Wu Dawang’s aborted nighttime visit to Liu Lian

Wu Dawang’s aborted nighttime visit to Liu Lian is a brief, decisive reversal: after his affair has helped secure a civilian future for him and his family, he risks that future to seek one more meeting, only to be stopped by his Captain. The encounter exposes the gulf between longing and rank, and redirects Wu Dawang from a private romantic fantasy toward the imminent demobilization of his Division.

Background and Stakes

Wu Dawang’s ambitions had been shaped by a written premarital pledge to Zhao Ezi. He promised to earn commendations within a year, join the Party within two, and become an official within three, so that he could move her from Wujiagou to a city home. Failure, he vowed, would mean never showing his face in the village again unless she allowed him to return and serve her on her terms. After his mother died shortly after the marriage, the promise became a lasting measure of his prospects and obligations.

His military advancement came slowly. He laboured for years without gaining a commendation or Party membership, and the pressure of letters from Zhao Ezi and her father intensified his fear of failing. Appointment to the Catering Squad eventually changed his prospects: with the Political Instructor’s assistance, he became a full Sergeant, joined the Party, and received awards. Yet the promised promotion to officialdom remained out of reach. His later placement in the Division Commander’s household brought fresh hope of advancement, while his relationship with Liu Lian made his position more precarious.

That precarious arrangement was overtly framed as service. When Liu Lian complained about Wu Dawang to the Political Instructor, the Instructor reproached him for not understanding that serving the Division Commander and his wife was equivalent to serving the people. He blamed Wu Dawang for disrupting the Commander’s domestic arrangements and, by an elaborate chain of reasoning, connected that disruption to the Division’s readiness and even the prospect of a wider war. Despite agreeing to replace him, the Instructor sent him back to the Commander’s house for one more day and accepted responsibility for the decision, leaving Wu Dawang to put matters right.

The terms of Wu Dawang’s future changed when the Division Commander volunteered at a Beijing seminar to test a pilot scheme for streamlining and restructuring the army. The Division was to be disbanded; promotions were cancelled, and most companies were to be demobilized while others were transferred. The Commander nevertheless arranged an exception for Wu Dawang: a city job for him, work for his wife, and a move for his family. At the same time, the Captain ordered him not to visit the Commander’s household because staff changes and the Commander’s uncertain temper made his old post unsafe. Thus the offer of a civilian future came with a prohibition against seeing Liu Lian.

The Nighttime Attempt

Wu Dawang initially received the arrangements with relief. On returning to barracks, he learned that Liu Lian had said he needed an extended period of home leave, and that the Commander had arranged his family’s city placement. He also understood that his affair had not been exposed. For a time, the apparent success of these developments allowed him to treat the restructuring and his relationship as separate matters.

At night, however, the two became entangled. A remark from the Head of Management that Wu Dawang had come through better than others thanks to Liu Lian left him wondering whether he had been tricked. His recollections of their time together nonetheless comforted him, and the emotional force of those memories eclipsed, for a moment, both his career and the upheaval of the Division’s breakup. The contrast is central to the episode: what looked by day like a practical arrangement for civilian life could not, in the dark, displace his wish to see Liu Lian again.

Late that night, Wu Dawang put his uniform back on, crept out of bed, and headed toward the Division Commander’s house. Just as he was about to leave the barracks, a shout stopped him. Turning, he found his Captain only a few steps away. Wu Dawang took shelter in the shadow of a tree while the Captain stood beneath a streetlamp, and the two faced one another before the Captain ordered him to return.

Confrontation and Retreat

The Captain’s reprimand shifted from command to a more personal appeal. He reminded Wu Dawang that he was a peasant’s son and Liu Lian was the Division Commander’s wife, and argued that Wu Dawang had not been punished: the Commander had even arranged city jobs for him and his family. The Captain said that no one but himself had guessed the truth, making clear that the visit could jeopardize the discretion that had so far protected Wu Dawang.

The Captain also challenged Wu Dawang’s romantic preoccupation against the crisis facing the troops. He had once served as the Commander’s orderly, he said, and knew about the Commander’s earlier marriage ending in divorce. With a decision about who would be demobilized and who transferred due in three days, the Captain insisted that Wu Dawang’s clandestine visit would not help anyone. He questioned whether Wu Dawang’s conduct matched that expected of a revolutionary soldier, and whether the Commander or Liu Lian had ever valued him as much as he imagined.

Wu Dawang did not answer with another attempt to leave. He lowered his head and returned silently to the barracks. The Captain’s intervention therefore ends the visit before it begins, while also making explicit its stakes: Wu Dawang’s desire for one more meeting stands against the class and military hierarchy, the Commander’s household rules, and the collective uncertainty of the restructuring.

Aftermath and Significance

After the confrontation, Wu Dawang stayed in his dormitory and slept through his remaining days in barracks rather than trying again to see Liu Lian. Three days later, as the Captain had predicted, he received formal notice of demobilization. His immediate superiors then told him he had been assigned a job at the East Is Red Tractor Factory, described as the biggest factory in the city. The visit’s failure thus coincides with the completion of the military transition that had already begun to shape his life.

The episode turns the Division’s institutional upheaval into a personal limit. Wu Dawang’s premarital pledge had tied success to advancement and a move to the city; later, his affair with Liu Lian appeared to offer a shortcut to security. But the Commander’s exception can arrange employment and housing without granting Wu Dawang equal standing or continued access to Liu Lian. The Captain’s intervention closes off the attempted reunion, and Wu Dawang’s silent retreat marks his compliance with the forces that determine his departure.

The interruption also preserves the secrecy of the affair at this point in the story. The Captain says that no one but him has guessed, and Wu Dawang does not make his visit or the relationship public. His immediate future is consequently defined by a contradiction: he leaves military service with a job and a route to move his family to the city, yet the romantic encounter he hoped to reclaim remains unavailable. The aborted visit is not a reconciliation but a retreat from one, ending in formal demobilization rather than reunion.