The Dark Road Read Online Free PDF

your revered ancestor will be able to save you then.’
    The three uniformed men climb back into the minibus. As it drives off, children who’ve run out from the village hurl clods of earth at its windows, and a scruffy yellow dog chases after it until it disappears from sight.
    Seconds later, a man called Scarface marches onto the road, one hand waving a kitchen cleaver and the other gripping a rope which is tied to the wrists of his three crying daughters. Kongzi tries to stand in his way, dodging his swinging cleaver. The two elder girls are his pupils.
    ‘Out of my way!’ Scarface shouts, the burn mark on his forehead turning bright red. ‘I’m taking my three daughters to the County Chief. Let him tell me which one is surplus, and I’ll kill her there and then, right in front of him.’ His youngest daughter is only three years old. Noticing that her shoes have fallen off, her older sisters stoop down and try to pick her up with their bound hands.
    Nannan crawls out of the ditch. As Meili crouches down to hug her, her face suddenly creases with alarm. ‘Oh God, Kongzi, I’ve wet myself. I’ll have to go home and get changed.’
    On a cold night, nine years ago, following a failed morning escape, Father leads Mother and Nannan out of Kong Village and across the snowy fields to the banks of Dark Water River. Here, they board a small boat and, leaving whirlpools and diesel smoke in their wake, head south in search of a safe place for their second child to be born. The infant spirit drifts away from them and continues along Dark Water River, following it upstream all the way to its sacred source in Nuwa Cave.

 
    KEYWORDS:
seasickness, testicles, tangled string, crimson lipstick, boiled frogs, custody centre.
    THE PITCH-BLACK Yangtze River lies supine along the base of the steep limestone gorge, curving round the sinuous banks. The passenger boat moves over the water, leaving a trail of white foam which stretches hopelessly into the distance. Juddering violently, the diesel engine spews out fumes that fill each corner of the boat then leak into the night sky. Most of the passengers have come out onto the top rear deck to escape the stench of vomit and excrement in the cabins below. Meili is squashed against the railings, next to a woman wearing crimson lipstick who comes from a town only ten kilometres from Nuwa Village. When she came onto the deck and saw how ill Meili looked, she gave her a seasickness pill. She’s travelling to Fengjie, a town downriver where she works in a hair salon. She tells Meili that the river towns along this stretch of the Yangtze are being torn down before the dam is complete and the valley flooded, so demolition work is easy to find. She confides that her husband has just had a vasectomy. ‘Three days after he was snipped, the wounds became infected and now his testicles are the size of carrots. He spends all day drinking liquor, moaning about the agonising pain, saying he wishes he could murder the family planning officers who botched the operation.’ The woman is smoking a cigarette. When she speaks, her white teeth sparkle.
    ‘Men hate the idea of losing their manhood,’ Meili says. ‘You should press the Family Planning Commission for compensation.’ She has grown used to this woman’s high-pitched voice, and is now staring at the gold ring on her finger, wondering whether it’s real or gold-plated. Meili has a wedding ring as well, but she keeps it inside her bag as since she fell pregnant her fingers have swollen and it no longer fits.
    ‘He did demand compensation, but they gave him only 1,200 yuan – not enough to pay for even a week of hospital treatment. We asked for a copy of the follow-up examination report, but they refused to give it to us in case we lodged an official complaint. We tried to sue them, but the district judge told us that family planning authorities are above the law. If we took our case to Beijing, we’d be arrested for “illegal