The Five Brothers' Dream

When Ma Yide returned to Canton from the Yellow Mountain, he arrived just in time for the five Ma brothers to gather in Rende’s small apartment.
That evening, outside the staff building of the Provincial People’s Hospital, the leaves of the kapok trees rustled in the evening wind. Downstairs, the wonton stall had just lit its stove; white steam rose from the soup pot, carrying the fragrance of chopped scallions and dried shrimp. Ma Yide climbed the stairs with his canvas bag in hand. Before he had even reached the door, he heard a burst of laughter from inside. The sound was familiar and lively, as though a summer night beneath the osmanthus tree in the old courtyard at Qianzhou had suddenly been moved to Canton.
He pushed the door open. The room was already full.
Eldest Brother Ma Rende had only recently returned from work. The cuffs of his white shirt were still rolled up, and his face carried a doctor’s habitual fatigue, yet could not conceal the gentleness in his eyes. Second Brother Ma Yide himself had just come back from the Yellow Mountain, still dusty from the road, though his heart was much broader than when he had left Canton. Third Brother Ma Lide had returned from Wuhan University for the holiday. He was already a third-year law student, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, lean and refined, speaking slowly and evenly, with something already of a future jurist’s gravity. Fourth Brother Ma Zhide had done even better: after graduating from high school, he had entered the Computer Science Department at Tsinghua University. Now only a freshman, his mouth was already full of algorithms, programs, chips, and the future information age. He sat by the window, fiddling with a disassembled transistor radio, while a copy of Principles of Computing peeped from his pocket. The youngest, Ma Xinde, had just been admitted earlier that year to the Philosophy Department at Fudan University. His youthfulness had not yet left him, but his gaze was unusually clear. Every few sentences, he spoke of “existence,” “freedom,” and “the ultimate question of man,” provoking his brothers into laughter from time to time.
The five brothers sat together in one room. Outside the window were the lights of Canton; inside was a table of home-cooked food: steamed fish, stir-fried greens, tomato and egg soup, white-cut chicken, and a pot of congee Rende had cooked himself. Guo Jiawen was there too. She wore a pale dress, her hair tucked behind her ears, and was helping set out bowls and chopsticks. Seeing Yide come in, she smiled.
“Did the sea of clouds at the Yellow Mountain wash you clean? You no longer look like someone who just lost a melon fortune.”
Ma Yide set down his bag and deliberately sighed. “Sister Jiawen, exposing a person’s sore spot is not exactly the noble virtue of a news worker.”
Ma Xinde immediately added, “Second Brother, that is a statement of fact, not a value judgment.”
Everyone froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.
Ma Lide slowly pushed up his glasses. “Legally speaking, without intent to insult, it does not constitute infringement.”
Without lifting his head, Ma Zhide said, “From a computer perspective, Second Brother’s personality has not been damaged. His system crashed and is now restoring factory settings.”
Ma Yide pointed at his younger brothers, caught between laughter and exasperation. “Your studies have ruined you. One studies law, one studies computers, one studies philosophy—and every sentence sounds less human than the last.”
Rende came out carrying soup and smiled. “It does not matter if the words do not sound human, so long as the heart still does.”
The sentence was spoken lightly, yet it brought a sudden tenderness and quiet into the room.
After dinner, Rende took a newspaper from the drawer and carefully spread it across the table. It was the Jinjiang Daily sent from Qianzhou. The paper had already been folded, but Zhao Youlan had wrapped it neatly in an envelope. On the supplement page was a feature article with a striking headline:
“Five Sons Achieve Scholarly Honor Beneath Immortal Turtle Mountain—The Story of the Five Ma Brothers of Qianzhou.”
Beside it was an old photograph: the five brothers standing together before the gate of Qianzhou First Middle School. Behind the school gate lay the pale green shadow of Immortal Turtle Mountain, and not far away the Jinjiang River wound past. The five boys were uneven in height, their clothes plain, yet their expressions were bright. At that time, they still did not know that their future roads would lead to Southwest Medical University, Beijing University of International Business and Economics, Wuhan University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University—and into lives not yet named.
Ma Yide lowered his head and looked at the photograph. Suddenly, he could no longer smile.
Qianzhou First Middle School was the most renowned key middle school beneath Immortal Turtle Mountain and beside the Jinjiang River. The school was not large: red-brick classroom buildings, whitewashed walls, and several old banyan trees beside the sports ground. In the morning, mountain mist descended slowly from the waist of Immortal Turtle Mountain and covered half the campus. At dusk, the Jinjiang River reflected the sunset, and students walked along the riverbank holding their books. All five Ma brothers had studied there. All had once listened to rain striking the window lattice in the same classroom; all had once memorized texts, solved problems, and written essays beneath dim yellow light.
The feature article was written with considerable grace.
The reporter began with the ancient allusion of the “five sons passing the imperial examinations.” In the Later Zhou of the Five Dynasties, Dou Yujun of Yanshan had educated his sons well; his five sons successively achieved scholarly rank and became known. Later generations used “five sons achieving honor” to refer to the rare glory of a family whose five sons all attained distinction. In old New Year prints, five young boys were often painted holding cassia branches, ruyi scepters, or books, symbolizing wealth, official success, blessings, descendants, and flourishing scholarship. Newly married households also pasted images of the “five sons achieving honor,” hoping for abundant children and a continuing tradition of learning.
Then the reporter’s brush turned to the Ma family of Qianzhou: their ancestors had once been a scholarly merchant household in Jiangnan; later they moved to the mountainous west of Guangdong. Their family fortunes had risen and fallen, yet they had never abandoned books. Their father, Ma Cunhui, labored by day and worked at the department store, then taught his sons to read by night. Their mother, Zhao Youlan, managed the household, mended clothes beneath the lamp, and simmered soups before the stove. In that poor but orderly little courtyard, the five sons passed their examinations one after another and walked out beyond the mountains.
There was one sentence in the newspaper that made everyone in the room fall silent when Rende read it aloud:
“The true nobility of the Ma family does not lie in its former rank or household name, but in this: after wind and rain, they were still willing to place books beside the rice bowl.”
Ma Xinde, who usually loved jokes most, lowered his head and said softly, “Mother must have cried when she saw this sentence.”
Ma Lide said, “Father would have cried too. Only he would not let anyone see.”
Ma Zhide put down the little screwdriver in his hand and, for once, said nothing clever. He only spoke in a low voice. “Tsinghua is so big, but sometimes I still think of evening self-study at Qianzhou First Middle School. The classroom lights were dim and the fans were old, but the heart was very bright.”
Ma Yide looked at the newspaper and suddenly remembered the harsh words he had once spoken to his father when he had been desperate to make money. At the time, he had felt only that the Ma family had fallen, and that only money could make a person lift his head again. Now, looking at this newspaper, he finally understood that what his father had truly guarded all these years was not a business, nor a few mu of land, but the dignity of a family and the seed of learning.
Guo Jiawen sat beside them and said softly, “My father has read this article too.”
Rende was slightly startled. “Deputy Mayor Guo?”
Guo Jiawen nodded.
“After I began seeing Rende, my father naturally had to ask about the Ma family. He is a man of government, and caution has become his habit. At first, he only knew that Rende was a doctor in the burn unit of the provincial hospital, and that he was reliable. Later, someone brought him this Jinjiang Daily feature, and he read it for a long time.”
Ma Yide smiled. “So Deputy Mayor Guo was investigating the family background?”
Guo Jiawen smiled too, but did not deny it. “You could say that. But what my father valued was not whether the family had money. He said that for a family that had come through hardship and migration to produce five students from famous universities was not easy. Southwest Medical University, Beijing University of International Business and Economics, Wuhan University, Tsinghua, Fudan—this was not accidental luck. It was the weight of family discipline pressed down generation after generation. Such a family is not light even when poor. Such parents possess nobility even in low places.”
Rende fell silent.
Guo Jiawen turned to look at him, her voice softening. “He said Rende did not become this kind of person by chance. Behind him stands the education of an entire family.”
For a while, the room was so quiet that only the faint sound of the lid on the wonton pot downstairs could be heard.
Ma Yide suddenly felt his throat tighten. He thought of the small courtyard in Qianzhou, of Zhao Youlan rising before dawn to cook because she feared her children would go hungry at school; of Ma Cunhui sitting beneath the osmanthus tree at night, teaching them the Analects, speaking of Yue opera, and repeating the family teachings Grandmother had left behind; of himself falling into the rotten melon water at Canton North Station, then slowly being nursed back by a bowl of plain congee in his elder brother’s home. It turned out that when a person goes out into the world, he carries not only ability, but also the scent of a family.
Ma Xinde suddenly took a philosophy book from his schoolbag and said solemnly, “In that case, we five are not simple individuals, but the Ma family spirit unfolding in different directions.”
Ma Yide rolled his eyes. “Is that what Fudan teaches you to say?”
Ma Zhide laughed. “That is called abstract expression. In computer language, it means the same underlying system running five different programs.”
Ma Lide added, “From a jurisprudential perspective, family spirit does not possess legal subjecthood, but it does possess factual influence.”
Guo Jiawen laughed so hard she nearly had to hold onto the table. “When your family gathers, I really should bring a camera.”
That night, the brothers talked for a long time.
Ma Lide said law was not a cold pile of provisions, but the final rule by which a society held itself together. Ma Zhide said computers would change the world, and that humanity might enter an age of rushing information. Ma Xinde said philosophy must ask why people live, not merely how to live better. Ma Yide listened, half understanding and half amused, and finally said, “All of you are speaking of great matters. I only want to repay Third Uncle’s money first, and then truly understand the book called the market.”
Rende raised his teacup. “That is good too. Each person should guard his own road.”
Guo Jiawen looked at Rende and suddenly said softly, “Should we also talk about our own road?”
The younger brothers immediately quieted, then one by one revealed knowing smiles.
Rende became somewhat awkward. “Jiawen…”
But Guo Jiawen looked at him openly. “My father no longer objects. As for your parents, we should also make a formal visit. Discussing marriage is not something settled by a doctor nodding in a hospital ward.”
Ma Yide immediately stirred up the atmosphere. “Elder Brother, did you hear that? Reporter Guo has already written the headline—‘Burn Unit Doctor Soon to Enter the Hall of Marriage.’”
Ma Xinde added, “Subtitle: After the Five Sons Achieve Scholarly Honor, the Eldest Son First Achieves Marital Honor.”
Everyone burst into laughter again.
Rende’s face reddened slightly, but he did not evade it. He looked at Guo Jiawen, his gaze gentle and certain.
“All right. Once I arrange my leave, I will take you back to Qianzhou.”
Guo Jiawen nodded softly. “I want to see Immortal Turtle Mountain. I also want to see the Jinjiang River.”
Ma Lide said, “You must also see Qianzhou First Middle School.”
Ma Zhide said, “The banyan tree at the school gate is still there. I want to go back and see it. That was where I first heard of Tsinghua’s Computer Science Department.”
Ma Xinde said, “And Mother’s glutinous rice cakes.”
Ma Yide suddenly said, “It is also time for Father and Mother to see that their half a lifetime of hardship was not endured in vain.”
When this sentence fell, the room grew quiet again.
Outside the window, the night of Canton deepened. In the distance, lights dotted the high-rises. The city was rising day by day, brightening day by day, becoming unfamiliar and alluring in the tide of reform and opening. But inside this small staff apartment, the five brothers sat around one table, with a hometown newspaper spread beneath the lamp. On the yellowing paper were written the ancient story of the five sons achieving honor, the five sons of the Ma family of Qianzhou, and the hidden glory of a family moving from old storms toward new life.
Many years later, whenever Ma Yide thought back to that night, he often felt that it had not been an ordinary gathering, but a gentle compensation granted to the Ma family by fate.
The ancestral business had scattered. Loved ones had separated. Ventures had failed. Illness had come. Yet the scholarly fragrance had not been broken. The family tradition had not been broken. The invisible river of blood and kinship among the brothers had not been broken either. It flowed from the old house in Jiangnan to Qianzhou in western Guangdong; then from beneath Immortal Turtle Mountain and beside the Jinjiang River, it flowed onward to Canton, Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, and places still farther away.
And on that night, amid the fragrance of tea, the sound of laughter, and the yellowed glow of a newspaper, the marriage of eldest brother Rende and Guo Jiawen was quietly settled.