Hannah Lund Translation

Fading Light

By Liang Hong, translated by Hannah Lund

At 3 a.m., just like that, Hai Hong received a message from Ming Liang:

T: I’m not okay. I think I’m losing my mind. Haven’t slept in almost a month. I don’t want to live. Don’t be sad. I’m an asshole, remember? I’m already a lost cause. Goodbye, T. -Ming Liang.

Hai Hong shut off her phone. It’s the middle of the night, she thought. I didn’t see anything. She rolled over and went back to bed.

Hai Hong dreamed she was on her way to school. She didn’t know why, perhaps to teach — all she knew was that she had to get there. She sprinted along a large road, the old dirt path swept clean by the autumn breeze. Stately white poplars straight as calligraphy brushes lined the road, as familiar as the ones along the path to her childhood home. But no matter how she ran, she couldn’t seem to reach her destination. Once hunger and an urge to use the bathroom set in, she veered off into a village. There, she found a man standing there, observing her with a faint smile as if he always knew she’d come. He pointed to the courtyard wall and roadside bathroom, saying he lived there. His calm expression seemed to say, “all that I am is all that you are,” and she need not run anymore.

As she peered out at the white poplars stretching into the horizon and the white, undulating road, Hai Hong realized that she had been caught and could go no farther.

In the dream, Hai Hong saw herself all those years ago, an 18-year-old cast stumbling into the yawning expanse of the world.

T,

I made it to Poplar Middle School. It’s ghastly, abandoned and desolate atop the hill. I heard this place is called Poplar Hill, but I don’t see any poplars — just some old, ugly, and gnarled locust trees. My home is right beneath the tallest, most twisted locust tree. If you ever come to visit me, just look for that damned tree, and you’ll find me.

The students don’t seem all that interested in their studies and muck about all day in the yard. Some are older than me, even taller than me. They’re not afraid of me. Well, I’m not afraid of them, either.

I’ll smack anyone who disrespects me. They better not be fucking showoffs, or think they’ll get a fucking thing from me.

“Oh, how the clouds are billowed by the wind...”

-Ming Liang

18-year-old Hai Hong crumpled the letter, looking out the mottled, wooden window at the poplars outside. All she could see were thick tree trunks and the yellowed, dusty schoolyard beyond. A couple chickens pecked at the dust at the edge of the schoolyard and then, as if startled, took off in flight, covering the ground in feathers. Tight ranks of poplars and arrogant, capricious outgrowth surrounded the nondescript school. She couldn’t make out anything beyond the schoolyard and fence. The closest village was over half a kilometer away. Dark green, cramped stalks of corn stretched taller than her head. At night, they whispered outside her dormitory window like spirits crawling from the ground in search of food.

She had no idea where this “Poplar Hill” was. None of the graduates of Rangxian Normal School got a say in where exactly they would be placed upon graduation, though the program was designed to train students from the surrounding counties, where most returned upon graduating. Hai Hong was sent to teach in an unassuming school in a small village about 40 kilometers away from the city of Wuzhen. Hailing from another township, Ming Liang had been placed in Wuzhen’s Poplar Middle School. Aside from a few classmates who stayed in Rangxian, most were dispersed to god-knows-where “Poplar Hills.”

She was trapped in the middle of nowhere, cut off from society. But for the most part, Hai Hong didn’t think it was all that bad. She didn’t know what else life was supposed to look like, after all, so didn’t have any particular expectations.

In fact, she liked the countryside and considered it a good place to be with her thoughts. After the autumn storms passed, she’d stand on a wild patch of land, her hair and clothes buffeted by the wind, watching the smoldering, fleet-footed clouds traverse the heavens. As she kept vigil with the sun piercing its golden rays through the clouds, it was as if time stood still.   

She couldn’t fathom where Ming Liang’s agitation came from, or why he’d decided to make this “Poplar Middle School” his personal battleground. An image came to mind of him, nose to the grind, studying his copy of Ancient Chinese (his arch nemesis as he studied for the university exam he took two years in a row but didn’t pass). He made for a resolute and lonely figure, filled with such fierce determination it was as if he was telling everyone, “I won’t let a single fucking person get in the way of my studies. Not one!”

Truth be told, Hai Hong always thought Ming Liang had a thing for her. Whenever he looked at her, it was with such pained affection, she knew it had to be genuine. But Hai Hong could not ignore the fact that in their third year, he’d made a move on a female classmate from his hometown, only to receive a tepid response after confessing his feelings. When all was said and done, he was back by Hai Hong’s side, however, with another hangdog look as he slumped over his desk.

At one point, Ming Liang had even swapped places with Hai Hong’s deskmate, just to sit next to her. He placed a large kettle on either side of the desk like oafish guardians sworn to never abandon their posts beside him, a water bottle the color of soy sauce on the desk swimming with all manner of herbs. Ming Liang clutched that water bottle and downed the bitter elixir with a glug, glug, glug as his Adam’s apple bobbed in time. Once he swallowed it all, he sloshed in more boiled water, ready for another brew. Throughout the course of a day, he consumed four entire kettles of the drink. Ming Liang said he was sick, but no one ever found out what he had. He never told anyone, either.

“You have to look after yourself,” he said, hands cutting through the air as he spoke in a low, intense voice. “Don’t let anyone tell you what to do or who to be. Otherwise, you’ll just get pushed around. You have to think about why they talk about you, really analyze it. Then they’ll never get you, never bend you to their will.”

Ming Liang then proceeded to analyze everyone in class for Hai Hong, rooting out all the rivalries, conspiracies, and traps. Caught in a deluge of emotions, Hai Hong felt she was being dragged into a convoluted world where everyone was out to get each other, and relationships were full of distrust, betrayal, and exploitation. Years later, when she read the line, “Hell is other people,” she couldn’t help but think of Ming Liang.