If you're looking for No. 1, go straight, then take the first lane on the right, it's on the south side of the road. If you're looking for No. 37, go that way, after about a hundred paces take the second lane, go to the very end, and it's on the north side, on the left. I thank him repeatedly, but when I go, I can feel his eyes boring into my back.
I see the first lane on the right, but before turning I see the brand-new blue road sign beside the red sign of the men's public lavatory. Written on it clearly and unmistakably is Guandi Temple, but this is not the impression I had of it as a child. I turn into the lane to show that I really did come to see my old home and am not up to any mischief. There is no need for me to look from No. 1 to No. 37. At a glance I can see to the end of the lane: it is not as long and winding as I remembered. I don't know whether or not a temple was there then. No tall buildings are on either side of the lane; rising above the old-style buildings is only one three-story redbrick building, an economy structure that seems less permanent than these old courtyards. Suddenly I remember that Guandi Temple burned down after being struck by lightning, but that was before I was capable of remembering anything. My grandfather told me about it. He said that the spot attracted lightning because the qi energies underground were in disharmony, so they built the temple to drive away the demons and evil spirits. Still it ended up being struck by lightning, proving that the site was not suited to human habitation. Anyway, my home was not in Guandi Temple, it was somewhere not too far from it. I must retrace the way my mother took me when I was a child. Having a child myself won't make it any easier, but I know that it's futile to keep asking people. I have gone in circles on the lake, beyond the lake, in the middle of the lake, around the lake, but if the sea can turn into mulberry trees, so too can this little lake. I suspect that my old home is hidden deep in the little forest of aerials in that stretch of old buildings, new buildings, and economy buildings that are neither old nor new, right in front of me. But no matter how much you keep going around them you can't see it. So you can only imagine it from your memories. It might be beyond that wall, converted to family dormitories by some urban environmental-protection authority. Or a plastic button factory might have turned it into a warehouse with iron doors and a guard, so unless you can state your business, don't even think about going in to nose around. Just tell yourself that people couldn't be so cruel as to demolish the gate screen with the carvings. But past and present sages and philosophers in China and the West believe that humans have a propensity for evil, and that evil is more deeply rooted than good in human nature. You like to believe in the goodness of people. People just wouldn't be so mean as to so they built the temple to drive away the demons and evil spirits. Still it ended up being struck by lightning, proving that the site was not suited to human habitation. Anyway, my home was not in Guandi Temple, it was somewhere not too far from it. I must retrace the way my mother took me when I was a child. Having a child myself won't make it any easier, but I know that it's futile to keep asking people. I have gone in circles on the lake, beyond the lake, in the middle of the lake, around the lake, but if the sea can turn into mulberry trees, so too can this little lake. I suspect that my old home is hidden deep in the little forest of aerials in that stretch of old buildings, new buildings, and economy buildings that are neither old nor new, right in front of me. But no matter how much you keep going around them you can't see it. So you can only imagine it from your memories. It might be beyond that wall, converted to family dormitories by some urban environmental-protection authority. Or a plastic button factory might have turned it into a warehouse with iron doors and a guard, so unless you can state your business, don't even think about going in to nose around. Just tell yourself that people couldn't be so cruel as to demolish the gate screen with the carvings. But past and present sages and philosophers in China and the West believe that humans have a propensity for evil, and that evil is more deeply rooted than good in human nature. You like to believe in the goodness of people. People just wouldn't be so mean as to deliberately trample the memories of your childhood, because they too have a childhood worth remembering. This is as clear as one plus one cannot equal three. One plus one may change in quantity and substance, change into something grotesque, but it will never become three. To abolish such thoughts you must get away from these asphalt roads that all look alike, and away from these new buildings and old buildings, these blocks upon blocks upon blocks of half-new, half-old economy apartment blocks, under their forests of television aerials, bare branches devoid of leaves, as far as the eye can see.
I must go to the country, to the river where my grandfather took me fishing. He took me to the river, and although I can't remember if we caught any fish, I know I did have a grandfather and a childhood. I remember feeling awful when my mother made me take off all my clothes in the courtyard for a bath. I have also searched for the other houses I lived in as a child. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to go hunting, but it was not with my grandfather. After a whole day we killed a feral cat we thought was a fox. And I remember my poem in which I've strapped rattling hunting knives all over myself. I am a tailless dragonfly flitting over a plain, but the critic has barbed thorns growing in his eyes and a wide chin. I want to write a novel so profound that it would suffocate a fly.
I see my grandfather sitting on a small wooden stool, his back hunched, sputtering on his pipe. Grandfather! I call out to him, but he doesn't hear. I go right up to him and call again, Grandfather! He turns around but is no longer holding his pipe. Tears stream from his ancient eyes, which seem bloodshot from smoke. In winter, to get warm, he always liked to squat by the stove and burn wood. Why are you crying, Grandfather? I ask. He wipes the snivel with his hand. Sighing, he wipes his hand on his shoe but it doesn't leave a stain. He is wearing old cloth shoes with thick padded soles that my grandmother made for him. Without saying a word, he looks at me with his bloodshot eyes. I've bought you a fishing rod with a hand reel, I tell him. He grunts deep in his throat but without any enthusiasm.
I come to the riverbank. The sand underfoot crunches and sounds like my grandmother sighing. She is fond of chattering endlessly, although no one understands her. If you ask, Grandmother, what did you say? she will look up absentmindedly and, after a while, Oh, you're back from school? Are you hungry? There are sweet potatoes in the bamboo steamer. When she chatters it's best not to interrupt, she is talking about when she was a young woman, but if you eavesdrop from behind her chair, she seems to be saying, It's hidden, it's hidden, everything is hidden, everything… All these memories are making noises in the sand under your feet.
This is a dried-up river, flowing with nothing but rocks. You are walking on rocks that have been rounded and smoothed by the river, and, jumping from rock to rock, you can almost see the clear current. But when the mountain floods came, an expanse of muddy water spread into the city. To get across the road, people had to roll their trousers up, and they kept falling in the brown slush where worn-out shoes and rotting paper floated. When the water receded, the bottom part of all the walls was covered with a sludge that, after a few days in the sun, dried into a shell and flaked off like fish scales. This is the river where my grandfather once took me, but now there is no water even in the gaps between the rocks. In the riverbed there are only unmoving big round rocks like a flock of dumb sheep huddled close to one another, afraid that people will drive them away.