Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [69]
“Lao Chen,” said Fang Caodi, “with that one question you woke me up from my dreams. When I thought about it, my powers of premonition that I thought made me different from other people never had the slightest influence on the world, and never even changed my own fate. They really didn’t have any significance at all.” From that time on, Fang Caodi no longer considered his premonitions to be of any importance and no longer put himself under any pointless pressure. This was all due to that one question of Lao Chen’s. From that he knew that Lao Chen was an extraordinarily talented person.
“Little brother,” Fang Caodi instructed Zhang Dou, “Lao Chen is far wiser than we are; we should listen to him, you understand?”
When Lao Chen, who was eating with great gusto, heard Fang Caodi say this, he felt a little embarrassed. He stood up to give Old Fang a hug.
Lao Chen found he was enjoying the flavors of their long dinner very much, so much so in fact that some of his lost feeling of happiness started to come back. He felt so good that he actually found himself telling his two companions how he’d come to know the insomniac national leader He Dongsheng. He explained how He Dongsheng would sleep through the films Jian Lin showed, but could not sleep at night, and so drove his own car all over town, and when he was pulled over by a traffic cop, he phoned his secretary, who then wiped his ass for him.
After dinner, Zhang Dou carried on playing his guitar, and Fang Caodi sang Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind.” Old Fang sang it perfectly in the style of the young Dylan.
As they continued drinking Yanjing beer and eating cookies, Zhang Dou took out his computer and went on the Internet. Fang Caodi asked Lao Chen to show him how to look up his friend.
“I’m not exactly sure,” said Lao Chen. “I only have this note.” He took it out of his pocket.
“What does it mean?” asked Fang Caodi.
“I think it is maizi busi, ‘the grain does not die,’ in Romanized script,” said Lao Chen.
Zhang Dou took a look.
“Let’s go to Henan and look for her,” said Fang Caodi. “I’ll drive. Professor Hu said that church is in Henan—we can find out where exactly when we get there.”
“Whoa. Don’t get too excited,” said Lao Chen. “That church is called the Church of the Grain Fallen on the Ground, but I don’t even know for certain that Little Xi is called maizi busi, not to mention whether or not the two names are related.”
“I found maizibusi!” exclaimed Zhang Dou suddenly. Lao Chen and Fang Caodi gathered around the computer.
“You just put in maizibusi?” asked Lao Chen.
Zhang Dou nodded.
Lao Chen had only guessed at Chinese characters for maizibusi and had never thought to just look up the Romanized text.
There was only one link, a post put up two weeks before on the club3.kdnet.net “Cat’s Eye” server:
Idiot Numbskull, you say you are so brokenhearted you’ll never post another message. Well, I’m pretty brokenhearted too, but I understand—all your thoughtful articles are willfully deleted by the Internet police and maliciously attacked by a gang of “angry youth” thugs (those people in their fifties and sixties who act like thugs when they go on the Internet). You never use malicious language and you always present the facts and make reasonable arguments, so I greatly admire your firm resolve; it encourages me to keep on going. I’m not afraid of the angry youth, and I’m even less afraid of those aging hoodlums. I will persevere to the end because I believe that human beings are rational and that the truth cannot be suppressed forever. Good-bye for now, friend, we’ll meet again in this virtual world. maizibusi.
“Is that her?” asked Fang Caodi.