I followed her unknowingly, separated by a bit of distance, and felt fortunate to have a fellow traveler. After walking for a few miles, the woman stopped and stood on the side of the road. I passed in front of her and noticed her head was down but her eyes were looking up at me. I smiled politely.
After walking a few steps, I looked back to see if she was following. I saw that she was standing by the side of the road urinating, with the corner of her skirt in one hand and her legs crossed. Her heavy basket was still on top of her head. I realized that I was holding her back, so I quickened my pace to give her more space and told myself that I should not be afraid of the howling of birds and beasts at seventeen.
Just as I was slapping a leech on my leg with my soaked shoes, I heard a vehicle humming behind me, and I ducked to the side of the road to wait for it. Maybe it's because of the poor angle of vision around the corner but the driver didn't see me waving, and the truck rushed past me. Donna Fang was sitting in the cab. She saw me and shouted to the driver, "Stop. I saw the battalion commander's son beckoning!" The truck stopped a few dozen feet away.
Donna got out, came to the back of the truck, and waited for me, waving her hand with a smile. She was one year younger than me. I hadn't seen her for two years. She had grown up and become incredibly attractive since the last time we spoke. She took my mesh bag enthusiastically and handed it to a person in the trunk.
Her actions both excited and embarrassed me. The trunk was full of acquaintances, all of whom were Zhiqing from Tenth Battalion - young men and women a few years older than me. I climbed into the truck bed first, thinking she was going to the cab, but she soon offered me her hand and asked me to give her a lift. I hesitated for a second before I caught her hand and pulled her in – I was holding a girl's hand for the first time.
The clerk of the battalion, Jialin Chen, squeezed some room for Donna and me to sit. We sat down side by side, leaning against the one side of the truck bed. Jialin looked at Donna and me and said with emotion: "When I came to the farm, you two were children, but now you are adults!"
Dagui, sitting across from us, had messy hair, held the accordion in his arms, and shouted to Donna, "Come and sit by me. I'll make room for you and play a song for you!" Donna gave him the word, "Bah." There was laughter in the truck. Jialin jokingly said to Dagui, "You have just reevaluated your ideological mind and realized you keep making the same mistake."
Donna asked me, "Xiaofeng, have you graduated from high school?"
"Yes, back to work as a worker now. What about you? There's still a year of high school, right?"
"I've been a rubber tree worker for a year. You're welcome to join us!" Someone heard Donna say this and suggested some applause. There were cheers and applause in the trunk.
Donna was dressed very neatly in a white top and blue cloth pants, red socks with grass-green sneakers, and two shoulder-length braids with red bows. It was very different from her usual patched clothes, so I asked her, "Did you participate in the military parade?"
"No!" Donna cheerfully told me that they had come back from a theatrical performance at the regimental headquarters, where the regiment leaders had praised their performance. No wonder they were holding musical instruments in their arms.
The truck kept bumping and shaking. I was squeezed between the two women, sweat on my forehead, and I felt uneasy and a little dizzy. When Donna was talking, my eyes swept across the seam of her shirt, and my heart tightened, thinking of the word rogue.
I stood up and let Donna sit inside. I moved to the rear and held the bar on the roof, feeling much more natural. Dagui played the accordion for a familiar tune. First, one or two people hummed along, and slowly everyone hummed together. It was a forbidden song that could only be sung in secret when no leader was around. It was nostalgic for the distant city, mother, campus, and lovers. A trace of sadness, a trace of pride. These Zhiqing all left home at fifteen to eighteen, and some had been here for almost ten years.
The truck arrived at the Wildboar Ridge, and the road became even muddier. It was pitted every inch. One side was a red soil slope that had just been washed by the rain. The exposed tree roots were half suspended in the air like animal claws. The other side was a steep canyon with a river flowing below it – a clear stream when it was quiet and a flood beast after heavy rain. I remembered that Xiao Ai, a Zhiqing, had an accident here a few years ago. She, unfortunately, fell under the wheels of a tractor and died.
The last time I saw Ai was under the big banyan tree. My mother entrusted me over to Jialin and Ai and asked them to take me to the bus stop to go to the county town. I was going there for junior high school. While waiting for the bus under the old banyan tree, Ai took out a pack of matches, placed a math equation on the ground with matchsticks, and asked me to move a stick to balance the equation. Of course, this little trick couldn't stop me. After two rounds, I had found the pattern, and she couldn't solve it when I gave her my equation to solve. Ai was very surprised, scratched my hair, and shouted: "When you grow up, I will marry you!" Jialin said that she would pass this on to my mother and let Ai wait to be scolded.
I was thinking about Ai when I suddenly felt my body shake. I felt like someone grabbed the back collar and threw me out of the vehicle.
I didn't remember what happened after that. I just felt like I'd been flying in my dreams. When I woke up, I was lying in an unfamiliar bamboo house, Dagui and Xiao Wang were pressing against my body, and Dr. Fang was pulling one of my arms. Dr. Fang was Donna's mother and a doctor in the battalion. I was in severe pain and passed out again.
When I opened my eyes again, everything was hazy. I saw some aliens swaying in front of me. I looked harder, and it turned out that Donna and her cousin Ploy were leaning over to look at me. Donna was wearing the same native dress as Ploy. It was the first time I had seen her dressed like this. It's like she was a different person, more strange and mysterious. When I was a child, I heard that Dr. Fang came from a mountain tribe and was a legend. When she was Donna's age, she alone used a bow and arrow to save a wounded soldier from the bandits. Later, for love, she left the tribe and went down the mountain, married that soldier - Donna's father, and became the wife of a Han Chinese.
We were in the tribe village of Donna's Uncle Kerte, where Dr. Fang was raised. I found that I was wearing Kerte's homemade clothes, like a tribe boy. I didn't know where my clothes went. Dr. Fang put a lot of bandages on my head and body. There was a burning sensation in the back of my head, and my body couldn't move. While everyone was busy making a simple stretcher for me, Donna told me what had happened.