Page 214 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

then, would I have flipped over onto it? What do you think? She was dark green.
I sensed that she had a hairy surface. Could it be a kind of moss? I really regret
that I missed the opportunity. What’s wrong with me—always having 20-20
vision only in hindsight? Yiping, I know that the villagers don’t appreciate what

I do, and yet I really long for their understanding. These people are all my
relatives. My parents grew up here; later they moved away. It was a scandal, but
I bet you never heard it from your folks! And so when I came to this village last
year, it was like coming back to my real family. You must think this is strange—
Why do I sleep on the mountain? I don’t know why; I just have to shut myself
away from the villagers so that I can sleep in peace. The villagers are all my
relatives—Auntie Li, Uncle Huang, Uncle Liu, your parents. They keep coming
into my dreams.”
Suddenly, his words were interrupted. Yiping felt acutely dizzy. She thought,
The basket must be bumping against the mountain. This was the end. In a feeble
voice, she shouted, “Help!”
When she opened her eyes, she realized that this wasn’t the end. The hot-air
balloon was descending; she could already see the rooftops in the village. Those

rooftops were the dark blue color that she’d seen earlier when she ran out—
unearthly but lovely.
“Cousin, we’re descending. Aren’t you going to pursue Venus?”
Yiping felt a little disappointed.
“I miss my relatives so much! You can’t understand this feeling, for you’re
too young. See: Uncle Li has walked out! He’s going to the outhouse; he has
diarrhea. Our village is a multi-surname village, made up of refugees who came
from many places. They established this village. You must know this.”
Yiping didn’t know anything about this. She looked hard, but she couldn’t see
Uncle Li. Between two houses, next to a bamboo fence, it seemed there was a
shadow slipping across. But the hot-air balloon was floating too fast with the
wind, and she couldn’t get a good look.
“Cousin, let’s go up! Why do we have to stay so close to the village? I’d like
to see Venus. There’s nothing to see in the village. Look, you’ve swerved again:
we’re still floating near the rooftops. What are you really looking for?”
“Me? Didn’t you say the other time that I’m looking for a burial place?”

Xuwu laughed out loud. “I see your papa. He got up and he’s chopping firewood
in the dark. He’s always like this. The year I came down with cholera, he carried
me on his back to the county hospital.”
“Don’t we have any way to ascend? I’d like to go up to a place several
thousand meters high.”
“That’s impossible. Haven’t I told you? I have only low-grade fuel. At most,
my hot-air balloon can climb five hundred meters . . . And I’m also not very