Han Qingyu's name had been given to him by an itinerant old monk who once looked after a dilapidated temple in the township.
When he grew old enough to ask, he was told that around the time of his birth, the rice seedlings in the paddy fields were just turning green from yellow, and a mountain torrent had swollen the creek, flooding it for days on end.
And so his name had been chosen to quell disaster. On the back of that name, the old monk collected five dou of rice from every village along the river.
That had happened nineteen years ago.
That solitary old monk, who made a living reading fortunes and faces, picking auspicious dates, and choosing burial plots with a tongue slick enough to talk his way out of any slip, had moved on to somewhere else years ago.
In truth, by the ancient customs of some rural regions, the name Han Qingyu was not particularly good—it carried too much weight, perhaps too grandiose.
But in Fenglong'ao, no one knew any better.
Just as the people here had no idea that the name of their own mountain village carried too much weight as well—far too much.
Fenglong'ao was a tiny mountain hamlet where generations had never seen wealth, yet the hillside harvest was always bountiful enough to keep hunger and cold at bay.
As another generation of mountain folk on this remote stretch of land, an ordinary farm boy, Han Qingyu had experienced only two major events in his nineteen years of mundane life:
One was failing the gaokao this year.
The other was failing it last year.
"Twice now..."
The old pear tree in the farm courtyard stood tall, an abandoned magpie's nest perched among its branches. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled shadows on the ground. Han Qingyu sat beneath the tree, muttering under his breath before letting out what might have been a wry chuckle, though the smile on his face was inevitably bleak.
He could have come up with excuses if he wanted to.
For instance, his Chinese teacher was once a postman who had switched careers to teaching simply because a local newspaper printed a poem of his the size of a tofu block. Nowadays, the daily theme of his lessons was reciting to the students the new poems he had never managed to get published since.
His English teacher was well up in years, an old rusticated youth who had been stuck here back in the day after sleeping with a girl from a prominent local clan. His original major was Russian, his Mandarin carried a Tangshan accent, and whenever he spoke English, he mashed all three accents together, producing something far harder to comprehend than any single one of them.
None of that mattered, though. Failing was failing; reality did not care for excuses.
"Then take it one more time. What does the old saying go? Troubles don't go past three."
Having overheard his muttering, his mother, Zhang Jiexia, chimed in as she turned the corner from the side wall.
As she spoke, she set down the wooden washbasin in her hands, picked up a wet garment, wrung it dry, gave it a few good shakes, and draped it over a bamboo pole.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, failing the college entrance examination was hardly a shock; taking it two or three years in a row was completely normal for ordinary folks. His mother was a straightforward, brisk woman; uneducated and knowing little of the world, she was not particularly disheartened.
Take it once more?
A spark flickered in Han Qingyu's heart. Deep down, he wanted to, but when he remembered how severely unbalanced his subjects were, the light in his eyes dimmed again. "Another year probably won't help... I don't think I have it in me to take the test anymore."
He kept other thoughts buried inside. Relative to their meager income, the cost of attending high school in those days was far from cheap. His family had already gone into debt over the past few years to keep him in school, and with fewer hands to work the fields, his parents worked much harder than most of their neighbors. Having little confidence in his chances, he simply did not have the face to try again.
"...Is that so? Well, your mother doesn't know much about these things..."
His mother turned around, studying her son's expression to gauge what he was thinking. Han Qingyu had always been an opinionated boy with a mind of his own, and in recent years, he had even begun making decisions for the household.
Since Qingwazi had put it that way, Zhang Jiexia thought for a moment and said, "Well, you decide for yourself. If it doesn't work out, stopping here is fine too. You're an educated man now..."
She had meant to comfort him, without piling on pressure or forcing anything on him.
Yet as she went on, Zhang Jiexia's face suddenly brightened, her eyes gleaming as she continued, "How about you just stay home, take a wife, have a baby, and get on with life?!"
Her tone rose on the last words, brimming with eagerness and anticipation.
Over the past two or three years, quite a few lads around Han Qingyu's age in the village had quietly gotten married, and their toddlers were already running around.
His mother had actually been harboring this thought for a while. Han Qingyu knew it, and he looked up with a helpless smile.
Zhang Jiexia's enthusiasm had been sparked.
"Honestly, Wanfen's mother over in Shanglong Village has taken a liking to you for ages. She's dropped hints to me more than a few times, open and subtle. Why don't we—" Once she started, words poured out like a string of firecrackers, threatening to become unstoppable.
"Wanfen's mother? How could that ever work?!" Han Qingyu cut in hastily.
His mother asked, "Why wouldn't it?"
"Well... Wanfen's dad is still alive and kicking, and I haven't heard of them getting a divorce over anything. Besides, Wanfen and I were elementary school classmates. Having her call me 'Dad' from now on would be downright improper, wouldn't it?"
Han Qingyu grinned with a thoroughly punchable expression.
"Huh?" Zhang Jiexia paused, and when it finally dawned on her, she scolded in exasperation, "You little brat, nothing but nonsense coming out of your mouth..."
Her scolding melted into a fond laugh. "Fine, fine. If you can still crack jokes, your father and I can put our minds at ease... We were worried sick that you wouldn't be able to get past it these last couple of days."
Truth be told, they had been worried sick the entire time, keeping it bottled up only because they feared adding to their son's burden.
"Come to think of it, I almost forgot—your granduncle is throwing a feast today."
"And tomorrow, your cousin's going on another blind date with the matchmaker; the last one didn't pan out."
"..."
Relieved, Zhang Jiexia began chattering about relatives, neighbors, and everyday gossip, drifting further and further afield as her voice rose and fell across the courtyard.
After quite a while, his father, Han Youshan, who had been sitting quietly weaving a bamboo basket, finally looked up. He glanced first at his wife, then at his son, and ventured cautiously:
"If not that, why don't we see what strings we can pull to send Qingzi to join the army? That's a good path too."
So he hadn't been silent for nothing; he had been mulling this over the whole time.
Joining the army was certainly a great option in those years. There were no wars to fight, and if things went well, a veteran could secure a public-sector job upon discharge. With even better luck, one might earn a promotion within the ranks, enter a military academy, and become an officer.
Han Youshan's suggestion lifted the spirits of all three of them in the courtyard.
"Oh, wouldn't that be wonderful? Yes, this is good!" Zhang Jiexia grew excited. Dropping the half-wrung garment in her hands, she wiped them on her apron and headed toward the house. "We've got to hurry. I'll go wrap up those two bottles of liquor we saved. Old Han, you hurry over to the village chief's house and ask him if there's still time..."
She paused abruptly mid-sentence, her footsteps halting.
Her face fell just as swiftly. Turning back around, she let out a sigh. "Forget it, what was I thinking? In our village, if there really is a quota, the village chief's son, Jiasheng, is just the right age too. He's probably been waiting for it... How would our Qingzi ever get a shot at it?"
"That... is true. I didn't think of that just now," Han Youshan murmured, his spirits sinking in turn.
"Don't worry about it." Hiding his own disappointment, Han Qingyu looked up with a relaxed smile. "It works out, since I want some time to think things through anyway. Don't worry, there's always a way forward."
"Right."
"Yeah."
With another door closing before their son, Han Youshan and Zhang Jiexia lapsed into silence.
The atmosphere in the courtyard grew somber.
"Right." His mother was the one to break the silence at last. "Your granduncle's having a banquet tonight. Are you going, Qingzi?" Pausing, she added, "If you don't feel like going, I can make you dinner first."
Fenglong'ao was only so big; for a banquet, more than half the village would show up. Zhang Jiexia added the last bit because she worried that if her son went, everyone would ask whether he had passed the exams, and he would lose face and feel miserable.
"Of course I'm going," Han Qingyu said, standing up with a bright smile. Meeting his parents' worried gazes, he explained, "Everyone's bound to ask sooner or later anyway, so why cheat my stomach out of good food?"
He said it playfully, coaxing a chuckle out of his parents.
In truth, he was being honest. In the Fenglong'ao of 1990, a banquet was a rare chance for a rich, hearty meal—a grand occasion.
...
For a celebratory feast in the countryside, while the spread was never lavish, there had to be at least two kinds of meat—chicken, duck, fish, or pork—just for appearances, alongside plenty of cigarettes and liquor.
The feast lasted until past eight that night before finally wrapping up.
Even then, people did not disperse right away. Tipsy and with greasy lips, many of the neighbors and relatives lingered, gathered around the threshing ground not far from the host's house, smoking and chatting.
"I'd say if Qingwazi had passed this time, we'd be having another feast, wouldn't we? What a shame," someone muttered while picking his teeth, tinged with regret.
In those days, few families in the village were willing to support a child all the way through high school. Counting last year and this year, Han Qingyu was the only kid in the entire village to have made it to the gaokao.
"Yeah, well... he just fell short," Han Youshan answered on his son's behalf.
In fact, Han Qingyu was there too, sitting quietly in a corner of the crowd. He felt exhausted; throughout the evening, people who had business asking and people who had none had all asked about the gaokao once.
To tell the truth, facing it in person was genuinely unpleasant.
With things like this, to say nothing of malicious mockery or sarcasm, even well-meaning concern and comfort only weighed more heavily on a person's chest the more they heard it.
He looked calm on the outside, but underneath, the frustration weighed heavily on him.
"All that tuition and nourishment, year after year... You raised so many chickens at home, and I hear you didn't sell a single egg all these years, right? Adding it all up... what a real waste," the man sighed again.
"A few eggs were meant to nourish the boy while he grew. What are you bringing that up for?!" Han Youshan snapped, visibly displeased. Taking a drag of his cigarette, he said, "Besides, knowledge stays with a person once it's learned. It'll always come in handy."
"Isn't that right? Look at our Qingwazi—his height, his looks, he's grown into a fine young man. And he's educated, too. At least when it comes to finding a wife or paying a bride price, there's nothing to worry about. Plenty of families would jump at the chance." An elder uncle chimed in to support them, laughing twice in an effort to steer the conversation away.
Yet before he could do so, another topic bubbled up from the crowd. Someone let out a heavy sigh and remarked, "Alas, when all is said and done, Fenglong'ao still hasn't produced its first college student."
"Isn't that the truth? Our village ravine has been here for at least two hundred years, right? I heard it was the same even back when things flourished—not even a single xiucai scholar ever came out of here. It really is strange." The speaker turned and pointed toward the rolling mountain ridges not far away, grumbling, "With such good feng shui in our village, too."
At those words, several people nodded in agreement.
"Yes, indeed."
"True enough."
Talk of the village enjoying good feng shui went back to ancient times; otherwise, they never would have included the character for "dragon" in its name.
From his corner, Han Qingyu looked up along with everyone else. Truth be told, the mountain ridges surrounding the village in the distance really did look somewhat like a slumbering dragon winding across the night.
Then again, if one looked hard enough, how many continuous mountain ranges in the world couldn't be made to look like a crouching dragon?
"You youngsters probably don't know about this," an elder of the village said, drawing on his pipe as he reminisced. "Years ago, when I was only in my teens, a passing blind fortune-teller said it... He said this place of ours could never produce a great figure."
A wave of surprised questions rippled through the crowd: "Why?"
The old man pointed toward the distant mountains. "Because our dragon is sealed. That blind seer said back then: 'Look at the mountain and ask the name—you are Fenglong'ao, the Dragon-Sealing Ravine. If it can seal even a dragon, won't it easily trap a few small fry trying to leap up?'"
"Huh?... That actually makes sense."
Suddenly, the logic seemed clear. Many people found themselves in deep agreement, sighing and grumbling. It seemed that even Han Qingyu's two consecutive failures in the college entrance examination now had a perfectly reasonable explanation.
All at once, there were more people looking around the crowd to comfort him.
Again? Han Qingyu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Naturally, he put no faith in such superstition; seeing which way the wind was blowing, he slipped away quietly from the corner and left the threshing ground on his own.
...
After he left, back on the threshing ground:
"Dad! Dad! The TV just made a loud buzzing noise, and now it's all static snow... We can't even watch Channel 1 anymore!"
A bunch of kids who had been watching television inside the host's house ran out, one of them shouting at the adults on the ground.
In those days, unstable television signals were an everyday occurrence. The adults were in the middle of a lively conversation, so one waved an impatient hand. "Give it a gentle slap and adjust the antenna yourselves... I don't have time to mess with it for you."
With that, he dismissed the children.
Around the same time, someone tilted their head back, looking up at the moon, and cried out in exaggerated surprise, "Hey, what in the world is that? Look quick... right under the moon, that black thing—what is that?"
At the call, everyone looked up.
Beneath the half-moon of the summer night, there indeed was a dark silhouette. It seemed to move, but it was indistinct, and it vanished quickly into the dark night sky.
"Probably some big bird flying past."
"Can't be a plane anyway; planes have lights underneath that flash."
"Just an eagle or hawk or something. Not like we've never seen one."
So the people said.