A few days before classes were scheduled to resume on the fifteenth day after the Lunar New Year, students began to return to school. The campus, which had been cold during the break, came back to life. The bare trees and the lanterns in the entranceway to each department were now animated and lively, and some students kicked the signs that read In the interest of blue skies and public safety, firecrackers and fireworks are forbidden. However, when the students saw the principal and professors walk by, they smiled innocently.
The principal and professors smiled back, as the city returned to its original state of liveliness.
The people who had rushed like a river out of the city and to their hometowns now came surging back. The bars and shops that had been closed for the holiday reopened their doors, and even the campus’s canteens and stores began to have an endless stream of customers. Throughout the break, Director Gong had been at home working on his monograph, and even on New Year’s Day he managed to write several thousand characters. The monograph’s harvest season was just around the corner, and after he finished the final chapter and gave the press a subvention derived from the faith donations, the monograph would be printed and published. Soon the center might well be recognized as one of the university’s institutes, given that the monograph would surely receive the nation’s highest award for a theoretician’s scientific research. Thus, all the tensions and conflicts over designations of bureau head or deputy department director, expert or authority, professor or lecturer, would be resolved.
As Director Gong completed that final chapter of his monograph, he put down his pen with satisfaction and returned to the school.
If the religious training center had money, it was also true that Director Gong had money. A few years earlier he had bought himself a BMW, and now he would always drive whenever he went to campus. Because of the religious training center’s distinctive status, the disciples had a slightly longer vacation than the other students, and their first day of classes after the break was the Monday following the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year.
On the fifteenth, when the temperature was only three or four degrees below zero, Director Gong parked his car in front of the religion building’s front gate and, wearing a down jacket and a long scarf, came inside. A blast of hot air surged out, immediately warming his body. He saw that, apart from some dust and firecracker paper that had blown into the auditorium, there wasn’t a soul in the entire building. Standing in the lobby, he removed his jacket, untied his scarf, and began sweeping the floor like one of the center’s disciples. He even started to sing, and after he finished, he waved his broom around like a martial arts actor on stage, before carefully leaning it against the wall.
He continued singing as he went to his office and began wiping his desk, at which point his door was pushed open. Standing in the doorway was the nun Yahui, who had just returned from Xining’s Qinghai Lake. She stood there with a smile plastered on her face, like a child who had been driven away from home and later returned on her own. In her arms, she was cradling a large doll that was still in the original box, and she was wearing a loose-fitting red sweater and a pair of sharply creased grey pants that looked like they had just been ironed. She had applied cold cream to some frostbite burns on her face, such that it appeared as though her face were covered in a layer of yellow paper. Her hands and feet, also frostbitten, were wrapped in gauze, while her toes were sticking out of her sandals.
Director Gong stood next to his desk, the cloth he had been using to wipe it down frozen in midair. After examining Yahui with a shocked expression, he asked, “You, how did you return? Can Xining … possibly be so unbearably cold?”
Yahui replied, “Qinghai Lake was covered in two feet of snow all winter long, and Jing’an Temple collapsed under the weight. If I hadn’t come back, I would surely have died there.”
Director Gong stood motionless for a while, and then sat down on the stool, his face pale. He looked away from Yahui and stared out the door, then said, “But we agreed you wouldn’t come back!”
Yahui replied, “The temple collapsed, so I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Director Gong thought for a while, and said, “Your shifu’s funeral … has already been taken care of?”
“It was a Buddhist funeral … I erected a pagoda in the temple for her, as she had previously done for her own shifu.”
Exasperated, Director Gong threw down the cloth he was using, then got up and headed to the door. After looking down the hallway, he closed the door, calmly tugged at Yahui’s sweater, and pointed at the sofa, indicating for her to have a seat. Then he positioned his stool a comfortable distance away and sat silently for a while. Staring at her solemnly, he asked, “Did you return because you missed Mingzheng?”
Yahui’s eyes widened. While watching Director Gong, she walked over and placed the doll she was holding on the desk in front of him. She stared at him and replied, “I returned for the Buddha and for my shifu. The Buddha and my shifu both wanted me to return, and someday I’ll bring them to Beijing as well.”
Director Gong gazed intently at her, and said, “You know that Mingzheng is living on campus?”
Yahui looked at him blankly.
“He had a boil on that area of his thigh.” Director Gong offered an odd smile. “He had no choice but to have it operated on.”
There was another silence, as though Yahui had encountered an unfathomable misfortune. She stared at Director Gong and wondered where exactly “that area on his thigh” was located.
Eventually Director Gong thought of something else, and in a measured tone he said, “If others ask you about your shifu, you know how you should respond, right?”
Yahui shifted her attention back and replied, “I’ll say she is recuperating in Jing’an Temple.”
Director Gong nodded, then was silent for a moment. “Given that you have returned … If I were to request it, could you collaborate with the center to do some … things?”
As Yahui silently gazed at Director Gong, he continued, “For instance … if we were to present you as a model student or something …”
Yahui blushed.
“I wouldn’t ask you to leave the faith and join the Party.” As Director Gong said this, he rocked back and forth. “Rather, you’d simply be expected to attend class and take notes. When the higher-ups come to see what we are doing, you would speak to them and say what you need to say.”
Relieved, Yahui nodded.
Yahui and Director Gong fell silent. Director Gong had asked everything he needed to ask, and Yahui had said everything she needed to say. There was a sound in the building, and then a silence descended. Outside, students returning to campus glanced inside as they passed by the office window. Yahui felt she should leave, so she thanked Director Gong and headed to the door. However, as she passed, Director Gong suddenly stood up and caressed her head, like a father caressing his daughter.
“Your hair has grown out.”
Director Gong then returned to his desk, and once he was a comfortable distance from Yahui, he picked up the blond doll she had bought for his daughter and turned it over, saying, “Ay—I’d say that if your Jing’an Temple collapsed … if it really did collapse, then you might as well buy an apartment in Beijing and live here.”
As Yahui stood in the doorway listening to Director Gong, her heart warmed. With her hands clasped in front of her chest, she bowed deeply to him, and as she did so, Director Gong saw that her hair whorl was large and round, positioned like a coin in the center of her head. This reminded him of another matter, and he began plotting another scheme to raise more money.