"Professor Zhou's notes are on the table. Just stand in for him," said Old Wei. Then he added kindly, "This class doesn't have a terribly good grounding. Just open their eyes a bit …" So I "rushed" hastily onto the lecture stage.
Actually, I didn't "rush hastily" at all. I had prepared long before.
I didn't expect that my first class would be in the biggest raked-stage lecture hall of the college. It was a big class. Clutching my notebook, I stepped on the stage. There were three or four hundred students sitting in the hall. When I first saw that many people, I felt panicked. But I remembered something that Cai Guoyin, the Party secretary of the production brigade, had said in my childhood. He said, "Fuck, when you stand on stage, all the audience are as cabbages. Nothing but scruffy cabbages!" So I carried on regardless and taught that class of dishevelled cabbages. Just before the class, I had surreptitiously flicked through Professor Zhou's notes in the staff room. He was fifty-nine, and he taught a load of boring obsolete stuff from before the Cultural Revolution. But everything I taught was brand-new. When I stood up to teach that class, I was on fire!
I stood on the stage completely silent for three seconds. Then I wrote three big characters on the blackboard: Wu Zhipeng. My name. I knew they didn't know me. I thought to myself, from this day forth, they will know me.
I said, "Students, in 1848, when Marx and Engels created the Communist Manifesto, at Brussels in Belgium, do you know what they said? … In the American Civil War, what was the most famous line uttered by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address? … In 1940, during the Second World War, when the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons as Prime Minister for the first time, do you know what the most famous line of his extemporisation was?" (Cabbages, first you must fear me, I said to myself.) In this way I opened up my throat, and all the way until the bell for the end of class rang, the students were still sitting glued to their seats, staring at me wide-eyed. Then there was thunderous applause.
The students instantly gathered around me after the class ended. The girls scrambled to pick up their notebooks and ask me questions. One after another they called out sweetly to me, "Mr. Wu!" "Mr. Wu!" "Mr. Wu, may I ask you a question?" To be honest with you, that was when my wicked desires stealthily came to the surface. Taking care to seem indifferent, I sized these student girls up very keenly. My "third eye" was searching, scanning the crowd for the prettiest girl. The one with the face shaped like a duck egg? Or the one with the face like an apple? The one with eyebrows like wisps of smoke? Or the eyebrows arched like willow branches? If there was a chance, I would … but I had to be restrained. I warned myself: you must be restrained.
Even now, I will never forget that day.
It was the twenty-seventh of May. The twenty-seventh of May, 1983, the seventh day after that first class. It happened in three sets of "seven" , so I remember it. That afternoon, a student girl came to my bedroom. Her knock on the door was elegant and sprightly. It sounded like a telegram being tapped out: click-click, click-click. Two taps each time, and four taps altogether. When I opened the door, a delicious fragrance swept into the room, along with the sunlight. It wasn't the smell of cosmetics, it was the smell of a feminine body, that carries in it the summer sunlight. It was alive, fresh, sweet. There she stood, golden and dazzling, her back to the sun. She was wearing a short-sleeved red dress, and her arms sparkled with a glow like ivory. There she stood silently before my door, and over her body streamed the sunlight. It was as if she was lacquered with gold by the sunshine, liquid gold that glistened as it embraced this ravishingly beautiful female. To use today's language, a female with class, with poise. I think even the sunlight was enchanted. That scent told me clearly that it could light up the world, it was a mature scent. At that moment, I finally understood the ancient saying, "Your presence illuminates my humble abode." I understood it was talking about a woman. Only a woman can light up a room.
She said, "Mr. Wu, I'm from the foreign languages department. I attended your class."
I felt like I'd been knocked on the head, and I didn't have my wits back.
"Oh … oh," I said.
"I'm sorry," she said, "Have I disturbed you?"
"Oh," I said again, "Oh." And then I hurried to right myself. "No, no, no! No."
She smiled. Her smile was like Honey Cuts, my favourite sweet when I was a child. She sensed my inner turmoil. Her eyes were large and her eyelashes long, like a deer. Her mouth was large too, her lips were plump and bright red, and her teeth were white. The corners of her mouth curled in a smile, and a few delicate beads of sweat shone on the tip of her nose. Her whole body shone, and it seemed luscious, filled with beauty and charm, ready to overflow at any moment. How wonderful! She was a ripe cherry. How wonderful!
I'll admit, I did my utmost to conceal myself. I didn't want my hands to jump out of my eyes. But I still couldn't suppress the desire that rose in my heart, a passionate desire to caress her. Her delicate skin, like silk, bathing in the sunlight … As if in a dream, I heard her say, "My name is Mei Cun."
"Is that Mei meaning 'beauty'?" I said.
"Mei meaning 'plum'," she said.
"That's a rare surname," I said quickly, "Which branch of the family are you? Descended from Shangkings or from the Eight Banners?"
Her eyes opened wider, and she smiled at me in surprise. "I'm not sure … I'm from Northeast China. I'm descended from Manchus."
To be honest, I was intoxicated. I'll tell you quite frankly, I was drunk on this woman. Maybe I'd been patient for too long. I was trembling with longing for her feminine charm. I was throbbing with desire for a woman's beauty. I was drunk like that for seven whole days before I finally sobered up.