Village Lunatics

One day at noon, on our way back from the town market, my mother and I spotted a woman walking down the street. It was a scorching hot day, and there were no trees nearby to provide shade. The woman, in her sixties, wore a thick jacket but no sun hat. My mother said she was a mentally ill woman from the neighboring village. Although she had mothered a few children, she had always been a little “off.” Nobody in her family cared anymore—they just let her be. A few days ago, my mother added, this woman suffered from sunstroke on the street. Thanks to a passerby, she was saved by a bottle of water. See, now that she's recovered, she's come back out. Several days later, I heard the woman fell at a crosswalk on her way home. By the time the villagers found her, she had already stopped breathing. Her dead hand held a piece of watermelon with a few bites taken. Nobody knew who gave it to her. After hearing these stories, I had the idea to write about these people around me—the ones who are forgotten, who live like wild grass. Facing the weight of these lives, I feel powerless, but I cannot turn a blind eye to them. Because I am unable to help them, I feel as though I owe them something. As a way of repaying them, I've jotted down the marks they've made on this world.One day Auntie Liu told me that Zhiyin's wife, Madwoman Yang, had entered a mental hospital.I asked, she's been crazy for half of her life—how come she's only now been sent for treatment?Auntie Liu explained that ever since Madwoman Yang had come to our village, everyone knew she had problems, so nobody cared to argue with her over trivial things such as sneaking home her neighbors’ outdoor brooms and mops or pilfering other people's doormats. But recently she started to stay up all night and keep swearing loudly, driving her neighbors up the wall. One after another, they all went and complained to her husband. Seeing no other way, her husband called her older sister. After discussing things over, they agreed that it was the safest to send her to a mental hospital.A moment from twenty years ago came to mind—it was Zhiyin's wedding day, and I'd gone to drink at his wedding feast. I asked my mother, where did the bride come from? Mother replied, she came from a village ten miles away. She was married before and even had a daughter. Her man divorced her when he made a fortune. Zhiyin had a cousin in the same village, who introduced this girl to him. When he first heard that the girl's mind was a little “disturbed,” Zhiyin immediately said no. But everyone around him clamored to get a word in, urging him to say yes. Some said, you're pushing thirty and still single—do you really think you have a choice? Others said, you don't have any special skill or family fortune—how can you be so picky? Be careful, or you'll never get a wife.Zhiyin was a quiet person. After hearing all this, he dropped his head all the way down to his crotch, waiting a long while before he lifted it back up. And the marriage was settled.They chose a wedding day, and the bride was brought over. She was of medium build, with short hair reaching her earlobes, dark skin, double eyelids, and a large, square face.Half a year later, nobody called her by her real name Yang Chunrong anymore. Instead, they called her Madwoman Yang. It turned out that, not long after their wedding, she showed her true madwoman face. One night, when Zhiyin was falling asleep in their bed, instead of sleeping, Madwoman Yang stood in front of the bed and talked garrulously to him. When Zhiyin woke up and opened his eyes, the sky was already gleaming with light, but his wife still stood in the same position, immersed in talking to herself. The following night, Zhiyin dared not sleep in his wedding bed, so he huddled in his younger brother's bed. At midnight, Zhiyin's poor brother woke up, only to find a blurry human figure standing at the bed holding a kitchen knife. The young man was so frightened that he fell out of bed and ran away.After the Spring Festival, Zhiyin went to a big city to look for a job. When the rice ripened, he returned home to help with the harvest. One day when he was wielding a sickle in the rice field, Madwoman Yang, wearing a red top and green pants, stood on the ridge of the field and started yelling at him: “Look at you, city man, who do you think you are? How dare you touch my rice? I broke my back to grow these crops, and now you get to harvest them? Have you asked for my permission?”Without looking up, Zhiyin kept tolling away in the field, but she took her cursing to the next level: “Shame on you, you're nothing but a robber . . . ” Zhiyin couldn't take it anymore—he stepped on the ridge and struck her back with the handle of the sickle, then left without looking behind him.Madwoman Yang even hurt someone last year. The story goes: a woman in our village named Zhenlan discovered that the vegetables in her field had been stolen and suspected that Madwoman Yang was the thief, so she went to Yang's house to question her. Remembering the madwoman kept a dog, she brought a stick for self-defense. When Zhenlan got there, not only did the madwoman deny any wrongdoing, she also started yelling at her: “My son is becoming a man. When you accuse me of stealing things, are you deliberately trashing my reputation so that he won't find a wife?” Zhenlan replied, “You're crazy, I'm not messing with you—it's my bad luck to meet you!” After saying this, she turned around and was about to walk away. Yang chased after her with a brick in hand. As soon as the brick hit Zhenlan's head, blood gushed out. Zhenlan was stunned by the sudden attack. Losing her balance, she fell to the ground. Madwoman Yang, acting as if it had nothing to do with her, went back home and locked the door. In the end, Zhiyin's younger brother couldn't bear the scene and sent Zhenlan to the hospital. Of course, Zhiyin paid the medical bill.Zhiyin had a trash-recycling business in the city. After a few years of work, he was able to afford a car to drive himself home. He also came to resemble a boss: in the past, he was bony with dark skin and never trimmed his mustache. Now that he had money, he'd ballooned up, pale and plump. He even learned to dress like a businessman. As the saying goes, clothes make the man.Zhiyin brought Madwoman Yang to the city. She referred to all the men with whom Zhiyin came into contact as liars who wanted to cheat him out of his money; she claimed that all the women whom Zhiyin had ever met were having an “inappropriate relationship” with him. When Zhiyin returned home after a full day of work, she blocked the door and declared, “Want in? Give me money!” At night, while Zhiyin was asleep, she scraped every penny out of his pocket. If Zhiyin asked her for the money, she'd start cursing. At his wit's end, Zhiyin sent the madwoman back home and demanded a divorce. He argued they'd never been in love in the first place and had only gotten together because there were no other options—at first, he thought he'd just put up with it, but who knew she'd turn out to be such a lunatic?Rumor had it that although Madwoman Yang had an ill fate, she was actually a “lucky woman!” Whoever married her would become successful. Her ex-husband used to run a mediocre tofu business from home. One day when her then-husband was selling tofu, a fortune teller passing through the villages recommended that he head south, where he was guaranteed to find wealth. And so he traveled with a construction team to Guangzhou. Who would have thought that he indeed would have a breakthrough: the man made his way from a brick mover to the contractor of an entire construction team. Later, he landed the contract for a concrete mixing plant that served several major construction sites in the city. With the mixer blending cement day and night, his fortune accumulated like a rolling snowball. As soon as his assets reached ten million, he kicked out Madwoman Yang. Now she was married to Zhiyin, a man who previously only had a few pennies rattling in his pocket, but made a fortune in just a few years. At first, he started a recycling station, then he invested in a plastic factory with a few dozen workers, and the business quickly boomed. No joke: after this rumor spread, quite a few bachelors in the village were lining up to marry her.After Zhiyin filed for divorce, the court sent an investigator to their home. Madwoman Yang said to Zhiyin, “Don't waste your time at home. Your business out there is more important. Leave it to me, I can handle it.” Other villagers laughed at her, “You really are crazy! This isn't family planning. Who needs you to ‘handle’ it? That man is trying to divorce you.”Some said the divorce wasn't happening. Madwoman Yang had powerful family connections, so it wouldn't be so easy to divorce her. She had relatives in the township government and in the county. And indeed, after a few days, Zhiyin left the village in his car.I have learned two versions of the story about how Madwoman Yang went mad. The first one goes like this: her father was an educated man working for the government during the Cultural Revolution, but he picked the wrong side and was defamed as a rightist. Every day her father was taken to the street and humiliated. When he couldn't bear it anymore, he took his daughter, who was four or five at the time, and ran away. They didn't dare to run during the day, so they sneaked out at night and headed deep into the forest until heavy rain caught them halfway. The father then carried the girl on his shoulders to climb over mountains and swim across rivers. A few days later, the father's body was discovered in a river. When the girl was found in the mountains, she'd already been scared to madness. Nobody knew what she'd gone through in those days. Another version goes that when her ex-husband made a fortune and divorced her, she couldn't accept reality and lost her mind. There's no way for me to find out which one is true.Dumboy's home was only one ridge away from mine. In my childhood, when my father called me home from playing outside, Dumboy, sitting on a hill nearby, would trail along: “Lin'er . . . ” And I'd answer: “Here!” When Dumboy heard me, he would get so excited that he'd shout my name again, followed by a string of giggles. Dumboy spoke in a special way: he couldn't say long sentences but would only pop out two words at a time. This was our game: every time he called to me, I answered. When he laughed, I laughed. Seeing me laugh, he laughed even harder. The next day, he would have forgotten my name. If there was someone calling me, he'd follow and call me, but if there was nobody calling me, he wouldn't know how to call me.Till this day, I remember how Dumboy, half the height of an adult, still wore split-crotch pants and loved to sit on the ground. His clothes were all filthy. He had a pile of messy hair on top of his head and two strings of snot dripping from his face. When he rubbed them with sleeves, the snot spread all over his face, so his cheeks always looked dirty. On his feet he wore one rain boot and one slipper.I heard from Chunxia, a girl from my class who lived next door to Dumboy, that on the day he was born, a dog came to his house. Had he been named Puppy or Doggo, he would probably not have become so dumb. But his father and mother gave him a fashionable name—Mingxing, “Brightstar.” When he grew older, his mother realized he was an idiot and wanted to drown him, only to be stopped by his father, who said, “It runs in the family. Every generation has an idiot, and now it's his turn. Since fate brought him to us, we'd better not go against it. Let's feed him simple food, dress him in rags, and just bring him up.”On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Dumboy's family was eating sweet rice balls. His mother served him a bowl of steaming hot rice balls fresh out of the pot, which he hungrily gobbled down. But one ball got stuck in his throat. Choking, Dumboy relentlessly shook his head left and right—in no time, his eyes rolled back. Startled, his father immediately dropped the bowl and pulled him up by the feet, forcing the rice ball to fall out. Dumboy was finally able to breathe again.He had things On days, every had an to keep the in those days, the was a red in a while the family was around the as he into the Dumboy reached out to that red quickly the but it was were already with lived in his simple but He wore was to him and was served to him. He never complained and always in his did he ever about his like a who never grew up. But when he reached the of or in the village him to a to in the of the to town and for a Some would him a few the money, he would to the side of the Others gave him an which he would also accept and with If he ran into a who at him: you me in the of the Dumboy would still his out and . . . . . . ” I with my eyes when the Dumboy blocked the way like a pile of and him up until he was and rolling on the few years ago, I returned to the village from I heard from my mother that Dumboy's father had ill and away. His mother also I started to about Dumboy's day, on my way I ran into Dumboy's I asked if she had had my The said if I'm I still have a few more years to but the come back at any you do with if I didn't have I couldn't live him. figure out for him when the day his mother do you his and in this, I was unable to a word for a long Dumboy went He come home in a few days, and his mother called her two older working in the city to come back and They put up and at every door in the village. They even went to the to make an A but there was still no The villagers that, on a night, when it was Dumboy had been walking by himself on the when a car with from away pulled over him. came two big men who Dumboy into the man one of the But then someone a did they an idiot He couldn't do have to him and this, someone replied, it's true that the idiot is but his dumb. His and still work, His can work, gave to their and that had Dumboy in to make a not long after that, I was walking with my mother after we'd sweet My mother was walking of me and kept back to me home. I was it wasn't dark what was she A for a my mother at a field nearby and told me that was where Dumboy's body had been he fell into the and was an After the cement was nobody used it anymore. Dumboy got up before walking on this by When he went the field, he into the down and didn't up He was discovered with his head stuck in the field, about to away. Dumboy's mother went to the it was really him, and he had on the same clothes he'd been wearing that And she called her two older back to help the body to the I now she be She no had to about what to do with the the of an idiot is as trivial as the of an in not that dumb. She was just a said it was because her mother had a that the in her for long and her of As a was a little was a girl with short hair and a face. She had and thick which made her look a little but in she had an she was always and When she got she would her and her was a young man who as a and The only was that he had a said that not long after he was born, his mother put him on the bed and went to in the where she heard a When she ran back to take a she found nothing out of the after that, had what was called a people in the village it was a left by the who to the but dropped turned he was working at a brick where he met a girl from the neighboring The two other and started even brought the girl home to live with him. long the girl so asked his to a wedding Since the girl was already his mother was not to on the The girl's family asked for a of four mother their How dare they for when she was already a It turned that the girl's family was They took her to the for an and then married her to he his for their couldn't do about it. when someone introduced to him, immediately agreed to the This was how married into our village and my long after their wedding, people had for about but was She started after she got She out she took in, water. She until the day she was about to go into When her was she went to the for a only to find that she was a She at the for about ten days and lost her year later, she This time she had a girl When the named turned about or four years she still not say or to she not She and in her took her to the and was told his was an that went were that she had been Her family said she fell and in a One day not long after that, started to fall from the wearing a on his head, every family in the village and asked them to put a on a piece of as a for which he to for a to have year later, for a time. This time she grew When she she looked like a in the My mother brought her two even started eating them, she Startled, immediately sent her home to down and This time, she had and a Her took for the after he was born, not to get to him. She also that it would turn the into an idiot as the was and The family him as a and named him turned gave him a little After all her finally had a and a their was born, as though he had the of the family went to find in and came back I was and in my house. When I was sitting and for my came in and said to me only I knew how to I'd love to a for my this, I was to in her simple there was still for I said to her, take this I you'll how to do everyone she Every time she someone in the she would shout from away. my her is the woman all the and in the But you all of them to be like the family be Your men would to I knew what they Some out of a house in a nearby village. he her, you keep this, your don't if you on If my man was I wouldn't come This the she really an were not the words of an few ago, went to the mountains to When she came she realized her sickle was And her took her to the to look for it. When they got it was already As soon as they stepped her her for for you two fell asleep in the while looking for the woman to and hit that, her on up the She would take of her and and would live on her didn't know how to never figure out how to The rice turned out or to she knew nothing about or As she always a of when she went time grew older and had to at her even when talking that her couldn't her, more she at her: How can you still me for all these If it for me, never have a your Her her but couldn't make out the so she are you talking about I'm She then started in a the unable to do but at her.After years of working in the had finally saved to an in the and send his son and to He kept his mother in the to take of the but to to live with last time I was when she was rice in the field with her Her had up, just them be. couldn't help her A married was like water. Her couldn't take her back home because they were and other people's They to keep her out of out of mind. When like a little in an of find her I can is for her to grow up soon and take her into their so that can love and from her son and in her years

Pure mathematics · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Mathematics