Page 146 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

LU-ER’S WORRIES

Lu-er was grinding glutinous rice with a small mill. This was simple, boring
work; he had no choice about doing it. Mother kept urging him to hurry up

because she needed rice flour to make dumplings for the Lantern Festival. He
was almost finished when he heard the sound. At first, it was like a train in the
distance, approaching bit by bit, louder and louder. The noise was nonstop.
Squeezed within it now and then was the explosive sound. Suspecting a
landslide, Lu-er kept asking himself, “Should I run? Do I have to run?” He made
up his mind to flee for his life. Taking nothing, he ran.
Not one person was in the village. Lu-er ran through vegetable fields, ran
across the little bridge, and ran to the open country. He ran until he could run no
longer before stopping in his tracks and standing there gasping for breath. His
face turned red. How odd: when he was running, the sound was present the
whole time, as if a mudslide were chasing him. Now, the moment he stopped,
the sound stopped, too. He looked around: people in the fields acted as if nothing
had happened. On the path to his right, some people were carrying brooms to sell
in the market. The mountain ahead of him was standing still as usual. Nothing
had happened.
He dawdled on the way home. His mother cursed him loudly because he had

run out without finishing what he was told to do. She had had to do it by herself.
Lu-er wondered silently, Just now, when he had fled, where had his mother
gone? Hadn’t he shouted several times to warn her? Lu-er didn’t dare ask his
mother; he wanted to make his way through the kitchen and stay out of her way.
But she wouldn’t let it go; she followed him into the kitchen.
“Why did you come back? Why didn’t you just die out there?”
Angry, Lu-er flung the kitchen door open and went outside. Not until he had
walked around aimlessly for a while did it occur to him to go up the mountain
and investigate. Something must have happened on the mountain. Otherwise,
what was that sound?
He encountered Xibao, who was carrying firewood down the mountain. He
greeted him and asked if he had heard any weird sounds. Standoffishly, Xibao

shot a glance at him and said, “Huh. Who cares? It isn’t one bit interesting.”
Finally, Lu-er climbed onto the cliff. Feeling resentful, he walked to the edge
of the cliff, but he immediately retreated several steps and fell to the ground.
Previously, two cliffs had faced each other here. They had been three or four