The Five Brothers' Dream

After the wedding feast dispersed, the lights of Imperial Hot Springs gradually dimmed.
In the banquet hall far away, a few attendants were still clearing cups and plates. Porcelain bowls touched one another with crisp sounds. In the valley, steam from the hot springs rose in soft curls. The night wind, carrying the faint fragrance of sulfur and osmanthus, passed gently beneath the corridor.
Ma Cunhui did not return to his room. He sat alone beside the terrace, looking toward the dark blue-black silhouettes of the distant mountains. When Ma Yide came to find him, a cup of plain tea stood before his father. The tea had already gone cold.
“Father, why are you still not asleep?”
Ma Cunhui did not turn his head. He only said, “After too much liveliness, a person cannot sleep.”
Ma Yide smiled and sat down beside him. He had drunk a good deal that day, yet his eyes were still bright. At the banquet, everyone had praised him for being capable, praised him for knowing how to do business, praised the second son of the Ma family for having now made something of himself in Canton. His words had remained modest, yet in his heart he could not help feeling a little proud.
Ever since making some money, Yide had resigned from his position at the Provincial Chemical Construction Company and had gone out on his own.
Ma Cunhui suddenly asked, “Now that you are your own boss, I hear you still want to make the urban-village rental business bigger?”
Ma Yide was startled, then nodded. “Yes. More and more outsiders are coming to Canton. Housing will never be enough. Right now, I am only renting houses, whitewashing them, and subletting them. In the future, if there is enough capital, I can contract entire blocks of old buildings, even participate in redevelopment. Father, this is the tide of the age.”
“The tide of the age.” Ma Cunhui softly repeated the words. “Young people love to speak of the tide of the age. As though once the tide rises, a man can stand at the mouth of the wind and fly.”
Ma Yide heard the edge in his father’s words, and the smile on his face faded slightly.
“Father, I am no longer the man who only looked at the price difference in Hami melons. This time I have calculated the accounts, and I have studied the market. Houses are not melons. They will not rot in a railway carriage after forty-five days. People are flowing into Canton. The city is expanding. Whoever first solves the problem of where people can live will seize the opportunity.”
Ma Cunhui turned to look at him. “The problem of where people live is not only an opportunity. It is also people’s lives. When you sublet a room, the person living inside it is not a number. He is a living human being. Are the wires in disorder? Is the stairway blocked? Will the rent rise? Will someone be driven out in the middle of the night? Have you counted all these into your accounts?”
These words were like a short knife, thrust straight into Ma Yide’s chest.
He was silent for a moment, then said, “I have counted them. That is why I do not allow tenants to pull wires at random, and I do not rent dangerous buildings. I am not a black-hearted landlord.”
“Not black-hearted today. What about tomorrow?” Ma Cunhui’s voice was not high, yet every word was cold and stern. “One building earns ten thousand. Ten buildings earn one hundred thousand. Twenty buildings earn two hundred thousand. Once the money becomes great, a person’s heart changes easily. Today you say you will not raise rents. Tomorrow, when the market rises, will you raise them or not? Today you say safety matters. Tomorrow, if someone offers you a cheaper dangerous building, will you rent it or not? Today you say you will keep to rules. Tomorrow, if someone hands you a shortcut, will you take it or not?”
Ma Yide lifted his head. Those questions had forced more than half the wine out of him.
“Father, in this age, if one seeks only steadiness in everything and only tries not to make mistakes, then one can only work for others for a lifetime. Our ancestors traded in silk and tea. Did they have no risks? Boats could overturn, goods could grow mold, accounts could go bad. But if everyone feared risk, where would family enterprise come from?”
Ma Cunhui’s eyes moved slightly.
“When our ancestors did business, they relied on credit. They would rather earn less than cheat in weight or measure; they would rather move slowly than deceive an old customer. Now you speak of speed, scale, and rolling capital. But I ask you: if money rolls forward quickly while virtue cannot keep up, sooner or later the cart will overturn.”
Ma Yide’s temper was also stirred. “Virtue also needs something to carry it. If a family is so poor it cannot even keep its own roof, what use is empty talk of virtue? Father, the Ma family has suffered the bitterness of having no money. The ancestral business was lost. We moved to Qianzhou and spent so many years watching other people’s faces. You guarded the family tradition; I respect you for that. But if I cannot make the family stand large again, if I only guard the two words ‘clean conscience,’ does that count as filial piety?”
The night wind suddenly tightened, and the osmanthus tree beside the terrace rustled.
Father and son both fell silent.
Far away, steam rose from the hot spring pools, covering the lamplight and then slowly dispersing. Ma Cunhui looked at his son. It was as though, on Yide’s face, he saw those elders of the Ma family in their youth who had once gone in and out of the docks and laughed through negotiations in the marketplace. He also saw the sharpness he himself had once lost and had not wished to touch again.
After a long while, he slowly said, “Yide, what you say is not without reason. A family cannot live only by a clean name, and a person cannot live only on memory. Your generation has more courage than mine, and understands the new world better than I do.”
Ma Yide froze. He had thought his father would continue reprimanding him. He had not expected him to yield first.
Ma Cunhui continued, “But you must also remember this: the larger the business becomes, the more a person needs a rope to bind himself. That rope is not given by others. It is given by one’s own heart. Without that rope, cleverness becomes slipperiness, and boldness becomes greed.”
Ma Yide lowered his head, and his voice softened too. “Father, it is not that I do not understand. I am only afraid of missing my chance.”
“Missing a chance is not frightening,” Ma Cunhui said quietly. “What is frightening is catching the chance, yet losing yourself.”
When this sentence fell, it was like a stone dropped into deep water; long afterward, ripples still remained.
Ma Yide thought of the rotten melon carriage at Canton North Station, of the crowded stairways in the urban villages, of the young workers who came carrying bedding rolls and asking for a bed. He suddenly understood that his father did not oppose him becoming rich. His father feared that on the road to wealth, he would forget people.
“Father,” he said in a low voice, “I promise you. The business may grow large, but I will not make money that darkens the conscience. However small the room, people must be able to live there as human beings. However beautiful the accounts, I cannot calculate people away.”
Ma Cunhui looked at him for a long time and finally nodded.
“Remember those words.”
He took from his coat that old iron abacus and placed it on the table. The abacus had blackened wood and old beads; it had accompanied the Ma family through several generations of wind and rain.
“Take this with you,” he said. “An abacus can calculate profit, and it can calculate loss. But you must remember, there is another kind of account in this world that no abacus can make sound.”
Ma Yide reached out and accepted it. His palm felt faintly warm.
“The heart account,” he said.
Ma Cunhui smiled. Fine lines had already gathered at the corners of his eyes. “You are not too foolish after all.”
At last, father and son both laughed.
That night, neither of them completely persuaded the other. One still kept faith with the righteousness and steadiness of the old merchant way; the other still wished to throw himself into the momentum and change of the new age. Yet both knew that the other was not his enemy. The father guarded the root; the son chased the wind. A tree without roots falls when the wind comes; but a tree that never meets the wind will wither where it stands.
The sound of hot spring water flowed slowly through the night.
Ma Yide placed the old iron abacus inside his coat and looked toward the mountain pass where the road was being built. From there, in the darkness, the faint sound of machinery could be heard, like the heartbeat of a new age that had not yet stopped. He knew that after he returned to Canton tomorrow, there would still be a greater game waiting for him to enter.
Only this time, there was an invisible rope in his heart.
And also a lamp his father had left him.
After the wedding feast, the Ma family remained in Qianzhou for two more days.
The liveliness had dispersed. Relatives returned home one after another, and the red lanterns at Imperial Hot Springs were gradually taken down. Yet Ma Cunhui seemed suddenly to have many words to say. In ordinary days he spoke little. When his sons were young, he had more often sat beneath the osmanthus tree listening to them quarrel and make noise; an occasional sentence from him was enough for them to remember for a very long time. Now all five sons had grown. One had a family and a daughter; one had begun to succeed in business; one had entered the gate of law; one was about to cross the ocean; and one still walked the road of philosophy, asking after the meaning of life. He knew that his children were no longer the boys who had once gathered around the dinner table waiting for their mother to divide the fish. If a father did not speak now, certain words would be carried away by time.
That night, the moonlight in the Qianzhou courtyard was beautiful.
An old wooden table was placed beneath the osmanthus tree. Zhao Youlan was inside coaxing Niannian to sleep. Far away, the sound of the Jinjiang River could be faintly heard. Immortal Turtle Mountain, an outlying ridge of Heavenly Range, stood in the night like a silent screen. Ma Cunhui asked his sons to sit beside him one by one. He said it was only casual talk, yet every sentence was like old family teaching being placed once again into their hands.
Rende sat down first.
He was already a husband and a father, and on his shoulders rested the double weight of family and patients. Looking at his eldest son, Ma Cunhui felt the greatest peace, and also the greatest tenderness.
“Rende, you have worked hard these years,” he said. “The burn unit is not an easy place. Day after day you see fire wound people. After a long time, the human heart can also be darkened by suffering. You must remember, when a doctor saves a person, he is not only saving a piece of skin or a life. He must also leave that person a little dignity with which to go on living. Now that you have a family, you must understand even more: you must fulfill your duty in the hospital, but you cannot be absent at home. Jiawen has a bright nature, and her heart is strong. You are not good at sweet words, so treat her with long endurance.”
Rende said quietly, “Father, I will remember.”
Ma Cunhui nodded. “You are the eldest son, but you do not have to stand in front of your brothers in every matter. When a tree grows large, its branches each turn toward the sky. You only need to guard the root.”
When Yide sat down, father and son looked at each other and smiled. The aftertaste of last night’s debate over the merchant way still remained, but there was no longer any drawn-sword tension. Ma Cunhui pushed the old iron abacus before him.
“Yide, your heart is large, and your hands are quick. You have managed to stand up in Canton; your father is happy for you. But remember this: when money comes quickly, a person most easily forgets where he came from. You are in the housing business, touching the places where poor people settle their bodies. All the more must you keep count in your heart. Rent may rise, but conscience must not have a price. A room may be small, but a person’s dignity must not be flattened.”
Yide was silent for a moment, then said, “Father, I will establish the rules firmly.”
“Rules are not written for others to see. They are first written for oneself,” Ma Cunhui said softly. “If one day you truly become a great merchant, do not only make people fear that you have money. Make them trust that you have virtue.”
When it was Lide’s turn, the wind in the courtyard had grown quieter.
Ma Lide had already graduated from the law department of Wuhan University. Half a year earlier, he had entered the Intermediate People’s Court of Ruizhou, serving as a clerk and assistant judge in the criminal court. The young man wore a white shirt; behind his glasses, his gaze was clear and cautious. Since childhood he had been gentle and generous. Now that he had entered the judiciary, he already carried something of the air of public office.
Ma Cunhui looked at him, his tone slower than when he spoke to his other sons.
“Lide, the work you do judges right and wrong among people, and comes close to life and death. A criminal court is not writing essays, nor is it enough to speak principles pleasantly. A single line in a case file, when it falls into someone’s household, may become a lifetime of weeping.”
Ma Lide’s heart trembled.
“Father, I am only a clerk and assistant judge now. I cannot yet be said to decide cases.”
“Precisely because you are still watching from the side, you must learn fear,” Ma Cunhui said. “To be a judge, first you must understand the law; second, you must understand people; third, you must understand that you yourself may also be wrong. Do not think that because you wear a uniform, you stand higher than the people in the case. If a person is guilty, punish him according to law. If a person is wronged, clear him according to law. The pen in your hand must not be stained by personal feeling, nor by private profit, and still less by contempt.”
Ma Lide bowed his head solemnly. “Father, I will guard this.”
Ma Cunhui looked at him. “We named you Lide—Ritual and Virtue. Ritual is not empty courtesy; it is proper measure. Virtue is not pleasant sound; it is the bottom line. If in the future you can make the innocent unafraid to enter a court, and make the guilty accept judgment, then you will not have failed the books you have read.”
When Ma Zhide sat down, the moon had already risen to the tips of the osmanthus branches.
This son, who had gone from Qianzhou First Middle School to the Computer Science Department at Tsinghua University, had just graduated. He did not plan to look for work. He had already received an opportunity to study for a master’s degree in computer science at Stanford University in the United States, and would soon depart. Zhao Youlan appeared happy on the surface, yet in private her eyes had reddened several times. America was too far away, so far it seemed like a corner fallen off the map.
Ma Cunhui looked at Zhide for a long time before speaking.
“You are going to America. Your father will not stop you.”
Ma Zhide’s eyes grew warm. “Father, I want to see the foremost technology. Computers will change the world. If I stay, I fear my vision will not be broad enough.”
“For young people to look far away is a good thing,” Ma Cunhui said. “Only, however vast the distance, it must not become so vast that there is no hometown. When you go to Stanford, you will learn new knowledge and see a new world. But you must avoid two faults. One is seeing foreign things and then looking lightly upon your own root. The other is holding to your own root and refusing to learn the strengths of others.”
Zhide said quietly, “I understand.”
“You may not understand it fully.” Ma Cunhui smiled faintly. “So your father will say it once more. After you go out, do not feel inferior, and do not become arrogant. Your English may grow better and better, but your Chinese must not become worse and worse. Technology may become newer and newer, but the person must not become emptier and emptier. In the future, if you can bring your ability back, then bring it back. If for the moment you cannot return, you must still remember that the door of home will always recognize you.”
Zhide finally lowered his head, his voice tight. “Father, I will write often.”
“You must write,” Ma Cunhui said. “Not only reporting joy and hiding sorrow. Write so that your mother knows you are still somewhere she can imagine.”
The last to sit down was Xinde.
In less than a year, he would graduate from Fudan University’s philosophy department. The child who in his youth had once said he would build an airplane and fly to Taiwan to bring back their relatives had now grown into a clear-featured young man. In his eyes there still remained a light that questioned all things. He said that after graduation he wished to continue studying, that he also wished to write, and even that he wanted to live for a while in a temple and look at life beyond books.
After hearing this, Ma Cunhui did not immediately object.
“Xinde, since childhood your heart has been soft, and your thoughts deep. This is fortune, and also suffering,” he said. “Those who study philosophy are most afraid of thinking principles too high while their feet leave the ground. You may ask after life and death, after freedom, after why human beings live. But you must also know how to buy rice, how to care for others, and how to bear the weight of one promise.”
Xinde flushed slightly. “Father, I am not entirely removed from human smoke and fire.”
Ma Cunhui smiled. “Better that you eat a little of it. Only when you can swallow the smoke and fire of the human world can heavenly principles stand firm. If you know only how to speak of emptiness, then you are like a temple lamp without oil: the lampstand remains, but it lights no road.”
Xinde was silent for a long time, then said softly, “I understand. I want to read, and I also want one day to write words that can truly comfort people.”
“Then write,” Ma Cunhui said. “But first become a good person. If words cannot make people more compassionate, they are only the game of clever men.”
After several rounds of night conversation, the five brothers sat together beneath the osmanthus tree.
Zhao Youlan came out holding the sleeping Niannian. Seeing father and sons all sitting there so quietly, she could not help smiling. “What are you saying? Each of you looks as though he has entered the examination hall.”
Yide laughed. “Father is grading one examination paper for each of us.”
Lide added, “And the judgments are fair.”
Zhide said, “The logic is rigorous.”
Xinde added, “And there is ultimate concern.”
Rende looked at their parents and said gently, “There is compassion too.”
Listening to his sons answer one after another, Ma Cunhui finally revealed a smile. Moonlight fell upon his graying temples like old snow, and also like clear radiance. In this life, he had lived through family migration, the rise and fall of the world, poverty, and hard labor. He had also silently folded away many ambitions. Yet tonight, seeing his five sons sitting before him, he suddenly felt that he had not truly lost anything. The best family property of a lineage was, after all, not courtyards, business houses, or fields. It was children who each carried integrity and aspiration into the human world.
Deep in the night, Immortal Turtle Mountain lay silent in the distance, and the waters of the Jinjiang River flowed slowly onward. The osmanthus had not yet fully bloomed, yet a faint fragrance was already present.
Ma Cunhui lifted his teacup as though lifting a silent blessing.
“From now on, each of you will walk your own road. The one who is a doctor—may your hands be steady and your heart benevolent. The one who does business—may your wealth be abundant, and your virtue more abundant still. The one who serves the law—may your pen be straight and your heart clear. The one who studies knowledge—may you travel far and not forget your root. The one who asks philosophy—may you see through the affairs of the world and still love the human world.”
The five brothers all fell quiet.
Zhao Youlan’s eyes held tears, yet she smiled and said, “All of you, be well. Come home often.”
At that moment, moonlight, mountain shadow, river sound, osmanthus fragrance, and the blessings of their parents seemed to become a layer of gentle light, falling upon the shoulders of every Ma son. They knew that before them each had his own wind and rain, his own honor and disgrace, his own road no one else could walk in his place. But they also knew that no matter where they went, in this small courtyard in Qianzhou, there would always be one lamp left burning for them.
May they in this life go forth with ambition and return with affection.
May each become a vessel in his own right, yet never lose his original heart.
May the scholarly fragrance and moral conduct of the Ma family line, like the waters of the Jinjiang River, pass through mountains and stones, flowing on without end.