Li Shazi Three Years Collection

Author: Li Shǎshǎ
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: In Li Shǎshǎ Three Years, the most eye-catching feature should be the new Red ×. According to Li Shǎshǎ, the new Red × has been revised by 40,000 words, summarized as three enhancements. Enhancement one: "My" father killing his rival and fleeing to Xi'an; Enhancement two: "My" relationship with Yang Xiao—divided yet united, united yet divided; Enhancement three: "My" classmates appear more actively, bringing a rich and dull campus life. Additionally, the collection includes some of Li Shǎshǎ's poems. His poems are passionate and eerie, and Yang Ke, editor-in-chief of China New Poetry Annual, considers Li Shǎshǎ one of the representatives of the younger generation of poets. At the same time, the collection also includes all content from Li Shǎshǎ's essay collection Those Who Are Seen as Ghosts, including the short story Corpses on the Riverbank.
Yang Xiao told me, "The first time I saw you should have been about five years ago, around 3:00 PM." Four years without seeing Yang Xiao, she told me, "The first time I saw you should have been about five years ago, around 3:00 PM." Four years without seeing each other. "Is that right?" I said, "Yes." But it should be said that later, you no longer saw me.
The train was traveling from Changsha to Xi'an. In the last row of the last carriage, I could see the hazy railway tracks and the endless night. Occasionally, the shadows of nearby trees and distant peaks flashed past, like the guiding light of memory leading me back. Before entering this carriage, meeting her, and sitting close to her, I passed through the waiting room. The waiting room was filled with the smell of boiled cabbage, or like stewed radishes—essentially the smell of cooking vegetables. A few Uyghurs had lost their white hats and were shouting loudly, "Don’t close the door, don’t close the door." A uniformed woman angrily put down her keys. I followed them, pulled open the large iron door, squeezed through the gap, and rushed toward the platform.
Carriage five is generally said to be at the exit of the underground passage. At the rear of the train, as many passengers stood as those in the middle. A girl was bending down, picking up things that had fallen out of a broken plastic bag, revealing half of her white waist. I took out my ticket—it was carriage 18, seat 37, right ahead. I tapped her with my finger and said, "Excuse me." She looked up and said, "Wait a moment." With her voice, a look appeared on her face: her eyebrows arched, her eyes wide open, a few lightning-shaped blood vessels at the corners of her eyes, her mouth half-open in a foolish way, revealing a crooked tooth on her left side.
"Yang Xiao?" This was a familiar expression, a familiar crooked tooth. She called my name in surprise in return. She straightened up. Compared to five years ago, fine lines had appeared around her eyes, but the position of her crooked tooth hadn’t shifted left or right. I had imagined this reunion countless times, and now it had happened. I tried to play it out as I had imagined, but they all ran away. I could only smile and say, "After all these years, your teeth still haven’t been fixed." She laughed this time, not because her teeth were crooked. I had nothing more to say. I pretended to look elsewhere, looking around.
On the wall at the end of the carriage was a yellowed poster. It depicted a police officer, his gun at his side, saluting the entire carriage of passengers, with a hole carved into the center of his chest. The caption read: "Unity Between the Police and the People, Fighting Crime!" Four people squeezed into three seats, occasionally glancing at my face with Yang Xiao’s gaze. My chest was sweating. The carriage was full of people sweating—men and women. It is said that during the Spring Festival travel rush, trains are this crowded. The air made a squeaking sound, with luggage and people piled up in the aisles. Some sat on luggage, while others guarded it. Those with children placed them on the back of the seats, their feet wearing shoes, swaying back and forth. Passengers on the seats dodged them with annoyed expressions.
Perhaps you haven’t taken a train south, so you don’t know how crowded it truly is. Women exposed their breasts, pushing the people in front of them with the back of their hands to make a little space, stuffing their nursing infant’s mouth with milk. The breasts of nursing mothers were darkened by areolas, swollen, with green veins protruding from the base to the tip. Such breasts were not beautiful, but with people pressing their chests against backs, arms intertwined, no one could turn their head. Unless you closed your eyes, you would see those large, heavy, swollen, dark, and vein-bulging breasts. It is said that trains during the Spring Festival travel rush are always this crowded.
The conductor pushed the goods train forward, then the dining car, pressing against buttocks and thighs, squeezing and twisting the remaining tiny gaps. Behind the path cleared by the train followed long queues—mostly people using the restroom. They had been holding it in for a long time. If any suddenly had their period, the thick, humid discomfort would make them regret that they were no longer babies. The baby lay on its mother’s lap. After nursing, it still cried. The mother then realized it wasn’t hungry but needed to urinate. She saw the long way to the restroom, the crowd like a primitive forest, terrifying. She lifted the baby’s buttocks in the usual position, letting it urinate on the seat.
Some fat people, their noses wine-red, yawned and talked on the phone, spraying wine fumes like rain sent from the sky. The spit of the leaders on stage could not be avoided. Yang Xiao twisted her buttocks more and more frequently, and I asked her to sit on the seat closer to me. She had once disliked alleys, smoke, flooded roads, rusty window frames, and sitting in smoky food stalls for a short while, feeling short of breath. She could never adapt to dilapidated and dirty environments. It seemed she was still the same. She didn’t want half her body to touch the sweaty men in the aisle or be by the smell of nursing infants.
I peeled an orange and gave her the peel to smell. When the train passed by Miluo, we had already talked a lot. In the moments of silence, the accumulated memories in me came to life. Was it the same for her? P3-4