晓竹天下 文创空间

The old man was a content widower, but after his son's marriage he felt a hole growing inside him. A year later he wanted to get married again. A woman was found for him. She came from a village fifty miles away and her name was Mifa, no longer young, but good-looking and from a decent family.

I was eight years old and one day, and until that night, a boy of self-claimed hero, never fearing shadow, darkness or ghost stories. But I was panting as I ran alongside my parents through a narrow and deserted lane in Chongqing, China. The wooden doors and painted windows of the row houses on each side of the alley are shut. The sound of gun-shot was getting louder and closer.

The village of Shizhuang was tucked in a ravine behind tall trees so that only smoke from its chimneys could be seen from the high road yonder the mountains. It was a village shrouded in mystery and the locals referred to it as "Man-eating Village". They would say to visitors:

"That's the village where they ate their landlord."

The evening when the scandal was made known to Qijia, the head of most distinguished family in town, the family mansion was hushed as all minor members of the family, including nannies, servants and cooks, were ordered into the game room watching a movie. The senior members of the family were summoned into the study, where they would discuss what to do next.

Shai stumbled through the door and into a place he had never been before. It was a small bar, not very clean, not very light, not very cheerful, but very quiet. Good, he thought to himself as he steadied his feet. There were only five or six people present, all drinking or talking quietly.

"Cut," the director shouted through a loud speaker. He walked to the young actress named Jiujiu who had rode through a street on a bicycle. "Your ride is not so much in a hurry than in earnest. Remember all the troubles you went through to get your mom treated. Your love and worry for her is reaching a breaking point."

The coffees were long cold, and they, mother and daughter, stared at the cold mugs placed on soft pads on the table, tired and speechless. A car, turning around the street corner, beamed its headlight into the dim-lit coffee shop. Their faces were illuminated and receded into shadow again.

So Mr. Pei got married. The marriage status certainly mattered among his friends, for before they had called him Little Pei and now they called him Old Pei. Man is not a man until he got married and then he turned into a dray horse--this of course was uncovered to him later. At the this moment Mr. Pei was quite happy with his family life.

AT three o'clock in the afternoon of a fine spring day in 2008, a young man of about twenty was toiling up the staircase of a six-story building. He was shabbily dressed, shuffling his down-trodden leather shoes at each turn of the flight. At last he reached the very top floor, breathless and perspiring. On his right, a door half-opened to a small, dark passage.

Dinner was almost done, and the final round of nice pies and fried fish virtually untouched. My stomach was full, my eyes still hungry, and my soul continued to savor the dishes I couldn't devour. Then came Xia Ren, the house cook to ask Old Shang, my host, what he would like for tomorrow's dinner. The cook was a women in her forties with a pretty face and long narrow eyes.

THE ARTISTIC

Wu was a good doctor or everyone said so, but maybe too good a doctor that his wife, Mimi, thought such singularity of goodness had crowded everything out. She had the impression that he was full of life in his white overcoat, but appeared lifeless as soon as he stepped out of it. Yes, he came home each evening, but did so like a specter with no body mass.

THE BLOCKED
X Drew Liu

THE BROKEN
By X Drew Liu

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