The Child's Past Life

by Cai Jun

  She spoke softly, “May I sit in on a class?”

  The principal walked her into the third-grade Section 2 classroom. He introduced the VIP and had the teacher continue with her lesson. Gu Qiusha found an empty seat in the last row. With great formality, the principal sat next to her.

  The word “Chrysanthemum” was written on the blackboard. Gu Qiusha frowned, and the principal seemed embarrassed.

  The teacher began writing beneath the word:

  Chrysanthemum surrounded the poet Tao Yuanming’s home

  I was admiring the chrysanthemum outside the fence

  Until the sun almost set

  I did not love chrysanthemum best, but there were no better flowers to be seen after chrysanthemum

  Gu Qiusha tried to remember the poet’s name. As she thought, “Yuan Zhen” was added to the blackboard.

  The teacher said, “Yuan Zhen was a great poet of the Tang dynasty. His middle name was Weizhi and his hometown was Luoyang. A descendant of the Northern Dynasties’ Xanbei ethnic group, he was good friends with poet Bai Juyi. Together, they were called Yuan Bai. They introduced the New Yuefu Movement, and they compiled the movement’s anthology.”

  The teacher was nervous with the principal and the VIP sitting in on the class. She’d read the text very deliberately, then to lighten the mood she hurried to ask, “Has anyone heard of this great poet?”

  Third-graders usually knew of Li Bai or Du Fu, but Yuan Zhen was rarely known. The class sat in silence. The principal seemed irritated at the teacher’s lack of knowledge.

  Suddenly an arm raised high. The teacher was excited to be rescued. “Si Wang, you can answer.”

  A boy stood up. His seat was in the back of the class, but Gu Qiusha could see his profile. He had a proper face, his eyes were not big, but he looked refined, like one of those kids who could do very little and still be favored. His clothes looked inexpensive. He recited:

  No water could measure up to the sea

  No clouds looked the same as those on Wu Mountain

  No flowers were worth lingering over

  Meditation and missing my dead wife was all I could do.

  “This was the fourth poem in Yuan Zhen’s Five Poems About Longing,” the boy continued. “It was written as an ode to his dead wife, Wei Cong. He was only twenty-four years old and a lowly clerk when he married Wei Xiaqing, the daughter of the imperial tutor. Wei was from a royal family, but she never looked down on her impoverished husband. She kept his household, and they were happy together. Seven years later, when Yuan Zhen was promoted to investigating censor, Wei died. Yuan Zhen wrote the poem as he grieved—and it is still very popular today.”

  The boy’s answer was so thorough, and he delivered it with such a serious air, that it was as though he’d seen the events with his own eyes. Gu Qiusha couldn’t believe it. Would a third-grader have known that someone would be sitting in and prepared beforehand? She’d only come on a whim, though. There was no way that all classes in this building had done their homework. Plus, the boy said everything so naturally. It was obvious that he understood the poem and wasn’t just reciting it by rote.

  The teacher was stunned. Not even she knew the backstory. She mumbled, “Right, very good.”

  “I actually don’t like Yuan Zhen,” the boy continued. “Within six months of writing this, he took a concubine in Jiangling. Then he met the famous courtesan Xue Tao in Chengdu. She was eleven years older, and he wrote poems to flirt with her. His Book of Yingying, also called Book of Huizhen, was a way to justify how quickly he moved on. No one could have guessed that it would later lead to the classic play Romance of the Western Chamber. So his so-called ‘No water could measure up to the sea’ was just a shortcut to getting promoted by marrying up.”

  The whole classroom was quiet. None of the other kids understood what their classmate was saying. Even the teacher was confused.

  Gu Qiusha looked like she’d been stabbed in the heart. She lowered her head uneasily, as if she felt that all the students were watching her.

  “Si Wang, please sit. We’ll talk more about the ‘Chrysanthemum’ poem.”

  The teacher was eager to move on and started reading her teaching manual at random.

  The end-of-class bell rang. Gu Qiusha whispered to the principal, “I want to talk to that kid.”

  The teacher brought the boy to Gu Qiusha, who’d been waiting in the yard with the principal. The boy was skinny. His arms and legs seemed as if they were all the same length, and his back was as straight as a soldier’s. Unlike a lot of kids who played too many computer games and wore thick glasses or were hunch-backed, his eyes were refined. His only flaw was the peach fuzz on his forehead. He looked calm and collected in front of the principal and the VIP, exuding a natural sense of nobility.

  Gu Qiusha leaned down and said, “Hello. What is your name?”

  “Si as in ‘general,’ Wang as in ‘lookout.’ ”

  “Si Wang, I really liked that poem you read. Where did you learn so much about poetry?”

  “I read a lot, I also use Baidu.”

  “Did you know Yuan Zhen also wrote the famous ‘Three Poems on Grief?’ ”

  “I do.” The boy didn’t flinch, and his gaze made her heart beat faster.

  Gu Qiusha still had doubts. She needed to test him again. “OK, can you recite one of them for me?”

  “She was Mr. Xie’s favorite daughter, she had nothing being married to me. When I had no clothes, she looked all over to help. She sold her hairpins to buy me wine. She had no complaints eating wild vegetables, nor did she mind using leaves as firewood. Now my salary is more than 100,000, but I could only burn paper money for her.”

  Gu Qiusha was stunned. This was one of the few Tang dynasty poems she had memorized.

  The principal couldn’t resist applauding the student.

  The boy recited another poem right away: “Life after death already came, the future is already here. I gave away your clothes, but not your sewing supplies. Looking at your servants made me sad, I actually want to send you money in the afterlife. I know everyone grieves sometime, but an impoverished couple suffers the most.”

  “That’s enough,” the principal said, but the boy started the last poem in the series:

  “You died so early, now I know sharing a hundred years is a luxury. A kind man like Deng You never had kids, Pan Yue could not find the words to grieve for his wife. I hope to be buried with you, and be together again in the next life. I will keep my eyes open all night to honor your dedication.”

  Gu Qiusha and the boy said the last two lines in unison. Gu backed away as an uneasy feeling spread through her entire being.

  She asked, “Do you know what ‘I hope to be buried with you, and be together again in the next life’ means?”

  “It’s hard for a couple buried together to begin with. And even if there was an afterlife, it would be difficult to meet again.”

  The boy had no expression on his face. His gaze held a nuanced maturity, and a coldness.

  Gu Qiusha breathed hard. She reached out her delicate, bony hand and stroked the boy’s pale face. He unconsciously backed away, then stayed still, allowing her to touch him.

  The class bell rang. She rubbed the boy’s nose and said, “Great answer! Time to go back to class now.”

  Si Wang ran up the stairs with the other kids, showing none of the jadedness he’d displayed earlier.

  “I hope to be buried with you, and be together again in the next life.”

  When she’d first learned of her fiancé’s death nine years ago, Gu Qiusha found a letter from Shen Ming. He’d copied down this very poem by Yuan Zhen.

  The principal asked Si Wang’s homeroom teacher about the boy. He had mediocre grades, was quiet, didn’t speak up in class, and never really seemed outstanding.

  “Is his family very intell
ectual?” Gu Qiusha added. “Are his parents university professors?”

  “Si Wang’s father is a factory worker. For some reason, he went missing two years ago. His mom works as a postal clerk. His family is not very prestigious.”

  “Please find out more about him. I want a kid this gifted to be well educated. Do you understand me?”

  The principal kept nodding and walked Gu Qiusha to the car. Advertising on the street showed a large mural for the Erya Education Group. Some child prodigy was quoted as saying “Choose Erya. Choose a Better Life.”

  Gu had long stopped working as an editor for the Education Publishing House. She was now the GM of a private education company, ranked nationally in the top ten. A few years earlier, her father Gu Changlong had retired from his university president position and used his savings to start the Erya Education Group. Thanks to a wide professional network from years of working with government agencies, the company exploded in size in just a few years. They offered language classes for students going abroad, preschool education, and senior classes, too. They had bought and built many private elementary and middle schools. The company covered every stage of life, from the cradle to the grave. Gu Qiusha had helped with the company since the beginning. When her father recently retired as the GM for health reasons, she succeeded him.

  Gu Qiusha was back at her suburban mansion in an hour. She kicked off her heels and scrubbed off her thick makeup by the dresser mirror. Her reflection showed a thirty-four-year-old woman. Her skin was well maintained with almost no wrinkles or liver spots. When she primped, she still seemed very attractive—or at least she looked that way in front of the camera. Everyone would take a second look. But nothing really turned back the years. She always remembered the time when she was twenty-five, when she was about to be a bride.

  Although her father was retired, he kept busy, and currently he was attending a meeting abroad. Dinner was a collection of simple dishes cooked by the maid. Gu finished eating alone, drank a small glass of French red wine, and then went into the bedroom to watch a Korean soap opera.

  A few minutes later, a man entered the room. He was also in his thirties. There wasn’t one whisker on his face, and a faint bruise marred his forehead. He slowly shed his suit and tie and walked out again.

  Gu Qiusha was used to evenings like this. She uttered the word “moron” at her husband’s back.

  His name was Lu Zhongyue.

  CHAPTER 13

  Gu Qiusha met Shen Ming for the first time in the fall of 1993. She never told him that was also the day she broke up with her ex-boyfriend.

  Her ex had attended the same college, and was tall and handsome. He also came from a good family. They started talking about marriage soon after college graduation. But Gu Qiusha had a secret she’d kept from him for as long as possible.

  “I never dared to tell you this before,” she finally told him one night. “I hope you won’t think less of me. In my junior year of high school, I went to the hospital for some pains. We got the best OB-GYN to examine me, and I was diagnosed as infertile. There was no treatment, and I can’t have kids. I am still a normal woman, and we can have a marital life—plus, we can always adopt.”

  Before she’d even finished, his face grew cloudy. He wanted to break up right away. There were plenty of girls who wanted to marry him, some of them were even socialites. Why marry a barren woman? And adopting was unthinkable.

  That was how Gu Qiusha’s first relationship had ended. She cried on his shoulder and had to watch him leave. That afternoon, she rode the bus home in a daze, and she was pickpocketed. Shen Ming stood up for her and was injured as a result of his bravery. When she looked at him in her gratitude, she saw his crystal-clear eyes, his clean-cut face, and his shyness and hesitation. She fell for him right away.

  Shen Ming taught Chinese at the prestigious Nanming High and was a Peking University graduate. He never mentioned his parents. His long-term residence at the school also confused her. When she was about to ask around privately, Shen Ming told her voluntarily that, when Shen Ming was just seven, his father had poisoned his mother and was sentenced to death. Raised by his grandmother, Shen Ming had no other place to live. He had always lived at the school, ever since he’d been a student.

  Gu Qiusha understood that was why he could only work as a high school teacher, regardless of his résumé and ability. He didn’t have an upper-class background, and their families could not be more different. Before Shen Ming learned about Gu’s father, she told him her secret.

  “I’ve always wanted to marry someone I love and have a cute kid together,” Shen Ming admitted. “But marriage is about more than procreating. If I really wanted to marry someone, I would tolerate all of her flaws. Besides, infertility is a health issue and has nothing to do with someone’s character. People can be tall or short—that is all decided by fate. We can always adopt.”

  The next day, Gu Qiusha took her boyfriend home. Shen Ming learned the identity of his new girlfriend’s father—President Gu was always in the papers. Her father liked him, surprisingly, and they had a great chat. Shen’s daring ideas about education reform were especially well received.

  That was the summer of 1994.

  During the summer vacation that followed, Gu’s father transferred Shen Ming to his office for a three-month secretary position, which made the elder Gu like his future son-in-law even more.

  The following year, a grand engagement ceremony was held for the couple. With President Gu’s blessings, city Education Bureau leaders talked to Shen Ming and issued a memo to promote him from Nanming High to the Youth League Committee. Shen Ming’s future was set, and he would become the Youth League Committee secretary in just two years, which was the fastest way someone could succeed.

  In 1995, during the last few days of May, Gu noticed that Shen Ming seemed troubled. He was always distracted during the apartment renovation inspections. She asked him why, and he tried to hide behind excuses, blaming things like the pressure from his students’ upcoming college entrance exams.

  She asked at school and learned Shen Ming was rumored to be having an affair with a girl in the senior class. There were rumors of him being born out of wedlock, too. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing; she was about to marry this man. They’d already had the engagement ceremony—and even the wedding invitations had been mailed. What could she do? As they got closer to the exams, Shen Ming—who was in charge of the senior class—stayed late every night to work with his students. He claimed he couldn’t be with her even on weekends. Gu Qiusha grew more and more concerned.

  The evening of June 3 was their last night together. Gu and Shen left the new apartment and went to see the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies.

  Gu Qiusha asked him, “What lies have you told me?”

  Shen Ming looked his fiancée in the eyes, and after a long silence answered, “Someone wants me dead.”

  He admitted that he’d been born out of wedlock. His stepfather had killed his mother when Shen Ming was seven. When he was ten, his last name was changed to Shen on his residency registration, his biological father’s last name. He’d wanted to hide from his fiancée and future father-in-law the shame he’d carried with him since birth.

  He vehemently denied having an affair with a student.

  Gu Qiusha believed him initially, but she couldn’t sleep at night. She felt wronged. She’d been nothing but honest with him. She’d given him everything, including a secret no one could know. Yet Shen Ming had lied to her about the circumstances of his birth. He didn’t tell her the truth until the news was all over school. He was dishonest. Considering all this, even if he said there was nothing between him and the student, could she believe him?

  “Don’t believe anyone, not even the one you love the most.”

  Her father uttered those words right before their engagement ceremony—his advice for her marriage.

 
Were those words from just three months ago an omen?

  Gu Qiusha tossed and turned all night.

  Two days later, Shen Ming’s high school friend Lu Zhongyue found her to tell her that Shen Ming was in trouble. Liu Man, a high school girl, had been killed with poison. Shen Ming was in great danger because someone had seen him alone with the girl the night before. The police had a search warrant. Could her father help?

  Gu Qiusha broke her teacup as she started crying. Her first reaction wasn’t to save her fiancé; instead she imagined the worst-case scenario. Did he kill the girl? Had there been an affair?

  Shen Ming called her that evening, but she refused to meet with him.

  She couldn’t sleep. Her mind overflowed with images from their relationship: their first meeting, first dinner, first date, first hug, first kiss, first . . .

  Every detail was like a vivid movie, except that his face became blurrier and blurrier. His nose seemed more hawkish, and his eyes went from calm to angry.

  Did he really love her?

  Did he date her because of her father? Did he have anyone else? Along with the high school student, were there other girls?

  Why did she like him? Because he got her wallet back? His courage while fighting the thief? His hidden talents? The poems he wrote for her every week for the last two years? His calm yet bold attitude?

  The next day she heard the news about Shen Ming’s arrest. The police had found the poison in his room.

  She couldn’t go to work that day. Her father was angry. He tossed a letter at her. It was from Shen Ming and addressed to his college friend, He Nian. The friend had stayed in Beijing to work. In a calculated move, he’d given President Gu the letter since it involved him and his daughter.

  Shen Ming wrote that he was about to be married and embark on a political career. But the letter contained some sinister information that scared Gu Qiusha. Shen admitted to his friend that he’d researched Gu Qiusha and followed her for a long time before they met. That’s why he was on the bus the day she was pickpocketed. His actions had made her fall for him right away, and he then manipulated the situation so her father would value and promote him.