The Five Brothers' Dream

The old madam often said that the four sons born from her womb were like four branches growing from the same tree.
These four brothers’ names all carry the word “hui”, meaning “brightness”. And their given names “zhi, cun, gao, yuan” make up a traditional phrase meaning “having ambitions high and far”.
The root was the same, but the leaves were different.
When they were young, the four brothers all studied together in the ancestral home in Jiangnan. In spring, they practiced calligraphy by the pond. In summer, they listened to rain and recited scriptures. On autumn nights, they gathered around the brazier and discussed history. On winter mornings, they followed their grandfather to inspect the weaving workshops.
None of them could have imagined that within only a few short years, the winds and clouds beneath Heaven would suddenly change, and the four brothers would be scattered to the ends of the earth, each walking a life utterly different from the others.
The eldest brother, Ma Zhihui, had been steady and taciturn since childhood. He was not particularly eager to inherit the family business.
As a youth, he had already cherished the ambition to join the army. Later he entered military life and followed a General Wang for many years, moving across the northwest. After the change of eras, he obeyed his assignment and remained to work in the western frontier. At first, in the motor pool of the ancient Hetian prefectural committee, he successively served as section chief, department head, and assistant secretary, long responsible for arranging vehicles for leaders and handling local administrative affairs. Because he was cautious in conduct and skilled in coordination, he was later transferred to Urumqi and entered the Public Security Department as a deputy official.
For decades, he rarely spoke of the family’s past.
When people asked about old matters, he always smiled gently.
“The road behind has already been walked; the road before us must still be walked steadily.”
His wife, Feng Beeyer, came from an official family in the Henan province. Her father had long served in government, and she had received a good education from childhood. She was dignified in character and capable in household affairs. Husband and wife raised two sons, and the bookshelves in their home were always arranged with perfect neatness.
Whenever family letters arrived, what appeared most often between the lines was not office, merit, position, or the customs of the frontier deserts. Instead, they wrote of what books the children had read, and what new trees had been planted in the courtyard.
The second brother, Ma Cunhui, had once inherited the family business. In Cunhui’s eyes, his elder brother’s life was like the white poplars of the northern frontier: standing upright against the wind, without contending for spring’s colors.
The third brother, Ma Gaohui, helped his second brother in business, yet was utterly different from him.
He had been clever from childhood. His abacus moved swiftly, and by his teens he was already following his elders in business throughout Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai. Later, he traveled back and forth between Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau, managing the silk and tea trade.
When times changed, he simply settled in Hong Kong for the long term.
Through decades of rise and fall in the commercial sea, he still wore an old Western suit, carried a leather suitcase, and hurried between piers, tea houses, and office buildings.
In his youth, he had known for many years a woman who sang in a dance hall.
Her singing was excellent. Whenever she performed “When Will You Return,” the whole room would fall silent.
Yet the world changed often. Though he knew many people, in the end he never joined hands with anyone in marriage. Ma Gaohui never married.
After retirement, when others introduced prospective partners to him, he always smiled and waved them away.
“When one person eats, there is one less bowl to wash. When one person sleeps, the quilt is wider too.”
The words were spoken lightly, yet in his eyes there was always a loneliness difficult to describe.
He had seen countless people and understood worldly affairs with particular clarity. The family’s upheavals had left marks in his heart, and he often said, “Those who scheme with bandits will die without a place to be buried!”
Whenever he exchanged letters with his brothers, he often added at the end a line half joking and half self-warning:
“The wind changes direction every day, but a man must still stand firm on his own feet.”
Every time Ma Cunhui read this, he smiled knowingly.
He understood that this was not complaint, but the sigh of a man who had weathered the rise and fall of the commercial sea and understood the impermanence of the world.
The youngest brother, Ma Yuanhui, went far across the strait.
In his youth, he too chose a military life. During the civil war, he rose to the rank of major general. After retirement, he settled in Taipei.
After the retreat to Taiwan, for a time there was no word from him at all. Later, after many turns, he found his elder brother Gaohui in Hong Kong, and only then did correspondence resume. His writing paper was always clean, and his characters square and upright.
He rarely spoke of himself. He only asked whether their mother was well, whether his elder brothers and sisters-in-law were well, and whether his nephews were diligent in their studies.
Occasionally, he sent a few photographs of Taiwan’s landscapes.
The sea of clouds over Alishan. The sunset at Tamsui. The cherry blossoms of Yangmingshan.
On the backs of the photographs, there was only one short sentence:
“Though mountains and rivers divide us, hearts may still be near.”
Ma Cunhui often kept these letters in an old wooden box.
In the deep quiet of night, he would take them out and read them again, one by one.
The four brothers who had grown up beneath the same roof—one remained in Lingnan, one took root in the northwest, one drifted through fragrant Hong Kong, and one settled in Taipei.
How could the distance between them be measured merely by mountains and waters?
Later, when Ma Rende had grown older, he accidentally found that wooden box.
Inside was already a thick stack of yellowed letters.
Some carried traces of the wind and sand of the ancient Western Regions; some were touched with the damp breath of sea wind; some held a faint fragrance of tea.
He suddenly felt that what was truly precious in a family was not what industries it had once possessed, nor what offices its members later held, nor where each person had gone.
What was truly rare was this: no matter how the times changed, no matter how lives diverged, they were still willing to ask after one another’s peace in letters, and to keep a lamp of home burning in the heart.
Before her death, Grandmother had once written a sentence. It had remained pressed at the very bottom of that wooden box:
“Brothers each have their own aspirations, like rivers dividing into different courses; but if the family tradition can endure, all streams will one day return to the sea.”
Years are like the flowing waters of the mountains; in the end, they cannot remain forever within wind and rain.
Later, the age gradually turned a page.
The winter of Lingnan was still warm, while the willows of Jiangnan had begun to put forth green once more. After reform and opening, the earth seemed slowly to awaken. Markets gradually became lively, shops reopened their doors, and the fields recovered their vitality. People no longer spoke only of the past; they began to plan for tomorrow.
Ma Cunhui stood beside the Qianzhou River, watching the spring wind wrinkle the blue-green water, and for a long time said nothing.
At that moment, he suddenly felt that what he was truly parting from was not the ancestral business, but the young man he had once been—the young man who had always wanted to recover everything that had been lost.
Through these years, he had long ceased to conduct trade.
The abacus left by his ancestors lay quietly in the depths of the wooden chest and was never again touched.
The village government assigned him several mu of poor fields. Though they could not be called fertile, they were enough for the family to plant rice and vegetables. In spring they transplanted seedlings, in summer they weeded, in autumn they harvested, and in winter they turned the soil. Though the days were hard, they were also steady.
Zhao Youlan often said:
“Crops do not deceive people.”
Ma Cunhui smiled and answered:
“The land is more honest than business.”
Later, after government review and approval, he first entered the supply and marketing cooperative, then took a position as an accountant in the county department store. His wife Zhao Youlan was assigned to work as a clerk in a pharmacy attached to the Chinese medicine hospital.
Every morning, Old Ma rode his worn Phoenix-brand bicycle slowly along the riverbank toward the county town.
The department store had only two floors.
Behind the counters were thermos flasks, enamel mugs, soap, towels, bicycle parts, and rolls of cloth.
Ma Cunhui worked meticulously.
Whether taking stock or entering accounts, he was always neat and precise, never making a mistake.
His colleagues all said:
“Old Ma does not seem like a businessman. He seems more like a schoolteacher.”
He only smiled and gave no explanation.
Only he himself knew that this seriousness was a habit left from the years when his grandfather had taught him to keep accounts.
Yet what truly allowed him to recover peace of mind was not work.
It was Yue opera. Since childhood, it had been the entertainment he most loved to hear and see.
作者：chance, one day the department store broadcast played The Butterfly Lovers.
The aria “Eighteen Farewells” entered his heart like spring water.
Ma Cunhui stood behind the counter and, for a moment, forgot the abacus in his hand.
That gentle, graceful, clear singing suddenly made him remember the little bridges and flowing waters of his Jiangnan homeland, the fine rain before the window in his youth, and the melodies his mother had hummed softly while sewing clothes.
After the family business collapsed, he became all the more devoted to Yue opera.
The family acquired a transistor radio.
Every evening after dinner, he sat in the old rattan chair in the courtyard, listening to opera while leafing through volumes of Yue opera librettos.
Sometimes, when he heard a particularly fine passage, he would hum along softly.
Though his singing carried a strong Jiangnan accent, it had a deep and elegant charm.
When Ma Rende was little, he often lay across his father’s knees.
“Father, why are people always parting in these operas?”
Ma Cunhui gently closed the libretto.
“Because life itself is full of meetings and partings.”
“Then why must they still sing?”
He looked at the night sky and smiled.
“Precisely because people must part, it is worth singing.”
Apart from this, his greatest pleasure was growing flowers.
Though the courtyard was not large, he kept it in perfect order.
In one corner, he planted orchids; in another, chrysanthemums.
Along the wall grew camellias and osmanthus. Beneath the window stood more than ten pots of azaleas and jasmine.
Most eye-catching of all were several orchid plants brought from Jiangnan.
Whenever spring came and their flower stems rose and bloomed, he would stand there looking at them for a long time.
Zhao Youlan laughed and said:
“Other people grow flowers for others to see.”
“You grow flowers for yourself to see.”
Ma Cunhui nodded.
“A flower does not have to be known by others in order to bloom.”
He took part in fewer and fewer social occasions, and rarely argued with others about worldly affairs.
In his free time, he read books, listened to opera, and tended flowers. After work, he helped his wife water vegetables, repair the fence, and teach the children to read and write.
Some said he was detached.
Others said he was solitary.
He only smiled and did not answer.
For he understood that after a person has passed through great rise and great fall, what he cherishes most is no longer liveliness, but peace.
In those years, Zhao Youlan gave birth to five sons one after another.
From then on, the little courtyard became exceedingly lively.
In the morning there were the sounds of children reading. In the afternoon there was chasing and laughter. At night there was again the voice of their father teaching them from the Analects, Mencius, and the Classified Pearls of Childhood Learning.
The flowers in the courtyard bloomed year after year.
The children grew taller year after year.
Ma Cunhui often sat beneath the osmanthus tree, watching his five sons run about the courtyard.
Suddenly, he would recall a sentence his grandmother had spoken before her death:
“Lost family property can be built again.”
“But if the family tradition is lost, there is nowhere to find it.”
And so he transformed all the ideals he had not had time to fulfill into pages of books, pots of flowers, and words of instruction, quietly leaving them to his children.
Year after year, the spring wind blew through the small courtyard in Qianzhou.
It greened the vegetable beds, opened the orchids, and also whitened the frost gradually appearing at Ma Cunhui’s temples.
His life never again recovered the former prosperity of a merchant household. Yet amid the mountains and waters of Lingnan, he replanted another kind of wealth, more enduring than the first: a peaceful home, a group of children who knew books and observed propriety, and a state of mind that, after passing through wind and rain, could still face the years with calm.
That year, the lychees of Lingnan were red.
The kapok trees along the river in Qianzhou bloomed like fire, and the streets suddenly became much livelier. Overseas townsmen who had not been seen for many years returned one after another, and the inns of the little town were filled with wanderers speaking all kinds of dialects.
The Ma family’s small courtyard also welcomed its liveliest day in decades.
Early in the morning, a car slowly stopped before the gate.
Before Ma Cunhui had time to step outside, he heard a familiar accent call from beyond the courtyard:
“Second Brother!”
His body trembled slightly. He put down the orchid shears in his hand and quickly walked out through the gate.
From the mouth of the lane came a burst of hearty laughter. Outside the gate stood an elderly man whose hair was already flecked with white, yet whose figure remained straight and tall.
It was the third brother, Ma Gaohui, from whom he had been separated for decades.
The two brothers looked at one another for a long time.
Neither spoke.
Then, suddenly, two hands already covered with the marks of time clasped tightly together.
“Third Brother…”
“Second Brother.”
A single form of address was worth more than a thousand words.
Ma Cunhui took the leather suitcase Ma Gaohui was carrying, and Gaohui strode into the courtyard.
Decades of life in Hong Kong had not changed his humorous nature.
The moment he entered, he laughed and said:
“Second Brother, this courtyard of yours is more comfortable than the ancestral house used to be. These orchids look even more spirited than I do.”
Ma Cunhui could not help laughing.
“You still have that mouth.”
Ma Gaohui laughed loudly and opened his arms.
The two brothers embraced.
While everyone was still laughing and talking, another jeep slowly drove up.
Ma Zhihui had also arrived.
Behind him came his wife, Feng Beeyer, and their two grown sons.
Decades of northwestern wind and sand had carved his originally fair face into something even steadier and more solemn.
Yet when he entered the courtyard gate and saw his younger brothers, that solemn composure at last turned into a face full of smiles.
“Except for Fourth Brother, we are all here.”
Ma Gaohui deliberately patted him on the shoulder.
“Elder Brother, you still walk as though inspecting troops.”
Ma Zhihui, rarely smiling so openly, also laughed.
“And you still speak with no seriousness at all.”
This one sentence filled the courtyard with laughter.
Zhao Youlan and Feng Beeyer were already busy in the kitchen.
Chicken, duck, fish, and meat filled the wooden table: white-cut chicken, steamed fish, stuffed tofu, goose braised with shiitake mushrooms, boiled shrimp, and Jiangnan-style fermented-rice dumplings made by Zhao Youlan herself.
The fragrance drifting from the kitchen seemed to have simmered decades of time into one pot of old broth.
The children chased and played in the courtyard.
Ma Rende led several cousins up the osmanthus tree to pick fruits.
The youngest children circled the fish pond chasing goldfish, their laughter rising wave after wave.
In the corner of the courtyard, the old radio was playing Yue opera, The Butterfly Lovers.
The delicate singing drifted through the whole small courtyard.
Listening, Ma Gaohui could not help sighing:
“Second Brother still loves Yue opera.”
Ma Cunhui nodded softly.
“I have listened to it for decades. I am used to it.”
Ma Gaohui looked at the orchids in the courtyard and said in a low voice:
“When we were young, Mother also raised orchids like this.”
Those words made everyone fall silent for a moment.
Ma Zhihui slowly lifted his teacup.
“To Father.”
“And to Mother.”
The three brothers raised their cups at the same time.
There were no drinking games and no grand speeches.
Only a soft clink.
The fragrance of tea rose in thin curls, as though, across the long years, they were facing their departed loved ones from afar.
The silence was soon broken again by laughter.
Looking at the five nephews, Ma Gaohui smiled and said:
“Second Brother, you are the most capable one.”
“Among us four brothers, you have added the most sons to the Ma family.”
Zhao Youlan came out carrying dishes and laughingly joined in:
“More children also means more rice eaten.”
Everyone burst into laughter.
The sunset gradually sank westward.
The osmanthus tree in the courtyard scattered golden light and shadow across the ground.
Ma Cunhui took out the old wooden box he had treasured for many years.
Inside were the letters exchanged among the four brothers over all those years.
The paper had already yellowed, yet the ink remained clear.
Ma Zhihui gently stroked an envelope and said in a low voice:
“After all these years, we have grown old.”
Ma Cunhui looked at the courtyard full of laughing younger generations and slowly said:
“People grow old.”
“But the family remains.”
The courtyard suddenly fell quiet.
Everyone looked toward the luxuriant osmanthus tree.
The wind blew gently.
The osmanthus leaves rustled, sounding very much like the old grandmother sitting beneath the tree long ago, softly turning the pages of a book.
That night, the little courtyard was bright with lamps, and laughter and conversation continued without end.
There was some regret, for they did not see the fourth brother.
Yet after many years of separation, the three brothers finally sat once more around the same table, speaking of youth, homeland, parents, and the lives each of them had walked.
No one knew how many more reunions the future would grant them.
But everyone understood that this ordinary family meal was not merely a reunion. It was more like a long river that, after passing through countless branches and separate channels, had quietly flowed back once more into the same source.