Free The Real Story of Ah-Q by Lu Xun

which the town’s poor were sunk. Both sides bulged with grave mounds, like the tiered crowns of steamed bread with which wealthy families celebrated their birthdays.
    The weather that April – the month on which the Grave-Sweeping Festival fell – was unusually cold, with buds no more than half the size of rice grains daring to peep out on to the willow branches. Not long after daybreak, a weeping Hua Dama set four dishes of food and a bowl of rice in front of a new grave. After burning some funeral money, she squatted there blankly, as if waiting for something – what, she couldn’t say – to happen. A light breeze ruffled her short hair, noticeably greyer than it had been last year.
    Another woman – her hair also grey, her clothes ragged, carrying an old, round basket lacquered in vermilion, from which a chain of paper money hung – approached slowly along the narrow track, pausing every few steps. Suddenly noticing Hua Dama’s gaze, she hesitated, a flush tingeing her pale face, then forced herself to walk on: to a grave to the left of the boundary, in front of which she set down her basket.
    The grave was directly across from the Shuan boy’s, the two plots separated only by the narrow path. Hua Dama watched the woman lay out four dishes of food and a bowl of rice, weep a while, then burn her paper money. ‘Her son must be buried there, too,’ she thought to herself. After she had paced aimlessly back and forth, a tremble suddenly took hold of the second woman’s hands and feet. She took a few unsteady steps back, her glazed eyes staring ahead.
    Fearing that the woman was almost maddened by grief, Hua Dama rose to her feet and crossed over. ‘Try not to upset yourself,’ she murmured. ‘Why don’t we take ourselves back?’
    The other woman nodded, her eyes still staring ahead. ‘Look,’ she mumbled. ‘What’s that?’
    Looking in the direction indicated by the other woman, Hua Dama found her gaze drawn to the unkempt grave before her, its patchy coverage of grass interrupted by scraps of yellow earth. But when she looked a little closer, she shivered with surprise: across the grave’s rounded peak lay a wreath of red and white flowers, clearly visible even to eyes long cloudy with old age.
    Though not the most extravagant or the freshest of wreaths, it was tidily woven. Hua Dama glanced across at her son’s grave, at other graves, scattered only with hardy little bluish-white flowers undaunted by the cold. She was unaccountably troubled by a sense of dissatisfaction, or inadequacy. Taking a few steps closer, the second old woman studied the wreath more closely. ‘Cut flowers,’ she observed, as if talking to herself. ‘They couldn’t have grown round here… Who might have left them? Children never play round here… my relatives haven’t visited for ages… What are they doing here?’ She sank deep into thought.
    ‘Yu’er,’ she suddenly cried out, her face streaming with tears. ‘They murdered you! And you can’t forget – you’re still suffering! Is this a sign from you, to me?’ She looked about her: a lone black crow stood perched on the bare branch of a tree. ‘I know,’ she went on. ‘They’ll be sorry, Yu’er, they’ll be sorry they murdered you. Heaven will have its revenge. Close your eyes, rest easy… If you’re here, and can hear me, send me a sign – make that crow fly on to your grave.’
    With the ebbing of the breeze, the stems of withered grass now stood erect, rigid as copper wire. Her thin, tremulous voice faded away, leaving only the silence of the grave. The two women stood among the clumps of grass, staring up at the crow perched, as if cast in iron, amid the rod-like branches, its head drawn in.
    Time passed. Other mourners, of various ages, appeared, weaving in and out between the graves.
    Hua Dama felt somehow relieved, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. It was time to go, she thought. ‘Why don’t we take ourselves back,’