Selected Works of Yu Dafu (Fiction Volume · Prose Volume)

Author: Yu Dafu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: I was lying in bed, disturbed by the lewd noises from the room next door and unable to close my eyes. With no other choice, I had to get up and go for a stroll on the street. It was probably around one or two in the morning, and the night buses in Shanghai had already arrived. The inns on Yangshi Street and Fuyuan Lane were all closed and asleep. On the street, besides a few rickshaws parked haphazardly, there were only a few ragged, fierce-looking children of sin striding about in the gray air. As I walked, I recalled the nights I spent walking in the capital of a foreign country during my study abroad. Comparing the circumstances then with my current state of wandering in this dying city of China, I felt that my youth, my hopes, and my life had all turned into clouds and smoke of the past. The present me and the future me were left with only a faint taste of reality. I felt that I had actually become a ghost. I touched my body with my hands and felt a rough summer cloth material. Then I forcefully pinched my face, and my nerves felt a pain. "It's okay, it's okay. I'm still here, I'm not a ghost, I still have consciousness!" With this thought, I immediately dismissed the idea from the previous moment. Just then, my feet had reached the front of a restaurant at the corner. In this deep, silent hour of the night, when all the neighboring places were asleep, only this shop was still open, like the mouth of a person who doesn't sleep well, hollow and empty. I hadn't eaten much that evening, and as soon as I saw the pots and stoves in the shop, I felt hungry and immediately stepped inside. After drinking half a liter of yellow wine and eating a bowl of noodles, I regretted it when it came time to pay. When I left Shanghai, I had only two five-yuan notes. Taking a second-class train was already wrong, and eating a big meal on the train was even worse. After paying for the wine and noodles, I was left with only a few yuan and cents. Tomorrow, I would need to pay for the inn, breakfast, and the rickshaw ride from the station to Jianggan. Where would I get the money to buy a train ticket? I was desperate and ran around wildly in the quiet, dark streets. Unknowingly, my feet carried me to the edge of West Lake. The still air on the lake was even more mysterious and solemn than before. The amusement park had already closed, and the streets were empty except for a few rickshaws parked near the corner with no drivers in sight. There was no lively thing to be seen. I walked along the lakeside road and stood for a long time under the window of a large hotel where I had once stayed. Seeing no one around, a demonic temptation suddenly came to my mind. "Break the window and go in, take some money!" With the hand of my mind, I gently pushed open the half-opened window, carefully removed a few iron bars outside, and climbed in through the wall. With my mind's eye, I saw a pair of white satin women's shoes under the white mosquito net by the bed, a delicate white silk gauze blouse hanging on the hanger, and a black silk skirt. I gently pulled open the drawer of the washstand and found a small powder box and a white ivory-handled folding fan lying beside it, along with a woman's purse with a shiny diamond-studded rim. I looked at the bed several times and then took the purse, walked to the window, and felt a sense of pity and shame. I walked back and placed the purse in its original spot. I stood there...