Chapter 6: Main Text Chapter Six: One Hundred Beauties

Main Text Chapter Six: One Hundred Beauties' Skins

The advance team's mission was to find a suitable construction site; accompanying them were two engineers, a surveyor, and a geological prospector. After abandoning their vehicles, they trekked through the mountains for two full days. On the evening of the second day, everyone pitched tents to rest, and scattered snowflakes drifted down from a sky overcast with leaden clouds, suggesting a heavy snowfall would arrive by night.

All four engineering and technical personnel were bespectacled intellectuals, one of whom was a woman. They had not yet adapted to the harsh high‑altitude environment, lying in their tents panting heavily; just hearing their breathing made one worry for their frail bodies.

The detachment leader, the company instructor, and the squad leader‑medic were busy handing out water and medicine, urging them to eat something, for the less they ate, the more they felt oxygen‑starved.

The soldiers were strong‑bodied; having undergone the daily 5‑kilometer armed cross‑country drill in boot camp, they possessed a strong ability to adapt to environment, and by now they had basically grown slightly accustomed to the hypoxic conditions. They lit a campfire with specially made white coal‑ball fuel, gathered around it for warmth, and ate half‑cooked noodles and compressed biscuits—because the altitude was too high for water to boil, the noodles could only be cooked half‑done.

The comrades I was closest with were the 'Big Guy' from Heilongjiang in the northeast, the Tibetan soldier 'Ga Wa' who enlisted from the Tibetan area, and the sixteen‑year‑old signal corpsman 'Xiao Lin' from Jilin. We few finished our noodles in a couple of mouthfuls, panting as we rested, feeling that the exertion of eating a meal on the plateau far exceeded that of an armed cross‑country march on the plains.

After a brief rest, Xiao Lin said to me, 'Brother Hu, you enlisted from the city and know many things; tell us a few stories, will you?'

The Big Guy chimed in: 'Ah, Lao Hu, it's rare to hear you chatter; it's really exciting. Anyway, we still have to prep something for the squad meeting later, can't rest early—first give us a bit of a talk, comrades.'

Ga Wa's Mandarin was halting, but understandable; he also wanted to say something, opening his mouth for a while but couldn't figure out how to say it, so he just waved at me. I guess he meant, 'Go ahead and speak; I'll listen too.'

I stuck out my tongue and said, 'The air's so thin—how can you still be so energetic? All right, since you comrades want to hear, I'll first give a colloquial piece; later, when the squad meeting starts, the squad leader will give me a hard time, so you'd better speak up for me.'

The reason I say that is because our squad leader takes a dislike to me; he's a village recruit who, after toiling like a daughter‑in‑law in the army for five years, finally became a low‑rank squad leader, and he especially dislikes me, this 'back‑door soldier' from a high‑cadre family. Whenever the squad opens a meeting, he makes me speak, then seizes any slip in my words to launch a lengthy tirade—this has almost become a fixed routine, and it really gets on my nerves, but I won't dwell on it.

But what should I talk about? I've read fewer than ten books in total—four volumes of Mao's Selected Works, one of Quotations, one dictionary, plus Red Sun counts as one, and Young Guard also counts as one. I've already exhausted those topics for them, and there's also a copy of The Secret Art of Feng Shui that I doubt they'd understand.

After racking my brains, I finally recalled a book I had borrowed from Tian Xiaoming during the Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside movement—a hand‑copied folk‑legend manuscript that was popular at the time. Its content mainly concerns the deeds of the Plum Blossom Party, with many contemporary oddities mixed in, and it contains a passage about the One Hundred Beauties' Skins story, which left a particularly deep impression on me.

The story begins on a train heading from Beijing to Nanjing, on which the female university student Zhao Pingping was traveling to visit her family in Nanjing. Sitting opposite her was a young, handsome PLA officer; they fell into conversation, intentional or not, and Zhao Pingping was charmed by his demeanor and eloquence. In the chat she learned he came from a good family background and had received higher education, and she even began to imagine marrying him. Before she knew it, the train arrived at Nanjing Station. The officer asked Zhao Pingping to join him at a nearby restaurant for a bite; while they ate, he stepped away to make a phone call, returned, and handed her a letter, entrusting her to deliver it to his home in Nanjing because he had an urgent duty that required him to return to his unit first, so he couldn't go home yet. Zhao Pingping agreed without hesitation, and the two parted reluctantly.

The next day Zhao Pingping went to the officer's home to deliver the letter; an old woman received her, took out the letter and read it through, then warmly invited Zhao Pingping inside and poured her a cup of tea. After Zhao Pingping sipped a few mouthfuls and chatted briefly with the old woman, she suddenly felt stars swirling before her eyes and collapsed unconscious. A bucket of ice‑cold, bone‑chilling water was thrown over her, reviving her. She discovered she was stark naked, bound to a human‑skin rack, with walls covered in human hides. Standing around were the old woman and several of her burly henchmen. She held the letter up to Zhao Pingping's eyes so she could read it; the note bore only one line: 'Delivered the first hundred beauties' skins—please acknowledge receipt.' The old woman coldly laughed and said, 'You've met your end; let you die with understanding. We are deep‑cover agents, stripping women's skins to pack explosives inside, and we need a total of one hundred hides. Today we've finally made up the number.' Saying this, she produced a specially made skinning knife and handed it to one of her men, who began to flay Zhao Pingping's skin, starting with a cut at the crown of her head amid her screams…

I was just getting into the story when the deputy squad leader came over and interrupted: 'Cut it out, cut it out. Hu Ba Yi, you're just making things up again. Now our squad is holding a squad‑meeting discussion, and since you love to run your mouth, this time we'll let you speak first—whether you hit the mark or not.'