It seemed that the dead bodies lying in the grass outnumbered those who walked haltingly in a group. Fresh corpses outnumbered the skeletons and those that were in various stages of decomposition.

  The small groups had merged into a large company of men. If one member failed to stand up when the group rose from resting, friend or no friend, his companions would harden their hearts and abandon him. But if he had firewood or food, he would not be left behind.

  Liu Mingji had managed to free himself of Nozawa. At first Nozawa begged Mingji to speak with him, but he ignored him. Finally Nozawa ended up talking to himself, as did Mingji. Mingji’s hatred for Nozawa never really disappeared, but it was later replaced—perhaps as a result of habit more than anything else—by an inexplicable feeling of concern for him. One day Mingji dozed off during the heat of the day, and when he awoke, Nozawa was gone. He became quite anxious and almost panic-stricken.

  Nozawa reappeared shortly. Mingji was angered by his feelings for a long time, but that would change. As usual, they foraged for edible herbs. That night Nozawa was groaning, but everyone was accustomed to such groaning and paid it no mind. Nozawa seemed to have found a lot to eat and devoured it by himself, and now his stomach was so swollen he could scarcely bear it.

  Nozawa was unable to get up the next morning.

  Mingji scrutinized him. He was satisfied to see that Nozawa had fallen before he did, that he would probably outlive him. Nozawa’s face was red and swollen. He was unconscious. Mingji turned and walked away.

  “Don’t go!” said Nozawa, opening his eyes. He reached out and seized Mingji by the leg.

  Mingji tried to shake him off violently with a kick.

  “Animal!” Mingji picked up a stick and struck Nozawa’s arm. The blow was sufficiently heavy to leave Nozawa lying there panting with exhaustion.

  “Don’t leave me, Mingji,” said Nozawa.

  Mingji started to walk away.

  “Mingji, save me,” said Nozawa, struggling after him. Nozawa was actually speaking to Mingji in their native dialect. “Mingji, just look at me, and I’ll be saved!”

  Mingji heaved a sigh and turned to look at Nozawa. He seemed to do so against his will or better judgment. Nozawa Saburo—Huang Huosheng, as he was known in Chinese—was standing about twenty yards away. He looked terrible: his hair was standing on end, his face was red and swollen, and his nose and mouth were smeared with dried blood. His shirt was torn and he was losing his pants. His legs were bent slightly at the knees and he leaned forward, hands stretched out in a beseeching gesture.

  “Mingji!” He fell to his knees, back bent, his hands still outstretched.

  Mingji closed his eyes and turned away.

  “Mingji! I’m dying. I’m afraid. Stay with me until I’m gone. Take my nails and hair home.”

  Mingji glared at him as if he were a monster.

  “Won’t you do that for me, brother?” Nozawa had actually addressed him as “brother.”

  “We are not close enough for you to call me brother,” replied Mingji in Japanese.

  “Call me Huang, Huang Huosheng.”

  “No, you are no longer Huang Huosheng; you are a Japanese soldier.”

  Nozawa seemed to faint from his exertions. When he recovered somewhat, he saw Mingji standing nearby. Perhaps his efforts had increased his blood flow, and his body was able to rid itself of some of the poison. Perhaps his fear of death overcame the poison. Nozawa did not die.

  Nozawa regained consciousness a couple of days later, and he saw Mingji cooking something.

  “Thank you, brother Mingji.”

  “Don’t call me brother, I don’t want to hear it!” Mingji warned him. “We will never be on those terms.”

  “What did you say?” Nozawa looked at him in astonishment.

  “I said we’ll never be on those terms,” said Mingji, shaking his fist.

  “What? I can’t hear you. All I can see is your lips moving.”

  “You’ve lost your hearing?” asked Mingji, bounding over to him.

  “What? My ears are buzzing.”

  “Hell, the fever must had damaged your ears,” shouted Mingji.

  “My ears, damaged?” said Nozawa, looking bewildered.

  When Mingji shouted into his ears, Nozawa could barely hear what he said. Within a few days, he was stone deaf.

  Mingji felt guilty, and somewhat responsible. Now that he was deaf, Nozawa was grateful for but anxious about having Mingji’s help. He was more self-abasing and less assertive. He seemed to fawn over Mingji, making him feel very much ill at ease. Mingji’s feelings were very confused. He decided he would look out for Nozawa—not something he wanted to do, but something he couldn’t refuse.

  They walked slowly, hoping to be overtaken by a group of men, but for days on end they saw not a single living soul.

  Mingji marveled at the strangeness of the human heart and the capriciousness of fate. He wondered what road his own life and fate would take in the future, if he had one. There was a time when ideas such as a man’s “heart,” “life,” and “fate” were all abstractions spoken of by his teachers or found only in books. Now they had become a palpable reality for him.

  There was no point in being surprised, angry, or annoyed with one’s fate. A person had to submit. Mingji realized that he had been wrong to think that fate was something one could choose to accept or like or dislike. A person was identical with his or her fate. Recognizing this, Mingji saw that he had to follow the narrow, steep path of his fate, neither hurrying nor lingering.

  Mingji was hungry, but his speculations took his mind off his empty belly. A new strength was born from his weakness. Suddenly the barriers and dangers before him seemed less intimidating and easily surmountable. His resolve to go on living was strengthened as well. Every step he took meant that he was one step nearer to Taiwan, his homeland. Thousands of miles might lie between him and home, but it was just a distance made up of so many steps.

  “Look over there,” said Nozawa, patting Mingji on the shoulder. Mingji at first doubted his own eyes; he rubbed them and took a few steps to get a better look. About thirty yards away were what appeared to be apes like those in a zoo. They were short and hairy but wore loincloths. They were in fact men. Mingji looked around. Save for bleached bones and a few rotting corpses, they were alone on the plain with these strange men. Mingji suspected that they were cannibals—he had heard that they existed. His hair stood on end.

  The men, who were very scrawny, were coming toward them, swords and knives in hand. They approached cautiously, in measured steps.

  “Where are you going?” they asked in halting Japanese.

  “We’re trying to get away,” replied Mingji. “And you?”

  “Are you Japanese?” they asked, smiling.

  “Taiwanese. We are from Taiwan.”

  “So are we.”

  The emaciated men seemed elated, and gathered around them.

  “Where are you coming from? What part of Taiwan are you from?” they asked in Taiwanese.

  “We’re coming from Manila. We’re trying to get away,” said Mingji, struggling to speak Taiwanese. “We are Hakka from Xinzhu,” he said in Japanese.

  “You’re Hakka?” ventured the smallest member of the group. “So am I. I’m from Nantou.”

  Mingji had so many things he wanted to ask them, but he didn’t know where to start. They told him many things he didn’t know. They informed him that northern Luzon had long been occupied by the Americans, and according to the propaganda leaflets and broadcasts, the entire island had been liberated on July 4. The Allies had also issued the Potsdam Declaration laying down unconditional terms for Japan’s surrender.

  “Has Japan surrendered?” asked Mingji.

  “Probably not.”

  “What is today’s date?”

  “Who knows? Probably early August.”

  “Why are you heading south?”

  The plains on the west side of the Cagayan River were full of fleeing Japanese. Mingji decided to join the wild men and head south. They objected, saying that the larger the group, the easier the target they became for the Americans. They thought it better to move in twos and threes and rely on their luck to evade capture.

  “Then you don’t think you will be captured if you go south?” asked Mingji.

  “If we don’t go south, we’ll all be killed by the Americans, who’ll be here in another day.”

  “Are they killing everyone on sight?”

  “We don’t know, but why take chances? We haven’t run into anyone who has escaped the Americans.”

  Death seemed a foregone conclusion; it was just a matter of sooner or later. They divided into several small groups and started south along the highway. They had no clear destination in mind.

  They had no matches left for starting cook fires, and they had been low on salt for a long time. Their health was declining: their vision was blurred and their legs were swollen, as were their faces. If they were overtaken by the enemy, there would be no escape.

  The Americans were actually already ahead of them, and the men were playing a game of cat-and-mouse with them. Sometimes they got ahead, other times they fell behind. They hid in high grass and fallen leaves to avoid capture. They often heard gunshots and the screams of the man who had been shot.

  After a few days, they decided against going south and headed southwest across the plains to the mountains. Mingji and Nozawa had spent a long time in the mountains and warned the others not to go there. But their advice was not heeded.

  “We would rather die in the mountains or be eaten by wild animals than surrender to the enemy.”

  Mingji had no strength to argue.

  “It would be too humiliating for us as members of the Japanese army to surrender.”

  Mingji was silent and closed his eyes. He could hardly bear the sight of these men who scarcely looked human. They were all young men in their twenties, but having lost so much weight, they looked more like fifteen-year-old boys. What a pitiful state of affairs—even at that point, they clung to the idea of being soldiers in the Japanese army. How far the poison had gone! They were to be pitied, these children of Taiwan.

  Suddenly they heard the sound of an approaching engine.

  “Scatter! Hide!”

  The car came to a halt, and several men stepped out and walked in their direction. Mingji lifted his head to have a look. They were enemy soldiers, tall and vigorous, and fully armed. It was the first time he had ever seen the enemy. He began to tremble.

  “Listen! All Japanese soldiers surrender! Your lives will be spared. You are surrounded. Surrender is the only way to save yourselves. Otherwise, you will be killed.”

  Surrender was being forced upon them: under the enemy guns they would be pursued till exhaustion and death. That was the enemy’s plan. There would be no need to shoot them; they would be run to the ground and die of exhaustion. But all Mingji could think of was flight. If there was just one minute to flee, that would still be one minute of life. He had to seize his opportunity and escape. Only by escaping could he hope to stay alive.

  The five of them took off in different directions, sometimes crossing paths but always acting on their own, except for Nozawa, who stuck close to Mingji. Eventually, they could no longer hear the car and the broadcast demanding that they surrender. The shadow of the enemy had vanished.

  On August 7, 1945, the newspapers in Taiwan printed a brief notice that the Americans had dropped a new kind of bomb on Hiroshima the day before, and that there were apparently seven hundred thousand casualties. On August 8, no newspapers were printed. The people of Taiwan knew that earth-shaking events were taking place. Everywhere, people talked quietly. Opinions were rife, and everybody wondered what was happening.

  Dengmei fainted one day and ended up in bed for two weeks. She didn’t look sick but was probably weak due to lack of food. But suddenly she seemed to recover and actually looked quite healthy.

  The ration system for rice and pork was now operating in name only. People often waited in line for half the day only to be told there were delays in the delivery of supplies. Strangely, though, the black market was flourishing.

  On August 16, Mingqing got up before it was light and set off for Great Lake Village. He planned to buy some pork on the black market to make a gruel of pork stock and asparagus for his mother. She had steadfastly refused to eat meat after she recovered without resorting to taking medicine. He had to do something, because her weakness was obviously due to poor nutrition.

  For some reason, the roads were unusually crowded. Hardly had he set out than he ran into a large group of people from Little and Big Southside in front of the temple. By the time he reached Garrison Camp and Long Hole, there were even more people. Everyone was talking in hushed tones.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We’re going to Great Lake. What about you?”

  “I’m going to town too. By why so many people today?”

  “I’m going to buy some pork on the black market.”

  “Me too!”

  Mingqing was dumbfounded. Something must be wrong. Did they all share some secret that only he was ignorant of? He decided to ask someone he knew.

  “Brother Akui, what’s going on today?”

  “Haven’t you heard in Fanzai Wood? The news has been all over Little Southside.”

  “Heard what?”

  “That the Japanese are finished,” he said in a low voice.

  “Finished?” Mingqing’s heart leaped at the news.

  “They surrendered, unconditionally,” said Akui, looking around nervously.

  “Really? Is it true?” asked Mingqing, seizing Akui by the hand.

  “Keep it down! I’ve just heard rumors.”

  The Taiwanese were to be pitied. Even at such a moment, they still had to be nervous and not speak loudly.

  “Your family has always been against the Japanese. Especially Ahan, your father. It’s a pity the old guy isn’t here,” said Akui, full of respect and regret.

  “Then it is true?”

  “It has to be. We’ll find out when we get to Great Lake.”

  Mingqing stepped up his pace until he was nearly running. He was thinking of his father and wiping his tears away. They were the tears of an old man. He felt exhilarated and let his tears flow without a thought as to what others might think.

  Great Lake lay before him. There was the public school—the rising sun flag had not been raised. Farther on was the middle school for the Japanese—no flag there either. The rumors must be true. The Shinto shrine, which was usually busy by now, was empty. The houses of the Japanese were shut tight, with not a soul to be seen—and the Japanese were the ones who always had their houses open for the fresh air.

  Mingqing was certain that the rumors were true. Arriving on the main street through town, he saw that people were thronging around the Taiwanese shops, which were open. They weren’t buying anything, just standing around and talking. They seemed worried about something and spoke in hushed tones.

  There was no one in front of the Rural Affairs Office; it was shut tight. There were no flags on the flagpoles along the street either. The rumors had to be true.

  “Excuse me, then it’s true?” asked Mingqing of a stranger standing nearby.

  “It’s true,” said the man rather warily. “Someone said they heard a broadcast, but there has been no official word here.”

  “Who will make it official?”

  “They’ll have to make it official, but until then, we’ll have to keep our happiness to ourselves.”

  Mingqing’s heart leaped, but he also felt bitter. He decided that once he had delivered the news to Fanzai Wood, he would go to Miaoli and then to Taipei. No, he would go to Taichung and get in touch with his friends there. He had to confirm the facts. He suddenly thought of fireworks. The shops didn’t stock them, but he had to get some to celebrate with. In the end he managed to get hold of the raw materials for making firecrackers.

  The sun was rising higher, but the streets were still quiet. Mingqing, with a parcel under his arm, entered the square in front of the Rural Affairs Office. It was the place from which his youngest brother Mingji and his own son Jiansheng had been joyfully seen off. He smiled to himself as he thought of his brother and son, but he smiled through his tears. What a state of affairs. They didn’t dare laugh or express their joy. He wanted to hug someone, to shout, to laugh aloud, even weep. But he couldn’t, so he set off for Fanzai Wood.

  At that moment he saw someone walking toward him down the middle of the street. He seemed to be walking as if in some sort of ritual procession. He was a middle-aged gentleman, fair-skinned and somewhat portly, dressed in a traditional Chinese gown of bright blue silk with a black satin waistcoat. On his head he wore a small black skullcap topped by a red ball. He was wearing the kind of boots one saw opera actors wear. He was waving a fan, and his left hand was placed on his hip. He appeared calm and his steps were unhurried.

  Many people in the shops stopped talking or whatever they were doing and seemed to respectfully stand at attention. Some of the women began to whisper.

  “Isn’t that Umemoto Kazuo?”

  “That’s Xie Tiansong’s son Xie Tianxing.”

  “What do you mean Xie? His name is Umemoto!”

  “That is Umemoto, the head of the Great Lake Committee for Japanization.”

  “What is he up to?”

  “What a strange get-up.”

  “Is that some sort of ancient Japanese ritual dress?”

  “Don’t know. Never seen it before.”

  “No, it’s Chinese. My grandfather has clothes like that, which we keep hidden in the bottom of a trunk.”

  “You’re just bragging. How could your family have clothes like that?”

  “It looks like the costumes in the opera.”

  Mingqing felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to vomit. He wondered if he had the sha syndrome. He looked away from Umemoto, stepped into the shade in front of a shop, then shortly left for Fanzai Wood.