The Child's Past Life

by Cai Jun

  “Why?”

  “Let me do it. I’ve never combed a girl’s hair.”

  When did her son learn to talk like this?

  He Qingying sat in front of the mirror, and Si Wang crawled out of bed bare-chested. Just a few clumsy strokes with an ox-bone comb made her yelp in pain. She turned to touch his chest, “Wang Er, aren’t you cold?”

  “Not at all.”

  It was probably because he was used to boxing half-naked—and the weather was less chilly these days, anyway.

  “Am I getting old?”

  ‘No, Mom, you’re still young. Your hair is still thick like a young girl’s. Let me make two braids for you.”

  “That’s too hard for you to do. I haven’t had braids for thirty years.”

  “When you were thirteen?”

  He Qingying started to speak, then stopped, shaking her head. She never talked about this.

  “Why won’t you tell me about your past?”

  “Stop combing my hair. I need to go sleep now.”

  As she tried to stand, Si Wang pushed her down and continued combing. He whispered, “Afraid to say anything?”

  “Wang Er, you do know about my past. My parents died before you were born. I worked at the post office.”

  “What about before that? Where did you go for junior high? Where did you live? Did any fun stuff happen? Do you still know any friends from back then?”

  “Did you go through my things during the move?”

  “Sorry.”

  “If you saw that stuff, then what more is there to ask?” He Qingying spoke evenly, but her heart beat so fast that it could have jumped out her chest.

  Her son took out a photo album from under the bed. The red cover was musty. A faded color photo was on the first page: a girl in a dress standing in front of the Postal School.

  It was He Qingying at seventeen or eighteen.

  Even with the unfashionable clothes and hair, she was a beauty. Slender arms held down her skirt hem so the wind didn’t flip it up. Her sad eyes focused on something in the distance. She looked like a young Momoe Yamaguchi.

  Family photos followed, most of them of Si Wang’s maternal grandparents taken at their old house. There weren’t many photos of He Qingying, and there were no shots of relatives or other people, like classmates; Si Mingyuan wasn’t in any of the photos. The album was probably made before her marriage.

  Si Wang took out a metal tin from under the bed.

  “You found this, too?”

  “All thanks to the move.”

  Si Wang opened the tin he’d found at the murder house on Serenity Road. It smelled moldy, and the Teresa Teng cassette was inside.

  He Qingying hadn’t forgotten the cassette from long ago. As a teenager she secretly listened to it every day.

  “Wang Er, this is trash I wanted to throw out. Why did you keep it?”

  “I’ve seen a photo of you when you were thirteen. Ye Xiao found it for me. He didn’t know it was you in the photo.”

  He Qingying’s expression changed and she began to shake. “When I was thirteen? Where was I?”

  “Nanhu Junior High, seventh grade, Section 2. At the corner of Nanhu Road and Serenity Road.”

  “You must be mistaken.”

  “Do you still remember the name Lu Mingyue?”

  Goose bumps ran up her neck as she stiffly shook her head. “You’re imagining things.”

  “Don’t lie to yourself.” Si Wang kept combing her hair. “You know I found your secret. I also found out that you and Lu Mingyue were born on the same day. Your personal files started after 1983. Nothing exists from before that. I learned this from the Archive Bureau.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Lu Mingyue’s files stopped after 1983 because something happened to her family that year. Her father was killed. She reported the crime and was the only witness.”

  “What do you want to say?” He Qingying tried to struggle out of her son’s grip. “Go to bed already. Good night.”

  Her arm was pinned by Si Wang like she was a criminal. “Mom, you never visit your side of the family. I found my uncle’s number and called him pretending to be a policeman. He told me you weren’t Grandma and Grandpa’s biological child.”

  “Wang Er, listen to me.”

  “Lu Mingyue!” Si Wang shouted the name. “That’s your real name, isn’t it?”

  She stopped trying to free herself, and her body went limp.

  “No. Lu Mingyue was just a name I used to have. I almost forgot the name I was born with.”

  “Because you aren’t Lu Jingnan’s biological child, either, right?”

  For the first time, Si Wang said the name of the person who was murdered on Serenity Road in 1983.

  “Wang Er, why are you doing this?”

  “I’m trying to save you.” He kissed his mom’s neck.

  “So you’ve already been to Serenity Road Number 19? I was born there. My dad, your real grandpa, was a famous translator. He hanged himself when I was four. That’s my first memory. Soon after, my mom, your grandma, died, too. Our house was taken over by a bureaucrat called Lu Jingnan. His wife couldn’t have children, but she was a kind woman. She adopted me since I had no one. My childhood wasn’t horrible. I grew up there. When I turned twelve, my adoptive mother found her husband cheating on her. She killed herself by jumping into a river. No one could protect me after that.”

  “Mom, are you saying that bastard Lu Jingnan—”

  “Calling him a bastard would be too kind!”

  “You killed him?”

  “Wang Er, please stop asking!”

  “I was at Serenity Road tonight. I’ve studied Huang Hai’s files. Lu Jingnan’s murder wasn’t done by an outsider. Someone tried to make it look like there was a break-in. A window was smashed with a brick, but most of the glass was outside the window, meaning it was broken from the inside. The police debated this for a while, so the case was never solved. But no one realized the victim’s daughter—the only witness and the first person to call it in—was the killer!”

  “This is just your speculation. You have no evidence. Who’d believe a high school kid who gets into fights all the time?”

  “Mom, I’m not going to tell anyone. The case is thirty years old, and the victim was evil. You were just a little girl.”

  “I admit it,” she spat out. “I killed someone.”

  Si Wang put down the comb, wiped away his mom’s tears, and whispered, “The victim was your adoptive father, Lu Jingnan.”

  “He was an animal! No one knows what he did to me. No one suspected I killed him. He was drunk that night, and I tried to fight him off in the living room. A window broke during our fight. I grabbed a piece of glass and cut his neck. There was blood everywhere. I broke the glass on the floor so there was no weapon. Then I opened the door and sat on the stairs to cry, and when someone passed by, they asked me what was wrong. Soon the cops came.”

  “No one else was around?”

  He Qingying shook her head in a daze. “If anyone saw me, I would have been caught. Wang Er, please, I beg you—don’t ask me any more. You’ve been too cruel to me already.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Grave-Sweeping Day.

  Shen Min was eighteen and as adorable as a blooming bud. It rained lightly as her father took her to pay respects at her mother’s grave. Afterward, they carried joss paper and flowers to a public cemetery in the suburbs. Her brother, whom she had never met, was buried here.

  They were surprised to see a young man squatting by the grave. He was burning joss paper and incense.

  “Who are you?” the prosecutor yelled.

  The other man turned and awkwardly tried to leave.

  Shen Yuanchao grabbed his arm. “Stop! Are you Huang Zhiliang?”

  “I’m sorry, I was just
. . .”

  “Thank you!” Shen Yuanchao was emotional and held the younger man. “Child, you don’t have to say anything.”

  Shen Min was confused. She put down the flowers by the tombstone, which read:

  Beloved son, Shen Ming

  May 11, 1970–June 19, 1995

  From Father Shen Yuanchao

  The young man stood stiff in Shen Yuanchao’s grasp, then he reached up almost involuntarily to hold the older man. Their hug grew tighter and tighter.

  “I’ll catch that monster,” Si Wang whispered to Shen.

  “If only you were my son.”

  “Dad, stop acting like this,” Shen Min said.

  The rain was soaking the two mean so she moved the umbrella over their heads. Her father finally let go of the young man. He coughed twice.

  “Sorry, I know you’re here to pay respects to my son. His spirit in Heaven will protect you.”

  Shen Min stared at the young man. Last week, as she was heartily eating at the spicy hot pot place near May First Junior High, someone patted her shoulder. It was the young man. In the last few months, she’d become more wary of the opposite sex. She was just about to run when she recognized him.

  “You scared me,” she’d said.

  “Sorry about that. So you remember me?”

  “You’re Huang Zhiliang.”

  “Yes, Little Min.” He pointed to across the street. “I work at that bookstore every weekend.”

  “Great, I’ll go buy books there.”

  “Better not, the boss is a mean lady. If you came in to talk to me, she might fire me.”

  “Fine.” She stuck out her tongue.

  “How is your dad doing?” The young man sounded older than his years.

  “He’s retired and reading all these weird books.”

  “Weird books?”

  “Mostly about murders and stuff. I get freaked out by the covers. I think he’s going crazy.”

  “Have you been to your older brother’s grave yet?”

  “We’ve been going to Grave-Sweeping Day ever since seventh grade. My dad drags me.”

  “Can you tell me where it is?”

  Shen Min never thought he’d actually show up for the holiday.

  Shen Yuanchao shielded his daughter. “Are you—still alive?”

  A question you can only ask in a cemetery on Grave-Sweeping Day.

  The young man looked at him noncommittally and then looked back at the gravestone. “I’d only go from this world after Shen Ming’s killer paid for his crime.”

  “Huang Zhiliang, am I hallucinating you?” Shen Yuanchao touched the young man’s face and hair. “No, this is not a hallucination. Little Min, can you see him? Am I talking to thin air?”

  “No, I see him, too.”

  Shen Min hid behind the tombstone; she didn’t want to lie to her father.

  “You’re alive! If I can see you, then Shen Ming could be alive, too. He would be forty-three this year.” Shen Yuanchao was crazed by the encounter; he knelt in front of Shen Ming’s grave and lit an offering. “Little Ming, if you’re still alive, please tell me.”

  The young man left the cemetery as father and daughter prayed. By the time they looked up, Huang Zhiliang’s ghost was gone.

  CHAPTER 71

  June 19, 2013.

  The eighteenth anniversary of Shen Ming’s death.

  Zhang Mingsong became more and more agitated as it got closer to 10:00 p.m. His blood seemed to flow faster, as if it would burst from his vessels. He took off his shirt and knelt on the mat, drawing hexagons on his chest and making odd hand gestures—a spirit reincarnation ritual.

  For the past year, he had been focused on Si Wang. After the rumor about his dating Ouyang Xiaozhi, she was fired. Zhang Mingsong was forced to make a public apology as the homeroom teacher. At the request of the principal and various parents, he’d started secretly watching the teenager. Si Wang practiced all day at the boxing club, hitting the sandbags so hard his knuckles bled.

  The doorbell rang.

  Did he have any students to tutor today? He checked his calendar and no one was scheduled. Maybe it was a parent with a gift?

  Zhang Mingsong got dressed. He put away the mat and opened the door to a stranger.

  A man in his sixties with a grim expression.

  “You are?” He remembered that face. One afternoon at the library years ago, many times on subways, near his neighborhood’s lawn . . .

  June 19—10:00 p.m.

  He wanted to scream. Before he could close the door, the other man hit him on the head with a wooden stick.

  By the time he woke up, an hour had passed.

  Thick curtains covered the windows. Books were everywhere, the floor was surprisingly clean, and there was no dust on the furniture. His hands and feet bound, Zhang Mingsong shrank into a ball in the corner of his bedroom. His mouth was stuffed with a rag, and his forehead throbbed.

  Shen Yuanchao, who paced back and forth holding the wooden stick, looked like a vicious old butcher.

  “You’re awake.” He squeezed Zhang Mingsong’s neck to make his face turn red. “Listen to me! I know you’ll scream for the security guard if I let go, so just nod or shake your head, OK? Don’t lie!”

  Zhang Mingsong nodded his head in fear.

  “You’re a serial killer, right?”

  When he shook his head, Shen Yuanchao slapped him.

  “You have the Fraternal Order symbol here. Who do you think you are? The American president? You’re a pervert. You’re into witchcraft and other cult stuff, aren’t you?”

  Another shake of the head, another slap.

  “You killed Shen Ming on June 19, 1995, right?”

  Zhang Mingsong almost swallowed the rag. The veins on his forehead popped as he shook his head like he was having a seizure.

  “You’re still lying! I’ve already waited eighteen years, and I refuse to wait any longer. It’s time!” The prosecutor picked up his stick. “You used a knife. I’ll use a stick.”

  Just as Shen Yuanchao was about to deliver the first blow—and Zhang was about to lose control of his bowels—the doorbell rang.

  Shen Yuanchao dropped his weapon to the floor and stood as still as a statue.

  The doorbell rang three times before he walked soundlessly out of the bedroom to the front door.

  A low voice from the other side of the door. “Prosecutor Shen, are you inside? I’m not with the police. It’s Huang Zhiliang.”

  “Huang Zhiliang, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m a ghost. I can be anywhere I want. I knew you’d come for him tonight.”

  “Huang Zhiliang, this has nothing to do with you. Please leave now.”

  “I said I’d kill the monster with my own hands to avenge my father’s death. If you don’t open the door immediately, I’ll call the cops.”

  The door opened just a crack. There was almost no light in the small opening, just a blurry shadow. The young man rushed inside and relocked the door.

  Shen Yuanchao backed away a few steps. “Child, I won’t give up the chance to kill him.”

  “Thank you. I know you want to spare me the kill so you can take the blame. But I’m the ghost here. I’m not afraid of laws.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I got a call from your daughter half an hour ago. She said you left this morning and haven’t been home since. She also told me about the letter you left her, saying her older brother was killed by a monster eighteen years ago tonight—and that you’d gone out for revenge.”

  “I didn’t say who I was looking for.”

  “Shen Min is a good kid. She doesn’t know where you went, so she asked me for help. She was afraid you’d kill someone. She didn’t want to call the police, because you’d be locked up whether or not you kille
d anyone. I promised her I’d bring you home to her.”

  “But you know who I was looking for.”

  “There was no one else you wanted besides Zhang Mingsong.”

  The young man charged into the bedroom.

  Zhang Mingsong panicked when he saw Si Wang.

  “You’re sure he is the monster?” Si Wang looked back at the prosecutor. He pulled out the rag in Zhang’s mouth. He tried to speak, but his voice was too raspy. “Mr. Zhang, sorry I got here so late.” Si Wang squatted by Mr. Zhang and checked over his wounds.

  “You’re here to save him? You know him?” Shen Yuanchao widened his eyes and prepared to hit Si Wang.

  But Si Wang stood up and grabbed the wooden stick, slamming it against his own head. His forehead bled. The move stunned both Shen Yuanchao and Zhang Mingsong.

  “Yes, I came here to save him.” Si Wang let the blood flow into his mouth.

  Shen Yuanchao thought back to the night his son was killed. Shen Ming’s back must have bled this way, too.

  “Child, you’re not a ghost, are you?”

  “Ghosts can’t bleed—only humans do.” Si Wang wiped the blood on his face; he looked terrifying, like a demon. “For three years I followed this man you tied up, andI don’t believe he’s Shen Ming’s killer.”

  “You sound like a cop!”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you. Huang Hai’s son, Huang Zhiliang, died a long time ago from leukemia. I looked like him, so Huang Hai became my godfather. I’m Si Wang, Si as in ‘general,’ Wang as in ‘lookout.’ My dad is Si Mingyuan; my mom is He Qingying. I go to Nanming High. I’ll be a senior after this summer. This man here is my homeroom teacher.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “For Huang Hai. He was like a father to me. I read all the files. Your son’s killer is someone else.”

  Shen Yuanchao was quiet for a long time before he finally relaxed.

  Si Wang untied Zhang Mingsong and whispered, “Mr. Zhang, keep cool and don’t do anything crazy.”

  “Thank you, Si Wang!” He stretched a bit but didn’t move from the wall.

  “I came here tonight to save him, but also to save you,” Si Wang said, still kneeling by his teacher. “If you killed him, you’d be a killer. You’d be sentenced to death. I don’t want to see that happen. What would your daughter do if you died?”