My Lord, You Must Rise Again

Soaring high to snatch the basketball, feeling that intimate, natural connection as his fingers pressed against the leather— even in dreams, Wei Dong could never let go of that sensation. Did anyone truly understand the pain of living with crippled hands? Could anyone grasp it? He could live, sure, even qualify for a disability certificate, but life was far from convenient. Aside from scrolling through videos of pretty girls, even ordering takeout could be a disaster—one wrong tap and you’d get roast meats instead of chicken giblets.

That’s why, even at sixty, Wei Dong remained an untouched bachelor, bottled up to the point of bursting. Only in his dreams did he have it all. Only in his dreams could he relive that fleeting moment at nineteen—youthful, healthy, strong as an ox.

In the instant he grabbed a rebound, he could still see Er Feng, squeezed among a few girls under the wall, cracking sunflower seeds and chattering, giggling behind their hands. Two years younger, she’d left school after middle school to farm, and back then, she already acted, in words and deeds, as though she were the family’s future daughter-in-law, helping care for his grandparents and with farmwork.

Fresh high school graduates, having just taken the college entrance exam, all thought the girls from town were prettier and more stylish—what was some country bumpkin in comparison? But now, suddenly glancing at the little lass, she seemed rather cute.

Perhaps it was the glow of nostalgia, or perhaps it was the hunger—for someone who had never tasted real love, even a wild bo