The Old Lady heard me say those things that only Li Fuguang could have known.
She cupped my face again and studied it for a long time, as though she wanted to see every fine hair on it, hoping my face would match Li Fuguang's childhood face.
I had seen Li Fuguang as an adult. We did not look alike.
That was a fact, but so was my knowing things that only Li Fuguang could have said.
Afraid the Old Lady still did not believe me, I told her much more.
I kept talking until her wrinkle-covered face was almost screwed up into a knot.
She cried, but no tears would fall. Perhaps she was too overwhelmed; she cried for a long time without making a sound, but her hands kept pounding my shoulders.
"Why did you only come back now? Why only now? Grandmother waited for you for so many years!"
"You child, how could you be so unfilial? It took you all these years to come and see this old woman!"
The Old Lady spoke through her sobs, crying so hard that she slid off her stool.
I knelt on the ground, supporting her the whole time, filled with helplessness and guilt.
I could no longer tell whether I was Chen Mo or Li Fuguang.
I had thought I had let go of much of what happened last year, but whenever Li Fuguang's emotions and feelings rose in my heart, they became mine again.
A while ago, during the Hua Wenfeng incident, I had lost a stretch of my memory.
I suspected something very important had happened during that time and Li Fuguang had picked up on it, leaving me unaware of what had happened, yet constantly feeling the same grief I had felt when my dad and