The Five Brothers' Dream

After returning to Canton, he stood before the gates of the Provincial Chemical Construction Import and Export Company and looked at the gray-white office building and the dignified sign above its entrance. Suddenly, his heart became calm. The road ahead might not be broad and smooth. The debt still had to be repaid, and the days still had to be endured. Yet he was no longer the hot-blooded young man who saw only tenfold profit.
He knew now that the true road had not begun at the moment the Hami melons ripened. It began only after he had fallen in rotten melon water, reflected beside a sickbed, eaten his elder brother’s plain bowl of congee, and heard one clear sentence from Guo Jiawen.
Life is sometimes like this.
If a defeat can wake a person, then it is not wholly defeat. If an illness can lower the fire in the heart, then it is not wholly illness. Ma Yide finally understood that wealth is not fate’s reward to the brave.
Maturity is.
Guo Jiawen first appeared in Ma Rende’s life not as a lover, but as a reporter.
At that time, she worked in the news department of the city television station. She was just in her early twenties, yet had already made a modest name for herself. Her background was good, and her education was good as well; she had graduated from the Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University. Her father, Guo Xiaoquan, had likewise come from the Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University. In his youth he wrote elegant prose. Later, he rose from government secretary work, once serving as political secretary to the provincial party secretary. After reform and opening, he was transferred to the city and became a deputy mayor overseeing urban construction, fire services, and municipal engineering.
Guo Jiawen inherited her father’s ambition, and also his bearing.
She dressed with care and understood how to match clothing. In summer, she might wear a beige silk blouse with a pale gray long skirt; in winter, a camel-colored coat with a dark red cashmere scarf. Her leather shoes were always polished clean, and the pen clipped to her interview notebook looked like a small weapon. Yet within this refinement there was always some indescribable touch of vulgarity—not the vulgarity of the marketplace, but the vulgarity of knowing too well that one is respectable, and being too accustomed to being noticed. She liked good fabrics and delicate hair clips, and she also liked, while speaking, to mention casually “our station” or “when my father was at the provincial committee.” But she was not unpleasant, because her vulgarity was not greedy. It was more like a thin layer of urban powder laid over the face of a clever and determined young woman.
What truly brought her close to Ma Rende was a great fire.
That year, the redevelopment of the old city was in full swing. In the south of the city, an old neighborhood was to be demolished and rebuilt. Timber buildings, arcaded houses, and old warehouses crowded together, with electric wires tangled overhead like spiderwebs. One night, beside a construction site, a warehouse storing paint, timber, and old furniture suddenly caught fire. Driven by the wind, the flames spread rapidly along the connected old houses. Thick smoke rose like a black tide, pressing over the rooftops and lighting up half the night sky. Fire engines roared into the narrow lanes with sirens wailing. Water cannons thundered, and the firelight turned the firefighters’ face shields crimson.
That night, many firefighters were badly injured.
Some were struck by collapsing beams and pillars. Some had their faces and necks burned by tongues of fire from a flashover. Some, in order to carry out elderly residents trapped in the building, suffered burns so severe that the flesh on their arms became blurred and raw. Around dawn, ambulance after ambulance drove into the Provincial People’s Hospital. The emergency building was brightly lit. The wheels of stretchers rolled rapidly across the floor tiles. The air was full of the smell of charred flesh, disinfectant, and suppressed sobbing.
Ma Rende was already an attending physician in the burn department.
When he received the call and arrived at the ward, he wore only a thin outer garment over his white coat, and his hair was still somewhat disheveled. But the moment he entered the resuscitation room, his whole person immediately became calm. He put on a mask, swept his eyes over the condition of the wounded, and spoke in a voice that was not loud but extremely clear.
“Severe inhalation injury to Bed One first. Open fluid channels immediately. For burns of the face and neck, watch the airway. Prepare for tracheotomy. Xiao Li, contact the blood bank. Head nurse, notify the operating room to stand by.”
The younger doctors had been somewhat flustered, but hearing his voice, their hearts steadied.
One firefighter trembled all over from pain, yet still gripped Ma Rende’s sleeve tightly. His voice was hoarse.
“Doctor… that old man… was he rescued?”
Ma Rende lowered his head and gently held the man’s hand.
“He was rescued. What you need to do now is bring yourself back too.”
The firefighter’s eyes immediately grew wet.
After daybreak, Deputy Mayor Guo Xiaoquan came to the hospital to visit the wounded.
He was not tall, and his build was somewhat short. He wore a dark cadre suit. The clothing was cut loosely, and the shoulder line sagged a little, making his body appear even smaller. Yet once he entered the ward, his presence was by no means small. Staff members, hospital leaders, and television reporters all followed behind him. He moved without haste, asked brief questions, and his gaze was steady.
“How many are seriously injured? Are any lives in danger? For later skin grafts and rehabilitation expenses, the city will coordinate. We cannot let those who saved lives feel abandoned.”
The hospital leaders answered one by one. After listening, Guo Xiaoquan did not deliver empty formalities. He walked directly to the bedsides and bent down to see the wounded. His Mandarin carried a trace of local accent and was not polished, yet it had weight.
“You were injured for this city. This city must not forget you.”
When it was Ma Rende’s turn to report the injuries, Guo Xiaoquan lifted his head and looked at him.
This young doctor before him had clean, upright brows and eyes. After a whole night of rescue work, his eyes were bloodshot, yet his voice was steady. He explained the injuries, treatment plans, danger periods, and follow-up care clearly and logically. As Guo Xiaoquan listened, he asked, “What is your name?”
“Ma Rende.”
“Which school did you graduate from?”
“Southwest Medical University.”
Guo Xiaoquan nodded. “A good name. Only when a doctor has benevolence can he carry virtue.”
It sounded like an official compliment, but Ma Rende only bowed slightly.
“It is my duty.”
Guo Xiaoquan looked at him, and a trace of appreciation entered his eyes. He had seen too many people who knew how to speak, and too many people who used occasions to display themselves. This young doctor was neither humble nor arrogant. He did not flatter, and he did not evade. He was like a green bamboo growing beside the white walls of the hospital: clean in spirit, yet with hard bones.
That day, Guo Jiawen also came to the hospital with the television station to conduct interviews.
She held a microphone, with a cameraman following behind. She wore a pale blue blouse, with a small pearl brooch at the collar, and her hair was fastened with a black clip. Her whole person looked clean, bright, and carried the quickness particular to television reporters. When she interviewed Guo Xiaoquan, she naturally understood the propriety of roles and only addressed him as “Deputy Mayor Guo.” When interviewing firefighters, she could lower her voice quickly, so that the camera would not make the wounded uncomfortable.
At last, she found Ma Rende.
“Doctor Ma, would it be convenient to say a few words?”
Ma Rende had just come out of the ward. He removed his mask, his face tired. “Please keep it brief. The patients are still in critical condition.”
Guo Jiawen paused slightly.
She was used to seeing many people become suddenly enthusiastic when facing a camera, even wishing to say more than necessary. Yet this man before her seemed to regard the camera as something that delayed his work.
She smiled. “I will ask only one question. Last night, when so many wounded were brought in at once, what worried you most?”
Ma Rende was silent for a moment and looked toward the ward door.
“What worried me most was that they might survive the fire scene, but not survive the infection and shock afterward. A burn does not end when the fire goes out. The truly difficult part is the long pain that follows.”
Guo Jiawen’s pen paused.
The sentence was plain, yet it had more force than many beautiful slogans.
She asked again, “Then what would you most like to say to the viewers?”
Ma Rende looked into the camera, his voice low. “Please remember them. After the fire is over, the news will pass, the spectators will leave, but their pain will not pass quickly.”
When Guo Jiawen lowered the microphone, she suddenly felt that this doctor was different from many people she had interviewed. He had no uplifting posture and no carefully designed memorable lines. Yet he possessed a sincerity that made it impossible to treat him lightly.
From then on, Guo Jiawen came to the burn department many times.
Sometimes she was following up on the recovery of the wounded. Sometimes she was making a public fire-safety feature. Sometimes she merely used the excuse of delivering edited news tapes. She often saw Ma Rende walking back and forth between wards, pens and patient cards tucked into the pockets of his white coat, the cuffs occasionally stained with medicine. When a child cried heartbreakingly during a dressing change, he would bend down and patiently say, “If it hurts, cry. When you finish crying, we continue. You are braver than yesterday.” When an elderly patient worried over medical expenses, he helped contact social workers and arrange departmental reductions. With colleagues, he did not speak much, but always stepped forward at the busiest moments.
Gradually, Guo Jiawen discovered that Ma Rende’s gentleness was not a surface gentleness, but a nearly clumsy sense of responsibility.
One evening, after finishing an interview, she saw him sitting alone at the end of the corridor eating a boxed meal. The food had already gone cold, the vegetables had yellowed, and the rice had hardened into clumps. Yet he still ate seriously, as if completing something that had to be completed.
Guo Jiawen walked over. “Doctor Ma, even cold rice can be eaten with such solemnity?”
Ma Rende looked up and saw it was her. He seemed slightly awkward. “I got busy and missed the time.”
“Are all doctors like this?”
“The burn department often is.”
Guo Jiawen sat beside him and placed an orange next to his lunch box. “My father says you are rather interesting.”
Ma Rende smiled faintly. “Deputy Mayor Guo overpraises me.”
“That was not official talk.” Guo Jiawen looked at him. “He said you are not the sort of person who uses an opportunity to climb upward.”
Ma Rende lowered his head and continued eating. “It is useless for doctors to climb upward. Patients only ask whether your hands are steady.”
Guo Jiawen could not help laughing. “You really do not know how to make your words pleasing.”
“I am not very good at saying pleasing things.”
“I can tell.”
Both of them laughed.
Later, they began to meet outside the hospital.
The first time, Guo Jiawen invited him to see a play. She wore a dark green dress with a beige cardigan, and small pearl earrings at her ears. Standing before the theater entrance, she looked very literary and refined. But because of an emergency rescue, Ma Rende arrived half an hour late. When he came, his face was full of apology, and he still carried the old briefcase he had brought from the hospital.
Guo Jiawen looked at him and deliberately put on a stern expression. “Doctor Ma, reporters care about timeliness. Shouldn’t love also care about timeliness?”
Ma Rende froze. His face reddened slightly. “Love?”
Seeing him like this, Guo Jiawen herself blushed, yet she refused to show weakness. “I was only making an analogy.”
The play had already begun. The two stood outside the entrance and looked at one another for a moment, then suddenly both laughed.
That night they did not manage to see the play. Instead, they walked slowly along the riverbank. River wind blew toward them. City lights reflected in the water. In the distance, construction cranes stood like silent giant arms, bit by bit rewriting the city skyline. Guo Jiawen spoke of her father, of growing up in the government compound, of having seen too much of social propriety and also grown tired of it; she spoke of studying Chinese literature but entering television, and how when she wrote news scripts she often felt the language had been cut too short, too straight, too much like slogans.
“And you?” she asked. “Why did you study medicine?”
Ma Rende thought for a moment. “When I was young, there were many people in the family. My grandmother knew medicine, and my mother also knew some herbal remedies. Later, when I saw people fall ill, I understood that many kinds of suffering cannot be reasoned away. At least with medicine, one can do something real.”
Guo Jiawen looked at him. “You truly resemble your name.”
Ma Rende smiled. “Perhaps my parents simply hoped too much when they named me.”
“No,” she said softly. “For some people, a name is a signboard. For others, it is fate. You are the latter.”
After that, the two naturally became lovers.