Chapter Two: The City of Beijing

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An hour later, the train arrived at West Station.

Cheng Kaiyan followed the crowd out of the station. At half past five, the sky was already beginning to darken.

Lights gleamed on either side of the road. By then, the main streets of the capital had already been fitted with streetlamps.

The station square was brighter still, illuminated by tall concrete poles topped with sodium lamps—brighter even than the streetlights of later generations.

In his previous life, Cheng Kaiyan had idly read countless novels set in earlier eras, and he knew that many of their authors’ spiritual homeland was the city of Beijing.

In 1949, Beijing had already possessed fourteen thousand streetlamps.

By 1980, as the city adjusted its power supply and increased the share of electricity allocated to people’s daily lives and agriculture, urban lighting had begun to recover. It gradually entered the fast lane, and there were now more than six hundred thousand lamps throughout the city.

Beneath the brilliant lights, Cheng Kaiyan took in the city in its entirety.

He felt that the area around West Station was fairly prosperous. Although there were no endless forests of skyscrapers like those of later generations, most of the buildings were several stories high. They were somewhat rustic, yet solid and reassuring.

At this time, many of Beijing’s streets had not yet been paved with asphalt. They were all cement, and whenever it rained, the air filled with a dusty, earthy smell.

Chinese scholar trees lined both sides of the streets. Shops and small department stores with lamps hanging over their entrances sold clothing and various goods. There were also fly-infested eateries whose doorways were covered by white cloth curtains so stained that their original color could no longer be discerned.

Snow had settled thickly across the rooftops. Propaganda posters hung on the side walls:

“Wash fruits and melons before eating!”

“One couple, one child; fewer births and better upbringing for the Four Modernizations!”

“There has never been any savior, nor can we rely on gods or emperors. To create mankind’s happiness, we must rely entirely on ourselves!”

Dragging his luggage, Cheng Kaiyan watched for a while. Blue-and-white trams were swept along by great rivers of bicycles. The streets were utterly transformed into a sea of bicycles.

People wore black, white, and blue-gray clothing. Some even had patches sewn over their garments. At first glance, they looked plain and unassuming.

Yet Cheng Kaiyan noticed that their faces were filled with confidence, warmth, and the vigorous spirit of youth.

He put away his country-bumpkin stare and continued forward.

At last, in the station square, he spotted a girl in a black padded coat who looked no more than fourteen or fifteen.

Cheng Kaiyan froze.

Wasn’t she Zhan Xinyu, the little girl from next door?

“Cheng Kaiyan! Brother Yan!”

The girl seemed to have spotted him, and a smile spread across her face.

She jumped up and down with all her might, waving a cardboard sign on which the name “Cheng Kaiyan” had been scrawled in crooked, lopsided letters. It looked rather heavy in her hands.

Cheng Kaiyan walked over with a smile.

“Xinyu! Why did you come alone?”

“Hey—Aunt Xu is cooking at home, so she sent me to ride over and pick you up.”

The girl patted the Forever-brand bicycle beside her. It looked battered and worn, but one had to be careful not to dismiss it too lightly: a Forever bicycle cost at least one hundred and sixty yuan.

“Sorry to trouble you,” Cheng Kaiyan said instinctively, out of politeness.

But Zhan Xinyu immediately puffed up her cheeks.

“What are you talking about? Why are you being so formal? I’m counting on eating the Peking duck Auntie bought from Quanjude!”

“Ha... ha-ha. You really are a little glutton.”

Cheng Kaiyan could not help laughing. After their playful exchange, the distance between them seemed to shrink.

“Brother Yan, you ride. I can’t carry you.”

The girl brushed the snowflakes from her hat as she spoke.

Cheng Kaiyan did not waste time. He took the bicycle, climbed on, and patted the rear seat.

The girl pulled on her hat, sprang onto the back with a single hop, then nimbly wrapped her arms around his waist and shouted:

“Home!”

Cheng Kaiyan pedaled slowly away.

Every now and then, however, he took the wrong road. The girl behind him complained bitterly and kept butting him with her hard little head.

“This way, this way!”

“Oh, Brother Yan, you’re so stupid! How can you forget your own home? You went the wrong way! Left, then right!”

Cheng Kaiyan wound through the main streets and narrow lanes. He listened to the girl’s clear, unaffected voice while passing courtyard homes, foul-smelling drainage ditches, stone lions before gates, tiled screen walls, low gray courtyard walls, wooden utility poles in the corners of alleyways, and parallel wires stretching away in rows.

It was as though overexposed strips of film were playing out frame by frame before his eyes. Everything was hazy. Everything was dreamlike.

“Ah... I’ve really come to the blazing red era!”

Memory and reality overlapped. He began speeding through the streets and alleys of Beijing.

At the same time, the girl behind him seemed to sense the emotions pouring from his heart.

She began to sing loudly, her voice as clear as a warbler’s:

“Who does this wondrous springtime belong to?

It belongs to you and me...

In another twenty years, we shall meet again!

How beautiful our great motherland will be...”

Her song drifted through the air, pure and melodious, bright with boundless youthful energy.

In the dimming sky, snow and wind swirled around them. The girl on the rear seat sang in a lilting voice that carried through the streets and lanes.

Before long, they arrived at Xiaowei Alley. Cheng Kaiyan’s home was there.

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After walking more than two hundred meters into the alley, they came upon a modest two-courtyard siheyuan.

It faced south from the north and had been built along an east-west lane. A plaque bearing the number 56 hung above the entrance. Two ruined stone statues stood before the gate. This had once been the residence of a third-rank official of the former Qing dynasty.

They had not even entered when the lively sounds from inside the courtyard reached them.

“Oh, Yuxiu, your Kaiyan is coming home today, isn’t he? Tsk, tsk... A second-class merit award for service at the southern border! The neighborhood office even brought firecrackers and a plaque honoring the family of a meritorious serviceman into the courtyard. This is something to bring glory to the ancestors. I’m so envious of you.”

“No wonder you prepared so many dishes today. Let me see... Good heavens! Peking duck from Quanjude? That’s half a month’s wages gone. You really splurged! Shredded pork in Beijing sauce, boxed dishes from Cuihualou... Four dishes and a soup? What a spread!”

“This whole meal must have cost at least fifteen yuan, right?”

“Tsk, tsk, fifteen yuan? Our Wang Nanhua can only be a regular worker at the steel mill. He earns thirty-three yuan a month. One meal has eaten up half his wages.”

“You’d better hurry and have your Nanhua take the university entrance exam. My Zhao Ruixue earned her place at Beijing Normal University while she was still a sent-down youth in the countryside, before she had even returned to the city. She has official cadre status now, and receives forty or fifty yuan in allowances every month!” Auntie Zhao, dressed in a floral padded jacket, spoke with great pride.

“Forget it. He doesn’t have what it takes.”

...

Listening to the aunties’ thunderous chatter, Cheng Kaiyan pushed the bicycle and entered the house with Zhan Xinyu.

The siheyuan was not large. Six families lived there, thirty or forty people in all.

In the first courtyard stood a beautiful screen wall and a hanging-flower gate, both of which had been partially demolished during the chaotic years. There were no proper living quarters there, only two flower rooms and several storage sheds.

Beyond the hanging-flower gate lay the second courtyard. Two main rooms stood side by side, with side rooms on either end serving as kitchens. The Cheng and Zhan families lived there, and the two families were the closest to each other.

The four rooms in the eastern and western wings housed the other four families: the Wangs, the Zhaos, the Lius, and the Xiaos.

Their families were larger, and most of them had been allocated homes by the neighborhood office or their work units. Those who could not fit into the rooms had moved into the first courtyard.

The Cheng family, however, held the property deed.

Snow covered the ground in the courtyard, turning everything white. Beneath a crooked parasol tree stood a snowman.

Cheng Kaiyan saw several aunties gathered outside the kitchen window of the Cheng home, peering inside while cracking sunflower seeds and gossiping.

They were not afraid of the cold at all. Even in the middle of winter, with snow falling heavily, they had to come out and join the excitement.

Through the kitchen window, he could vaguely make out a gentle, refined woman in her thirties or forties, wearing an apron as she cooked.

This was Cheng Kaiyan’s mother, Xu Yuxiu.

“Oh, heavens! The great hero is home!”

Wang Auntie, who lived in the eastern wing, had the sharpest eyes. The moment she saw the two of them enter, she raised her harsh, rusty voice and shouted, as if afraid the entire courtyard might fail to hear her.

“Old Zhan’s Xinyu went to pick up Kaiyan. Well, well, she’s still clinging to her Brother Yan just like she did when she was little—a proper little shadow. If you ask me, she might as well marry her Brother Yan.”

“Giggling... That’s exactly what I say.”

“I say, you old women, are you trying to play matchmaker here? Our Xinyu is only fifteen this year!” A middle-aged woman in a gray padded jacket shouted sharply. Her manner was fierce and outspoken.

This was Zhan Xinyu’s mother, Wang Qiang. She then turned toward Cheng Kaiyan and the girl, her expression softening.

“You’re back, Little Yan. You won’t be leaving again, will you?”

“No, Auntie Wang.”

At that moment, Xu Yuxiu heard that her son had returned and hurried out of the kitchen.

She was still holding a spatula. Leaning against the doorframe, she stared at him in a daze and called out in a trembling voice:

“Kaiyan!”

“Mom!”

Looking at the woman before him, apron tied around her waist and spatula in hand, Cheng Kaiyan was overcome by a familiarity that came from the depths of his soul. The word escaped him instinctively.

He stepped forward and embraced Xu Yuxiu.

“You’re home. You’re home at last.”

Xu Yuxiu wrapped her arms tightly around her son’s back. Her eyes were red, and crystalline tears trembled in them.

“It’s all right now. Look, I’m perfectly fine.”

Cheng Kaiyan held his mother by the shoulders and drew back a little, then flexed his arm as if displaying his muscles.

“Oh, stop it. You’re all thin arms and thin legs, more delicate than a girl.”

Xu Yuxiu swatted him lightly on the shoulder, then immediately worried she might have hurt him and carefully watched his expression.

“Come inside, come inside. The food is ready, though we’ll have to wait a little for the rice. I bought the Peking duck you like from Quanjude.”

She raised her sleeve and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. Then, seeing his eyes light up at the mention of duck, she laughed helplessly.

“Heh-heh... I still remember when you enlisted. I bought you a duck leg to gnaw on during the journey, and you were so busy eating it that you didn’t even see me calling to you. You little glutton.”

Cheng Kaiyan smiled sheepishly. It really had happened.

In his memories, when he enlisted, Xu Yuxiu had bought him a roast duck to eat on the way. He had been clutching it and gnawing away aboard the train when his mother ran along the platform shouting to him, but he had not heard.

The fellow recruits beside him had said, “Cheng Kaiyan, Cheng Kaiyan! Turn around—your mother’s calling you!”

By the time he turned to look, the train had already gone.

At the time, he had thought that he would see her again someday. He had never imagined that four entire years would pass without another meeting.

Still less had anyone expected that his predecessor, while helping capture a spy, would be shot and collapse, unable to hold on, only to be brought back to life when Cheng Kaiyan’s soul—from forty years in the future—entered his body.

Now that he thought about it, he wondered whether his predecessor had missed his final chance to see his mother because he had been too intent on that bite of roast duck.

He probably had. This body had already given him an unmistakable answer.

Leave it to me. I’ll make sure she lives a good life, Cheng Kaiyan thought.

...

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“Come inside and eat. Xinyu, you come too.”

After the mother and son had greeted each other and exchanged a few words, the neighbors dispersed, each returning home for dinner.

Cheng Kaiyan and Zhan Xinyu were pulled into the kitchen by his mother.

The kitchen, converted from a side room, was not large—perhaps ten square meters.

A single dim tungsten bulb hung from the roof beam. A small stove stood beneath the window, while a square redwood table occupied the center of the room, surrounded by several stools. In the corner lay a dark heap of coal briquettes and firewood.

“Brother Yan, can I just tear off one duck leg? My mother told me to go home for dinner.”

The girl gazed enviously at the sumptuous food on the table and spoke in a timid voice.

“Eat as much as you like.”

Cheng Kaiyan smiled and thought nothing of it.

The two of them sat down at the table. There were four dishes and a soup: Peking duck from Quanjude, shredded pork in Beijing sauce, and boxed dishes from Cuihualou.

There was also a plate of fried liver, indispensable to old Beijingers, and finally a bowl of pear soup.

“Then I’ll just tear off one leg and go. I’ll come play with you again tomorrow. I won’t disturb you and Aunt Xu tonight.”

“All right.”

The girl tore off a duck leg glistening with hot oil, stuffed it into her mouth, and hummed a little tune as she went home.

A while later, Xu Yuxiu came over carrying two bowls of rice.

“Why did Xinyu leave? Kaiyan, hurry and eat.”

“Yes, she went home. Thank you, Mom.”

Cheng Kaiyan accepted the bowl and chopsticks and began to eat. He wrapped a piece of duck meat in a pancake, dipped it in sauce, and stuffed it into his mouth. The savory fragrance burst across his tongue. It was far more delicious than the Peking duck of later generations.

Perhaps he was going through a second growth spurt. His appetite was enormous, like a bottomless pit.

Across from him, Xu Yuxiu untied her apron and rested both hands on the table, propping up her lovely chin as she quietly watched him eat, amusement glowing in her eyes.

Any mother would be happy to see her child devour the food she had prepared.

“Kaiyan, tell Mom about your years in the army. I’m curious.”

After watching him tenderly for a while, Xu Yuxiu suddenly asked.

“There wasn’t really much to tell...”

He went on to describe the things he had done in the army’s cultural troupe while continuing to eat.

He talked about daily training, playing the piano, and traveling to various places to perform.

Sometimes they worked continuously for several weeks without a break. Compared with the soldiers, however, their lives were not especially arduous.

He also spoke of the women in the troupe. Most of them were not professionals and had received little formal vocal training.

There was one girl from the countryside, for instance, who happened to possess a naturally beautiful voice. Someone had sent her to the troupe, where all that mattered was whether she could sing.

At that time, the troupe also had a rehearsal room. Besides training, they sometimes held classes there. One girl from Shanghai, who was good at English, had even organized a special English study group.

After hearing about her son’s experiences over the past few years, Xu Yuxiu felt even more certain that she had been right to teach him piano from childhood. At least he had a skill to rely on in the cultural troupe.

Then she asked, “That sounds good. I heard that anyone who earns a second-class merit award in the army is guaranteed a work assignment. So why did you come back? Did your commanders assign you to a job here at home?”

“Actually, no. I came back after collecting my demobilization payment.”

“What?”

Xu Yuxiu slammed her hand on the table and stood up, furious.

“Then you don’t have a job? How can that be all right? You had a guaranteed assignment and turned it down, choosing to come back and become an unemployed drifter instead? You have no education, and you don’t even have any particular abilities.

“These days, finding any job at all is considered lucky. You’re not a former sent-down youth. The neighborhood office won’t arrange work for you the way they do for returning sent-down youths...”

It was said that there were ten million unemployed young people in the country at that time. The number had grown even larger after the sent-down youths returned to the cities. Beijing alone had four hundred thousand.

Every day, long lines formed outside the neighborhood offices. The returning youths kept asking, “Leader, when will there be work for us?”

As far as Xu Yuxiu knew, one teacher at her school had a child who could not find work after returning to the city. Through personal connections, the child had obtained a civil-service post sweeping the streets for a little over twenty yuan a month. Even that job, people said, had been fought over desperately.

“Mom, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I’m planning to take the university entrance exam. I can’t throw away the watermelon just because I picked up a sesame seed.”

Cheng Kaiyan watched her expression grow increasingly severe and suddenly felt a headache coming on.

Suspicion flickered in Xu Yuxiu’s eyes. She knew her own son too well. He had never been one to settle quietly into anything.

Still, unwilling to dampen his spirits, she could only encourage him.

“All right, then. I’ll find you a set of textbooks in a few days. You’d better study hard. Zhao Ruixue from the western wing got into Beijing Normal University, and she has official cadre status now. I’m not asking you to get into Tsinghua or Peking University. Just get into a respectable university.”

“Deal!”

Cheng Kaiyan nodded. At the mention of Zhao Ruixue, a pretty girl with a long braid surfaced in his memories.

Zhao Ruixue had a beautiful name and an equally beautiful face. Ever since childhood, she had been the flower of the alley.

She had been an excellent student in high school. Cheng Kaiyan had never expected her to spend several years as a sent-down youth in the countryside and still manage to gain admission to Beijing Normal University. Her perseverance was truly remarkable.

“What about your demobilization payment?”

At that moment, Xu Yuxiu suddenly asked.