Chapter 27: It Was Exile (Part 4)

Hou Weidong sat on the bamboo sofa, staring blankly into space for a while before the reality of his situation finally sank in. Beneath the sofa lay a thick layer of black mouse droppings, their density far exceeding anything he had imagined.

Beer is still alcohol. Getting drunk on it still resulted in a splitting headache and a bloated, drum-tight stomach.

He stepped into the inner room. His leather shoes crunched on the dry, black mouse droppings, making a "sha, sha" sound, much like walking on a sandy beach. The room was extremely sparse: a bed covered with straw, a heavy-looking wooden table, and a rattan chair with one broken leg. On the wall hung a poster of a beauty from the 1980s, posing with exaggerated, affected gestures.

Hou Weidong tore the poster down and threw it on the floor. He pushed against the window, which was shut tight. Fortunately, it moved. With a "ga, ga" creak, he pushed it open. Right outside the window stood a eucalyptus tree with lush foliage. Bathed in the setting sun, its leaves shimmered with a faint golden glow, looking vibrant and full of life. It reminded him somewhat of the scenery at Shazhou College, forming a stark contrast to the squalor inside the room.

The eucalyptus tree was beautiful, but it grew outside. Beyond the window was a small courtyard containing a rockery and some flowers and plants. However, the rockery was covered in moss and weeds, and the flowers were being choked out by the encroaching vegetation, showing only a few pitiful glimpses of their faces.

It was a courtyard that had once been decent but had now been abandoned and neglected, much like a woman whose beauty had faded.

Qinglin Mountain was a large mountain with a peak elevation of around nine hundred meters. The forest cover was dense, with many large trees. During the Great Steel Making campaign, trees were cut down in various parts of Shazhou, but most of the large trees on Qinglin Mountain were preserved. The main reason was that the villagers on Qinglin Mountain had relied on the mountain for their livelihood for generations and held an unusual love for the forest. When militia members from the valleys below brought saws up to cut down the trees, the villagers mobilized en masse. Thousands of men, women, the elderly, and children, armed with hoes, shoulder poles, machetes, and old hunting guns, openly confronted the commune officials from below.

As the saying goes, "Pirates come from the sea, bandits from the mountains." The villagers of Qinglin Mountain had always been tough. When the People's Liberation Army liberated Shazhou, they were attacked by bandits on Qinglin Mountain, resulting in more than ten casualties. It took two companies of PLA troops to finally raid and eliminate the bandit stronghold.

This time, the open defiance of the government by Qinglin Mountain caused the county and commune cadres to hesitate. They were wary of the villagers' strength and did not dare to go against the will of the crowd. Although a few ringleaders were arrested, they did not dare to forcibly clear the forest. As a result, Qinglin Mountain retained the most intact forest in Shazhou City.

Hou Weidong stumbled out of the room, his head still spinning. He had no idea how he had returned to this room after getting drunk at noon. Only now did he see clearly that this was a four-story building, similar in layout to the school's teaching buildings. Each floor had ten rooms and a long exterior corridor. On the left, there was a small sign with two large characters: "Toilet." Hou Weidong had excellent eyesight and clearly read the characters at the door. Suddenly, his stomach churned. To avoid vomiting right there, he broke into a jog. Just as he aligned himself with the squat toilet, he retched violently, "wa, wa." Since he had spent most of noon drinking and had eaten very little, what came up was mostly liquid—soup and water—with no solid food.

After coming out of the toilet, he leaned over the sink in the corridor and splashed cold water on his face. He felt slightly better. During his jog to the toilet, he had rushed in without paying attention to the noise in the corridor. As he slowly walked back to his room, he heard the sound of stir-frying coming from a room four doors down.

"Are there only two families on this floor?" As he walked back along the corridor, Hou Weidong was surprised to discover that out of the ten rooms, only two were occupied, including his own. Moreover, his only neighbor was also cooking with the door closed.

He tried pulling the light cord. Fortunately, the fluorescent tube attached to the wall lit up, making the black mouse droppings all over the floor even more glaring. Hou Weidong stood in the middle of the room, looking at the mess that resembled a garbage heap, and found himself dazed.

There was a bed, but it was just a pile of straw covered in mouse droppings, making it impossible to sleep on. There was water, but only tap water at the end of the corridor, with no boiled drinking water. There was electricity, but aside from the fluorescent light, there were no appliances like a TV, electric fan, or rice cooker. There was garbage, but no cleaning tools like brooms or mops. There was a hungry stomach and a head full of alcohol, but he had no idea where to find dinner.

He wandered in the corridor for a while. Watching the sun gradually sink behind the treetops, he felt an extraordinary sense of loneliness. This was his first day working at the Qinglin township government. He had gotten drunk and then been dumped like a dead dog in this godforsaken place, isolated from heaven and earth. "What the hell is going on?"

Moscow does not believe in tears, and neither does Qinglin Mountain. After the violent vomiting, Hou Weidong’s stomach was completely empty. The aroma of twice-cooked pork drifted down the corridor—specifically, twice-cooked pork with garlic sprouts. Hou Weidong could almost hear the sizzling sound of the half-fat, half-lean pork belly frying in the wok.

Unable to bear the smell of the meat, Hou Weidong returned to his room. But the room was such a mess that he couldn't even find a place to step. After staring blankly for a moment, he realized he had to save himself. He closed the door and prepared to go to the small market town on Qinglin Mountain to buy some essential daily items.

A bluestone path extended from the gate of the small courtyard, giving off a somewhat antique charm. The houses along the street were mostly lit by dim incandescent bulbs. It was precisely because of these electric lights that the market town showed faint traces of modern civilization. It was dinner time, and the aroma of food wafted from every household. The smell was so tempting that Hou Weidong kept swallowing his saliva. As he walked, thinking of the bustling streets of Shazhou City and the face and voice of Xiaojia, he felt a wave of melancholy. His eyes grew moist, and his vision of the surroundings became blurred.

He turned a corner and recognized the restaurant where he had eaten lunch. However, the door was shut tight. It seemed that the foot traffic in the market town only allowed this restaurant to operate at noon. Passing the restaurant, the images of Xi Zhaoyong, Li Yong, Tang Shugang, Bai Chuncheng, Tian Fushen, and others flashed through his mind.

These people were very different in personality and style from the teachers and students at Shazhou College. He thought to himself, "This Xi Zhaoyong is quite domineering; I should keep my distance from him for now and observe. Li Yong is a rough man, Tian Fushen is honest, and Tang Shugang is the Director of the Party and Government Office, so he seems to have some authority. I can look for opportunities to interact with him later."

Thinking of these people, his melancholy faded. Hou Weidong mocked himself, "I really didn't expect that waking up from this nap would send me back to the pre-liberation era." At that moment, he saw a middle-aged man who looked honest and simple moving a rattan chair to the side of the street. He approached and asked, "Excuse me, is there a restaurant nearby?"

The middle-aged man looked at Hou Weidong with some surprise and said, "What time is it? They closed long ago." Outsiders rarely visited the old Qinglin market. The man noticed that this person was a stranger and quite physically strong. Thinking of the recent robberies on the Qinglin mountain paths, he became wary and asked, "What are you doing here? Whose relative are you?"

Hou Weidong had served as the captain of the campus discipline patrol at the college for three years and had learned some skills in reading people from Director Hu. Seeing the man's expression, he guessed what he was thinking and said, "I am from the Qinglin township government working group stationed on Qinglin Mountain. I just arrived today."

The middle-aged man said with some doubt, "Oh, you're from the government. No dinner? You follow this bluestone path. When the path ends, you'll reach Qinglin Primary School. There is a grocery store and a small eatery there."

After Hou Weidong left, the middle-aged man threw his cigarette butt on the ground and muttered, "Trying to trick me? This kid is still too green." He then hurried off toward the home of Tian Fei, a civil patrol officer.

Hou Weidong followed the bluestone path to Qinglin Primary School. Sure enough, there was a grocery store still open. Upon closer inspection, the store was named "Qinglin Primary School Comprehensive Store." The goods were decent, including daily necessities like rice cookers and thermos bottles, as well as food items like biscuits and instant noodles. Seeing these, Hou Weidong felt relieved. Dinner was finally sorted out.

Behind the counter sat two women chatting and laughing. One was in her thirties, and the other was in her early twenties. The younger woman was of ordinary appearance, slightly plump, and wearing a dress that looked quite fashionable. She did not look like someone who lived on Qinglin Mountain. Similarly, the two women looked up in surprise when they saw a stranger enter.