FRAGMENT 30
The Lead Singer
Fragment: Carefully Suppressed Pride and Excitement | The Long March Suite
Time & Location: Winter 1987 · Central Committee of the Communist Youth League Auditorium, Beijing
The early winter wind in Beijing cut straight through flesh.
The cracking sounds in my knees, produced by the constant expansion and contraction of bone and cartilage, made me uncomfortable.
I stood beside a radiator.
Like a crow trying to keep warm.
Listless.
In three days, my wife would give birth.
Xiao Chang from the Youth League called.
"Hey, Bai Ying."
"Old Song wants you here."
"Join the choir."
"You're leading."
Old Song was the biggest official in the Youth League.
A major general.
When he led inspection tours through villages in northwest China, he liked singing with me.
After returning to Beijing, he pulled me into the Youth League Choir and made me its lead singer.
I had no interest in it.
I disliked singing under hundreds of watching eyes.
The ancestors of the Mongols sang differently.
They stood before their yurts.
On open grasslands.
Beside great rivers.
They sang for themselves.
No audience.
No flirtation.
No flattery.
But a political assignment could not be refused.
December 12 of that year.
The afternoon my daughter was born.
I arrived at Number 10 East Qianmen Avenue.
The twelve-story gray building loomed above me.
Like a shadow.
After locking my bicycle, I stepped inside.
Light filled the enormous interior space.
Everywhere, leather shoes clicked across polished terrazzo floors.
The voices.
The heartbeats.
Almost all carried carefully suppressed pride and excitement.
The sound of people imagining their futures.
On the highest floor sat Old Song's office.
Xiao Chang handed me a cup of chrysanthemum tea.
"How about becoming my secretary?"
Old Song looked relaxed.
Like an older brother.
No false notes in his voice.
"Oh, come on, Old Song."
"I can sing."
"Being an official is impossible."
"I'm too stupid."
"Too direct."
I did not say what I was really thinking.
A journalist's job is to uncover truth.
An official's job often requires the opposite.
To posture.
To conceal.
His expression never changed.
I heard him clearing phlegm somewhere deep inside his throat.
"Come on."
"Let's go sing."
This time he spoke like a general.
The auditorium seats were occupied by more than six hundred people.
Noise filled the audience.
Then Old Song issued a single command.
"Quiet."
The room fell silent.
Instantly.
I stepped to the front edge of the stage.
Raised the microphone.
I gathered myself.
Preparing to sing a section from The Long March Suite.
"Crossing Snow Mountains and Grasslands."
It was a Soviet-style symphonic musical.
More than a hundred mouths transformed into mechanized instruments.
Singing through ten consecutive scenes.
The hardships of the Chinese Army's founding years elevated into epic grandeur.
For a generation raised on Peking Opera and the erhu, the form had once felt revolutionary.
Behind me stretched a field of white shirts.
A snowfield flooded with political ambition.
Many years later, the flawless official language spoken by members of this choir would become some of the most influential voices in Chinese politics.
Directly behind me stood a man who, seventeen years later, would become Director of the General Office of the Central Committee.
From the corner of my eye, he appeared deeply absorbed.
Though I knew he sang off-key.
At that time, Old Song disliked him.
No matter how talented he was.
No matter how exceptional his execution.
The overture began.
FRAGMENT 31
The Conductor's Baton
Fragment: Obedient Low-Frequency Square Waves | The Khoomei Tremor of Bird and Man in One Body | A Shanxi Accent Carrying the Smell of Noodle Soup
Time & Location: Winter 1987 · Central Committee of the Communist Youth League Auditorium, Beijing
Old Song's baton pointed toward me.
It was not a piece of wood.
It was a reference point for power.
Every movement commanded six hundred throats to breathe and sound with the precision of pistons inside brass instruments.
A stream of air rose from my lower abdomen.
Climbed toward my throat.
White light flashed before my eyes.
"Snow stretches white.
The wilderness stretches vast..."
I could no longer hear my own voice.
I merely guided the melody through the air.
Letting it spread across the entire building.
Each chorus behind me arrived with mechanical precision.
The collective ah-ah-ah seemed manufactured rather than sung.
Under the baton, every brain in the hall resonated into a single waveform.
One obedient, low-frequency square wave.
The White Crow counted coldly.
Old Song's heart accelerated three times.
Seeking attention from higher levels.
Secretary Wang's applause lagged by half a beat.
Perhaps he was calculating some complicated personnel arrangement.
The man standing directly behind me maintained astonishingly stable diaphragmatic breathing.
The fluctuations measured only a few hundred milliseconds.
I stood straight as a fountain pen.
The way I stood before Father during inspection.
Then something happened.
One of my high notes struck the old chandelier supports hanging from the ceiling.
A violent resonance erupted.
I did not know whether the vibration reached the feet of the future powerful men sitting below.
But many of them shifted in their seats.
Subtly.
Nervously.
According to the score, I was supposed to begin low.
Build through a long middle register.
Then leap upward into a bright, unwavering A4.
"...high above the clouds..."
More than a thousand arms were already rising.
Preparing to applaud.
Instead, I stepped outside the script.
The khoomei tremor living inside both bird and man burst outward.
Layer after layer.
The world vanished.
Soundless.
Motionless.
Nonexistent.
A vacuum.
Cold and merciless.
At almost the exact same moment,
my body released a small burst of gas.
Old Song froze.
Like a piece of timber.
Then he pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees.
The baton pointed toward the audience.
A flick.
Two hundred and fifty milliseconds.
"Ah-ah-ah—"
The entire hall entered together.
Perfectly synchronized.
Perfectly ordinary.
Perfectly obedient.
Wave after wave rose over me.
Until cracked voices and broken notes buried everything I had done.
The baton sliced downward.
A rest.
Thin as steel wire.
Silence.
Then eruption.
The interval lasted a full three seconds.
The applause arrived late.
Explosive.
Relentless.
Every eye turned toward Old Song as he bowed repeatedly.
Only a handful of young women looked toward me.
Their eyes flickering.
Old Song's hand remained suspended in midair.
Behind the thick lenses of his glasses, a flash of alarm appeared.
I ran behind the crimson curtain.
Collapsed in a corner.
Curled into myself.
Headache.
Tears.
Blood from my ears.
By the time my vision and hearing returned to normal, the hall was empty.
I stepped into the dark corridor.
A small, thin figure emerged from the shadows.
"Old Lin."
"Long time no see."
I recognized the footsteps immediately.
"Bai Ying."
"That was professional singing."
He hurried forward.
Skipping our usual enthusiastic handshake.
Instead, he reached for the collar of my military coat.
"It's cold."
"Don't be careless."
He lifted the collar.
Pressed it gently against my cheeks.
Then patted it into place.
His Shanxi accent carried the warm smell of noodle soup.
The kind of sound that made people feel safe.
Throughout the Youth League system, he was famous for his attentiveness.
For understanding people.
Even Old Song admired him for it.
I ignored the elevator.
Ran straight down the stairs.
Outside, I turned and looked back at the building.
It had become a gigantic pan flute.
Every floor.
Every window.
Every compartment.
Produced its own frequency.
The sounds of humanity mating with power.
The northern side faced Chang'an Avenue.
Its frequencies were grand.
False.
Immensely solemn.
The southern side faced old residential neighborhoods.
There the background noise was different.
Ordinary.
Real.
Trivial.
I climbed onto my bicycle.
The chain rattled softly.
Shaking my head to an invisible rhythm,
I pedaled back toward the life of getting by.
My daughter had been born.
She brought family happiness.
And something even greater.
The sound of heaven.
That tiny body constantly emitted the stirrings of spring.
The signal of all things beginning to grow.
From the outside, our family appeared happy.
And just as Father had hoped,
I continued to keep myself secret.
Continued becoming ordinary.
Almost invisible.
