His son had been playing over there, just a moment ago.

He hurled himself over there, digging, digging, digging red, then more red, digging red, more red red red, digging till all his fingers bled, still without digging out even a scrap of cloth. This was his favorite son, the one who'd been able to say all sorts of things just after his first birthday, who after his second birthday had been able to recognize his own family's chickens and chase his neighbors' chickens out of the house. He'd had a large black mole on his forehead.

: Zhaoqing's death has always been a riddle to me.

The very day he disappeared, I'd gone with him to Zhangjia District to help dig a tea plantation. Hearing there'd be meat to eat at midday, he brought his kid son Kuiyuan with him, stuffing a pair of chopsticks into his hands a long time in advance; then as soon as it was time to eat, father and son strode at great speed to the front of the crowd, heading, dashing straight for the kitchen, for the sound of meat sizzling in the pot. The kid hadn't been counted in the total of mouths to feed, but his gaping jaws were very plain to everyone present. People had teamed up in groups of six, with each group entitled to a bowl of meat. No one wanted to accept an extra uncounted mouth hanging on Zhaoqing's tail, and wrangled away till Shortie Zhao flared up. "How much can one slip of a boy eat? Have you no conscience, haven't you got kids yourselves? Are you all going to be destitute old men, without descendants to look after you?"

After this, not everyone could very well continue to put up resistance, and one group was forced, rather grudgingly, to allow father and son to jostle their way in and to listen to their glugging and crunching. They also had to tolerate Zhaoqing rushing forward at the key moment to pour out meat broth for his kid first of all, into a great big ceramic bowl that was tipped bottom-up to the heavens, completely obscuring his little face.

As there was no food left in his own bowl, Shortie Zhao cadged a little green pepper from his son's.

Kuiyuan was the most important person in the world to him, and he'd never neglect to bring along this glugger and cruncher whenever there might be a meat-eating opportunity. Not long before this, I'd heard he'd dreamt at night that while messing around on the mountain Kuiyuan had had a piece of baba cake stolen by a figure dressed in white; even after waking from the dream he'd been still too angry to calm down, had snatched up a grass sickle and gone off to the mountain to settle scores with this figure in white. I couldn't credit it: what kind of a spirit was Old Forder that he had to recover baba cakes lost in a dream?

I didn't really believe this had happened. When we got into the fields, I couldn't stop myself asking him about it.

Not a word from him. Once he got onto the fields, he was totally absorbed, totally unwilling to join in with chatter that had no bearing on work efficiency.

"You've dropped some money behind you," I told him.

He turned back to look.

"There really is money, take a proper look."

"That'd be your little sister's savings, would it?" He concentrated on his digging.

It was only when he got thirsty and glanced over at my water flask that he started to get all chummy with me, giving a pretty fine imitation of the Educated Youth's barbarian accent: "I say, that flask of yours."

"If you want a drink, then drink-what are you going on about the flask for?"

"Heh-heh, what's eating you today?"

"So you'll only give me the time of day when you want something?"

"What? Have I got to kow-tow just for a gulp of your water?"

As he drank, he counted out loud without being aware of himself: one two, two two… Each second "two" meant two mouthfuls of water.

"If you're going to drink, just drink, why count the twos?" I said rather rudely.

"Just a habit of mine, no need for it." He laughed in embarrassment.

When he'd finished drinking, he became a little politer but remained rather vague about the business of having taken the grass sickle into the mountains: he didn't say it had happened, but neither did he say it hadn't happened. He emphasized indignantly that he'd had several dreams about this figure in white: once the figure had stolen his family's melons, once the family's chickens, another time he'd given his Kuiyuan a clip round the ears for no reason at all. What a nuisance, eh? His teeth ground as he posed the question. There was no answer I could give. From what I'd heard of what he said, those rumors about him snatching up the grass sickle and swearing to settle scores were probably all true.

It was a rum business. Why was this figure in white always barging into his dreams? How come he had so many strange dreams? I couldn't help feeling confused, as I took back the water flask.

That was the last time he borrowed my water flask. The afternoon of the following day, his wife came looking for a cadre, to report that Shortie Zhao hadn't come back home all last night and that she didn't know where he'd gone. Everyone looked everywhere, with growing looks of disquiet, as they remembered they hadn't seen him turn up for work that morning.

"Gone to Maoxing Pond, has he?" said Master Black, laughing.

"But how could he have been gone for so long?" His wife didn't understand what he was talking about.

"I was just… guessing…" Master Black dropped the subject.

"Maoxing Pond" was the name of place in a neighboring village, an isolated dwelling of no more than two households. Shortie Zhao had an old lover there, though who she actually was we had no idea. But whenever he went there to do any work, he'd gather a few branches and blades of grass from off the ground to symbolize grain and firewood, knot them into a wreath and snatch a moment to take it over to "Maoxing Pond" as a token of his affection. He'd then rush back to his work in the fields at incredible speed: nothing less than the wind itself could have moved quicker.

Fucha returned from Maoxing Pond that evening to report there was no Shortie Zhao there either, that absolutely no one had seen a trace of him. Only then did we feel things had started to get serious. Gathered round in whispering huddles, the villagers had identified one piece of news as supremely important. Someone from the lower village had just returned from Pingjiang, bearing a message from Zhihuang's former-pot wife: the dream-woman was reminding Zhaoqing to make sure he had his shoes on.

This was a common method used for warning people in Maqiao, a tip-off to those with "floating souls."

In Maqiao language, floating soul referred to an omen that occurred when people were close to death. After making some general inquiries, I found out there were mainly two sorts of situations involving floating souls:

1. Sometimes, if you saw someone walking along in front of you suddenly disappear, then reappear, you knew a hole had been made in this person's soul and they were going to scatter soon. If you were of a kindly disposition, you'd go and warn this floating soul, but you couldn't do so directly, you couldn't give it away, you'd have to ask something like, "You're running fast! Lost a pair of shoes?" and so on. Hearing this, the other person would've known the score and would rush back home to burn incense, make sacrifices, or ask a Daoist priest to come and drive out the spirits, would do his utmost to avert calamity.

2. Sometimes, while asleep or distracted, a person might dream he'd been dispatched by the King of Hell to fetch another person's soul-an acquaintance of his, perhaps. On waking, again bound by the same principle of discretion, he or she would have to find an ingenious means of giving warning to the other person. Not only were they not to give anything directly away, the two of them also had to be raised off the ground-by climbing up into a tree, for example, and whispering very quietly, to avoid Grandfather Earth hearing, then reporting to and thereby enraging the King of Hell. When the other person heard the warning, he would, of course, be full of thanks, not anger. But there could be no gift to express thanks, no clue that might risk detection by the King of Hell.