Encountered "Chai Bai Party" At Night

As night fell, I ran until I was drenched in sweat, with my mouth wide open like a fish stranded on the beach. I felt like I couldn't run any further and was about to collapse. Thankfully, a town appeared ahead, and the carriage stopped just outside the town.

The town had dozens of households, and lights were shining, carrying the aroma of food in the air. In that era, this kind of town was already considered a big one. There was a grocery store, a noodle shop, and an inn in the town. A paper lantern hung on the flagpole in front of the inn, with the words "Tongchun Inn" written on it.

The carriage did not rush into the town, but stopped outside, and one person got off and went into the town, while the others waited outside. After about the time it takes to smoke a cigarette, two sharp whistles were heard from inside the town, and the carriage finally entered.

This circus was very strange.

That night, I only ate half a steamed bun, which was left over by someone in the circus who gave it to me. After dinner, the men and women all slept in the same room. I didn't get a good look at the two women; they never walked into the light. There was a kerosene lamp lit in the room, and a hole was dug in the wall to hold the lamp.

They slept on a heated brick bed, while I slept on the ground.

After running for a long time, I collapsed and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, I woke up needing to pee, but afraid to turn on the light. I saw a half-moon hanging in the sky and stumbled out of the room. As I reached the yard, the moon disappeared behind the clouds, and the stars suddenly filled the sky. The Milky Way, spanning half of the sky, felt very close, almost above my head. Guided by the starlight, I walked to the corner of the wall and was about to relieve myself when I heard two men talking in the room.

Both men spoke with a local accent, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. One asked, "Is it bright enough?" The other replied, "Very bright." One asked, "Did it fall into the pit?" The other replied, "It just fell into the pit." One asked, "How many hu are we going to need?" The other replied, "At least three hu."

Their words were incomprehensible to me, and I was in great discomfort down below. I couldn't hold it anymore, so I took off my pants and started to pee against the wall. The sound echoed loudly in the silent darkness, and even I was startled. I thought to myself, "Stop quickly, stop quickly!" But I couldn't stop.

Suddenly, the room light turned on, and the two men came out. They held up the kerosene lamp and shone it on my face. One of them said, "It's just a broken piece. I thought it was someone else. False alarm."

They went back with the kerosene lamps. I thought I might get a beating, but to my surprise, they didn't say a word to me and just left.

I groped my way back to my room and lay on the ground, pondering what they had said. What did "pan er", "wo li" and "ji dou" mean? I couldn't understand a single word.

What were they doing?

After a while, I felt drowsy and fell asleep again.

When I woke up, the sun was already shining brightly, and the wooden attic above the gate of the inn was dyed red by the sunlight. The people in the courtyard of the inn were busy, some were hitching their animals to the carriage, shouting "de er de er" while others were carrying their goods on shoulder poles, "creaking" all the way out. Last night, there were six people in our room, four men and two women. I couldn't see clearly last night, but now I saw that these two women were very beautiful, their figures, eyebrows and eyes, and shiny black hair were all so beautiful that I had never seen such beautiful women before. They were much prettier than my mother, of course, even more so than Lei Caifeng, that coarse and foolish woman.

The two beautiful women walked out of the room, and I followed. I saw two tall and handsome men standing at the door of the room where I peed last night. Their eyes were fixed on the two beautiful women. I thought that they must have been the two tall and handsome men who spoke in the language I couldn't understand last night.

The two men walked over, ignoring me completely and went straight to the two women, greeting them. They asked, "Which road are you from, sisters?"

One of the two women said, "The mountain is divided into two sides and the water flows on both banks. We are not from the same road, so don't ask too much."

The two men said, "It seems that you are also people from the martial world. Can you leave a mark?"

Before the two women could answer, a short and sturdy man walked in from outside the inn, clearing his throat sternly, and the two women went back to their room. The short and sturdy man walked past the two handsome men, deliberately bumping into them with his shoulder. Although he was a head shorter than them, they were both pushed back several steps by him. The faces of the two handsome men changed, and the short and sturdy man didn't even look back as he said, "The big road leads to heaven, each half way, those who know the score, should keep their mouths shut."

The two handsome men looked at each other, and then went back to their own room, closing the door and never came out again. I saw the urine stains I left on the wall in front of their door were still wet.

Later, I learned that the short and stout man was the head of a circus named Gao Shulin, and the two beautiful women were the pillars of the circus named Qing'er and Cui'er. I didn't know the names of the two handsome men, and I never encountered them again, but I always remembered the enigmatic words they said that night. It was about ten years later when I finally understood their identity and what they were talking about that night.

They were members of the Bai Faction.

We hit the road.

There were seven people in the circus, including Gao Shulin, Qing'er, and Cui'er, as well as four others. The one driving the carriage was called Shuzhuang, said to be Gao Shulin's brother, but I didn't know if they were related by blood. The man who pointed at me with a stick yesterday was called Yaozi, said to be skilled in martial arts. The skinny man was called Xiangan, and he was very agile and could climb very high trees. There was also a gloomy young man who always had a sad face and never spoke. He looked at people secretly and never dared to make eye contact. His name was Puti. I didn't know why he had such a strange name.

In addition to these seven people, the circus also had a monkey, two horses, and various props that I didn't know the use of. The monkey was very annoying, always moving around and sometimes suddenly jumping onto my head, which scared me.

The circus did indeed travel the world, and every two or three days, they would perform in a relatively large village. After the performance, they immediately rushed to the next location, moving very quickly, as if they were in mourning. I didn't know why they had to leave in such a hurry for a long time, until half a year later, when I uncovered the secret.

I do odd jobs in the circus, setting up and taking down stages is what I do. On my first day of work, Gao Shulin told me, "Only if you work hard can you have food to eat; if you try to cheat or avoid work, nobody will give you anything, not even shit." So, I've always been diligent, just so they can give me a bowl of food to eat.

The circus shows are very simple, always the same few: monkeys riding horses, monkeys climbing poles, rope dancing, stool balancing, spear-stabbing throat, walking on tightrope...

Monkeys riding horses and climbing poles are easy to understand; rope dancing involves connecting two bowls with a rope, filling the bowls with vegetable oil, lighting them up, and dancing with the rope; stool balancing involves stacking porcelain bowls and stools, and standing on the top stool; spear-stabbing throat is when two people face each other, placing sharp iron spears at their throats, and trying to push each other away; walking on tightrope is done on a tightrope connecting two high poles.

Everyone in this circus has their own job. Training monkeys and driving horse carriages is the job of Shuzhuang. Shuzhuang is good at training animals, with the help of a whip and repeated training, he can make horses and monkeys do what he wants with just a foot stomp or a raised hand. Rope dancing and spear-stabbing throat are the job of Gaoshulin and Yaozi, which require a certain foundation of martial arts and skills. Stool balancing is the project of Qing'er and Cui'er, both of whom are agile and can spread their limbs in the air, resembling geese flying with their wings open. Walking on tightrope is the specialty of Xianggan, who can swing his arms on the rope in the air and always make people scream in amazement.

The circus shows are only these few, but they last a long time. Most of the time, they are just selling themselves, especially Yaozi, who has a particularly good mouth. Before each performance, he would praise the performers as rare talents and is skilled at making jokes with a hint of vulgarity, often making the onlookers burst into laughter.

Our shows are all free to watch. Before each performance, the troupe leader, Gao Shulin, would have already contacted the village head. The village head would provide a small amount of money as a reward, and then we would take to the stage and perform.

In the early years of the Republic of China, the country was divided into provinces, which were then further divided into counties, districts, and villages. A village consisted of multiple neighborhoods, with each neighborhood containing five households, each cluster of 25 households forming a hamlet, and those with more than a hundred households being called a village.

Actually, the income of this circus troupe did not come from the small reward provided by the village head. The situation was much more complicated than that.

Of the seven people in the troupe, six of them had performing acts, but Bodhi did not. Also, every time I finished setting up the wooden poles and the stage, I couldn't find Bodhi. But as soon as we left the village, Bodhi would show up again.

Bodhi was the most mysterious person in the circus troupe. When I first joined the troupe, I was the lowest-ranking person in the strictly hierarchical group, so I kept quiet about everything. Actually, in any group, there is a strict hierarchy.

One cannot escape the underworld wherever there are people.