He clearly stood on the shore
But felt like he was drowning
The rushing river appeared even darker in the murky night, with its churning waves heavy like mercury, violently crashing against his body. He felt himself sinking, and the instinct to survive made him desperately call for help towards the faint light he could vaguely see not far away. He eagerly hoped that the light could save him from the brink of death, but unfortunately, his cries were in vain. Soon after, that savior-like light also extinguished, and the surroundings fell silent once again in the long night. His senses heightened, he could feel the water flowing over his skin, his body growing colder, and he had no strength left to struggle. This treacherous river severed his vitality, but no one paid any attention.
In the spring of 1950, during the months of March and April, bone-chilling winds howled across the Qinghai Plateau. The winter's accumulated ice and snow had not yet begun to melt, and low, withered shrubs sparsely dotted the vast land. In this season of rare signs of life, an atmosphere of solemnity and killing prevailed.
But for most herders on the plateau, this season was a time of joy. Several months ago, the People's Liberation Army had liberated Qinghai, and people had received some livestock and food, which was a great happiness for the majority of poor herders who had sold their blood and flesh their whole lives.
It was also during this solemn yet joyful season that a family gave birth to a boy, who was called "Weak Water" due to their place of residence. He was born beautiful, different from the appearance of ordinary herder children, with soft eyebrows and eyes, fair and delicate skin. If one didn't know, it would be easy to mistake him for a girl. This often made his parents feel ashamed, as they longed for a strong, clever, and capable son. Weak Water, with his somewhat effeminate nature, was not well-received and was often subjected to beatings and scoldings.
At the age of eight or nine, Weak Water started attending a collective school. Free from the beatings of his parents and seeing so many children his age, he felt joy and eagerly wanted to make new friends. However, as his parents had complained, these strong herder children saw him as different. They mocked Weak Water for not being a boy or a girl, and even forcibly pulled down his pants. With tears in his eyes, he protected his lower body in fear and shame, not daring to say a word.
These experiences made him develop an extreme disgust for his own body. Coincidentally, at that time, the entire herding area was calling for steel and iron production, and many strong male laborers were conscripted. Weak Water saw this as a great opportunity to prove his masculinity. Despite his weakness, he picked up an iron rod used to pick dry grass from the furnace, but because he lacked strength, he burned a shocking wound on his arm. Weak Water was extremely afraid, afraid that his father would find out and punish him severely for his mischief. He didn't even care about his own injury and hurriedly ran towards the vast plateau outside the door. He didn't know how long he ran, but Weak Water felt that his father would never find him again, so he stopped. However, this was also a place completely unfamiliar to him, and he couldn't even remember the way he came. After the fear subsided, a piercing pain came, and he looked at his arm, which was covered in blood and flesh, helplessly bursting into tears.
Weak Water also didn't remember how he fell asleep, he only knew that when he woke up, he was lying on a soft felt, and a clay pot on the stove was emitting steam. Standing next to it was a tall man. He sat up and recognized that the man was someone he didn't know, which made him extremely afraid. With all his thoughts focused on escaping back home, he was pulled back by the man.
"Why run away? I'm not going to eat you."
"You're a brave kid, aren't you afraid of being carried away by wild wolves when you run away?"
Weak Water knew he was in the wrong and could only lower his head, clutching his already untied shirt. The man also noticed his embarrassment and found a shawl for him. Seeing that his body was not seriously injured, he rode a horse and sent him back home. The man deliberately slowed down, so there was no jolting sensation on the horse's back. Weak Water saw that his wound had been wrapped up, most likely by the man. He couldn't help but feel a warmth in his heart. Compared to his violent father, this man was obviously more comforting to him.
Back home, Weak Water thought he would be punished by his father. However, when his father saw the man, he suddenly became extremely respectful. From their snippets of conversation, Weak Water learned that the man was the secretary of the commune in the herding area. He didn't understand what being a commune secretary meant, but he knew that this man could intimidate his father. After talking for a while, the man left. For the first time, his father didn't have a stern face but instead wore a friendly smile, embracing Weak Water.
"Good boy, you've made your father proud."
"With this connection, our family will prosper in the future."
His father was very happy, and Weak Water naturally felt the same.
In the following period of time, the man would occasionally visit their collective school for inspections. On inspection days, the entire school would suspend classes, and all the teachers and students would go to greet him. Weak Water looked at the man sitting in the main seat, and a sense of pride arose within him, as if he had also become noble. After the reception, the man would shake hands with each student or pat their heads. When he passed by Weak Water, the man stopped.
"It's you, kid. Are your hands more skillful now?"
As he spoke, he rolled up Weak Water's sleeves and saw that the wound had healed quite well, smiling with satisfaction.
"I really like this child, he's very clever!" The man muttered to himself. But everyone knew he was saying it for the teachers to hear. After that day, Weak Water was no longer bullied.
Weak Water enjoyed interacting with the man, and after one inspection, he secretly asked the man if he could visit his home. The man was straightforward and quickly agreed. The furnishings in the house were no different from last time, and the man asked Weak Water to sit on the felt while he made milk tea for them to drink. The fire in the stove burned brightly, quickly warming up the room. The man handed the milk tea to Weak Water and sat down beside him. Weak Water felt happy but also uncomfortable. He didn't know what to say to the man in front of him, so he silently sipped his milk tea. The man broke the awkwardness and talked about school matters, learning about how Weak Water had been humiliated by the male students. A trace of strangeness flashed in the man's eyes.
"Why did they take off your pants?"
"I'm not sure, they said I didn't have that thing."
"That's not true, all men have it."
"But they said I'm neither a boy nor a girl."
"Let me see, okay?"
"......"
A deathly silence filled the room, and a thunderbolt flashed through Weak Water's heart. He didn't know why the man wanted to see, but he knew that the man was different from those children who humiliated him. The man must be doing it for his own good. Weak Water didn't think much and took off his pants. The man's warm and somewhat rough hands touched him, and Weak Water's breathing became rapid, his face starting to blush. He wanted to see what the man was doing, but being pressed down, he couldn't move at all, only feeling his legs slowly being spread apart, and then a scorching object slowly sliding into his body. A bright red blood lotus bloomed on the gray felt, appearing particularly glaring. He felt a great pain, as if he was being torn apart. He began to sob, but the man seemed to have no intention of stopping.
Weak Water didn't know what had happened, but at this moment, he longed for his father.
The man told him that if Weak Water were to speak of what happened today, he would never come to see him again. Weak Water struggled, he didn't like the feeling today, but he also didn't want to lose the man's care for him, so he reluctantly agreed. The man would often take Weak Water home and repeat what happened that day. Their family's situation also improved, even during the most difficult three years, they had more fish than other families. His father's love and pampering towards Weak Water grew, a complete change from before. But only Weak Water knew the reason behind it.
These days didn't last very long.
On Weak Water's seventeenth birthday, it was celebrated at the Revolutionary Committee. At the end of February, something big happened in Xining, causing panic among the people in the province. Naturally, the Revolutionary Committee took control, and the herding area where Weak Water lived was no exception. Perhaps because the man had been overly attentive to Weak Water's family, the Revolutionary Committee labeled him as someone who had seized the means of production and imprisoned him in a filthy stable. Weak Water, being closely associated with him, couldn't escape being implicated. However, he couldn't extract any benefits from it, Weak Water only slept on a cold chair for one night and endured several beatings before being sent back. Even so, for a weak person like him, it was still a significant torment.
But Weak Water also learned where the man was being held. As he grew older, he also gained an understanding of matters between men and women. He knew what the man had done to him back then. However, he didn't hold any grudges. On one hand, the man had brought him a good life; on the other hand, the young Weak Water discovered that he seemed to have a different kind of feeling towards the man who violated him. Perhaps it was because of the life-saving favor, or perhaps it was because of their repeated encounters.
Weak Water made up his mind to go see the man, but the man's identity was too special, and even relatives would find it difficult to get close. Although he was reluctant, Weak Water knew that he needed to become a member of the Revolutionary Committee to have a chance to see the person he missed. So he joined the Red Guards and became like a pardoned criminal, rushing to the man's home. Taking advantage of the inspection's name, Weak Water participated in smashing and looting the school's facilities, or rushing into other people's homes to steal valuable fur and liquor bottles. Weak Water gradually became numb, turning a deaf ear to the women who knelt before him, begging him not to take away their husbands. He only wanted to see that man, and nothing else mattered.
But before Weak Water could become a cadre of the Revolutionary Committee, he learned that the man was going to be publicly criticized. He couldn't bear to imagine it, but due to his identity, he couldn't refuse. Weak Water thought of the day he ran away from home out of fear of his father's punishment, and a feeling of helplessness once again enveloped his heart. But this time, that tall man would not appear.
Even though he had prepared himself, seeing the man with blood all over his face, his neck hanging from an iron gate, Weak Water still felt like his heart was being cut with a knife. He desperately wanted to rush up and defend the man, but that would undoubtedly push himself into the abyss. Behind a row of tables on the square, several cadres of the Revolutionary Committee sat, and one of them was reading out his charges. When asked where he had hidden the embezzled means of production, the man stubbornly insisted that he hadn't embezzled anything. Unable to extract any information, the cadres had the Red Guards forcefully hold his arms and pull him backward. The weight of the iron gate fell entirely on his neck. The man almost fell to the ground, blood flowing down from his collar. The man still didn't yield, but Weak Water had already burst into tears. He couldn't bear to look for another second and used the excuse of feeling unwell to leave.
On the night the criticism session ended, the man committed suicide in the stable. He smashed his head against the manger, dying a gruesome death. Weak Water didn't learn of this news immediately, only finding out when a Red Guard who was in charge of the stable handed him a blood-stained envelope. Weak Water was in a daze when he received the envelope, appearing like a lifeless corpse. The cadres knew that the man had taken his own life, and they began to investigate the information he had passed on. In their eyes, the man must have revealed where he had hidden his property to someone else, and as long as they could find out, they could profit from it. Naturally, news of the envelope reached their ears.
When a group of people rushed into Weak Water's home, they happened to catch him preparing to open the envelope. Weak Water didn't know what had happened and was about to get up when several cadres came to snatch it away. He resisted desperately, knowing that if they took it away, his relationship with the man could be completely exposed. In his desperation, he took out the letter and stuffed it into his mouth, hurriedly swallowing it. The cadres became furious but could only take Weak Water back with them.
Weak Water was locked up in the stable where the man had once stayed. Over time, the place he had longed for, the place he finally set foot in, lost all its meaning. Weak Water felt like a wave of nostalgia, walking around, trying to catch a trace of the man's presence. But after too long, all that remained was the stench of the stable.
The Revolutionary Committee naturally wouldn't let Weak Water go, and under the guise of interrogation, he endured numerous beatings, often returning to the stable with legs that were almost broken. He wanted to die but couldn't bear to die. He wasn't afraid of pain; he was afraid of no one erecting a monument for the man.
Before the Spring Festival of 1968, Weak Water was allowed to go home for the holiday. He rushed to the man's home as if he had been granted amnesty. Because no one had taken care of it for so long, the familiar felt was covered in dust. He started a fire, and the room gradually warmed up. Weak Water sat on the felt, gently caressing it. This felt carried the secret joys and youthful emotions of Weak Water, which he had kept hidden. He deeply missed the man who had violated him, and perhaps in his heart, that violation had already taken on a different meaning.
He decided to take the felt with him because it was worth Weak Water's eternal remembrance. He carefully rolled it up, afraid that something might go wrong. When he put away the felt, he discovered a notebook lying quietly in the corner. Weak Water curiously picked it up and flipped through the pages one by one.
......
The surrounding herders saw the billowing black smoke and hurried over to check the situation. The house was already half on fire, and the herders quickly circled a patch of grass to prevent the fire from spreading, dragging out Weak Water, who had already lost his breath. There was a deep wound on his wrist, obviously from cutting it to commit suicide. But the herders didn't know about the other horrifying scar on his arm.
In the house, amidst the raging fire, there were fragments of a diary torn to pieces, recording every intimate encounter the man had with others.
The man was accused of rape, which led to his demotion from the provincial government to become a commune secretary.
Perhaps he had never loved Weak Water.
As for what was in the envelope, no one would ever know.