“My cousin,” I say when, instead of thinking about his position, he is staring at my plait and daydreaming, “what’s happened to you?”
Lu flushes immediately as if I have found out his secret. He gives a little cough and looks like a doddering old man.
“What have you learned from your books, my cousin?” I taunt him impatiently. “The secret of immortality? You look more and more like those dithering old alchemists who think they hold the secret of purple cinnabar.”
He isn’t listening to me. He isn’t looking at me either, but at his own last letter to me, which I have left on the table. Ever since he arrived he has been waiting for my reply to his illegible demands. I am determined not to breathe a word.
He goes home to the capital, full of flu, a broken man. I go to the station with him, and as I watch the train disappearing into the swirling snow, I have a strange feeling of relief.
6
At last, my first mission!
Our detachment has received orders to track down a group of terrorists who are challenging our authority on the ground in Manchuria. Disguised as Japanese soldiers, they attacked a military reserve and stole arms and munitions.
For four days we follow a river locked under ice, with the wind against us and the fallen snow swirling round our knees. Despite my new coat, the cold slices through me more sharply than a saber, and I can no longer feel my hands or feet. The marching has drained my head of all thought. Laden like an ox and with my head tucked down inside the collar of my uniform, I ruminate on the hope that I will soon be able to warm myself by a campfire.
As we reach the foot of a hill, gunshots ring out. Just in front of me several soldiers are hit and fall to the ground. We are trapped! From their positions up above, the enemy can shoot down on us and we cannot return their fire. A sharp pain twists my gut-I’m wounded! I’m dying! I feel tentatively with my hand: no wound at all, just a cramp produced by fear-a discovery that covers me in shame.