Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

he listened to birds fighting off in the marshland, he reflected upon his dream, trying to analyze just what it meant, a trick he’d learned back in the labor reform camp.
    The next morning, Lianlian invited him to breakfast in her office. Sharing this honor was her husband, the master bird trainer, Parrot Han. The moment Jintong stepped through the door he was greeted by a “Good morning” from a black mynah on a golden perch. The bird ruffled its feather as it “spoke,” and he wondered if his ears had deceived him. He walked around to see if he could find the source of the sound. “Shangguan Jintong,” the mynah bird said. “Shangguan Jintong.” The bird’s greeting shocked and elated him. He nodded in its direction. “Good morning,” he said. “What’s your name?” The bird ruffled its feathers and said, “Bastard! Bastard!” “Did you hear that, Parrot?” Lianlian said. “This is what you’ve been teaching your little pet!” Parrot slapped the mynah. “Bastard!” he cursed. “Bastard!” the dizzy mynah echoed him. “Bastard!” Obviously embarrassed, Parrot turned to Lianlian. “Damn,” he said, “have you ever seen the likes of this bird? It’s like a little child. You can try to teach him proper language till you’re blue in the face, but it’s no use. Then say a bad word, and he picks it up at once.”
    Lianlian treated Jintong to some fresh milk and a partially cooked ostrich egg. She had the appetite of a bird, while Jintong had the appetite of a pig. She drank a cup of wonderfully fragrant Nestlé’s coffee. “Uncle,” she said, “an army trains for a thousand days to fight for one. The time has come for you to display your skills.”
    Jintong gulped in surprise, which led to a series of hiccups. “Urn,” he stammered, “what can, what can I do …”
    Noticeably disgusted by the hiccups, she fixed her callous gray eyes on his mouth. Because of the callousness, her normally tender eyes were suddenly unbelievably intimidating, reminding him of her mother and of those marshland snakes that could swallow a wild goose. That thought cured his hiccups.
    “You can do lots of things!” Rays of tenderness shot from her gray eyes, returning them to their enchanted beauty. “Uncle,” she said, “do you know the one thing needed for us to turn our plans into reality? Of course you do, it’s money. The sauna resort cost money. The big-breasted Thai masseuse cost money. Do you know how much that ostrich egg you just ate cost?” She held out five fingers. “Fifty? Five hundred? Five thousand! Everything we do costs money, and for the Eastern Bird Sanctuary to prosper, we need a lot of it. Not eighty or a hundred thousand, and not two or three hundred thousand, but millions, tens of millions! And for that we need the support of the government. We need bank loans, and the government owns the banks. The bank managers do the mayor’s bidding, and who does the mayor listen to?”
    She smiled, looked at Jintong, and answered her own question.
    “You, that’s who!” More hiccups.
    “Take it easy, Uncle. Listen carefully. The new mayor of Dalan isn’t just anybody, it’s none other than your very own mentor, Ji Qiongzhi, and the first person she inquired about as mayor was you. Just think, Uncle, after all these years, you’re still in her thoughts. Emotions don’t get any deeper than that.”
    “So I go see her and say, mentor Ji, I'm Shangguan Jintong, and Fd like you to lend my niece several million yuan for her bird sanctuary, is that it?” Jintong said.
    Lianlian laughed hard. Gently pounding Jintong on the shoulder, she said, “Silly Uncle, my silly Uncle, you sure have earned your reputation as an innocent man. I’ll teach you how to do it.”
    Over the next couple of weeks, Lianlian put Jintong through the sort of day-and-night training that Parrot used on his birds, instructing him on what a powerful woman likes to hear. On the day before Ji Qiongzhi’s birthday Lianlian conducted a dress rehearsal in her bedroom. Dressed in a sheer white nightgown, she played the part of Mayor Ji, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of fine wine in the other, a love potion on the pillow, and embroidered slippers on her feet. Jintong, wearing a tailored suit and French cologne, was holding an array of peacock feathers in one arm and a trained parrot in the other as he gently pushed open the leather-trimmed door —
    — The moment he stepped into the room, Ji Qiongzhi’s