作者：刘乐园

人在年轻时，总以为故乡是随时可以回去的坐标。年轻人总觉得远方才有风景，故乡只是累了时可以歇脚的客栈。直到有一天真的走远了，才惊觉有些路一旦跨出，便是一条通往断头台的单行道，再难回头。

古人云：“游子空着行囊，却不敢回到家乡。”

刚出国时，人人心中激荡着豪情。可真正漂泊异乡才明白，自由的代价是精神上的茕茕孑立。然而，更深沉的阻碍并非物质的丰俭，而是内心的恐惧。有时候，不是不想过江，而是不知道过江以后，该以什么样的身份去面对江东父老。

作为一个在中国大陆生活了三十多年、亲身体验过那个体制如何冷酷运作的人，来到海外自由的土地，我拿起了笔，撰写一篇篇撕裂谎言、清算极权暴政的时评文章。当我的思想与民主发声紧紧绑在一起之后，“回家”这两个字，就不再只是买一张机票那么简单。海关可过，但心里的那条“乌江”却未必容易渡过去。因为江的对面，不是张开双臂的母亲，而是严阵以待的鹰犬和冰冷的镣铐。

我常常想起大作家老舍。当年他听信统战谎言满怀希望地回国，最后却在漫天的迫害与凌辱中，绝望地沉入了太平湖。如今在网络上，像他那样应邀回国最终被迫害致死的知识分子，被悲凉地戏称为“投湖派”。过去读历史，总觉得那是遥远的时代悲剧。可我怎么也没想到，有朝一日，自己这样远隔大洋的平凡“小人物”，竟然也会收到相似的、邀请“投湖派”入瓮的阴谋剧本。

前些日子，我接到了老家朋友打来的电话。朋友说，家乡修高速公路把我家的地给占了，要赔偿一百多万。在巨额的赔偿款背后，还隐隐透着老家各方催促、施压，一定要我“亲自回去签字领钱”的急迫。

挂断电话的那一刻，我脊梁骨发凉。在这个跨国长臂管辖的恐怖时代，那笔遥不可及的百万赔偿款，究竟是家乡迟到的眷顾，还是克格勃式诱捕海外发声者的诱饵？我不敢赌，更不能赌！因为在我的身侧，早已倒下了太多血淋淋的前车之鉴。

在美国留学的青年罗黛青，只因在海外发了几条讽刺独裁者的推文，暑假回武汉便被以“寻衅滋事”判刑入狱；在法国留学的姑娘张雅笛，只因在巴黎担任过挺藏平台编辑，回国探亲便被冠以“煽动分裂国家罪”扔进长沙看守所秘密监禁；还有那名在悉尼大学读书的中国留学生，只因在澳洲参加了声援国内的民主集会，回国后竟被重判六年；即便是曾经在纽约坐拥十万粉丝的自媒体同行“周周侃”周强，在踏回国门的那一刻，等待他的也是长达数年的黑牢。

更让人不寒而栗的是恶俗维基案中的牛腾宇。那个二十出头的计算机天才，仅仅因为海外网站曝光了权贵家族的隐私，就在刚从日本回国六天后遭到跨省绑架。在暗无天日的黑牢里，他遭受了老虎凳、吊打、打火机烧私处等惨无人道的酷刑，最终被重判十四年！这根本不是法律，这是最下作、最残暴的政治报复与肉体消灭！

这些血淋淋的悲剧，不是历史，而是切切实实发生在此时此刻！极权高悬的铁拳时刻在向海外每一个清醒的灵魂咆哮：那扇海关的大门一旦重新踏入，代价就是你自由的终结，甚至是生命的消亡！

人其实有两个故乡：一个是现实中正在被强权任意揉捏、充满告密与诱饵的恐怖故乡；另一个是记忆里永远定格、文化依然纯粹的故乡。现实的故乡形同阳谋地狱，而记忆的故乡却永远回不去了。往前看是冷酷的异乡，往后看已是血泪交织、无法靠近的昨天。

我不知道未来的中国何时才能洗净百年暴政的血腥。但我依然希望，有一天所有漂泊海外的中国人，无论持有什么样的政治观点，都可以坦然、体面、有尊严地回到自己的故乡。不用在临行前慌忙删除文章，不用隐瞒发过的声音。不必在踏上故土前，战战兢矜地问自己一句：“我回去会不会有事？”

一个真正强大的国家，不该害怕普通人的独立声音；一个值得怀念的故乡，更不该要求游子必须闭嘴、下跪，才能回家。愿有朝一日，归乡的游子不再带着对黑牢、酷刑与人间蒸发的恐惧。世上最让人牵挂的，从来不是未抵达的远方，而是那个深埋在记忆里、终将重获自由与尊严的故乡。

编辑：李晶 校对：孔祥庆 翻译：戈冰

A Hometown Unreachable, a River Uncrossable

By Liu Leyuan

When young, people always believe that home is a set of coordinates to which one can return at any time. Young people always feel that scenery lies only in the distance, while home is merely an inn where one can rest when tired. It is not until one day when they have truly walked far away that they realize with a start: certain paths, once stepped upon, become a one-way street leading to the scaffold, with return hardly possible.

As the ancients said: “The wanderer travels with empty sacks, yet dares not return to his hometown.”

When first going abroad, everyone’s heart surges with lofty passions. But only after truly wandering in a foreign land does one come to understand that the price of freedom is spiritual solitude. Yet the deeper obstacle is not the abundance or scarcity of material wealth, but the fear within one’s heart. Sometimes, it is not that one does not want to cross the river, but rather that one does not know in what capacity to face the elders of Wujiang once the river is crossed.

As someone who lived in mainland China for over thirty years and personally experienced how that regime coldly operates, upon arriving in the land of freedom overseas, I took up the pen to write opinion pieces that tear through lies and call to account totalitarian tyranny. Once my thoughts became tightly bound to voicing for democracy, the word “homecoming” was no longer as simple as buying an airline ticket. Customs can be passed, but that “Wujiang River” in one’s heart may not be so easy to cross. For on the other side of the river is not a mother with open arms, but waiting falcons and hounds in full array, along with cold shackles.

I often think of the great writer Lao She. Back then, believing the United Front lies, he returned to the country full of hope, only to sink in despair into Taiping Lake amid overwhelming persecution and humiliation. Today on the internet, intellectuals like him who returned home upon invitation only to be persecuted to death are mournfully and mockingly called the “Lake-Jumping Faction.” In the past, when reading history, I always felt those were distant tragedies of an era. But I never imagined that one day, an ordinary “nobody” like myself, separated by a vast ocean, would actually receive a similar conspiratorial script inviting the “Lake-Jumping Faction” into the trap.

A few days ago, I received a phone call from a friend in my hometown. The friend said that local highway construction had occupied my family’s land, with a compensation of over one million yuan to be paid. Behind this huge sum of compensation, there lurked a subtle urgency from various parties back home pressing and exerting pressure, insisting that I must “return in person to sign and collect the money.”

The moment I hung up the phone, a chill ran down my spine. In this terrifying era of transnational long-arm jurisdiction, is that unreachable compensation of over a million yuan a belated favor from my hometown, or a KGB-style bait to lure and capture overseas voices? I dare not gamble, and even less can I afford to! For by my side, far too many bloody cautionary tales have already fallen before me.

Luo Daiqing, a young student studying in the United States, was sentenced to prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” upon returning to Wuhan for summer vacation, merely for posting a few tweets lampooning a dictator overseas. Zhang Yadi, a young woman studying in France, was thrown into a Changsha detention center for secret confinement under the charge of “inciting secession” upon returning home to visit family, merely for having served as an editor for a pro-Tibet platform in Paris. There was also the Chinese international student studying at the University of Sydney who was heavily sentenced to six years after returning to China, merely for attending a democratic rally in Australia in support of domestic movements. Even Zhou Qiang, alias “Zhouzhou Kan”—a self-media peer who once boasted a hundred thousand followers in New York—was greeted by years in a black jail the moment he set foot back in the motherland.

What sends an even colder shudder down one’s spine is the case of Niu Tengyu in the Esoteric Wiki case. That computer genius in his early twenties, merely because an overseas website exposed the privacy of a powerful family, was abducted across provincial lines just six days after returning home from Japan. In the pitch-black jail, he suffered barbaric and inhumane tortures including the tiger bench, suspended beatings, and having his private parts burned with a lighter, ultimately receiving a heavy sentence of fourteen years! This is not law at all; this is the nastiest, most brutal political retaliation and physical annihilation!

These bloody tragedies are not history; they are happening tangibly right at this very moment! The iron fist suspended by totalitarianism roars at every clear-headed soul overseas at all times: once you step back through that customs gate, the price is the end of your freedom, or even the extinction of your life!

In reality, a person actually has two hometowns: one is the real hometown currently being kneaded at will by power, filled with informants and bait in an era of terror; the other is the hometown in memory, forever frozen in time, where culture remains pure. The real hometown resembles an open-trap hell, whereas the hometown in memory can never be returned to again. Looking forward lies a cold foreign land; looking back lies a yesterday woven with blood and tears, impossible to approach.

I do not know when the China of the future will finally be able to wash clean the bloodstains of a century of tyranny. But I still hope that one day, all Chinese people wandering overseas, no matter what political views they hold, can return to their hometown with composure, decency, and dignity—without frantically deleting articles before departure, without hiding the voices they once uttered, and without anxiously asking themselves before setting foot on their native soil: “Will I get into trouble if I go back?”

A truly strong nation should not fear the independent voices of ordinary people; a hometown worthy of longing should even less demand that wanderers must shut their mouths and drop to their knees before they can come home. May there come a day when returning wanderers no longer carry the fear of black jails, torture, and forced disappearances. The thing that pulls most at one’s heartstrings in this world has never been an unreached distance, but rather that hometown buried deep in memory, which will ultimately regain its freedom and dignity.

Editor: Li Jing Proofreader: Kong Xiangqing Translator: Ge Bing