The Scenery of the Lake and the Mountain

by Zhou Daxin

  “Why do you ask? Do you still care for him?” Kaitian lowered his voice as he sneered. “I am treating him to a good show!”

  “What show?”

  “If you want to see it, too, you can stay. It is indeed a good show and I’m sure you’ll like it!” said Kaitian as he turned off the step light. The room fell completely dark.

  “Kuang Kaitian, Zhan Shideng did hurt us in the past. But now he is frail and you should not do anything ruthless.”

  “What? You think I’ll pinch his arm and twist his ankle? I’m not stupid! I won’t do anything illegal. I am treating him to a show, that’s all. Plus, he agreed to come here himself; he even wrote it down,” He took a look at his watch before he turned and whispered to Zhan Shideng. “Zhan Shideng, you slept with my wife and you felt so good about it. Today I’m going to show you how someone sleeps with your daughter, your precious Ruirui. Isn’t she the apple of your eyes? Isn’t she your last hope in life? Now watch!”

  Before he finished, he pulled off the curtain in front of Zhan Shideng. Nuannuan realized that the wall dividing this room and its neighbouring one was made of glass. The glass wall was covered with a black film, which turned the wall into a one-way mirror.

  Nuannuan looked at Kaitian in shock. Zhan Shideng was stunned, too. At the same time in the room next door, Zhan Shideng’s daughter Ruirui was talking to a middle-aged man under a bright light. The man gave a roll of cash to Ruirui. She took the money and put it away before she reached to undo the buttons on the top she was wearing. They could see that she was crying as she unbuttoned. The man seemed quite impatient with her speed; he eagerly stepped up to pull her top off. Zhan Shideng started making weak noises. He tried his best to twist his body in the round chair with his right hand, the only part of his body that he could move, patting on the chair to make noise. Nuannuan had realized Kuang Kaitian’s true intention. She made a wailing sound and said: “Kuang Kaitian, how can you think of such a way to torture him?! You are such a —”

  “Calm down and keep watching the show. You must see this man takes the clothes off your daughter!” said Kaitian into Zhan Shideng’s ear with a smile. “Did you take the clothes off my wife in the same style?”

  “Kuang Kaitian!” Nuannuan burst with a growl. “Do you still call yourself a human?!”

  Ruirui and the man next door seemed to have heard her shout as both of them looked at Nuannuan’s direction. However, they did not realize that they were being watched. The man suddenly stepped up and pulled the top off Ruirui. He then forced her into the bed.

  Zhan Shideng wailed and closed his eyes.

  “Why did you close your eyes? Keep watching!” said Kaitian with his sneer in front of Zhan Shideng. “When you —”

  Bang!

  Kaitian was interrupted by the noise of shattering glass. He turned his face and saw Nuannuan smashing at the glass wall with a stool. She used one arm to reach to the room next door through the hole she made when she shouted to the man who was forcing Ruirui: “You bastard! Let go of her!”

  The sudden turn of event had astonished the man and Ruirui. They both turned their heads to face her. Nuannuan opened the door and ran out. After an instant, she was in the neighbouring room with the stool that she swung to break the glass wall in her hand.

  “What … what do you want?” said the man, wearing nothing but underpants, as he stepped back in fear. “She … she consented to this. I talked about a price with her. I’ll pay her 6,000 yuan once I made sure that she is a virgin!”

  “Fuck off! You piece of shit! You think you can do anything to anyone with your money? Do you know how sick her dad is? How can you force her like this?” shouted Nuannuan as she put a coat over Ruirui to cover her. She helped her off the bed and said: “Let’s go. I will lend you the money to treat your dad …”

  Ruirui cried all the way back to Chu Di Ju as Nuannuan supported her. She spent the night in Nuannuan’s bed. She wept all night as she told Nuannuan about her father’s illness, about her helpless situation trying to get him treated, about the pain she went through to make such a decision. She told her that she had talked to the man she was engaged to about the deal of selling her body and that she had told him to find another girl … Nuannuan listened in silence. She waited for Ruirui to finish before she slowly said to her: “Ruirui, I do despise your dad. I am angry with him and I hate him. But I will lend you the money to treat him. I don’t want you to simply throw away your chance of being happy for the rest of your life. I heard that it was your own idea to be engaged with that young man and you do have feelings for him. You should not ruin those feelings for the sake of money.”

  Nuannuan did not tell her about her father being carried to Shang Xin Yuan to watch her because she knew that it would worsen her sorrow. The next morning when sending Ruirui off, Nuannuan took 6,000 yuan and put the cash in Ruirui’s hand. Ruirui dropped to her knees and burst into tears as she said: “My sister, I don’t know what happened between my family and yours, but I can feel the grudge held between our families. I have never thought that you would help me.”

  Chapter 55

  Kaitian came to Chu Di Ju the next morning during breakfast time. Nuannuan was talking about the work plan with Shallot, with Dangen in her arms, when she saw Kaitian enter. She paused for a short while and thought he was here to see Dangen. So she let the boy go. Shallot thought the same and she said to Dangen: “Dangen, look who’s here!”

  Dangen turned and saw Kaitian. He called out to his father. But the next thing he did was to return into his mother’s arms. Kaitian put on a solemn look and said to Shallot: “Can you please take Dangen somewhere else to play for a while? I want to speak with his mom in private.”

  Shallot rose and took Dangen outside.

  Nuannuan did not move. She sat and waited for him to speak. She knew he was here for what happened the night before.

  “I didn’t know that you would do that for him,” said Kaitian in a deep voice.

  “I didn’t do it for him. What I did was stopping such a ruthless act from happening,” said Nuannuan as she gazed at the wall. She did not look at Kaitian. “You must remember, whatever you do, there is something above you watching.”

  “You are talking as if he had never done any ruthless thing!”

  “But I can’t watch such things happen in front of me again! I can’t let someone do it again in front of me!”

  “I just want to know, have you grown fond of Zhan Shideng? If you have —” Kaitian spared no effort in taunting her with his sneering face.

  “Kuang Kaitian, if this is what you have to say by coming here, you must leave now! Fuck off!” Nuannuan hit the table next to her so hard that it made a loud banging noise.

  “Of course this is not what I’m here for. I just want to let you know, last night when I had people send that bastard Zhan Shideng home, he cried all the way like a sissy! Him aside, my true purpose of coming here is to warn you: you are doing no good to Shallot and Jiuding by teaching them to refuse my order of moving out of their houses and offering their land!”

  Nuannuan glared at him and said: “Stop trying to be evasive, just say what you need to say.”

  “You can give a good thought about it.” Kaitian turned and left.

  Nuannuan stood there and thought for a while. She estimated Kaitian’s intent to take their land. But after a further thought, she did not believe that anyone could tear down another’s house without consent. Even Kuang Kaitian and Xue Chuanxin would not dare. Therefore, she paid no further attention to Kaitian’s words. She decided to follow her schedule and went with Uncle Tan to the forest valley to see the burial complex of Chu citizens after breakfast.

  Chu Wang Village was five kilometers from the forest valley and the two arrived panting. Both of them were covered with sweat. Nuannuan heard the news from people in the village about the discovery of many graves of Chu, yet she did not pay much attention. She had no time to worry about what had happened thousands of years ago. She only came to
please Uncle Tan. The excavation of the ancient graves was not yet complete. A couple of archaeologists were carefully digging the earth on top of the graves. Uncle Tan started by looking at the surroundings of the burial complex with joy, then started talking with the archaeologists. They did not answer until they had heard his professional opinions. Seeing them talking in excitement, Nuannuan left to dig up wild herbs on the small hill nearby since she could not understand the academic chat.

  It was already late in the afternoon when Nuannuan and Uncle Tan started heading back. Though they had nothing but the pancakes Nuannuan made for lunch, Uncle Tan did not look tired. On the contrary, he said to Nuannuan in excitement as he walked: “The discovery of more than thirty graves of Chu citizens have supported the hypothesis that Danyang, the original capital of Chu, is exactly here. It has also proved the validity of my theory. The burial complex, the Great Wall of Chu and the ceremonial goods excavated in Chu Wang Village all serve as evidence. I am very happy …”

  Nuannuan listened to him with a smile. Though she could not understand him completely, she felt glad that the old man was happy.

  The two walked and talked on their way home. It was during sunset when they arrived at the village. Nuannuan was about to ask what the old man would like to have for dinner when she heard people quarreling inside the village. She saw people running towards Shallot’s house; the dogs, probably scared by the noise, started barking at the same time.

  “What happened?” Nuannuan paused in surprise.

  Uncle Tan seemed astonished as well. Nuannuan turned her head and said to him: “You should go back to Chu Di Ju first.” Then she started running towards Shallot’s.

  Nuannuan ran closer and saw that the houses of Shallot, Jiuding and several other families neighbouring Shang Xin Yuan had been torn down. There was no sight of Jiuding’s fish restaurant either. The home wares of different households, with pots, chairs and freshly caught fish from the Red Lake, which Jiuding used to cook, all scattered about the ground. Bricks, bags of cement and sand were already piled up in the contracted farmland of the families. Jiuding and the others were squatting close by in silence whilst Shallot was cursing in tears: “You are killing us! Where do we live now?”

  Kuang Kaitian shrugged and said: “I gave you the notice of demolition a long time ago, and have visited your houses several times to urge you to move. But you kept ignoring us and insisted on staying. You left the Five Continents Group no choice but to demolish your houses. We have the consent from above about taking over your land. What we did is legal and sensible. If you ask me, you should hurry up and take the compensation for removal and land occupation, and try to persuade the village committee to approve you some new land to build houses on.” He waved the envelopes with money in his hand.

  Nuannuan remembered Kuang Kaitian’s warning in the morning. It seemed that he had planned to tear down their houses beforehand. Overwhelmed by anger, she stepped up and glared him as she asked: “Where do you think they can stay over the night?”

  “They all have relatives and friends, and they can stay with them, or even with a neighbour. They should be building new houses soon. It takes no time to build a cottage, if they are fast, it would take a dozen days. If not, half a month will —”

  “What a monster you have turned into, and just for the sake of money!”

  Kaitian shouted: “Hey! Chu Nuannuan, why are you making a scene here? What does this have to do with you? Did I tear down your house? Did I take over your land?”

  “I won’t have you bullying people like this!”

  “How can you call me a bully? They have received compensation for removal and land occupation —”

  “How do you compensate them with this little money? Don’t you know that it’s nothing?!”

  “I don’t care. I did this according to law and reason.”

  “Bah!”

  Nuannuan stopped arguing with Kaitian. She walked next to Shallot and helped her stand up. She said to her: “Let’s go, you can stay with me. Jiuding, you must find somewhere to spend the night, too. It’s getting dark soon. What can you do by simply staying here?”

  As she finished her words, she saw Jiuding suddenly rising with a brick in his hand. He walked towards Kuang Kaitian when Kaitian stepped back in fear: “Jiuding! What are you doing?”

  “Since you won’t let us live, we should die together!” said Jiuding. Blue veins stood up on the back of his hand with the brick, as if he had gathered all his strength.

  Nuannuan stepped up and gripped Jiuding’s hand. She said: “Jiuding! You can’t do this! You didn’t do anything bad to deserve this. If you do it, you will be the bad guy! Brother Laosi, come! Pull him away!”

  Spotty Laosi hastened to take the brick away from Jiuding’s hand and pushed him back into the village.

  Chapter 56

  Thanks to Nuannuan, Shallot and the other three members in her family stayed in a guestroom of Chu Di Ju. Shallot was anxious. She said to Nuannuan in tears: “Nuannuan, this guestroom should be used for your business. You are losing money every day if we stay in here.”

  Nuannuan said: “There will always be another way to earn more money. Moreover, you are my guests, too.”

  Shallot sighed and said: “I’ll go to Shang Xin Yuan tomorrow to claim the small compensation. I can take it. We’ll build two small cottages first and settle down. You can’t twist a thigh with an arm: they are too powerful for us to fight with.”

  “They must have prepared for your further attempts to appeal,” said Nuannuan after some thought. “It doesn’t matter. I will write more letters to report them tonight. There is no way that they have bought over every official from above! The letters I wrote last time caused a police search, didn’t they? Though it didn’t work as I expected, they were scared. This time I will write to more leaders in the municipal and provincial government. Not all of them are on their side!”

  Shallot shook her head and said: “I don’t want to bring you more trouble. Kaitian is watching you.”

  “I will take care of myself. Go take some rest.”

  Nuannuan spent all night writing a dozen letters. The next morning, she had Hehe send them out as registered letters in the post office on the east bank of the Red Lake with the excuse of sending Uncle Tan across the lake. Her original plan was to ask Uncle Tan to send the letters. However, she did not want to bring him trouble as he was a retired research fellow with no official title or power. So she decided to deal with the situation by herself and that she would take all responsibilities and spare the old man of any turbulence in life.

  Shang Xin Yuan seemed quite prepared: the construction team came during midday the next day and started laying the foundation on that very afternoon. The day after, a steady flow of steel, wood planks, bricks, bags of cement and sand was delivered. Nuannuan had no choice but to watch from a distance with Shallot, Jiuding and the others. Nuannuan knew that she could not stop them at that moment. All that she could do was to wish that the letters she wrote could be read by the leaders from above so that people could be sent to stop them for her.

  Nuannuan had kept counting the days after she sent the letters out. One late afternoon, Kuang Kaitian paid an unexpected visit to Chu Di Ju. Nuannuan was serving dinner for the guests. She turned her head and pretended that she did not see him. Kuang Kaitian seemed relaxed. He waited for her to finish and followed her into her room. He said to her: “Let me show you something.”

  Nuannuan did not sound friendly: “What?”

  Kaitian took his time to take a piece of paper out of his pocket. He passed it to Nuannuan and asked: “You wrote this, didn’t you?”

  Nuannuan took a glimpse and saw one of the reporting letters that she had Hehe send out. She was surprised and thought to herself: “How did it end up with him?”

  She reached out to take the letter. Yet Kaitian drew back his hand.

  “You did not expect it to be in my hands, right?” said Kuang Kaitian with a deep laugh, “I told you
not to work against me, but you did not listen. You were so confident in your capability to bring me down. Me, the king! Don’t you understand now? You can’t escape my power. Even in your wildest dreams you wouldn’t be able to bring me down, and just with some letters! You have underestimated the power of Five Continents Group and myself! You send letters to the municipal and provincial governments, but it won’t change anything. It won’t work even if you sent them to Beijing!”

  Nuannuan was speechless. She did not expect her letters to be handed to Kuang Kaitian. She was shocked and wondered who had given them to him. She wanted to find out to whom the letter was issued, but Kuang Kaitian was grasping it firmly.

  “I have told you all the time that you should not meddle with things that do not concern you, and focus on running your own business. I don’t want to give you a hard time because we used to be married and my son Dangen is with you. More money will be good for you, for Dangen, and for the elders in your family. But you never listen! You have ignored my advice and persisted in going against the Five Continents Group and me. I have no choice. You kept asking for trouble, so you can’t complain about getting it!”

  “Kuang Kaitian, since I dare to act, I also dare to take all responsibilities. Do whatever you need to do! I’d like to see what you think you can do to me! I didn’t steal or rob, or tear down other people’s houses and occupy their fields. I didn’t force decent girls into prostitution either! What can you do to me? Do you think you rule Chu Wang Village as the king? Do you think you can bully other people and do whatever you like because you rule here?”

  “Just you wait!” said Kuang Kaitian before he turned to leave.

  “I will!” shouted Nuannuan towards his direction. Though she sounded determined, inside she felt more in shock. Her letters were issued to the upper-level leaders from above, but they ended up with Kuang Kaitian. It made her realize the influence that Kuang Kaitian and Xue Chuanxin had with their connections. She started worrying about the possible revenge that would come from them, and how it might affect Chu Di Ju. After Kuang Kaitian left, she sent for Shallot and asked her to be more careful about every small piece of work in Chu Di Ju, so that no one could use any small mistake against them. Shallot was a smart woman, and she immediately understood what Nuannuan was referring to. She said to her: “Nuannuan, don’t you worry. I know you fought against all odds to start and run Chu Di Ju. I will never mess about with the business here; everything will be carried out according to the rules and regulations, and nobody can find fault with us.”