Brothers

by Yu Hua

  Tao Qing was ecstatic about this proposal, immediately pronouncing it a major turning point in Liu Town's development and saying that if it was done well, it could increase the GDP of the entire county by 300 to 500 percent. He told Baldy Li, "Don't you worry. You are welcome to use two, three, or as many streets and alleys as you might need. Even if all of the beautiful virgins in the country end up here, we will still be able to accommodate them."

  News of the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition quickly spread throughout the country, and the reporters who had previously retreated like the tide now rushed back in. Baldy Li once again became the choice bone for the entire nation. His smiling face could once again be found in newspapers and on every television channel. PR Liu's boat also rose along with the tide, but he didn't forget to whom he owed his success. He knew if it hadn't been for Baldy Li's trust, he wouldn't be where he was now. Therefore, during the press conference for the competition, PR Liu took care to pepper his answers with "Boss Li."

  One reporter asked, "Why is it necessary to host this National Virgin Beauty Competition?"

  PR Liu replied evenly, "The competition will help promote traditional Chinese culture, increase the self-respect and ultimately the self-confidence of todays women, and at the same time support higher standards of health and hygiene. It is for these reasons that Boss Li has decided to organize this Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition—"

  The reporter interrupted him to ask, "What do you mean by ‘higher standards of health and hygiene'?"

  PR Liu answered, "The hymen plays a crucial role in preventing the invasion of foreign microbes, protecting the internal reproductive system, and preserving the body's reproductive ability. This is what Boss Li means by ‘higher standards of health and hygiene.'"

  Another reporter asked, "What will be the entry requirements for prospective contestants?"

  PR Liu responded as if reciting a tongue twister: "They must be beautiful and elegant, healthy and graceful, sociable and mature, accomplished and modest, respectful of elders and loving of the young, pure and chaste, and with no prior sexual experience."

  The reporter then asked, "Will those women who may have torn their hymens while doing sports be permitted to compete? And how about those whose hymens have been breached as a result of sexual violence? Will they be allowed to participate?"

  PR Liu answered, "Our Boss Li has the greatest respect for the two categories of women you mention and has given a great deal of thought to the question you have raised, losing appetite and sleep over the matter. In the end, however, he has decided to sacrifice those women to help preserve the integrity and authority of the competition as a whole. He explicitly asked, however, that I use this news conference to pay tribute to those women and exhort all Chinese men to lavish them with love and attention."

  A female reporter asked, "Isn't this so-called Virgin Beauty Competition you are hosting actually an expression of feudal misogyny, which is to say a form of sexual discrimination?"

  PR Liu shook his head and replied, "We are all our mothers’ children, and we all love and respect our mothers. Our mothers are women, and therefore we love and respect women."

  A final reporter asked, "Will the winner of the competition become your Boss Li's wife?"

  PR Liu replied with a laugh, "Boss Li is hosting a beauty pageant, not a bridal pageant. Of course, you can't rule out the possibility that he might fall in love with one of the virgin beauties, but that would depend on whether or not she loved him. Love is inherently unpredictable."

  When the news conference was televised, everyone in Liu watched it. PR Liu appeared with slick hair and smooth face, wearing a suit and leather shoes, and answered questions flawlessly. Baldy Li also watched the broadcast on television and was very satisfied with PR Liu's performance, remarking, "That old bastard is without question a genius."

  Following the news conference, the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition had its grand launch. The competition was divided into a preliminary round, semifinals, and a championship. The virgin beauties participating in the preliminary and semifinal rounds had to pay for their own room and board, and only the hundred finalists would have their food and board provided by the competition organizing committee. Out of those hundred finalists, a first-, second-, and third-place winner would be chosen, and their prizes would be one million, five hundred thousand, and two hundred thousand yuan, respectively. The organizing committee would then help launch the winners’ Hollywood careers and groom them for international stardom.

  A blizzard of application letters started arriving—the mail truck deposited a large sack of them at the front desk of Baldy Li's company headquarters every day. With virgins from all over the country applying, the homegrown virgins of Liu Town and the rest of the county didn't want to seem like slackers in comparison, so they all registered as well, declaring that local assets should be kept within the community. The top three prizes should definitely be kept in-house, they declared, and shouldn't be filched away by an outsider.

  Of all those who registered, be they homegrown or from afar, most were actually no longer virgins. In fact, some were married, some had already been divorced, others were cohabiting with lovers, and there were even some who had lost count of how many men they had been with. Each of these women, however, had had their hymens reconstructed.

  As usual, the townspeople of Liu were like frogs at the bottom of a well, with no perspective on the outside world. It was not until an itinerant charlatan by the name of Wandering Zhou arrived that they realized their competition, in placing such a high value on virgins, had spurred a rage for hymen-reconstruction surgery throughout China. Wandering Zhou told them that a Beijing economist had labeled this the age of the hymen economy. All across the country every medical facility from big-city hospitals to small rural clinics had started offering hymen recons. Wandering Zhou told the people of Liu that hymen-recon surgery had become Chinas most profitable industry and that, from an economists perspective, "the entire hymen economy had its origins in Liu Town." Wandering Zhou concluded, "And that is why I have come."

  Eventually the people of Liu came to appreciate the significance of the hymen economy. The county hospital, together with the rural clinics below it, was, of course, the first to benefit from the trend. Its hymen-recon ads could be found on bridge columns, electrical poles, roadside walls, even bathroom stalls. Everywhere you looked, you'd see an ad. You'd wake up in the morning to find one stuck to your front door; while you were eating lunch, more would be slipped under your door. When you went to the market to buy a pair of shoes, the salesman would hand you an advertisement, and the ticket seller would give you one when you went to buy a movie ticket. When you entered a restaurant and perused the menu, you would find an ad stuck inside it, and after ordering braised pig's feet, you would find that in the blink of an eye the dish had become hymen-recon—another flyer having been slipped onto your table and covering up your food.

  Now that everyone in Liu—men and women, old and young—knew what hymen-recon surgery was, they said, "It is as simple as having double eyelid surgery."

  Children would recite, "The operation lasts thirty minutes and requires only local anesthesia. Afterward there is no need to rest, and it won't affect your work or daily activities or even your menstrual cycle."

  Pedicab drivers wore sandwich boards with ads from the county hospitals with a hole in the middle through which the driver could stick his head, as if it were a raincoat. On their chests and backs these drivers wore the following message, written in big yellow letters on a red background:

  RECLAIM YOUR INTACT HYMEN! SUCCESS RATE OF THE OPERATION: 100%. SATISFACTION RATE: 99.8%. PROBABILITY THAT YOU WILL BLEED DURING YOUR NEXT DEFLOWERING: 99.8%.

  As the hymen economy sprang up it added fuel to Baldy Li's Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition. During that period, money from sponsorships and advertising companies flowed continuously into Baldy Li's accounts, and Baldy Li, his eyes completely
bloodshot, continued furiously making phone calls, inviting new sponsors and advertisers to join. He spent the entire day hoarsely shouting into the receiver, "This is an opportunity that you simply can't pass up. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

  PR Liu became busier than he had ever been before, complaining that he was not only Baldy Li's fucking media spokesman but had to take care of all of Baldy Li's other fucking affairs as well. Baldy Li was concerned only with screaming into the telephone receiver like an executioner, asking everyone for money like a beggar, and couldn't trouble himself with other matters. PR Liu, therefore, had to delegate. He had to hire more assistants every day, and since his office had long been too small to accommodate everyone, he borrowed someone else's and eventually simply rented himself a small house, where he hung up a formal sign saying INAUGURAL NATIONAL VIRGIN BEAUTY COMPETITION ORGANIZING COMMITTEE. In the interest of both confidentiality and security, PR Liu asked Baldy Li to call the county division of armed police, and from that point on there were always two armed policemen standing guard at the entrance of the organizing committee building. Each of the committee's workers had to wear a badge with a photo ID, and anyone without this badge shouldn't even consider trying to get in.

  After Baldy Li initially became famous, people started calling Liu Town Baldy Li Town, and now that his Virgin Beauty Competition became similarly well-known, everyone took to calling it Virgin Beauty Town instead. Virgin Beauty Town launched a series of beautification projects. The county government arranged to have all the houses along the road repainted and used all the county's radio and television broadcasts, as well as directives to each of its work units, to request that each family wash their windows so thoroughly that they appear invisible. They further requested that each family refrain from throwing garbage out and, especially after the competition began, that they hide their garbage under their beds. They enforced this ban by decreeing that anyone who threw out twenty jin of garbage would have to pay a fine equivalent to the price of twenty jin of pork. The government called on everyone to mobilize and asked that they help make Virgin Beauty Town as delicate and charming as the most exquisitely adorned woman, in order to put forward the most dazzling appearance while playing host for the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition. Then the town decked itself out with lanterns and decorations, stringing banners along all the streets and from all the buildings. Giant billboard frames were erected along the street that was going to be used for the competition, and billboard advertisements that Baldy Li had secured with his screaming telephone calls started appearing in them one after another.

  The week before the competition was set to begin, the town was already overflowing with visitors. The first to arrive were the reporters, with print journalists and broadcast journalists arriving in one clump after another. Next the television and radio trucks drove in, followed by the VIPs, who were Baldy Li's sponsors and advertisers, as well as political leaders and the judges for the event. The most luxurious hotel in Liu was one of Baldy Li's, and he crammed the reporters, friends, and VIPs into it, filling it to capacity.

  Originally, more than twenty thousand beautiful virgins had registered for the event, but because they had to pay for their own room and board, in the end only three thousand showed up. They came from throughout China, and all the hotels and guesthouses in Liu were completely booked. What had originally been twin rooms were made into four-person rooms, and still they couldn't accommodate all the virgin beauties. In the interest of preserving Liu Town's upstanding image, the country government called on everyone to donate their beds for the virgin beauties to use. The reasoning was that it would not do to have the beauties camped out in the street, because what would happen if some of the local men couldn't control their urges and raped them in the middle of the night? Even if they didn't rape but just copped a feel or two, the entire town would still lose face. Fortunately, it was summertime, and everyone responded enthusiastically to the call, with the men of many households taking their bedrolls and sleeping outside in the streets and alleys, thereby allowing the visiting virgins to use their beds. Poet Zhao also slept in the streets and lent out his one-bedroom apartment to two virgin beauties, with each virgin paying him one hundred yuan a day in rent.

  Song Gang and Lin Hong too lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and when Song Gang saw that Poet Zhao was earning two hundred yuan a day, Song Gang proposed that he sleep outside while Lin Hong remained at home, thereby at least allowing them to earn one hundred yuan a day hosting one virgin beauty. Lin Hong, however, vetoed the idea, noting that Song Gang was ill and shouldn't be sleeping outside. When he insisted, Lin Hong got angry, saying that now that he was going to the hospital every day for shots and treatment, his health was finally improving, but if he were to sleep outside, it would surely deteriorate, and the money they would waste on medical treatment would surely exceed any they might have earned from rent. Song Gang didn't know that Baldy Li was supporting them, since Lin Hong had told him that her parents and their friends were paying for the medical expenses. Song Gang had already placed his bedroll next to Poet Zhao's when he saw Lin Hong standing in the doorway weeping tears of fury. Therefore, he had no option but to roll up his bedroll and return home. Those days Song Gang would open his front door every morning and the first person he would see would be Poet Zhao stretching at his spot under the electrical pole. When Zhao saw Song Gang, he would sit up and start chatting animatedly, claiming that sleeping in the street was more comfortable than sleeping in his own bed, and pointing out that it was much cooler out here, not to mention that he was also earning two hundred yuan a day. Song Gang was very envious, but noticing that Poet Zhao's face was covered with mosquito bites, he asked, "What's wrong with your face?"

  Poet Zhao answered proudly, "These are acne pimples."

  CHAPTER 61

  IT WAS at this juncture that the itinerant charlatan Wandering Zhou arrived in Liu Town.

  Wandering Zhou was a sight to behold: Like all con men these days, he had a movie stars good looks. He walked over from the bus depot with two twenty-nine-inch color television boxes and only five yuan in his pocket. Actually apart from Chief Sub Song Gang, every man in Liu had more money in his pockets than did Wandering Zhou, yet they all felt poor. Even with only five yuan, however, Wandering Zhou had the air of someone who was on China s Forbes 400 list.

  It was dusk and the moon had not yet come out, yet the lights from the streetlamps and the neon signs were already shimmering past one another on the streets. It was so muggy that the crowds wished they could simply run around naked. Wandering Zhou, however, was dressed formally in a suit and leather shoes. He set the two boxes down by his feet and stood on the street outside the bus depot, looking as cool and comfortable as if he were in an air-conditioned hall. Flashing a China Forbes 400 smile, he asked everyone walking back and forth, "Is this Virgin Beauty Town?"

  Wandering Zhou asked five people in a row, but each time the passersby only nodded or grunted in response, and not a single one of them stopped to look at him carefully, much less came over to speak with him. Since no one would take his bait, Wandering Zhou did not know where to start. In the past, if such an unusual character had appeared on the street, everyone in Liu would have immediately crowded around curiously as if he were an ape. But he happened to show up at a moment when twenty-eight hundred out of an expected three thousand virgin beauties had already descended upon the town—not to mention the two-hundred-plus reporters, a famous announcer whom people previously had only seen on television, and various political leaders and celebrity judges—and as a result, the townspeople were suddenly as worldly and jaded as big-city folk. Wandering Zhou had thought that if he shouted "Virgin Beauty Town" a few times, he would surely get everyone's attention. What he didn't realize was that outsiders had already been calling this place Virgin Beauty Town for more than a week now and that even the people of Liu had begun referring to their own town that way.

  Wandering Zhou stood in
front of the bus depot until nightfall, but still no one came to speak to him, and consequently he had no opportunity to deploy his snake-oil-salesman routine. Just a few pedicab drivers looking for business approached him and asked, "Hey, mister, which hotel are you going to?"

  Since Wandering Zhou had only five yuan in his pocket, if he were to take a pedicab, he would end up with no money at all. He knew that one shouldn't mess with these pedicab drivers—if he was short even a single yuan, they were liable to beat him to a pulp. Therefore, when they approached to vie for his business, he paid them no attention and instead took a toy cell phone from his suit pocket. This phone looked real and even had a triple-A battery inside, so that when he discreetly pushed a button, it would ring. When the pedicab drivers asked him which hotel he wanted to go to, his cell phone rang, and he pulled it out and shouted angrily into the receiver, "Why hasn't my exclusive-use car arrived yet?"

  After night fell, Wandering Zhou realized that there was no point in continuing to stand there, so he had no alternative but to pick up his two enormous cardboard boxes and set off. No matter how hard he tried now, he couldn't maintain his China Forbes 400 gait but, rather, trudged along with a coolie's shuffle. The streets of Liu were chock-full of people. Wandering Zhou kept accidentally bumping his boxes into the thighs of visiting beauties, as well as the thighs of the townspeople of Liu. Under the twinkling of the streetlamps and the neon lights, amid the soaring melodies of foreign and Chinese songs, in the roar of jazz and rock and the melodic strains of foreign classical and Chinese folk music, Wandering Zhou walked and paused and walked and paused. When he paused, he would look around and admire the new Liu Town that Baldy Li had helped create. Along the old street adorned with traditional red lanterns there was now an eclectic mix of European classical architecture and American modernist architecture. Wandering Zhou spotted soaring Greek Doric columns belonging to Baldy Li's fanciest restaurant, the Roman-style red-walled atrium housing his brand-name clothing store, the Chinese-style slate-roofed courtyard of his Chinese restaurant, and the Japanese-style garden of his Japanese restaurant, as well as gothic windows and baroque roofs. Wandering Zhou said to himself, This is a real mutt of a town.