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Frontier. Can Xue
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Just now, when the old geezer Meng Yu mentioned Mr. Sherman, Liujin had felt a little rush of emotion. Over the last several years, she had been involved with all kinds of men. When her parents were still here, she didn’t want these men to come to her home; instead, she used to meet them at the Snow Mountain Hotel in the foothills of the mountain. Standing on the balcony, she and her lover could sometimes see the snow leopards drinking from the small brook halfway up the mountain. That was the main reason she chose this place. Once, she and her boyfriend (a geography teacher) went to the wild animal preserve. It was almost dark, and she said to the geography teacher, “I’d really like to be friends with the snow leopards. I get excited when I think of their massive claws. You can leave, I’m staying.” The geography teacher then dragged her forcibly out of the wild animal preserve. As soon as they got back to the hotel, she felt a nameless anger rising from the bottom of her heart, and the next day she broke up with him. They left the hotel separately. She had a romantic memory, too: it was about the wild geese. Liujin told her boyfriend, “Most of all, I like listening to geese honking on a clear night.” They didn’t know whether the geese would pass through here, so they walked to the distant fields and waited. As they walked and walked, Liujin felt that she and her boyfriend had merged into one person. The first few times, they encountered only desert birds. Later, when they were paying no attention, a leisurely cry came from high above. The two of them embraced tightly and shed tears. That man was a stone carver with a wife and two children. It had been years since Liujin had gone to the Snow Mountain Hotel. She imagined that she had become a snow leopard squatting on the large rock.
Snow Mountain Hotel was well-known locally. To attract business, it later placed a cage in the lobby; the cage held a young snow leopard. Although it wasn’t large, it looked fierce. Guests passing by the cage were a little afraid. They didn’t understand why the hotel owners thought this would attract them. Liujin had also stopped next to the cage and exchanged glances with the young snow leopard. She discovered that communicating with it was impossible because of its vacant eyes. It seemed it couldn’t see the people surrounding it. One couldn’t be sure what it was looking at. The last time Liujin went there, she found the large hotel had disappeared without a trace. A skating rink had been built where it once stood, but the skating rink had no ice, and the main entrance was closed. She and her boyfriend had to stay in a small hotel at the edge of the city. In those days, whenever she mentioned Snow Mountain Hotel, the person with whom she was talking hemmed and hawed and changed the subject. “Snow Mountain Hotel—did such a hotel actually exist? That’s a weird name.” Liujin was puzzled; she suspected there was something fishy about this hotel’s disappearance. She got in touch with her ex-boyfriend to discuss it with him, but he avoided the subject, too, saying, “Recently, I haven’t given much thought to those times.” She thought: she wasn’t suggesting resuming their old affair. Not at all. Why was he being so touchy? Or perhaps he wasn’t touchy: maybe he was simply afraid of talking about the hotel. Had there been a major homicide case there, and the hotel was then destroyed? This speculation horrified her. Once, back then, someone had attacked her in the carpeted corridor in the hotel. He had pretended to spray her in the face with gas. But she didn’t fall down; she was just dazed for a second. When she came to, the perpetrator had disappeared. She had told her boyfriend. He said he’d seen this from a distance and had run along the corridor to save her, but when he’d made it only halfway, the bad guy disappeared. Perhaps there was a secret passageway in the middle of the corridor. That night, the two of them held each other tightly, trembling. They couldn’t sleep. Snow Mountain Hotel gradually faded from their memories, but the mystery had never been solved.
“May I ask your name, sir?” Liujin asked the old man sitting at the courtyard gate.
The old man mumbled for a while, and then spat out several distinct words: “My name is Meng. Meng Yu.”
“How can you be Meng Yu? That’s the name of the old man across the street.”
“Hunh. That is I.”
Liujin recalled that Meng Yu seemed to know something about this man’s background. Apparently he was watching out for him. Was he a ghost from Meng Yu’s past life? Why did he have the same name? Liujin didn’t believe him. She thought this man might be a little crazy. He wasn’t twisting hemp tonight. In the moonlight, he was weaving a purse out of colored ribbons. He was good at two crafts. He could weave without looking. Liujin imagined that he was a huge silkworm spinning its own beautiful cocoon.
“So, Uncle Meng Yu, where do you live?” She wasn’t giving up.
The words he spat out next became indistinct again. In the distance, Liujin heard a wolf cub trying out its voice. It was a little hoarse and a little hesitant. Inwardly, she cheered it on. All at once, she had an idea: were these two persons actually one person? Right! She had never seen them at the same time. But that one was a wizened old geezer, and this one was strong and stocky. They had nothing in common except for their name. Anyhow, it was hard to say. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the old man at the gate, had she? He might have been disguised. She’d heard that the wolf that had disappeared for years was once more active around here. Wolves frequently showed up in this little town. Uncle Meng Yu walked around late at night. Wasn’t he afraid? “Wolves,” Liujin couldn’t help saying. Glancing sharply at her, the old geezer said, “Hunh.”
Liujin saw Meng Yu’s wife—the woman other people called “Mrs.”—pass by. What was she doing here in the middle of the night? She was carrying a bamboo basket filled with fried bread. After setting the basket down next to this geezer’s feet, she glided away. Liujin withdrew to the back of the grape arbor and sat down amid the irises. Just then, the old woman reappeared at the door. She yelled, “She’s Mr. Sherman’s woman. What are you thinking?” The bear-like old uncle stood up and snarled at the old woman. Although Liujin couldn’t understand a word he said, her heart was thumping like a drum. It was really scary: she had been trapped by the hunter, and however hard she struggled, she couldn’t break free without losing an arm or a leg. How could this old uncle, whom she had never met before, yet felt some affection for, have such a complicated relationship with Meng Yu’s family? She wanted to shout at him: “WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?” But many wolves began howling at once. And then the “Mrs.” disappeared. Some raindrops were falling from the clear sky. The old uncle staggered to his feet and headed out. Liujin noticed that he wasn’t going to Meng Yu’s home. He walked east down the middle of the street. He moved like a sleepwalker. The moon was bright, and another flock of geese flew past. The sounds reverberating in the sky made her think of her parents in the tall building in the industrial city. The letter she received from her mother the day before had said marriage was predestined. Was she hinting about this Mr. Sherman? But Liujin wasn’t sure what Mr. Sherman was really like. What impressed her most about him was the way he touched the cloth at the market. That made her speculate that this kind of man must be deeply interested in making love. But her general impression of him was vague: he wasn’t like the geography teacher, nor was he like the stonecutter. Liujin didn’t know what to think of him; she wasn’t at all sure of her feelings. God knows, she had never thought of him in a romantic way. Why did the people around her assume she did? And did this man really think of her in that way?
She bent down and picked up the basket of fried bread and threw it into the trash can. After a few seconds, she even threw the basket in. She was afraid of such things and