Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

his room. It seemed to him as if his brain had shrunk down to a mere sliver, and the medicinal odor squeezed its way into that sliver, as if through a sieve. Ah, that sweet taste is cogongrass, the bitter taste is soul-returning grass, the sour taste is clover, the salty taste is dandelion, the spicy taste is Siberian cockle-bur. Sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and spicy, all five tastes, plus purslane, pinellia tuber and Chinese lobelia, mulberry bark, peony skin, and dried peach. Apparently, Mother had gotten nearly every herbal medicine available in Northeast Gaomi and was cooking it all in a big pot. The combined odor, with its mixture of life and of soil, poured into his brain as if from a powerful faucet, washing away the filth and slowly opening up his mind. He thought about the lush green grass outside, the flower-covered open fields, and cranes that roamed the marshland. A cluster of golden wild chrysanthemums summoned pollen-laden bees to them. He heard the heavy breathing of the land and the sound of seeds dropping to the ground.
    Mother came in and bathed him with cotton soaked in the herbal mixture. She could see he was embarrassed. “Son,” she said, “you could live to be a hundred, but in my eyes you’ll always be a little boy.” She cleaned him from head to toe, even the dirty spaces between his toes. Evening winds entered the room as the smell of the herbal concoction grew heavier. He’d never felt more refreshed or cleaner than at that moment. He heard Mother sobbing and muttering out behind the house, alongside a wall of empty liquor bottles. He began to sleep and, for the first time, was not startled awake by a nightmare. He slept till dawn. When he opened his eyes in the morning, his nose filled with the smell of fresh milk. But it was different from the mother’s milk and goat’s milk he’d lived on before, and he tried to determine the source: the feeling he’d experienced years earlier, when, as the Snow Prince, he’d blessed all those women by caressing their breasts, flooded into his mind. The greatest sense of longing came from the last breast he’d caressed that day, the one belonging to the proprietor of the sesame oil shop, Old Jin, the woman with only one breast.
    Mother was delighted to see that he appeared to be on the mend. “What would you like to eat, son?” she asked. “Whatever it is, I’ll make it. I went into town and borrowed some money from Old Jin. She’ll bring a cart over one of these days and take away all those bottles in back for repayment.”
    “Old Jin …” Jintong’s heart was pounding. “How is she?”
    With her one good eye — even it was failing — she looked at her son, puzzled by how uneasy he seemed, and let out an exasperated sigh. “She’s turned into the ‘queen of trash’ of the entire area. She owns a car and has fifty employees who melt down used plastic and rubber. She’s doing fine financially, but that man of hers is worthless. She has a bad reputation, but I had no choice but to go see her. She’s as generous as ever, a woman in her fifties, and, strangely, she even has a son …”
    As if slapped in the face, Jintong bolted upright, like someone who has seen the merciful, bright red face of God. A happy thought came to him: My feelings weren’t wrong after all. He was sure that the one-eyed breast of old Jin was heading toward his room and that the sandpapered breasts of Long Qingping were retreating. “Mother,” he blurted out with a degree of bashfulness, “could you step outside before she comes?”
    Momentarily at a loss, she regained her composure and said, “Son, you’ve managed to send away the death demon, so I’ll do anything you ask. I’m going now.”
    Jintong lay back down, filled with excitement, and was quickly immersed in that life-giving aroma. It came from his memory, not from anywhere outside, bursting upon him. He closed his eyes and saw her fuller yet still smooth face. Her eyes were as dark as ever, moist and seductive, every movement intended to snatch away a man’s soul. She was moving quickly, like a comet, and that breast of hers, left unseated by time, jiggled under her cotton shirt, as if straining to get out. Very slowly, the spiritual aroma emanating from his heart and the material aroma emanating from Old Jin’s breast drew together like a pair of mating butterflies. They touched and quickly merged. He opened his eyes, and there, standing by his bed, was Old Jin, just as he had