"Off visiting your lover, were you?" Zhang Xiaomin casually asked as she wiped the crumbs off of yesterday’s bread.

　　"Children shouldn't meddle in grown-up business." I finished my milk and took the dusted bread from her hands and began to gnaw at it. I was really hungry: up at five o'clock, three hours of driving; what little I had eaten yesterday evening had long since left my stomach on its southward journey. It was high time to tend to my belly.

　　"You don't recognize a good heart when you see one." Zhang Xiaomin pitched the dishtowel into the sink and finished off the last of the bread. "Last night I called you from around 11 p.m. until nearly dawn, maybe three o'clock, but no one ever answered, so this morning I was worried that you might be dead drunk again and snoring on your doorstep."I felt rather embarrassed remembering the last time I had gotten really drunk and ended up sleeping on the doormat because I couldn't get the key in the lock; Zhang Xiaomin had found me there around nine o'clock the next morning. It was probably best to change the subject. "Didn't I just ask you how you got in here, anyway?"

　　"I thought that I should just climb in like a cat, so that's what I must have done", Zhang Xiaomin said.

　　I was worried that she had climbed in by the kitchen window, which was quite dangerous. "You didn't climb up over the balcony, did you?"

　　"You just guess how I got in!"

　　"Dumb bunny like you, you probably did climb in!" I said. Then, something in the way Zhang Xiaomin lifted the glass of milk off the table made me quickly change my tune: "You are so bright! Under heaven a peerless treasure ......"

　　Zhang Xiaomin set the glass back down. "Now, that's more tactful," she said.

　　"You still haven't said how you got in?"

　　"With my I.Q. I could get to Jupiter if I wanted to. Getting through walls and locked doors is no big deal. You should be more careful. I might come back and make myself free with your precious jewels and maybe your family jewels, too!"

　　"Then I had better drink off your milk before you do! The best defense is a good offense!" So saying I took the milk from her hands.

　　Hearing that, Zhang Xiaomin took up another glass from the table: "You're not very nice, you know that?"

　　After a short silence she spoke again, "Brought you a present. Guess what it is!"

　　I looked all around and only then realized that the room had been straightened up. A room put to rights is a pleasure to the eye and to the mind. Even the sunlight seems brighter. "You've brought order to my home", I said.

　　Seeing that I had noticed her efforts, Zhang Xiaomin seemed rather pleased with herself, but kept right on ordering me about. "Guess again!" she said.

　　"I give up", I said, "Now you go on off to school. Students can't go skipping class all the time."

　　"First and second periods are both foreign literature, and the guy is an absolute ass. Not to mention that he sprays saliva as far back as the third row. Everybody calls him 'The Faucet'. I'd be much better off reading a book than suffering through his class."

　　The phone rang. I went over to the corner to pick up. It was Dong Congwen.

　　"So you're back! How's my car? Still running smooth? Never mind the rust; once she gets on the road she runs like a young colt, chock full of pep!"

　　"You bet! I had her out to 120, no problem!"

　　"Did you fix those things I told you about?"

　　"First thing. Just relax; I supervised the work myself. Only just finished with it."

　　"Ha-ha! Ha-ha!" Dong Congwen's ebullient mirth came thundering down through the phone line. "I hear the department is calling a meeting to decide on the appointments reform. Any ideas on the subject?" "I haven't really thought about it. How about you?"

　　"I've already decided. I'm voting Wang Xueyuan."

　　That gave me a turn. "What do you mean, 'voting Wang Xueyuan'? Appointments aren't voted on, are they?"

　　Dong Congwen turned supercilious on me: "You'll know when the time comes." He rang off.

　　I hung up and turned around, but Zhang Xiaomin wasn't there anymore. I guessed that she had gone to class. On the dining table amidst the breadcrumbs and dirty glasses was a copy of Somerset Maugham’s "The Moon and Sixpence", most likely the latest work on her reading list. Next to it was a gift-wrapped box, inside of which, much to my surprise, I found a pretty little elephant-shaped baby bottle, already filled with milk and ready for use, a charming little elephant with a basketball on his curled up trunk. When you lifted off the miniature basketball, underneath was a rubber feeding nipple. I admired it for a moment and tested that it worked properly, then placed it on the window sill.

　　After cleaning off the dining table and washing up in the bathroom, I considered whether to go straight off and pick up Dong Congwen's car, or rather to sleep for a bit. As soon as I had got back I had dropped the car off at a quick service garage; it was most likely ready by now. But I had hardly slept the night before and my brain was feeling a bit woozy. A nap seemed the best choice.

　　When I got to the bedroom, though, I discovered that Zhang Xiaomin hadn't left after all, but was there on the bed fast asleep, and for once, fully dressed! She was lying half on her side, half on her back, one leg crooked over the other at a 45 degree angle. The hem of her dress had ridden high up on her left leg, revealing the soft triangle of her panties. I took a blanked and covered her where she lay sprawled across most of the bed. There was nothing more for me to do but squeeze into the small corner that was left. Though I was stretched out at last, I couldn’t get to sleep. Thinking over the events of the previous night, I couldn’t help but feel disturbed.

　　Life goes on in real time, all under the same sun, but people can be separated by hundreds of miles. I couldn't imagine the state of mind in which Pei Zi would awaken, where she was now, or what she might be doing.

　　There are times when I am struck by an inexplicable sadness. When this sadness comes there is no controlling it. It's not that I have lost hope or feel unhappy; lost hopes and unhappiness all have their reasons, but my sadness has no cause behind it. I can't explain the reason for it: it's just sadness and that's that. It's as though I am taking on the burden of all humanity: when this sadness strikes it's not that I personally feel without hope, rather I feel that all humanity has been without hope from the very beginning: "Everything is like that, and always will be." At such times it seems that there is no way to prevent yourself falling.

　　Ever since my grandmother and eldest brother died, these feelings of sadness have been gnawing at me, often arising uninvited and without reason, dragging me down into a deep, dark canyon. My grandmother and eldest brother's death ended my youth. After watching your loved ones depart with your own eyes, how can you maintain a juvenile approach to the passage of time and the myriad things of this universe? Time is forever; the universe is eternal; only life is short. Those were the concluding remarks of my youth.

　　All youth is subject to the full stop that consciousness one day brings to us. I am no exception.

　　Death is waiting for all of us. First it was my grandfather, then Grandma; they both met their fate and left us. And then? Then it was my eldest brother, just like Grandma[w4][徐晓维5] and Grandpa; fibrosis of the liver /the grim reaper quietly lead him away. Lying on his deathbed, he seemed like a length of withered tree branch. Before my very eyes, he slowly, slowly ceased to breath. Was he so debilitated that he had no strength left to bid us farewell? His sad eyes merely watched us, watched us weeping.

　　When these thoughts come to me, if it's morning I don't even want to get out of bed. Rushing about all day merely serves to hasten the full stop awaiting us all, so, what's the point? Why not just let life flow along at a more leisurely pace?

　　"How could you put him on the window sill? On a hot day like this the sun could curdle the milk!" Zhang Xiaomin's voice came back from the kitchen.

　　"Oh! Sorry, I wasn't thinking." I got up and went to the living room, and sure enough, the little elephant's belly already had a fine layer of condensation on it. "I'll put him in the ice box, O.K.? But why did you buy me a baby bottle? It only makes me sad. Baby bottles remind me of my own real age. Old."

　　“I saw it on the street and thought it was really cute so I bought it." Zhang Xiaomin said. "Sometimes I really think that I don't want to grow up, that it would be better to stay forever at my mother's breast, living off of her milk eternally. But day after day we keep growing up, we have to go out in the world and toil for our own living. Mama often asked me, ‘When you grow up, what are you counting on to make a living?’ She always worried about me. I think she was just as blind as I was over this."

　　"You're right. Our future gets used up day by day, and every day we get older. Who wouldn't feel at a loss不茫然? Why must it be like that?" I held up the little elephant in my hand. The milk was already tepid. "In regard to 'counting on what to make a living', perhaps I'm a little less at sea than you are. Still, for other questions I may be even more at a loss. But how to get your life in order? By the time you figure out how to live, it could be that your life is already over. When that time comes, you don't need answers anymore."

　　"Your generation is better off", she responded. "When you're feeling down you can always go see your lover, make love. Our age group is too embarrassed; we can't get things together. We can't count on our parents; we have to depend on ourselves, and so we keep our feelings locked up inside. We want to make love but can't find the right partner."

　　"In point of fact, making love really doesn't resolve anything", I said. "You might feel good for a little while, but afterwards indecision is still indecision, loneliness is still loneliness, sadness is still sadness. They aren't even reduced."

　　"Perhaps it's because you don't love your partner? Maybe having sex with someone you love is different." Zhang Xiaomin went over to the window sill. Just then the radio played a fiddle tune of Sarasate's. The melody was sad to the point of despair. I often have the radio on at home. When there is sound in a room, the inherent emptiness is somewhat lessened. Sound is a good thing, especially evolving sound. It helps people to fight off the void. While the music developed, Zhang Xiaomin stood by the window saying, "I wonder if I made love with my boyfriend, if our lovemaking would make our relationship less insipid."

　　"Do you really think so?" I responded. Actually, I wasn't very surprised. This sort of young girl always thinks sex is some grandiose wonder. Instinctively they exaggerate the significance of having sex, always feeling that beyond the bodily sensations, sex has a much greater value. They invariably think that sex can/will give them so much more than it really can.

　　"Don't answer me, O.K.? I'm not asking for your opinion; I'm just thinking out loud."

　　"Maybe you don't need to decide so quickly", I said.

　　"My heart feels ill at ease with thoughts like that. I have this vague sort of feeling that I would be losing something, that in the end I must lose something; I really can't figure it out." Zhang Xiaomin lowered her head, "You know, I don't give a damn about virginity. These days nobody does. When my boyfriend heard that I was a virgin, he just shook his head and hollered that he had been taken in. Seems like you're the same sort: the minute you spot a virgin you just run the other way."

　　"Not at all", I pontificated, "We're just fine together."

　　"Well then, come over here!" Zhang Xiaomin said, "Lend me your shoulder a minute, O.K? I need someone to lean on just now. Relax; I'm not going to rape you. I'm still a virgin, remember? I'm not some kind of sex maniac!"

　　"Alright, but let's keep it clean and don't get any funny ideas. I have my honor to preserve."

　　Just as I took Zhang Xiaomin in my arms, the doorbell rang, once long, once short, a very cultivated ring. From inside I called out "Who's there?" Nobody answered. When I opened the door, there stood a young blond-haired, blue-eyed girl, wearing a white dress; she might have been the daughter of one of the foreign teachers. "Can I help you?" I asked. She didn't say anything, merely handed me a sheet of letter paper with a notice about a lost cat: "My cat 'Dan' is missing, anyone that finds him, please help me to get him back." The signature read 'Catherine', below that was a picture of big, solid, black cat. The strange part was that you couldn't see his ears.

　　"Are you Catherine?" I asked. She nodded her head, and pointed to herself. Only then did I realize that she was mute. I turned and spoke to Zhang Xiaomin, "You see how lucky you are? Little Catherine here can't even speak."

　　"But at least Catherine has her cat, no? What about me? Sometimes I feel so alone that I could just stop in at any bar, hoping someone would talk to me; who cares if he's some kind of hoodlum, just so long as he's willing to talk to me", Zhang Xiaomin said.

　　"Now, you young kids, where does all this loneliness come from? What about your classmates? What about your boyfriend?"