by Yu Hua
After a few nights in the tiny cabin Xu Sanguan’s bones ached. During the day he sat on deck pounding his back, kneading his shoulders, and swinging his arms back and forth.
When Laixi saw him, he said, “The cabin’s too small. You didn’t sleep well.”
Laishun said, “He’s getting old, and his bones are brittle.”
Xu Sanguan felt old. He knew he was no longer a young man. Laishun’s right, I am getting old. It’s not that the cabin’s too small. When I was young, I could sleep in a crack in the wall and not feel a thing.
The boat continued to move. They passed through Big Bridge, through Anchang Gate, and through Jing’an. The next stop was Huang’s Inn. The sun had been shining for two days, and the snow on the banks of the river was beginning to melt. A few patches of snow still clung to the roofs of the farmhouses they passed on either side of the river. The fields around the houses sat barren and idle, and they only rarely saw people at work in the paddies, but there were quite a few people walking on the road along the river, carrying shoulder poles and baskets and chattering loudly among themselves.
Within a few days Xu Sanguan and the two brothers had become quite friendly with one another. They told Xu Sanguan that transporting their load of cocoons would take them ten days all told. And for their efforts they would receive six yuan, or a mere three yuan each.
Xu Sanguan said to them, “You might as well sell blood then. You can make thirty-five yuan each time.” He continued, “Your blood is like water in a well. It’ll never run dry, no matter how much you draw.”
Xu Sanguan told them everything Ah Fang and Genlong had told him years before. When he was finished, the brothers asked, “But won’t your health go bad after you sell blood?”
“No,” Xu Sanguan replied, “but your legs will probably feel a little weak for a while. It’s a lot like the moment after you’ve finished with a woman.”
The brothers chuckled uneasily.
Noticing their befuddlement, Xu Sanguan asked, “You understand what I’m talking about, right?”
Laixi shook his head, and Laishun said, “Neither of us has ever had a woman, so we don’t know what it feels like when you’re done.”
Xu Sanguan also chuckled. “Well, selling blood is one way to find out.”
Laishun addressed Laixi. “Why don’t we give it a try? We’ll make lots of money, and we’ll find out what it feels like. Why not kill two birds with one stone?”
When they arrived at Huang’s Inn, Laixi and Laishun tied the boat to a wooden mooring on the bank and followed Xu Sanguan to the county hospital to sell blood.
As they walked, Xu Sanguan told them, “There are four kinds of blood. The first kind is O, the second is AB, the third is A, and the fourth is B—”
Laixi broke in, “How do you write those?”
Xu Sanguan said, “They’re foreign letters. I don’t know how to write them either. I only know the first one, O. You draw a circle. My blood type is a circle.”
Xu Sanguan led them through the streets of Huang’s Inn until they found the hospital. Then they went to the stone steps by the river. Xu Sanguan took a bowl from out of his pocket and handed it to Laixi. “Before you sell your blood, you have to drink a lot of water. If you drink a lot of water, you can water down your blood. Think about it. If your blood is watered down, there will be that much more to sell, right?”
Laixi took the bowl and asked, “How much should I drink?”
“Eight bowls.”
“Eight bowls?” Laixi was astonished. “Won’t your stomach burst if you drink eight bowls of water?”
Xu Sanguan replied, “I can drink eight bowls, and I’m almost fifty. Add your ages together, and the two of you still wouldn’t be as old as I am. Can’t you drink as much as an old man?”
Laishun said to Laixi, “If he can drink eight bowls, then we should be able to manage nine or ten.”
“No way,” Xu Sanguan said. “The very most you should drink is eight. Any more than that, and your bladder’ll burst, just like Ah Fang—”
“Who’s Ah Fang?”
“You don’t know him. Drink. Each of us can drink one bowl first, and then we’ll take turns.”
Laixi bent down and skimmed up a bowl of water to drink. As soon as he started, he clasped his chest and exclaimed, “Too damn cold! It’s so cold my stomach’s twitching.”
Laishun said, “Of course winter water is cold. Give me the bowl. I’ll go first.” After one sip, Laishun also called out, “No way! No way. It’s too cold. I can’t take it.”
Then Xu Sanguan remembered that he had yet to give them any salt. He fished the packet from out of his pocket and passed it to them. “Eat a little salt first. When your mouth gets dry, you’ll be able to drink.”
The brothers took the packet and began to eat the salt. After a while Laixi said he was ready to drink. He skimmed another bowlful of water and took three gulps. Then he started to shiver. “You’re right. When your mouth’s all salty, it’s easier to drink it.”
He drank a few more gulps. When the bowl was dry, he passed it to Laishun and sat trembling with his arms wrapped around his own shoulders. Laishun took a few gulps but managed to finish the bowl only after letting out a long string of curses and exclamations.
Xu Sanguan took the bowl and said to them, “I’ll go first after all. Watch how it’s done.”
The brothers sat on the stone steps and watched as Xu Sanguan tapped a bit of salt into his palm and popped it into his mouth. His mouth twitched. Then he fished up a bowlful of water and drank it in one gulp. He drank two bowls in a row, stopped, poured more salt into his palm, and popped it into his mouth. He repeated these motions until he had swallowed eight bowls of water, never once wiping the water from around his mouth or allowing himself to shiver. Only when he was finished did he finally wipe his mouth, wrap his arms around his shoulders, and shudder with the cold. Then he burped three times. After burping three times, he sneezed three times.
When he finished sneezing, he turned to the brothers and said, “I’ve drunk enough. Your turn.”
Each of the brothers drank five bowls, then declared, “I can’t drink any more. Any more water, and my stomach will freeze solid.”
Xu Sanguan, realizing that “a man can’t get fat from a single bite of food,” let them stop there. That they had been able to drink five bowls of icy river water on their first try was enough. He stood and led them to the hospital.
When they got there, Laixi and Laishun sold their blood first. He was happy to discover that they too had type O blood. “The three of us all have circle type blood.”
After they had sold their blood at the Huang’s Inn County Hospital, Xu Sanguan brought them to a restaurant by the river. He sat in front of the window, and the brothers sat at his flanks. “You can be thrifty at other times, but at a time like this you have to spend a little extra. Do your legs feel weak now that you’ve sold blood?” He saw them nod. “That’s what it feels like after you’ve been with a woman. Your legs go weak. At times like this you have to eat a plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine. The pork livers build up the blood, and the wine gives it life.” As he spoke, he began to tremble.
Laishun said to him, “You’re shaking. When you’re done with a woman, do you shake after your legs go soft?”
Xu Sanguan chuckled and gestured in Laishun’s direction. “I see what you mean. But this time it’s only because I’ve been selling blood the whole way here.” Xu Sanguan crossed two fingers to make the character for ten. “In the last ten days I’ve sold blood four times. If you did it with a woman four times in one day, weak legs and trembling would be just the start of it. You’d start to feel cold chills too.”
Noting that the waiter was winding his way toward their table, he lowered his voice.
“Put your hands on the table. Don’t let them hang underneath the table like people who’ve never been to a restaurant before. You want to look like you always come to places like this, if on
ly for some wine. Straighten up and hold your heads high. You have to do this with style. When you order, make sure to slap the table and speak up. That way they won’t dare cheat you, or skimp on the food, or water down the wine. When the waiter comes over to our table, just follow my lead.”
The waiter came over to the table and asked what they wanted. Xu Sanguan was no longer shivering. Rapping the table for emphasis, he barked, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.” He waved his right hand back and forth through the air and added, “Warm the wine up for me.”
The waiter took his order and turned to Laishun.
Laishun pounded on the table with his fist until it rocked back and forth. Then he demanded with a shout, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”
Laishun forgot what he was supposed to say next. He looked toward Xu Sanguan, but Xu Sanguan merely twisted his head in Laixi’s direction. The waiter had already begun to take Laixi’s order.
Laixi tapped the table with his fingertips, but he used a voice every bit as earsplitting as Laishun’s as he called out to the waiter, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”
Laixi also forgot what he was supposed to say next.
The waiter asked, “Should I warm the wine up for you?”
The two brothers turned questioningly toward Xu Sanguan. Xu Sanguan once again waved his right arm back and forth through the air, proclaiming in a magisterial tone, “Of course.”
After the waiter left, Xu Sanguan lowered his voice. “I didn’t tell you to scream. I just wanted you to speak up. What were you shouting about? It’s not like this is a fight or something. And Laishun, next time you should use your fingers, not your fist. Otherwise you might just break the table in two. And don’t ever forget the last part about warming up the wine. As soon as they hear you say the last part, they’ll know that you’re a regular at a restaurant. That’s the main thing.”
After they ate the fried pork livers and drank the wine, they returned to the boat. Laixi untied the rope from its mooring and pushed the boat away from the embankment with the bamboo pole while Laishun stood at the stern rowing with the oar. When they maneuvered the boat beyond the bank and out into the middle of the river, Laishun called out, “On to Tiger’s Head Bridge.”
His body rocked back and forth as he rowed, and the oar sang as it first divided, then danced above the river’s flow. Xu Sanguan sat at the prow of the barge, just behind Laixi, watching the bamboo pole move gracefully through his hands. Whenever they reached a bridge, Laixi would prop the pole against the foundations, ensuring a smooth passage through the passageway beneath the arch.
The afternoon light faded, and the sunlight no longer shone quite as warmly across their faces. As they rowed past Huang’s Inn, a fresh breeze began to blow, and the reeds on either side of the river rustled and sang. As Xu Sanguan sat on the barge’s prow, waves of cold shivered through his body. He wrapped himself in his cotton-padded jacket, his hands grasping his knees so that he curled himself into a kind of ball.
Laishun, still rowing at the stern, shouted at him, “Go down into the cabin. We don’t need you to help out up here anyway. Might as well go take a nap in the cabin.”
Laixi added, “Go on down to the cabin.”
Xu Sanguan, noting the gusto with which the breathless and sweat-drenched Laishun was throwing himself into his rowing, said, “You sold two bowls of blood, but you look so energetic that you’d never know.”
Laishun said, “When we first started out, my legs felt a little weak, but not now. Ask Laixi if his legs are still weak.”
“They were a while ago, but not now.”
Laishun said to Laixi, “When we get to Seven-Mile Fort, let’s sell two more bowls of blood. What do you think?”
“Sure. It’s thirty-five yuan, right?”
Xu Sanguan said to them, “You two are still so young. I really can’t keep up with you. I’m getting old. I’m sitting here shivering from head to toe. I’m going down to the cabin to sleep.”
As he spoke, Xu Sanguan opened the cabin hatch, covered himself with the quilt, lay down, and fell asleep. By the time he awoke, it was already dark outside, and the barge was nestled against the riverbank. Emerging from the cabin, he saw the brothers standing by a tree. He watched by the light of the moon as they struggled to break a branch as thick as a man’s arm from the trunk. After they pulled it free, they realized that it was too long, so they snapped it in half with their feet, picked up the thicker of the two halves, and walked back to the side of the boat. Laixi placed one end of the branch in the ground and held it steady as Laishun picked up a rock and began to pound it into the ground. After five strokes, only about six inches of the branch protruded from the soil. Laixi fetched a rope from the deck of the barge and tied it around the branch.
When they noticed that Xu Sanguan was standing on deck, they said, “You’re up.”
Xu Sanguan gazed past them. It was pitch dark, save for a few scattered lights in the distance. “Where are we?”
Laixi replied, “I don’t know where we are, but we’re not in Tiger’s Head Bridge yet.”
They lit the stove, cooked dinner on the moonlit deck, and ate steaming bowls of rice in the cold winter breeze. When Xu Sanguan finished eating, his body began to feel warmer. “I’m warmer now. Even my hands are warm.”
The three men lay down to sleep in the cabin. Xu Sanguan was still in the middle, under their quilt, his body pressed close to their bodies. Though the three men were crowded together, the two brothers were very happy. Having earned thirty-five yuan in a single day for their blood, they suddenly felt that earning money wasn’t nearly as hard as they had once thought. They told Xu Sanguan that they had decided not to work the barge anymore, that when they had finished their work in the fields, they would no longer need to earn whatever extra cash the boat would afford them, because working the barge was too hard and left them too exhausted. If they needed extra money, they would sell their blood instead.
Laixi said, “This selling blood business is really great. Besides the money itself, you also get to eat fried pork livers and drink yellow rice wine. Usually we wouldn’t even think of going to a restaurant and eating such delicious fried pork livers. When we get to Seven-Mile Fort, we’re going to sell blood again.”
“Don’t even think about it. You can’t sell blood again when you get to Seven-Mile Fort.” Xu Sanguan jabbed the air with his fingers for emphasis. “When I was young I was just the same. I thought selling blood was like shaking money from a tree. When I ran out or needed a little extra, I could always give the tree a shake, and the money would come tumbling down. But that’s not how it is at all. I still remember the first time I ever went to sell blood. Two friends of mine showed me how it was done. One was named Ah Fang, and the other was Genlong. Where are they now? Ah Fang’s a wreck, and Genlong died selling blood. Don’t you two even think about selling too much blood. Each time you sell, be sure to rest up for at least three months before you go again, unless you absolutely need the money. If you keep on selling blood, you’ll ruin your health. Remember what I’m telling you now, because I’ve been there and back.”
Xu Sanguan stretched out his arms, gave them each a light slap. “This time out I sold blood at Lin’s Pier, and then I sold some more just three days later at Hundred-Mile. When I went to sell blood four days later at Pine Grove, I passed out. The doctor said I was in shock. That means I was completely out of it. So they gave me a transfusion of seven hundred milliliters of blood. That and the money they charged to save me meant that the first two times I sold blood were a complete waste. I ended up buying blood back instead of selling it. I almost died in Pine Grove.”
Xu Sanguan sighed deeply. “I don’t have any choice in the matter. I have to keep on selling blood because my son’s seriously ill in the hospital in Shanghai, and if I don’t find a way to collect the money, the doctors will stop giving him the shots and medicine that he ne
eds. But my blood’s gotten thinner over the years. I’m not like you two. One bowl of your blood is as good as two of mine. I was planning to sell some more at Seven-Mile Fort and at Changning, but now I don’t dare, because if I sell blood one more time, I’ll probably sell my life along with it.
“I’ve earned about seventy yuan so far. I know that won’t be enough to cure my son. So I guess I’ll just have to find some other way to earn the money when I get to Shanghai.”
Laixi said, “You say one bowl of our blood is as thick as two of yours. Does that mean that one bowl of our blood is worth more than two of yours? We all have round blood, right? When we get to Seven-Mile Fort, why don’t you buy a bowl of our blood? We’ll sell you one bowl of our blood, and that way you’ll be able to sell two bowls to the hospital.”
Xu Sanguan thought this was a good idea, but he replied, “How could I possibly take your blood away from you?”
Laixi replied, “If we don’t sell it to you, we’ll just end up selling it to someone else.”
Laishun added, “It’s better to do business with a friend than a stranger, after all.”
“You need to row the barge. You need to save some strength for yourselves.”
“I have an idea,” Laixi said. “We can conserve our strength. We’ll each sell one bowl to you. If we each sell you one bowl, you’ll be buying two bowls all together. That way when you get to Changning, you’ll be able to sell four bowls.”
Xu Sanguan smiled. “The most you can sell at a time is two bowls.” Then he added, “All right then. I’ll buy just one bowl of your blood, but I’m only doing it on account of my son. Anyway, I can’t afford two bowls of blood. If I buy one bowl of your blood, I’ll be able to sell two when I get to Changning. That means I’ll have earned an extra bowl’s worth of blood money.”
