I dawdled through a few more stories in White Snake, sleeping off the lingering effects of last night’s wine, and finished an old piece.

Over the years, my life has gradually moved from contradiction toward unity. After many things happened, I came to embrace an existentialist idea — that everything is contingent. The shifts in the trajectory of my life, the relationships I’ve formed with one person after another — none of it happened out of necessity; there is no inevitable cause.

On Sunday at church I met an older woman; hearing I was from Chengdu, she pulled me aside and chatted for a long time, saying she’d spent her college years there, leaving behind her own green years. Everyone’s memories of youth could probably fill a thick book; pulled out and savored on some afternoon, they’d likely feel only warm and peaceful. And yet youth is like a tedious bout of self-indulgence — it slowly fades away all the same.

I can no longer remember when the landscapes in so many of the photos on my phone were taken. I could probably dig up the exact dates from the metadata, but I choose not to. I prefer to think of the brain’s forgetting mechanism as a filter — whatever it can’t hold gets swallowed by itself. Emerson said the landscape belongs to the one who looks at it. Memory should work the same way — belonging only to those worth remembering.

It was a winter mountain scene. I still remember the deep-winter mountain road, lined the whole way with withered wild grass, the whole visible mountain a bare, sandy gray. The sun scorched the skin a little, but it was still warm. If the car back then had been a little more vintage, the road seen from inside it would have looked just like in an American road movie.

I remember the roadside was scattered with cacti, withered to the point of being shriveled, even yellowing at the edges. The spines growing on them seemed limp too. There was hardly any wind on the road. This was the first time I’d ever spent a winter in the subtropics. Compared to the city I lived in year-round, which always seemed on the verge of growing mold, this winter at least didn’t look moldy.

I don’t know if it’s innate, but I instinctively love sunlight. In school, my English teacher once had me stand up and make a sentence: “Reading in the sun is bad for your eyes.” I strangely said the opposite — that sunlight was good for the eyes — and stood by it as correct. Some things that happened afterward were tied to sunlight too, though I don’t remember much of them now. As a child, everyone said I was a lonely, well-behaved kid, which by all logic should have meant I’d love the moon — but I loved the sun instead. Maybe my heart really had gone moldy, that thick, white, fuzzy kind of mold.

There was another car traveling with us; I’d heard there were two people my age in it, but I mostly didn’t register their presence — just part of the surroundings. The first time I really took notice of the two of them was at a meal. A boy and a girl, apparently a couple. I thought they seemed rather childish — who still does the whole “childhood sweethearts,” “innocent young love” thing these days?

“Do people there ride elephants to go shopping?” The girl’s question matched her cartoonish look perfectly. A pink coat with two white pom-poms hanging from the shoulders, a very short white skirt underneath, white shoes too. Even her pink hairpin looked cartoonish. She looked like someone who’d been splashed head to toe in white paint and was using a pink coat to cover it up. I couldn’t help but snicker at the thought. She opened her eyes wide and turned toward me, awkwardly, with an expression of surprise like she’d just seen an elephant laugh. She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t. She must have lost interest too, and turned back to her food.

The sky darkened and the stars came out. Though the stars here were bright, this kind of night still made me think of that moldy city. The sounds of nature, insects chirring, animals running about — all of it felt like mere decoration; once night fell, everyone had to face the matter of sleep, just as in old age everyone has to face the matter of death. That inescapable “weight,” whatever form it takes, always fills me with dread. The books say tomorrow is always a brand new day, but for someone as “strange” as me, the transformation from today into tomorrow is a painful metamorphosis.

Staying somewhere away from home also meant the problem of a new bed. I feel like every bed has a life of its own. Sleeping in a new bed for the first time is like sleeping with a stranger — you have to find the right position, the right orientation, even the right timing, and if you think about it any further, you might start wondering about the hotel’s history: had anyone ever been dismembered here, or hidden a body, or was the place haunted? In my experience, once you’ve fought through all that, both the psychological and the physical obstacles, the first light of dawn is already hazily appearing…

I was watching TV, bored out of my mind, when he walked in. He said his cousin was a girl, and it wasn’t convenient for her to share a room with someone else, so she’d get her own room and he’d stay with me instead. I thought: why hadn’t I noticed how tall he was until just now? I remembered, in chapter twenty-four of Water Margin, when old lady Wang lectures Ximen Qing, mentioning the word “young.” I suddenly felt certain he must be a man often around girls, someone “young” enough to get away with anything. Then I thought of the other word old lady Wang used — “donkey”…

Oh right, why do I say I’m reclusive? Because in elementary school I basically didn’t talk, whether at school or at home. With nothing to do I’d read or zone out — by “zone out” I mean outwardly; inwardly I was off daydreaming. But not talking doesn’t mean I couldn’t talk. I’d stockpile everything I wanted to say, and then on Sunday night I’d unload an entire week’s worth to my best friend in one unbroken, unpunctuated rush, then sink back into silence once I finished.

As far back as I can remember, this was the first time I’d ever shared a room with someone, sleeping in the same space. The people traveling with my parents were friends of theirs, and the one talking to me now was their son. The person I’d assumed was his girlfriend was actually his sister — his cousin. Why I keep emphasizing the “cousin” part, I’m not even sure myself. By Chinese tradition, a birth sister is supposed to feel closer than a cousin — so does that mean I was unconsciously pleased at the distance implied between them?

After he finished talking he just stood there for a while, as if waiting for my approval. I liked looking up at him like that, because I could clearly see the stubble at the corners of his mouth, and his whole face, which didn’t look much like my classmates’ faces at all. Looking at someone this closely, for this long, this intently — it must have been the first time in my life.

Time passed so fast — a few seconds and it was just gone. He must have gotten tired of me staring, because he suddenly pinched my cheek. So a stranger’s skin could feel this warm — I was happily dazed for several minutes. For the next while I just stayed frozen like that, staring blankly at whatever was on TV. The next time I looked at him, he’d taken his clothes off entirely.

The next day, things between him and me had progressed. He came and sat with me, leaving his cousin alone in the other car. He’d talk, I’d respond; he’d joke, I’d laugh; he’d go quiet, I’d go quiet too. The scenery outside no longer seemed so withered and monotonous.

Both my mom and dad seemed quite pleased with him, telling him to take me out more, talk to me more. Whether out of politeness or something else, he told my mom that he liked hanging out with me from the very first glance. He even said that although I was older than him, I felt like a cute little brother…

Then my mom, probably just to keep things from going quiet, said some even more bizarre things — that before either of us was even born, our families had joked about becoming in-laws, only it didn’t work out since we were both boys. She also said we should have met much earlier, but his father kept moving for work, and had only just now come back.

In truth, I was 18 and he was 17 and a half. The gap was too small to make me feel, in any meaningful sense, like an older brother, so I didn’t want to play that role. I almost wanted to be his little brother instead — he was six-foot-one and so warm. There was something of the sun about him. And after what happened the night before, I felt he’d “earned” the right to be my older brother.

A few minutes after I’d been sitting there in a daze, he walked in with nothing on. Honestly, his body was great — his abs looked like two rows of sticky rice cakes. He didn’t ask me anything, just turned off the TV. He came over smiling and said, let me teach you something. He talked me through it, sometimes guiding with his hands. A few minutes later I realized I had quite a natural gift for this sort of thing, and his praise drew out a rare smile from me. He told me to go shower, but I was already sprawled out on the bed, with no desire to move at all. I suddenly felt changed — before, whenever I saw these white traces, I’d always be irritated and quietly wipe them away, ruining my mood for the whole day; now there was a kind of happiness in it instead.

He showered, and seeing I wasn’t moving, used a tissue to clean me up himself.

The dim yellow light fell evenly across his back, and the faint, raw smell mixed gently with his slightly hurried breathing. His face was flushed red, like a tipsy little brother playing a game with me, or like a sturdy little tiger cub. Even the thing hanging between his legs looked endearing, like a sleeping little bird, deaf to the occasional birdsong drifting in from outside the window.

Night fell quickly. I felt I’d always had this ability — to make the time I was hoping for arrive sooner, and to meet it with everything I had. I lay in bed and undressed. The TV had already been turned off, since his actions the night before seemed to suggest: when doing that happy thing, don’t watch TV.

A few minutes later he came to open the door, and my heart pounded uncontrollably. But his movements were slow — he gently shut the door, then turned off the light. I had no idea what he was about to do; I felt both a little scared and a little excited, like riding a roller coaster, where sometimes I genuinely can’t tell whether I’m terrified or thrilled. After what felt like a long while, he appeared under the faint moonlight. The curtains were white, so a thin, pale blue light filtered through.

I caught the smell of cigarettes on him. He knew I didn’t like the smell, so he must have snuck outside to smoke before coming to find me.

“Aren’t you cold standing there?”

“You were cold, all day long.”

I knew he was upset, because during the day I really hadn’t wanted to seem too warm toward him, just to keep up appearances. Besides, my usual coldness left me without the skill to be that affectionate anyway. I got up, sat on the edge of the bed, and, in the same angle as the night before, said to him: “I want you to hold me while I sleep, like last night. I really liked that.”

He seemed a little helpless, smiled, and said: “That sounds just like you. But I can’t hold you forever, you know, bro.”

I don’t know if it was the word “bro” or his helpless look, but I jumped up anxiously and hugged him — I didn’t want to hear him keep talking, because “bro” didn’t feel like what we were to each other. But then what were we? I didn’t know that either. I hadn’t even noticed, but I’d already reacted.

“I don’t want you to call me bro. I don’t want to be brothers with you either.”

Suddenly I felt a wave of mint sweep across my lips. I’d always heard mint described as cooling, but only now did I learn mint could burn hotter than chili.

The wind outside was gentle, the curtains rippling like waves. The moonlight, sometimes pale blue, sometimes milky white, finally cooled me down a little. After showering with him today, I didn’t feel as happy falling asleep as I had the night before, because so much of his scent was gone, replaced by the cheap hotel shower gel instead.

It was already the third day, with one more day left before the trip ended. I had less and less idea what to do. Thankfully his family had now moved to the same city as mine, but I still had no idea how I’d even contact him. So many old classmates exchange yearbooks at the end of a term, all symbolic gestures, and afterward everyone drifts apart and forgets each other anyway — I was afraid he and I would end up the same way. By now I was already familiar with his smell and the warmth of his body — without those, how would I ever sleep again? But we could hardly keep sleeping together forever… ugh, I was tormented all day by these thoughts.

And today he didn’t even ride with me — he went to keep his lovely cousin company instead. Maybe I’d already fallen for him, so why was he acting like this? Well, the books do say even love isn’t reciprocal in equal measure, let alone mere affection. He seemed so “young” on the surface, ugh, he must already have a girlfriend. I might as well give up on this.

Outside, cacti and ash-gray rock and soil kept alternating, the same tedious, unbearable scene repeating over and over. Realizing there were less than two days left, my eyes actually grew a little moist.

The car drove back toward the moldy city. My dad said a four-day vacation was quite a luxury for a high school senior, but at that point my mind held nothing but him.

The whole day passed in a daze, like floating. His parents noticed too and asked if I was tired; I said I was. He was completely different — chatting animatedly with his cousin, while I sat there like a banished concubine, brooding gloomily over this and that.

Night came again. I used to feel like each night’s conversation grew more and more interesting, but now it felt unbearably heavy.

I finished dinner early and went to my room to watch TV. I wasn’t really watching, of course — I was waiting for him. The last light of sunset still lingered, like the curtain call of something. I felt this kind of atmosphere usually accompanied scenes of lovers parting — maybe for others it’s a happy parting, but for him and me, the future was uncertain.

Maybe only five minutes passed before he came in. I was overjoyed. He was wearing flip-flops and shorts. My eyes never made it back up — he clearly understood, set down the lemongrass-grilled fish he was carrying, and pushed me onto the bed.

Because he tried a different approach today, I finished quickly. He crouched in front of the bed, breathing with a strange smell to it; I reached out and touched his mouth with my hand. I still couldn’t help myself, and said to him: “I like you.” He didn’t say anything, just held me tightly, tight enough that it hurt a little. By then the sun had been swallowed by a deep blue twilight; I thought the sun, too, must feel suppressed, in pain.

We’d both eaten too fast, so we were still hungry, and happily finished off four grilled fish. Both our mouths were greasy; we smiled at each other and kissed for a long while, tasting of grilled fish.

By ten-thirty I assumed we’d go to sleep. Instead he told me to get dressed and come with him.

“Is this an elopement? Where could we even go?”

“I took Dad’s card. We’re leaving this place.”

I ran off with him, both of us in flip-flops, shorts, and short sleeves. The air outside was faintly cool, but there was an inexplicable happiness to it. Neither of us said a word — we were eloping, in all seriousness.

Suddenly the headlights of a car ahead lit up and stopped us in our tracks.

It was his father’s car, with my dad, his dad, and his cousin inside — they’d been out buying things.

Our elopement never came off. But years later I still remember those two boys in flip-flops under the headlights, hands joined, running toward some place neither of them knew.

Mr. S:

I can no longer quite remember what year it was that I met you. The two of us should now be called a man and a woman who have just barely grown up; but back when we first met, we were really just two big kids. Actually, we’re not all that old even now — we’ve simply been put back into our own separate worlds, each living through different, fuller measures of joy and pain. But I still believe you love me, and I love you too, even though I know your name was just something randomly assembled for me out of the 2,000 most common Chinese characters.

Love is the only bridge sustaining the relationship between you and me now, crossing over the obstacles of geography and the friction of incompatible ideas. To many people this would seem astonishing, and to science students it would seem unbelievable too, but we just go on quietly doing it anyway. Although at times it looks like a kite with a snapped string, exchanging messages of feeling only sporadically, irregularly, that thin thread-like feeling might just be exactly the mutual need between you and me.

I’ve done a great many things behind your back with other people. I’ve never regretted it, and I will never let you know. Because no matter how time flows on, no matter the spring departing and the autumn arriving, what my heart turns toward is you and only you. Maybe it’s a kind of letting things drift, but we reached some abstract, unspoken agreement about the imbalance in our feelings, a tacit understanding we could simply keep living by — which, given that we’re both Libras, counts as something of a miracle. I don’t feel I’ve wronged you, because we love each other deeply; I’m selfish enough to believe you’ll always forgive all my faults and shortcomings. And indeed, you always have.

I remember the first night you and I were together, you were so good to me. I told you my father died when I was little, and my mother raised me alone, through great hardship. You went quiet, then said you’d be good to me. After you finished with me, I sucked at your abs, firm like a date cake, and stroked your now-softened penis, which still carried a faint fishy scent. Teasingly, I asked how many women you’d slept with over the years, and whether they too had stained the sheets red for you the way I had. You answered me again with silence. I didn’t push you on it, because that night alone was worth a lifetime of remembering.

Later, one day, you told me you’d discovered you were gay. I wasn’t all that surprised. In the slow-warming affection that had built up between us over a long time, what kind of people you were drawn to, what organs you favored — none of that mattered so much anymore. Or perhaps, after a long period of abstraction and axiomatization, my understanding of you had already risen to a theoretical, conceptual level, so that no matter what your true nature turned out to be once stripped bare, I would love you regardless. Yes — some “bugs” once let into your life don’t leave again once dawn breaks. It’s just that you no longer wound yourself up like clockwork to be with me the way you used to.

Still later, on the day you left Chengdu, you suddenly told me you’d been forced into a blind date, and that it was causing you great pain. I didn’t know what role, what identity, I should speak from — friend, or just someone you knew online? Neither the patrilineal talk of carrying on the family line, nor the matriarchal notion of sheltering and embracing, was enough to express my helplessness. When you said you hated the people in your family, hated their orders, that you would absolutely never find a girlfriend and so on, I honestly couldn’t tell whether that was a young man’s unrestrained fervor, or a young woman’s shy retreat from the world. You really are a boy with a fragile heart hidden under a tough exterior!

These are just some extra words, set down for the sake of certain things that once were. If they seem a little disordered, without much structure, it’s only because these are simply the marginal, fragmentary language that once flickered through my mind at some point in time. I don’t want to say these things directly to you, or to anyone. In that half-asleep, half-awake state, I feel that our relationship has been getting better and better. I can understand the way you love — steeped in longing, refusing to follow convention, insisting on rational thought. You do love me; sometimes you’re my teacher, sometimes my older brother, sometimes my husband, and sometimes you even feel like a wife. I am deeply sunk into this ambiguous, in-between state. It’s really quite wonderful.

Ugh, I’ve said so much because of you, you annoying gay man — I must be out of my mind. Still, it’s left me feeling rather inspired.

Right now, I don’t know what that straight boy is doing. In my not-so-big head, there are still a few scenes of him left:

1. He’s watching TV, telling me about soccer stars in some match that I know absolutely nothing about, looking so cute while he does it. When a goal goes in he gets excited, grabs me, and shouts. He’ll also stare intently at the news, caring about everything happening on the planet, and will explain to me in detail exactly where the capital of Norway is. When I get tired and don’t want to listen anymore, he just goes back to watching TV by himself.

2. He had a basketball game the next day, and the night before he called me, asking me to go eat with his classmates the following evening. I sat quietly in a corner of the court, surrounded by other girls screaming and swooning. Holding the long pants he’d changed out of in my arms, I knew I would unconsciously bring them to my face and smell them. He surely never noticed that little gesture of mine; what he hoped for was a knowing glance from me after he scored. The game ended, we sat for a while, the court emptied out, leaving just the two of us — a couple that wasn’t a couple. Only then could I openly stare at his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he drank water.

3. He got into a fight, like a little kid, face flushed red. He fought with real passion, but I hurried away — I didn’t want to see him bleed.

4. I asked him: “Do you like me? Why do you always stay with me?” He hesitated a little and said: “Maybe in my next life, when I’m normal.” My head went fuzzy, and I could only force out a smile and let it pass. I knew then: the greatest distance in the world is the one between a bent straight boy and the girl who loves him deeply.

5. On the last day of senior year, I stayed very late, because I wanted so badly to hold onto the taste of that moment. I’d brought a little bottle, and filled it with chalk dust — from class, and from the bulletin boards I used to draw. When I was about to leave, I noticed he hadn’t left yet either. We looked at each other for a moment; he stood up to break the awkwardness, and then I found myself being held by him, my nose filled with a scent that was almost a man’s — mingled with tobacco, sport cologne, and the spray he used when he coughed.

6. Years later, I saw him standing at a bus stop with some other guys, leering and rating the girls passing by.

Darling, I miss you. Tell me — how far apart are we, how many light-years? Heh, if you were beside me, you’d surely help me work out the answer.

I am Princess Ziwei.

There’s a “Princess Ziwei” on television, a “Princess Ziwei” in Qiong Yao’s novels, and a “Princess Ziwei” in history too. I believe everyone carries their own private “Princess Ziwei” somewhere in their heart. I won’t bother getting to the bottom of my own identity here—that’s a job for postmodernist writers. But because I have appeared, all the other Princess Ziweis must step aside—no matter how delicate and lovely they are, how poetic, how radiantly noble, or how low and vulgar. I, the narrating I, am Princess Ziwei—at least here, at this moment.

Some of you probably already know certain things about me—for instance, that I’m the offspring of Qianlong and a woman from the south of the Yangtze, a woman you might also know by the name Xia Yuhe. This illegitimate identity cost me no small amount of youth and energy to come to terms with. Who wouldn’t want to be of dragon’s blood? Especially when I am, goddammit, the offspring of that lecherous old man Qianlong—I am his seed! Written into my DNA! Oh right, nobody knew about DNA back then.

In the early days at the palace I lived through hell on earth. The Empress, a woman whose own sex life clearly wasn’t working out, could never stand the sight of me, always calling me little vixen, little slut. You might say I had a bit of love in my life—pah, a man like Erkang, aside from his decent birth, I couldn’t care less about him. So many times I was already sick with his sentimentality, and he’d only pour more oil on the fire, more hemp onto the hemp, until my whole body felt wrong. What kind of line is “Ziwei, I love you so much it hurts; when you hurt, I hurt too; when you hurt, I hurt even more”? The man couldn’t even tell top from bottom! His younger brother Ertai was far more capable than him—able to give me several orgasms in one night. I remember the night before he was to leave with the Tibetan woman, he kissed my feet softly and asked, “Do you like me better, or Erkang?” I hated answering questions like that; not a single drop of blood in me wanted to hear such a foolish question. As a child of the dragon, what right did I have to enjoy love at all? I couldn’t help a bitter laugh, pulled my foot back, and slapped him hard.

Actually, the one I loved was Granny Rong.

That night, she stood behind the Empress, together with a pack of other grannies, as they stormed into the Shufang Studio. The Empress’s phoenix cape was beautiful, but to my eyes, Granny Rong stole all of its splendor. Just as the first time I ever saw her, she never so much as cracked a smile, like a stern mother. Her sharply defined eye sockets and her perpetually knit brow—yes, it looked so much like my mother’s face whenever I’d done something wrong as a child. The Empress, leading the group, came to a stop, and the eunuch’s pale yellow lantern fell squarely on Granny Rong. On her ashen face there appeared traces of tenderness; in that whole frozen atmosphere of the Shufang Studio, her expression was just like my mother’s gentle face by lamplight in her final hours. I suddenly wanted to cry, because I thought of my dead mother—as if she were standing right there under the lamp, beckoning to me, “Come, Ziwei, come sit by your mother.”

Lost in thought, I wandered, dazed, into the courtyard. Caixia grabbed me in alarm and said, “Ziwei, are you really going? That’s the Palace of Earthly Tranquility! So many maids who made mistakes simply vanished there—like a meat dumpling thrown to a dog, gone without return!”

Damn it, I admit I was a little out of it, but I still had a mind of my own. I was, after all, a woman of some literary talent—why would I need a little maid like her lecturing me! Still, hearing the words “made a mistake,” something stirred in me. I had indeed made so many mistakes—my very existence was a mistake, and also a riddle. My identity, that identity as a dragon-born princess, was itself still unverified, and yet I had so dramatically turned a working girl from the south into a “princess”… The more I thought about it, the more foolish my mother seemed to me, and the more I felt I had wronged her—she’d been fucked by that man, and then spent her whole life waiting for that cock, hating for a lifetime, longing for a lifetime, resenting for a lifetime!

Thinking of this, I lowered my head and said to Caixia in my most delicate voice, “What the eunuch says is right—how could lowly maids like us defy the Empress’s decree?” With that, I set off toward the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. The small flutters of surprise and tension I used to feel before punishment as a child quietly surged up in my heart again; as a girl I always used to wonder, would it be a wooden rod today, or a long whip… How I longed for freedom, and freedom was exactly what the soul gained in the midst of punishment!

As for what happened once I entered that dark chamber—heh, I won’t repeat it; I imagine plenty of people have already told that story at length.

Time slipped into the second half of the night, or more precisely, from the moment the Empress left. My body felt as if it were waking up; cuts both large and small had opened all over it, breathing quietly there in the dim chamber. I will never forget the air in that room—the smell of blood mixed with sweat, and with the Empress’s spit. They blended strangely together in that small room, like a strong man soothing my disordered thoughts. Mother, whatever wrongs, whatever faults I owe you, give them all to me at once. Come and punish me now!

Granny Rong grew tired; her aging body simply couldn’t keep up such physical labor for so long. The filial son of the Han dynasty, Han Boyu, wept upon sensing his mother no longer had the strength to beat him—and now my own tears fell without my willing it. Granny Rong stepped slowly over, propped my face up with her foot, and said, “Little slut, crying already over this much pain? The Empress has gone soft and didn’t want to frighten her—I haven’t even gotten serious yet.”

I wanted very much to speak, but my body, already drained, had no strength left for words, and could only let out a few whimpers. Hearing this excited Granny Rong; she stripped off some of her clothing until she wore only a pair of underpants and a bellyband, and came toward me holding a long, soft whip. In my heart I cried out countless times, “Mother, I won’t do it again, I was wrong.” But strangely, in the midst of this beating I had no power to resist, I felt a sense of redemption like nothing I’d ever known. What I feared most now was that the whipping might suddenly stop—how then could I go on dragging this body laden with sin through the world?

After so much crying out, my throat grew dry and raw, and my whimpers gradually turned into a hoarse rasp. Granny Gui, standing to one side, stopped Granny Rong, saying, “I think she’s thirsty—let’s give her something to drink.” With that, the two of them broke into lewd laughter. I watched as Granny Rong straddled my body, lifted her underpants right above my face, and slowly squatted down; her thick pubic hair tickled me. She pressed her opening directly to my mouth, and a stream of hot urine shot into it. I had never imagined what such a thing would taste like, but the flow was too much, and before I could really savor it, it had hurried down into my stomach.

After a short rest, Granny Gui took her turn. She said, “You filthy whore, now that you’ve drunk our nectar, you can speak, can’t you.”

I loved being called a whore, because I damn well was one. I had used my body, my organs, to think through so many questions—like how to please men. So I answered with a soft “mm-hm.”

Granny Gui went on, “Since you admit you’re a whore, then keep saying it—say you’re a whore, a whore through and through. You’re not a woman, you’re not delicate little Ziwei, you’re a whore. A filthy whore, a rotten whore, a whore coveting power, a whore eyeing money, a whore flaunting her charms to seduce men. You’re a thoroughly rotten piece of goods.”

Granny Rong walked over with a strange grin on her face, hiked up her pants, and spat hard right onto my face. Turning to Granny Gui, she said, “A whore like her is good at talking, with two mouths working at once. The upper mouth uses sweet words to seduce, the lower one uses that act to seduce. Why bother saying all this to her? She’s a born whore.” She picked up her covered teacup, took a sip, then gave my belly another kick, gritting her teeth: “I’ll kick this cheap slut’s womb to death!” By that point I felt nothing at all, really—body and language alike had stopped giving me any sensation.

They grew tired and sat down to rest. Granny Gui said, “Tell me, we’re both women too—why aren’t we whores?”

Granny Rong laughed, lowered her face, then lifted it again and said, “We’ve got two mouths too, so we’re whores as well. Just old whores, that’s all.” With that, she and Granny Gui burst out laughing together. I wanted to laugh too, because there was a sense of shared guilt in it. But what I was enjoying was entirely a happiness born of losing sensation altogether—even laughter could only flicker through my mind. Inside, I was crying out again, “I’m a whore! I’m a whore! My mother was a whore too! Ha, anyone with two mouths is a whore!”

Granny Gui slipped her hand into Granny Rong’s bellyband, pinched her breast, and sighed, “Ah, an old whore now, no good anymore, even the tits have gone flat. A couple more years and you won’t even be able to piss.”

Granny Rong suddenly grew worked up: “Isn’t that the truth! A man can grow old and still play with little whores, but a woman spends her whole life waiting on that one damn man. All that talk of ‘rushes tough as silk, boulders that never shift,’ all that ’though seas run dry and stones decay, to the very ends of the earth.’ Some whores are rotten right down to the bottom of their hearts!” I knew my mother often said that line, that she loved that old bastard Qianlong with unwavering devotion—but in this moment, I gave in. In the dim light of that dark chamber, in that space steeped in the mingled smell of sweat and blood, Granny Rong seemed like a deity, whipping me, instructing me, enlightening me. The sum of most of the first half of my life didn’t add up to this brief second half of one night.

I knew then that I had fallen in love with her.

That fool Erkang poked his head up at the window and glanced at me; in fact I saw him too, I just couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge him. I never wanted to be delicate little Ziwei again—I wanted to be a whore unlike any other. Granny Rong and the others finished their work too early, leaving me alone in the dark, dim chamber. This is fate: my whole life, born of a whore, to die a whore, never to be changed back again.

This was my second half of the night. Perhaps you’ll find that afterward I went on being just the same as before. But do you know? I have spent the rest of my life cherishing the memory of that whipping and that torment from that one night.

Last night, a 19-year-old guy invited me over to his place at almost 10pm, making a point of mentioning his parents weren’t home. I happily accepted the invitation. In an instant, a whole vocabulary from some bygone era — “one-night stand,” “meeting someone from the internet,” “first love”… — came flooding back, and I felt like I’d been thrown back several years in time.

It’s hard to picture now, but I put on a PUMA long-sleeve tee I’d bought four years earlier, a pair of Nike sweatpants, and a pair of bright white sneakers, and went off to meet this internet friend like some high schooler. He was much better looking in person than in his photos — a straight nose, big eyes, fair skin. He wore a plaid shirt and black jeans, an outfit that in my eyes was the standard uniform of a boy. But I felt he was nowhere near nineteen.

He didn’t talk much — I couldn’t tell if it was because we didn’t know each other well, or just his personality. I fell quiet too, in turn.

Once we got to his bedroom, he seemed a little shy, burying himself in a game of Dota and leaving me to my own devices — a thoroughly typical boy thing to do, and one I understood completely. On his narrow bookshelf were crammed all sorts of books I had no interest in, from Cheng Junyi to Yu Dan, to the standard middle- and high-school textbooks and a pile of study guides. Of course, what dominated most of his room were Lego sets, large and small. I think he’d once told me he liked building blocks.

Time dragged on slowly until midnight, and we decided to sleep. Lying in bed, I realized this boy and I had nothing whatsoever in common to talk about — the songs he listened to I’d never heard of, the films he watched were exactly the kind I’d dismiss outright… Then suddenly, from the courtyard outside came the broken sound of a violin playing Hacken Lee’s “Tipsy in Half a Night,” and I stopped talking, and so did he. In the end we did nothing at all, and slept back to back.

It rained in the small hours, and in a daze I felt a hand trace along my back, slip past the edge of my underwear, and pause at the edge of a certain ridge. I’ll admit it — he really was good-looking, and if it had been some earlier version of me, I would absolutely have gone to bed with him. But now I really couldn’t go on, because I’m no longer a teenager, or maybe because I no longer enjoy that adolescent way of wanting things — more curiosity and desire than love. I turned over and told him to go to sleep. Gradually, the night rain stopped, the clouds parted, and before I knew it I’d drifted off.

In the morning, he walked out with me, trailing a faint scent of cologne. Just as I’d guessed, he really was a student at a nearby high school. When we reached the school gate, I watched him pull a school uniform out of his bag, put it on, and head inside.

I didn’t take the bus, choosing instead to walk slowly home. Since it had rained in the night, the ground felt freshly washed, and the air was unusually crisp. Seven years ago, when I first arrived in Chengdu, I hated this city’s permanent musty smell. And yet now I love these streets, this city. Sometimes it mischievously rains or blows a gale, and sometimes it’s gloriously, cheerfully clear. The feeling it gives me is always that strange mix of familiar and foreign, intimate all the same.

A few days ago, in a chat room, I got kicked out by the moderator for being over the age limit, and I was still sulking about it. Thinking about it now, I really have grown up, and there’s no going back — toward those beautiful boys in their plaid shirts, all I have left now is a feeling lower down in my body, nothing more. As for them, they’re like trains just setting off, still to race across plains, deserts, mountains, and canyons, with no shortage of places left to roam and gaze upon freely.

As I walked on, a wet phoenix-tree leaf fell onto my head. I’ve picked up something of this city’s scent too — and isn’t that, in its own way, rather lovely.

I can no longer recall exactly when the scenery in this photo was taken. Pulling up the precise record from the digital camera might tell me which exact day it was, but I don’t want to do that. The mechanism of human memory ought to be a kind of filter — whatever it cannot hold, the useless things, eventually get culled away by itself. That’s how I think about it, and that’s how I’ve acted. Emerson once said that the landscape belongs to the one who looks at it. I think memory should work the same way — belonging only to those people or things worth remembering.

The photo shows a winter mountain scene. I still remember that long road, where everywhere the eye landed was mottled gray-yellow gravel and sand, and even the grass was just withered, dried-up weeds. The sun was fierce, scorching the skin, but it still felt warm enough. Occasionally I’d come across a shriveled cactus, its edges already yellowed from lack of water, its few remaining spines withered too. Oh, and there was a moderate wind along the road. This was the first journey I ever took alone, and also the first time I’d left that city that always seemed to be moldering, never touched by sunlight.

I don’t know if it’s some kind of inborn trait, but I really love sunlight. As a child, the grown-ups told me not to look at the sun, but I paid them no mind, always staring at it for a long while by myself, until my eyes simply couldn’t stay open. Everyone said I was a lonely child, that I should have loved the moon instead, but I just loved the sun — maybe because there was no mold in my heart, none of that white, fuzzy stuff. Later on, a lot of things happened that were also tied to sunlight, but unfortunately I don’t remember much of it now.

I don’t know how long I walked before arriving at that youth hostel. Stories sometimes work that way — beginning right where they should end. The only room available was a triple, and though I wasn’t thrilled about it, I checked in anyway. Sharing the room were a man and a woman, apparently a couple. But I found them rather childish — talking, in this day and age, about things like “childhood sweethearts” and “till the end of time.” In my eyes, they were just part of the scenery.

“Let’s eat and turn in early” — that’s what the man said, and it suited his “cold” image well enough — a big black overcoat, a black scarf, sharply pressed black trousers, even his shoes were black. But the more I looked at him, the more he seemed like someone who’d been splashed head to toe with black paint, hastily fleeing the desert under cover of night. Thinking about it, I couldn’t help letting out a snicker. He turned and looked at me, as if waiting for me to say something, but I said nothing. He probably just went back to his meal, a bit deflated.

It grew dark, and the stars came out. I walked outside and looked up at the bright night sky. A night like this made me think of that moldy city. Insects, bright stars, a breeze… it all seemed like just a kind of disguise — by night everyone has to face the matter of sleep, the same way an aging creature must eventually face death. This inescapable “sorrow,” in whatever form it takes, is something I deeply dread — the transformation from today into tomorrow is a kind of painful metamorphosis.

I went back to the room. The luggage was scattered all over the floor, but they weren’t in the room. I was glad to enjoy a bit of solitude on my own.

What also troubled me was the new bed. I’ve always believed that a bed has a life of its own. Sleeping in a new bed is like sleeping with a stranger — you need to find the right position, the right posture, even the right timing, and if you think about it further, you start wondering who else has slept in this very bed throughout history — a pretty, refined young woman, or some filthy vagrant? My experience has been that by the time I’ve thought all this through clearly, the sky is already getting light.

And another thing — why does everyone say I’m withdrawn? Because as a child I basically didn’t talk, whether at home or at school — when there was nothing to do I’d just read or zone out — and this “zoning out” I mention here was only outward; inwardly, I was off fantasizing. Like wondering whether my sister would taste good if turned into beef jerky, or what it would be like if all the buildings were golden. My not speaking doesn’t mean I can’t — I just hoard up my words, and when alone with a good friend I’ll let them all out in one go, then sink back into silence again.

I’d been watching TV for a while when she came back, alone. She told me he was her cousin, but he’d had to leave early for something, and asked whether the two of us could share a room tonight. I found it odd — shouldn’t that kind of suggestion come from the guy? It occurred to me that this would be the first time I’d ever shared a room with someone else overnight, and that this person was — what I’d originally assumed was a stranger man’s girlfriend’s — younger cousin. I emphasized “cousin” because some part of me, subconsciously, was glad their relationship was a little more distant than I’d thought?

After she finished speaking she stood there for a long while, as if waiting for my answer. I liked looking at her from this angle, because I could clearly make out the faint beauty mark at the corner of her lips, and her face, half-familiar, half-strange. Observing someone this closely, this intimately, must have been the first time in my life I’d done such a thing. Time passed quickly — just a few seconds slipped by like that. Maybe she felt embarrassed under my gaze, because she suddenly, hastily, picked up the newspaper off the floor and walked away.

It turns out that leaving, sometimes, can also leave one pleasantly intoxicated. For the next few minutes I sat frozen like that, staring blankly at the TV without knowing what was even on. The next time I saw her, she had already shed her clothes.

A portion of the middle section has been lost

She gasped strangely, and I touched her lips, still unable to hold back, and told her, “I like you.” She didn’t answer — she just held me tightly, tight enough that it hurt a little. At that moment the sun was covered by a kind of dark red light, as if it too were in pain, weighed down. On the ride back, gray-yellow gravel and withered cacti alternated past the window, repeating that tedious, unbearable scene again and again. Thinking of how quickly time flies, my eyes grew a little damp.

We played all day and were both starving, so we ate a lot of grilled meat, our mouths greasy, laughing at each other, and kissed for a long time with the taste of the grilled meat still on our lips. After dinner I went back to the room alone to watch TV — though really I wasn’t watching TV at all, just waiting for her. The glow of the setting sun still lingered, very much like something about to fall behind a curtain; somehow this kind of atmosphere always seems to call up scenes of lovers parting, but while others usually part on a happy note, she and I had no idea what the future held.

She finally came back, gently closing the door and gently turning off the light — her slow movements made my heart race. At that moment I felt like I was on a roller coaster, unable to tell whether it was fear or excitement. The wind outside was very gentle, the curtains rose and fell slowly, letting through moonlight that was sometimes milky white, sometimes pale blue, which cooled my heart considerably, and before long I drifted off to sleep. Deep in the night, in a daze, beneath the thin, faint moonlight, I seemed to see her figure, as if gradually receding into the distance.

The next morning when I woke up, the scattered luggage had been tidied up neatly. She was nowhere to be found, only a letter left at the head of the bed.

This letter can never be sent, so I’m leaving it with you instead. I will remember you — that night was my whole life, a memory worth spending an entire lifetime to look back on. Do you know? That night actually hurt quite a lot, and I didn’t sleep all night, hoping so much that you’d hold me for a while, but you never woke, and didn’t even notice when I kissed your forehead. By the faint moonlight, I asked you: is there anyone else out there who would stay awake all night just like me? You only answered with a soft murmur. Outside, every now and then I could hear the sound of some animal moving, a long, dragging sound across the ground, spaced far apart, just like the rhythm of what we were doing.

Before dawn, I pressed my ear against your now-softened little bird, fast asleep, and I couldn’t hear even the faintest birdsong from it. I kissed it, and there was still a trace of fishy, fresh scent. I knew we would eventually part, and I felt I had to take this step. Before leaving, I reached my fingers inside myself, trying to ease some of the pain, but it was held so tightly, and I knew that was a pain that would stay wrapped around me for the rest of my life. I’m leaving now, carrying your salty taste with me, and perhaps the fluid you left behind too. I don’t regret anything that happened these past few days — we were both waiting, weren’t we?

One afternoon in spring, five years later, the sun was warm, and I moved a chair out to the balcony, looking at the sky, the sun, the clouds, every now and then able to hear the sound of children playing. From the neighbor’s windowsill drifted a cool whiff of mint — perhaps mint can sometimes be even hotter than chili pepper! I thought of how she used to ask, and I would answer; how I would turn cold, and she would fall silent. An indescribable stillness suddenly surrounded me, as if it had taken on physical form, and it frightened me terribly.