He stood in the light. Very strange—even after twenty years, he still looked so young, not a bit sick. The director remembered their customary conversation.

“Is it behaving today?” the director would ask.

“Yes, it’s very obedient. Now it’s always good, because I’ve learned to tell it stories. I’ve come to tell you that I have been traveling around the world for twenty years, and now I’m back. I will never leave home again. I want to work with you to renew our undertaking.”

“I understood, Wang, as soon as I heard your voice. Did it urge you to come to me?” The director smiled.

“Sure it did. You used to treat it well, and it will never forget your kindness. See this bulge on my head—it is swelling excitedly inside. It pushed against my skull, but I didn’t feel any pain. I know how much it loves you.”

The director touched the protuberance on Wang’s head, and affection welled up in his heart.

“That’s right, Wang, I can’t leave you, or it.”

“Director, please touch it again, and listen to what it says.”

The director brought his ear close to Wang’s head, and heard a soft whispering sound—the same sound that rice straw sometimes makes as it dries in the sunshine.

“Wang, you have succeeded.”

“Yes, I’ve been carrying it around the world,” Wang said proudly. “Now we’re here again, not just one but two of us, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Not one, but two. How wonderful! And I’ll do my best to—”

He was too ashamed to go on.

Saying he would return the next day, Wang left in a hurry. The director looked out the window, and he saw Wang, followed by a dark shadow, walking with his chin up. The director remembered that in an earlier time it was he who encouraged Wang to hold his head high and go on living. The director knew the black shadow didn’t trouble Wang but supported him. Life was wonderful! Look, Wang’s thin figure was almost silvery in contrast to the shadow. He was almost the moonlight incarnate! The silvery Wang was obviously living an elegant life, but he, who had called himself Wang’s mentor, had been wasting his life for years. The director slapped his head angrily. He heard a clatter in his head, and a wrenching pain made him squint. At the same time, a grateful feeling rose from the bottom of his heart.

Someone came in without knocking and sat down on the table.

“A knight always takes his enemies with him, doesn’t he?” the man said, sneering.

The man was a neighbor, and a drinking buddy of the director’s. He looked sharply at the director, and said firmly, “You’ve become two as well.”

The director nodded, feeling that it was becoming clearer.

19
The Cause Is Expanding

It was midnight. Mrs. Yi had just delivered a baby for Zhu’s family. When she came out of Zhu’s house with her husband, she saw a group of people in black approaching, floating like shadows with flashlights. “Hi!” the leader shouted, waving his hand.