The gym teacher sat down next to me, and we cried together. I caressed Youqing’s face; so did he. After a while I suddenly realized that I still didn’t even know how my boy had died. I asked the gym teacher, and only then did I learn that he had died from having too much of his blood extracted. At the time I wanted to kill somebody. I put my son down and rushed out. Charging into the patient ward, I grabbed hold of the first doctor I saw — I didn’t care who he was — and hit him in the face. That doctor fell to the floor and started screaming for help.
“You killed my son!” I barked at him.
I lifted my leg to kick him, but someone grabbed me from behind. Turning around, I saw Youqing’s gym teacher.
“Let me go!” I demanded.
The gym teacher said, “Don’t do anything crazy.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said.
With the gym teacher restraining me, I couldn’t get loose from his grip. Crying, I begged him, “I know you’ve always been good to Youqing. Please let me go.”
But no matter what, the gym teacher wouldn’t let go. All I could do was elbow him, but he still wouldn’t loosen his grip. He gave the doctor time to get up and run away, and by then a whole crowd had surrounded us. I saw that there were two more doctors in the crowd and said to the gym teacher, “I beg you, please let me go.”
The gym teacher was really strong — with him holding me I couldn’t move a muscle. I kept trying to elbow him, but he didn’t seem at all afraid of getting hurt. He just kept saying, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
It was then that a man wearing a Sun Yat-sen — style tunic suit walked over and told the gym teacher to let me go. He asked me, “Are you Xu Youqing’s father?”
I ignored him, and as soon as the gym teacher let me go I rushed over to pounce on one of the doctors. The doctor immediately turned and ran. I heard someone address the guy wearing the tunic suit as the county magistrate and I thought, oh, so he’s the county magistrate — it was his wife who took my son away. I raised my leg and kicked the magistrate in the stomach. He let out a groan as he fell to the ground. Youqing’s gym teacher grabbed hold of me again and yelled, “That’s Magistrate Liu!”
“The magistrate’s just the person I want to kill!” I said.
I raised my leg to kick him again when the magistrate suddenly asked me, “Aren’t you Fugui?”
“I’m going to kill you!” I screamed.
The magistrate got to his feet and said, “Fugui, it’s me, Chunsheng.”
As soon as he said that I went numb. I gazed at him for a while, and the longer I looked at him the more he resembled the Chunsheng I once knew. I said, “Chunsheng, is it really you?”
Chunsheng took a step closer and looked me over.
“Fugui, it’s you,” he said.
Seeing Chunsheng seemed to quell my anger. Through my tears, I told him, “Chunsheng, you’ve gotten tall and gained weight.”
Chunsheng’s eyes also turned red.
“Fugui, I thought you were dead,” he said.
I shook my head. “I survived.”
“And all this time, I thought you’d died the same way as Old Quan,” Chunsheng added.
As soon as he mentioned Old Quan the two of us began to cry like children. After crying for a while I asked Chunsheng, “Did you ever get your hands on that flatbread?”
Wiping away his tears, Chunsheng said, “No, you still remember that? Just as I went out to look for some I was taken prisoner.”
“Did you get to eat steamed buns?” I asked him.
“I sure did,” he smiled.
“I did, too,” I said.
Saying that, we both laughed. We laughed and laughed until I remembered my dead son. I wiped my eyes and began to cry again. Chunsheng put his hand on my shoulder.
“Chunsheng,” I said, “my only son is dead.”
Chunsheng heaved a deep sigh, saying, “How could it have been your son?”
I thought of my son lying all alone in that little room — the pain was unbearable. I said to Chunsheng, “I want to see my son.”
No longer did I want to kill anyone. Who could have guessed that Chunsheng would suddenly appear? I took a few steps and turned around to say to him, “Chunsheng, you owe me a life. You’ll have to repay me in your next lifetime.”
That night I carried Youqing home. I kept stopping from time to time on the way. When my arms got tired from carrying him, I’d put him on my back for a while. But each time I placed him on my back I’d instantly start to panic, so I’d hold him again in front of me. I couldn’t help but look at my son. When I saw I was approaching the village, it got more and more difficult to go on— what was I supposed to say to Jiazhen? Jiazhen was already so sick. I knew that once she found out Youqing had died she wouldn’t be able to go on much longer. I sat down on the ridge just outside the village with Youqing resting on my leg. As soon as I looked down at him I couldn’t hold back the tears. After crying for a while, I started to think about how to break the news to Jiazhen. After going through everything in my head, I decided I should keep Youqing’s death a secret from her for the time being. I put Youqing down on the ridge and snuck home to get my hoe. I then picked Youqing back up, headed over to my parents’ gravesite, and started digging a hole.
I had to bury him, but at the same time I couldn’t bear to part with him. I sat down before my parents’ graves and embraced Youqing, not letting go. I let his face rest up against my neck. Youqing’s face felt like it was frozen stiff — it felt like ice pressing on my neck. The night wind whisked against the leaves above our heads, and Youqing’s body was dampened by the dew. The image of him going to school that morning wouldn’t leave me. I remembered his backpack bouncing up and down as he ran off to school. When I realized that Youqing would never again utter a single word or go off running barefoot, I felt wave after wave of pain — it hurt so much that I couldn’t even cry. I kept sitting there until I saw the sky beginning to turn light. I had to bury him. I took off my clothes and, ripping off my sleeves, used them to cover Youqing’s eyes. I used the rest of my clothes to wrap his body. I placed his body down in the pit I had dug and told my parents, who were buried beside him, “Youqing’s coming. You’ll have to take care of him. When he was alive I was never good to him. You’ll have to love him for me.”
The longer I looked at Youqing lying in that hole, the smaller he looked. He didn’t look like someone who had lived thirteen years; he looked more like he must’ve looked as a newborn, just after Jiazhen had given birth to him. I pushed the dirt into his grave with my hands. I made sure I picked out all the little pebbles and rocks, afraid that the coarse pebbles would press against him and make him uncomfortable. As daylight broke, I finished burying Youqing. I slowly made my way home, but after taking a few steps I turned around to take one last look. As I got to the door of our hut, I realized that I would never see my son again. I couldn’t help crying a few more tears, but fearing Jiazhen would hear, I covered my mouth and squatted down. After squatting down for a long time I began to hear the sound of people heading out to the fields to work — only then did I get back up and go inside. Fengxia was standing next to the door, staring at me with her wide-open eyes. She still didn’t know that her little brother was dead. When the little kid from the other village had come to give me the news, Fengxia had been right there with me, but she couldn’t hear. From her bed, Jiazhen called me. I walked over and told her, “Youqing’s had an accident. He’s in the hospital.”
It looked like Jiazhen believed me.
“What happened?” she asked.