Huixian was clear that being Leng Qiuyun’s enemy was not in her best interest. So she made an attempt to mend the relationship. First she placed pumpkin seeds on Leng’s desk, then she put a tin of biscuits on her bed and laid a pair of Kapulong socks beside her pillow. A good try, but too late. Leng sneered at the sight of the gifts and said, ‘Trying to buy me off, is that it? What for? I’m not your Gramps Liu, nor your Uncle Zhao.’ She picked up the pumpkin seeds and biscuits and threw them out of the window, just as Gimpy Gu was walking by. Both falling objects hit him. He picked up the pumpkin seeds and threw them in the rubbish, then picked up the tin of biscuits and took it home with him.
Milltown occupied a large area, but to Huixian it seemed small and confining. There were many places she dared not go, and many others she wouldn’t deign to go. Sometimes she went out, only to be met by whispers, and she returned home wishing she hadn’t gone out. One day she went to the embankment, nibbling on melon seeds along the way. She saw that the eleven barges of the Sunnyside Fleet were tied up at the piers to unload their cargo of oilseed. On an impulse, she hopped on to the gangplank of barge number one, a packet of melon seeds in her hand, and was immediately spotted by Sun Ximing’s wife. ‘Hey, it’s Huixian, you found your way back!’
The surprised and happy shout, coarse and loud, scared Huixian, who dropped her packet of melon seeds into the river. People ran out of their cabins to see her bending over, watching the river take her seeds away. Everyone was shouting: ‘Huixian, come to our place! Huixian, come over to our barge!’
On barge number one, Xiaofu, afraid that the others would snatch her away, jumped on to the gangplank and reached out to take her hand. ‘Come on over, Sis, hurry!’
But the movement of the gangplank drew a shriek from Huixian, who wobbled and looked up, her face ghostly white. Instead of taking the boy’s hand, she pointed to her own forehead and forced a smile for his benefit. ‘I feel dizzy, I don’t think I can manage the gangplank. I’ll come back another time.’ She turned and waved to Sun Ximing and his family, spun around and ran off.
Huixian’s trip home had ended before it really began, to the disappointment of the Sunnyside Fleet families. She didn’t miss them, it seemed, but they missed her. She didn’t care about them, but they were always asking people how she was doing and what the future held for her. Why not, that wasn’t confidential information, was it? Inevitably, they learned that she had lost her benefactor and protector at the General Affairs Building, which drew a cloud over her future. No one would have predicted anything like that, and they were anxious to learn what would happen next. When they asked Sun Ximing, he sighed and said, ‘I don’t know what the future holds for her either, but I hear she’s been “hung out” by Zhao Chuntang.’
They knew what that meant. Hearing the words ‘hung out’ had them thinking back to the girl’s unusual background, and many of them could hardly believe their ears. Talk swirled in the air. ‘Impossible,’ they said. ‘Who would dare hang her out these days? She’s not a little girl any more. Huixian’s grown so pretty, and she has a patron. For the sake of argument, let’s say that Zhao Chuntang wants to bring his mentoring project to an end. The people above him won’t let that happen.’
Sun Ximing was sick of hearing the chatter of his ill-informed neighbours. ‘You people don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘Don’t you listen to news broadcasts? You know what “circumstances” means, don’t you? Well, circumstances have changed. They’ve changed at the top and they’ve changed in Milltown. And with a change in circumstances, Huixian’s prospects have changed as well. When all is said and done, her fate has been “hung out”. As a little girl she was hung out on the barges, where we could raise and look after her. But now she’s hung out on the shore, beyond our reach. What happens from now on depends on her fate.’
The People’s Barbershop
HUIXIAN BEGAN spending every day at the People’s Barbershop just north of the General Affairs Building.
The barbershop was Milltown’s style centre. It was where the faddish young men and chic young women, or those who aspired to that status, went to exchange the latest news on fashion and hair-styles. They not only accepted Huixian into their circle, but welcomed her. Needless to say, she thrived in the lively atmosphere, enjoying a cordial relationship with barbers like Old Cui. Speaking the same language, they were a perfect match. In the barbershop she was in her element; it was a place where she found contentment.
Surrounded by mirrors and fashionable women, she gazed at her reflection and watched as hair-stylists worked on clients, possibly seeing the light of freedom in the styles they chose. One day, without warning, she stood up from her chair and removed all her hair clips to let her hair down. She walked up to Old Cui, holding on to her braid, and said, ‘Cut this off, Old Cui, I’m sick of it. No more braid for me.’
He wouldn’t dare. Since he refused to do what she asked, she picked up a pair of scissors, turned to the mirror and was about to do it herself. ‘Don’t do that!’ an alarmed Old Cui said. ‘It’s Li Tiemei’s braid. How could you think of losing it? Use those scissors, and you’ll stop being Li Tiemei.’
Defiantly, she held the scissors in one hand and her braid in the other. ‘I’m sick of being Li Tiemei!’ she cried out shrilly, staring at Old Cui with a destructive look in her eyes.
To him it sounded like a threat. ‘Your braid is public property,’ he said. ‘The only way I’ll cut it off is with Zhao Chuntang’s permission.’
‘Whose braid is it?’ she said. ‘Mine or his? I can cut it off if I want to. Go and ask him, I don’t care. I’ll cut it off myself.’
In the end, Old Cui agreed to do it for her. After discussing several styles that were popular in the big cities, they decided to start a new trend by copying the style seen on Ke Xiang, the heroine of the model opera Azalea Mountain. Owing to the pressure he was under, Old Cui’s hand shook when he tried to cut off the braid, and he had to stop and call over Little Chen to do it for him. Chen, young and somewhat scatterbrained, made a clicking sound with his tongue as he grabbed the braid and dug in. Huixian’s thick, black braid fell to the floor with a dull thud. She shrieked, scaring Old Cui, who thought that Chen had snipped off part of her ear. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked Huixian, whose eyes filled with tears.
‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I feel a little light-headed, that’s all, something I’m not used to. Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and start cutting. There’s no going back now.’
For Old Cui, this was an experiment, since he’d never done this style for anyone else. He snipped a bit, then stopped and studied the photo of Ke Xiang in the magazine before continuing. All talk had stopped in the shop, everyone’s eyes were glued to Huixian as she sat in the barber’s chair. It was a replay of the surprised encounter with a beauty they’d experienced years before at the sight of the girl with the red lantern on the festooned truck. Their mouths hung slack from curiosity at the sight, except this time they were witness not to her glory, but to the risk she was taking.