How You Can Sue Me for My Crimes in Dreams

Time: October 17, 1997,

Summer

Prologue: [”Modern Jesus”]

”Dad, where’s our home?”

I sat on the ground, looking at the slovenly man in front of me.

The man was disheveled and filthy. He paid no mind to the stares of those around him as he pulled a plastic bottle from a trash can. Hearing my question, he said:

”People like us have two homes.”

”Where are they?”

”Don’t be impatient. We’ll get there eventually.”

My name is Sun Jiang. Actually, I didn’t have a name. But my crying by the riverbank woke up the man under the bridge. So, he took me with him, gave me his surname, and named me Jiang.

He was a beggar, so naturally, I was a beggar too.

He said he was a rat, a fifty- or sixty-year-old rat. The kind everyone wants to smack, scuttling all over the streets, making a mess of the trash cans, with flies and mosquitoes buzzing around him.

I said I was a little rat, a rat from the day I was born. A rat who hid by the streets where kids went to school, watching the children with their backpacks, escorted by their parents.

He said you have to be happy with what you’ve got. And really, I was pretty content. I had a girl who played with me.

The girl’s name was Bai Xuhong. She was uglier than me and had been with Big Rat even longer. I think she was the daughter of a homeless man. Big Rat wouldn’t let her wash her face or bathe. She wasn’t even allowed to wipe away the uncomfortable sleep gunk from her eyes. And she couldn’t speak when we were outside. She would often whisper these things to me.

I’d join her in cursing Big Rat.

「Later.」

Big Rat died.

Before he died, his face pale, he called me over, stroked my head, and said:

”I’m going home first.”

After saying that, Big Rat closed his eyes.

I didn’t understand. He said he was going home, but he never opened his eyes again. He never left. He just lay there in the alley, on a pile of garbage.

Xiao Bai and I waited for a long, long time. A strong stench started coming from Big Rat’s body. We wanted to give him a bath, but before long, some people came and took him away.

’Big Rat has gone home,’ I thought.

Where was my home?

I wandered aimlessly, a blur of confusion before my eyes. But holding Xiao Bai’s hand always made me feel at ease.

Xiao Bai was very lively. Since she couldn’t speak outside, she’d pour out all her words to me in private.

We would lie under the stars, looking up at them and talking.

She said when she grew up, she wanted to wear pretty clothes and eat ice cream. She thought for a moment, then added, ”Not the kind you find in the trash.”

I said, ”When I grow up, I want a home.”

Xiao Bai thought for a moment, then puffed out her chest and declared gallantly, ”If we’re together, we have a home.”

After that, we walked together, and we hid together.

Other ”rats” would come and bully us, snatching away the bottles we’d collected.

Even some old people who clearly weren’t ”rats” would try to rob us. ’They can survive on their own,’ I’d think, ’so why do they need to steal from us? Oh well, it’s not like we can fight back anyway.’

But there was also someone who came to see us from time to time. Thanks to him, Xiao Bai and I even learned to read.

We lived on like that, intermittently, but we were happy.

I knew I was growing up.

Big Rat had said we have two homes. As long as we stay alive, we’ll get home eventually.

「Later.」

Flowers appeared in the sky. Xiao Bai and I walked out of the dilapidated temple, looking up at them, mesmerized.

It seemed like every so often, these flowers would bloom in the sky, and it would get very lively down below.

Xiao Bai watched for a long time, then looked down at herself. She said she wanted to take a bath, so she went to the home of the person who taught us to read.

After her bath, Xiao Bai was very beautiful. Prettier than me.

I thought for a bit, then went down the mountain to beg for food.

This festival was great. Every time I knocked on a door to beg, lots of people gave me food, and it was delicious.

’I’ll share this with Xiao Bai when I get back,’ I thought.

I went back.

The bowl fell to the ground.

I saw several figures doing something to Xiao Bai. I didn’t know what it was. My mind went blank.

I chased after them. I didn’t know why I was chasing them, but I did.

They came back. Then, I think I couldn’t see anymore.

When I woke up, I was with the person who taught me to read.

He took me to the top of the mountain. I saw Xiao Bai. Her eyes were closed too. A crowd of people stood around her. According to Big Rat, she had gone home.

I didn’t understand, but I felt a terrible pain. A pain in my chest.

I couldn’t speak. I started to go forward, but the man suddenly grabbed me.

He raised a finger to his lips.

”Shhh~”

...

...

Zhao Kang was a politics teacher.

He wasn’t just a teacher; he was also the head of his grade level, a very imposing figure.

He was meticulous. When he saw hooligans or lazy students, he felt it was a waste of their potential, so Zhao Kang would sternly drag them back to school.

Zhao Kang knew these students cursed him behind his back, calling him Zhao Bapi.

But it didn’t matter. A bad reputation was nothing if they would just come back to their studies and find a way out of the small town. If they wanted to curse him, let them.

One day, he dragged back a few students he found outside.

Kids like that loved their code of street loyalty, but they didn’t realize that kind of behavior would only ruin their futures, leaving them as ordinary people at the bottom of society—busy yet accomplishing nothing.

He wanted to save their futures.

Zhao Kang gave them a harsh lecture and brought them back to school. He wasn’t expecting them to get into a university, but even getting into a vocational school was a good way out in those days.

But unfortunately...

He had underestimated their character.

They, in turn, annihilated his destiny.

The students, feeling they had lost face, felt pressured to retaliate. They cornered his son to rob him, and in the ensuing fight, they killed him.

His wife went mad. While he was out, she threw herself into the river.

From that day on, Zhao Kang was a broken man.

And so, the textbook in Zhao Kang’s hands became a Bible.

The Bible filled the emptiness in his heart. He became a most devout believer, clutching his Bible day and night, constantly doing good deeds outside to atone for his sins.

「Until later.」

He discovered that two of the children he occasionally looked after had gotten into trouble. He grabbed the boy who was about to rush forward, knowing what would happen if he did. It would just be more of the same.

He didn’t understand. Were these children guilty?

He then asked himself, was he guilty?

Zhao Kang asked God, but God did not answer.

God gave him no answer.

Zhao Kang needed an answer.

He gave the boy a seed, and the boy planted it.

Four years passed. The seed grew into a small, lush sapling, brimming with vigorous life.

He looked at the boy, a question in his eyes.

The boy, a sharp knife in his hand, cut the sapling down.

He smiled.

And so...

Zhao Kang closed his Bible.

Zhao Kang gripped a butcher’s knife.

...

September 2, 2003. Sun Jiang sat in a detention center, his hands in cuffs.

Big Rat had said that people like them only had two homes.

Big Rat had gone to the first one.

Sun Jiang had arrived at the second.

(Case Closed)

...

...

「September 4th, 6:30 AM.」

”GASP!”

Xu Huo shot up in bed, his eyes bloodshot. He sat there, dazed, for a moment.

Fragments of the dream flashed through his mind. His lips moved, wanting to say so much, a thousand words and more, but in the end...

They all condensed into a single sentence.

”Fucking dogshit system!”