Toward the end of the year, the workers were always busy, both with their jobs and with trying to get the boss to pay their wages.
Dahe had no such trouble. He was a long-term contract worker, making deliveries every month for a fixed salary paid on time. His only worry was how often he could not reach Xiuxiu by phone. It wasn’t that he panicked unless they talked every day; her mother and eldest uncle had entrusted her to him, so he felt responsible for checking that she was safe.
At first he worried that something had happened to her. He took a vehicle to the massage parlor one night and found her working perfectly well. She told him not to worry. Her phone battery had run out, or she had forgotten to pay the bill.
After this happened several times, Dahe had no choice but to ask for a coworker’s number. Whenever he couldn’t reach Xiuxiu, he called that woman instead. She always said Xiuxiu was fine and at work, though there was something odd about her tone.
Then one night in December, Dahe called to check on Xiuxiu again. She didn’t answer, so he called her coworker. This time the woman urged him to come quickly. They had the day off and a group of them had gone out drinking and having fun. Xiuxiu was drunk.
Dahe hurried into a construction-site vehicle and drove to the address she gave him. It turned out to be a brightly lit bar, full of people dancing wildly. He wore a faded winter jacket and worn-out shoes, and the security guard at the entrance refused to let him in.
He tried to explain himself, but the guard wouldn’t listen. Taking him for a penniless laborer, the man insulted him and cursed his parents. Dahe grew so angry he nearly got into a shoving match with him. Just then Xiuxiu’s coworker came out with a young man.
The young man greeted the guard and passed him a cigarette. “Brother, it’s a misunderstanding. He’s our friend.”
The guard seemed to know him. After a few angry complaints, he let Dahe inside.
Dahe passed through the seething crowd and reached a private room at the end. When he pushed the door open, he found Xiuxiu in a low-cut little dress, laughing and playing around with several young men and women.
She was still reasonably conscious, although she swayed from side to side and leaned against a young man. Pointing at Dahe, she shrieked, “Dahe!” as though recognizing an acquaintance.
He went to take her arm, but she shook him off. “Don’t touch me. I still want to drink.”
There were eight glasses on the table: two empty and six full. She reached for a full one, but only swayed with it in her hand instead of drinking.
Everyone shouted encouragement. “Finish it! Finish it!”
Xiuxiu’s coworker came over and explained that Xiuxiu had lost quite a bit playing a drinking-game wager with Brother Ou, the wealthy businessman in the middle.
“I’ll pay whatever she owes,” Dahe said calmly.
The coworker raised an eyebrow and named a figure.
Dahe froze. His straightforward mind turned the number over again and again until everything felt unreal, even Xiuxiu swaying on the other side of the room.
To some people in that room, the sum might have meant nothing, though Dahe did not know it. To him, it was more than half a year’s wages, or a full year of his brother’s tuition and living expenses. It ought to have been more than half a year’s wages for Xiuxiu too. How could she have lost so much?
While he stood stunned, her coworker quickly explained that Brother Ou was only playing with them. When he lost, he paid money, but the women never had to pay when they lost. They only had to drink, and the more they lost, the more they drank. Once Xiuxiu finished the row of drinks, it would be settled.
“I’ll drink for her,” Dahe said.
The man they called Brother Ou looked him over. “Who are you?”
“I’m from her hometown,” Dahe replied. Standing so out of place among them, he was as straight and imposing as a towering mountain.
Brother Ou was educated and liked to have fun, but he knew his limits and wasn’t domineering. Seeing that Dahe was a country bumpkin, he waved his hand and laughed. “Go ahead. Drink them, then take her away. She’s making too much noise.”
Dahe took a glass and obediently swallowed a mouthful, only to choke immediately.
It was hard liquor, mixed with who knew what. He had never drunk anything like it and couldn’t have named the ingredients. One swallow sent fire burning down his throat.
No wonder Xiuxiu was so drunk after two glasses. She might have had quite a few more beforehand.
The others began laughing, delighted to see the tall, powerful-looking country boy choke until his face turned scarlet. Then the laughter died away. Dahe finished one glass, decisively picked up the next, then the next, and the next.
He emptied all six in one go. His face, ears, and neck were crimson as he looked back at them.
Even the worldly Brother Ou was startled. He frowned at Dahe as though looking at a freak. He had only meant to play a little game. Xiuxiu had been in a bad mood that night, insisted on wagering with him, and lost repeatedly. He had demanded so many drinks only as a penalty, planning to make her swallow two or three before ending it so things wouldn’t become unpleasant. When the country boy arrived, he’d thought it would be funny to make him drink a few instead. Who the hell could have expected him to finish all six?
Without a word, Dahe went over, hoisted Xiuxiu up against his shoulder, and left.
Only when the night wind struck him outside did he realize how dizzy he was. He couldn’t drive, so for the first time in his life he helped a swaying, struggling Xiuxiu into a taxi and went to the nearest guesthouse.
“Let… go! I still want to drink!” Xiuxiu flailed her arms, damp with spilled alcohol, and tried to push open the car door.
Dahe quickly pulled her back and locked it. They struggled and lurched about in the back seat, and he grew more lightheaded still.
The liquor was catching up with him. He supported Xiuxiu into the guesthouse, but by the time he took out his identification card his vision was blurring. He struggled to get her into the room, dropped her onto the bed, and went to wash his face in the bathroom in hopes of clearing his head.
As he bent to splash water on his face, Xiuxiu wrapped her arms around him from behind. In recent months she had put a little flesh on her arms, and they encircled his waist softly. “Dahe… Dahe…”
She began crying miserably. “Dahe… I’m so scared…” She sounded helpless and frightened, as though she had finally found someone to lean on.
Dahe had no choice but to help her back. With her whole body clinging to him, arms and legs tangled together, he half supported and half carried her to the bed. He had just straightened and was staggering toward the door when she suddenly lunged at him. His slipper slid out from under his foot, and the two of them crashed thunderously to the floor.
His head struck the foot of the bed. Through the piercing pain and dizziness, the last thing he saw was Xiuxiu’s makeup-smeared face lowering toward his own.
The next morning a coworker’s phone call woke him. He sat up holding his aching head and discovered that he was completely naked. Xiuxiu sat by the window with her back to him, wrapped in a quilt, hunched over and crying softly.
Just before Spring Festival, Xiuxiu told him she was pregnant.
Dahe took two weeks’ leave. With their luggage, he and Xiuxiu endured two days and nights on a crowded train, then a bus ride and mountain paths, finally reaching the village beneath the stars. Their first task was to tell both families privately that Xiuxiu would soon be visibly pregnant and they needed to marry before her condition showed.
Xiuxiu’s mother said little. Dahe’s Third Uncle shut the door and beat him for the first time in more than a decade. “You damned silly boy! Isn’t she going to be your wife? Couldn’t you have waited until you were married to fool around?”
Dahe endured the beating with his head lowered. When it was over he remained silent, returned to his room, took a small parcel from his luggage under his siblings’ curious eyes, and went up the mountain.
The mountain path wasn’t especially dark. Every bend and bump was familiar, yet he stumbled along, perhaps because Third Uncle had struck his calves several times with the broom.
He staggered before the shrine and headed straight for the big rock. In his daze he even forgot to put the parcel of candy on the altar as he passed. He simply lowered himself onto the stone, curled around the candy, and fell asleep.
He was so exhausted that he slept soundly. He didn’t even notice when the mountain god appeared beside him, sat down, and gently lifted his head onto his lap.
The god spread his ample robe over Dahe’s body, bent down, and curiously lifted a corner of the bundle in his arms to see what it held. All he could see was some plastic wrapping.
The mountain god tilted his head as the robe slid gently across Dahe’s chest. He touched the thick eyebrows knitted in the sleeper’s dreams and softly smoothed them.
“Silly boy,” the immortal whispered. “What’s happened to you?”
The next morning, a rabbit’s commotion woke Dahe. Opening his eyes, he saw a large black rabbit with a white patch on its rump bounding merrily across the altar, leaping onto the low shrine roof and back down. Then came the sound of gnawing.
Dahe went over, and the alert rabbit darted away. When he bent to look, he did not know whether to laugh or cry.
A great hole had been chewed in his bamboo box. So the culprit was a rabbit.
He took out the box and looked inside. Oddly enough, although the hole was big enough for a rabbit’s head, nothing inside was missing. Even the little bamboo truck was still the same wreck it had been last year.
He repaired the hole, returned the box to the shrine, and packed stones tightly around it.
Then he took his overnight parcel to the altar and arranged the candy and snacks in a row. Before leaving, he had chosen them carefully, even asking the salesperson which candy was the most expensive and best in the supermarket.
He squatted before the shrine and gazed quietly at the statue for a long time.
Eight years. He no longer expected the mountain god to appear before him again.
Even so, he firmly believed that the god was still here, watching him through those clay eyes.
He leaned forward, cupped the statue’s little head in trembling hands, and knelt so low that his huge upper body curled awkwardly inside the shrine. Bringing his lips close to the god’s ear, he whispered, “Mountain God, I’m getting married.”
He was quiet for a while. “…Will you be happy for me?”
“When I was little, you asked whether I liked Xiuxiu, whether I thought she was pretty.”
“I…”
He closed his eyes and could say nothing more. He only trembled faintly and hugged his god more tightly.
Long after Dahe disappeared down the mountain path, the god of the mountains appeared beside the altar.
The big black rabbit hurtled over, snatched a little plastic jar no bigger than half a palm, and ran off.
The mountain god swept his hand, and the jar rose into the air, leaving the rabbit dangling from it. Its struggling hind legs could still reach the ground, rustling the fallen leaves.
At last it wisely released the jar and escaped, apparently undiscouraged, promptly bounding into the shrine to nudge the stones around the bamboo box.
The mountain god was still looking toward the mountain path, his expression calm and distant. He pried open the little jar and reached in with his long fingers, taking out a fingertip-sized, pitch-black sweet. He had never seen this kind before. The packaging was so fine and splendid, but the candy within was cold and black as mud.
Lowering his head, he put it into his mouth.
He was happy for Dahe.
The silly boy he had once cradled in his arms and cherished in his palms, innocent, guileless, kind, and lonely, would grow into a man, marry, and have children. His shoulders would grow broader and stronger beneath the weight of a family, then the years would settle over him, he would grow old, and at last return to dust.
Like generations of his ancestors, he would pass through the endless years of a god deep in the mountains, his brief human life hurrying by.
The mountain god had always understood that this was the way of heaven.
He was happy for him.
The bittersweet taste gradually filled his mouth.
The New Year’s Eve feast was even livelier than in other years. The village Party secretary was so delighted that he drank an extra two liang of baijiu. Red-faced, he found somewhere high in the village square, climbed up unsteadily, twitched his little mustache, and shouted, “Everyone! Fellow villagers! Attention!”
“I have three pieces of happy news to announce!” he bellowed, craning his neck.
His wife tried to help him when she saw he could barely stand. He pushed her away.
“First! Another bumper harvest this year! The boys working away from home have all come back! Let’s celebrate the New Year together!”
The villagers cheered and shouted.
“Second! Our village’s Chen Dahe and Lai Juanxiu! Such a… handsome pair! Such… distinguished bearing! In two days they’ll be united in marriage! I… on behalf of the village, wish them a lifetime of harmony and a house full of children!”
The villagers understood hardly any of his drunken literary flourishes. They only knew the young couple were getting married, and continued shouting congratulations. The children shrieked along, swept up in the merriment.
Third Uncle had made Dahe drink two cups of liquor. His face flushed, Dahe glanced across the table at Xiuxiu through the teasing. She looked back, red-faced, seeming every bit a shy bride.
“Third! The county’s official notice has arrived! Everyone in the county is to mobilize, make full use of our geographical advantages, and develop tourism! After New Year, a whole team will come here to… survey the terrain! We’ll make use of our beautiful mountains and waters! Work together, and everyone will get rich! And…”
The villagers began shouting over him before he could finish. They couldn’t understand a damn thing he was saying. As long as it meant getting rich, that was enough!
Amid the uproar, Dahe quietly lowered his head and bit into a steamed bun.
He didn’t get a good night’s sleep. The two families spent several evenings hastily preparing the wedding. Neither had much savings, and the bridal home would be Xiuxiu’s ancestral house. Few of Dahe’s relatives came, but Xiuxiu’s aunts and distant relations were there in force, filling the courtyard with chatter early on the wedding morning. Firecrackers exploded in the village square, and a master of ceremonies invited from a neighboring village shouted over the festive red decorations: “First gift, a perfect match! Second gift, a harmonious pair! Third gift, blessings shining down…”
After a chaotic day, Dahe’s mind was a muddle, and the young men teasing the newlyweds had plied him with so much liquor he could scarcely stand. He could hardly remember the order of the wedding ceremonies. Red candles stood in the bridal room, and a quilt embroidered with mandarin ducks lay on the bed. Xiuxiu sat at its edge with a red bridal veil over her head, quietly bowed as though waiting.
Dahe closed the door on the noise of the young men and children outside. He swayed dizzily, then blew out the candle on the table.
When he woke the next morning, Xiuxiu had already risen to offer morning tea to Third Uncle and Third Aunt. Dahe put on a winter jacket and stood at the window. The endless mountains in the distance were withered black, their peaks capped with white like hair turned gray by age.
After his leave, Dahe returned to work in the other province while Xiuxiu stayed in the village to rest during her pregnancy. Each day she sat in bed with her growing belly, watching television. Sometimes her mother urged her to get up and wander lazily around the courtyard. She merely waited for the baby to be born. Each month Dahe sent money home: some to Xiuxiu for nourishment and household expenses, and some to his younger brother studying in the provincial capital. The two payments consumed nearly all his modest wages. After several months, realizing he could not go on like this, he changed jobs and became a taxi driver.
The taxi belonged to a company. He shared it with an older driver, who took the day shift while Dahe drove at night. Seeing so many men and women staggering out of glittering nightlife venues, he slowly and awkwardly began to understand a little of Xiuxiu’s life during that year. Through the rain-streaked taxi window he watched the restless, brightly colored city from a distance, passing the glamour and beauty Xiuxiu loved and the filth and corruption she ignored.
He carried teenage boys and girls embracing and kissing hungrily in the back seat; university students weeping because a relative was critically ill and they needed to fly home; exhausted young office workers who had just gone home to wash and change before returning to work all night; furious wives demanding that he chase the shameless mistress in the car ahead; middle-aged women who could no longer afford medical treatment and were going home to wait for death, accompanied by husbands with vacant faces; young women carrying designer handbags, taking off their high heels and massaging their toes while cooing into the phone to a wealthy ‘godfather’; and elderly couples holding hands, talking softly about everyday matters, the wife asking him to drive more slowly because her husband had a heart condition.
Sometimes he stopped by the roadside to pick reeds and unfamiliar wild grasses growing at abandoned construction sites. With them he wove mantises, butterflies, sparrows, rabbits, puppies, flowers and plants, tiny shrines, and all the things this city contained that most people never noticed.
He glued one palm-sized shrine inside his taxi. Driving along deserted streets in the dead of night, he would pull over and let his gaze pass across the little shrine toward the mottled sky beyond the buildings of steel and concrete. It was as if he could see through the mountains and rivers all the way to the little shrine surrounded by bamboo. Behind him was an emerald robe, and cool arms were slowly, gently closing around his chest.