One by one they enumerated the black marks on Three-Hairs' history; finally they said, your sufferings are all over, go in peace, don't go blaming us Maqiao people for being cruel, our hands are tied, y'know.

Her eyes moist, Fucha's mother said everyone's got to go, sooner or later-don't you remember how Boss Hong suffered much more than you, he even died with the plough still on.

Three-Hairs was still shedding tears.

Zhihuang, his face totally expressionless, finally picked up the axe and walked over-

A dull thump.

The ox's head split into a rivulet of blood, followed by a second, a third… Even when the fountain of blood had spurted a foot high, the ox still put up no resistance, didn't even call out, still kept its kneeling position. Finally, it swayed briefly, leaned to one side, then collapsed heavily, like a mud wall splaying over the ground. Its legs flexed weakly a few times, while its body lay straight and stiff over the ground, looking as if it had been stretched much longer than normal. The light grey skin covering its stomach, which you couldn't usually see that much of, lay completely exposed. The blood-red head twitched violently in repeated convulsions, the shiny black eyes wide open, fixed on the onlookers, fixed on Zhihuang, who stood before it covered in blood.

Fucha's mother told Zhihuang, "It's going; call out to it."

Zhihuang called out: "Three-Hairs."

The ox's gaze flickered.

Zhihuang shouted again: "Three-Hairs."

The ox's broad eyelids finally fell shut; its body slowly stopped twitching.

All night long, Zhihuang sat before those eyes which would never reopen.

: Each of Maqiao's oxen had its own name. People had lots of different words for oxen: for example, there were oxen that "understood," meaning oxen with intelligence; there were oxen "born-to-the-pen," meaning oxen that had been brought up like family, oxen that ox-rustlers found hard to steal away. Although Three-Hairs had something of a foul temper, it was still an ox born-to-the-pen.

Two months before it died, nothing had been seen of it for two days, the team leader had sent people searching everywhere with no result, and everyone thought it'd never be found again, that it'd already been slaughtered or sold by ox-rustlers. But on the evening of the third day, while I was playing chess at Zhihuang's, Zhihuang unexpectedly turned back from relieving himself and said his ox whip was twitching on the wall, there was definitely something up, definitely. Maybe Three-Hairs had come back. No sooner were we out of the door than we heard Three-Hairs' lows and saw a familiar black shadow in front of the oxpen. Right at that moment it was butting the wooden oxpen with its horns-clunk, clunk, clunk-wanting to get inside. Half a length of ox rope was hanging from its nose, its tail had been cut to half its length for some unknown reason, its whole body was covered with dozens of bloody scars, its whiskers were in a real state and it had clearly lost a lot of weight. After escaping from the ox-rustlers it must have meandered all over the mountains on its long, long tramp home.

: There was nothing I could say-seeing wave upon wave of misty rain sweep toward me over the fields on the mountainside, dousing the mud wall of the cow pen, wrinkling the surface water on the fields into wind-driven concertinas, dying away in round after round among the clumps of reeds on the ridge opposite, out of which two or three mute wild ducks would then flap furiously. The harmonies from the brook grew ever louder, ever more fragmented, until there was no way of differentiating precisely between each of the various original noises; nor did you know where they came from, there remained nothing but the vast expanse between heaven and earth that had converged into a roaring whole so turbulent that the very surface of the earth seemed to tremble. I saw in a doorway a dog soaked through, howling in wide-eyed terror at the storm.

Under the eaves of every house dripped a column of stagnant water, overflowing under the gaze of those avoiding the rain with nowhere to shelter themselves, overflowing with the bitter waiting of the Qingming season, in early April.

Every leaf on the mountain was being pattered to pieces.

Spring rain is enthusiastic, self-confident, it rushes and flows, it gushes from deep, long-held stores. Summer rain, in comparison, is more like an occasional absent-minded splatter, while autumn rain is an occasional, distracted about-face, and winter rain is simply indifferent. I reckon it'd be hard to find anyone who looked forward to rain as much as Educated Youth did, who knew so well the sound and smell of each type of rain and the temperature it left the skin. Because it was only on rainy days that we could haul our weary, aching bodies inside our houses, draw breath, and enjoy this precious opportunity for rest.

My daughter has never liked the rain. For her, spring rain means inconvenience, slippery roads, the terror of thunder and lightning, and the cancellation of sports matches or excursions. She'll never understand my feeling of uncontrollable excitement at the sound of rain, she'll never understand why it's bucketing down in every single one of my dreams about my time in the countryside. She has missed out on a decade of longing for the sound of rain.

Maybe I should rejoice at this.

It's started raining again, now. The sound of the rain always gives me a certain feeling: over there in the rain, way, way over there in the rain, there's still a trail of muddy footprints left by me, that floats up on rainy days, sinking into a dazzling white abyss on a mountain path rocked by the waves of rainfall,

:The first time I heard this word was when crossing the Luo River in flood season, when the river was a few times wider than usual. On the same boat were two unfamiliar women, probably from distant regions, who covered their faces with bamboo hats once they'd boarded the boat, exposing no more than a pair of eyes. The boatman sized them up briefly, then waved at them to get off. The two women had no choice but to get off and smear their faces with mud till they looked like painted actors; doubling up with laughter at the sight of each other, they finally got back on the boat, still convulsed with giggles.

I was quite amazed: why did they have to paint these funny faces?

"Even ten Chairman Mao's can't control Sixth Master Dragon and his floods," said the boatman. "I can't be held responsible for the lives of a boatload of people, now can I?"

People on the boat immediately concurred: that's right, that's right, floods and fire take no prisoners, best be careful. They started talking about some time back in the past, when some woman had been so rude the boat capsized, the people fell in the water and couldn't reach the bank however hard they swam-must've been demons at work.

It was only afterwards that I found out "rude" meant "pretty." A very particular rule held on this crossing: in times of high winds or turbulent waters, women who weren't ugly weren't allowed to cross. Legend had it that a very long time ago an ugly woman from around here who could never get married had ended up throwing herself to her death off this pier into the river. The ugly woman's soul didn't then scatter: she only had to spot an attractive woman on a boat to whip the wind into jealous waves, causing endless accidents in which boats were destroyed and lives lost. Any remotely good-looking female on the crossing could only avoid bringing disaster on the whole boat by dirtying her face.