By late fall, the children had stopped going to the haystacks in the evenings to hear the city boy play his harmonica. Only one eleven-year-old girl would show up every day. The boy would play his harmonica for her, and she became the only recipient of his complaints about the little village. One evening the streetlights were coming on and the voices of women rose and fell as they called their children home, a beguiling scene. The boy slid down the haystack, wiping his harmonica against his trousers. Suddenly, he stopped moving and just stared at the girl. She smiled, not finding this strange. He reached out with both hands and grabbed her waist, then lowered her to the ground from the haystack, ending up face-to-face with her. The girl could hear her mother calling for her. She didn’t answer, just twisted her head away. When she turned back, she no longer recognized the person in front of her. His eyes were almost shut behind his glasses, though not tightly, the whites gleaming faintly between his lowered lids. His lashes trembled violently. She’d never seen such droopy eyelashes. She called his name twice, and he smiled terrifyingly, pressing his lips to her forehead. She started pushing away his hands, and her legs resisted too, though she made sure to keep a smile on her face, as if it would be too much to shame him. His lips were scalding hot as he pressed them to hers, and for a moment she had no idea if this sensation was good or bad. She could smell Donghai cigarettes on his breath, spicy and bitter, a masculine scent, permeating her body. A peculiar lack of strength opened her whole body to him, melding with the tobacco fragrance. She wondered if she ought to run away or scream, but then her lips were forced apart by something. It took her a long while to realize it was his tongue. Then he slowly pulled her beneath the haystack. Someone had hollowed out a space here. She could barely move. He curled around her body.

Afterward, he pulled her out and got her to stand up so he could straighten her clothes and brush the straw from her hair. He smiled awkwardly. There was nothing scary in this smile. She looked at him, a secret emotion appearing in the darkness of her body, like a tiny flame. He asked her to come back the next night at the same time. She nodded and turned to go. She couldn’t make out whether she liked or didn’t like this sort of thing, nor did she understand what on Earth the city boy had just done to her. He’d lit a flame inside her body, and it was filling her with warmth.