Yahui was waiting for Director Gong in the school entranceway, but the person who arrived was instead Mingzheng.
Mingzheng walked over from a grassy area, passing two public education buildings. The early fall weather was very brisk, and as Yahui waited she looked west and saw the ink-colored Xiang Mountain ten li away. She reflected that at some point she should climb Xiang Mountain to see how Beijing’s mountains differed from those in Qinghai. She had already visited the Great Wall and the Palace Museum, and now she wanted to visit Xiang Mountain’s Biyuan Temple. As she was standing in the entranceway gazing at the trees on the mountaintop, she saw Mingzheng approach. He was wearing black leather shoes, gray pants, and a moon-colored Chinese jacket with a row of buttons on the front that were as bright as mirrors. A smile appeared on his face, as though the period since their squabble had disappeared in a flash of light.
“You’re waiting for me …”
Surprised, she said, “But you’re a Daoist and I’m a Buddhist—we need to remain separate like river and well water.”
Mingzheng cracked a smile. “Have you forgotten that I’m the director’s assistant? An assistant stands in for the director. Today the director is busy, so he sent me to visit your shifu on behalf of the center.”
Yahui stared at Mingzheng in surprise, then glanced again to the side of the campus road and asked, “Is Director Gong really not coming?”
“Associate Professor Huang wanted to invite Director Gong out for a meal, to offer his apologies. Director Gong couldn’t get out of it, so he sent me in his place.”
Without replying, Yahui looked at the campus, at Mingzheng, and at the other people around them. A gloomy expression flickered across her face as she realized that Director Gong wasn’t coming, and she became concerned that this might be because she hadn’t confirmed that she would be willing to join the Party. She cast Gu Mingzheng an angry glance and, with a frown, asked, “Did Director Gong ask you whether you would join the Party?”
Mingzheng didn’t say that he had, nor did he say that he hadn’t. Instead, he glanced at Yahui as though to ask, And what of it?
“Did you agree?”
“I told him I would think about it.”
They both fell silent, letting the flood of people sweep past them. There were some couples where the boy had his arm around the girl’s waist or shoulder, and others who couldn’t resist stopping in the middle of the road to kiss. The sky was high, but without a trace of a deity, and the clouds were sparse, without any discernible shape. Yahui and Mingzheng simply stood there, gazing at one another with a combination of warmth and coldness. Eventually a taxi drove up and someone got out, whereupon Yahui got into the taxi alone and headed toward Yonghe Hospital.
The trip to the hospital was uneventful, and it was as though the path had been cleared by the deities. Half an hour later, Yahui got out of the taxi in front of the entrance to the hospital and headed toward Jueyu shifu, who was exercising in the hospital’s tree grove. Jueyu shifu was under a pair of cypresses with a volunteer nurse and her wheelchair, on the back of which there were a pair of crutches. Yahui had originally planned to explain to her shifu why Director Gong could not make it this time. She would claim that Director Gong had to attend a meeting, but that he would definitely come another day. She would explain that although Director Gong couldn’t come in person, he nevertheless had asked Yahui to inform Jueyu shifu that the school’s inter-sect athletic competitions had been halted and the tug-of-war competitions had been discontinued. As she arrived at the grove, she was still trying to figure out how to tell these lies as though they were the true word of the deities. She heard familiar footsteps behind her, and when she turned around, she saw Mingzheng rushing up with a couple of bags of apples and bananas. She was surprised that he had managed to catch up with her, given that she had left first and he had even stopped somewhere to buy some fruit.
And yet, somehow he was already there.
Yahui stopped and stood on the side of the road, gazing at the sweat on Mingzheng’s brow. This time, Mingzheng didn’t smile, and instead said in a soft voice, “No matter how fast the Buddhist’s pace might be, it is no match for that of Laozi.” He placed a bag of bananas in front of Yahui, then extended his words into the realm of the sacred: “The Bodhisattva walks with her feet, while Laozi walks with his heart.” Seeing that Yahui was not accepting the bag, Mingzheng stuffed it into her hands.
“I can be reimbursed for this—now, I, too, get to apply for reimbursements.”
What followed was like going up a series of steps, and no matter how many twists and turns there might be, one would inevitably continue proceeding upward.
With Mingzheng in the lead and Yahui behind him, they followed a stone-paved path into the grove. After going around a turn, they saw the pair of old cypresses in front of them. A volunteer nurse was supporting Jueyu shifu as she tried to walk, but when they saw Yahui and Mingzheng, they stopped and looked in their direction. With the bag of fruit in hand, Mingzheng went to greet them and announced, “Ah, Shifu, I always said that the Bodhisattva wouldn’t leave you lying paralyzed in bed!”
Jueyu shifu and the volunteer nurse both stared at Mingzheng’s young face, as though waiting for Yahui to introduce him. Before she had a chance to do so, however, Mingzheng took the initiative and introduced himself. He explained that he was a Daoist master and served as the assistant to the center’s director. He explained that Director Gong had an important meeting that he couldn’t get out of, and therefore had sent him, Mingzheng, to visit Jueyu shifu on behalf of the organization. He said that when the organization’s students heard that Jueyu shifu was ill, they all felt as though their hearts had dropped. As he was speaking, Mingzheng pulled an envelope from his pocket, from which he removed a letter with an official stamp. Yahui initially assumed this was a condolence letter from the organization, but it turned out to be a notification announcing the abolition of inter-sect athletic competitions.
The situation was like a theatrical performance in which everything was fake and artificial, but also real and concrete. Yahui was both an actor and an audience member. She had not expected Gu Mingzheng would produce such an official-looking announcement, much less that he would stand in front of Jueyu shifu and read the announcement as though reciting an ode. His hoarse voice gushed forth like a partially thawed frozen river—
Members of the teaching and training sections, and of the religious training center:
To implement the Party’s religious policy and maximize the friendship and harmony between different religions, the religious training center has resolved to abolish all inter-sect athletic competitions, as well as all competitions based on knowledge of religious policy and knowledge relating to the Party. From now on, the center’s work relating to religious training will be exclusively for the purpose of elevating and respecting the principles of each religion’s belief, independence, and freedom—such that, during this year of training, each disciple will come to believe more piously, deeply, and freely that his or her own religion’s deity is the only creator. Each disciple will understand the birth, development, and flourishing of religion in China, and will be able to use a more powerful belief to disseminate their own religion’s doctrine and faith to the masses.
Accordingly, as of today, we will permanently discontinue all the center’s athletic activities, and particularly high-strength competitions like tug-of-war—with the exception of competitions between members of the same religion that serve to promote physical exercise. Moreover, the activities in question will also be permanently removed from the center’s curriculum.
National Politics University Religious Training Center
The document had been signed two days earlier, and it seemed as though the ink was still wet. The notice was printed on a sheet of A4 paper, like an official notification, and at the top were the words National Politics University Religious Training Center in Song script, below which there was the religion center’s red seal. Everyone found this very realistic and convincing, as though a deity were standing right in front of Jueyu shifu, Mingzheng, and the volunteer nurse. The only exception was Yahui—and although her eyes revealed a hint of skepticism, her expression nevertheless remained perfectly sincere and devout. The figurative curtains opened, whereupon everyone on stage had no choice but to perform their role. The result was pure theater, but at the same time was also as real as reality itself. As Mingzheng solemnly read the notification, the volunteer nurse burst into a victorious smile and Yahui gazed at Mingzheng with a joyous expression. Yahui circled around so that she was standing behind her shifu and gently massaged her shoulders and back like a filial child.
Mingzheng finished reading the announcement, after which the park became completely silent apart from the sound of autumn birds. Outside the grove, some doctors and patients were chatting in the sunlight. The sky was very high, like the deep and vast domain one finds in the scriptures, and it was in the deep stillness that Jueyu shifu, with tears in her eyes, asked in a trembling voice, “Is it … is it … is it true?”
As she asked this, she strode over to Mingzheng as though she were not sick at all.
Everyone stared in surprise, and the volunteer nurse cried out, “Ah, ah!” The nurse couldn’t decide whether to help support Jueyu shifu or let her walk on her own, and therefore her hand paused in midair. Yahui also stood there stunned, watching Jueyu shifu walk back and forth. Her mouth opened, but she was unable to utter a single word. She had an astonished expression, as though she had just seen the Bodhisattva. Gu Mingzheng, meanwhile, was happily holding the announcement, his face radiating a powerful dawn light, as though he were Laozi come down to earth to direct the world and guide people’s lives.