The Five Brothers' Dream

The year Ma Yide graduated from Beijing University of International Business and Economics, the winds of the South had already changed.
In former times, the wind had blown across fields, hills, ancestral halls, and old pages of books, teaching people to lower their brows, keep to their place, and live within their proper bounds. But now the wind came sweeping from the newly built roads of Canton, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai, carrying the smell of ink, gasoline, Hong Kong goods, and renminbi. It also carried a kind of restlessness no one could quite name. It was as though the whole earth had just awakened from a long dream and, before washing the dust from its face, was already reaching anxiously into its pocket for a key, eager to open a door it had never seen before.
Ma Yide looked for work in the provincial capital.
It was the hour when the first tides of southern commerce were rising.
Canton, the provincial city, was like a pot that had just begun to boil, steam rising everywhere. New privately owned shops opened one after another along the streets. Men on motorcycles roared past delivering goods. Outside the train station, merchants from north and south carried snakeskin sacks and canvas bags, their eyes all flashing with the same light—east, west, north, south, and center: if one wanted to get rich, one went to Guangdong.
Each day, Ma Yide submitted résumés to different offices while riding an old bicycle through the streets of these city areas: Shisanhang, Shahe, Zhanxi, and Haizhu Square.
作者：day, he held a folder of documents beneath his arm and moved among foreign trade companies, grain and oil import-export offices, department store procurement stations, and neighborhood employment agencies. His face carried the modesty expected of a university graduate, yet in his heart another fire was burning. At night, when he returned to the small room he rented, he lit a dim yellow desk lamp, pushed aside his foreign trade textbooks, opened an account book, and wrote line after line of the goods selling briskly on Gaodi Street: electronic watches, tape recorders, nylon stockings, jeans, imported cigarettes, Nanyang coffee, plastic sandals, tea leaves, candy, dried fruit.
His classmate Chen Shaokun often came to see him. With one pot of strong tea and two small dishes of peanuts, the two spoke of making fortunes like young men who had just learned to read the signs of Heaven and now insisted on predicting the winds of the world.
Chen Shaokun said, “If you’re going to do it, then trade approval slips. Steel, cement, fertilizer—turn one document around and it’s money.”
Ma Yide shook his head. “That isn’t business. That’s gambling on connections. The connections are in other people’s hands, not mine.”
Another classmate, Liang Hairong, said, “Go to Shenzhen and flip electronic watches. Light, small, quick. Earn a few yuan each—one bag is thousands.”
Ma Yide still shook his head. “Too many fakes, and the water is too deep. Besides, I don’t have the capital. If I step wrong once, I won’t even find my bones.”
They talked until midnight. Outside the window, trains rumbled past, shaking the glass faintly. That sound was like the distant world knocking on the door, and also like fate urging him through the darkness: Faster, faster. One step too slow, and all the gold will be picked up by others.
One afternoon, Canton was as hot as a steamer basket. Near the Pearl River Bridge, Ma Yide saw a northern merchant squatting by the roadside, selling several wrinkled-skinned melons. The melons did not look impressive, yet many people had gathered around. Someone cut off a piece to taste, then immediately cried out, “Sweet! Truly sweet!”
Something suddenly stirred in Ma Yide’s heart.
Several years earlier, during the ancestral ceremony, his cousin Ma Chengzhi from the ancient Western Regions had once said casually, “Where we live, Hami melons are ridiculously cheap in the fields—ten or twenty cents per half a kilo, and sweet as honey.”
At that time, the courtyard had been full of young men laughing and speaking of their ideals. Only this one remark, like a seed, had fallen unnoticed into Ma Yide’s heart. Now, lit by the sight of this sweet melon on a street in Canton, it suddenly broke through the soil.
He almost ran back to his rented room.
He opened his account book, and his pencil moved rapidly across the page. Field price in the ancient Western Regions: twenty cents for half a kilo. Retail price in Canton: around two yuan, two and a half for better-looking fruit. A difference of more than tenfold. Deduct rail freight, loading and unloading, favors, spoilage, rotten melons, stall fees—so long as the fruit arrived alive in Canton, there would still be great profit. Melons were living goods. They could rot, be crushed, lose flavor, or be ruined completely by a delayed railcar. Yet precisely because it was dangerous, timid people would not dare do it. Precisely because the road was far, short-sighted people could not see it.
The more Ma Yide calculated, the more his hands trembled.
Not from fear.
From excitement.
He felt as though he were standing beside a black river. On the opposite bank, ten thousand lamps were burning. There was no bridge across the water, only one wet and slippery log. Fall in, and the family would be ruined; cross over, and life would become something entirely different.
That night, he went to the post office and queued to make a long-distance call.
The post office was unbearably stuffy. On the wall hung a sign reading, “Long-distance calls: please do not speak loudly.” Before the counter, people crowded together: traders calling Hong Kong, migrant workers reporting safety to families in the north, a woman sweating with urgency, and strangers exchanging information about sources of goods while waiting in line. Ma Yide waited nearly an hour before he finally got through to the ancient Western Regions.
The line crackled and hissed, like wind blowing over the Gobi Desert.
“Brother Chengzhi, it’s me, Yide.”
“Yide? Aren’t you in Canton looking for work?”
“Work can wait. Tell me first—what’s the current price of Hami melons?”
The other end paused, then laughed. “Why are you asking about melons? If you want to eat them, I’ll send you a few.”
“Not to eat.” Ma Yide lowered his voice. “I want to ship a full railcar to Canton and sell them.”
The other end fell silent.
After a long while, Ma Chengzhi said, “Do you know how far it is from the ancient Western Regions to Canton? Do you know what happens to melons after they’re trapped in a train for days? Do you know that railcars aren’t something you can get just because you want one?”
“That’s why I’m asking you.” Ma Yide spoke quickly. “You know people there. Didn’t you say Eldest Uncle still has old connections in the Construction Corps? Help me ask the farms. Field price, ripeness, loading, railcar arrangements—ask clearly about each step.”
Ma Chengzhi sighed. “You’re even crazier than you were the year of the ancestral ceremony.”
“One has to be crazy while young,” Ma Yide said. “When I’m old, all that will be left is regret.”
Yet the hardest part was not the source of goods.
It was capital.
When Ma Yide returned to Qianzhou and opened his mouth to his parents, Zhao Youlan’s face changed almost at once.
“Go to the ancient Western Regions to trade melons?” The needle and thread in her hand stopped in midair. “Such a faraway place, full of strangers—you are a child just out of school. What makes you think you can go?”
“Mother, I am no longer a child.”
“In your mother’s eyes, you are still a child.” Zhao Youlan’s eyes reddened with worry. “What if the melons spoil? What if someone cheats you? What if something happens on the road? You only see twenty cents becoming two yuan (dollars). You do not see how many pits there are along the way.”
Ma Cunhui sat beneath the osmanthus tree, turning through the account book for a long time. The calculations were not careless; in fact, they were beautifully done. But he understood better than his son that in this world, the thing most capable of deceiving a person was often a beautiful account.
“Yide,” he said, closing the book, “in business, I am not afraid that you want to make money. I am afraid that you only want to make money.”
Ma Yide’s face grew hot. “Father, our Ma ancestors were merchants. Does that mean that by the time it comes to me, I cannot even try once?”
Ma Cunhui lifted his head and looked at him. There was no anger in his gaze, only deep weariness.
“When our ancestors did business, they relied on three generations of accumulated connections, credit, warehouses, bookkeepers, and shipping routes. What do you have now?”
Ma Yide was stopped by the question.
After a long while, he said in a low voice, “I have courage.”
Zhao Youlan’s tears fell at once. “Courage cannot be eaten as food, nor can it shield you from disaster.”
In the end, his parents did not give him the money, and they could not produce such large capital even if they wished to. It was not that they did not love him. It was that they did not dare wager the whole family’s stability on a young man’s hot blood.
Ma Yide sat in the courtyard all night.
The fragrance of osmanthus fell lightly upon his shoulders. Dogs barked in the distance; the river made no sound. For the first time, he felt that “going into business” was not a grand phrase spoken from the safety of the shore. It meant truly taking off one’s shoes and stepping into black water.
He thought of his third uncle in Hong Kong, Ma Gaohui.
Three letters were sent, and twice he entrusted others to transfer phone calls. Finally, late one night, someone from the town post office came to call him: “Ma Yide, Hong Kong phone call!”
He threw on his clothes and ran there. The moment he pressed the receiver to his ear, he heard his third uncle’s familiar laughter.
“I hear you want to go to the ancient Western Regions and trade Hami melons? Good boy. The Ma family hasn’t produced such a reckless young fellow in years.”
“Third Uncle, I’m not fooling around.”
“When young people fool around, they all say they aren’t fooling around.” Ma Gaohui laughed, but his voice suddenly became serious. “Tell me this: how much loss are you willing to accept?”
Ma Yide gripped the receiver tightly. “If I lose it all, I accept it.”
“And borrowed money—you’ll repay it too?”
“I will.”
“What if ten years is not enough?”
“Then I’ll repay it in twenty.”
The other end fell quiet.
After a long while, Ma Gaohui gave a soft sigh. “You’re a little like me when I was young. Very well. I’ll lend you fifty thousand. Remember—it is a loan, not a gift. Write a note. Record the interest. The first lesson of a businessman is not how to make a fortune. It is how to bear responsibility.”
Ma Yide’s throat tightened. “Third Uncle…”
“Don’t be moved too early,” Ma Gaohui interrupted. “When you reach the ancient Western Regions, look at the melon fields before you discuss price. Watch the loading before you pay the balance. If the melons are picked too early, they won’t be sweet. Picked too late, they’ll rot on the road. In Canton, find wholesale outlets first. Don’t dream of making every last coin at retail from the start. Cash is king. Better to earn less than to sell on credit. And remember—swindlers do not necessarily look like swindlers. Sometimes they dress more respectably than you.”
When the fifty thousand Hong Kong dollars reached Canton, Ma Yide did not sleep all night.
He exchanged the Hong Kong dollars into ten-yuan renminbi notes, gaining more than ten percent by the rate. He divided the money into several bundles, wrapped them in old newspapers, and sewed them into cloth pouches worn close to his body. It did not feel like money. It felt like a bundle of hot coals pressed against his chest, burning him with excitement and fear at the same time.
On the day of departure, Canton Railway Station was like an enormous beast, opening its dark mouth, swallowing and breathing out people from every direction.
The square was packed with heads. Snakeskin sacks, military satchels, bamboo baskets, rolled quilts, and tin trunks were piled like temporary hills. Some people sat on their bundles eating steamed buns. Women held sleeping children in their arms. Ragged beggars threaded through the crowd carrying broken bowls, a few coins clinking inside. Vendors shouted at the top of their lungs: “Tea eggs! Hot tea eggs!” “Peanuts, sunflower seeds, mineral water!” “Maps! National railway timetables!” Others approached travelers mysteriously and asked in low voices, “Comrade, need a ticket? Sleeper ticket. Cheap.”
Ma Yide pressed the money pouch tightly against his chest.
A thin little man came up to him, smiling with great warmth. “Brother, where are you headed? Ancient Western Regions? What a coincidence, I’m going too. I know someone who can help you get a sleeper.”
Ma Yide glanced at him and remembered his third uncle’s words.
“No need,” he said lightly.
The man still wanted to pester him, but an old traveler nearby suddenly coughed. “Young man, don’t bother with him. Just now I saw him tell three different people he was traveling the same way.”
The thin man’s face changed. He cursed under his breath and disappeared into the crowd.
Ma Yide’s heart tightened. He had not even boarded the train, and the world of rivers and lakes had already begun its play.
The waiting room was even more stifling. Electric fans turned weakly overhead. The smell of sweat, smoke, instant noodles, and diapers mixed into one. The land in the early years of reform and opening was like a pot of porridge just uncovered: grains tumbling, steam rising wildly. Farmers entered cities. Students went north. Speculators moved south. Cadres traveled on business. Unregistered wanderers searched for roads. Swindlers searched for prey. Everyone seemed pushed forward by some invisible force, squeezing onward, rushing onward, as though one step too slow would cause them to be flung behind by the age.
When the green-skinned train entered the station, the crowd instantly boiled.
Some ran wildly carrying sacks on their shoulders. Some held children and cried out. Some stuffed luggage through the windows. The carriage doors were packed so tightly that water could not have flowed through. The conductor blew his whistle and shouted, “Do not push! Board one by one!” But no one listened. Ma Yide was wrapped in the human tide until his feet almost left the ground. The pouch against his chest was squeezed until it hurt. One hand gripped his canvas bag; the other guarded the money at his breast. By sheer force, he pushed himself into the carriage.
Inside the carriage, even the air was full.
Bags were stuffed under hard seats. Bags were piled on luggage racks. People sat in the aisle. People crowded at the toilet door. Some ate roast chicken, some smoked, some played cards, some complained, some spoke excitedly of wages in Shenzhen, while others talked of cotton from the ancient Western Regions, apples from Gansu, sesame from the Central Plains, and wood ear mushrooms from the Northeast. The whole carriage was like a moving China, where poverty, hope, cunning, hunger, ambition, and sweat all swayed upon the rails.
After much difficulty, Ma Yide found his seat. By then he was covered in sweat.
At last, the train gave a long whistle and slowly began to move. Outside the window, the platform of Canton Station gradually receded. The cries of vendors, the pleading of beggars, the whispers of swindlers, his mother’s warnings, and his father’s silence all seemed to remain behind in that chaotic pool of lamplight.
From his clothes, he took out the old iron abacus his father had given him. It was small, its wooden frame darkened by age, yet its beads were still smooth and round. He lightly flicked one bead.
Paaa…
A crisp sound.
Like the first bead of fate’s abacus finally falling into place.
Outside the window, night surged upward, and the rails stretched north. Ahead lay the ancient Western Regions, the Gobi, the melon fields of the Construction Corps, Hami melons priced at twenty cents half a kilo, the dazzling illusion of tenfold profit, and a faraway place upon which a young man had wagered his hot blood, debt, ambition, and fear all at once.
Leaning against the window, Ma Yide’s eyes shone with startling brightness.
He said softly to himself:
“This trip—I cannot lose.”