by Yan Lianke
“Oh, they’re all fresh firewood girls. No wonder your business is so good!”
After teasing the girls, Zhu Ying examined the office’s decor and saw that it was nothing out of the ordinary. There was a woven couch cover, some random desks, and some hardwood chairs. The large bureau next to the desks was brand-new, but the door was full of white cracks. Zhu Ying looked down on Cheng Qing’s business, particularly when she remembered the source of Cheng Qing’s success. “Are your girls all virgins?” When she asked this, she noticed the two bouquets sitting on Cheng Qing’s window ledge. The bouquets surprised her and made her feel inferior. The plants were autumn chrysanthemums, which typically bloomed at that time of year, but on their stems there were peony blossoms, which usually bloom only in spring. The peony was bright red and as large as a person’s face and a mixture of peony fragrance and chrysanthemum scent emanated from that windowsill and wafted into the room. Cheng Qing sat next to those flowers, her face reflecting a sense of energy and beauty characteristic of this business where you would succeed if you were younger than your competitors. Zhu Ying stood in front of her, with a desk between them. When Zhu Ying had entered, Cheng Qing had not stood up to greet her and neither had she invited Zhu Ying to sit down or offered her any tea. Even after escorting the foreigner out, Cheng Qing still didn’t utter a word to Zhu Ying.
Cheng Qing’s confidence was as hard as a bone, and her calm expression was like a pool of water that not even the wind could touch.
“You’ve stolen my business,” Zhu Ying said. “It would have been OK if you had come into town to earn a salary, but you shouldn’t have opened this establishment.”
Cheng Qing replied with a smile, “The mayor himself asked me to open this business.”
“I’ll have him reassign you to a job in town. With a single word, I can have you reassigned.”
“Do you think?” Cheng Qing smiled again and replied, “He has slept with me. He wouldn’t do what you tell him.”
Zhu Ying felt her legs grow limp, and she almost toppled over. But she made a considerable effort to support herself and didn’t let Cheng Qing observe the sound of her heart lurching. Zhu Ying didn’t want Cheng Qing to witness that her words had almost leveled her, so she made an effort to adopt a mocking expression like Cheng Qing’s.
“Did you sleep with him?” Zhu Ying said. “Then my husband was cheated.”
“We slept together many times,” Cheng Qing replied. “He says that I’m better than you. He even asked me if I wanted him to divorce you so he could marry me.”
Zhu Ying didn’t say anything. She shifted her gaze from Cheng Qing’s face back to the flowers. She noticed that there were some black chrysanthemum leaves supporting the large peony blossoms. Several of the peony blossoms had pink petals, but the petals in the center of the flower were delicate pink and white, like a young girl’s innermost kernel. Zhu Ying looked at that cross between a chrysanthemum and a peony, and noticed that in another pot next to it a large garlic plant had sprouted little red fruits like wolfberries. There was a small cherry tree in a pot beneath the window, together with a pepper plant covered in red thorns. Then Zhu Ying stared at Cheng Qing, who had been sitting there without moving, and noticed that she had a satisfied smile, making her appear like one of those flowers.
“If he wants you, he can simply move in with you.”
“There’s no need.”
Zhu Ying looked away and said, “Over at Otherworldly Delights, everything is like this. The oddest thing is that the dogtail growing on the wall around my courtyard is blooming with chrysanthemum blossoms, and even the wormwood is as fragrant as osmanthus blossoms. If you have time, you’re welcome to come over to take a look.”
“Really?”
“Do you want to come right now? I’ll go with you.”
“I’m afraid the mayor might arrive at any moment. He likes to drop by periodically.”
And so it concluded. As Zhu Ying walked out of Peach Blossom Spring and passed through a courtyard full of cars, tractors, and bicycles bringing customers to the brothel, she felt that the sunlight appeared black, and the buildings and walls looked as though they were floating on water. The sound of pedestrians and street hawkers was like an uprooted tree hurtling toward her. She felt faint, as her brain finally began to process what Cheng Qing had just told her.
III.
Kong Mingliang felt that the best things in the world were power, women, beds, and pillows. When Zhu Ying returned exhausted from seeing Cheng Qing, she immediately fell asleep, wanting to bury her head in the pillow and call for her father. The night enveloped Mingliang like a pool of water, and in this autumn evening, which was neither warm nor cold, he felt as though he had returned to an enormous womb, as his exhaustion slowly melted away. His typical day involved attending meetings and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, eating and reading documents, and going down to the site where the new town hall was being built. If he didn’t go down to the construction site one day, the construction workers and foremen would steal all of the cement and rebar beams. The truck drivers would even haul away an entire truckload of bricks and sell them. The amount of nails that drivers delivered to the construction site paled in comparison with the amount that they stashed under their beds. Mingliang took the town police down to the house of Second Dog—who was working as a guard at the construction site warehouse—and they discovered that his house was like a warehouse in its own right, with ropes, sacks, lumber, and steel pipes, together with piles of hammers and nails. Kong Mingliang summoned Second Dog and slapped his face.
Second Dog held his cheek and cried abjectly, “But Mingliang, I’m your brother!”
Kong Mingliang slapped him again.
Second Dog cried, “Even though you are now the mayor, I’m still your brother! Don’t forget that I was the first one to spit at Zhu Qingfang, on your behalf.”
Kong Mingliang launched a kick at him, until finally Second Dog stopped insisting on that brotherly form of address and instead just stared at him fearfully. Second Dog clearly saw that the person standing in front of him was Kong Mingliang, whom he had originally helped elect as village chief, but now this person’s bearing and disposition were different. Second Dog wasn’t sure what had changed, but somehow the person in front of him was no longer Kong Mingliang. It was not until Mingliang signaled with his eyes to the two policemen accompanying him—who in turn put a pair of jangling handcuffs on Second Dog’s wrists—that Second Dog finally realized that Kong Mingliang was no longer village chief but rather town mayor.
Second Dog abruptly knelt down and began kowtowing to Kong Mingliang, saying, “Mayor Kong, please let me go. I promise I’ll never steal again!
“… Mayor Kong, please let me go. I promise I’ll never steal again!”
Kong Mingliang then gave another signal, and the police released him.
In the course of a single day, Kong Mingliang visited several households in Explosion, ranging from that of the chief of the construction team to those of the construction team workers charged with tasks such as moving bricks. All of the workers were from Explosion, and each of them had stolen tiles, cement, rebars, and lumber from the construction site. When Mingliang entered these houses, the owners would immediately greet him as Mayor Kong and wouldn’t even bother to hide the goods they had stolen. Mingliang would then slap them, and that would be the end of that. Kong Mingliang asked one of them, “Will you steal again?” The man replied, “No, I won’t.” He then asked, “Why not?” The man replied, “We have already grown wealthy, and now we must follow the rules so that we don’t damage the reputation of Explosion and of the mayor.” It turned out that this thief was wise. Kong Mingliang walked out, satisfied, and proceeded to another house. There, he encountered someone who was not as wise. This other man addressed him not as mayor but rather as Brother and Nephew. Kong Mingliang felt his heart lurch, but he didn’t say a word and instead merely stared intently. The police proceeded to put the thief in handcuffs, then kicked hi
m until he was kneeling on the floor. The thief was at his wit’s end and begged the mayor, saying, “Mingliang … we’re both from Explosion. Don’t forget that you should address me as Uncle!” The policemen’s fists rained down on the man like thunder, and as they was beating the thief they asked, “Are you still going to steal? The mayor is frank and forthright, but what he hates most are thieves. Do you know that?” Finally, the man came to his senses and stopped addressing Kong Mingliang as either Mingliang or Nephew, and instead addressed him as Mayor Kong. He promised he would never steal again and would never again disgrace the town.
There was another man who didn’t understand what was going on, and as he was being slapped he merely stared in astonishment and asked,
“How dare you hit me? I’m the mayor’s uncle.”
They slapped him again.
He said, “Mingliang, how can you stand there and watch them hit me? Don’t forget that my entire family voted for you when you were elected village chief.”
The mayor didn’t respond and instead merely looked at the courtyard, which was full of items that the man’s family had stolen from the town. The mayor had a pale, disdainful expression, and as the police who had accompanied him understood its meaning, they turned to the man’s family and asked, “Did you participate in the thefts? All of you, kneel down… . Damn it, if you don’t kneel down now, you’ll have to spend the next six to twelve months in jail.” The entire family hurriedly went out to the courtyard and knelt down. They stopped addressing the mayor by name and stopped calling themselves his uncle or aunt. They stopped discussing how they had voted for him when he was elected village chief. Instead, they simply said, “Mayor, mayor, you are very magnanimous. We’ll stop stealing and will never again bring dishonor to you and Explosion.” Eventually, the mayor gave a signal and the police let the family go, and soon a series of cars and trucks arrived to haul away the goods the family had stolen.
The mayor gave so many signals with his eyes that day that his eyelids developed a callus, and he became so exhausted that he almost fell asleep before dinner. He began feeling drowsy even as he was walking down the street, to the point that he almost walked right into an electrical pole along the side of the road. In this manner, however, the wealth gradually accumulated, and the pile of confiscated goods became as big as a mountain. Outside the town, in a field next to the river, they built an enormous warehouse, and what didn’t fit in the warehouse they left on the roadside. It was in this way that a modern town was constructed. Where one day there had been just a messy array of scaffolding, now there was a tall building. Workers were cleaning up trash from in front of the building. Where in the morning they had been breaking earth to build a road, by evening they were pouring asphalt, and by the next day there were cars driving up and down the new oil-scented road.
In this halting fashion, the town was erected. Using as models the town’s five-hundred-mu committee building and the two streets leading out of the town, Explosion’s economy, development, and modernity all expanded like a balloon ascending into the sky. The mayor was exhausted and wanted to get a good night’s sleep. It had been a month or so since he had slept in his own bed, and once he had a chance to go home he proceeded to sleep for three days straight—a full seventy-two hours. Apart from waking up twice for a sip of water, or three other times to go to the bathroom, he slept soundly for more than seventy hours. When he did finally wake up, it was past midnight and the milky-white moonlight was shining in through the window, while a cool feeling of autumn circulated through the room. The red double happiness characters on the bed from the wedding had already faded, and there was a cobweb in the corner above, on which the tiny spiders were crawling around. He heard the soft footsteps of the spiders walking along the web, then turned over, rubbed his eyes, and saw that his wife, Zhu Ying, was sitting on the bed, staring at him as though she didn’t recognize him. She had a strange glint in her eyes.
He asked, “You haven’t gone to sleep yet?”
She replied, “You’ve already woken up?”
He asked, “How long have you been there watching me? From the look in your eyes, it seems like you want to kill me.”
She replied, “There is no woman in the entire world who loves you as much as I do.”
“I’ve reclaimed all of the things the people of Explosion stole,” he told her with a smile. “Now, everyone addresses me as Mayor Kong, and no one dares address me as Uncle, Nephew, or simply neighbor.”
Smiling back at him, Zhu Ying poured him a glass of water. She told him that while he was sleeping, he kept talking, saying that he wanted to become county or even city mayor. Upon hearing this, he stared in surprise, then laughed. He looked at the clock hanging on the wall, then out the window at the moonlight, and finally he took off his clothes and crawled under the covers. As Zhu Ying was waiting for him to finish drinking his water, she took off her clothes and curled up beside him. Finally, when their hands and lips were exhausted and he could no longer shout how much he loved her body, she turned on the light and sat up and asked solemnly,
“Don’t you like me anymore?”
“I’m tired.”
“If you don’t like me, you can go find someone else, such as Cheng Qing and her Peach Blossom Spring. It must be exhausting being mayor.”
He stared at her in shock.
“You should sample other people,” she told him with a smile. “You can’t just be town mayor. You should speak as though your voice were the law. You should be like the emperor, and have six courtyards full of wives and concubines, together with thousands of palace maids. You can’t only be town mayor.” She asked, “Who ever heard of an emperor who didn’t have six courtyards full of wives and concubines, thousands of palace maids, and the ability to send people to their death at will?”
Kong Mingliang stared at her intently as though he were reading a book.
“The town should have more brothels and entertainment districts. It’s not enough for it to have only two successful brothels like Peach Blossom Spring. Instead, it should have six, seven, or eight—to the point that the entire town becomes a red-light district. We should have all the girls in the world come to Explosion. Once they come, rich businessmen will follow, and in the process they will invest in Explosion. And then there are foreigners—foreigners are particularly fond of visiting Chinese red-light districts, and once they come they will build factories and set up companies. Once the streets are lined with cafés, dance halls, and bars, and are full of foreigners and rich people walking around with their girls—at that point Explosion will be recognized as one of China’s famous towns and cities. As the town and future city mayor, you will be recognized as the emperor of the entire Balou mountain range.”
Zhu Ying described her plans for her husband as though she were sketching an image with the tip of her tongue. As she was speaking, she brushed aside her hair, revealing that her face was flushed like a spring day full of pink blossoms. Furthermore, as she was speaking, her body kept writhing back and forth on the bed, her breasts moving through the air like a pair of wild rabbits hopping through a field. Kong Mingliang stared at those wild rabbits with a gleam in his eye, but this gleam vanished as he knelt down naked before her and said,
“You’re still willing to help me, even though I’ve let you down?”
“You’re my husband. If I don’t help you, who am I going to help?”
After she said this, they both started to laugh. Naked, they hugged each other, laughing and crying, as their tears poured onto each other’s shoulders, completely soaking each other’s bodies as well as the bedsheets and the bed itself. Everything became as wet as though it had just been pulled out of a well.
CHAPTER 9
Nature
1. SPARROWS
I.
Kong Mingguang decided he wanted to divorce his wife, and the reason involved none other than the new maid Zhu Ying hired for his family. Her name was Little Cui, and she was in her twenties. She was as delicate a
s water and her breath was so sweet it smelled as though it had been dipped in honey. She was one of the girls Zhu Ying had brought back from the city to work in Otherworldly Delights. However, no one realized that she worked there, and when people asked where her family lived she replied simply that they were in the mountains. When people asked her how old she was, she told them to guess. When people asked if her parents were still in good health, she burst into tears and said that her parents had already passed away. When she said that she had to work as a maid because her parents were dead, people took pity on her and she would smile like an orphan who is being treated with kindness.
She always had a smile on her face, like a colorful cloud. She had a sweet voice and spoke in a whisper. She talked and worked very quietly, and it was almost as if she wasn’t even there. The moment you said you were thirsty, she would immediately bring you a glass of water, and the moment you began to feel sweaty, she would immediately bring you a change of clothes.
She was like a celestial being.
Zhu Ying had assigned Little Cui to work at the Kong household only a few days after Kong Mingliang was promoted to town mayor and the middle-aged maid left. Previously, no one in the family had noticed the middle-aged maid with Kong Dongde, and consequently no one suspected her of having any unseemly relations with him. The maid remained in the Kong household for half a year, washing clothes, cooking, and serving tea. She would bring tea when they wanted tea and would bring wine when they wanted wine. When they needed her to retire to her room, she would discreetly do so. Only a few days after she left, Zhu Ying noticed that at mealtimes her father-in-law would push his bowl aside and complain that his wife had put too much salt in the food and that his daughter-in-law Qinfang had not washed his clothes well. When he went to bed, he would complain of a toothache or say that he was running a fever. He would call a doctor and buy medicine, but he wasn’t really doing this to treat the illness; rather, he was simply acting out.
