Death Fugue

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Those who have suffered the mental strain of life’s vicissitudes often end up by becoming withdrawn. Their earlier zeal has died; their beliefs wander off like stray dogs. They allow the heart to grow barren, and the mind to be overrun with weeds. They experience a sort of mental arthritis, like a dull ache on a cloudy day. There is no remedy. They hurt. They endure. They distract themselves in various ways, whether by making money, or by emigrating, or by womanising.

Yuan Mengliu fell into the last group.

He was born in the 60s, though the specific year is not known. You might say he was an unidentified person. As for the circumstances surrounding his parentage, there are many versions of the story. In the more hair-raising one, his father was an orphan who later became a soldier. One night when he was on an assignment somewhere, he had a one-night stand, sowing his seed in the virgin soil of a girl who was later hidden away in a remote snowy mountain range. She gave birth to Mengliu, then went on her merry way back to the place from where she had come. Or perhaps she had died in childbirth.

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