In the evening, many people came to my home, all of whom I didnt know. Rows of militiamen stood in my courtyard with guns at the ready, it was the first time I had seen such a formation. Yuanbaos shoulder was tied with a white bandage, he was called out of the ranks and identified.

  There was a man wearing a Sun Yat-sen suit and glasses, holding a document in his hand. After reading it out loud, he would arrest people, including my father and me. These people were said to be from the county government, and their leader was the head of our local revolutionary committee. This time, my father did not resist, and his choice was wise. In those years, they could easily pin a label on you, and we might have been shot dead on the spot.

  Several people with guns came up and knocked my father down with a rifle butt. As he fell, I saw the blood on his head "gushing" out, but his eyes were staring at that person.

  Group after group of people rushed into my home, followed by the sound of smashing and looting. My home was ransacked. That night, my father was taken away to the county, while I, being young, was spared along with some villagers who pleaded for me. Instead, I was taken to a government office for ideological education. By the time I returned home in the second half of the night, our house had been reduced to ruins. Someone had set fire to it, leaving nothing but ashes and smoke.

  The next day, I heard that my mother was also taken away, directly from my grandmothers house. After a few more days, I was sent to the county seat, where I heard we were going to be sent to the countryside for re-education by peasants because of our problematic family backgrounds. This is simply ridiculous - my family has been peasants for generations, but who can you reason with about this?

  In the waiting room of the county train station, I met many people who were in the same situation as me. We each carried our luggage and quietly waited to be sent to unfamiliar places. At the train station, I seemed to have seen a familiar face, but I couldnt call out his name. The person looked like someone I had seen before - thin build, pale cheeks, huddled alone in a corner. He was easily recognizable because of the "filial piety" tattoo on his arm. We were all just a group of half-grown children in our teens, unaware of where our fate would take us next.

  The person in charge of us called out our names and divided us into groups. When I heard the name, I suddenly remembered that it was him: Cha Wenbin!

  The leader didnt allow us to talk, he glanced at me, I thought he had recognized me, a classmate from childhood who used to study with him. I smiled at him, but he only slightly moved the corner of his mouth. Fortunately, we were assigned to the same group, but our destination was a name that neither of us had ever heard before: Wild Man Village.

  We were led by our respective people to the green-skinned train, which was my first long-distance trip and also my first time taking a train. He and I, along with over a dozen other children, were assigned to the same carriage. The train traveled north along the tracks, and whenever it passed through stations, more people would get on, all of whom were like us - their parents had suffered greatly in that movement, and their children were required to be isolated and sent away to distant places.

  When passing through Shanghai, two men and three women got on the bus. One of the girls was particularly pale, with big eyes that seemed to hold tears, sporting a very fashionable fringe and short hair, wearing a pair of leather shoes that were almost unheard of at the time. The few people squeezed together using dialects to communicate, and they seemed somewhat out of place compared to others. Those people seemed to be deliberately avoiding the girl and not communicating with her. She looked so fragile, with tears in her eyes all day long.

  The train took us all the way north, after crossing the Yellow River, people kept getting on and off, I didnt know where we were, only knowing that the air outside was getting colder and the green land outside the window was gradually replaced by yellow.

  It has been five days and nights, and there are only four people left in the carriage: me, Cha Wenbin, the girl, and a fat man. Even the person responsible for escorting us got off at the previous station, and we still dont know where were going.

  The carriage was silent, as we were not allowed to talk to each other. The only sounds accompanying us on this journey were the rumbling of the train and our own breathing. We had all brought our own food, and my aunt had prepared a lot of rice balls for me before I left. As southerners are not used to eating wheat, they mix glutinous rice with regular rice to make these rice balls, which contain pickled vegetables inside. Glutinous rice is hard to digest, so one of these can fill you up for half a day - this was also how the Japanese made their military rations during wartime. Zhang Wenbins food consisted of black steamed buns, but I had seen him finish his last bun the day before, and as for that girl, she hadnt eaten anything since getting on the train.

  Another stop arrived, and the fat one among the four of us also got off. Before leaving, he and we exchanged greetings and bid each other farewell, which was the first time we made a sound to each other.

  I swear, I really heard someones stomach making a "gurgling" sound, and the sound was almost louder than the train. I lowered my head and rummaged through my bag, there were still two rice balls, I didnt know how far we had to walk, so I tried to eat only one per day. The outside night was already pitch black, I called out softly to the person in the corner: "Zha Wenbin, do you still recognize me?"

  "I dont know." His reply was brief, his voice low and weak.

  I slowly approached along the carriage and whispered: "Im Xia Yi, from Hongcun. We were in the same class when we were young, dont you remember me?"

  "Is that Xia?" I could hear a slight tremble in his voice, and he continued: "I thought it was you early on, but I didnt dare to misidentify you, afraid of implicating others."

  I turned around and took a look, making sure there were only three people in the carriage, then went over to sit with him. You know, running into someone you know in a place like this is incredibly exciting - its just like two drowning children grabbing onto each other: thats the only thing they can rely on.

  "Thats great, I heard them mention your name earlier, it turns out were from the same place and were classmates too. Now Im not afraid at all." I immediately became excited, then took out a rice ball and said to him: "I saw you havent eaten anything for a whole day, take this!"

  He took the rice ball and was about to put it in his mouth, but suddenly stopped. He lightly touched my arm, nodded towards the girl in the corner and said: "That girl hasnt eaten for several days, you give it to her, Im not hungry yet."

  "Who would have thought that this kid, after all these years, has learned to be a hero and save the beauty? I turned my head and said to him: You eat, I still have some, as long as Im here, she wont go hungry."

  The girl sat across from me the whole time, her head buried between her legs. Since getting on the bus, I hadnt seen her lift her head once. Walking over to the girl, I squatted in front of her and said: "Hey, wake up, whats your name?"

  The girl looked up at me and I saw that her eyes were red. She didnt answer my question, but instead lowered her head again.

  What an interesting person. I took out the last rice ball and placed it in front of her, saying: "My name is Xia Yi, his name is Cha Wenbin, we are classmates, not bad people, this rice ball is for you."

  I crouched in front of her for a full two minutes, and she didnt show any intention of looking up. I found it boring too, so I put down the rice ball and walked over to Cha Wenbin.

  "Doesnt she eat?" asked Zha Wenbin.

  "Whats it to you? If she doesnt want to eat, well eat it!" I said, intentionally breaking off a small piece of rice ball from Zha Wenbin and putting it in my mouth. Then I exclaimed loudly: "Ah, its really delicious! Come on, Wenbin, lets eat together!"

  The sticky texture of glutinous rice made the rice balls make a "tsu-ba, tsu-ba" sound when chewed in the mouth. When people were extremely hungry, how could they resist such temptation? Besides, she was just a girl of the same age as me. Soon, she lifted her head and looked at us, we also looked at her; then, she picked up the rice ball and took a bite, smiling at us, we also smiled back at her. Just like that, three young people came together for the first time in those difficult years.

  Her name is Yuan Xiaobai, a Shanghainese. Her ancestors were officials, her great-grandfather was an imperial scholar of the Qing dynasty, with a rank of second-class official, and came from a family of scholars. Her father had studied abroad and after returning to China did business in Shanghai, trading in spices and fabrics. His greatest hobby was collecting things, and originally they were a fairly well-known family in Shanghai.

  It was difficult for someone from such a family background to escape disaster in those years. The Red Guards smashed her familys business and looted their collection, her parents were taken away, no one knew where they were detained, the once harmonious home was sealed off, leaving only her alone on this cold train carriage.

  In those years, many people like us were sent to rural areas all over the country. This was in response to the slogan "educated youth go to the countryside to receive re-education". In that era when everything was judged by family background, children of parents who had been overthrown like ours were only fit to be sent to the most difficult and remote border areas where no one wanted to go.

  It was also on that day that I learned that Cha Wenbins adoptive parents had passed away when he was nine years old, and he had been living with his master ever since. Someone reported that his master was a feudal superstitionist, and thus the hat of a counter-revolutionary was firmly placed on him, and he was locked up in a cowshed day and night, and whenever someone was in a bad mood, they would take him out for a struggle session, and Cha Wenbin ended up boarding this northbound train with me.