I found it almost incomprehensible that he could go on living after Little Lion married me, given his obsession over her and the bizarre direction it had taken over so many years. With that premise, Qin He’s infatuation with Gugu must also be seen as a sickness. When she married Hao Dashou, Qin neither drowned himself in the river nor hanged himself; what he did was transfer his pain onto art, and a true popular artist was born, like a newborn infant emerging from clay. Wang Gan went beyond not trying to avoid us by bringing up the subject of his obsession over Little Lion, talking lightly about it as if it had happened to someone else. I found his attitude comforting. A sense of guilt that had been concealed in my heart for years began to fade away, and that led to a rekindling of friendship, not to mention the birth of respect. You might not believe me, he said, but when Little Lion walked barefoot along the riverbank, I followed her footprints on my hands and knees, like a dog, inhaling the smell of her feet as tears drenched my face.
