After leaving the Department Store, Li Long returned to the courtyard, got on his bicycle, and loaded up the chickens and eggs. He pushed the bicycle outside, locked the gate, then mounted it and rode back.
It was late March, and the spring wind blowing against him was still a little cold. To Li Long, though, this was nothing. It was far more comfortable than breaking holes in the ice to catch fish in temperatures twenty or thirty degrees below zero, or wading through knee-deep snow to cut timber in the mountains.
Humming all the way, he swept out of the County Town on his bicycle. Now and then, he saw people walking or driving horse carts. Although there were tire tracks on the road, he saw no trucks.
Li Long rode to Township Middle School. No one was watching the school gate, so he turned in on his bicycle. Classes were in session, and he remembered that Gu Xiaoxia taught Chinese to the first-year junior middle school students.
Before he could turn toward the classrooms, a man in his fifties called him to a stop. Li Long vaguely remembered that he was the school caretaker. He stopped and volunteered:
"I'm here to see Gu Xiaoxia. We're from the same village, and I've brought her some things."
Seeing Li Long on a bicycle-anyone who could ride a bicycle in those days was no ordinary person-the caretaker kindly told him, "Teacher Gu has finished her morning classes. She's in her dormitory now. Ride straight ahead, turn left at the end, then keep going all the way. There's a row of single-story rooms there. Hers is the third."
"Thank you!" Li Long said, then rode toward the teachers' dormitory.
Before Li Long reached the teachers' dormitory, he heard a man's voice coming