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Three Body Chapter 2
Three Body Chapter 2
2. Silent Spring
Two years later, Daxinganling.
“Follow the mountain—”
Following this loud chant, a larch as tall as a giant pillar of the Parthenon fell down, and Ye Wenjie felt the ground tremble. She took the ax and the jigsaw and began removing branches from the huge tree. At this time, she always felt that she was arranging the remains of a giant. She even often imagines that this giant is her father. It was at this moment that she relived the feeling she felt when she was sorting out her father’s body in the mortuary two years ago. The bark that bloomed on the giant pine seemed to be the scars on the father’s body.
There are more than 100,000 people in the 41 regiments of the six divisions of the Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps distributed among the vast forests and grasslands. When they first came to this strange world from the city, many educated youths in the Corps had a romantic expectation: when the Soviet revisionist imperialist tanks crossed the Sino-Mongolian border, they would quickly arm themselves and use their own flesh and blood to form the Republic The first barrier.
In fact, this was indeed one of the strategic considerations when the Corps was formed. But the war they long for is like the distant mountains running dead horses on the horizon of the prairie. They are clearly visible, but they can’t reach them, so they can only cultivate wasteland, herd and cut. These young people who once burned their youth in the “big series” soon discovered that compared with this vast world, the largest city in the mainland is just a sheepfold; in this cold and endless grassland and forest, burning is meaningless.
The hot blood spurted out of the cavity cools faster than a pile of cow dung, and it is not as valuable as the latter. But burning is their destiny, and they are the burning generation. So, under their chainsaws and chainsaws, large tracts of forests turned into barren hills; under their tractors and Combines (combine harvesters), large tracts of grassland were plowed into grain fields and then turned into deserts.
The felling that Ye Wenjie saw can only be described as crazy. The tall and straight Xing’anling larch, the evergreen Pinus sylvestris, the slim white birch, the towering aspen, the Siberian fir, as well as the black birch, oak, and mountain elm , Fraxinus mandshurica, willow, Quercus mongolica, cut whatever you see, hundreds of chainsaws are like a swarm of steel locusts, and where her company passes, there is only a tree stump left.
The tidied larch was about to be dragged away by a crawler tractor. At the other end of the tree trunk, Ye Wenjie lightly stroked the brand-new sawn section. She often did so subconsciously, always feeling that it was a huge wound that seemed to be able to Feel the great pain of the tree. She suddenly saw that there was also a hand gently stroking on the sawn surface of the tree stump not far away. The trembling of the heart conveyed by that hand resonated with her.
Although the hand was fair, it could be seen that it belonged to a man. Ye Wenjie looked up and saw that the person stroking the tree stump was Bai Mulin, a thin young man wearing glasses. He was a reporter for the Bingtuan’s “Dazhuan Daily” and had just come to the company to interview the day before yesterday. Ye Wenjie had read his articles, the writing was very good, and there was a kind of delicacy and sensitivity that was incompatible with this extensive environment, which made her very unforgettable.
“Ma Gang, come here.” Bai Mulin shouted to a young man not far away, who was as strong as the larch he had just felled. When he came over, reporter Bai asked, “Do you know how old this tree is?”
“Count it.” Ma Gang pointed to the growth rings on the tree stump.
“I counted it. It’s more than three hundred and thirty years old. How long did it take you to saw it down?”
“Less than ten minutes, let me tell you, I’m the fastest chainsaw operator in the company. Wherever I go, the mobile red flag will follow me there.” Ma Gang looked very excited, and everyone who caught Reporter Bai’s attention In this way, it is also very honorable to be able to show your face in the newsletter report of Dazhuan Daily.
“More than three hundred years, more than ten generations. It was still in the Ming Dynasty when it sprouted. During these long years, how many winds and rains it has experienced, and how many things it has seen. But you saw it down in a few minutes, you really Didn’t feel anything?”
“What do you want me to feel?” Ma Gang was stunned for a moment, “Isn’t it just a tree, the most indispensable thing here is a tree, and there are more old pines than it’s age.”
“Go ahead.” Bai Mulin shook his head and sighed softly while sitting on the tree stump.
Ma Gang also shook his head. He was disappointed that the reporter didn’t report his interest. “Intellectuals have many problems.” When he said it, he glanced at Ye Wenjie who was not far away, and his words obviously included her.
The big tree was dragged away, and the stones and stumps on the ground split the bark, ripping out its huge body. Where it was originally located, a long ditch was created by the thick humus layer made of fallen leaves, and water soon seeped out of the ditch. The old fallen leaves made the water dark red, like blood.
“Xiaoye, come and have a rest.” Bai Mulin pointed to the other side of the big stump which was empty and said to Ye Wenjie. Wen Jie was indeed tired, she put down her tools, came over and sat back to back with the reporter.
After a long silence, Bai Mulin suddenly said, “I can see how you feel, and it’s just the two of us here.”
Wen Jie remained silent, and Bai Mulin expected that she would not answer. Ye Wenjie is usually taciturn and rarely communicates with others. Some newcomers even mistook her for being dumb.
Bai Mulin continued on his own: “I visited this forest area a year ago when I was at the front stop. I remember that it was noon when we first arrived. The person who received us said that we wanted to eat fish. I looked around in the small bark house. Look, just boil a pot of water, how can there be any fish? When the water boils, the cook will go out with a rolling pin, go to the small river in front of the house to “ping-pong” a few sticks, and catch a few big fish… …What a fertile place, but now look at that river, a muddy ditch with nothing in it. I really don’t know, is the current development policy of the entire Corps to be production or destruction?”
“Where does your idea come from?” Ye Wenjie asked softly, she didn’t reveal whether she agreed or opposed to this idea, but Bai Mulin was very grateful for her being able to speak.
“I just read a book and it touched me deeply… Can you read English?” Seeing Wen Jie nodding, Bai Mulin took out a book with a blue cover from his bag, and when he handed it to Wen Jie, he Consciously or unintentionally, I looked around, “This book was published in 1962, and has a great influence in the West.” Wen Jie turned around and took the book, and saw that the title of the book was “SILENT SPRING”, and the author was Rachel Carson. “Where did it come from?” she asked softly.
“This book has aroused the attention of the superiors. If we want to make an internal reference, I will be responsible for translating the part related to the forest.”
Wen Jie opened the book and was quickly attracted. In the short prologue, the author described a quiet village that was dying under the poison of pesticides. Behind the plain language, there was a worried heart.
“I want to write a letter to the central government to reflect this irresponsible behavior of the Construction Corps,” Bai Mulin said.
Ye Wenjie raised her head from the book, and it took her a long time to understand what he meant, then she looked down again without saying anything.
“If you want to see it, hold it first, but it’s best not to let other people see it. You know this thing…” Bai Mulin said, looked around again, got up and left.
Thirty-eight years later, in Ye Wenjie’s final moments, she recalled the influence of “Silent Spring” on her life. Before that, the evil side of human beings had carved an irreparable wound on her young heart, but this book made her think rationally about the evil of human beings for the first time.
This should have been a very ordinary book, the subject was not broad, and it only described the harm caused by the abuse of pesticides to the environment, but the author’s perspective had a huge impact on Ye Wenjie: Rachel Carson described Human behavior—the use of pesticides, in Wen Jie’s view, is just a legitimate and normal, or at least neutral, behavior; and this book allows her to see that, from the perspective of the whole nature, this behavior has nothing to do with “cultural The Great Revolution makes no difference, the damage done to our world is just as severe. Then, how many human behaviors that are normal or even righteous in their own eyes are evil?
Thinking about it further, a deduction made her shudder, and she fell into the abyss of fear: perhaps, the relationship between human beings and evil is the relationship between the ocean and the icebergs floating on it. They are actually a huge body of water composed of the same material.
It is only because of its different shape that it is strikingly recognizable, and it is actually just a tiny part of this entire huge body of water…It is impossible for human beings to have true moral self-consciousness, just as it is impossible for them to pull out their own hair leave the earth. To do this, only with the help of a force other than human beings.
This idea ultimately determined Ye Wenjie’s life.
Four days later, Ye Wenjie went to return the book. Bai Mulin lived in the company’s only reception room. Wen Jie opened the door and saw him lying on the bed exhausted, covered in mud and sawdust. Seeing Wen Jie, he got up quickly.
“Did you work today?” Wen Jie asked.
“The company has been in the lower company for such a long time, so we can’t always walk around with our hands, we have to participate in labor, three combinations. Oh, we work on Radar Peak, where the forest is really dense, and the rotten leaves in the ground are knee deep. I’m really afraid of getting caught in the miasma. .” Bai Mulin said.
“Radar Peak?!” Wen Jie was surprised to hear the name.
“That’s right, the regiment’s urgent task is to cut a security belt around it.”
Radar Peak is a mysterious place. The steep and strange peak has no name at all, but it got its name because of the huge parabolic antenna on its peak. In fact, anyone with a little common sense knows that it is not a radar antenna. Although its direction changes every day, it never rotates continuously. The antenna hummed low in the wind and could be heard far away.
The people in the company only knew that it was a military base. According to local people, when the base was built three years ago, a huge manpower was used to erect a high-voltage line to the peak and open a road leading to the peak. The materials are transported up along the road. But after the base was built, the road was demolished, leaving only a barely passable forest path, and helicopters often took off and landed on the peak.
That antenna doesn’t always come up, it’s brought down when the wind is too strong, and when it’s up, weird things happen: the animals in the forest get restless, the woodland birds startle in flocks , People will also experience dizziness, nausea and many other unknown symptoms: People near Radar Peak are also prone to hair loss. According to the local people, this is only after the appearance of the antenna.
There are many mysterious legends about Radar Peak: Once it snowed heavily, the antenna was erected, and the snow within a few miles immediately turned into rain! At that time, the ground was still in severe cold, and the rainwater froze on the trees.
Every tree was hung with big ice hangers, and the forest became a crystal palace. “Boom” sound. Sometimes, when the antenna is erected, there will be thunder and lightning in the clear sky, and a strange halo can be seen in the sky at night… Radar Peak is heavily guarded. Stay close to Radar Peak, otherwise the sentry at the base can shoot without warning.
Last week, two hunting soldiers in the company chased a roe deer, unknowingly chased it to the foot of Radar Peak, and immediately attracted rapid fire from the sentry box halfway up the mountain. Fortunately, Lin Zimi, the two of them ran back uninjured, One of them peed his pants in fright. The company held a meeting the next day, and everyone was given a warning. It may be because of this that the base decided to cut a ring of warning belts in the surrounding forests, and the Corps’ manpower can be used at will, which also shows that its administrative level is very high.
Bai Mulin took the book, carefully put it under the pillow, and at the same time took out a few pages of densely written manuscript paper, and handed it to Wen Jie, “This is the draft of that letter, can you take a look at it?”
“letter?”
“I told you to write a letter to the Central Committee.” The handwriting on the paper was very scribbled, and Ye Wenjie struggled to read it. This letter is rigorous in its arguments and rich in content: from the destruction of vegetation in the Taihang Mountains, from a historically rich mountain to a barren mountain today, to the sharp increase in the sediment content of the Yellow River in modern times, it is concluded that the Inner Mongolia Construction Corps will lead the land reclamation.
conclusions with serious consequences. It was only then that Wen Jie noticed that his writing style was really similar to “Silent Spring”. It was plain, precise and poetic, which made her, who was born in science, feel very comfortable.
“Well written,” she admired heartily.
Bai Mulin nodded, “Then I’ll send it.” He took out a new manuscript paper to copy, but his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t write a single word. This is the case for people who use a chainsaw for the first time. Their hands shake so much that they may not even be able to hold a job, let alone write.
“Let me copy it for you.” Ye Wenjie said, took the pen from Bai Mulin and started copying it.
“Your handwriting is really good.” Bai Mulin looked at the first line copied on the manuscript paper and said. He poured a glass of water for Wenjie, but his hands were still shaking violently, and a lot of water spilled out. Wenjie hurriedly removed the letterpaper. some.
“You major in physics?” Bai Mulin asked.
“Astrophysics is useless now.” Wen Jie replied without looking up.
“That is to study the stars, how can it be useless? Now that universities have resumed classes, but graduate students are no longer recruited. Senior talents like you live in this kind of place, alas…”
Wen Jie didn’t answer, but just immersed herself in copying. She didn’t want to tell Bai Mulin that she was lucky to be in the Construction Corps. She didn’t want to say anything about reality, and she had nothing to say.
The room fell silent, save for the rustling of the pen tip on the paper. Wen Jie could smell the smell of pine sawdust on the reporters around her. Since the tragic death of her father, she felt a sense of warmth for the first time. For the first time, she relaxed her body and mind, and temporarily relaxed her vigilance towards the world around her.
After more than an hour, the letter was copied, and the envelope was written according to the address and recipient that Bai Mulin said. Wen Jie got up to leave. When she walked to the door, she turned around and said, “Bring your coat, and I will wash it for you.” Right.” After she finished speaking, she was surprised by her own move.
“No, that’s okay!” Bai Mulin waved his hands again and again and said, “Your female soldiers in the Construction Corps do gay men’s work during the day, go back and rest, and you will be going up the mountain at six o’clock tomorrow. Oh, Wen Jie, I’m going back to the division the day after tomorrow, so I’ll report your situation to my superiors, maybe I can help you.”
“Thank you, but I think it’s very nice and quiet here.” Wen Jie said, looking at the hazy Lin Hai in Daxing’an Mountains under the moonlight.
“Are you running away from something?”
“I’m leaving.” Ye Wenjie said softly, turned and left.
Bai Mulin watched her slender figure disappear under the moonlight. Then, he looked up at the Lin Hai that Wen Jie had seen just now, and saw that on the radar peak in the distance, the huge antenna slowly stood up again, shining with a cold metallic light.
Three weeks later, at noon one day, Ye Wenjie was called back to the company headquarters from the logging camp. As soon as she walked into the office, she found that the atmosphere was not right. The company commander and the instructor were there, and there was a stranger with a stern expression. There was a black briefcase on the desk in front of him. What she took out was an envelope and a book. The envelope was torn open, and the book was the “SILENT SPRING” she had read.
People in this era have a special sensitivity to their own political situation, and this sensitivity is stronger in Ye Wenjie. She suddenly feels the world around her tighten like a pocket, and everything is squeezed towards her.
“Ye Wenjie, this is Director Zhang from the division’s political department to investigate,” the instructor said, pointing to the stranger, “I hope you will cooperate and tell the truth.”
“Did you write this letter?” Director Zhang asked while pulling out the letter from the envelope. Ye Wenjie reached out to get it, but Director Zhang didn’t give it to her. He still took the letter in his hand and showed her the page one by one. Finally, he turned to the last page she wanted to see. There was no name on the signature, only “Revolutionary The masses” four words.
“No, I didn’t write it.” Wen Jie shook her head in horror.
“But this is your handwriting.”
“Yes, but I copied it for someone else.”
“Who do you help?” Ye Wenjie seldom defends herself when encountering problems in the company. She suffers all losses and grievances silently, not to mention implicating others. But this time it was different, and she knew exactly what that meant.
“It was copied for the reporter from Dazhuan Daily who came to the company to interview last week. His name is…”
“Ye Wenjie!” Director Zhang’s eyes were like two black muzzles on her, “I warn you, framing others will make your problem worse. We have already investigated Comrade Bai Mulin, he was just entrusted by you I took the letter to Hohhot and sent it, but I don’t know the content of the letter.”
“He…that’s what he said?!” Wen Jie’s eyes darkened.
Director Zhang did not answer her words, but picked up the book, “You must have been inspired by it when you wrote this letter.” He showed the book to the company commander and the instructor, “This book is called “Silent Spring”, published in the United States in 1962, has had a great influence in the capitalist world.” He then took out another book from his briefcase, with black and white letters on the cover, “This is the central part of this book.
The translation was issued by the relevant departments in the form of internal reference for criticism. Now, the superiors have made a clear characterization of this book: this is a reactionary poisonous weed. The book starts from the idealist view of history and promotes the end of the world Theories, using the name of environmental issues to find excuses for the final decay and decline of the capitalist world, are very reactionary in essence.”
“But this book…is not mine either.” Wen Jie said feebly.
“Comrade Bai Mulin is one of the translators of this book appointed by his superiors. It is completely legal for him to carry this book. Of course, he is also responsible for keeping it. You shouldn’t let you read it while he is unprepared during labor— —Now, you have found the ideological weapon to attack socialism from this book.” Ye Wenjie was silent, she knew that she had fallen to the bottom of the trap, and any struggle would be futile.
Contrary to some historical records that people are familiar with later, Bai Mulin did not intend to frame Ye Wenjie at the beginning, and the letter he wrote to the central government may also be out of a sincere sense of responsibility. At that time, there were many people who wrote letters directly to the central government with various purposes. Most of the letters fell into the sea, and a few people became successful overnight or faced extinction. The political nerves at that time were extremely complicated.
As a reporter, Bai Mulin thought he understood the direction and sensitivity of this nervous system, but he was overconfident. His letter touched a minefield that he didn’t know before. After hearing the news, fear overwhelmed everything, and he decided to sacrifice Ye Wenjie to protect himself.
Half a century later, historians agree that this event in 1969 was a turning point in human history.
Bai Mulin inadvertently became an iconic and key historical figure, but he himself had no chance to know this, and historians have disappointedly recorded the rest of his uneventful life. Bai Mulin worked for Dazhuanbao until 1975, when the Inner Mongolia Construction Corps was abolished. He was transferred to a Northeast city to work in the Association for Science and Technology until the early 1980s, and then went abroad to Canada to work as a teacher in a Chinese school in Ottawa. In 1991, he died of lung cancer. For the rest of his life, he never mentioned the matter of Ye Wenjie to anyone, and it is unknown whether he ever felt remorse and remorse.
“Xiaoye, Lianli has done his best to you.” The company commander exhaled a puff of Mohe smoke, looked at the ground and said, “Your background and family background are not good, but we don’t treat you as an outsider. Target you I have talked to you many times with the instructor and I want to help you because of the tendency of being divorced from the masses and not actively seeking progress. Who would have thought that you would make such a serious mistake!”
“I have long seen that her resistance to the ‘Cultural Revolution’ is deeply rooted,” the instructor continued.
“In the afternoon, send two people to send her and these criminal evidences to the division headquarters.” Director Zhang said blankly.
The three female prisoners in the same cell were taken away one after another, and Ye Wenjie was the only one left in the cell. The small pile of coal in the corner was used up and no one came to add it. The stove went out quickly, and the cell became cold. Ye Wenjie had to wrap the quilt around her body.
Two people came before dark, one of them was an older female cadre, and the accompanying person introduced that she was a military representative of the Military Control Committee of the Intermediate Court (Note: At the stage of the “Cultural Revolution”, most middle and senior Public security agencies are under military control, and military representatives have the final say on the judiciary).
“Cheng Lihua.” The female cadre introduced herself. She was in her forties, wearing a military overcoat and a pair of wide-rimmed glasses. Her face was soft and she could tell she must have been beautiful when she was young. She was smiling when she spoke. Make people feel approachable. Ye Wenjie knew that it was very unusual for a person of this level to come to the cell to meet a prisoner awaiting trial. She nodded cautiously to Cheng Lihua, got up and gave her a place to sit on the narrow bed
“It’s so cold, where’s the stove?” Cheng Lihua glanced dissatisfiedly at the director of the detention center standing at the door, then turned to Wen Jie, “Well, you’re young, you’re younger than I thought.” After speaking, she sat on the bed and left Wen Jie. Jie was very close, she lowered her head and turned over her briefcase, still muttering like an old lady, “Xiao Ye, you are so confused, young people are like this, the more you read, the more confused you become, you…”
She Having found what he was looking for, he hugged the small dozen of documents to his chest, looked up at Ye Wenjie, his eyes were full of love, “But, young man, who hasn’t made a mistake? I did. I did it back then. In the art troupe of Shino, the Soviet songs were sung well.
At a political study meeting, I said that we should merge with the Soviet Union and become a new republic of the Soviet Socialist Union, so that the power of international communism will be stronger… naive, But who hasn’t been naive? It’s still the same sentence, don’t be burdened by thinking, if you make a mistake, recognize it and correct it, and then continue the revolution.”
Cheng Lihua’s words narrowed the distance between Ye Wenjie and her, but Ye Wenjie learned to be cautious in the disaster, and she dared not rashly accept this extravagant kindness.
Cheng Lihua put the stack of documents on the bed in front of Ye Wenjie, and handed her a pen, “Come on, sign it first, let’s have a good talk and untangle your knots in your mind.” Her tone was as if Coaxing a baby to breastfeed.
Ye Wenjie looked at the document silently, did not move, did not pick up the pen.
Cheng Lihua smiled tolerantly, “You can trust me, I guarantee with my personality that the content of this document has nothing to do with your case, please sign it.”
The entourage standing on the side said: “Ye Wenjie, Representative Cheng wants to help you. She has been worrying about you a lot these days.” Cheng Lihua waved his hand to stop him from continuing. “Understandable, this child, alas, was terrified. Some people’s policy level is too low now, the Construction Corps, and your court, the method is simple, the style is rough, what does it look like! Well, Xiaoye, Come, take a look at the document, take a closer look.”
Ye Wenjie picked up the file and flipped through it under the dim light of the cell. Representative Cheng didn’t lie to her, this material really had nothing to do with her case, it was about her dead father. It recorded his father’s contacts and conversations with some people, and the document was provided by Ye Wenjie’s sister, Ye Wenxue.
As one of the most radical Red Guards, Ye Wenxue took the initiative to expose her father and wrote a large number of denunciation materials, some of which directly led to her father’s tragic death. But Wen Jie could tell at a glance that this material was not written by her younger sister. Wen Xue revealed that her father’s material was written in a fierce manner.
Reading the lines was like listening to a string of exploding firecrackers, but this material was written calmly , very old-fashioned, with detailed and accurate content, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, what, what, what, and what did they talk about? It looks like a plain journal to the layman, but the murderous intent hidden in it is definitely not Ye Wenxue’s set No child’s tricks can compare.
She didn’t quite understand the content of the material, but she vaguely felt that it was related to a major national defense project. As the daughter of a physicist, Ye Wenjie guessed that it was China’s two-bomb project that shocked the world since 1964.
In this era, if you want to bring down a person with a high position, you must obtain his black materials in various fields in charge of him, but the two-bomb project is a tricky field for conspirators, and this project is under the key protection of the central government. Under the circumstances, they were able to avoid the storm of the “Cultural Revolution”, and it was difficult for them to intervene.
Due to his background, he failed the political review, so his father did not directly participate in the development of the two bombs, but only did some peripheral theoretical work. However, it was easier to use him than the core figures of the two bombs project.
Ye Wenjie doesn’t know whether the content on the material is true or not, but she can be sure that every punctuation mark on it has fatal political lethality. In addition to the final target, the fate of countless people will fall into the abyss of misery because of this material. At the end of the material was my sister’s big signature, and Ye Wenjie was going to sign it as an additional witness. She noticed that three people had already signed in that position.
“I don’t know what my father said to these people.” Ye Wenjie put the materials back in place and said in a low voice.
“How come you don’t know? Many of these conversations took place in your home, and your sister knows about it but you don’t?”
“I really do not know.”
“But these conversations are real, and you have to trust the organization.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t true, but I really don’t know, so I can’t sign it.”
“Ye Wenjie,” said the entourage stepping forward, but was stopped by representative Cheng again. She sat closer to Wenjie, took her cold hand, and said:
“Xiaoye, let me tell you the truth. Your case is very flexible. To put it bluntly, intellectual youths were deceived by reactionary books. It’s nothing serious. You don’t need to go through judicial procedures. Take a study class and write a few copies. Check it, and you can return to the Corps. To put it bluntly, Xiaoye, you also know in your heart that it is completely okay to convict the current counter-revolutionary.
For political cases like yours, the current public security system prefers the left over the right, and the left is the way. The problem, right is the route, and the final general direction still needs to be determined by the Military Control Commission. Of course, we can only talk about this in private.”
The entourage said: “Representative Cheng is really doing it for your own good. You have seen it yourself. Three witnesses have already signed it. It doesn’t matter if you sign or not. Ye Wenjie, don’t be confused for a while.”
“Yeah, Xiaoye, it hurts to see you, a knowledgeable child, ruined like this! I really want to save you, so you must cooperate. Look at me, am I going to hurt you?”
Ye Wenjie didn’t look at the military representative, she saw her father’s blood.
“Representative Cheng, I don’t know what’s written on it, so I won’t sign it.” Cheng Lihua was silent, and she stared at Wen Jie for a while, the cold air seemed to freeze. Then she slowly put the documents back into the briefcase and stood up, the kind expression on her face still not fading, just frozen, as if wearing a plaster mask. She kindly walked to the corner where there was a bucket of water for washing. She picked up the bucket and poured half of the water on Ye Wenjie and half on the bedding. Xia Tong turned around and walked out the door, throwing down a curse: “Stubborn little bastard!”
The director of the detention center was the last one to leave. He gave Wen Jie a cold look, who was drenched all over, and closed the door with a bang and locked it.
In this severe winter in Inner Mongolia, the cold passed through the drenched clothes, holding Ye Wenjie in like a giant palm. She heard the “clack” sound of her teeth chattering, and then the sound disappeared. The bone-deep cold made the real world in her eyes turn milky white, and she felt that the whole universe was like a big ice, and she was the only living body in this ice. This little girl who was about to freeze to death didn’t even have a match in her hand, only hallucinations…
The ice she was in became gradually transparent, and a building appeared in front of her. On the upper floor, a girl was waving a big flag. Her slenderness was in stark contrast to the size of the flag. sister Ye Wenxue. Since she broke with her family of reactionary academic authorities, Ye Wenjie has never heard from her again, and only recently did she know that her younger sister died in a violent fight two years ago.
In a daze, the person waving the flag turned into Bai Mulin, his glasses reflecting the firelight downstairs; then that person became Representative Cheng, his mother Shao Lin, and even his father. The standard-bearer was constantly changing, and the flag was being waved uninterruptedly, like an eternal pendulum, counting down the few remaining days of her life.
Gradually the flag blurred, everything blurred, and the ice that filled the universe sealed her in the center again, this time black.
