Yu Guangzhong--Selected Prose

Five thousand years ago, my Wucubi ancestors washed their hands at the source of the Yellow River at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains. But who am I? Who am I? The call fell without any echo, at the edge of the island universe. Who am I? who I am? In an instant, all the light faded away and gathered under my eyelashes. You are nothing, just say, you are everything. You are a dwarf among dwarfs, the smallest among dwarfs, but you are everything. Your soul is branded with all the nightmares and fears of Beijingers. As long as you are willing, you will stand in the middle of history. Above war, you should raise your pen, above famine and the Black Death. Star descendants list, a crown hanging in eternity, how many carats of glory can crown the wise, the brave, and you. If you stay awake long enough. You are nothing. You are everything. The great echoless vacuum, light, says so. ----"Xiaoyaoyou"

The rain is coming, and the lightest percussion music is beating on the city. The vast rooftops, far and near, are struck one by one. The ancient piano, the fine and dense There is a kind of softness and kindness in the monotony of the rhythm, bit by bit, like illusion and reality, just like when a child was in the cradle, a familiar nursery rhyme rocked him to sleep, and the mother's nasal and guttural voice chanted. Or in the water town of Zeguo in the south of the Yangtze River, a large basket of green mulberry leaves was chewed by thousands of silkworms, chewing the tiny bits and pieces with their mouthparts. The rain is coming. When the rain comes, the tiles say so. A tile says a thousand watts. Play it softly, quietly, tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tapping intermittently, the improvisation goes from Jingzhe to Jingzhe. During the Qingming Festival, elegy is played coldly on the scattered graves, and thousands of tiles are singing. -- "Listen to the Cold Rain"

Twenty years of walking in the rainy alley of Xiamen Street are as long as his memory. A tileless apartment is waiting for him at the bottom of the alley, and a lamp is shining in the rain upstairs. In the window, waiting for him to go back, to meditate after dinner to sort out the moss-deep memories. The past is separated by the sea. The old house is gone. Listen to the cold rain.

--"Listen to the Cold Rain"