Fortunately, the guestroom had a black-and-white television which was just then showing an old kung-fu film. I put on a show of enthusiasm, repeatedly shifting my gaze onto the boxing high kicks of the kungfu warriors, young ladies, and old monks, as an excuse for my silence.

Luckily, some snot-nosed kid I didn't know pushed on the door a few times, giving me something to do: I asked his name, moved a stool over for him, chatted with a woman standing behind him about his age and rural family planning.

Something like half an hour passed. In other words, the minimum required duration for reunions and reminiscences had been achieved, and we could part. Half an hour isn't ten minutes, or five. Half an hour isn't too hasty, or gushy, too empty or indifferent; it enabled us to remember each other as friends. In the final analysis, I'd tolerated, endured the nameless, strong, grassy smell Yanzao's body gave off-the kind of smell that a certain kind of bamboo gives off after it's been cut- for this effortfully, unendingly long stretch of time; my mission would soon be accomplished.

He got up to say goodbye, and at my emphatic request once more picked up onto his back that heavy piece of wood, and reiterated his "uh-uh" noise at me, the noise that sounded as if he was about to vomit. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, I'm sure, but everything he said reminded you of vomiting.

As he went out the door, a tear suddenly glimmered in the corner of his eye.

The footsteps in the black night gradually grew distant.

I'd seen that teardrop. Despite the dimness of the light at that moment, that teardrop sank deep into my memory, so deep that I had no way of wiping it away with a blink of the eyelids. It had gleamed gold. When I quietly released my breath, when I relaxed my face from its frozen smile, I was unable to forget it. I had no sense of release. As I watched the kung-fu movie on the television, I couldn't forget it. As I ran a bowl of hot water for washing my feet, I couldn't forget it. As I squeezed onto the long-distance bus and yelled at a big fat man in front of me, I couldn't forget it. When buying the newspaper, I couldn't forget it. While going to the food market, umbrella in hand, and breathing in fishy smells, I couldn't forget it. While under gentle but unremitting pressure from two members of the intellectual elite to edit with them teaching materials on traffic regulation and go to the Public Security Bureau to buy the head of traffic's obligatory distribution rights, I couldn't forget it. When getting out of bed, I couldn't forget it.

The footsteps had disappeared into the night.

I knew this teardrop came from somewhere very distant. Distant people, separated by time and space, are often filtered in our memories into something cherished, touching, beautiful, become multicolored hallucinations in the imaginings of our souls. Once they come near, once they turn into a qu, a this him, standing before you, then everything changes completely. They may well morph into a hazy, uninteresting strangeness, swathed in layer upon layer of totally different experiences, interests, and types of discourse, swathed so tightly, so immovably that no breath of air can break in, a strangeness with nothing to say to me-just as I, perhaps, am totally different in their eyes, am totally unrelated to their memories.

I was looking for ta, that him, but could only find qu, this him.

I had to get away from this him, but I couldn't forget that him.

The clear distinction in Maqiao language between ta and qu highlights the great difference that exists between near and far, between fact and description, between fact at a distance and actual fact itself. That evening I saw very clearly that between these two words, as that strangely conjoined mass of acute angles, as that wood-bearing qu strode off to become ta, a silent teardrop gleamed.

: I gave Yanzao's wife twenty yuan. She was overjoyed to receive it, and, of course, immediately began spewing out politenesses:

"Yanzao often talks about you all."

"How come you're so Confucian?"

And so on.

Confucian, in Maqiao dialect, referred to a sense of etiquette, of morals, to lofty intellect, to a slightly wordy seriousness. Generally speaking, this word carried no pejorative connotations.

But when you start thinking about how much hypocrisy has been dressed up over the years in the cloak of Confucian orthodoxy, it wasn't a word that made you feel too comfortable. What seemed to be philanthropy-that twenty yuan I just mentioned, for example-stemmed not from a deep sincerity, nor from natural instinct, but merely from cultural indoctrination. This is inevitably a rather depressing thought.

Beyond the framework of "Confucianism," can the sympathy and affection of genuine feeling exist between humans? Did Maqiao people replace "good," "decent," "warm-hearted," and other close synonyms with "Confucian" because they couldn't rid themselves of grave doubts over human nature? What feelings of fear or shame might these doubts produce in alms-givers?

: "Yellowskin" was a dog, an incredibly ordinary dog who lacked any other characteristics from which we could devise a name for it. No one knew where it came from and it seemed to have no owner. Because the Educated Youth had rather more grain to eat than other households, thanks to parental supplements, the Educated Youth's cooking pot gave off more appetizing smells. They hadn't managed totally to shake off wasteful habits, and dirty rice or spoiled vegetables would be flicked carelessly onto the ground or into the ditch. As day after day Yellowskin fed royally, it seemed to set down roots here, its ever-hopeful gaze fixed permanently on our bowls.

It also got to know the voices of the Educated Youth. If you wanted to call it from far off, or set it onto some target, you had to talk in the Changsha city dialect. If you used Maqiao dialect, it'd gaze to left, to right, in front and behind, before it made any kind of a move. Maqiao people were furious when they discovered this.

It'd even gotten to know the sound of our breathing and footsteps. Sometimes we'd go out in the evening, to pay visits in nearby villages or to the commune to make a phone call; by the time we returned to the village the night would already be well advanced. We'd climb up over Tianzi Peak, with Maqiao down below, sunk into the gently flickering, hazy blue moonlight, still at least another five or six li away from us. And then, without us needing to say anything, still less to whistle, there'd be a movement in faraway Maqiao, a sound of breakneck pattering would rise up from somewhere deep within the moonlight, skirting along the twisted path, closer and closer, faster and faster until it finally loomed into a silent black shadow that threw itself at our sleeves or collars in an expression of welcome.

It was like this every time. Yellowskin could catch and distinguish any sound from more than five or six li away, sparing no effort in its mad dash to meet us, always providing a source of warmth for us nocturnal travelers, offering the embrace of an advance party from home.

I don't know how it managed to survive after we left Maqiao. I only remember that after Uncle Luo was bitten by a mad dog, the commune launched a huge dog-catching campaign. Benyi said Yellowskin was the most vicious dog of all, the one most needing to be destroyed, and took action with a rifle himself, but failed to hit his target even with three shots. Left with a bleeding back leg, Yellowskin scurried off yowling into the mountains.