Welcome to Fluentide True Crime. A real case from Chinese history, in English. Learn Chinese without trying.
I handle the Chinese. You follow the story.
In the spring of 1929, Shi Gulan wrote a letter to a man named Shi Yuhuan.
Shi Yuhuan was a cousin on her 爸爸的 side. He had served as a junior officer under Shi Congbin from 1922 until the engagement at Guzhen.
He had been one of the men who scattered into the countryside on the second day. He had survived.
He had spent the years since 1925 in a small town in northern Anhui doing nothing of consequence and waiting for someone to tell him what to do with his shame.
Shi Gulan的 letter was four sentences long.
The first sentence said she 想 to 学习 something she could not learn from a book.
学习. To study, to learn. 想 to 学习 means wanted to study. 学习 covers any serious learning.
The second sentence said the something was a sidearm.
The third sentence said the cousin's old commanding officer's daughter would consider it a 家 favor if he could find a teacher and a place where the lessons could happen without anyone knowing.
The fourth sentence said the lessons would be paid for out of her own household allowance, in cash, by post.
Shi Yuhuan replied within a month.
He said he 会 do it himself.
会. He 会 do it means he would do it. 会 has two meanings. It means can, like a skill you have learned. It also means will, for the future.
He had taught new recruits to shoot during his years under Shi Congbin. He owned a Browning model 1900 he had carried out of the field on the second day at Guzhen, the only thing he had brought home that 年.
He could come south to the small town in Anhui where she lived. He could pose as a relative come to help with the children for a fortnight.
He could leave the house with her in the early mornings, before the household staff were awake, and walk to a stand of orchard the cousin's family owned forty minutes outside town.
He said the rate would be no rate. The lessons would be paid in respect to her 爸爸.
Shi Gulan accepted.
In the autumn of 1929, Shi Yuhuan arrived. He stayed in the second guest room. The household took him for what he claimed to be: a relative on a long visit.
The two small 儿子 climbed on him in the courtyard in the afternoons.
The cook gave him an extra bowl at dinner.
In the early mornings, before the household staff were awake, Shi Yuhuan and Shi Gulan walked out the back gate of the courtyard 家 and through the alleys to the road that led north.
They walked for forty minutes in the dark. They reached the orchard before sunrise.
The orchard was in a low fold of ground that swallowed sound.
He showed her the Browning. He showed her how to break it down, how to clean it, how to load it. He showed her the safety. He showed her the trigger pull.
He showed her how to stand and how to hold the weapon at arm's length and how to bring it down to the line of sight.
He did not let her fire it for two weeks.
For two weeks, she 学习 only the handling. Loading, unloading, clearing, holding.Standing for an hour at a time, 拿着 the unloaded weapon at arm's length, training the muscles that would hold a steady aim.
By the end of two weeks, she could 拿着 the Browning level for ninety seconds without a tremor in her hand.
拿着. 拿 plus 着. 拿 alone is just to take or to grab. 着 attaches to mark a held, ongoing state. 拿着 means holding, kept in the hand.
Same 着 will attach to 坐 and 站 later for sitting and standing in place.
In the third week, he let her fire.
The first round went into the dirt at her feet. Her ears rang for two hours. The second round went into a tree six feet from the target. The third round was on the paper. From there it was a question of practice.
Shi Yuhuan stayed for six weeks. By the time he left, Shi Gulan could put five rounds out of seven into a circle the size of a teacup at fifteen paces.
When he left, he left her the Browning. He left her two boxes of cartridges. He left her a list of post-office addresses where she could write him for advice.He took the train home and went back to doing nothing of consequence in northern Anhui.
Shi Gulan kept the Browning wrapped in oilcloth, in a wooden box, at the back of the clothes chest in the second guest room.
In the spring of 1930, she 学习 again, this time alone.
She walked out the back gate before dawn. She walked to the orchard. She fired six rounds, picked up her brass, walked back. The household women assumed she was visiting a sick aunt at irregular hours.
Her husband Shi Jingong had begun to assume something else.
He 听到 her leave at four in the morning, three mornings a week, for almost a 年, before he asked her about it.
听到. 听 plus 到. The 到 marks that the listening landed. 听 alone is just listening. 听到 means caught, picked up, registered.
The same 到 will attach to 看 later when something is seen, not just looked at.
He asked her in the kitchen, after the 儿子 had been put to bed.
She told him.
She did not tell him the new 名字. She did not tell him about the notebook. She told him about the Browning, and about Shi Yuhuan, and about her early mornings in the orchard.
She told him that she did not want him to know more than that, and that what he did know he should keep.
Shi Jingong sat at the kitchen table for a long time.
What he 想 about, sitting at the table, the record does not say. He had a wife who was the 女儿 of a beheaded brigade commander. He had two small 儿子 sleeping in the back room.
He had a clerical position in the provincial administration that depended on his not attracting attention.
女儿. Daughter. The pair to 儿子 from last episode. 儿子 is son. 女儿 is daughter. She 是 the 女儿 of an executed officer.
He told her he would not ask. He told her he would keep what he was told. He told her nothing about it had been said in this kitchen. He stood up. He went to bed.
Shi Gulan walked out the back gate at four the next morning.
In the autumn of 1932, on a clear morning in the orchard, she put six rounds out of seven into a teacup-sized circle at fifty paces.
By that morning, she 会 do it from the standing position, from the kneeling position, from a sitting position with the weapon braced on her knee, and once, on a still day,
from the prone position with the weapon braced on a folded coat.
She had what she had wanted to 学习.
What she did not yet have was a target.
In Episode Ten, she begins the long search for Sun Chuanfang.
That is where we start Episode Ten.
