（根據真實事件改編小說）
He weaved through the crowd, rubbing off people’s shoulders and whizzing past their hair. 「So busy here!」
When Liang waved with patches of paddy fields in the muggy wind, no one was in his sight – only himself, trying hard on the spinning kick, his leg swiftly streaking over across the image of the setting sun. Mom’s yell would traverse the ocean of plants deep at his waist, 「Liang, back for dinner!」 He would find it hard to tear himself away from the sunset glow that stretched to the far unknown. But he would still rest down and shake the sweat off his head, his stomach growling with hunger. Mom always handed him a bowl filled with rice. She seemed to only cease to sweat when swallowing a few mouthfuls of rice every evening.
Liang had been traveling for more than an hour in the steaming heat of August. He squeezed out of the crowd and decided to find a place to eat. An electric current of excitement surged through his inner engine – He was going to eat! Alone! For the first time in years! It then purred with anticipation – He was going to study and eat with his unmet friends right away! He couldn’t help himself striding bouncily.
When that call arrived in June, Liang knew he was about to write a brand-new chapter of his life: an adventurous, promising, and heroic one. With a hummingbird thumping wings in his upper chest, Liang was expecting Mom to get home and drop her shoulder pole off. She hugged him with ecstasy and murmured unclear congrats, his neck moistened by her arms around. The offer was wrinkled by her fingertips. Liang never saw her clutching at anything else as such tightly, not even the food coupons she brought back every month. Six weeks later, Liang waved at Mom to say goodbye and leaped away. 「Slow down and take care! Liang!」 her voice echoed behind. At the moment he hopped out the gate, he felt like he never flew so close to that sun. Liang was the hero in his Junior High being directly recommended to the best Senior High in the county, and now was the time to set off to his new school. 「Here I come,」 his eyes glistening, he was ready to embrace the light.
Here was the downtown in Lixian County, Hunan Province. People flowed in and different types mixed, begging for a job and perching at the edge of the area. The gray granules on the cement pavement, the pleasant mature fruit aroma from the inclined stands, the hustle and bustle as a queue of bikes clanged their way... Lixian County still had no public transportation but a mere railway line running across the area in 1990, while this was enough to amaze Liang. 「People are such clever designers!」 Liang exclaimed and skipped across the steel, 「someday I』ll be rich, and I』ll take on that flashing machine.」
Delighted and motivated, he habitually punched the air.
–––
「Hey, I bet you don’t know the true secret of Shaolin Temple.」
The voice had a husky drawl, which dragged Liang to turn to his patted shoulder. He saw a 40-year-old man, with the appearance of one who had learned the look of confidence as a survival skill. The black linen short-sleeve shirt suited his tall stature perfectly, adding up his decency as if he was raised in an urban family.
The man was weird. But – 「Shaolin Temple」? Liang paused, perplexed but curious.
「Sorry for my discourtesy,」 the man followed up, suppressing the instinct to tremble the words. His eyes quickly ran over Liang and finally landed on his tattered mustard backpack. 「I was excited because I eventually discovered a talent,」 the words were slowly intoned as the cords of muscle knotting on his neck vibrated, 「not every young boy is suited to dig into kungfu, but you are.」
The man’s calmness winded up a wisp of awe around him. Liang continued his way, recollecting how he and his buddies squeezed together in a low flat-roofed house beside his Junior High, the hard wooden bench warmed under them. They looked up intently and cheered or screamed now and then for the heroes on the big movie screen, until the adults popped in to interrupt this kungfu-movie party. No one didn’t want to be a kungfu master.
「I know fellows mastered at kungfu,」 the man stroked Liang’s shoulder, 「we are seeking top seeds to pass on our kungfu. Why don’t you just come and see?」 The man’s eyes were kind while solemn as if he was carrying out a task that could determine the world’s future.
Liang was flattered. Hearing 「kungfu」, he filled up his mind with imaginary figures that all resembled Jue Yuan, the hero in the movie 「Shaolin」 who was wise and bold to found and renown Shaolin Temple all over the country. The swift spinning kick was his ultimate kill, and Liang was obsessed with it.
「The training spot was just over there,」 the man leaned to the left, whereas still anchored his eyes on Liang’s backpack. 「Boy, I hope I can help you realize your true talent.」
「Sir, I’m penniless.」 Liang’s voice was unsure, signaling his inner struggle.
「So what?」 asked the man, a hesitation flickering across his eyes. 「We are not for earning money. Shaolin Temple sent us here.」 Liang gazed at him with a look of relief. The man didn’t allow the silence to last long, 「Are you on the road to school?」
「Yes. Tomorrow’s the first day.」 The man’s well-bred manners increased his venerability, urging Liang to show full respect.
「Lots of students are coming back to school now. I and my fellows have been observing on the street for days.」 There was something in the way the man was talking that gave him away, his keenness to seek information. 「Did you have your dinner?」
「I am planning to.」
「Ah, OK...」 The man’s words were dilatory as if he was pondering something over. He glanced at Liang’s backpack again. 「So... Are you coming?」
The clamorous city, the stately man in black, the imagined hero Liang in the near future... He felt like these were all exerting a kind of magnetic pull. Liang gulped down the saliva, and finally came to a halt.
–––
「Mom, I have tried,」 he whispered, the tears plopping down onto his trousers, his inner angel imploring for help. Liang has tried. When he found out there was solely a deserted space devoid of matter in front of him, his face was washed blank and every muscle of his body froze in an instant. Seconds later, he dashed to the street with robotic movements and went hunting aimlessly for the evil gang and the backpack he laid aside for freeing himself to show off his spinning kick.
Of course, he could find nothing in the sea of faces. It wasn’t until the realization of which his food coupons were also in the backpack that his overwhelming frustration was built. He sat down by a bush. The lively scarlet flowers lacerated his eyes; the refreshing light breeze choked him. It was the food coupons, worth 90-kg rice, for his whole semester’s meals. Mom had flattened it the night before his departure when they were eating rice, her passing motion being slow with a sense of formality, trust, and expectation. Liang was further ridiculed and shamed by the memory.
Liang thought he might explode. He wanted to shout, throw a tantrum, and beat his hands on the ground like a toddler. He wanted to vent, let the fury out, by bombarding every passerby with a volley of questions like a hysterical woman. Liang was confused. He couldn’t accept the bloody truth that he was tricked like a fool, or understand why an innocent and poor young boy like himself would be the target of frauds and the source of exploitation. 「Mom, now I just don’t know.」 Eyes wet and downcast, brows knotted, mouth buckling, he tried to figure the thing out. Liang was also fearful. He felt like his bones were out of strength to keep supporting his original passionate vision; instead, observing everything new and afraid of any dangerous unknowns, he thought he was sinking into the depths of loneliness and humiliation.
As night closed in, Liang’s stomach growled. He squirmed to try to silence this rumbling, but he couldn’t help himself thinking about Mom’s bowl filled with rice and salivating at it. He stirred himself to move rather than allowing himself to starve to death at this corner, where nobody would care.
His pocket was empty without even a cent to eat. So he walked, once again, in this downtown which now sounded suffocating to him, his blood drained from the skin. With every step he took forward, Liang seemed to have moved nowhere. He never thought to open his life of Senior High like this, borrowing 5 cents from a classmate he had just met minutes ago, embarrassed. That night, he slept with guilt and anxiety welling up in his chest.
–––
Liang had no choice but to walk back home to ask for help the next day. His own vivid walk had become a shuffle. Even the paddy fields could not mollify him as it used to do.
At the moment he saw Mom, he couldn’t refrain himself from falling into her arms and bursting into wracking sobs, more violent than any gale.
「Mom, I’m sorry,」 he cried.
「I’m sorry that I was a fool,」 he developed an even thicker flow of tears, 「that I lost all my food coupons.」
「I’m sorry! I’m sorry mom...」
...
She was stunned, and exhaled. Then she clasped Liang even tighter.
–––
She stooped and scooped out the rice stored in the timeworn big jar laid aside the pots and pans, filling up the plastic woven bag unfolded inside the basket with several wooden strips poking out. She shouldered the pole attached to the baskets, the pole being burned under the searing sun all day long since he could remember things.
「Let’s go.」
Her hair lied like a second skin over her cheeks, heading the salty droplets to drip onto the rugged lanes. The cords pressed her palms, leaving red traces on the calluses. Her steps were small but steadfast, as if she had woven her center to the earth. Even though nearly 10-km road was waiting ahead, she seemed to be never worried but only proceeding one step by another. In that sweat her skin became more glowing, more beautiful, more heroic – Liang thought – than any heart could have imagined.
「Liang, you know what,」 struck by a twinkling of realization, he whispered to himself, 「you should walk like this and live like this.」 Liang caught up and helped haul the baskets up. Not the spinning kick, it was his staid and solid walk that made Jue Yuan a true hero.