孝顺一节

Mei Li had no shortage of suitors. This, of course, should be expected since she met, and even exceeded, all conceivable beauty standards in China.

Hers was an absolutely striking appearance. She looked just like a model in a makeup ad, with her sky-high cheekbones, almond-shaped face and super-slim figure, her tallish stature ... Standing 168 centimeters she was an ideal height- leggy but not too tall to intimidate men...

Moreover, she had Asia’s most prized complexion: that smooth, glowing, naturally fair skin; skin the color of alabastrine jadestone. The type of effervescence so many Asian women attempt to attain through lightening lotions, skin bleaching, and even expensive surgeries.

In addition, to complement her picture-perfect complexion, she’d been blessed with big upcurved eyes, an hourglass figure, and perky breasts ... All and all, as she entered her twenties, she’d grown into a knockout. A perfect 10. And men were taking notice...

After graduating from university, she took a job as a receptionist at a luxury car dealership. It was there that she was met with a long line of gentleman callers. Some came bearing gifts, while others made comical, bumbling efforts at courtship, stuttering out treacly words, and a few were downright creepy.

She wondered and worried if all men were like this. If they were all these slobbering, awkward buffoons. Lecherous sex pests. And she ruminated on why men in real life were so unlike the dashing, sensitive, handsome men she’d see in soap operas. Lamenting the current state of men in China had her feeling listless, and she dreaded that she’d never find Mr. Right.

Until he came along...

Ji Qiang. Just seeing him that sunny spring morning, how confidently he strolled into the dealership ... He was confident but without any stirring of truculence. And there was an acuity in his eyes, an assertiveness in which he spoke that struck a chord in her as she watched him, furtively, from across the room...

Just seeing him that March morning felt like a scene from a romantic movie.

It was love at first sight.

What’s more, once he approached her, he’d stared straight into her eyes as they spoke. Unlike so many other men who’d talk directly to her legs or breasts.

Not only was he a gentleman, but they’d hit it off as they chatted, forming an instant chemistry. There was a warmth to his gaze, as if his eyes were two balls of sunshine tingling over her. So, of course, when he requested her WeChat she acceded, wasting no time swiping open her phone and handing it to him almost like a waiter in a fancy restaurant.

That afternoon and night they began chatting. And they never stopped.

Ji Qiang was her dream man. Her knight-in-shining-armor. He was kind, polite, handsome and tall, at 185 centimeters, and he had a high-paying job, drove an Audi, and owned a sprawling, sunny high-rise apartment overlooking the Pearl River.

Once they began dating he proved himself to be sensitive and romantic, too, surprising her with flowers, sweet text messages, and other little gifts.

Ji Qiang’s only drawback: his mother, Xuan Leng.

Upon first meeting his mother, for a late lunch at a dim sum restaurant, Mei Li’s knees buckled. There seemed to be a terrifying vacuity to the woman. She was there but not there, an uncertain coldness, an absence written in her eyes. Something like the thousand-yard-stare soldiers have after war.

But there was also an intangible, peculiarly sinister element to the lady’s mien. Hers was a face stiff with mistrust and was so haggardly that she reminded Mei Li of an evil witch in a fantasy movie ... Especially disturbing was the woman’s narrow, jutting jawline that protruded unnaturally long ... Her face practically all jaw...

What’s more, she was frighteningly small and emaciated, with deep wrinkles cutting into every fold of her sharp, horrible face.

Ji Qiang had said she was 64, but Mei Li thought she appeared to be around 80 years old.

The lady’s phantom-like appearance was simply chilling. And it matched her personality.

Ji Qiang’s mother was unmistakably gruff. As she spoke, her hideous jaw barely moved and her voice was sullen and flat, her feral eyes staying fixed to her small bowl of steamed rice. She asked Mei Li no questions, aside from querying her family’s occupations, heritage, if she was Han. That was it. The rest of their initial meeting, that lunch, as Ji Qiang and Mei Li chit-chatted and played on their phones, snapped pics of the steamed buns and spring rolls, Xuan Leng sat in a stacked silence, staring either at her plate or lifting her eyes to blankly gaze at walls.

孝顺二节

After Ji Qiang sent his mother home, via private car and driver, he and Mei Li spoke as they promenaded, arm in arm, by the blue-gray river. The early evening scene was already bustling, awash in savory scents from a row of streetside hawkers clanking on fiery woks, and the whole walking street was slowly becoming abuzz in an eclectic orchestra of sounds – children laughing, buskers playing music, banter between friends...

Sipping sweet green bubble tea, Ji Qiang spoke of how his mother had been bereft since his father died. Ji Qiang saying that his father was the only person he’d ever seen make his mother smile.

A lot of his mother’s iciness was due to her upbringing, too, Ji Qiang confided. Her father, Ji Qiang’s grandfather, a well-respected academic and lecturer at a prominent university in Guangdong, had been purged during the Cultural Revolution, branded a Rightist.

Like many other teachers, professors, academics, Ji Qiang’s grandfather had been targeted for a denunciation rally, a struggle session, and was assailed by a contingent of Red Guards. They’d stormed into one of his lectures, riled up his students and then seized him, dragged him from his classroom.

Fists and kicks rained from all directions as he was led through the halls of the university. Garbage was thrown at him. He was spit on. He was then made to wear a dunce cap and stand in the school’s courtyard. An angry mob of youths, many merely schoolchildren, encircled him and proceeded to pelt him with various objects.

Worse yet, on that dreary day, Xuan Leng, as a five-year-old girl, was visited at her house by the Red Guards. They then brought the child to the university. There, she witnessed the crowds jeering her father, cursing him. Then she’d been forced to denounce him too.

She’d been made, by a wild-eyed leader of the Red Guard, to stand in front of the shouting mob, point at her own father and concur that he was a Rightist and a Counter-Revolutionary.

Her father, standing with his back bent, like a withered tree, kept his eyes pointed at the ground throughout the entirety of the ordeal. His face stretched into a sad, exhausted expression. And he’d kept that same defeated look, wore that same mask of anguish for the rest of his life.

Xuan Leng’s father was deracinated, removed from his position at the university, and was sent, along with Mei Li, her older sister, and their mother to a remote, impoverished village in the Gansu countryside.