Different people have different eyes; different eyes have different views. Maybe one person means the whole world to you, but nothing to other people. Just like an article forwarded by me about writer Shen Congwen. It seems like Shen Congwen is a god to him. I knew nothing about Shen Congwen before I read the article. I just read Sidelights in West Hunan when I was young. It was not because I loved it, I just had no book to read then. It happened that my neighbor had the book without cover, years later, I just knew the book title was Sidelights in West Hunan.

    I wasn’t very interested in the book and forgot most of it. I just remembered it had a very unique description of women of West Hunan, white face and long eyebrows, and also a very strange method to show faith. A woman just accused that a man raped him, but the man denied. It was difficult to say exactly who was right. So people got a big sandpit ready and buried hard spiles in the sand, telling the man to jump from a hathpace with belly facing the sand. If he could land without hurt by spiles, then he was innocent, the woman was guilty; if he was pierced by spiles, then he only deserved that, the woman was innocent. Really a strange way to judge debate. The third thing was about the moving love between sailor and whore.

  There is nothing else I can remember about it. Because of the article, I just read a short biography about him. I found his wife was pretty and he had written a lot of moving love letters, only with perseverance, then the pretty lady promised to be his wife. He could be quiet and let words flowing under his pen for all his life, which is really the spirit of Chinese intellect. Though I don’t enjoy his works, I admire his high-minded character.

    Probably my neighbor liked to read books about crime. The only book source I could get was his collection. Hence I read a lot of books about crime too and even thought the criminals were so cool. The first criminal book I read was documentary writing about Wang Yanqing. He was a smart and tough guy. He had a high talent on technology especially on machinery of lock. When he was beaten by fellow jailbirds, even though his head was broken and blood flowed from the hole, he treated it as nothing and continued to fight furiously. Those jailbirds were subdued and made him their new boss. Later he escaped by digging tunnel and continued to do evil with a female partner. I found there were always pretty and capable women around criminals and didn’t know why. Finally he was captured in Chenzhou, in which he predicted the day. He was also a little superstitious because Chenzhou had the similar pronunciation with another word Chenzhou(Sunken boat).

    I also read another book about three common guys stealing into Hong Kong and got revolved with Black Dragon Gang. It was common that rural people saying there was gold all over the ground of Hong Kong. A brave man clashed with border sentinel and rushed to Hong Kong luckily. A coward man crouched for fearing the ferocious clash and dared to get away until night, but he walked the opposite way, instead of coming home, hence went to Hong Kong. A pretty woman took off her clothes, so the young sentinel had to turn round, hence was able to come to Hong Kong. Finally they met and supported each other. The brave man and the pretty woman wanted to become rich, the coward man just wanted to have an excuse to explain to his doughty wife. Because it was cold and dark, they found a deserted hut. The brave man and the pretty woman slept inside and made love, the coward man just stayed outside and was on sentry duty all night.

  When they used RMB to buy food, the shopkeeper called the police. They were so panic and even run to the house of Black Dragon Gang, so they had to become members.

Both of the men became robbers, the woman became lover of the boss. She even dreamed to have a baby with the boss, but the boss only loved her pretty body and her striptease. One day, the boss told the women to have striptease facing a group of strange men, the woman wasn’t willing to do so and she was even told that she was sterile by eating food with drug. The woman was desperate and wanted to perish with the boss together. The boss was very angry and told his followers to gangbang the woman to death even though he had a daughter with the same age. At the same time, both men robbed shops regularly, the brave man behaved well, but the coward man often only knew to grasp invaluable things. The night following the woman’s death, both men were told to dig a hole to bury the woman. They were accompanied by two gangsters, while digging, the brave man was so sad to see the woman’s deplorable face that he cut off one of the gangster’s head with shovel, then they two killed the other gangster together. After finishing that, they carried the woman’s corpse and run quickly toward to mainland. The gangsters began to pursue them with knifes and got closer and closer. When they came near to the two men and got ready to murder them, they were stopped by sentinel, because the two men were also near to the border.

  When they came to home, they buried the woman formally and became close friends. The coward man’s wife never dared to condemn him since the day he came from Hong Kong. That’s the end. For nearly sixteen years, I still remembered most of the plot and the book was impressive to me. Because I didn’t know there was so evil world before, the only world I knew was about my small village, I was a little frog looking at the sky from the bottom of a well. If I have chance to read the book again, I will throw it away without hesitation and said disdainfully, “Vulgar!”