He opened his eyes and looked for his glasses, which I picked up from the ground and handed to him.
"You came just in time to see my new poem!" He searched his pockets but found nothing. "Oh, maybe it was written in a dream. Wait, I'll recall it, and I will write it down."
"You recall later. I want to borrow your Pride and Prejudice."
"You can't. I don't want to ruin a teenager."
I was prepared. I took out a liquor bottle from my pants pocket and put it on the bed.
"Don't blame me if you fail your life." He grabbed the bottle and snapped the cap off with his teeth, "It's in the box. You can find it yourself."
I pulled the box from under the bed, opened the lid, and the first thing I saw was the sketch of Donna, which I had drawn for her. I took it in my hand and asked him what was going on. He took the drawing out of my hand and put it on the bed out of my reach.
He said, "People say that Donna is not suitable for you, and I say the same. From my experience, your and Donna's trajectories are far different. Everyone's destiny has its trajectory. For example, Pavel and Tonia looked like a beautiful match at first, but first love is the blindest and most unreliable. With Pavel's growing up, do you still think they could stay with each other?"
He took a sip of liquor and then said, "Don't indulge here. You don't know how big the world is: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York. If I have the opportunity, I will take you to Shanghai! I can see it from your eyes, your intelligence. Go out and explore! Leave Donna to me. I have no intention of leaving here. I can take care of her. Can you?"
I found Pride and Prejudice. I didn't want to say anything, just went out.
He added, "When I was drunk earlier, it seemed that Donna kissed me!"
***
One night in autumn, the wind was soft, and the moon was bright. I played basketball with Dashang and a group of other people and then watched Dagui play the accordion. I didn't know if Donna was still teaching her mother tongue to Jialin or if she had learned new guitar songs. I hadn't been to the women's dormitory to chat with Jialin in what felt like a century.
I returned to the dormitory around ten o'clock, flipped through the novel, and fell asleep after reading a few pages.
I was awakened by thunder and lightning in the middle of the night. In the violent storm outside the house, I vaguely heard a wailing. I thought it was frogs croaking in the water pool, and then I thought it was an accordion song. I could see someone running towards the women's dormitory from the window. I chased out without a raincoat.
One of the women's dormitories collapsed. It happened to be Donna and Jialin's. Most of the ladies were buried underneath. The cries were heartbreaking and frightening, the thunder and lightning were interspersed, and the storm in the dark became more and more violent. When the lightning swept across the sky, I saw some waists struggling, heads sticking out, arms swaying, and thighs stuck under the collapsed roof. It seemed that this was a house haunted under a witch's spell.
I found a wooden stick, poked the roof at the location of Donna and Jialin's room, and tried my best to cut a hole in the top. I found Jialin by following the sound of her crying, grabbed her hand, and dragged her out. She wasn't hurt, just frightened. Someone picked her up, and I thought of Donna. I couldn't hear her cry, so I jumped into the hole and groped in the dark, crawled over to her bed, and ran into her on the rain-soaked ground. She was motionless and had lost consciousness. I called someone outside for help, found a gap, and pulled her out. When someone else took her, she cried. I thought she would be okay, so I went back to the dormitory, only to find that I had scratches from bamboo and thatch all over my body.
A day or two later, I fell ill and went back to my parents' house, lying helplessly in bed.
Dr. Fang came to see me and said that I had a severe fever. It seemed that I had paratyphoid, which might have been caused by the rain and physical exhaustion, but she had no particular medicine for me. I wanted to ask her if Donna was hurt or if the guitar was broken, but my mother called her into the next room and had a brief chat with her.
My mother said, "Dr. Fang, should you consider personal issues?"
"What did you hear?" she asked.
There is some gossip saying that Siyan and Zhongwei Gao are very close to you, and they are about to fight for you."
"Oh, Siyan may be interested in Donna, but she's still young. I am keeping an eye on them. "
"How do you think Zhongwei Gao?" my mother asked again.
Dr. Fang did not answer the question directly but said, "He often comes to my house, mainly to work on my family's pension and relief."
"Then you should be more careful. He has a family and is in the process of getting his wife and children to come here."
"He said he was single. Does this hero have a train running in his mouth?" Doctor Fang must have left disappointed. I wondered if she thought my mother was nosey or caring.
My illness did not improve, and for several days, the only thing I could do was lie on the bed with a damp towel on my head. Many colleagues and students came to see me, and Donna also came. I saw her head swaying outside the window twice, but she did not dare to come in.
Mr. Maung, the teacher of Tailuo village, happened to come to our school for a teaching exchange program. He heard that I was ill and came to see me. I had seen him several times before, and I knew that he was a native of the mountain tribe village who had studied in secondary school in the county town. Now, he was the only teacher and principal in the village, teaching classes from grades one to five all by himself, and dozens of students were crowded into the same classroom.
Mr. Maung touched my forehead with a big rough hand for a while and told me that the disease was caused by miasma and that he would come down the mountain tomorrow to bring an antidote.
He brought me a few inconspicuous black pills, like mud balls. The disease disappeared the next day after I took them – the magic of the remedy. I was very grateful to him and asked, "Teacher, how can I pay you back?"
"Are you afraid of climbing mountains, young man?" he asked, sizing me up.
"I am not afraid. I often streak around in the mountains."
"That's good. I talked to your principal and asked him to send a teacher to teach our students Mandarin. My school is far and high up on the mountain, and we were not sure who was suitable for the work. I'm afraid you are the one."
"No problem, Teacher, I like to wander in the mountains."
"I like young people! I thank you on behalf of the students on the mountain."
Tailuo Village and the village of Donna's uncle were located in separate but neighboring mountains. I couldn't tell precisely where Tailuo was. As long as you walked through it once, you would never get lost again. Just follow a sheep intestine trail with moss and vegetation through the forest and the stream, and you could find it.