“Good is always rewarded and evil punished. You know that someday there will be retribution?”

  “Crap!” Ye lunged again.

  Peng Aqiang again dodged Ye’s thrust. This time, the worker with a metal bar stepped forward to lend a hand, but Ye Atian waved him away, saying that he would personally cut the bandit down.

  Ye’s knife just missed Peng Aqiang’s belly. His head swam and he felt queasy. He thought perhaps he had been wounded, but realized he hadn’t eaten anything all morning. He thought how good it would be to eat a potato to fill his stomach. But his potato fields were going to be snatched away from him by the thief in front of him. The pale, scrawny thief in front of him.

  “I’m going to chop you down, you bandit!”

  Peng Aqiang again dodged Ye’s knife. He then leaped and seized Ye’s thin shoulders in his strong arms. He sunk his teeth into Ye’s neck. Ye screamed.

  Ye fell from his arms. Peng too fell to the ground. He and Ye rolled down the slope to the edge of the dry paddy field.

  Ye’s men were shouting to kill Peng Aqiang but dared not move for fear of injuring their master.

  They rolled down the slope; soon Ye had grown limp. Peng Aqiang’s face was covered with blood. It was quiet, like in the middle of the night. Peng Aqiang slowly raised his head and stood up.

  Someone was wailing loudly; it was a shrill, monotonous sound. Suddenly he was surrounded by reddish shadows. He wiped his face, but smeared more blood in his eyes. He realized that he was covered in fresh blood. Then his mind started to clear.

  The men surrounding him were part of Ye’s escort. He saw a glimmering knife on the ground beside him. He reached down and picked it up, his body aching all over. The men surrounding him began to step back.

  “Father!” yelled someone running toward him.

  “Stay where you are!” He waved his knife. “Don’t come any nearer.”

  He suddenly heard a familiar voice. “Master Ye is dead!”

  “His throat has been torn to pieces!”

  Peng Aqiang smiled and walked slowly toward the temple, but blocking his way were a row of armed men. His mind was clear now and he understood what he had done. He was afraid, disturbed. He felt cold, oh so cold. He had no choice but to step back. As he did so, the armed men advanced. He retreated along the path to Great Lake.

  “Catch him! Don’t let the murderer escape!”

  But not one of them dared to advance farther than the others. When Peng Aqiang brandished his knife and ran at them, they scattered in confusion. But as soon as he showed signs of weakness, they swarmed toward him. They kept pushing him in the direction of Great Lake. More and more people gathered around. He was growing more confused but he knew that he couldn’t let the thieves do anything or let the Japanese seize him. Again he brandished his knife and charged them. He threw his knife at them and fled off through the bushes.

  “After him! Don’t let him get away!”

  “Kill him!”

  Peng Aqiang hid in the thick creepers that covered the moutainside so thickly that even the birds had trouble making their way. His pursuers didn’t hesitate and entered amid the creepers. The Office of Rural Affairs had already received urgent messages and the garrison had dispatched a number of soldiers to assist in the search. They were all armed with rifles and made for a fearsome sight. Night fell, but the murderer remained at large. The garrison detachment placed sentries on the paths out of the mountains and waited for daybreak to continue their search.

  It was a cruelly cold night. The villagers dared not show their faces. Renjie and Renhua lay hidden in the mountain undergrowth. They dared not hope for a thing but could not bear to abandon their aged father. It was a long, cold night. The sky was a deep blue without even a wisp of cloud. The air was still. A heavy dew fell on the vegetation and rocks by the roadside.

  Liu Ahan and Qiu Mei were also out after dark to see if they could locate the old man. Ahan had a strange feeling that he knew where the old man might turn up. He led Qiu Mei, hurrying through the night. They went swiftly in the direction of Great Lake, skillfully avoiding the sentries. They went along the mountainside, feeling their way in the faint light from the sky. Patrols were everywhere, and they were forced to take to the brush.

  “Will he be there?” asked Qiu Mei.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s where he’s headed. We have to get there and stop him.”

  “Why stop him? Do you think the courts should be allowed to do their worst?”

  It was past midnight. The frost cut like a knife and their bodies would grow stiff if they paused. They arrived at Kiln Corner and headed up the slope. The silhouettes of the many camphor trees were visible against the backdrop of the night sky. Beside the path was the huge tree, its top nearly leafless. Nothing hung from the thick branches ten feet above the ground. Ahan scrambled to the tree. Qiu Mei shook his head and followed.

  Only low weeds grew near the tree. There was nothing under it. Ahan stood there for a while in silence.

  “Here,” said Qiu Mei. He had discovered something on the other side of the tree. Ahan stepped forward and his eyes met with what he had been expecting to find. Peng Aqiang was sitting upright at the base of the tree, a rope in his hands.

  “He’s cold,” said Qiu Mei.

  It was true. Peng Aqiang’s dead body was already quite cold. He had not hanged himself but had died at the bottom of the hanging tree.

  Ahan suddenly recalled what the old man had said when he and Aling had first accompanied the Pengs past this place.

  Why did the old man have a rope?

  Had he bled to death from his wounds?

  Who knew? The old man had no way out, and perhaps he had died of natural causes. He had chosen to die there, and he had chosen how to die.

  “It’s cold,” said Ahan.

  Qiu Mei heaved a sigh and said that it was cold enough to freeze a man to death.

  “He froze to death, but we won’t,” said Ahan.

  “True, we’re not dead yet.”

  It was to be a long winter’s night, one that would go on and on, for one era of suffering had come to an end and a new era was about to begin.

  PART TWO

  •

  The Lone Lamp

  ONE

  •

  The Sound of Weeping

  Not a drop of rain had fallen since the middle of summer. The fields were cracked, the streams had long since dried up, and the earth had been baked white by the sun. The wind had swept away the withered grass and wildflowers by the roadside. The bushes at the feet of the mountains had withered and were near death. Even the great mountain forest seemed to droop and sigh.

  Just after dawn, Liu Mingji and Peng Yonghui left Fanzai Wood for Hawk’s Beak, a mottled gray rock formation that much resembled a hawk and stood high above the middle of the forest. They carried a bag of dried sweet potatoes, a bamboo container of spring water, and long-handled machetes. Hawk’s Beak was a mysterious place that most people avoided, because a number of those who went to climb it never returned. It was an old tale, but the people of Fanzai Wood preferred not to test its veracity, mainly because on more than one occasion strange noises were heard coming from the place.

  The sound of sad, broken-hearted weeping was heard there on clear evenings when the last remnants of sunlight fell across the rock, and on clear moonlit nights, and even on drizzly afternoons.

  Mingji and Yonghui were now boldly venturing there. It had been decided the day before when the old people of the village had come to say good-bye to them. Mingji was the son of Dengmei and Liu Ahan; he was twenty-five. Yonghui was the eldest grandson of Peng Renjie; he was twenty-seven. In a manner of speaking, the two young men were related.

  Being related and having been conscripted for service in the same place, they would in all likelihood both be sent to the same place in the Pacific. For this reason, their families had prepared a farewell banquet for them. In those days, everything was in short supply, so each member of both families contributed something, a pot of hoarded rice or a chicken. They were able to put together a feast for an afternoon of talk, which was the best kind of send-off.

  “That ghostly weeping on the rock has been clearer than ever recently,” said Jiansheng, Mingji’s nephew.

  “I’ve heard it frequently, too,” added Yonghui.

  “What’s so strange about it?” said Mingji, unmoved.

  “Did you say the sound of weeping?” asked Mingsen, Mingji’s brother. Mingsen, who usually stayed in his room, had crept out and stood giggling behind his brother.

  Mingji stood up. He and his brother Mingcheng pushed Mingsen back into his room. Then they all fell silent.

  “Mingji, what do you really think of that weeping?” continued Yonghui.

  “Pure imagination,” said Mingji. “I don’t believe it.” He looked depressed. Clearly, Mingsen’s appearance made any cheerfulness on his part impossible.

  “Have you ever heard it?”

  “Often. So what?”

  “The strange thing is that when I hear it, other people don’t, and when other people hear it, I don’t.”

  “That’s why I say it’s pure imagination.”

  “Imagination? That doesn’t explain anything. Do you think everyone in Fanzai Wood has an overactive imagination?”

  “Most likely,” said Mingji dryly.

  “I’ve heard it every night for the last two or three days,” said Yonghui as if talking to himself. “It was very clear. I heard it starting around midnight and then all the way till cockcrow.”

  “Then you didn’t sleep all night?”

  “Of course he didn’t. How could a loving couple like him and his wife sleep?” said Jiansheng.

  Yonghui pretended not to hear. He looked at Mingji as if to say something else. At that point, he really wasn’t thinking of his wife or month-old daughter.

  “Mingji, let’s go to Hawk’s Beak. Do you dare?”

  “Why not?”

  “Before we leave Taiwan, let’s go and have a look.”

  “Don’t go. You won’t come back.”

  “In any case, what do we have to fear?”

  So it was decided. After eating, Mingji told his mother of his intention. Dengmei looked at him for a long time with her tired old eyes. He could see that she was holding back her tears, but he let his own fall. He knelt down like a small child, looking up at his mother. He laid his head on her lap and she caressed it. He was her youngest son. He had been born when his mother was forty-six. His father, Ahan, who had spent his entire life fighting the Japanese, died shortly after being released from prison, when Mingji was eleven.

  Compared to his four brothers and two sisters, Mingji was most like his father in both appearance and character. Whenever Dengmei saw him roaring with laughter or in a fit of rage, she would fall silent, sigh deeply, and turn away.

  That evening, Yonghui told his wife about his intention of going to Hawk’s Beak.

  “You seem to be glad to get away from me and your daughter,” said Azhen softly. She did not lift her head from her sewing to look at him.

  “Don’t work in the fields. That patch of potatoes will be enough for you and the baby. All you have to do is dig them up.”

  “Don’t worry. It would have been better if we had had a boy.”

  That night, Yonghui and his wife talked the same way they had the night Yonghui received his conscription notice. To lessen the overwhelming misery they felt, they tried to hide their pain by talking about the small pleasures of the past and their hopes for the future.

  Leaving Fanzai Wood, they passed the temple of the Earth God. Yonghui wanted to say a prayer for their safety. Mingji agreed with a smile. Mingji was the only person in Fanzai Wood who had received a higher education: he had a diploma from a technical college night school. He no longer believed much in the gods and spirits, except for the spirits of his ancestors, the Earth God, and the Righteous Lords.

  After a prayer, Mingji followed right on Yonghui’s heels. Both were accustomed to the slopes and took long strides as they chatted. Suddenly a flock of Fanzai birds rose from the grass, circled around them, and, twittering, disappeared into the forest.

  “I wonder if there are Fanzai birds elsewhere in the Pacific?” asked Mingji.

  “Who gives a damn what kind of birds there are in the Pacific?” said Yonghui in a sudden burst of anger. His wife’s pale cheeks and his daughter’s rosy softness flashed through his mind, but their faces remained vague.

  Yonghui had been conscripted into the Taiwan Youth Labor Corps, which was probably the same as the Southern Peasant Volunteers, which had conscripted Mingji’s brother Mingsen.

  Mingsen, who was thirty-four years old, had been sent to the South Pacific at the beginning of the previous year. On the tenth of September of this year, he had been brought home by a man from the Rural Affairs Office. He was emaciated, and his skin was dry, cracked, and darkened by the sun. He scarcely looked human. It was hard to imagine that he had once been a burly young man. After a month’s convalescence, his health returned, but he seemed to have lost his wits for good. Sometimes he flew into a tantrum like a child; at other times he laughed insanely.

  How wonderful it would be to have his conscription rescinded. Yonghui began daydreaming that the war had ended and that the Japanese army had won or been defeated. He wondered why he thought of such things. Suddenly his mind turned to more serious matters: What if he were to become blind in one eye or break a leg? No, the authorities were on to such ploys to get out of serving, and he would probably end up being beaten to death.

  “Let’s take a rest!” This time it was Mingji who made the suggestion.

  Upon looking around, they realized that they had already reached Upper Fanzai Wood. From there, the path ascended to the King of Hell’s Ridge, and then it was another four hours to Hawk’s Beak. Before them was a plum orchard overgrown with weeds. The trees were bare and one could tell at once that it was not due to seasonal change or a lack of water but because the roots had died. They sat down in the shade under a tree beside the trail.

  Their eyes met, and they smiled and quickly shifted their gazes.

  “Mingji, how are things with you and Ahua?”

  “How should they be?”

  Ahua was the only daughter of Su Yongbao, who had moved to Great Lake from Fanzai Wood. She and Mingji had had a tacit understanding for more than two years. When the Taiwan Youth Labor Corps was recruiting in the sixth month, the Miaoli office of the National Oil Company, his employer, had volunteered him for service. When Ahua heard the news, she said that she would find a way to have the order rescinded. On July 16, the day before he was to report to the training camp at Flag Hill, he received notification that it had been rescinded.

  Surprised, he had asked Ahua how she had managed it. Ahua rather coolly informed him that she had done so with the help of friends. He pressed her further, and she evaded his questions. He couldn’t stop thinking about the matter but couldn’t say anything. He had received a second notice just five days ago. When he walked into the machine shop, the Japanese supervisor handed him a red form notifying him that he was to serve with the Airplane Factory Technicians in Manila, and that he was to report to the garrison at Kaohsiung on December 18.

  The evening he received the second notification, he told Ahua. Her face went white. She told him that she would do everything she could to have the order rescinded again.

  “Do you really have so much power?” asked Mingji.

  “I’ll do all I can,” Ahua said. Her smile had always charmed him, but now her normally sweet smile was filled with sadness and bitterness.

  Two days passed and there was still no news from Ahua. It was an official holiday, so Mingji went to see her at the Rice Distribution Center where she worked. He chanced to run into her as she was coming to Fanzai Wood. The two of them talked in the grassy area behind the temple at Great Lake.

  “No go?”

  Ahua shook her head as she choked back her sobs.

  “Don’t worry. Everybody has to go.”

  “You shouldn’t have to go. That’s what he said….” Mingji’s mind was filled with doubts and his heart ached. He too shed tears, seeing the girl he loved weeping broken-heartedly. But after they parted and he returned home, he thought about what she had said, thought about it all night long. The more he thought the more confused he felt. He finally decided that whatever happened, he was going to the South Pacific. He knew there was no point in thinking about the matter since nine out of ten who went never returned.

  Yes, better not to think of such things. He couldn’t help laughing. Ignoring Yonghui, he stood up and started up the slope.

  The path grew narrower and steeper as they climbed. Soon the King of Hell’s Ridge lay before them. The path was overgrown with tough grass that was slippery to walk on; soon they were both using their hands to climb.

  “It’s hot. I wonder if it’s this hot in the South Pacific?”

  “There you go, talking about the South Pacific again!”

  “Okay! I won’t mention the lousy South Pacific again.”

  “Let’s sing a song.”

  “Good idea. It’s been so long since I last sang that I probably sound like a duck.”

  They climbed to the top of the King of Hell’s Ridge, and before them was a level area shaded by trees. They sat down to rest, wiped their brows, and took a drink.

  Although Yonghui was a rough young man, he was a first-rate singer:

  Maple leaves dye the mountains red;

  When my love smiles, the mountains smile too.

  As the dragon boat is pushed downstream,

  Who knows when we will meet again?

  Mingji was a good singer, but he hadn’t mastered the subtle art of Hakka folk songs:

  Spring water is cool, the mountains are high;

  My love has no choice but to leave;

  When a shrimp from the stream finds itself in the southern sea,

  How long must it swim to see the hills and streams again?

  The echoes of the songs were carried on and on for a long time. Mingji’s eyes were fixed on the distance. Yonghui’s throat felt constricted and his eyes moist. Mingji thought that Yonghui was mocking him, so he glared at him with a grunt.