The Five Brothers' Dream

Rende and Jiawen had been officially registered as husband and wife for two years.
Their daughter, Ma Shiya, was almost one year old. She had reached the age when she could hold onto the edge of the bed and stand, and when she smiled at everyone she saw. The little girl was fair and delicate. Her brows and eyes resembled her mother’s, yet when she was quiet, she seemed like her father. Guo Jiawen gave her the childhood name Niannian, saying that it was the nian of reading and remembering books, and also the nian of remembering home. Every day when Ma Rende returned from work, no matter how tired he was, as soon as he stepped through the door and heard his daughter babbling, the trace of exhaustion he had brought back from the hospital would be blown away by that small milky voice, like thin mist after rain.
Only the wedding feast had never been held.
In the city, this perhaps did not amount to much. The two had a marriage certificate, work-unit proof, the approval of both families, a child, and a life together. But in the eyes of the rural people of Qianzhou, to lack a wedding banquet was like an essay without a final signature. Though husband and wife were already husband and wife, relatives, clan members, and neighbors still felt that this happy matter had not truly been made whole.
Each time Zhao Youlan came from Qianzhou to Canton to see her granddaughter, she did not say it plainly. She only stood in the kitchen, picking vegetables, and sighed softly:
“The child can already call out to people, yet the relatives back home have not even drunk a cup of wedding wine from you.”
Whenever Ma Rende heard this, he felt ashamed.
Jiawen heard it too. She had always been clever; how could she fail to understand the meaning hidden in her mother-in-law’s words? Only these past two years, she had been so busy in the television station’s news department that her feet scarcely touched the ground. Early shifts, late shifts, field interviews, film editing—often she returned only near dawn. Rende was still busier in the burn unit of the Provincial People’s Hospital. Patients came in batch after batch, and even full days of rest were few. On Deputy Mayor Guo Xiaoquan’s side, he oversaw urban construction, firefighting, and municipal affairs, with endless meetings, construction sites, and inspections. Jiawen’s mother worked at the Political Consultative Conference and was often occupied with receptions, investigations, and liaison work. The two families were like people pushed forward by the enormous machine of the city; everyone was busy, and the matter of the wedding feast was delayed again and again.
Until one day, when Niannian’s first birthday banquet was mentioned, Zhao Youlan could finally hold back no longer.
“The child is turning one. She ought at least to return to Qianzhou and see the ancestors.” Holding her little granddaughter in her arms, she rocked her gently. “Let the wedding feast be held together with it. Country people care about this. Without a banquet, it feels as if the marriage is still hanging in the air. Jiawen is the proper eldest daughter-in-law of our Ma family. We cannot let her walk before the relatives without name or standing.”
Jiawen was folding Niannian’s little clothes. Hearing this, her hands paused. She lifted her head and looked at her mother-in-law, her eyes gentle.
“Mother, it is not that I am unwilling. We simply never found the time. Since you have said this, then let us do it. We will return to Qianzhou and hold the feast there.”
Ma Rende looked at his wife. “Your parents…”
“I will speak to them.” Jiawen smiled. “No matter how busy my father is, he must send his daughter off in marriage at least once, must he not? Besides, his daughter has already given him a granddaughter.”
Everyone laughed at this.
After Guo Xiaoquan heard it, he was silent for a moment and said only, “It is late, yes, but since it is to be done late, it must still be done properly. Rende’s family has roots. This cannot be handled merely according to city procedures. If the banquet is held in Qianzhou, I will go.”
Jiawen’s mother also nodded. “I will go too. I want to meet the in-laws, and also see this Immortal Turtle Mountain and Jinjiang River that you have spoken of for so many years.”
When the news reached Qianzhou, the Ma family courtyard almost immediately became lively.
Ma Cunhui sat beneath the osmanthus tree, listening as Zhao Youlan arranged the banquet, the relatives, the wedding pastries, the invitations, one item after another. His mouth said, “Do not be extravagant,” yet the smile at the corners of his eyes could not be hidden. Zhao Youlan, meanwhile, was so busy she seemed ten years younger. She opened chests and cupboards to search for red cloth, went to town to ask someone to write the wedding invitations, and entrusted others to buy red dates, lotus seeds, longan, and peanuts at the market.
“This is called early birth of noble sons,” she said. “Although the child is almost one year old, the rules still must be complete.”
In these years, the Ma family did indeed have happy events one after another.
Yide had made a great deal of money from the urban-village rental business in Canton. He was no longer the wretched young man who had stood in rotten melon water at Canton North Station. He had become generous in spending, yet he still remembered where he had once fallen, and he also remembered the fifty thousand yuan his third uncle Gaohui had lent him. When he heard that his eldest brother was returning to Qianzhou to hold the wedding feast, he immediately said, “I will add my share to the banquet expenses. Eldest Brother has taken care of us all these years. His wedding feast cannot be shabby.”
Ma Lide was soon to graduate from the law department of Wuhan University and was already considering graduate school or entering the judicial system. Ma Zhide was flourishing in Tsinghua’s computer science department; his letters were full of programs, networks, and the information age. Ma Xinde, in Fudan’s philosophy department, had also gradually opened his vision. In letters home, he wrote that Shanghai’s Huangpu River was different from Qianzhou’s Jinjiang, yet beneath all flowing water, the questions people asked were the same.
Five sons, each with his own road.
At night, Zhao Youlan often reread their letters one by one. After reading them, she would press them beneath her pillow. She felt that no matter how bitter her half-life had been, it had all been worth it.
The banquet was set at Imperial Hot Springs.
Qianzhou had always been a land of hot springs. In former days, the villagers knew only of several warm springs at the foot of the mountain. In winter, people carried wooden buckets to fetch the water, and elders said that the spring water could dispel rheumatism and warm the sinews and bones. After reform and opening, outside capital arrived, and the local government began to pay attention to tourism. In only a few years, resort hotels, convalescent buildings, restaurants, and villas sprang up throughout the hot spring valley like bamboo shoots after rain. Imperial Hot Springs was the grandest among them, claiming itself a five-star tourist destination. Its gate was built tall and broad, with golden characters shining above the entrance. Inside were artificial hills and flowing water, palms and flowering trees, open-air hot spring pools, corridors, pavilions, terraces, and banquet halls. By day, steam rose everywhere; by night, lights reflected in the pools, transforming the once simple mountain village into something with a touch of southern fairyland.
The first time Zhao Youlan went to see the venue, she stood at the entrance of the banquet hall for a long time without speaking.
The hall was carpeted in red. Round tables were arranged one after another. The backs of the chairs were covered in white cloth, and crystal lamps hung upon the walls. Outside the windows were the hot spring pools, steam rising softly. Farther away, the green mountains were dark as painted brows. The mountain wind carried the particular warmth of sulfur spring water and blew across her face, as though time itself had suddenly shown mercy.
She said quietly to Ma Cunhui, “Our Rende’s wedding wine can actually be held in a place like this.”
Ma Cunhui looked at her and smiled. “The child has good fortune.”
Zhao Youlan shook her head. “It is not one child’s fortune alone. It is that after all these years, the Ma family has finally waited for a moment of true festivity.”
On the day of the banquet, the party from Canton set out at dawn.
At that time, the journey from Canton back to Qianzhou was only a little more than two hundred kilometers, yet it was not easy to travel. The expressway was still being built section by section, and bridges were also under construction. Some places had newly paved road surfaces; others were still old provincial roads. Cars had to wind around villages and towns, pass market settlements, and wait slowly whenever they encountered construction. What consumed the most time was the West River ferry.
Rende and Jiawen brought Niannian. Jiawen’s parents rode in the same car. Yide arranged two additional cars to carry gifts, clothes, and several of the brothers. When the cars left Canton city, dawn had only just broken. Thin mist still hung along the Pearl River, and the outlines of the buildings gradually emerged in the morning light. Inside the car, Niannian slept in her mother’s arms, her little face rosy. Jiawen wore a cream-white coat, her hair simply pinned up. She had both the gentleness of a bride and the neatness of a news reporter.
Yide sat in the front passenger seat of the lead car and could not help turning back with a smile. “Sister Jiawen, today you must not interview anyone. Today you are the subject being interviewed.”
Jiawen laughed. “Then have you prepared your speech, Mr. Millionaire Ma Yide?”
Ma Yide waved his hand. “Do not mention millions. Once we return to Qianzhou, I am still the second brother, responsible for carrying things, offering toasts, and blocking wine.”
Ma Xinde spoke from the back seat. “From a philosophical perspective, Second Brother has already realized the multiplicity of identity.”
Ma Zhide immediately said, “From a computer perspective, he has merely switched operating modes.”
Ma Lide said unhurriedly, “From a legal perspective, all promises made after drinking today are of doubtful validity without written agreement.”
Everyone laughed until the car was full of warmth.
作者：the time they reached the West River ferry, the sun had already risen high.
At the ferry crossing, vehicles lined up in long rows. Trucks, buses, cars, and motorcycles crowded together. Drivers leaned out to look ahead. Vendors selling tea eggs, sugarcane, and herbal tea moved among them. The river was broad, its water a muddy yellow. The ferry slowly approached the shore; the iron ramp was lowered with a heavy sound. Vehicles drove onto the boat one by one. On the ferry deck, human voices surged. The river wind rolled toward them with the smell of diesel, water vapor, and vendors’ cries.
Guo Xiaoquan stood by the edge of the deck and looked toward the bridge piers under construction in the distance. Suddenly he said, “In another two years, there will be no need to wait for the ferry here. Once the bridge is open and the expressway connected, Canton to Qianzhou will take only two or three hours.”
His wife, Weng Xiaoxia, nodded. “Now one trip takes five or six hours.”
Looking over the river, Guo Xiaoquan spoke with the feeling of a builder. “Once roads are open, people’s hearts also open. In the past, places were poor not only because they lacked money, but because mountains and waters blocked opportunity. When bridges and expressways are built, goods can go out, people can come back, and hot springs, mountain products, and tourism all come alive.”
Hearing this, Ma Yide’s heart stirred.
These years, doing the rental business, he understood better than anyone the relationship between roads and people. Wherever people flowed, money flowed. Wherever roads opened, business took root. The West River ferry before them was crowded, slow, and noisy, yet it seemed like the threshold of an age. On one side was the old road; on the other, the new bridge. On one side was waiting; on the other, acceleration.
Holding Niannian in the river wind, Jiawen said softly to Rende, “It will be much more convenient to return to Qianzhou in the future.”
Rende lowered his head and looked at his daughter. “When she grows up, perhaps she will feel that two hundred kilometers is not far.”
Jiawen smiled. “But we will remember that this trip, the trip back to hold our wedding feast, was made by ferry.”
After the ferry crossed the river, the convoy continued toward Qianzhou.
The farther they went, the fewer city high-rises there were, and the more fields, fishponds, hills, and bamboo groves appeared. Along the road there were newly built houses and old tiled homes; bridges under construction and ox carts moving slowly; development-zone walls pasted with slogans inviting investment, and old people sitting beneath banyan trees smoking dry tobacco. The wind of reform and opening, when it reached the towns and villages, was not as fierce and spectacular as in Canton, yet it had its own heat. In market towns, more and more small shops had opened. There were more motorcycles, more color television advertisements, and young people dressed more brightly than before.
Before dusk, the convoy finally reached Qianzhou.
A red banner had already been hung at the entrance of Imperial Hot Springs:
Congratulations on the Wedding of Mr. Ma Rende and Ms. Guo Jiawen
Although they had already been married for two years and even had a child, that line of red characters hanging before the hot spring gate still made Zhao Youlan’s eyes grow warm. With one arm she took Niannian, and with the other she held Jiawen’s hand. As though formally welcoming a new daughter-in-law through the door, she said again and again, “It is good you have come back. It is good you have come back.”
Relatives, neighbors, and members of the Ma clan from Qianzhou arrived one after another.
Some praised Rende for his promise, saying he had become a doctor at the Provincial People’s Hospital. Some praised Jiawen for being beautiful and generous, like someone from television. Some held Niannian and looked at her again and again, saying the child had good fortune. Others whispered that Jiawen’s father was a deputy mayor, and that the Ma family had truly risen now. Ma Cunhui wore a new Sun Yat-sen suit and stood at the entrance of the hall receiving guests. His hair had already turned gray, but his waist and back were very straight. At that moment, he did not resemble the silent clerk of the department store, nor the old man in the Qianzhou courtyard who tended flowers and listened to opera. Instead, he seemed like the master of the household who had once more returned to the center of family ceremony.
When the wedding banquet began, the sky had already darkened.
Outside the banquet hall, steam rose from the hot spring pools, and the lights reflected upon the water like flowing gold. Inside, red candles shone high, wine cups touched lightly, and laughter never ceased. On the stage, the master of ceremonies invited the newlyweds to serve tea. Rende and Jiawen walked together before both sets of parents, first offering tea to Ma Cunhui and Zhao Youlan.
Zhao Youlan received the cup, her hands trembling slightly. She looked at her eldest son before her and remembered the year he was thirteen, when he had been admitted to the key high school and she had taken him to Heavenly Temple to fulfill a vow. She remembered those lean years, when the children did homework beneath an oil lamp. She remembered Rende studying medicine all the way through until he finally found his footing in the provincial capital. Then she looked at Jiawen, this woman from a cadre family, sharp in speech and carefully dressed, who had now truly become the Ma family’s daughter-in-law and had borne the Ma family a granddaughter.
She drank a mouthful of tea, and tears fell.
“Jiawen, Mother has waited two years for this cup of tea.”
Jiawen’s eyes reddened as well. She said softly, “Mother, Rende and I were wrong to make you wait so long.”
Zhao Youlan shook her head and placed on Jiawen’s wrist the gold bracelet she had prepared long before. “It is not late. So long as the family is whole and together, no time is too late.”
Afterward, the two offered tea to Guo Xiaoquan and his wife.
Today Guo Xiaoquan did not wear cadre clothing, but a dark suit. The shoulders of the jacket still looked slightly too wide. He received the teacup and looked at Rende, his tone steady.
“Rende, Jiawen has an impatient nature. Sometimes her words are sharp. You must be tolerant of her.”
Rende said solemnly, “Father, I will take good care of her.”
Guo Xiaoquan looked at his daughter, then at the little granddaughter in swaddling clothes, and a rare softness appeared on his face. “Not take care. Support each other. The life of husband and wife is not one person protecting the other. It is two people bearing wind and rain together.”
Jiawen’s mother held Jiawen’s hand and said in a low voice, “Only today does it feel as though I am truly marrying off my daughter.”
At these words, tears surged into Jiawen’s eyes all at once.
The banquet was extremely lively.
Dish after dish of Qianzhou hot spring specialties was brought out: chicken steeped in hot spring water, its skin smooth and meat tender; mountain-stream fish steamed fresh and sweet as spring water; Hakka stuffed tofu, steaming hot; river shrimp blanched bright red and festive; and lotus seed and lily bulb sweet soup, carrying the blessing of a hundred years of harmony. Yide indeed fulfilled his promise and blocked wine for his elder brother. Holding a cup, he moved among the relatives, smiling with ease. “Today Eldest Brother is the groom. A doctor cannot drink too much. I will drink for him.”
Ma Lide reminded him, “Drink in moderation, or tomorrow your capacity for legal action may be affected.”
Ma Zhide said, “Second Brother’s current system is overloaded.”
Ma Xinde raised his cup and sighed, “Human existence is confirmed within a wedding feast.”
The laughter of the guests rose higher and higher.
During the banquet, a reporter from the Jinjiang Daily also came, saying that he wished to take another photograph of “the five Ma sons at the eldest brother’s wedding feast.” The five brothers stood together. Rende held Niannian. Jiawen stood beside him. Zhao Youlan and Ma Cunhui sat in the front row. At the instant the flash went off, Zhao Youlan suddenly remembered the article about the “five sons achieving honor.” She felt that life was like a mountain road. When one is young, one only lowers the head and walks. Only later, when one happens to look back, does one discover that one has passed through so many difficult places, and has also welcomed such a bright day.
Late at night, after the wedding banquet had dispersed, lights still shone in the hot spring valley.
Rende and Jiawen held the child and accompanied their parents on a slow walk through the gardens. Steam from the hot spring pools hung like mist. In the distance, green mountains sank into the night. Insects sounded faintly, and the flowers and trees carried fragrance. Guo Xiaoquan and Ma Cunhui walked side by side. The two fathers—one from officialdom, the other having lived through the rise and fall of a family—had both set aside their usual identities for the moment. They were simply ordinary old men speaking of children, roads, and the future of Qianzhou.
Pointing toward the road being built in the distance, Guo Xiaoquan said, “In the future, more and more visitors will come here. The hot springs will bring life to this whole area.”
Ma Cunhui said softly, “When the roads are better, it will also be easier for the children to come home.”
Guo Xiaoquan smiled. “Yes. When a person reaches a certain age, what he hopes for most is not some great project. It is only that the road home for his children may be a little shorter.”
This sentence made both men fall silent.
The mountain wind came, carrying the warmth of the hot springs. Holding Niannian, Zhao Youlan lowered her head to tease her. “Niannian, remember this. This is Qianzhou, the place where your father grew up.”
Naturally, Niannian did not understand. She only reached out her little hand and grasped the red flower on her grandmother’s lapel.
Looking at this scene, Jiawen’s heart suddenly softened so much that she almost wept. She had once thought marriage was a certificate, a shared life between two people in the city, a lamp of mutual care in the intervals of work. Only on this night did she understand that marriage also meant returning to a person’s place of origin; coming to know his mountains and rivers, his parents, his kin, his local accent, and his childhood. It also meant allowing one’s child to be received by another piece of earth.
Ma Yide stood alone on the second-floor terrace of the hot spring hotel, looking toward the banquet hall in the night.
His heart too was greatly moved. Two years earlier, he had still been struggling in rotten melon water. Now he had earned his first true fortune in Canton, seen his eldest brother’s wedding feast made whole, seen his parents lift their heads with pride, and seen his younger brothers gradually become capable men. Suddenly he felt that if wealth could not illuminate the faces of one’s family, then it was only a number in an account book. But tonight, all that money, all that running about, all those risks, had finally taken on a little warm meaning.
In the distance, the night of Qianzhou was gentle.
The hot spring water flowed without ceasing, like warmth stored for hundreds and thousands of years in the depths of the earth, finally rising to the surface in the years of reform and opening, becoming lights, hotels, roads, traffic—and also this wedding feast of the Ma family, two years late.
The next morning, Jiawen pushed open the hotel window. She saw mountain mist spread everywhere, steam rising softly from the hot spring pools, and in the distance, sunlight just touching the ridge of Immortal Turtle Mountain. Suddenly she remembered what her father had said on the West River ferry when they came: once the bridge is open, people’s hearts will also open.
She turned and saw that Rende was still coaxing the child, and said softly, “Let us come back often in the future.”
Rende lifted his head and smiled. “All right.”
Outside the window, new roads were being built, bridges were being joined, and before long the expressway would shorten the journey home of more than two hundred kilometers. Yet for the Ma family, the true road leading back to the hometown had already been laid by this wedding feast.
It was a road paved together by kinship, family tradition, native soil, joyful tears, and the heat of a new age.
It began in Canton, crossed the West River ferry, passed through bridge piers under construction and dusty provincial roads, and at last arrived in the hot spring valley of Qianzhou.
It also arrived at that place in every person’s heart called home.