Volume One, Chapter Twenty-Five: Innate Chang Ke

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The flying squirrel’s real name was Chang Ke.

In 1983, he was admitted to the best high school in Yingzhou City. At that time, the future appeared as bright as ever. Both his parents were mid-level officers in the military, and in an era of material scarcity, his living conditions were better than most of his peers. His school boasted one of the highest university admission rates in the province, and the prospect of enrolling in a prestigious university was not far off.

Besides his mandatory studies, he was always eager to explore a variety of books borrowed from the library.

A year later, according to the regulations, students had to choose between the arts and sciences. Driven by personal interest, he initially wanted to pick the arts. But a popular saying at the time—“With a good grasp of math, physics, and chemistry, one can travel the world without fear”—led his father to insist he join the science class.

For years afterward, he steadfastly believed that his father’s blind faith in popular slogans had cast a terrible shadow over his life. For example, “Spare the rod, spoil the child” provided a perfect excuse for the northeastern soldier who loved to beat his wife and children.

Under his father’s blows, Chang Ke’s academic performance soared, and even the sciences he disliked, he managed to study respectably.

At night, he and his roommates would use a shortwave radio to catch sporadic foreign news broadcasts. It was through these that they learned of the death of Soviet leader and former KGB chief Andropov. One of his classmates, from a high-ranking family, reacted strongly, making Chang Ke realize for the first time that international events, seemingly unrelated to them, could deeply affect his peers.

Several major events occurred during that time: the United States and the Soviet Union began their Star Wars program, marking the height of the Cold War; Britain and Argentina fought the Falklands War, with the British achieving a decisive victory; ongoing skirmishes on the China-Vietnam border; and repeated Sino-British negotiations over the return of Hong Kong.

There was also another event that barely registered with the youth: the publication of “Selected Works of the Great Deng.” Every day after school, Chang Ke would rush to the library and, half-understanding, read through the collection of writings on contemporary politics, society, and diplomacy. Deng’s interview with the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci especially opened his eyes, revealing the subtle brilliance and wisdom possible in diplomatic exchanges.

In his final year of high school, Chang Ke began to form his own views on social issues. Unsure of their rightness or wrongness, he would observe others’ opinions through debate.

During one political class, the teacher asked what everyone should do for the upcoming “Learn from Lei Feng Day.” Chang Ke replied indifferently that it was a society “subjectively for oneself, objectively for others,” which the teacher saw as heretical. He became the target of most classmates’ scorn, while the rest fell into silent contemplation.

After several such incidents, he found himself, almost unknowingly, labeled as an eccentric and a heretic.

The college entrance exam approached as scheduled, but unlike his classmates who prepared day and night, Chang Ke was already immersed in a love affair—an opportunity rare enough in those days.

He had fallen for a physics student-teacher, a woman not yet graduated from university, who wore a navy-striped sailor shirt, her figure accentuated during lab classes, fueling the fantasies of a teenage boy.

Unfortunately, before he could confess his feelings, her internship ended.

His entrance exam scores were above average for his cohort, but surprisingly, this science student achieved the only perfect essay score in the entire province.

He resolved to decide his own future.

After all, it was a prestigious school, and top universities from across the country sent recruiters. He sought out the liberal arts recruiters and was ultimately accepted into the foreign languages program at Bincheng University.

The day he received his acceptance letter, Chang Guangliang was furious. This “unfilial son” dared to defy him, challenging authority at the very threshold of adulthood. Once again, he prepared to beat Chang Ke. His mother and sister, as always, stood by in shock, helplessly awaiting the violence.

Packing his clothes, Chang Ke turned to face the raging middle-aged man—someone who had always filled him with terror.

He said coldly, “Chang Guangliang, if you try this again, I’ll fight back.”

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The rolling pin stopped abruptly, just inches from his head. He saw his father’s eyes shift from anger to shock, and finally to sorrow, with a trace of fear.

Slinging a woven bag stuffed with clothes onto his back, and a backpack filled with old books, he strode past his stunned father, mother, and sister, out the door, into the night, and into an uncertain future.

He would not return for ten years.

He counted the lucky money he’d saved over the years—one hundred and twenty yuan, plus three hundred gifted by his grief-stricken grandmother after he left home, enough to cover his enrollment fees.

Chang Ke was someone who liked to plan every penny. The remainder was enough to live decently on campus for three months. From that point on, he’d have to find a way to support himself. Having escaped those anxiety-ridden days, the young man felt as if he’d broken free from prison.

Eighteen years with such a father—what a sentence, he thought, half-mocking himself.

Though he’d never seen a real prison, he could imagine it was no more terrifying than his life had been. Chang Ke felt no regret; in fact, he was wildly elated to have gained his freedom.

He took the ferry to Gulangyu across from the city center. The summer was drawing to a close, but the sea breeze was still scorching. Sweat left a salty tang, and his glasses kept sliding down his nose. He tore off a piece of tissue, sticking it between the nose pads and his nose—ridiculous, but effective. At a street stall, he ordered two beers, a plate of stir-fried clams, a small portion of shrimp, and a dish of greens.

Listening to the waves by day, he dreamed of the darkness sure to come.

He had no clear faith, no mentor in life.

Textbooks remained the same stale slogans year after year. Extracurricular books were scarce; many classics that would later have far-reaching influence were still being translated, and society’s pace already far outstripped education.

Entrepreneurs and ten-thousand-yuan earners now outranked intellectuals and officials. Compared to the meager, barely adequate salaries of civil servants, those who had lost their chance at education and entered society early had grown wealthy overnight.

Parents and schools still preached the value of honesty, while life was already a contest of cunning and fraud, judging heroes by success or failure.

He had no social experience, knew not a soul outside the school walls—a powerless, penniless student. In those days, society’s law and order was appallingly bad and chaotic. He couldn’t begin to imagine the deceits and violence awaiting him; the darkness he anticipated was but a simmering undercurrent, not yet the crashing waves, and he couldn’t foresee the countless brushes with death he would one day survive.

Yet a fierce will to survive was already deeply rooted within him.

Over the next two years, he lived an ordinary college life during the week, but on weekends, he scoured the city for items with big price differences to resell.

Near the train station, he found a department store selling a peculiar, thick cigar called “Ba Mountain Cigar.” Few people knew what a cigar was. He bought them at twenty-seven cents a pack, selling them for a yuan each to convenience stores near campus. Soon, he was selling a hundred packs a month, clearing over seventy yuan in profit.

On weekends, he’d set up a desk in the campus, offering to deliver film for developing. He’d then take the bus into the city to have it processed, earning nearly a hundred yuan a month this way as well.

During winter and summer holidays, while others went home, he worked part-time as a translator at the Bincheng Seamen’s Club.

The club was run like a business but had a special “Reception Department,” which, by transforming itself into a government unit, saved over a million yuan in taxes annually.

All foreign seafarers arriving at Bincheng port needed the Reception Department’s guidance to enter the city to sightsee and spend money. The daily wage for part-timers was just twenty yuan, but every time Chang Ke boarded a ship, he would glibly persuade the captains to take their crews “sightseeing”—a word that became his catchphrase. He colluded with certain shopkeepers to sell beer that cost just thirty cents for three yuan, pocketing a commission.

To earn these somewhat disreputable commissions, he had to memorize the English guides to the city’s attractions backward and forward. This brought him an extra three hundred yuan a month.

The job didn’t last long, but apart from saving him enough cash to invest in new ventures, he considered his greatest gain to be the fluency he acquired in spoken English. Although the seafarers came from all over the world, each with their own accent, their conversations often lasted all day, requiring him to juggle multiple conversations at once, and encompassed every aspect of daily life. Later, he could identify anyone’s nationality just by hearing their voice on the phone.

At the time, universities had begun implementing English proficiency tests. He looked down on those who aced Level 4 easily but couldn’t utter a sentence.

Knowledge, he believed, only had value when put to use.

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Three months later, with two thousand yuan in savings, he endured a full day and night’s voyage by ferry back to Yingzhou. Gaodi Street in Yingzhou was a nationally renowned wholesale clothing market.

In the sweltering city, he squeezed among the sweaty crowd, and amidst the babble of haggling from all corners, he found clothing that was both trendy and profitable.

Back in Bincheng, he sought out a dozen store owners just starting to run night markets, proposing deals. With low capital and slim profit margins, the shopkeepers were happy to let him supply the goods up front.

After some time as a speculator, he began to approach small garment factories to custom-make popular items based on market samples.

In less than a year, he had saved over seventy thousand yuan—more than his parents had managed in a lifetime. With money in hand, he no longer hesitated to buy books.

When not attending classes or doing business, he spent all his time in the school library until closing.

If there were any lectures by upperclassmen, he would always be present, ravenously auditing all kinds of speeches and debates, then researching and cross-checking the sources of various viewpoints.

He read Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality,” Aquinas’s theological works, all five volumes of Mao’s selected works, Eugene O’Neill’s collected plays, the Sartre “Being and Nothingness” translation by Liu Mingjiu, and all of Camus’ plays.

He was especially interested in the dramatic systems of Brecht and Stanislavski, savoring the differences between Expressionism and Method Acting.

He rented a small rural house near the school gate just to read in peace, away from the distractions of his peers, splitting his time between the dormitory and the village house.

During school breaks, while others went home, he stocked up on instant noodles and beer for the week, reading massive works of philosophy, psychology, and literature day and night.

Through books, his experience grew daily; he traversed many countries, lived through countless historical events, sought wisdom from Napoleon, great men, Tsarina Catherine, Hitler, Churchill, and conversed with people of every era.

He imagined what he would do in their circumstances. He sought advice from the Count of Monte Cristo, Corleone, even Feng Qingyang, and visited Dumas, Foucault, Schopenhauer, and even the Sixth Patriarch of Zen in the vast sea of books.

He didn’t need to know why he read. He only knew that though all this reading might never prove useful, if the day ever came when he needed it and hadn’t read, he would surely regret it.

And besides, at that moment, reading was his only option.

He fantasized that he would become a legitimate, successful businessman, a writer, a philosopher, a psychologist, or even an artist. But he had no foundation—what art could he practice?

He could be a photographer; it required no artistic background, and he had every confidence in his technical skills.

He wanted to live this limited life extravagantly and boldly.

After summer vacation of his junior year, having just finished Sartre’s weighty “Being and Nothingness,” he glanced at his passbook, now showing over two hundred thousand yuan, at his room crammed with books, at the mountains of beer bottles and instant noodle wrappers, and then stepped out of his solitary room.

The glaring sun was high overhead; the world seemed to spin around him, but his mind was sharply clear, feeling a sense of renewal and exhilaration. He did not know when or how his destiny would begin.

As Chang Ke would later say to others: “There’s an old saying—at thirty, a man stands; at forty, he has no doubts; at fifty, he knows his fate.” He would grin, “Me? I did everything ten years early. I stood at twenty, had no doubts at thirty, and at forty—I already knew that it’s all just destiny.”

He believed he had prepared himself thoroughly for life.

But fate, that scoundrel, always makes its dramatic turns without ever allowing the protagonist to question its decisions.