Leave Me Alone by Murong Xuecun Page A

started drizzling outside and I felt like I had tumbled into an abyss.
    Finally I took a torch downstairs, fully prepared to find her corpse. As I passed the apartment building entrance, I sensed something skulking in the dark. My scalp was prickling, but I mustered up the courage to check it out. In the circle of light from my torch, my Zhao Yue, sat propped against the wall.Her eyes swum with tears and there was a bottle of spirits beside her.
    I dropped the electric torch and hugged her. I thought you’d died!
    Zhao Yue wept; she had a strong alcoholic aroma. The torch rolled crazily on the ground, illluminating raindrops.
    I took Zhao Yue upstairs and washed her hands and feet, put a hot towel on her forehead, then watched her fall deep into sleep. The rain stopped and there was a sweet smell of flowers. The smell was fucking good, I thought. Dawn was about to break, and on this sleepless morning I watched the sky gradually turn pale. Zhao Yue still loved me; everything was cool.
    It was the first of May — the day my best friend got married; the day I went whoring; the day my enemy’s luck ran out. It was the day my wife got drunk and cried, the day I thought she’d killed herself. Now, at dawn, a white fog hung over the city, making it look surreal.
    I boiled some porridge and smoked a cigarette, smirking.
    But you never know what’s going to happen next. At 7:50 a.m. my mother called and said, Come home now. Your father is dying.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Whenever I returned to Chengdu during my student days, Father met me at the railway station. He wasn’t one for talking much. When he saw me he’d just smile and say, ‘How did you let your hair get so long? It’s a mess.’
    I protested that I wasn’t a child who couldn’t find his way home, and he didn’t have to pick me up at all. The real reason I hated him coming was that he always used my nickname, Baby Rabbit, in front of Li Liang and others. This was excrutiatingly embarrassing. Once, after we’d just dropped off Li Liang, I howled at my father, ‘Baby Rabbit! Remember, my name is Chen Zhong. Chen Zhong!’
    He stared at me with a hurt and bemused expression, then lowered his head and didn’t say anything.
    My father had a deformed right foot, which manifested itself as a limp while walking. This was another reason why Inever wanted him to visit me at the university. In my second year, he went to the coastal resort of Beidaihe to convalesce and on his way through, he stopped by our campus. He showed up just as I’d gone to bed after playing mahjong right through the night. As soon as I saw him I felt aggrieved, fearing that yet again he’d embarrass me. Sure enough when my father came in he acted up, handing round cigarettes, and calling Bighead Wang ‘comrade’. I was so mortified that I almost forcibly dragged him away, and I didn’t even invite him to stay for a meal. My father left feeling emotionally bruised, and when he got to Beidaihe he called to remind me to ‘live a more regular life’.
    Lurking in the corridor at the hospital, I felt sad as I thought of my father back then waiting for me at the train station. Zhao Yue was quietly comforting my mother. The old woman had been crying since morning, when she’d found my father collapsed in the bathroom. All the way to the hospital she’d sobbed until her eyes were red. I suddenly wondered whether, when it came down to it, there would be anyone to cry for me in the way my mother was for my father.
    My brother-in-law called. He said that he and my sister were on their way. He added: ‘I’ve done what you asked me to do. Buy a paper.’
    I bought one from the kiosk downstairs. Fatty Dong looked ridiculous in the newspaper photograph. His mouth was half open and his hands were raised high. He looked like a defeated nationalist general who’d decided to go over to the other side. The only disappointment was that his eyes were blocked out so you couldn’t clearly see his expression.My