晓竹天下 文创空间

The next morning I woke up in the middle of a broken dream. It was something about a unique Gong I obtained through practicing standing. The Master who had so taught me called it Vertical Gong. You have to stand sleeping, eating, doing everything and never lying down.

"Then," he said with a mysterious smile. "You will be a vertical man, forever upright and fearless."

My life so far had been most simple and most ordinary, like a chill wind from Siberia constant and never ending. It pierced my bones and frozen up my brain. I didn't know why one could call it life. Its continuation towards eternity would be most terrible. Indeed the horrible. But people seem to believe death to be most horrible.

The evening I came out from hiding, I remember, was exceptionally hot. For four hours I walked slowly and tentatively on the bustling Beijing Street where everyone seemed to know where to go and went with an air of dogged determination. Funny. Were they really so sure?

Chapter One

Give Me Liberty?

“Give me liberty? Or give me death?” Professor Qian burst into laughing and repeated the word “death” in a high-pitched roar. People at nearby tables eyed us and then got back to their own business. The Bar was about half lit as if to make a point that all sound and fury must be kept in check here. At this point we were half drunk.

“O Brother, you got to help me!” That was the first thing Zhao said to me when I opened the door.

“Hello, Old Zhao,” I was truly surprised. “Do come in.” But it seemed, before I could utter those words, he had miraculously walked past me and was well settled at my desk where he waited for my greetings and invitation to reach him.

Taking a Walk

It was a sunny day and I took a walk in the morning. There were people, mostly elderly, walking along the promenade that threaded its way in a park like a construction site. Yet there was no clue of people minding the noise and dust. “Isn’t this great?” I thought to myself. “They would have been adaptive to a war zone.”

Friendship Hotel

Prologue