Page 207 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

pivotal role in Wang Village in the future. Since the first time that Yueyue had
taken the tragic risk and retreated from the palace with its rarefied air, the seeds
of curiosity and uneasiness were sown in his heart. Thanks to his great
enthusiasm and vague memory, he later made three more attempts to charge into
the palace. He bungled each attempt. In his last try, he couldn’t find even a trace
of the palace or the queen. Some yurts appeared on the plains. No matter which
yurt he entered, the people welcomed him with the same sneer. But now Yueyue
was more mature than before: he no longer feared grotesque faces; he was just a
little embarrassed. He saluted these people and then withdrew. The queen, hiding

in a secret place, took all of this in and was very pleased.
Yueyue wondered whether his previous impression had changed and led him
to a fork in the road. Or could it be that the queen’s palace had disintegrated and
turned into these yurts and pigpens? Either of these possibilities would make him
even more curious, for after all he was a local villager. “Queen, palace . . . ,”
Yueyue chattered. From behind, he heard a woman’s voice respond, “Yueyue,
Yueyue . . .” Yueyue figured that the person responding to him must be the
queen. He decided to make a fourth attempt.
He ran wildly around the desert, reaching the middle of the pebbles. The sky
was gloomy; a light rain made the pebbles slippery. The pebbles looked dark and
dull. Yueyue said to himself, This is the last time. He would not cower. Limping
on the pebbled desert, he tried his best to proceed.
“Yueyue, are you exercising your legs?” Auntie Mao hailed him.
Yueyue looked up and saw the village trail.
“Don’t run around blindly,” Auntie Mao said wryly. “The thing you’re
looking for is in your home. Search in all the nooks and crannies.”

Auntie Mao had a reputation in the village. What she said often came true.
Yueyue didn’t search the hiding places in his home. Instead, he bought a few
bolts of black cloth and covered all the windows in his home. Then he sat there
recalling how the queen’s palace looked. Each day he remembered one detail,
and gradually the palace became vivid in his mind. The last two props that he
remembered were a golden cane and the coal lamp. The coal lamp was placed on
the long table in the palace dining room, and the golden cane was next to the
door of an inner room in the palace. Yueyue carefully moved the golden cane
and slowly pushed the door open. In one step, he strode outside. Across from
him was his family’s pigpen. The pigs were wailing in hunger. Yueyue shouted
as he ran, “Queen! Queen . . .” He charged into his kitchen and began chopping
vegetables for pig feed. Beads of sweat rose on his young face. This was great!
He wished he could have such an adventure every day. Look, hadn’t the queen

hung candles from the palace on the wood-smoke-blackened wall of his kitchen?
He—Yueyue—was an ordinary country boy, but the queen had kept looking