During the prime years of my youth, my dreams were frequently besieged and trapped by snakes.
In those days, roughly half of my nighttime journeys were swarming with them. Sometimes, I would find myself walking through a breathtakingly beautiful forest, only to discover that the lush ground was crawling with coiling, slithering serpents, leaving me so utterly paralyzed with terror that I couldn't take a single step. Even worse, they would invade my sanctuary—lurking in corners, sliding across the floor, over my bed, and cold against my skin beneath the blankets. It was a suffocating, omnipotent horror.Later in life, I encountered Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, which famously interprets snakes in dreams as phallic symbols. The cosmic irony was that in that parched, fiercely conservative era, my actual understanding of men was almost an absolute zero. In all likelihood, this unplaceable nightmare grew from a childhood seed, when our school organized a screening of the science education film The Secret of Snake Island. It was a bone-chilling, soul-crushing film that ruined a child's peace of mind; children should never have been forced to witness it! Alongside it, we were shown the 1965 documentary Mudslide, another deeply traumatizing spectacle of horror.
This shadow shadowed me for decades, until a singular convergence in reality took place. On the morning of February 27, 1989, after securing my transit visa from the Thai Consulate in Hong Kong, I immediately embarked on my journey to Thailand. On the afternoon of March 1, at the local Crocodile Farm and Zoo, I found myself watching a thrilling exhibition of crocodile wrestling and snake charming. At the climax, the charmer hauled out an immense, thick, light-colored patterned serpent, inviting the audience to step forward and hold it. Watching a dozen tourists from various nations eagerly queue up, a sudden surge of trembling courage propelled me forward. Driven by curiosity, and perhaps a desperate desire to appease my lifelong tormentor, I reached out and stroked that slick, bare serpentine skin. Instantly, a bizarre, tingling, slithering sensation of raw, rippling muscle seared into my palm, lingering stubbornly for a long time afterward. I feared snakes above all else; they had besieged my sleep for a lifetime. In that fleeting contact, my subconscious was whispering a silent plea for peace: I hoped that with this single touch, they might finally grant me sanctuary and release me from the nightmares forever. Perhaps that day truly marked the turning point.
Later in life, I finally realized that pure, upright energy eventually conquers the shadows. By consciously cultivating a resilient inner light, I gradually stepped out of that childhood darkness. Yet, by some surreal twist of cosmic irony, the life partner with whom I eventually settled down and shared my years happened to be born in the Year of the Snake! Was that entire wilderness of nightmares, after all, a vast premonition dream waiting across the river of time?
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
Since my earliest childhood, never have I slept without dreaming. The nighttime world deep within my soul is a bizarre, vibrant kaleidoscope, possessing a fierce sense of surrealist artistry. Often, several dreams unreel in a single night, remaining entirely vivid upon my waking. Over the decades, I have routinely transcribed these night journals or sketched out their stark visual outlines. Mysteriously, many countenances and occurrences witnessed in my sleep have reappeared with a profound sense of déjà vu in the days that followed—manifesting in my physical reality, on television screens, or in the unfolding of my future.
My dreamscapes possess a striking, evolutionary trajectory: progressing from the panicked alpine crossings, frantic escapes, and blocked borders of my youth, to a mature state where I can now take bullet strikes without pain in militarized mazes and turn my frame into a shadow that walks through solid brick walls. The ancient frustrations of an interrupted dream dissolving forever have evolved; I can now seamlessly resume broken dreams, and even navigate intricate dreams-within-dreams.
These nocturnal voyages may appear chaotic, yet they follow a hidden geometry. They routinely revisit my sleep across shifting epochs and landscapes, crystallizing into fifteen distinct scrolls of memory.
An Innocent First Love and an Unbridgeable Divide: My Youthful Years with Xiao Z
I. An Attempt at Love Beyond Reason
Though there had been a fleeting moment of romantic haze—untouched and purely emotional—by the window of the municipal cadre school's telephone switchboard room during a misty dawn; and though there had been a temporary sweetness of a first kiss by the pond where frogs croaked and duckweed drifted under the vast, winding sea wall; the true breaking of reason's shackles to give love an honest chance did not happen until after I passed my exams and returned to the university.
Rewinding time by another year, we had just moved into the newly constructed two-story dormitory. About a hundred meters to the east, our old living quarters were now occupied by a dozen men from the farm's construction company branch. Z was the young doctor there, living in the very room that used to be mine. His clinic was the very office that used to be our accounting room.
Since their quarters lacked a telephone line, they had to walk over to our new building to use the phone in our accounting office, which sat right at the top of the outdoor staircase on the second floor. Our spacious, bright office had large file cabinets against the west wall, while my waist-high safe stood against the east wall where I sat. Right by the north window, our two desks were placed back-to-back, leaving Accountant D and me facing each other with the telephone sitting right between us. Accountant D was a local man in his early thirties with three children. He was an incredibly strict, responsible leader; next to the party secretary and captain, he held the highest authority. Because of Accountant D's terribly stern and serious expression, every time Z came over to use the phone, he was trembling with nerves. Sometimes he would clutch a single cigarette in his hand, desperately wanting to "bribe" Accountant D but never quite finding the courage to pull it out.
In those days, people never used the telephone for idle chatting, and almost no one from our team ever came to use it. But Xiao Z called frequently to reach his father, a renowned chief surgeon at the county hospital. Z was remarkably handsome, possessing a delicate, youthful charm; shadow paths of a beard traced his jawline, though they were still just soft, unshaven peach fuzz. Gradually, he grew comfortable around us, no longer blushing when he spoke, and sometimes he would stroll over to play ping-pong. Once, in the ping-pong room, he casually remarked that he would take me to the cinema in Shanghai when an opportunity arose. What a big boast for such a young boy, I thought to myself. Yet strangely, during the rare pockets of leisure while I was buried in exam prep, my heart was slowly but surely occupied by this slightly bashful boy.
II. Stolen Glances and Rich Milk in South Shanghai
Thinking I had successfully avoided all prying eyes, I would stand on the veranda outside the accounting office, pretending to admire the scenery, while casting sideways glances toward the east—only to find Z staring back from his side, sending a sudden flutter through my heart. We would lock eyes across the distance and then pretend it was a total fluke, casually shifting our gazes away the moment we were caught.
After a two-month absence where I hadn't seen him, he suddenly came to ask me out to the movies before the Lunar New Year, and I happily agreed. In those two short months, he had completely transformed; his frame was broader, and the mustache on his lip had darkened. Looking at his new appearance, I couldn't wrap my head around it initially. He had been so delicate and sweet just a moment ago; how had he become a fully grown man in the blink of an eye? My heart filled with a faint, lingering nostalgia for the boy he used to be. We went out on our movie date in Shanghai, though the theater and the film itself have vanished from my memory. Afterward, my sixth brother and I left for Jiangxi. Not long after, my university acceptance letter officially arrived. With that, I truly shed my heavy emotional burdens, granting a much-needed vacation to the strict reason that had long ruled my words and deeds. Though we lacked the deep roots of childhood neighbors, it did not stop us from exploring an innocent, fairytale-like first love.
Z took me to his home to meet his mother, a forty-two-year-old primary school teacher, and later I caught a brief glimpse of his father, who worked at a suburban hospital and didn't come home every day. His mother struck me as incredibly shrewd; whenever I faced her, a faint ripple of intimidation crept into my heart. Moreover, she acted incredibly "dia" (flirtatiously sweet) around her husband; seeing a grown woman act that way made me cringe slightly. My own mother had never tolerated any flirtatious whining, viewing it as unmannered and low-class.
Yet, whenever Z came home, she would have him call me over. She would invariably use the excuse of heading downstairs to the local hot-water depot to fetch a thermos, leaving us alone for a mere sliver of time before remaining firmly in the room to read or do chores. They lived in one of the few three-to-four-story masonry developments in the South City District; its large, light-grey stone blocks resembled the grand buildings of the Bund—immaculate and clean. They lived on the second floor and could boil water right in their own kitchen. Z was entirely transparent with me, once sharing a dramatic fragment of his family history: during her youth, while fleeing wartime chaos in a rickshaw, his grandmother was brutally mugged. Two large, emerald earrings were ripped straight from her ears, leaving permanent splits in both earlobes that she carried until the day she passed away.
Yet, Z always insisted on mixing milk powder for me to drink. In those days of severe scarcity, fresh milk and milk powder were luxuries beyond the reach of ordinary people, requiring a newborn's birth certificate unless you held high administrative rank. But thanks to his physician father, their household never lacked a supply. When he prepared it, he would heap the powder until it filled three-quarters of the glass, brewing a beverage so rich and fragrant.
III. The 'Water Curtain Cave' Near the Bund
Our very first embrace and kiss remains etched indelibly in my mind. It was a midsummer night, and a torrential downpour caught us off guard as Z was walking me home. Clutching my hand tightly, Z sprinted with me into the grand stone entryway of a historic building near the Bund on East Nanjing Road. The furious storm sheeted down relentlessly, pouring off the arched entrance like a literal Water Curtain Cave. This cascading curtain of water completely severed our deep stone sanctuary from the outside world, as flickering streetlights danced across the moving veil of water in surreal patterns. Inside the alcove, the air felt dim, mysterious, and profoundly romantic; above all, for one precious moment, we possessed a tiny world entirely our own, free from a mother’s watchful gaze or outside intrusion.
A strange mixture of panic and anticipation, combined with clothes soaked through by the rain, made my body begin to shiver. Without a second thought, Z pulled me tightly against him. Our ice-cold lips met, our frames trembling in unison as we clung to each other, locked in a deep kiss. His inner warmth rushed into me instantly, fending off the biting chill of the rain. A current of electrifying bliss rippled through me from head to toe. Just as I felt this moment might stretch into eternity, the rain ceased as if on cue. The stone archway remerged into the waking world, the glare of the streetlamps crept back in, and passersby appeared. We were forced to pull apart, ending that intoxicating embrace.
Time flew by, and soon the next college entrance exam season arrived. Both his mother and I harbored desperate hopes that Z would pass. Not a single letter I penned to him managed to escape his mother's sharp, evaluating gaze; luckily, they were filled with nothing but traditional scholarly encouragement, echoing old texts that placed academics above all else. Perhaps due to the distractions of a first romance, Z failed the exam. His mother initiated two private conversations with me. The first left me with the distinct impression that while my personal traits passed her inspection, our family backgrounds lacked a proper match; they belonged to the intellectual class, whereas my father was a factory worker and my mother a housewife. Furthermore, my being two years older than her son was deemed unsuitable. Yet, whenever Z came home, she continued to have him summon me. To avoid derailing his study mindset, I still attended, never uttering a syllable to him about his mother's words. The second conversation occurred after his failure. The gist of her message was that her son was utterly infatuated with me and deeply despondent; she expected me to cooperate by boosting his spirits for the next year's exam without placing any pressure on him. Even with my naivety, the cold truth finally dawned on me: everything his mother did was strictly a blueprint for her own son. She was merely utilizing me. I agreed to her face, comforting Z as I always had, telling him not to take this single failure to heart—after all, I had failed my own first attempt, only managing a technical school degree on my second try. I urged him to simply buckle down and study again, though his demeanor had clearly lost the vibrant joy of the previous year.
IV. An Innocent Dawn on the Clinic Desk
During my first year studying back in Shanghai, my official personnel records and wages were still handled by the farm. By the second year, a new national policy finally permitted us to transfer our household registration back to the city proper. I took a brief leave to return to the farm to process these documents, spending the night on the desk inside Z's clinic office—the very room that used to be my old accounting office. Several wooden filing cabinets lined the west wall, and right in front of them, nearly in the absolute center of the room, sat his desk.
At dawn, Z slipped quietly inside, and we lay wrapped in each other's arms on that wooden desktop for a solid hour. In those days, we were pure lovers who dared not cross a single boundary; even the faint, budding urge to physically explore the unknown was instantly crushed by a powerful, deep-seated self-restraint. We simply lay there, privately intoxicated by the rigid, rigid pressure between our clothed bodies. As full daylight broke, I returned to Shanghai. Later on, swayed by the logical facts and reasons of my clever, pragmatic third sister-in-law, my warmth toward Z gradually faded into cold distance.
V. Panic at the Classroom
Z actually came to the university to look for me, and I handled the situation terribly. The moment class dismissed and I spotted Z standing right outside the classroom back door, panic seized my heart; I had no idea how he had tracked me down. I terrified myself with dark thoughts of retaliation; rumors had been circulating in society about jilted men throwing sulfuric acid into women's faces out of spite. My mother always said: "Never harbor intentions to harm others, but never lower your guard against them either." Blinded by fear, I refused to see him. In truth, I should have faced him, should have listened to whatever he wanted to say—after all, he was never a violent soul. Instead, I panicked, grabbed a male classmate, and asked him to stand with me as a shield. Seeing another young man by my side, Z simply turned on his heel and walked away. I know, without a doubt, that I must have shattered his heart into pieces that day.
Afterward, he penned a letter to me, which I left unanswered. His mother sent a letter as well, describing me as a "bu-gou-yan-xiao" (serious and reserved) good girl, subtly hinting that she wanted me to return to her son. That was the very first time I had ever encountered that idiom; cracking open a dictionary, I spent a long time turning the definition over in my mind, trying to decipher its exact meaning. But I refused to let myself be manipulated by his mother again just to secure Z's academic future. At the end of the day, our family backgrounds still didn't match their arbitrary standards of social standing, and I had no desire to climb a ladder where I wasn't truly welcome. Had it not been for his mother's endless interference, I might never have abandoned him so easily. Born out of sheer youthful ignorance, I simply did not know how to untangle the messy web of romance. In hurting someone who never deserved to be wounded, I ultimately ended up inflicting the deepest harm upon myself. All the hardships that followed later in my life felt like a form of cosmic retribution.
Epilogue: The Stage of Time
Looking back at those two to three years of bittersweet youth, born out of sheer ignorance, we wounded each other and ourselves; the hardships that followed felt like cosmic retribution. Yet, these are insights born only of later reflection. In my youth, I was entirely oblivious to my family's ancient prestige. I never once conceptualized myself as a lady of the Plain Yellow Banner; had I known, it would have lent me an iron coat of armor against Z's mother who judged our backgrounds as a "poor match." Granted, it was a lineage from an aristocracy fallen for a century; times had changed, and speaking of it openly back then would have made people laugh their teeth off.
In truth, I am of the Manchu Plain Yellow Banner lineage. Upon our ancestral burial grounds in Beijing once stood a grand stone tablet resting atop a mythical bixi tortoise, sculpted with two dragons playing with a pearl—a monument reserved strictly for officials of the Third Rank or higher. Had we rewound time by two centuries, their households would have struggled to secure an alliance with my family. I remember during middle school, Mother related that on her wedding day, my grandfather's estate had erected eighteen massive ceremonial tents stretching down the lane. My father, a man of few words, chimed in with a rare smile, adding that our ancestors had "entered Beijing alongside the Emperor" and had once "claimed vast lands by horseback." Yet, he immediately appended a stern warning: "That is all ugly history now." With that single sentence, he severed the topic. At that age, I naively assumed an Imperial Consort was simply a palace maid, so I never pressed further.
Earlier, when filling out forms in elementary school, my oldest brother urged me never to write down "Manchu." Though I didn't comprehend the deep political caution behind his words, a quiet stubbornness took hold of me; I resolutely checked the "Manchu" box anyway—it was a tiny, private spark of conviction that made me feel proudly distinct from the world. History plays cruel tricks on humanity; one singer leaves the stage only for another to ascend. Tigers leave as wolves arrive, and the tables of fortune endlessly turn. Those shrewd, worldly evaluations and judgments of status, when faced with the relentless river of time, have finally dissolved into nothing but a brief drift of historical dust.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
