I really am a rogue. I just abandoned him on the street like that. I hardened my heart and strode away from him like I was escaping. I told myself, don't look back, just don't look back. If you look back your heart will soften. After I'd walked a certain way and turned a corner, I turned around and peeped back at the newspaper office. I could see him kneeling down on the steps, holding the sign I had made him. He was so helpless, occasionally looking all around to see where I had gone. My tears quickly started falling.
The truth is, I didn't plan to borrow any money for him. I already felt as lowly as a toddler, as all debtors do. A great university lecturer has to borrow money off everyone he meets. What a joke. I had a real cheek. I knew I had been shameless. As a child I drank sixth Auntie's milk and ate the sesame leaf noodles she made, and Uncle Yin's roast sweet potatoes. When snow was blanketing the village, Uncle Yin found me in a bale of straw, carried me home on his back, and gave me a sweet potato. When I left for university, sixth Auntie put six jiao and five fen in my hand. I remembered all that. They say that the water droplet should repay its gratitude by gushing forth like a spring. But what could I repay them with?
Sometimes I was miserable, sometimes I was angry. Too many different emotions crowded round inside me. I just wanted to bang my head against a wall. Why am I so useless and cowardly? How can I live with this frustration? Why couldn't I just cut these people off? Why couldn't I throw off this "peasant" skin? I'm being hounded to death, I told myself. I can't go on like this.
That morning I had an argument with the head of the department, Old Wei. He was a good man. He always thought highly of me and looked out for me. Even my position, my status as a lecturer, was thanks to Old Wei. To become a lecturer you have to publish three articles in key national journals, but I only published two. Two were still "in the works" . Old Wei had won me a place, against the opposition of all the rest of the evaluation committee. But even he had started to criticise me. When he was excited he liked to slap the edge of the table. His fingertips curled up and down, rapping on the table in his office. "Zhipeng, scholars must be single-minded! 'He is quiet and unassuming, until he sets the world alight; he sits still and waits, until he soars to glory.' Tell me, what are you doing with yourself?"
"What's wrong?" I said.
He pointed in my face. "You've degenerated. How have you got like this? You call yourself a scholar, but you don't study in earnest. You hang around socialising all day long, networking. And asking everyone for money! An intellectual should see money as dirt. Look at yourself! What have you become? You're as bad as a peasant."
Honestly I wasn't very calm when he said that. I felt like someone had pulled off a festering scab on my scalp, or like a mouse whose tail has been trodden on. That phrase, "as bad as a peasant" , really hit me where it hurts. I'd rather have heard anything else. I lost it and flung the book I was holding at his table.
"I am a fucking peasant! Who isn't a peasant? Check out anybody's parents or grandparents—who can say they're not a peasant?"
Old Wei practically foamed at the mouth with rage. He didn't think I would have the nerve to talk back to him. His voice suddenly lowered, and he said with immense disappointment, "All right. Things will be different from now on. I won't recommend you again. You can leave now."
I was shocked and scrambled to fix things. "Mr. Wei, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to …"
He waved his hand at me. "No, say no more."
When I think about it now, Old Wei was right. I was a scholar. I had somehow managed to escape the village, by the skin of my teeth. I didn't need to act like a peasant anymore. I had to cut off all contacts with the village. I had to cut off these contacts, which entangled me ever tighter the more I fought them, like bindweed. Otherwise I would never have any peace.
I told myself to run.
That night, I crept back to the children's hospital like a thief. I had a guilty conscience, and I wanted to see if the "burden" had been lifted or not. The entrance to the hospital was bustling, packed with women holding babies in their arms. The babies' screams mingled together to form a constant blast of noise, like the crackling of a deep fryer. The women's glances were even worse, like razor blades. I did my best to hide from them, scooting in sideways; I didn't even have the courage to look straight at them.
Thus I crept to the in-patients ward in the rear block of the hospital, and followed the wall along the back of a row of sick rooms, until I was looking at the infants' ward. I looked at the infants' ward and then at the intensive care, but I didn't know which incubator contained the twins from sixth Auntie's family. They were no golden couple descended from the land of the Immortals. They were little devils sent by the King of Hell to demand old debts. I didn't dare to get too close, afraid somebody would recognise me. If someone had called out "Diu" at that moment I would have died of fright.
I leant against the glass window looking in at the sick babies lying in their incubators, surrounded by the buzz of electricity. Kids, you're so small, you've got a hard lot. Who made you be born to ordinary folk? Kids, if you feel resentment, report your woes to the King of Hell. You mustn't blame me, I can't take responsibility. My heart ached. I wasn't a wolf, I hadn't yet become a wolf. But I was playing a fox, a fox who ran away. Maybe tomorrow or the day after, Uncle will come with the people of the village, and they will come to devour me. They will all point their fingers at me, saying "Ungrateful traitor!"