He stuffed the only white-flour steamed bun into the arms of a child who was about to starve to death.
In Shanghai in 1938, this steamed bun was dazzlingly white and unreal.
The kid didn't answer. He huddled up, holding a piece of hard biscuit with green mold in his hand. His eyes were cruel and lonely, like a wolf cub that had just been weaned and was forced to forage among the carcasses.
"Eat. Throw away this piece of cake. If you eat it again, you won't survive tomorrow."
From that day on, the child had a new name, Su Yun.
From that day on, this most inconspicuous patrolman began to pick up fire from the ruins of Shanghai Beach.
He taught the mute who had a broken hand to hold the knife with his left hand.
He gave the newsboy who burrowed into the ground a way to straighten his back.
He took the girl who was guarding the corpses of her parents by the mass graves home and gave her a bowl of hot porridge.
"In Ping'an Hall, you are human beings. If I have food to eat, you will have meat to eat."
Later Jiro Fujita asked him: Who are you?
Gu Chen didn't answer.
He just watched the group of children who had once humbled themselves in the dust stand up one by one and turned into sharp blades that stabbed the invaders.
He thought this might be the answer.
