating the garrison commander’s lengthy speech, the last tea leaf was neatly arranged on the table. Xiao Boluo picked up the first flattened tea leaf and said:
“Thank you, there’s nothing else we need. But if we could have some more Taiping Hou Kui, that would be perfect.”
“Sure thing. Mr. Liu, get two catties for Mr. Dimak tomorrow.”
Mr. Liu grinned and said, “But sir, our entire garrison commander’s residence wouldn’t even have one catty.”
“Then let them buy it themselves.”
“But sir, this tea, originally named ‘Taiping Tip Tea,’ has an extremely low yield and is hard to come by, even with money. In our garrison commander’s residence, only you, sir, get to drink it. Today, thanks to Mr. Dimak’s presence, it’s the first time I’ve tasted it, and it’s truly exceptional.”
The garrison commander chuckled. “These Westerners have quite discerning tastes.” He twirled his jade thumb ring again. “It’s all right, leave them with two taels for the guests, and give them the rest. I refuse to believe that in our great Qing Empire, with its vast land and abundant resources, we can’t produce a few tea leaves. Give it to them!”
The tea gathering concluded, and the garrison commander retired for the night, leaving Mr. Liu to escort Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao to the inn. Accommodation at the garrison commander’s residence had already been arranged, which was another security measure. Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao were led directly to the inn by Mr. Liu, while Sun Guocheng was instructed to retrieve their luggage from the boat. Xiao Boluo specifically reminded him not to forget the cane. Sun Guocheng then faced the dilemma of where to stay. He decided whether or not to bring changes of clothes. Xie Pingyao asked Mr. Liu. Mr. Liu replied, “The inn, three rooms.”
At the beginning of the night, Sun Guocheng slept soundly, but he tossed and turned for a long time before falling asleep again in the wee hours. When he got up to use the restroom in the middle of the night, he was startled to find someone standing by the door, leaning against the wall and dozing off. The back of the person’s head kept knocking against the wall, and the sound of the door opening startled them, causing them to jump.
They were soldiers. Looking further, he saw another soldier. He realized that they were guarding Xiao Boluo. Since Xiao Boluo was staying between him and Xie Pingyao, one soldier stood between his and Xiao Boluo’s door, while the other guarded between Xiao Boluo’s and Xie Pingyao’s door. Although he knew it had nothing to do with him, he still felt uneasy. When the garrison commander mentioned bandits during the tea gathering, he felt a pang of anxiety.
The world was full of uncertainties, and who could have predicted that last year, the Boxers were being suppressed in the first half of the year, only to become the object of covert alliance and exploitation by the court in the middle of the year? By the end of the year and now, the foreigners’ backbone had straightened again, and the Boxers were forced to disband, becoming criminals once more. It was said that many local authorities were vigorously hunting down Boxer members who had been to Beijing. With various conflicting reports, Sun Guocheng couldn’t discern the truth from the lies and had to keep his guard up.
Returning from the restroom, Sun Guocheng lay awake in the darkness for an hour or two. He thought about his and his brother’s brief time with the Boxers, about his brother, Sun Guolu. If Sun Guolu had been disposed of in the wilderness shortly after they left Qingjiangpu, then by now his bones had been exposed to the sun for many days. Sun Guocheng counted on his fingers and realized that his brother’s birthday was approaching. It would be his first birthday after his death, called the “Ming Dan.” As dawn approached, he finally fell asleep to the sound of the guy knocking his head against the wall at the door.
The next day, he became familiar with the two soldiers. The tall one was named Lu, and the short one was named Qian. Although Nanyang was not large, they explored every nook and cranny, and even two days seemed almost insufficient. Mr. Liu was diligent and accompanied them most of the time, ensuring that wherever they went, they were attended to.
Regardless of the restaurant, they sat down to eat and left as soon as they finished their meal. Sun Guocheng only needed to stick with soldiers Lu and Qian, as Mr. Liu’s official attire provided the best protection, causing pedestrians and onlookers to steer clear from a distance. Young Lu and Young Qian were around the same age as Sun Guocheng.
They were talkative, especially Young Qian, who could chat endlessly. Sun Guocheng listened quietly, feeling that the world was beautiful, and everything seemed auspicious. They followed behind Sha Changlai and the two Chens, seizing the rare opportunity to explore. The elderly Chen couple stayed behind to guard the boat. They said they were of an age where they had seen everything worth seeing, and what was not worth seeing was useless to see. Life was hard, and curiosity had been drained by life.
They spent two days wandering around, and on the third day, they set off early. The boat rowed to the dock near the inn to pick up Xiao Boluo and the others. The elderly Chen couple had gone to the Dragon King Temple early in the morning. They respectfully kowtowed to the Dragon King three times each, took a bamboo tube from the altar, and each drew a divination stick. The sticks drawn by the couple were the same: “Traveling far without danger, smooth sailing.” For boatmen, could there be a better omen than this? The dock was bustling early in the morning.
A family was celebrating a baby’s full month, and several adults were busy nearby, looking for someone selling eggs. According to local customs, on the baby’s full month, eggs must be sent to the uncle’s house. Looking at the large wooden box with peeling red paint on the shore, there must be six hundred eggs to fill it. The elderly Chen stood at the stern of the boat, waving vigorously to bid farewell to Mr. Liu, with Mrs. Chen and Sha Changlai standing beside him. The two Chens were preparing to sail the boat, while Xiao Boluo, Xie Pingyao, and Sun Guocheng stood on the deck to bid farewell. Behind their boat was another smaller boat, and soldiers Lu and Qian were tasked with escorting them part of the way.
They sailed through Nanyang Lake towards Jining, with a smooth journey all the way. There would only be thunder in the afternoon until dusk, occasionally accompanied by a brief shower. Rain was not a concern, as the water below the boat was vast, and the water on the boat was negligible. However, they feared the wind. When the weather warmed up, the winds on the water became unpredictable. It was said that once the wind picked up, it could be life-threatening. While sitting leisurely on the deck, Xiao Boluo and the others often heard soldiers Lu and Qian shouting, “Watch out for sunken ships!” Upon hearing this, the elderly Chen and his son would straighten up and focus on steering and adjusting the sails.
Xiao Boluo quickly took out his camera and photographed the shipwrecks lying in the shallow waters and along the shore. Sun Guocheng counted and realized that they had encountered twelve sunken ships from Nanyang Town to Jining. They were all large vessels, and the smaller ones had long been washed away by the waves. These sunken ships were a chilling sight, with their exposed keels and broken masts. After being exposed to the wind and sun, they resembled human skeletons.
Soldiers Lu and Qian are experienced in traversing this route. They suggest only stopping for rest, meals, and recreation at the larger docks near the town, dismissing the smaller ones. On the third day, around noon, as they passed through a village, Xiao Bo Luo felt numb from his bottom to his shoulders, his body half paralyzed. He wanted to go ashore to stretch his legs and perhaps explore the village. However, Lu and Qian deemed it inappropriate, suggesting that if he must go ashore, it would be best to do so after passing the village and to return as soon as he wished.
Xiao Bo Luo was displeased, feeling they were being overly cautious, but he didn’t want to argue. They were here to protect themselves, and he needed to respect that. He reclined on his chair under the sunshade, blowing in the river breeze, and surprisingly dozed off. Suddenly, something struck his left knee with a piercing pain, followed by a flurry of striking sounds. He opened his eyes, thinking it might be hail. The sun blazed overhead, with only a dark cloud in the distance. Then he heard shouting from the entire shore:
“Get lost! Get lost!”
It was midday in summer, the time of deepest drowsiness. Apart from Da Chen, who was steering the boat, everyone else was dozing off. Xie Pingyao was asleep in his bed. Shao Changlai leaned against a sack of rice, asleep. Sun Guocheng was discussing the handover of safety responsibilities with Lu and Qian on their small boat. Their mission would end in Jining, where the subsequent security tasks would be taken over by relevant authorities.
Whether there would be official escorts to Beijing, Lu and Qian weren’t sure. The information they had was to ensure the safety of their foreign friend within the territory of Shandong. The three of them hastily erected a small sail on the awning of the cabin cruiser to ensure they kept up with the houseboat, then sat in the cool shade inside the cabin, chatting.
As they talked, they grew increasingly sleepy, each of them resting their chin on their hand and eventually dozing off. The sound of rocks hitting the boat jolted them awake. They quickly stood up, grabbed their knives, and exited the cabin. Each one bumped their head against the canopy.
As they passed through a village, suddenly a group of adolescent boys emerged, hurling rocks onto the boat. They threw with their left hands while holding more rocks in their right hands, and when their hands were empty, smaller children behind them passed more. They shouted as they threw:
“Foreign devils, go die! Go die, foreign devils!”
“Get lost! Get lost!”
“Foreign devils, go die! Go die, foreign devils!”
Xiao Bo Luo limped back to the berth, nursing his injured left leg. Before he could enter the cabin, he was struck on the buttocks again, but thankfully, his ample backside absorbed the blow without much fuss. Even with the boat picking up speed, they couldn’t outpace the children on the shore, as long as they had a steady supply of rocks to throw. The three men on the small boat quickly divided their tasks. Sun Guocheng tightened the ropes, bringing the small boat alongside the larger one, and leaped aboard in a swift motion. His task was to closely protect Xiao Bo Luo. While the teenage boys posed no significant threat, there was concern about potential reinforcements. Lu and Qian, armed with knives, jumped into the water and swam towards the shore. At the sight of the two adults approaching, the children scattered, howling and yelping.
The damage to Xiao Bo Luo’s knee and the broken window panes were minor issues. An hour passed without any further trouble, indicating it was likely an isolated incident. However, the randomness of it all signified the prevalence of anti-foreign sentiment in the area: they had entered the heartland of the Boxer Rebellion and needed to be cautious.
But Xiao Bo Luo’s understanding of the “extermination of foreigners” remained mostly abstract, limited to hearsay. He rubbed his bruised knee and cursed under his breath, not overly concerned. Fear was still distant for him. Nonetheless, he heeded everyone’s advice to heighten his self-defense awareness, keeping his revolver within reach at all times. From that afternoon onwards, until he lay down unable to rise, the pistol was never far from his side. He wore baggy trousers during the day, with the gun tucked into his pocket, and at night, he placed it beneath his pillow.
Originally, they could have reached Jining that same evening, but a delay occurred due to a hunt for a wild game. As the houseboat passed through a reed bed, there was a sudden commotion, with the reeds rustling violently. Xiao Bo Luo instinctively pulled out his gun from his pocket as a plump wild chicken soared into the sky, its wings shimmering in the sunlight. Xiao Bo Luo’s shot missed. He later claimed he was blinded by the colorful glare.
Nevertheless, the gunshot startled dozens of wild chickens and ducks into chaotic flight. This reminded Xiao Bo Luo that he still had his hunting rifle. Having crossed halfway through China from south to north without firing a single shot, he felt a bit cheated. The thought of the shotgun also made his mouth water. He had eaten everything that swam in the waters of Nanyang, now it was time for the birds in the sky. He instructed Xie Pingyao to inform Da Chen to find a suitable spot to stop; he was itching for some hunting.
Xie Pingyao reminded him they were in the wilderness. The last time they ventured into a reed bed in Huai’an, they were apprehended by Sun Guocheng’s group. “Your knee hasn’t even fully healed yet.”
“Don’t worry, besides passing boats, who would come running here?” He gestured towards Sun Guocheng, who was now cautiously approaching them after hearing the gunshot. “He’s with us now, isn’t he?”
Sun Guocheng felt quite embarrassed. He didn’t agree with stopping hunting. Safety came first.
“In everything, we should prioritize safety. Let’s just keep moving and forget about the canal. There’s no need to come to China if you want safety,” he argued.
But he couldn’t sway them. Shao Changlai chimed in, pointing to soldiers Lu and Qian. “These two brothers have to return to Jining tomorrow.” He also worried that Xiao Bo Luo wouldn’t be able to handle the wild game he shot, as he had never dealt with wild chickens and ducks before.
“Then we’ll just have to shoot a few more. It’ll be a farewell gift for them. Let’s drink aboard the ship tonight.”
Reluctantly, they agreed. Some thought it was a stroke of luck, while others believed trouble couldn’t be avoided, so they went along with it.
Xiao Bo Luo’s marksmanship earned him some admiration. When the boat stopped by the reed bed, he stood on deck with his gun, ready for action. Sun Guocheng, along with soldiers Lu and Qian, stealthily rowed into the reeds. When they found a suitable spot, they suddenly swung their oars, boat poles, and scabbards, striking the reeds while shouting. The startled wild chickens, ducks, and various birds hidden in the reeds took flight, and Xiao Bo Luo aimed and fired at one or a group of them. After disturbing one patch of reeds, they moved on to the next, continuing their hunt. In total, they bagged twelve plump wild chickens, ducks, and some unknown large birds.
As dusk fell, the boat resumed its journey. Shao Changlai and Madam Chen took on the task of slaughtering the game. They stopped at the nearest town’s dock for dinner and rest. That evening, regardless of hierarchy or familiarity, the ten of them sat in a circle on the deck, holding their glasses carefully to prevent spillage from the rocking river. The wild game was prepared in four different styles: braised, spicy, boiled, and grilled, paired with four jin of strong liquor.
They purchased the alcohol from a shop at the dock. At first, they drank cautiously, but after three or four glasses each, they loosened up. Old Chen began teaching Xiao Bo Luo how to play finger-guessing. Except for Madam Chen and Sun Guocheng, everyone imbibed quite a bit. Madam Chen, being a woman with a low tolerance for alcohol and needing to clean up afterward, stopped after a polite sip. Sun Guocheng had a good tolerance, but he reminded himself constantly that protecting Xiao Bo Luo was his top priority, so he drank moderately.
Xie Pingyao abstained from alcohol altogether, as he easily got drunk. He was in high spirits that evening, drinking one glass after another, and eventually stumbled back to his cabin, completely oblivious. Soldiers Lu and Qian, being young, remained sober no matter how much they drank. This was good; they needed to stay vigilant like Sun Guocheng. Xiao Bo Luo wasn’t the first foreigner they had encountered, but he was the one they had interacted with the most. Despite rumors of him being a fierce figure who stripped the skin of Chinese people, he turned out to be remarkably friendly. At the end of the meal, they excitedly bowed to the foreigner as per custom. Xiao Bo Luo insisted on following Chinese etiquette and gave each person a tip.
The next day, they slept in until almost noon. Throughout the night, swarms of mosquitoes had descended upon them unnoticed, leaving them with layers of itchy bumps all over their bodies. They, Xiao Bo Luo and Xie Pingyao, were the last to rise; everyone else had been up for quite some time. However, there wasn’t much to do upon waking up, apart from the usual morning routines, especially with the unfavorable weather. The northern sky was inked black, slowly creeping towards them at a near standstill.
There was no wind, and the treetops on the dock remained still. Even with a full sail, it was as if the boat was just a decoration. When Xiao Bo Luo and Xie Pingyao finally got up, Da Chen and Xiao Chen began rowing the boat away from the dock, heading slowly toward Jining. As they approached Jining, a sudden gust of wind arose. Despite their efforts against the wind, they couldn’t make any progress with the sail unfurled. Sun Guocheng, soldiers Lu and Qian, all tried their best, but the boat remained stubbornly motionless, even pushed back by the wind. Old Chen quickly dropped anchor by the side to prevent any accidental capsizing.
After the wind died down a bit, they raised the anchor and continued rowing forward. But after a short distance, the wind picked up again, and the boat was forced to stop once more, pushed back by the wind. After a few more bouts of wind, the boat barely moved, and the dark clouds loomed directly overhead. Raindrops the size of copper coins pelted down, clattering on the boat’s deck like hundreds of firecrackers going off simultaneously. All ten of them huddled inside the cabin.
After nearly half an hour, the raindrops grew to the size of beans. Xiao Chen stepped outside to relieve himself in the river and returned half-soaked, reporting that the wind had shifted, indicating it might be a good time to hoist the sail. So, the three of them donned their raincoats and straw hats, ventured out into the rain to raise the anchor, set the sail, and untied the ropes fastened to the willow trees on the riverbank. Once they took the helm and rowed the boat, they found that the wind was indeed in their favor. With the wind at their backs, they finally made good progress and arrived in Jining just before another round of thunderstorms and heavy winds.
The dock was crowded, filled with all sorts of boats. Masts, roofs, and canopies cluttered the view, and there was hardly any water visible between the boats; it would have been difficult to insert a needle between them. The iron-cast town water beasts, descendants of two dragons, had been squatting by the bank for two hundred years, and in all that time, they had never seen so many boats docked at once. Everyone was in a hurry to moor here, both going upstream and downstream, not daring to move. Old Chen had no choice but to discuss with Xiao Bo Luo and Xie Pingyao about docking the boat at a smaller dock a few hundred yards away from the main one. It was a wider area close to a canal branch, spacious enough for their large boat to dock comfortably.
Once they were all settled in, it was already well past noon, and they hadn’t even had lunch yet. With two meals merging into one, it didn’t matter much anyway, since the rain kept them confined, unable to go anywhere. The soldiers Lu and Qian definitely wouldn’t be able to return today, so they decided to stay another day. If the weather cleared up tomorrow, they could hand over Xiao Bo Luo and his group to the authorities in Jining, and the journey would be completed.
Sun Guocheng had something weighing on his mind. Today was his brother’s birthday, and Sun Guolu was probably no longer alive. Sun Guocheng wanted to find a restaurant, have a few dishes in memory of his brother, and raise a toast or two. Privately, he confided in Xie Pingyao, expressing his desire to take a break for a while. Since Lu and Qian were around, Xiao Bo Luo would be safe. Xie Pingyao suggested they hold the ceremony on the boat. Sun Guocheng didn’t want to disturb everyone; besides, birthdays were considered inauspicious, and the farther away from the boat, the better. Xie Pingyao agreed and handed over some money, asking Sun Guocheng to express his and Xiao Bo Luo’s regards on his behalf.
After a simple lunch, Sun Guocheng tried to leave the boat, but the heavy rain blocked his way. The boat began to rock violently, buffeted by strong winds and thunderstorms. They initially retreated to their respective cabins for safety but eventually gathered together naturally. Such extreme weather was rare, and their fear only eased when they could see each other’s faces. The darkness was so intense it felt like midnight, and flashes of lightning were the only reminders that it was still daytime. Sun Guocheng cracked open a window slightly, allowing glimpses of the white and blue lightning streaking down from the sky. The white resembled a suddenly forked long sword, while the blue resembled the tangled roots of a tree, both seizing half of the sky. The wind and rain sliced through the crack in the window like a blade, sending a sudden chill across Sun Guocheng’s face.
The boat continued to toss and turn. With each gust of wind, it shook from masthead to keel, as if the wind wanted to tear it apart. Xiao Bo Luo hugged his tea bowl tightly to prevent it from sliding off the table, and with each clap of thunder, he felt the bowl vibrating in his arms. The wind pushed the boat sideways, pressing it tightly against the wooden railing of the dock.
The storm was so fierce that the Chen family initially worried about damage to the boat, but later, they were overtaken by another fear and a sense of isolation. In this world of flashing lightning, roaring thunder, and relentless rain, they began to feel as if they were stranded on a deserted island, where upon opening the door, they wouldn’t see an eleventh person and couldn’t return to the bustling, prosperous world they once knew.
The least fearful among them was not Madam Chen, but Shao Changlai. He couldn’t help but complain to Old Chen for not mooring the boat at the bustling main dock. However, once the storm subsided, he promptly apologized to Old Chen, grateful they had chosen this spacious smaller dock; the boats at the main dock were too crowded, leading to collisions, and half of them were damaged.
As the strong winds subsided, it was nearing evening, and the boat finally settled down, with the thunder and lightning also calming down. The sky gradually brightened, returning to the cloudy evening it should have been. The rain had lessened a bit but was still falling. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a weight lifted off their chests. Sun Guocheng opened his oil-paper umbrella and stepped onto the shore.
He planned to first burn a couple of paper offerings at the entrance of an abandoned granary for his brother, then check if the small restaurant called “Meeting by Chance” was still there. He and his brother had dined there last year. If it was still open, he would order some dishes his brother loved, get a pot of wine, and bid farewell to his brother. The granary was also a place where the brothers had stayed. Jining was one of the most important transit stations for canal transportation, and the canal was dotted with granaries of all sizes. The large ones were government-owned, storing canal grain, while the small ones were mostly private, buying and selling grain for a profit.
Last year, the two brothers had followed a group of brethren from Dongping, running around Jining to join the main force of the Boxers. They had stayed in an abandoned granary not far from Taibai Tower for about ten days. Besides recuperating and waiting for opportunities, they also recruited some wandering martial brothers from various places who had gathered here, significantly increasing their numbers. Then, the brothers headed north together, passing through Zhili Province to Tianjin and finally making their way to Beijing.
Due to the heavy rain, the water level of the canal surged, with waves climbing up the embankment, splashing onto the feet with every bigger wave. The riverbank was muddy and messy. Sun Guocheng bought ten paper offerings from a funeral shop and held them close to his chest as he walked straight to the granary. There were a few more shops along the road compared to last year, and Jining was slowly recovering from the severe drought and famine.
The “Full of Sesame Pancakes” shop had just taken out a new batch of pancakes, and the aroma of the pancakes wafted through the wet streets, reaching Sun Guocheng’s nose. Last year, as he and his brother passed by here, with empty stomachs, Sun Guocheng bought three, his brother had one, and he had devoured the remaining two after licking off the sesame seeds that fell into his palm. Sun Guocheng bought another three across the street this time. This time, he would give two to his brother and only have one for himself.
The granary remained, abandoned as ever. Its decrepit half-door hung askew on its frame, and inside, the darkness enveloped everything. The musty smell of dampness wafted from within, thick and sticky. If not for the sound of rain, Sun Guocheng would have surely heard the playful scampering of rats echoing dimly from within the gloomy granary. There were cockroaches and countless other damp-loving insects too. Sun Guocheng lit a fire under the locust tree near the granary, its canopy shielding him from the rain.
The flames from the ten paper offerings were quite spectacular, leaping toward the canopy above. The dampened paper emitted a substantial amount of smoke, causing Sun Guocheng to sniffle, tear up, and cough. Amidst his coughing fits, he also heard unfamiliar coughs approaching from behind. Soon enough, footsteps splashed through the muddy water, closing in. It was a tall, burly young man, without an umbrella or straw hat.
“Who are you, setting fire to paper offerings in this place? Did you mistake it for a graveyard?” the young man grumbled with a scowl.
Sun Guocheng ignored him.
“Hey, I’m talking to you!” the young man said, stepping on a few unburned paper offerings.
Sun Guocheng seized the man’s ankle and with a tug, sent him sprawling into the mud.
“Zhang Shu! Zhang Shu! Uncle Shu!” the young man shouted from the ground. “Someone’s causing trouble! Someone’s causing trouble!”
Sun Guocheng thought, *This kid has a Shandong accent. How does he know the slang from Northeast China?* In Beijing, he knew a few Northeasterners from the boxing community who referred to “causing trouble” as “farting around.”
Two men emerged from the dark granary, coughing and shouting, “What’s going on, Niuzi? Has the sky fallen?”
Niuzi scrambled to his feet and pointed at Sun Guocheng. “He’s burning paper offerings on our turf! And he hit me!”
Still crouching, Sun Guocheng picked at the fire paper with a stick he found by the roadside, addressing the men behind him, “It’s my elder brother’s birthday. I apologize for any offense. Please forgive me.”
“One person remarked, ‘Your brother’s birthday, yet you’re burning paper?'”
“My elder brother’s life was cut short. He’s no longer with us.”
“When someone dies, it’s a big deal. You burn first, then talk.”
“Uncle Zhang, he hit me!”
“Shut up!” Zhang Shu commanded. “Go change into clean clothes.”
Sun Guocheng didn’t rise or lift his head until he finished burning all the paper offerings. The young man stomped off to change his clothes. Zhang Shu and Shuanmu stood in the rain-soaked ground behind Sun Guocheng, holding their arms, until he burned all the paper offerings. Sun Guocheng knelt before a pile of ashes and said, “Brother, may you rest in peace, Process sends you off!” Then he stood up.
“You—” Zhang Shu’s voice. He wiped some rain off his face, walked up to the locust tree, pointed at Sun Guocheng, and then at himself. “Who do you see?”
Sun Guocheng approached to see the dark face, and exclaimed, “Old—Zhang Qun!”
Zhang Qun grinned, spread his arms, and hugged Sun Guocheng. “As soon as I saw this short-sleeved coarse cloth undershirt, I guessed it might be you.” After the hug, Zhang Qun asked, “Brother? Is he the one we met on the road?”
Sun Guocheng nodded.
“My condolences.” Zhang Qun patted Sun Guocheng’s arm and pulled him towards the granary. “Niuzi, light the lamp! Brother, don’t mind my rough language. In this world, being alive is damn worse than being dead. Look at me, every day I wake up having to scrounge for food, barely hanging on. If the weather’s good, it’s alright, we’ve got strength. But when this damned world throws you a curveball, all you can do is huddle in a corner and starve. This is Shuanmu, a fellow from Teng County, and Niuzi, all from nearby villages. This is Process, Sun Guocheng, the one I told you about, Process, and his brother. The process here is a real fighter. As for us, whenever a bunch of people gang up, we just have to roll out as far as we can.”
Niuzi lit the lamp, casting a crooked sprout-sized flame, illuminating only one corner of the entire granary’s southwestern section. They lived huddled against the southwest wall, their bedding strewn haphazardly over sun-dried reeds and thatch. When Sun Guocheng and his brother lived in this granary last year, they too resided in that corner. It was also in that corner they first met Zhang Qun. Old Zhang Qun hailed from Teng County, fleeing his home after stealing half a bag of flour from a wealthy household. Caught in the act, he was mercilessly beaten by the landlord’s son and his men.
In the struggle, he managed to land a kick between the legs of the landlord’s son, crippling him below the waist, and had to flee. Like Sun Guocheng and his brother, he ended up in Jining, hoping to make a living through the Yihe Boxing. They lived together in this abandoned granary, then traveled together, eventually reaching Beijing. They initially fought alongside the imperial army, then against foreigners, with the empire’s backing. By late August or early September, the empire suddenly turned against them. Luckily, they sensed the impending danger and fled.
When the empress dowager ordered the suppression of the Boxers, they had already left Beijing heading south. However, fearing repercussions for their involvement in the Boxer movement, they dared not return home. According to Shuanmu and Niuzi, the landlord’s son was truly incapacitated, and even his wife had not conceived. Zhang Qun met Shuanmu and Niuzi in a boat-pulling team, fellow villagers, and brought them to this free lodging.
They sat on the bed emitting a greasy, sweaty smell, reminiscing about their past brothers. Some had returned to their hometowns, leading peaceful lives farming, doing business, marrying, and having children. Others had ventured far, like Sun Guocheng and his brother. Still, others were homeless, drifting aimlessly, like old Zhang Qun; this latter group was not inconsiderable. Zhang Qun mentioned that in their squad, at least twenty brothers were making ends meet in Jining.
Most had no regular jobs; they did whatever they could to survive. There were six or seven of them pulling ropes, carrying heavy loads, loading and unloading ships; if Sun Guocheng wanted to see them, a bag of tobacco would suffice. Sun Guocheng declined for now, citing other matters. Only then did old Zhang Qun inquire about Sun Guocheng’s current whereabouts, his purpose in coming to Jining, and the death of Sun Guolu.
Regarding his brother’s death, Sun Guocheng merely mentioned it was an accident, avoiding unnecessary details. As for escorting Xiao Boluo northward, he briefly recounted the journey, mainly complaining about encountering a storm and being forced to dock at a small pier.
“It’s us who should complain,” Zhang Qun exclaimed, sweeping all the boatmen along the Jining section of the canal into his embrace. “When the rain pours and the water rises, our pulling ropes snap. You boatmen have it easy; without this rain, you’d have to carry your boats barefooted through the Nanwang section.” He then snapped back to reality. “How did you end up with a foreign woman? Brother, have you forgotten why we went to Beijing last time?”
“It’s not ‘end up with’! It’s guarding. Foreigners can be good or bad.”
“It’s all the same. A foreigner is a foreigner, no matter how good they seem!”
Shuanmu chimed in, “Uncle, foreigners are also human beings. As long as there’s money to be made.”
Niuzi also added, “Can you make a lot of money?”
“Even if you make a lot of money, it belongs to someone else, what does it have to do with me?”
“Brother,” Zhang Qun reached for an old tobacco pouch from the bedside, using his thumb to press tobacco into the pipe bowl. Sun Guocheng had been trying to figure out what other smell lingered in this corner besides the greasy, sour odor. Now he realized: a strong scent of stale tobacco. Zhang Qun was always a heavy smoker; even on the battlefield, he would find time to light a cigarette. If he couldn’t spare the time and energy, he would stuff an empty pipe with tobacco and chew on the jade mouthpiece. The aged tobacco aroma inside the pipe stem could suffice for a while. He lit up under the lamp, and two thick plumes of smoke billowed from his nostrils. “Have you thought about our brothers who died under foreign guns?”
“Old brother, it’s different.”
“No, life and death are one and the same.”
Niuzi interjected again, “Sun Brother, did you make a lot of money?”
“Shut up!” Old Zhang Qun snapped at Niuzi, his anger revealing his blackened teeth. “If he couldn’t make money, would he cling to the waists of foreign devils like a rubber band? Go to sleep!” Niuzi smirked and slumped onto his tattered bedding.
Sun Guocheng knew there was no point in continuing the conversation. He stood up and said, “Sorry, I have something to attend to. I’ll take my leave.”
“Alright then, I won’t hold you up with your important matters,” Zhang Qun said, sitting on the floor bedding, not budging. He shook his single garment draped over his shoulders and continued puffing on his tobacco pipe. “Take care. Come by again when you have time. I’ll gather the brothers for a get-together. My shoulder’s acting up, so I won’t see you out.”
Sun Guocheng left the granary. The rain was still falling, and the night was pitch black. The cool air filled his lungs, making his whole body feel lighter. He opened his umbrella and took the dark path to “Happy Reunion.”
“Happy Reunion” was still in its old spot. The owner, who had six fingers on his left hand, still remembered Sun Guocheng. Back when he and his brother first came to Jining, it was the worst period in the restaurant’s history. Natural disasters and man-made troubles had made it hard for anyone to find food, and they hadn’t had a single customer for two days. The owner had told his wife that if they didn’t get any business that day, he would close up shop. That very night, Sun Guocheng and his brother showed up. They were the only customers.
“Where’s your brother?” the owner asked.
Sun Guocheng pointed to the sky.
The owner pressed his five-fingered right hand heavily on Sun Guocheng’s shoulder, not saying a word of condolence. In these times, a death was as commonplace as making a dish; even saying “condolences” was too formal. But he told the waiter, “Half of this brother’s bill is on me.”
With the dishes and wine served, Sun Guocheng filled a glass for his brother. Clinking his glass for the first toast, Sun Guocheng said, “Brother, today is your birthday. I’ll drink more for you.” He placed a piece of braised donkey meat on the empty plate opposite him. “Brother, today is your birthday, I’ll eat more for you too. You should eat too.” Clinking the glass again, he placed a chopstick full of stir-fried eggs with green peppers onto Sun Guolu’s plate. He drank and toasted with his invisible brother, making sure the ghostly presence sampled the fried peanuts, shredded fish, and braised gluten. “Brother, it’s a long journey back home. You must eat your fill.”
The last time they sat in this restaurant, his brother had let him have two-thirds of the food. This time, Sun Guocheng left two-thirds of the dishes for his brother. As his brother’s plate piled up, he asked the waiter for another empty plate.
That night, they made a significant decision: whether to head north. Despite being with their Dadao Hui brothers, where the minority followed the majority’s decision to head north to kill foreigners, Sun Guolu was still hesitant. Firstly, the journey north was long, and secondly, Shandong’s governor, Yuan Shikai, strictly limited the activities of the Yihe Boxers, shrinking their space. Following the group meant heading north; otherwise, they would have to leave the organization. Sun Guolu told his brother, “I am a farmer; I really don’t want to fight and kill.” His brother responded, “If you don’t kill others, they’ll come to kill you. Can you continue farming then?” Finally, Sun Guolu raised his cup, clinked it with his brother’s, and said:
“Alright, then for the sake of not being killed. Let’s do it!”
Sun Guolu was a decisive person. Once he made a decision, he rarely changed it. In the group, his skills were not the best but also not the worst. They relied on their youth and strength, as well as various mystical rituals to bolster their courage. It had to be admitted that those mysterious ceremonies indeed intimidated some people.
There was a notable figure, a disciple of Zhao Sanduo, who was reputed to have renamed Meihua Quan (Plum Blossom Boxing) to Yihe Quan. The brothers called him “Senior Brother,” and he was a Meihua Quan expert who had mastered the magical “Golden Bell Shield,” supposedly rendering him invulnerable to blades and bullets.
The first time Sun Guocheng and his brother saw Senior Brother perform, they were utterly stunned. He had a warm, soft belly with sparse chest and stomach hair, yet a ghost-head knife left only a white mark and a few fallen hairs when struck. A spear bounced back from his stomach without leaving a dent. Most astonishing was the foreign gun: a bullet that could pierce a large tree just curved away when it hit his stomach.
Everyone bowed in reverence; if this wasn’t divine intervention, what was? This wasn’t “God’s Assistance Boxing,” what was it? Following the disciples of Senior Brother, the small senior brothers, they knelt, burned incense, and performed rituals before the altars of Guan Gong, Guan Ping, and Zhou Cang, drawing strange circles on the ground and chanting bizarre incantations.
Sun Guocheng had listened carefully to the surrounding chants and realized that everyone recited different things. Some chanted “Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, reveal the foreign devils’ true forms,” “Supreme Lord Lao, by your decree,” while others recited “The second son of the Tian family from the second row of houses in Lujiazhuang is here, all who have grudges against me or whom I despise will die,” or repeatedly “Divine power possesses, invincible,” “Invulnerable to blades and bullets, vanquish foreigners and cleanse Qing.” The brothers were thoroughly bewitched by these “protective divine techniques,” convinced that their mission would succeed.
Sun Guolu was especially inspired. With the “Golden Bell Shield” and “Iron Cloth” techniques, enemy blades and bullets would seemingly avoid you, making martial skills less critical. In other words, with the magical rituals and chants, everyone became a master, a divine warrior. What was there to worry about? “Let’s go!” he said to his brother, waving his hand.
After all the migrations and battles, during an attack on a foreign stronghold in Beijing, Sun Guolu’s devout rituals and incantations failed him. First, a bullet struck his left arm, and then, after a foreign guard ran out of bullets, he seized a knife from a fallen Boxer and swung it, severing Sun Guolu’s left arm clean from the shoulder. The foreigner was brutal, as the arm was chopped off with a single, precise stroke. On the battlefield, it’s kill or be killed, but Sun Guocheng still thought the foreigner was excessively cruel for chopping off his brother’s arm.
It was fortunate it was his left arm; had it been the right, both arms might have been useless. Sun Guolu passed out from the pain, which might have saved him. Few Boxers survived that battle; Sun Guolu was buried under the body of a fallen comrade, which spared him from being stabbed to death. After the fight, Sun Guocheng found his brother among the dead. Sun Guolu had lost so much blood that he barely survived. He felt as if he were already dead, floating lazily and warmly as if wrapped in soft sunlight on his way to the afterlife.
His sense of warmth puzzled him, as the underworld was said to be cold. This feeling of death left his surviving brothers astonished, suspecting he was faking death to find an excuse. A Boxer with some medical knowledge vouched for him, saying he wasn’t faking but was still in a daze from blood loss. Sun Guolu was carried out of the pile of corpses by his brother, narrowly escaping death.
Now, as Sun Guocheng sat in “Happy Reunion” at their old spot, he hoped his brother still felt that comforting warmth on his journey in the afterlife. Being wrapped in sunlight was so important.
He was the last customer to leave before closing. He should have returned earlier, but he lingered for a long time. Saying goodbye to the owner, he stepped out and opened his umbrella. Except for a few scattered lights, Jining was shrouded in a pitch-black, rainy night. The streets were muddy. As he walked to the small dock, he saw all the lights on the houseboat lit up from a distance and knew something had gone wrong. He broke into a run, his already soaked cloth shoes splashing mud onto his back and the umbrella’s top.
Before boarding the boat, Sun Guocheng heard Xiao Boluo’s muffled groans. He jumped onto the boat, causing it to shake. A man standing on the deck shouted, “Easy, they’re performing surgery!” Soldier Qian stood on one side of the deck, wearing a conical hat.
“What happened?” Sun Guocheng asked.
“River bandits attacked. The foreign gentleman was stabbed.”
Sun Guocheng rushed to Xiao Boluo’s room. A group of people surrounded the bed. Xiao Boluo lay on the bed, his belly mostly exposed, with a deep, finger-width gash across it, resembling an exaggerated smile stretching to his ears. The wound, a mix of flesh, yellow fat, and red blood, oozed blood that flowed to the sides of his abdomen. Xiao Boluo’s belly was covered in even denser body hair than Da Shixiong’s, now matted and clumped together in wet, bloody tufts. He bit the rolled-up hem of his nightshirt, groaning in pain. The cut had also slashed through his nightshirt, now bunched around his neck, making it seem as if his neck had been cut at first glance.
Xie Pingyao was pinching the webbing between Xiao Boluo’s thumbs and index fingers, supposedly to alleviate the pain. Old Chen was using a new fishing net shuttle to clean the wound, tasked with picking the body hair out of the cut and smearing ink paste along the edges to stop the bleeding and prevent infection. Shao Changlai was tending a coal stove with boiling water, in which two sewing needles and a ball of thread were tumbling. Granny Chen sat on a stool, legs together, eyes closed, hands clasped, and trembling, muttering incoherently. Her job was to sew up Xiao Boluo’s wound like mending clothes, but she was terrified by the long gash on his belly. She was praying for strength, feeling so weak from her arms to her fingers that she could hardly hold a needle.
“I’ll go find a doctor,” Sun Guocheng said.
“Xiao Lu has already gone,” Xie Pingyao replied.
“Who did this?” Sun Guocheng asked.
“Xiao Lu and Xiao Qian said it must be river pirates,” Xie Pingyao said, alternating between shaking his hands. He always pinched the tiger’s mouth on Xiao Boluo with his index finger and thumb, making his fingers stiff. “Open attacks are easy to avoid; hidden ones are hard to guard against. There’s nothing we can do.” Xie Pingyao said this to comfort Sun Guocheng, implying that even if he had been there, this would have happened anyway. It’s not the fear of thieves stealing but the fear of them targeting you.
Sun Guocheng still blamed himself; it was indeed a dereliction of duty. He vaguely regretted coming back late. Why did he come back so late? “River pirates,” he stammered, “did you see their faces?”
“They were masked,” Old Chen interjected, without pausing the shuttle in his hands. At that time, he had just lain down; after a busy day, his back ached, and his rheumatism flared up. He wanted to lie down flat to relieve the pain. If not for the all-encompassing sound of the rain and the raindrops hitting the boat, he could have heard the river pirates’ boat slicing through the water and identified the slight rocking of the houseboat as an intruder.
But who would have thought there would be river pirates on such a rainy night? By the time he heard the commotion, he slapped himself: it was precisely on a rainy night that he should have been more vigilant. He had lived on the water for thirty-eight years and had seen all kinds of river pirates. This rainy night, he had been careless. He had to admit that age was catching up with him; after battling the storm all day, he was indeed tired, and his mind was sluggish. “Three people, armed.”
Three people. Sun Guocheng’s heart skipped a beat, as if he’d been punched unexpectedly.
Xiao Boluo released the pajamas from its mouth and babbled a bunch of words.
Xie Pingyao asked Shao Changlai to find the old pipe left by Lao Xia on Xiao Boluo’s box. Xie Pingyao said, “Mr. Dimak smelled a strong old smoke oil scent on the man who held a knife to his neck. He said it was particularly fragrant. Now he really wants a puff from the old pipe.”
Sun Guocheng’s heart skipped another beat. This time, there was no invisible punch. The truth landed like a stone falling to the ground. Didn’t he calculate the time when he held his wine glass at “Happy Reunion”? But he didn’t want to admit it then, so he told himself to pour a few more drinks for his brother to let his brother’s spirit rest in peace.
While he was commemorating his brother with a table full of dishes and drinks, three men were out in the pouring rain, “avenging” his brother in the dark night. Two men, armed with knives, boarded the boat directly from the pier. They knew the layout well, and the houseboat at the small pier stood out like a donkey among sheep amidst the scattered boats. Xiao Boluo had lit a lamp, jotting down things he thought were worth noting.
The others had lain down; even if they weren’t asleep, they wouldn’t know that three men were approaching them in the rainy night. Two lightly equipped men jumped onto the boat, while one paddled a small boat to hide in the shadow of the houseboat. Before this, the two men on the pier had silently untied the mooring rope of the covered boat next to the houseboat. Their accomplice in the small boat pulled it toward the wider waters, letting it drift with the waves and wind. Two young men, snoring loudly, slept on the covered boat.
During the whole process, they spoke only three sentences, a total of four words.
The first sentence, two words: “Don’t move.” The two men who boarded the boat licked the newly glued window paper and saw Xiao Boluo writing furiously under the lamp. They exchanged glances. One almost lifted the door handle to open the door, minimizing the noise of the door hinge. Good, it was a new boat, in its third year on the canal. To prevent rot in the damp conditions, the door hinges had just been oiled. As the masked leader placed the knife to Xiao Boluo’s neck from behind, he whispered, “Don’t move!”
Xiao Boluo didn’t understand these two words, but he knew exactly what they meant. The cold steel on his neck made him realize his luck had run out. After bad weather came human disaster. He obediently raised his hands. The man behind him spoke the second sentence, one word: “Search!” His voice was so low that only the three present could hear it. Xie Pingyao, lying in the bed next door, didn’t hear a thing.
Before grabbing his notebook, Xiao Boluo had already unlocked the box, so the masked man found two whole silver ingots and a handful of small silver pieces, plus a few dozen copper coins without any effort. If the camera hadn’t been so heavy, they would have taken it too, even though they had no idea what it was for. Following the leader’s signal, another masked man pocketed Xiao Boluo’s Parker pen and gathered a bunch of small items. It didn’t matter if they were valuable; anything unfamiliar was good loot.
Xiao Boluo allowed them to rob him until they grabbed the cane. All the valuable items were already in the masked man’s pockets, except for a small box hidden under the bed, which could only be retrieved by moving the bed. It was hidden in such a way that Xiao Boluo would need to leave his seat, lie flat on the floor, and look under the bed to see it. But the masked man saw the cane and, more precisely, the ivory handle. He wasn’t sure if it was real ivory, but it looked valuable and he wanted it. He tried to unscrew the handle, but when he couldn’t, he tucked the whole cane under his arm, intending to take it with him.
The sight of the cane spurred Xiao Boluo into action. He kicked over the incense burner by his feet. The heavy rain had kept the mosquitoes outside, and the burner was empty, but the sound of it rolling distracted the masked man behind him, causing the knife blade to shift. Xiao Boluo seized the opportunity to pull his neck away, grab the stool with his right hand, and swing it at the masked man. As the masked man stepped back to avoid the stool, Xiao Boluo used his left hand to retrieve a revolver from under the pillow, switching it between his hands.
The stool now between them, he saw both masked men holding knives, pointed at him. Just as he was about to fire, both knives moved simultaneously: one slashed the stool, and the other swept under it, grazing his stomach. The shot went wide, not because of the wound, but because the falling stool threw him off balance, causing the bullet to miss. He only felt a cold line across his belly, like being cut by ice. Then he felt a deeper chill, as if a small, cold breeze was blowing solely on his wound. Losing his balance, he landed on the bed, the pain from his stomach folding over. He instinctively touched the wound, feeling the sticky wetness, and only then did the real pain set in.
As he glanced down at his wound, the two masked men rushed out of the cabin. He heard their hurried footsteps, stopping and starting again. During a brief pause, the masked man who had already spoken three words uttered a fourth, his third sentence:
“Go!”
He then heard a splash as something heavy hit the rain-soaked deck.
The rolling incense burner woke Xie Pingyao. At first, he thought it was just a slip in the neighboring cabin. But when he heard the sounds of fighting and a gunshot, he realized something serious was happening. He pounded on the wall of his cabin, alerting both Xiao Boluo and Shao Changlai on either side. They all sprang into action. In fact, the gunshot woke everyone. They scrambled to find their clothes and shoes in the dark. Soldiers Lu and Qian simultaneously sat up from their makeshift beds. Upon exiting the cabin, they saw the boat had drifted twenty zhang (about 66 meters) away from the houseboat. Rowing back would be too slow, so they both jumped into the canal.
Once on board, Soldier Qian said that while swimming, he felt like he was in two different rivers—his upper body in one current, and his lower body in another, faster one, propelling his legs to move quicker.
Soldier Lu swam toward the shore to chase the two shadows fleeing through the muddy ground, with Da Chen joining the pursuit. Soldier Qian swam after the escaping small boat. The shadow on the boat was desperately paddling, but the boat wasn’t gaining speed. As Soldier Qian got closer, the shadow panicked, losing all rhythm in his paddling, and the boat spun in circles. Finally, the shadow decided to abandon the boat. It was too small; as he clumsily slipped into the water, the boat tipped over with a wave. He kicked the overturned boat towards Soldier Qian, using the momentum to distance himself. Soldier Qian, forced to dodge the incoming boat, was diverted off course, increasing the gap between him and the shadow.
The chase was unsuccessful. Soldiers Lu and Qian, along with Da Chen, returned to the houseboat drenched. The others gathered in Xiao Boluo’s cabin, where they began to clean his wound. Xie Pingyao asked if they had found anything else, but the three men shook their heads. On such a dark and rainy night, it was impossible to find any clues, let alone a few individuals. Soldier Lu had some information but kept it to himself, not wanting to agitate the already severely injured foreigner.
If he hadn’t misheard the faint cries from the unseen darkness amidst the wind, rain, and splashing mud, he could confidently tell Sun Guocheng that he heard the words: “Avenge the fallen brothers!” Later that night, after summoning a doctor, he told Sun Guocheng that he thought he heard someone shout those words. He emphasized, “seems liked.” Sun Guocheng acknowledged it with a hum. “Seems Liked” didn’t carry much weight.
Old Xia’s tobacco pouch was brought over, but Old Chen disagreed with Xiao Boluo’s smoking. Even though it was fragrant, he had to endure it as they were about to start suturing the wound. The doctor whom Soldier Lu went to fetch hadn’t arrived yet, but they couldn’t leave the wound open. They decided to sew up as much as they could. Old Granny Chen took up the needle, intending to approach the foreigner’s wound in the manner of a seamstress.
Her old eyes were sensitive to smoke; they would water if exposed to it, affecting the quality of her stitching. Xiao Boluo had no choice but to refrain from smoking. However, he requested to hold the stem of the pipe to inhale the lingering aroma of tobacco oil from years past. Old Chen agreed. Xiao Boluo chewed on the jade pipe stem and sucked a few times, then released it from his mouth. Despite the pain contorting his features, he couldn’t help but exclaim, “Fragrant! Damn, fragrant!”
With the wound cleaned, the suturing began. Besides her family members, Old Granny Chen had never been this close to a man’s belly in her life. The whiteness of the man’s belly made his thick black body hair even more prominent. Despite being nearly fifty, she still felt somewhat embarrassed. But that wasn’t important; what mattered was that Xiao Boluo’s belly was too thick. No matter how hard she pressed with the scalding needle, she couldn’t pierce through the taut skin.
The needle was too short to apply force, and every time it pricked his flesh, Xiao Boluo cried out in pain, his body writhing and squirming, making it impossible for Old Granny Chen to proceed. Old Chen called on Da Chen, Xiao Chen, and Sun Guocheng for help, to hold down Xiao Boluo’s limbs, while Xie Pingyao remained flexible, responsible for handing him the tobacco pouch, keeping him company, and offering a towel if needed. Pointing with his chin at Shao Changlai, he said, “You.”
Shao Changlai shook his head in fear, “Big Brother, spare me. The biggest creature I’ve ever killed in my life is a chicken; I’ve never even killed a duck.”
“Mr. Foreigner is a human, not an animal.”
“I know, I know.”
“I’m not asking you to kill. I’m asking you to save.”
“Saving someone is scarier than killing.”
“Your knife skills are good; you slice potato strips finer than vermicelli. Sewing can’t be much different. Just close your eyes and stitch as if you’re chopping vegetables.”
“But, Big Brother, this isn’t chopping vegetables. If I close my eyes to chop, Mr. Foreigner wouldn’t agree.”
“Forget it; I’ll do it. Think of it as mending fishing nets.”
Shao Changlai took over from Old Chen to hold down Xiao Boluo’s left leg, while Old Granny Chen sat down to prepare the needle and thread, and Old Chen started sewing.
The needle struggled to penetrate the thick skin. Old Chen wiped his sweat and said, “Italians truly live a good life. Our bellies are as thin as paper, but yours is as thick as a book.”
Xiao Boluo groaned, “What did Old Chen say?”
“Old Chen said,” Xie Pingyao had just lit a cigarette for him, since Old Granny Chen wasn’t doing the stitching anyway, “Looking at your belly, one can tell you’re a fortunate man. Good fortune comes to those who are virtuous; you’ll be fine soon.”
Xiao Boluo took a deep breath, letting the smoke slowly escape from his mouth. Every time a needle pierced his belly, he shuddered as if his body were a block of tofu being vigorously shaken. With each tremor, the golden fat under his skin seemed to spill a little more from the wound. When the cigarette was finished, he said, “My cane! You must help me find my cane!” He hadn’t forgotten. When Xie Pingyao and the others rushed into his cabin, Xiao Boluo’s first words were, “My cane! They took away my cane!” After repeating it five times, he finally said, “Save me, I might die.”
During their pursuit of the river bandits, they found no trace of the discarded cane along the way. The cane had been taken by them.
Sun Guocheng said, “As soon as it’s light, I’ll go out and search.”
Da Chen said, “These river bandits are too brazen. We should report them to the authorities. Round them up and execute them!”
Shao Changlai also said, “That’s right, report them!”
With half the wound stitched up, the belly looked like a strange half-open mouth. Soldier Lu had brought the doctor. He had inquired about the doctor from the pharmacy. An old man accompanied by a young man in his twenties. The old man was first dragged out of bed by Soldier Lu and then dragged all the way here, grumbling all the while. When he entered the cabin, he didn’t even bother to look where the patient was; he just took off his glasses and leisurely asked:
“Still alive, I presume?”
Old Chen, relieved as if granted a reprieve, quickly set down the needle. Xiao Boluo broke out in a cold sweat; he was sweating more than Xiao Boluo himself. “Alive, alive, half stitched up. Doctor, would you mind taking a look if it’s appropriate?”
His disciple exclaimed, “Oh, this isn’t stitching a wound, you’re weaving a fishing net!”
“The young sir has keen eyes,” Old Chen said apologetically as he wiped the blood off his hands onto his clothes. “I just stitched it the way I usually mend nets.”
The disciple asked, “Master, should we redo it?”
“Is there even a question? The stitches are two miles apart. If we don’t redo it, what shall we do? Remove them.”
The disciple deftly opened the portable medical kit he had brought with him on the table and took out a pair of jet-black scissors.
Xiao Boluo asked, “What’s he going to do?”
Xie Pingyao said, “Cut, then restitch.”
Xiao Boluo exclaimed, “Oh, my God!”
The disciple asked, “What did he say?”
Xie Pingyao said, “He’s thanking you, saying the doctor is like a god.”
“Stop talking to me about those foreign gadgets!” The old doctor sat on Xiao Boluo’s stool, crossed his legs, and dusted off the muddy hem of his robe, tugging at his salt-and-pepper goatee. “Tell him not to move around. What’s he straightening up for? Is it hurting? Tough it out! If the stitches aren’t tight enough, one cough and they’ll pop open, intestines could come spilling out, it’s not impossible.”
The disciple cut all the threads in the middle and pulled out each strand directly from the wound, causing Xiao Boluo to clap his buttocks against the bedboard from the pain. The disciple slapped Xiao Boluo’s thigh, “We haven’t even started stitching yet!”
Xie Pingyao stuffed the jade pipe mouthpiece into Xiao Boluo’s mouth. Tears streamed down Xiao Boluo’s face from the pain, but he understood the need for restitching, so he didn’t make another sound. His sudden silence made the old doctor feel sorry for him. He said to his disciple, “Give him some. Foreigners are also human.”
The disciple cleaned up the thread ends, re-cleaned and disinfected the wound, then took out a box from the medical kit, poured out a piece of dark substance about the size of a thumb, and handed it to Xie Pingyao, instructing him to have Xiao Boluo chew and swallow it.
“What medicine is this?” Xie Pingyao asked.
“Pain relief ointment.”
Xie Pingyao immediately understood it was opium paste.
Sure enough, it worked. Xiao Boluo gradually calmed down, and as the disciple stitched meticulously, his features returned to their proper positions. The old doctor sat on the stool and dictated two prescriptions, which the disciple recorded and copied for Xie Pingyao to pick up from the pharmacy tomorrow. Six doses, three for the first three days and three for the next three. Bed rest, quiet, and light eating. Absolutely no movement. With the weather heating up, if the wound were to crack and become infected, it would be troublesome, and could even be fatal.
“Can we continue our journey?” Xie Pingyao asked.
“As long as there’s no shaking, it’s fine.”
“Anything else?”
“No patient is as delicate as this one. There’s nothing else.”
Xie Pingyao paid the doctor’s fee, which was four times that of a regular physician. The old doctor explained that the extra three portions were for his late-night call-out fee, the rainy-night travel fee, and his disciple’s head fee. He had already reduced the fee by a significant amount; in the past, when foreigners sought medical treatment, an additional fee was usually charged. The opium paste was considered a complimentary gift.
All right, Xie Pingyao thanked the master and disciple on behalf of Xiao Boluo and asked Soldier Qian to escort the two of them home. Soldier Lu took a rest, catching his breath.
That night, the rain continued to pour. Sun Guocheng stayed by Xiaoboluo’s bedside throughout the latter half of the night. Filled with guilt, he kept his eyes open while Xiaoboluo slept. Whenever Xiaoboluo woke up in pain, the effects of the opium paste would have worn off, so Sun would light his old tobacco pipe and take a few puffs. He reminded Xiaoboluo not to move, to prevent his wound from being accidentally touched.
Sun came up with a solution by removing two slats from the bunk shared by him and Shao Changlai and using them to prop up a stool over Xiaoboluo’s abdomen. Placing a quilt over the stool, it formed a makeshift tent over Xiaoboluo’s wound, keeping him both warm and protected from mosquitoes. During the period of deep sleep, Xiaoboluo talked in his sleep twice, shouting, which frightened Sun Guocheng into waking up Xie Pingyao. Xie Pingyao listened and reassured Sun that it wasn’t a big issue; Xiaoboluo was just calling out for his cane.
With a sleepless night behind him, Sun Guocheng guessed the apothecary would soon open, so he went ashore to fetch the medicine after breakfast. Soldier Lu accompanied him, heading to the yamen to hand over their guard duties. Soldier Qian had to return to Nanyang. Though the sky remained overcast, the rain had stopped, and soon the sun would emerge from behind the heavy clouds.
Obtaining the prescribed herbs was no trouble. The apothecary’s assistant mentioned that the proportions of two of the herbs were a bit unusual but within the norm, as the old man always liked to add some unconventional ingredients to his regular prescriptions. Carrying six doses of medicine, Sun Guocheng made a detour to the abandoned granary. Lao Zhang Qun was lying on the bed with his feet raised, with a jar of wine, two garlic bulbs, and half a pound of pig’s head meat marinated in soy sauce on the floor. Seeing Sun Guocheng, he sat up and pointed at the food and drink with his chin, saying:
“Care for a drink or two? With pork, it’s always best to have some booze; makes the day pass easier.”
“What about those two?”
“They’ve fled.”
“Why did they run?”
“Fear of the authorities catching them. They’re still young.”
“Why didn’t you run?”
“I’m a lone ghost, where could I run to?”
“Aren’t you planning to skip town?”
“With you knocking on my door, what’s the point of skipping?”
“Should I report you to the officials?”
“You won’t. If you were, would I be enjoying this wine and meat?”
“You’ve put me in debt to him for half a life.”
“Why don’t you thank me for sparing him half his life?” Lao Zhang Qun poured himself another cup of wine, the sound of it going down his throat akin to a whistle. He kept his eyes fixed on the meat, leisurely picking up two pieces and tossing them into his mouth along with a clove of garlic, without even bothering to peel it. “He still owes my road-brother a life.”
Sun Guocheng squatted down. “Where’s the cane?”
“Lost.”
“Lost?”
“The damn bull capsized the boat, and it fell into the water. When I came back, I got a kick from Zhuangmu and he took the cane back to give to his grandfather.”
A wasted trip.
“Even if it hadn’t been lost, if I gave it to you, would you dare take it back?”
Sun Guocheng hugged his head. After half a bag of cigarettes, he stood up, carrying the Chinese medicine out of the granary. During the time of half a bag of cigarettes, the sound of Lao Zhang Qun drinking wine, the crunching of raw garlic, and the comfortable smacking of eating meat continued in the background. Lao Zhang Qun said:
“I’m not getting involved in getting rich-quick schemes. Later, I’ll round up a few old buddies and have a damn good drink. Are you coming? Tonight.”
Sun Guocheng was already walking towards the acacia tree. The ashes he had burned for Sun Guolu last night had vanished, washed away by the rain.
At noon, the sun suddenly emerged from behind the clouds, leaving a hole in the edge of the overcast sky. The sunlight hit, and sweat immediately broke out. Sun Guocheng had been looking for a suitable excuse to jump into the water. Four people walked over from the pier against the light. One was riding a tall horse, and three were walking alongside. Soldier Lu had brought officials from the Jining government. Which department the officials came from, Sun Guocheng couldn’t quite figure out. In his eyes, all officials dressed more or less the same.
The officials dismounted and wiped their sweat first. Their official robes were buttoned up to the neck, making them look hot. Shao Changlai brought tea to Xiaoboluo’s berth. Last night, six people could sit or lie down comfortably, but with the arrival of the officials, the space was now crowded with three people. His swaying official robes seemed to take up space for several people. Xiaoboluo lay on the bed, with a stool on his belly covered by a bedsheet, looking like a camel that had turned its head around. The officials first expressed sincere welcome and condolences on behalf of the higher-ups, then self-criticized the local security, vowing to apprehend the criminals, and finally discussed the itinerary for the upcoming tasks.
Xiaoboluo and his party had just set out from Nanyang when they received a telegram. Governor Yuan Shikai instructed them to ensure proper reception and security. They had prepared a detailed plan two days ago, which would allow Mr. Dimak to experience the charm of Jining, the city of the Grand Canal, to the fullest.
However, they were deeply saddened to learn that Mr. Dimak had been robbed and injured by criminals. Considering Mr. Dimak’s condition, they quickly formulated a more feasible temporary plan. That is, they should not stay in Jining for long and set sail within these two days. Recent heavy rainfall in the area for hundreds of miles had caused a rare rise in the water level of the canal, enabling smooth sailing. Even in the southern Wang area, where the water level had reached its highest level in recent years. Mr. Dimak, being a nobleman, had brought good fortune to our canal.
Without this sudden extensive rainfall, it would have taken hundreds of people to tow the boat through southern Wang, and the journey of three to five miles would have taken a whole day with constant stops. The difficulty of navigation and the time taken were not important. What mattered most was Mr. Dimak’s health. If they missed these days of high water levels, it would be extremely difficult to move forward with the wound, relying on towing the boat with ropes.
Therefore, after consulting relevant hydrological and medical experts, it was unanimously agreed that it was imperative to act quickly, as time was of the essence. Governor Yuan specially tasked me to discuss with Mr. Dimak and make an early decision. Of course, if we fail to fulfill the duties of hosts properly, we ask Mr. Dimak and everyone for forgiveness.
Xie Pingyao translated this for Xiaoboluo. Xiaoboluo said, “We should leave after lunch. Sooner rather than later.” Departing in the afternoon? Xie Pingyao was aware of the water level in the southern Wang area but still felt it was somewhat rushed.
The official gestured for his attendant to bring in a small wooden box from outside. Upon opening it, there were several silver notes and a small bag of scattered silver coins. “A token of appreciation from Governor Yu. Please accept it.”
They couldn’t leave without it; they had already prepared to see off the guests.
Xiaoboluo asked Xie Pingyao to convey his thanks but declined the silver coins. Xie Pingyao smirked, assuming the official wouldn’t understand, and said in English, “Why not accept? Turning it down would be just like this guy’s pockets.” Xiaoboluo wanted to grin, but his wound throbbed, so he quickly said, “OK.”
“Is this all settled then?” the official asked.
“That’s right,” Xie Pingyao said.
“Very good, very good. According to the orders from above, you’ll also be provided with two escorts, who will arrive shortly. You can start packing up; I’ll take my leave now.”
Xie Pingyao escorted the guest to the pier and watched him ride away with his entourage. Soldier Qian cheered loudly from the covered boat, praising Sun Guocheng’s swimming skills. The boat floated in the canal outside the pier, creating ripples in the water. Xie Pingyao felt like it had been a long time before Sun Guocheng emerged from about ten yards away from where the ripples were. Sun Guocheng took a deep breath, changed direction, and dived down again. Xiao Chen also stood at the edge of the houseboat watching; he couldn’t match Sun Guocheng’s swimming skills. What he envied even more was Sun Guocheng’s resistance to the cold. The sun was a bit hot, but it was still too early to swim in the fast-flowing canal, cooled by the recent rain.
Before lunch, Sun Guocheng finally climbed back onto the boat from the water. He had gained nothing; he didn’t know where the current had taken him. After changing his clothes and sitting down at the table, he sighed sadly, saying he had finally had a refreshing bath.
After lunch, two soldiers from the yamen arrived in a sailboat; the fat one was named Zhou, and the thin one was named Gu. Shao Changlai, who had gone out to buy groceries and daily necessities, returned to the boat with Da Chen. Everyone waved goodbye to Soldiers Lu and Qian. Lao Chen lit a string of firecrackers for blessings and to ward off evil spirits on the deck, then turned to his two sons and shouted, “Up!”
Xiaoboluo lay on the bed feeling somewhat regretful. Both of the most important cities along the Grand Canal, Huai’an and Jining, had slipped through their fingers by some twist of fate. He tried to sit up to look out the window, but any movement caused pain in his wound, so he had to lie back down. In his mind, besides wanting to carefully consider the canal and hydrology of Jining, another wish was to visit Qufu, to admire the Confucian Mansion, Temple, and Mausoleum, pay respects at the Confucian Forest, and get close to the great scholars of Chinese culture over the past two thousand years. When leaving Jining, he also wanted to have a hearty meal at the Taibai Tower to truly mark his visit to Jining. But the boat had already passed the final section of the city wall, bidding farewell to Jining.
Things suddenly became simple, just hurrying on the journey, with the boat only stopping when buying groceries and passing through the locks. The rain these past two days had indeed been a great help; the Grand Canal was flowing mightily, the sails were full, and Old Chen was very satisfied with the speed of travel. He was curious about this section of the waterway; having spent most of his life on the canal, not visiting the Nanwang diversion outlet in Jining would have made him feel embarrassed to say he had been busy on the canal.
Heading northwest, there were flowers and grass, reeds, lotus flowers, wild chickens, ducks, and flying birds, countless passing boats from both sides of the sunken boat, vendors calling out their wares, mobile brothels bedecked in red and green, numerous crude wharves, impoverished households, and downtrodden towmen.
They worked day and night, passing through Machang Lake to Nanwang Lake; in between, they passed through Tongji Lock and Qian Temple Lock, and then they would pass through Liulin Lock, Shili Lock, Kaihe Lock, Yuankou Lock, Xinkou Lock, and finally arrive at Anshan Lake. Going further would be the border of Liaocheng.
Arriving at Nanyang Lake in the early morning, only Old Chen, the helmsman, was awake on the entire boat. Being older, he needed less sleep and always wanted to push ahead for another two miles when he woke up. Next to wake up was Xiaoboluo. After lying in bed for a few days, sleep had become his least favorite thing; he felt useless lying there.
Every moment he hoped to be awake, to chat with Xie Pingyao, Sun Guocheng, and the others about anything, but he often slipped into sleep unnoticed during the conversation. Last night, he fell asleep listening to Sun Guocheng’s story about their ancestors leaving Nanwang. He had slept until now. Sun Guocheng had heard his father say that during the year of the famine, the river channel in Nanwang was almost dry. In previous years, from July to September, navigation was generally normal, but that year, even after twelve months, a decent boat couldn’t make it through.
The year before wasn’t much better. Even in years of favorable weather, poor people still struggled, but when the canal dried up, families who were already struggling to make ends meet lost even their last meal, forcing them to seek other means of survival, which eventually led to the establishment of Liangshan. Xiaoboluo wanted to continue listening to the story of Liangshan, but he had already fallen asleep.
Xiaoboluo woke up to the sound of waves lapping against the boat hull. His mind felt foggy, and his limbs were achy and sore, with a heavy, dull sensation. He had slept too much. Compared to the discomfort of lying still, he would rather feel the sharp, clean pain on his abdomen. He twisted his body slightly, and a new kind of pain, like a lightning bolt, shot through his entire body, causing him to break out in a cold sweat. The sound of waves against the boat hull disappeared, replaced by distant, lively chatter outside the window.
He couldn’t understand it; a group of Chinese people were rhythmically chanting slogans. How could so many people be energetically chanting labor slogans so early in the morning? He couldn’t help but be curious. This curiosity pricked at him like needles. He tried to prop up half of his upper body with his left elbow, but a wave of new pain stopped him. He paused, feeling the intensity of the pain until he got used to it; then he propped up his right elbow, feeling another wave of pain before stopping again to adjust to the new intensity.
Using his left hand, he pushed open the window and grabbed onto the window frame, leaning his upper body diagonally. He distinctly felt a change in how he was sweating; within half a second, large beads of sweat covered his forehead and face, and his wound throbbed as if it had been freshly cut to the exact same length and depth. But he felt it was worth the pain. After lying down for a few days, he could finally see a space larger than the berth. It wasn’t just a little larger; it was as large as the entire world, and what he saw was the entire world.
His reward didn’t end there: he saw a bustling scene of labor, with countless Chinese people digging canals and building embankments. Men wore short shirts with braids wrapped around their heads or necks; young men were shirtless, with their pants rolled up to their knees; some wore straw shoes, while many were barefoot; there were those pulling ropes, surveying, digging soil, carrying mud, pushing carts, pulling carts, driving stakes, and pounding tampers, bustling back and forth, thoroughly enjoying themselves.
Officials stood with their bellies protruding, on high ground, gesturing while their assistants stretched out their hands and made gestures. The wind blew their robes and beards. There were also women among them, carrying pots of soup and bowls of rice to the men working. The river channel was wide, the embankments high, and fresh soil lay open under their feet. He couldn’t hear the petty noises of the river worksite, but above the entire scene, he discovered a harmonious and uplifting chorus, both joyful and laborious, like the majestic steam rising from a boiling giant cauldron, but he couldn’t understand it.
He really wanted to understand. After hesitating for a moment, he knocked on the cabin wall behind him.
Xie Pingyao came to the next cabin. The boat was moving slowly, and the scene outside the window of the canal workers was almost unchanged, still bustling with activity. Before Xie Pingyao could wonder at the scale of the canal construction here, he also heard the chorus that Xiaoboluo had mentioned, sounding somewhat distant but distinct. It was a canal worker’s chant, “The Embankment Building Song.” Having spent several years in Huai’an, where he had seen various projects for dredging rivers and reinforcing embankments, he was familiar with the spirited songs and chants sung while working. Following the rhythm outside the window, he translated it for Xiaoboluo:
Hey… Hey…
Swing your arms, stand tall and straight,
With steady steps, ascend the heights.
Hey… Hey… Hey…
You carry, I’ll lift,
Removing earth to shore up the cliffs.
The river embankment built high and wide,
Earth covering to protect our homes.
Hey… Hey… Hey…
The top basket filled with pointed soil,
The canal dug deep and wide,
Connecting the capitals north and south.
Large boats carry rice from the south,
While small boats transport green bamboo poles.
Carry the baskets to the embankment, set them steady,
Baskets and baskets, don’t panic.
Hey ya hey! Hey—hey!
While translating, Xie Pingyao couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss. Outside, Old Chen shouted:
“Everyone, wake up! There’s a mirage, there’s a mirage!”
Xie Pingyao suddenly realized it was indeed a mirage on the canal. The bustling scene of the canal workers was unfolding right on the surface of Nanwang Lake. He explained to Xiaoboluo that a canal mirage was probably like a mirage on the sea. He wasn’t entirely sure, having only heard of it mentioned in passing at the Office of the Inspector-General of Transport, where occasionally mirages would appear on the canal, but never had anyone mentioned that sounds could also come from within the mirage.
Even the experienced Old Chen, for the first time, heard a mirage produce sound, and there was no room for doubt when it was so distinct in sight and sound. Sun Guocheng, Shao Changlai, the two Chens, and Granny Chen, along with the soldiers Zhou and Gu in the tethered boat behind, all scrambled out. When they stood by the side of the boat to observe, a gust of wind arose, and the clear scene quickly blurred; then another gust of wind came, and the mirage disappeared, leaving Nanwang Lake calm and serene.
Shao Changlai mentioned that in his hometown, there was a superstition that mirages brought good luck. Sun Guocheng clasped his hands together and closed his eyes after hearing this. Old Chen asked what he was silently praying for, and Shao Changlai said, “What else could it be? Surely he’s praying to find a good wife.” Sun Guocheng smiled. His grandfather had indeed worked on the river at Nanwang before. Since the Ming Dynasty, there probably hadn’t been a stretch of canal that posed a greater challenge or required more dredging than Nanwang, and such joyous labor scenes were probably not witnessed every time. Instead, there were thousands of hungry laborers, moving like ants on the vast and long river channel.
As the houseboat approached the bifurcation, the speed noticeably decreased. The Wen River divided ahead, with seven parts flowing north, toward the imperial capital, and three parts flowing south, toward Jiangnan. This was the “water ridge” of the entire thousand-mile canal, where the riverbed was raised to its highest point. Xiaoboluo dared not sit for long. He had already lain down, and upon hearing that they had reached the bifurcation, he endured the intense pain as Xie Pingyao helped him up, piling blankets and cushions behind him. Unable to go ashore to look into the distance, he peeked past the window frames, hoping to catch a glimpse of the scenery. Concerned about Xiaoboluo feeling lonely, Xie Pingyao stayed behind when the boat docked, while the others went ashore for a stroll.
Fenshuikou is a bustling fortress along the canal, with buildings lining both banks and shops abound, attracting a constant stream of traders and tourists. Particularly striking is the architectural complex of the Dragon King Temple on the right bank of the river, with its four grand gates facing the bustling hub of Wen River shipping. Despite the decline in canal transportation and the lingering effects of famine and hardship in the south, the grandeur of the buildings, though weathered and worn, still commands respect. Along the canal, stone embankments pave the way, with twelve water pillars concealed beneath; their boats tethered to one in the middle.
Eight colossal water guardians lie along the embankment, each in a unique pose, their features lifelike and imposing. In the middle of the stone embankment, a flight of stone steps leads directly to the Dragon King Temple, where Sun Guocheng and his companions ascend step by step. At the top of the stone steps stands a wooden archway with double eaves, bearing three plaques: “Calm Seas” to the right, “Clear River” to the left, and in the middle, “Prosperity from All Directions,” inscribed by Liu Yunke, the governor of Zhejiang and Fujian. Beyond the archway lies the entrance to the Dragon King Temple.
They spent over an hour wandering along the bank, taking in the sights. Beyond the Dragon King Temple, there are several other courtyards, including the Song Gong Temple dedicated to Song Li, the Bai Gong Temple in memory of Bai Ying, the Yu Wang Palace, Guan Di Temple, Guan Yin Pavilion, Mo Gong Temple, Wen Gong Temple, and Ma Zhu Temple. Old Chen always made a point to visit each temple, offering his respects to the gods, and each time, he noticed Sun Guocheng devoutly bowing and paying his respects as well. Old Chen asked him why.
“For my brother,” Sun Guocheng replied.
Old Chen nodded approvingly. “You’re a good brother.”
Sun Guocheng brought Xiao Boluo a piece of broken green brick, found amidst the weeds at the base of the Dragon King Temple’s wall. On one side of the green brick, there was a pristine seal in regular script: “Constructed for canal officials in the tenth year of the Hongzhi reign.” A relic from four hundred years ago. Xie Pingyao translated the inscription for Xiao Boluo, explaining that during the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Xiaozong Zhu Youzhang had overseen the improvement of the canal here. Xiao Boluo, contemplating four centuries past, felt it was too distant, pointing under the bed, claiming, “Good stuff there, heh, I’ll keep it for myself.”
Left turn. Right turn. Left turn. Right turn. Canals always meander. Sun Guocheng reflected on this stretch of waterway, realizing that time, too, meandered. Left turn. Right turn. Meandering paths were comforting, leisurely, imbued with a sense of beautiful transitions. A journey filled with transitions was a smooth road. Indeed, they pressed on continuously; Xiao Boluo’s life confined to the cabin, his new flesh healing slowly. In between, they consulted doctors three times.
Once because he fell off the bed in the middle of the night, reopening a nearly healed wound on his right side, requiring the doctor to stitch it back up. Another time was for a follow-up check after the stitching, with the doctor remarking that while the recovery wasn’t fast, it wasn’t bad either, but cautioning against falling off the bed again, as their bellies weren’t snack boxes to open and close at will.
The doctor conservatively estimated that upon reaching Linqing, they should disembark and walk along the riverbank, as it wouldn’t be much slower than the boat’s pace. The third visit was to have the stitches removed.
Xiao Boluo didn’t disclose to anyone why he fell off the bed; he only wrote it down in his journal. In his dream, he returned to the rainy night in Jining, grappling with the masked figure over a cane, each grabbing one end until the masked figure snatched it away and dragged him off the bed.
Soldiers Zhou and Gu returned to Zhangqiu Town to report back, passing the responsibility to their colleagues at the Yanggu County yamen through a game of “passing the drum.” Xiao Boluo politely declined, but the county magistrate insisted, stating that if they didn’t take assistance, it would be his dereliction of duty.
When they reached Liaocheng, they encountered two more replacements. Xiao Boluo firmly refused. With peace prevailing across the land, there was little need for him to disembark, and there was no point in wasting resources when nobody knew there was a foreigner aboard. The official appointed by the magistrate of Dongchang Prefecture emphasized that official matters must be handled publicly. If they were concerned about these two taking a share of their provisions, it could be arranged for them to bring enough money to cover their own food expenses.
If that wasn’t feasible, they could bring their own cooking utensils and be self-sufficient. Since they were entrusted by the provincial governor, they couldn’t afford any mishaps. If something were to happen in their jurisdiction, none of their official hats would remain secure.
After passing through the canal gates and checkpoints, they arrived at Linqing Zhili Prefecture. They endured a lengthy queue before finally passing through the riverbank checkpoint, but not long after, the heavens opened up with rain. The northern regions entered the rainy season in July and August. Dark clouds loomed overhead, followed by flashes of lightning and the deluge of rain.
While waiting at the riverbank checkpoint, Xiao Boluo had been cooped up on the boat and grew restless. As soon as they passed the checkpoint, he disembarked. His wound was positioned in the middle of his body, making every movement taxing, and the newly formed flesh was delicate. Xiao Boluo adjusted his strength carefully, so as not to accidentally strain too much and tear open the wound. He placed one hand over the wound, handling it with the caution of a pregnant woman.
Xie Pingyao was on his left, Sun Guocheng on his right, with the two soldiers following closely behind. Xiao Boluo had already climbed down from the bed several times, spending time at the bow of the boat drinking tea, chatting, reading, writing, and taking photographs. Sometimes he just stared at the water’s surface, as water snakes and turtles frequently swam by. However, his steps were limited, and it wasn’t until he set foot on land that he felt the ground beneath him was unsteady. It took nearly a mile of walking for him to feel steady on his feet.
Despite the lush greenery of the northern regions in July, the signs of dilapidation and desolation couldn’t be concealed. Wild grass grew rampant, reaching waist-high after a single rain shower. The countryside remained in a state of disrepair, with dilapidated mud houses serving merely as shelter from the elements, devoid of the aesthetic charm of southern residences. Xiao Boluo had expected to encounter a prosperous landscape upon disembarking, but the reality was bleak and desolate, filling him with a sense of desolation and sadness.
Sun Guocheng remarked that if they had come last year, they wouldn’t have even seen this lush overgrowth. Xiao Boluo glanced back at the canal, its waters flowing ceaselessly day and night, heading northward after passing Linqing. For over four months, it was the first time he felt a sense of attachment to this winding and expansive body of water. He thought about sitting down to smoke a cigarette. Sun Guocheng handed him a pipe and tobacco, but they had forgotten to bring matches.
Two thin, elderly men sat on the millstone in front of their old house, smoking their pipes. Sun Guocheng wanted to borrow some fire, and Xiao Boluo said, “I’ll come with you.” The two old men had encountered foreigners and officials separately before, but never had they seen a foreigner and an official together. It wasn’t fear that prompted their reaction but rather shyness. Standing up briefly, then sitting back down, they had nothing left to lose; they had long been impoverished. They invited Xiao Boluo to sit down and have a cigarette. Xiao Boluo sat down at another corner of the millstone and borrowed some fire from the old man with half-white beard. The smoke from the tobacco smelled delicious.
“Is this house still habitable?” Xiao Boluo asked. Xie Pingyao translated for him.
“It is.”
“You don’t plan on fixing it up?”
“No need. It’s habitable.”
“It could be made to look nicer.”
“It has its moments.”
“When?”
The old man with the half-white beard turned to look at the old house. “Now,” he said, gesturing with his pipe stem towards the house, “when the sunlight shines upon it.”
At this moment, the slanting sunlight illuminated the low, scattered mud houses. Weathered by years of wind and sun, the mud walls had turned pale and dark, but the afternoon sunlight restored their true colors. The wall seemed to gleam like it had been plated with gold, the rich golden hue almost ablaze. Yet, the golden hue in the sunlight was equally precious, and before they could finish a smoke, dark clouds appeared on the horizon, and the golden glow on the walls began to fade and disappear.
“Look, it’s gone,” Xiao Boluo said.
“It will come again,” the old man replied.
Before the rain started, they discussed foreigners. The other old man with a fully white beard mentioned he had seen seven foreigners in a room, hailing from four different countries, but to him, they all looked the same.
“When was this?” the half-white-bearded old man asked. “Wasn’t the church burned down by the Boxers last year?”
“That was in Linqing. When the church burned down, the foreign missionaries had to find a new place. Last month, I went to my nephew’s house in Qixingzhuang. They built several houses there, and on the largest one, they placed a cross on the roof. My nephew took me there to have a look; he said people from four different countries were living there. I took a good look too. Those foreigners looked like they were all from the same family.”
“Like me?” Xiao Boluo asked.
“Yes, exactly like you. They all look like your brothers, uncles, and grandfathers.”
“Which four countries?”
“Who can remember? Your foreigners have names that are all a jumble.”
“Are there any young ones? Like Sun Guocheng’s age?”
“Yes, of all ages. My nephew said they came from all directions.”
Raindrops began to fall. Xie Pingyao urged Xiao Boluo to return to the boat.
“Where is Qixingzhuang?” Xiao Boluo asked.
“Keep going forward, disembark at the stone pier. Head north and you’ll see it. There’s a large pond in front of the village, with seven old locust trees along the water’s edge, arranged like the Big Dipper. You can see it from quite a distance. Apart from those seven locust trees, nothing else grows there.”
The two old men sat on the millstone in front of their old house, tapping their pipe ashes onto the ground. Before the rain grew heavier, they returned to the boat. Xiao Boluo opened the map and marked a spot between Linqing City and Xiajin, closer to the latter. That should be Qixingzhuang, he thought, and he wanted to pay a visit.
The next morning, the wind, rain, and lightning ceased simultaneously. After a night and a half-day of non-stop rain, the world seemed swollen with water, as if it had drunk its fill. The canal was brimming. Though the rain clouds had yet to dissipate, the air was damp enough for smooth sailing. Because of the strong current, they navigated cautiously, and after lunch, they arrived at the stone pier indicated by the old man with the fully white beard.
This time, all six of them disembarked. Considering the muddy and puddled roads leading to Qixingzhuang, Xiao Boluo couldn’t trudge through the mud step by step. At the market pier where they docked, Sun Guocheng bought a sedan chair carried by four men. Now Xiao Boluo sat in the sedan chair, with the two soldiers from Linqing Prefecture carrying the front and Sun Guocheng and Old Chen carrying the back. Xie Pingyao carried a pile of rain gear beside them, occasionally falling behind to look ahead. At such moments, he had the illusion that Sun Guocheng and the others were carrying Xiao Boluo towards the low-hanging sky.
The large pond, the seven trees. They walked along a path, passing fields, wild grass, small forests, and a cemetery. After the rain stopped, few people ventured out of their homes in Qixingzhuang. From the open courtyard gates, many sat in the shadows of their doorways, lost in thought. A middle-aged man dug a trench outside the courtyard gate, and when he saw them, he didn’t say a word. But before Xie Pingyao could speak, he extended his hand: first east, then north. He saw Xiao Boluo in the sedan chair and concluded that anyone with that face should go to the same place.
After a heavy rain, only where living beings passed would there be muddy water. The new church had just begun construction, and the surrounding area was muddy. The temporary church currently in use was a simple flat-roofed building, with a wooden cross inserted on the roof of the second room on the left. The church built by the American Presbyterian Church in Linqing City in 1886 was the second main church in Shandong, but it was destroyed by the Boxers last year. After the imperial decree to suppress the Boxers was announced, the Presbyterian Church began planning to build a new church.
They tentatively built four rooms in Qixingzhuang, and no one objected, so they quietly opened it with the insertion of the cross. The wind was still tense, but there seemed to be no immediate danger to life, so they were a bit bolder and decided to make it presentable. The leading pastor was from Seattle, USA, and he spoke fluent Chinese. He understood the saying, “With a phoenix tree at home, a golden phoenix will come.” From the chaotic scene, it seemed they had worked during a lull in the rain, only for another downpour to halt work entirely. Construction tools and materials were scattered in the muddy water.
Xiao Boluo insisted on getting off the sedan chair about a hundred meters away from the church. He walked gingerly towards the room with the cross inserted in the roof. Inside was the American, a man around fifty with neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. They exchanged pleasantries at first, the typical “hello, how are you, nice to meet you,” but there was a warmth of familiarity as if they had known each other for a long time.
After about fifteen minutes, Xiao Boluo asked about the nationalities represented in Qixingzhuang. The pastor listed them: two Americans, the main force of the Presbyterian Church here; one Belgian, one Italian, one German, and one Dutch. They had all come from different places: some were clergy, some had simply run out of options and came here seeking food.
“Where’s my Italian friend?” Xiao Boluo asked in English.
“He’s a young man who wandered up from the north,” the Seattle man replied. “I’ll call him over for a catch-up in a bit.”
Outside, there was a cacophony of footsteps splashing through the mud. Xiao Boluo asked Xie Pingyao what was happening. Xie Pingyao went to the door and saw three foreigners walking away through the muddy water.
“I almost forgot, they should be going to the vegetable garden,” the Seattle man said. “We eat what we grow ourselves.”
After hesitating for a moment, Xiao Boluo went to the door. The three were now further away. Xiao Boluo suddenly called out. He called out a name in Italian. The three foreigners splashed through the mud, creating murky splashes as they landed. One young man with a limp had to hop on one foot to avoid the splashes caused by his companions. Xiao Boluo called out again, but no one turned around. He dashed out of the door.
In just a few seconds, he felt the tension in his wound. It had been many days, and he had grown accustomed to walking hunched over, chest compressed, so when he took the first few steps running, his straightened back immediately bent down again. His next few steps were more hurried. With his center of gravity already shifted forward, and having not run for many days, his rhythm and control over his footing were greatly compromised. One foot slipped, and by the time the Seattle locals emerged, he had already fallen into the muddy water. Xiao Boluo let out a cry of pain. Xie Pingyao and Sun Guocheng, upon hearing the sound, knew something was wrong, likely with his wound. They both ran over.
Xiao Boluo lay in the mud, his hands trembling beneath his stomach. The murky water, resembling yellow soup, now had streaks of red, tainted with blood, making it even dirtier. Besides the yellow and red, there was another smell of rust water seeping in from a pile of tools and materials: shovels, trowels, hammers, iron sheets, iron bars, horseshoe nails. Also mixed in were the dark brown excrement from livestock used to transport sand, bricks, and stones. Xie Pingyao and Sun Guocheng helped Xiao Boluo out of the muddy water and back to the church. The Seattle pastor quickly called for help from the other two foreigners next door, one to heat water and the other to fetch the medicine box. He said to the young man with a pointed chin:
“This is your Italian compatriot, Mr. Dimarco, please bring the medicine box quickly and sanitize it.”
Xiao Boluo, covered in mud, lay on a chair, asking weakly, “He’s Italian?”
“Leonardo. From Rome,” the Seattle pastor said, “Who did you call earlier? Fiedler?”
Xiao Boluo closed his eyes, and his groans suddenly intensified.
The Seattle pastor brought in his American colleague, who had some medical knowledge. Using Western medical methods and supplies, they disinfected Xiao Boluo’s wound, but they lacked the expertise to stitch it up. Fortunately, the wound was smaller than when it was first cut. After bandaging it, they advised seeking a professional doctor for stitching. The afternoon visit ended in haste, and Xiao Boluo didn’t even have time to fully observe the other four foreigners’ appearances. Sun Guoch
eng and the others hurriedly carried him back to the ship, heading to the next major port at the fastest speed possible.
Luckily, major ports never lacked doctors, just like they never lacked fortune tellers or gentlemen who could write letters on behalf of others. By the time they reached the “Revival Clinic,” it was completely dark outside. The doctor lit all the lamps and candles in his operating room. Though not very old, the doctor had poor eyesight and many rules. Normally, he never dealt with blood at night; he insisted that matters of great importance could wait until daylight. However, Xiao Boluo was a foreigner, and exceptions were made. The light illuminated a plaque on the wall with four large characters engraved: “Healing the World with a Hanging Pot.”
All the doctors seemed to be slow-paced, but this Dr. Fang, as his nameplate indicated, carefully examined the wound, poking and prodding before starting the suturing process. As he sewed, he spoke leisurely:
“The wound’s in a good spot saves you, foreigners, from walking around our Chinese turf with your chests puffed out. Tell him to be humble when walking from now on, or it might split open again. Translate that word for word.”
Xie Pingyao faithfully translated his words.
Xiao Boluo winced through his gritted teeth and said, “Tell him I’ve already learned to be humble.”
Xie Pingyao conveyed the message verbatim to Dr. Fang.
“Good,” Dr. Fang leaned closer to the wound, “I’ll stitch it up carefully then.”
Back in bed again, Xiao Boluo smoked for two days straight before he began to calm down slightly. The ship continued its journey, perhaps even faster now, as nobody had any reason to disembark. Xiao Boluo confined himself to his cabin, despite having a window open for ventilation. When Xie Pingyao first entered, he was greeted by a thick haze of smoke that brought tears to his eyes. Xiao Boluo had a plan; he asked Xie Pingyao to help empty the ashtray by his bed and then to read various books collected along the way related to the canal.
He wanted them translated as Xie Pingyao read aloud. He said time couldn’t be wasted. When they grew tired of the books, Xie Pingyao would narrate stories about the canal, sharing whatever he knew. When Xie Pingyao grew weary, Sun Guocheng, Shao Changlai, the Lao Chen family, and the two soldiers following behind the ship would take over. Throughout their storytelling, lying in bed, Xiao Boluo would interject with questions. From Linqing to Tianjin, this was mainly how Xiao Boluo learned about the canal.
He liked a Chinese saying: “Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles.” If he couldn’t travel those miles himself, he would listen to others’ tales of their travels; if he couldn’t read ten thousand books, he would listen to them instead, listening to others’ stories and readings. But this was as far as he could go; after Tianjin, his health deteriorated rapidly, often succumbing to severe convulsions and bouts of high fever and unconsciousness.
From Linqing to Tianjin, in terms of sailing, this was the fastest Xiao Boluo had traveled since departing from Hangzhou. Apart from seeking medical attention, purchasing daily necessities, and necessary rest breaks, they kept the ship moving. They sailed for up to twenty-one hours a day, with Lao Chen and Da Chen Xiao Chen taking turns at the helm. Looking back on this stretch of the journey years later, Xie Pingyao and his companions felt two contrasting emotions: first, the urgency of their journey, constantly pushing forward; second, a profound sense of slowness, where everyone felt anxious, uneasy, and lost in time.
Xiao Boluo’s wound didn’t heal gradually like last time. Instead, three days later, it began showing signs of inflammation. It turned red, increasingly so. Initially, they attributed it to the heat, thinking the wound lacked ventilation, so they let it air out. After waiting another two days, it became evident that it wasn’t just about the redness anymore; white spots with a hint of yellow pus began to appear.
The ship halted, and they sought out a doctor. The doctor didn’t seem concerned, merely administered an anti-inflammatory treatment, prescribed medication, and advised taking it as directed. They resumed their journey. However, the medication proved ineffective, and the wound worsened. The area of redness and swelling with pus increased significantly.
Xiao Boluo began experiencing symptoms such as high fever, chills, sudden pains in certain parts of his body, and a significantly reduced appetite. Even when food was brought to him, he could only manage to take a glance before feeling full. When Shao Changlai prepared his specialty Mapo Tofu, Xiao Boluo showed little interest.
Upon reaching Cangzhou, they found a doctor named Zheng who was quite renowned locally. Having studied medicine in Southeast Asia for two years, he had the habit of wearing traditional Chinese attire outside but would don Western attire once inside his clinic, even in the sweltering heat. He diagnosed Xiao Boluo with sepsis, a condition also known as blood poisoning or bacteremia. Retrieving an English medical book he had brought from Southeast Asia, he meticulously compared the symptoms with those of Xiao Boluo and Xie Pingyao.
Most of the symptoms matched. Confident in his diagnosis, he also shared some critiques of traditional Chinese medicine and the current situation. He firmly believed that Xiao Boluo’s illness was exacerbated by the delay caused by the Chinese medicine practitioners along the canal. “Quacks!” he exclaimed. “Eating a few more pounds of oranges could have prevented this disease. Ancient sailors knew this trick. Those Chinese medicine practitioners are always dabbling in mysticism, smelling, asking, and feeling.
Utter nonsense! I refuse to believe that touching a pulse with two fingers can reveal any truth. And as for our imperial court, are there no public servants here?” Xie Pingyao confirmed that there weren’t. The soldiers who escorted them through Shandong had withdrawn before entering Hebei. No orders for protection had been issued by the Hebei provincial government, so they were once again a purely civilian vessel.
The Western-educated doctor tucked his braids into his white coat and continued his speech, “In my opinion, the Qing Dynasty has never found the right way to deal with Westerners. Either they’re secretive and conniving, willing to negotiate in private, or they turn their backs and become hostile. If it weren’t for the fact that the churches and their hospitals were destroyed, Mr. Dimarco’s minor ailment wouldn’t have been delayed like this.
And using the Boxers to confront the foreign powers, what were they thinking? Do you know?” He leaned his head towards Xie Pingyao, so close that Xie Pingyao could count his sparse eyebrows, “I heard that last year when the Boxers entered Beijing, Prince Duan specifically invited their leaders to perform their ‘invulnerability’ skills for the Empress Dowager.
After the performance, the Empress Dowager praised them and offered rewards. But after they left, Ronglu asked her, ‘Do you believe it?’ The Empress Dowager replied, ‘The performance is fake, but the hundreds of thousands of strong men are real. In a fight, we can use them to block the foreigners’ bullets.’ And then he burst into laughter, laughing until tears streamed down his face.”
Xie Pingyao was bewildered by the laughter. Was this rumor supposed to be funny? He didn’t dare look at Sun Guocheng beside him, unsure of his reaction. “What does Dr. Zheng think should be done about our relations with the foreign powers?”
“How should I know? I’m just a simple doctor. Perhaps Mr. Xie knows?”
“I’m ashamed, my knowledge is limited, and I dare not offer an opinion.”
“So, Mr. Xie means that if one doesn’t understand, they should remain silent and go along with it?”
“I have no such intention. It’s the duty of every individual to be concerned with the rise and fall of the nation; I agree with Mr. Gu Yanwu’s views, just like Dr. Zheng does.” Xie Pingyao didn’t appreciate the doctor’s boastfulness, but his argument was logical. He realized he had been complacent over the years, and his anger and passion had gradually diminished due to helplessness. And now, on this long journey by water, the monotonous life and scenery exacerbated this erosion. It was a wake-up call amid the scorching summer.
Dazed from the fever, Xiao Boluo’s eyes widened as he said, “Doctor, please prescribe the medicine quickly.”
Dr. Zheng, the Western-educated doctor from Southeast Asia, promised that according to his prescription, once the ship reached Tianjin, Xiao Boluo would be able to disembark and jump around like a lively rabbit. By then, his stomach would be so robust that it could enter a bridal chamber. This crude analogy became the sole highlight of the journey from Cangzhou to Tianjin. Whenever Xiao Boluo lost confidence or his mood soured due to the worsening of his condition, the foul smell emanating from his decaying wound, or the various pains and discomforts it brought, Xie Pingyao and the others would encourage him with the doctor’s words. Initially, the medication did provide some relief, but after the third time, it ceased to be effective as Xiao Boluo’s condition worsened.
Midway through the journey, Xiao Boluo began to convulse, a new symptom he hadn’t experienced before. Suddenly, a part of his body would lose control, trembling uncontrollably. Sometimes it was just his cheek trembling, as if a hand had suddenly sprouted from his mouth, instinctively clenching his cheek and pulling it inward, then forming a fist and punching outward; at these times, Xiao Boluo would unconsciously clench his teeth, causing his body to involuntarily arch backward. Grinding his teeth was bearable, but arching backward was troublesome; if not careful, it would tear open his wound, which was visibly growing larger.
The area of pus in the wound continued to increase, emitting a putrid smell, initially just a faint odor lingering in the air. When Shao Changlai entered the cabin with a tray of food for Xiao Boluo, he thought there was something wrong with the dish. He leaned in to sniff but found nothing amiss. When he looked up and saw the vivid red, yellow, and white festering wounds on Xiao Boluo’s abdomen, he understood.
Xiao Boluo likely understood too; he ate even less during that meal. Soon, the smell intensified, spreading like a trickle into the ocean, becoming overwhelming. Two days later, when Sun Guocheng pushed open the cabin door, intending to help Xiao Boluo sit up a bit, the stench of decay hit him like a punch to the face. Sun Guocheng nearly vomited.
He expressed his concern to Xie Pingyao, who, separated by a wall, was keenly aware of every worsening aspect of Xiao Boluo’s condition. Although their windows were closest to each other, Xie Pingyao understood every subtle change in the odor, but there was nothing he could do. While many things in the world could be shared, few couldn’t, and illness was among those few.
Dr. Zheng’s medication continued, and while the fever decreased, the convulsions worsened. Xiao Boluo would break into profuse sweats at the slightest stimuli, becoming increasingly sensitive to external disturbances. Life on the water amplified every sound, and whenever someone shouted on passing boats, Xiao Boluo’s body would react. With frequent thunderstorms during the summer on the water’s surface, whenever thunder roared and lightning struck nearby, Xiao Boluo would immediately convulse violently. His body would bounce uncontrollably, even when his lower torso was securely bound to the bed, unable to prevent the wound from tearing open.
These severe convulsions often led to difficulty breathing. One afternoon, while Xie Pingyao and Sun Guocheng were chatting with Xiao Boluo about the canal, a spherical lightning bolt struck the shore, triggering a response from Xiao Boluo. He thrashed about like a piece of wood, rigid and unyielding. Despite Xie Pingyao and Sun Guocheng holding him down, they couldn’t calm him. His body continued to slam against the bed frame. Suddenly, Xie Pingyao screamed. Xiao Boluo gasped, his eyes wide with the imminent fear of suffocation. Xie Pingyao quickly shut the window and pressed on Xiao Boluo’s chest. Several seconds later, Xiao Boluo took a deep breath, slowly returning to normal.
It was evident that this was no longer a simple wound issue. Xie Pingyao gathered everyone on the boat, but no one could make a reliable judgment based on these symptoms alone. The priority was to reach Tianjin, the nearest place where they might find a Western doctor. Lao Chen decided they would travel day and night from now on. They stocked up on enough food and supplies to last until Tianjin at a small dock and set sail immediately. For segments of the journey requiring towing, Sun Guocheng would quickly negotiate and disembark, ensuring no time was wasted unnecessarily.
Before setting off, Lao Chen went to the temple as usual. The dilapidated temple housed various deities, with statues of gods and goddesses in various states of disrepair scattered throughout the small temple, except for the God of Wealth, who stood intact. Lao Chen paid his respects to all of them, and Sun Guocheng followed suit. Lao Chen asked, “Are you still praying for your brother?”
“For Mr. Di Mark. I hope he gets better,” Sun Guocheng replied.
The journey went smoothly. After Qing County came to Tianjin, passing through Jiuxuan Lock, Jinghai, and Yangliuqing into the Haihe River. The boat docked at a pier near the German concession along the riverbank. There was a clinic on William Street run by a British doctor, which had quite an influence throughout the concession area. Dr. Laine, who lived near Shihenge in Salisbury, was reputed for treating various difficult illnesses. It was said that people traveled thousands of miles from Britain seeking his treatment, but whether this was true or not remained uncertain. In the eyes of Xie Pingyao and the others, Xiao Boluo’s condition was already a difficult illness. He had passed out on the way and had moments of confusion, speaking incoherently.
They queued up at Dr. Laine’s clinic. There were already five people ahead of them who had appointments with Dr. Laine. The clinic was housed in a white Western-style building, which Dr. Laine had rented entirely. Besides him, there were three other doctors and six nurses. The three doctors mainly dealt with common illnesses, as well as gynecology and obstetrics. When it was their turn, Xie Pingyao and a nurse pushed Xiao Boluo into the examination room. Dr. Laine was tall and slender, with an elegant demeanor. Wearing glasses and speaking in a London accent, he habitually cleaned his already clean nails with an alcohol swab. First, he asked Xie Pingyao about the relevant details and then requested him to wait outside. He wanted to have a detailed conversation with the patient before beginning the examination and diagnosis.
They waited for what felt like an hour and a half, possibly longer, as the nurse went in and out of the examination room four times with various instruments. On the fifth time, she emerged pushing Xiao Boluo in a wheelchair. Dr. Laine motioned for Xie Pingyao to come in; he had a few words to say to him, and Xiao Boluo would be handed over to Sun Guocheng waiting outside. As Xiao Boluo lay on the wheeled cart, he asked Dr. Laine, “Can you tell me, what exactly is the illness?”
“It’s nothing else, Mr. Di Mark,” Dr. Laine smiled at him. “It’s just tetanus.”
After the nurse wheeled Xiao Boluo away, Dr. Laine invited Xie Pingyao to sit down, and his first words were, “What comes must go.”
“What do you mean?” Xie Pingyao asked.
“May God bless every one of us.”
“Isn’t it tetanus?”
“That’s one of them. There’s also sepsis. It’s too late. At least, I am powerless.”
“Is there no hope at all?”
“A glimmer of hope is as good as none. I don’t treat diseases without hope. The patient lapsed into unconsciousness shortly after the diagnosis.”
“What about medication?”
“At most three days, at least one or two. If there’s heart failure or suffocation, anytime. However, I won’t prescribe any medication.”
“Forgive me for the impertinence, but could you provide a prescription that might work, so we can fetch the medicine? Mr. Di Mark has no family in China; all his friends are on that ship. Perhaps one more—”
“Who?”
“You, Dr. Laine.”
Dr. Laine took off his glasses and put them back on, saying, “Very well, for the sake of a lonely man. May God save us.” He wrote the prescription and handed it to Xie Pingyao. Then, on another piece of paper, he wrote an address. “If God shows his mercy, and Mr. Di Mark can hold on until Beijing, he can go to my friend at this address. He’s the best doctor I’ve ever met.”
Xie Pingyao glanced at the address and name on the paper. “A Chinese?”
“Yes, your traditional Chinese doctor. He was my classmate at Cambridge Medical School.”
“A Western-trained Chinese doctor?”
“He’s a genius who bridges both worlds, changing my prejudice against traditional Chinese medicine.”
Xie Pingyao obtained the medicine, and then he asked the nurses at Laine Clinic to treat the wound before returning with Sun Guocheng and Shao Changlai to escort Xiao Boluo back to the ship. In front of everyone, Xie Pingyao announced that it was merely tetanus, and it wasn’t too late to take corrective measures. They could start anew.
They set sail immediately.
Without time to perform the customary rituals at the Dragon King Temple, Lao Chen lit incense on the deck, placed a few bowls of food, and bowed towards the north-facing canal. Sun Guocheng stood behind him, also bowing respectfully. Lao Chen bowed three times, then stood up and said, “Let us pray together for Mr. Di Mark.” Sun Guocheng helped him tidy up the incense burner and bowls, his demeanor solemn and sorrowful. This touched Lao Chen, and he thought to himself that the young man was admirable. “Are you married?” he asked.
“My family has perished, and I dare not think of marriage.”
“Ah.” Lao Chen packed a bag of tobacco, giving himself time to make a decision. With the wind at his back, he lit his pipe. After inhaling the first puff, he felt a sense of relief in his heart. “To be honest with you, I have a daughter at home, she’s eighteen. She’s the cream of the crop in the village, skilled in household chores, needlework, and everything else. Of course, every father thinks highly of his daughter. As for her appearance, just imagine her aunt thirty years ago, but even more beautiful than that.”
“Thank you, uncle. I am deeply grateful,” Sun Guocheng said, the bowls and plates in his arms clinking softly. “Your sister must be a virtuous and beautiful young lady. But I promised my brother that I would return to our hometown in Liangshan. I’m afraid it would be too hard on your sister.”
“I understand. But a man should feel at home anywhere,” Lao Chen said, taking a few more puffs from his pipe. “Let’s just leave it at that for now. We’ll discuss it with your aunt and the others later. When it comes to marriage, the woman should have the final say.”
The next day, Xiao Boluo began to experience frequent seizures and bouts of unconsciousness. Due to the violent convulsions, his wound kept opening up, tearing apart the healed tissue. The color of the flesh and blood in the wound changed, and yellow pus oozed out continuously. The smell also became stronger. In the evening, they briefly stopped at a small pier where Shao Changlai went to buy vegetables from a nearby boat. The woman selling vegetables wrinkled her nose and asked about the strange smell. Shao Changlai replied casually, saying it was just a foul wind blowing. Xiao Boluo didn’t understand; no one on the boat felt optimistic at that moment.
That night, after a brief thunderstorm, Xiao Boluo had another seizure, followed by profuse sweating. He asked Xie Pingyao to gather everyone by his bedside. Xiao Chen, who was steering the boat, was absent, but everyone else was there. Xiao Boluo began by apologizing to everyone for making them endure the smell of rotting flesh in the stuffy cabin; he had something to say.
“I’m not an expert on canals,” he said, asking Sun Guocheng and Shao Changlai to help him sit up halfway so he could speak more easily. He had become thin and unrecognizable in the past few days, with his eyes appearing larger and his nose more pronounced. The only thing that remained lush was his hair and beard, growing wildly all over his head and face. “Even at home, I wasn’t the most knowledgeable about canals,” he continued. “To be honest, before I got injured and had to lie down, canals were just a magnificent spectacle of the ancient East to me.
After being injured and immobilized, starting from Jining, I spent twenty-four hours a day lying parallel to this river. During the day, I listened to its roaring waves, and at night, I heard its long, deep slumber. I often found that my breathing matched the rhythm of this river, and I felt the vigorous and vibrant life of this great river. Truly felt it. Those who can stay with this river are blessed. May God bless you all.”
“Unfortunately, just as I discovered my love for this river and truly felt its deep and majestic vitality, I’m done for. I know, I might be done for. In the past few days, I’ve lost my temper with Mr. Xie, with Guocheng, with Changlai, with Lao Chen—I’m truly sorry. I couldn’t control myself; I was unwilling. I’m unwilling. I don’t want to die, I want to live. I want to walk this river all the way through, walk it again and again, ten times, twenty times, a hundred times. Mr. Xie, could you help me light a cigarette? Thank you.”
Xiao Boluo fiercely took several puffs, inhaling deeply, so forcefully that he almost choked, coughing a few times. His jaw muscles tensed tightly; he was afraid that if he relaxed, his body would lose control. The ticking of the clock sounded like a heavy winch turning in everyone’s mind.
“Maybe take a break for now?” Xie Pingyao suggested.
Xiao Boluo waved his hand. “It’s too late for that now.” He slowed down and took two more puffs. The smoke wafted through the hot, sticky air, and the smell of the cigarette made the smell from the wound somewhat bearable. “If the canal were a person, I want to ask it, why can’t it let me live a few more years? Why can’t it let me make a few more round trips on this river? I don’t visit any famous historical sites, nor do I even get off the boat.
I just sit on the boat, drinking tea, smoking, reading, taking photos, daydreaming, peacefully watching it flow and rest, and listening to its hustle and silence. All I want is to be alone with this river. The canal speaks. The canal can speak. It speaks to me with its endless roar: Come when you need to, go when you must. Just like the water in this river, flowing downstream, against the current, rising and falling, swirling with the wind, shaping itself according to the circumstances.
Suddenly, I understand that we should be as resolute in facing death as we are in facing life, and we should be as open in facing life as we are in facing death. So, I called you all here to bid you farewell. If I suddenly depart, you’ll know that I’ve gone to knock on the gates of heaven with peace in my heart; but if I have the chance to continue living, then this will be my celebration of rebirth. God knows better than anyone.”
Xiao Boluo spoke intermittently for so long, feeling a bit tired, he stopped to light another cigarette. After finishing it, he closed his eyes, showing no intention of letting everyone leave. When someone tried to quietly slip away to let him rest, Xiao Boluo opened his eyes. “All my belongings are here.” He raised his arm, wanting to point to the entire cabin, but halfway through, he ran out of strength and lowered his hand. “I know Chinese people are usually superstitious about heirlooms, so I want to give them to you as gifts before they become heirlooms. You can pick whichever you like.”
“We can’t accept,” Xie Pingyao said, “We’ll still need them when we get to Beijing.”
“If I have the chance to use them again,” Xiao Boluo smiled weakly, “I’ll take them all back. By then, no one can refuse to return them.”
“Let’s talk about it later,” Lao Chen said.
“No need to wait,” Xiao Boluo said, “Claim them now. Most of these things have been with me for many years, and I won’t feel at ease if they have nowhere to go.”
“Alright,” Xie Pingyao said, “Everyone, don’t be polite.”
Sun Guocheng took the Kodak camera and the Cossack whip. Shao Changlai chose the compass and a pocket watch. Da Chen liked the Mauser rifle, and on behalf of his brother, Xiao Chen, he took the Browning pistol. Lao Chen took the briar pipe. Chen Po chose the remaining five Mexican silver eagles. Xiao Boluo asked Xie Pingyao, who said he hoped to keep the books and materials related to Xiao Boluo’s journey on the canal, including Xiao Boluo’s journal, if possible. Of course, if there were any personal privacy issues involved, he could handle them according to Xiao Boluo’s wishes.
“Nothing that can’t see the light,” Xiao Boluo said. “If it’s of any help to you, I would be greatly pleased. As for the remaining funds, apart from covering my burial expenses, one-third will go to Lao Chen for boat repairs, and the rest will be divided equally among everyone. If the amount is modest, please forgive us, it’s just a token of appreciation.”
Chen Po couldn’t hold back her tears. Next was Shao Changlai. When Lao Chen started rubbing his eyes, Xie Pingyao suggested that everyone disperse. Xiao Boluo had finished speaking, and his vitality visibly diminished, indicating that he needed rest. As everyone dispersed, Xie Pingyao was about to close the door and leave, but Xiao Boluo stopped him. Xie Pingyao returned to sit by his bedside.
“Do you have any questions?”
“None.”
“Really none?”
“What if I did?”
“Then would I ask?”
“What do you think?”
“Fine. Are you looking for someone?”
“You’ve noticed already,” Xiao Boluo said. “That’s why I asked you to stay. My brother.”
“Fedel?”
“Yes. Fedel. Fedel Dimak.”
“In China?”
“I don’t know if he’s still alive. If he is, he should be living along the Grand Canal. He’s the true expert on the canal. He loves canals, he enjoys water, and he cherishes every place with water. Fedel has always loved Venice since he was young. When he learned about the Grand Canal in China, he was determined to come here. In his letters home, he said that the greatness of the Grand Canal is something you can never imagine in Venice. He’s the one meant to be today’s Marco Polo.”
“Not sure if he’s still alive? What does that mean?”
“He came to China through military service. Last year, you know, the Boxers, the Qing government, they clashed, and there has been no news since then.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“War, no one can escape it.”
“Hope he’s alive.”
“May God bless everyone.”
Silence. Outside the window, the gentle waves of the canal could be heard. Cicadas chirped in the willow trees by the bank.
“I hope I can make it to the end of this great river,” Xiao Boluo said. “But if I can’t, please bury me by the canal in Tongzhou; anywhere along the canal will do. Please!” He extended his bony hand, its skin covered in the shadow of death.
“I promise you,” Xie Pingyao said, gripping his hand, “but I hope even more to accompany you on the canal once more.”
Tears welled up in Xiao Boluo’s eyes, yet his expression was one of a smile. The grim reaper, cloaked in black, was inching towards his forehead. With his final strength, Xiao Boluo grasped Xie Pingyao’s hand and said, “Brother.”
At noon they arrived in Tongzhou, less than ten miles from the northern end of the Grand Canal, a distant thunderclap echoed under the glaring summer sun. Xiao Boluo, in his unconscious state, opened his eyes for three seconds before slowly closing them again, never to reopen. This time, he remained motionless, like any intact body, composed, serene, and unyielding. On a nearby official boat, people were discussing canal transportation.
One of them said, “This might be the last trip.”
Another asked, “Is it going to be abolished?”
“The news came from the palace.”
In the year 1901, in the reign of Emperor Guangxu, on the second day of the seventh month, equivalent to August 15th in the Gregorian calendar, the edict to abolish canal transportation was issued.
In the year 1901, in the reign of Emperor Guangxu, on the twentieth day of the sixth month, equivalent to August 4th in the Gregorian calendar, the Italian Paolo Dimak died on a boat on the Tongzhou Canal.