晓竹天下 文创空间

He lay there in moonlight, on the deck and alone. The breeze was so soothing that his mind was lost in the woods, absorbed in the susurrus of each and every branch of the trees. Then he heard it, the footsteps and rustling of her clothes. He opened his eyes. And there she came around the house, like a moon goddess, wearing a long and loose skirt.

The storm was over. Snow had blanketed the forest and now cascaded down here and there among trees. A lone hunters walked in shining boots powdered with the snow, knee-deep snow. It was too early in the winter for that kind of snow. The hunter paused and raised a bare hand to test the wind. The wind was from the north and that was all right.

The traffic light turned green and Shuchong walked across the street. Unconsciously his right hand was pressing from outside on his left breast pocket where the book was. The street was lined with rare book dealers. The first shop he entered had a large ground floor devoted to CDs and DVDs, a few shelves of used books on the mezzanine level, and computers and office supplies on the top.

Myrtle House was no ordinary restaurant. No doubt it was expensive, but what made it stand out among two dozens of top of the line eateries in Beijing was its atmosphere. On approaching it, one could not fail to notice its peculiarity about architecture. It was built in the middle of an empty plot about two acres in size, which by itself being a statement of class over land scarcity in Beijing.

Captain Hei never raised his head to look at the prisoner while thumbing through the files on the table. It was his style as a formidable police interrogator, never acknowledging the existence of the interrogated and always focusing on the invisible soul as if the physical form of the prisoner is no more than a shadow of his true being.

Summer Night. The wheat field was harvested and bare under the moonlight. A man and woman lay on the hay heap, exhausted and breathing hard.

"We can gather it in before tomorrow's rain," the man said.

"There won't be rain tomorrow." The woman whispered, staring into star-lit sky. No cloud in sight.

I had quite a few well-meaning friends who, all happily wed, would tap me on the shoulder, and say "Old pal, you ought to get married." Well, I thought it quite extraordinary for they knew and I knew and they knew that I knew they knew that I had married three times already and all of them failed miserably and ended up in bitter divorce.

In the broad scheme of things he was less a statistic than a polar bear in the society he lived in, and the people who knew him regarded him as on autopilot 24/7 and barely wasted a thought on him. He simply performed as millions of working bees do in a bee society. Indeed he was aware of the time moving on for he was growing older. But would it make any difference?