Yuyun Lou Translation

Ming Liang’s Sorrow

By Liang Hong, translated by Yuyun Lou

It was three o'clock in the morning when Hai Hong received a text message from Ming Liang:

T: I can't do it anymore. Something’s wrong with my head and I haven't closed my eyes in almost a month. I don't want to live anymore. Don't be sad for me because I'm a heartless person, and I don't care about you at all. Goodbye, T. Ming Liang.

Hai Hong turned off her cell phone. She told herself, "It's the middle of the night, and I didn't see that message. Turning over, Hai Hong fell asleep again.

Hai Hong had a dream. It seemed like she was going to some school to teach, or perhaps for something else. She didn't know for what exactly, only that the school was the destination. She ran along the wide road, which was an old dirt road whisked white by the autumn wind and lined with tall, unerringly straight poplar trees. They were just like the trees along the roads of her childhood hometown and carried a familiar smell. She ran straight ahead, but she couldn't find where she was going. Hungry and wanting to use the toilet, she turned to approach a village. A man stood watch there, gazing at her with a smile, as if he knew where she was heading at that moment. He pointed to the high courtyard wall and the toilet at the side of the road and said that it belonged to his family. His calm gaze seemed to tell her that everything he owned also belonged to her, and that her sprint would end here.

Looking far off into the distance at the poplars and the pristine, curving white road, Hai Hong realized that she had been blocked off, forever.

In her dream, Hai Hong saw her eighteen-year-old self stumbling as she was thrown into the vast world.

T: I’ve reported to Poplar Slope Middle School. This place is like a ghost town, suspended on a big slope all alone. Despite being called Poplar Slope, there isn’t a single poplar tree in sight. Only a few old, ugly, and crooked scholar trees. The house I live in is right under the biggest crooked one. If you come to visit, you'll find me when you see that tree.
The students here don’t seem very interested in studying, and they spent all day loafing around campus. Some of them are even older and taller than me. They're not afraid of me at all. I'm not afraid of them either.
I'll punch anyone who disrespects me. They better think fucking twice about any acts of bravado in front of me, and they better think fucking twice about getting anything from me.
The great wind blows and the clouds billow…

Ming Liang

Eighteen-year-old Hai Hong crumpled the letter in her hands then looked out the mottled wooden window facing a couple of poplar trees. Only the rough, rounded tree trunks and the playground enveloped in a layer of yellow, earthen dust were visible. A few chickens were pecking for food amidst the dust in a corner of the playground. All of a sudden, as if they had been startled, they took flight, leaving behind a bunch of chicken feathers on the ground. The small school was tightly encircled by tall, densely woven poplars as well as untamed grasses and trees that were growing wildly. Beyond the playground and the perimeter of the fence was cropland that stretched on with no end in sight. The nearest village was about half a kilometer away from the school. The cornfields that grew taller than a person were crowded together, dark green and gloomy. At night, they whispered furtively outside her dormitory window, like ghosts that had crawled out of the earth in search of subsistence.

She didn't know where Poplar Slope was. Rang County Normal School trained teacher trainees from several neighboring counties, and after graduation, they generally followed the principle of returning to each of their respective counties. However, which town or village they were assigned was not up to them. Hai Hong was assigned to teach at an elementary school in a village 40 kilometers away from Wuzhen, while Ming Liang, whose family was from another town, went to Poplar Slope Middle School in Wuzhen. Other students, except for a few who stayed in Rang County, were assigned to other ghostly Poplar Slopes out in the middle of nowhere.

She was stuck in the wilderness, isolated from life. But on the whole, Haihong didn't find it miserable. She didn't know what other ways of life were like, and so she had no particular expectations.

On the contrary, she somewhat liked the wilderness, which was a good place to meditate. After a torrential rainstorm in the autumn, when she stood barefoot in the middle of the wilderness with the wind blowing on her hair and clothes, she would look out at the flame-red, gray, and blue clouds racing across the heavens and watch the sun shine its golden rays from behind dark clouds. It was like she was standing right in the middle of time.

She wondered where Ming Liang had gotten such an immense sense of grief and elation from. He considered “Poplar Slope Middle School” to be his battleground. She could imagine a scenario where he was holding a copy of Ancient Chinese (the bane of his self-studying sessions during college exams, which he took two years in a row and still didn’t end up passing) and studying diligently at the dormitory entrance. That figure, staunch yet solitary, carried with it a indignant determination, as if he was telling everyone: Not a single fucking person can disturb my studying time. No one.

Hai Hong felt that Ming Liang liked her the entire time. When he looked at her, there was a deep currents of emotion in his eyes, his expression was solemn, and his gaze was laden with grief. This couldn’t be faked. But Hai Hong knew that during their three years as teacher trainees, he had been quietly pursuing a female classmate from his hometown. After he had gone to that female classmate to profess his feelings and received ambiguous words in return, he came back to Hai Hong’s side and stared at her with a heartbroken yet profound gaze as he sprawled over a desk beside her.

Later, Ming Liang even went as far as switching seats with Hai Hong’s deskmate to sit beside her. He placed two large teapots on the floor of either side of his desk. They were like two oafish but sturdy guardians, sticking to Ming Liang’s sides. On the desk was a dark reddish-brown plastic cup steeped to the brim with all sorts of herbal medicines. Ming Liang would hold the cup and gulp it down, his Adam’s apple bobbing persistently to swallow the bitter medicine. Then, he would pour in some boiled water to steep it again. He would drink four large pots of this medicine in a day. Ming Liang claimed that he was ill, but as for what illness he had, no one really knew, and he didn’t tell.

“You have to protect yourself. You can’t allow others to tell you what to do, and do just that. You’d be bullied that way. You have to think about why they said what they said about you, and after you’re able to thoroughly analyze it, you won’t fall for their tricks anymore or do things following their requirements.”

Ming Liang gestured forcefully with both hands, giving his talk to Hai Hong with a low yet solemn tone. He gave Hai Hong an analysis on each person in their class and a breakdown on the competition, conspiracies, and stratagems between the student representatives.

Immersed in poetic emotion and a poignant mood, Hai Hong seemed to have been taken to another world where she gained insight into the world’s complications. The space between each person was filled with suspicion, betrayal, and exploitation. Many years later, when Hai Hong would see the phrase “Hell is other people”, it was Ming Liang’s image that appeared in her mind.