I jumped over the wall, picked up my bag, threw it onto my back and ran into the bushes.
On the Run III
The car’s headlights swept across the sky like the Monkey King’s golden staff, a wolfhound howled and the city’s dogs replied. Everything went quiet and all that was left was the sound of croaking toads. I curled up under a pile of corrugated asbestos tiles behind the duck pond and watched as the last people left.
The lights of the town shone in the distance as I walked around the mountain. Where there was no footpath I followed the main road, making my way back to the foot of the slope. I walked for hours, as if lost, until I came to a river. The water’s gurgling calmed me. I untied a petrol drum and with great effort rowed it downstream. Tired, I realised I didn’t have to row it and instead I floated in the darkness, deep into the belly of the universe.
As dawn crept across the sky, I spotted a tidal bore spitting white bubbles like a swimmer churning through the water. The fishy smell of the day’s first boat came next. I ate my breakfast, which roused my spirits, and felt my strength returning. A whistle sounded, beautiful, like a giant, his feet planted in the centre of the river, inhaling and letting out a sonorous cry. I went to buy a ticket and then took up my place on the deck, waiting for the waves to crash against the side of the boat and splash against my face. But I couldn’t stop sleep from taking me. I copied the guys from The Outlaws of Wulong Mountain and lit a cigarette before drifting off to sleep so that I would wake as it burned my fingertips.
But I opened my eyes to find my hand empty. Dead to the world, I must have flicked the cigarette away in my dream. My bag was still wedged between my body and the deck’s barrier. The rest of the passengers were similarly squeezed between luggage. The sun was high in the sky, melting us like in a furnace. I was grimy with oil and stank like hell.
I arrived, along with the boat, in a city that reeked of fish. Using my fake ID, I checked into a love motel and went to sleep with my shoes on, as if I was at home in my own bed. It was dark by the time I awoke. I’d probably only been asleep for a few hours, which the clerk confirmed when I checked out, as he charged me for four. So I made for the university to find a student room for the night. I felt safer there than in a hotel.
A few days later I bought a T-shirt, shorts and a massive cap much like the ones I’d worn before and took an illegal cab to the bridge over the Yangtze. There, I crossed into the next province. I told the driver to stop by the police station.
I walked in and charged my phone. A woman sat at the window, quietly stamping papers. With my eyes on my screen, I spoke.
‘What time do you close?’
‘At 5.00,’ she said, without looking up.
I switched off my phone and went outside to find another taxi. Another illegal cab took me back to the bridge. I had twenty unread messages, all from Ma, all saying the same thing: Son, come back and give yourself up.
It was an obvious police tactic and I was indignant. She could have refused to let them use her phone. How could she betray her only flesh and blood? What kind of mother was she? Then it struck me that she might not have been forced, but had thought of it herself. She felt guilt towards the family of the girl and society as a whole. That’s my mother all over.
I bought a ticket for the TV tower. As the lift rose higher, I saw the first neon lights going on in the town on the other side, car lights moving, starting and stopping. The details were fuzzy, so I got out my binoculars. They’d be looking for me down there, exhausted from chasing me. Maybe they’d stop and look up at the tower. He’s on the other side! they’d realise. But it wasn’t just a question of crossing the river. The county, city and provincial authorities would have to inform the local police, as well as coordinate with the relevant bodies on this side. Maybe they’d think it too much trouble and wait for the police back home to arrive. This one’s ours, guys.
I wanted to get a boat to the next place, but then I thought, why run if they’re not coming for me? So I stayed a few more days.
I got to know a spindly kid of twelve, his limbs like twigs. He wore baggy green army gear. I was eating some wonton at a place near my hostel at the time, when he approached looking anxious (I swear, looked as if he was about to die). His face twitched and he came running up as if moved by a gust of passing wind. I stood up to watch, but he pushed in behind me, pressed against the wall. Four young guys with leathery dark skin and fierce eyes came running in. They were covered in dragon tattoos and carried knives.
The hand clutching my T-shirt was shaking, I could feel it, but after a while he came out from behind me and sat down in front of me, this time with feigned confidence. I carried on eating my wonton, but I didn’t feel too comfortable. He watched me like a mother watching a baby nestled at her bosom, or like a boy from the village looking at his older cousin from the city. It was intimate somehow.
‘You still here?’ I said.
‘You’re not from around here,’ he said, and smiled, stroking my newly laundered white T-shirt. ‘Nice stuff.’
I felt disgusted, so I got the bill and left. But he followed me.
‘Go home,’ I said.
He laughed.
‘I’m busy. Don’t follow me.’
He stopped. I started walking in the opposite direction to my hostel. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Maybe he was an orphan? Maybe we could be brothers? Maybe he could help me out? But I told him to get lost.
The next day I went back to the same wonton place and again he appeared. We didn’t think it was strange.
‘I knew you’d come back,’ he said.
He watched me eat. I looked out to the street and ordered him a bowl. But he kept watching me. It was as if I ate funny, not like the people from around here. It was something to see.
Once we’d finished he asked, ‘Where to next?’
I didn’t know what to say. He was a bad kid, but cute. We went to the market, where he stroked the water pistols, his eyes looking up at me. I made to leave, but he tugged on my T-shirt, kind of embarrassed, like a spoilt little girl. Until I got my wallet out. We bought a few things and then went to the arcade. He flew a plane, his right hand jiggling the joystick anxiously, his left occasionally slapping the machine, his eyes transfixed and unblinking. I played a few times and kept getting killed off. I said I wanted to go, but he ignored me. I repeated myself, but he continued exploding bombs, pa-pa-pa, before eventually tearing himself away.
Outside, a crowd had gathered around a noticeboard. I went to take a look. A new wanted poster had gone up, the face of a coarse middle-aged man with droopy eyes who’d killed seventeen people. In the corner beside it was a small poster, a side dish to his main course: a young man who’d murdered his classmate. He may have only had one victim, but he looked more creepy, his hair fluffy, his beard stubbly, dressed in a dirty T-shirt, biting his cheeks, his chin turned up. His expression was detached, yet provocative. It was the first time I’d seen myself in three weeks.
HE WAS DRESSED IN FLIP-FLOPS AND GYM SHORTS AT THE TIME OF HIS DISAPPEARANCE.
I was worth fifty thousand.
‘Hey, he looks like you,’ the kid said with excitement, as if he’d just discovered the secret connection between all living things.
I patted him on the back of the head, batting him away. Having eaten, we went our separate ways. But I didn’t go far before turning around and, with darkness as my cover, following him. He seemed to be ruminating as he walked, until suddenly he laughed. He came to a slope, jumped down onto the half-finished road and climbed through an open window. The heaps of soil on either side were covered in weeds that were almost as tall as the old house. I climbed down onto the rooftop, moved some of the tiles and peered through the small crack.