Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

private ownership. Stamping out exploitation is a universal trend. And that is why you’d better start taking care of this tree. If you let that donkey gnaw at its bark one more time, I’ll flay the skin off your back!”
    Huang Tong nodded and forced a smile onto his face. Flashes of gold emerged from his squinty eyes. His mouth was open just enough to reveal his yellow teeth and purple gums. Huang Tong’s wife, Qiuxiang, Ximen Nao’s second concubine, appeared then, a carrying pole over her shoulder, with her twins, Huzhu and Hezuo, seated in a basket on each end. She had brushed her swept-back hair with osman-thus oil and powdered her face; she wore a dress with floral piping and green satin shoes embroidered with purple flowers. An audacious woman, she was dressed just as she had been when she’d been my concubine, with rouged cheeks and smiling eyes. She cut a lovely figure, with curves in all the right places, nothing like a laboring woman. I knew the woman well. She did not have a good heart. She had a sharp tongue and a devious mind, a woman whose only virtue was in bed, not someone to get close to or confide in. She had high aspirations, and if I hadn’t kept her down, my wife and my first concubine would have died at her hand. Even before I became a dirty dog, this wench saw the writing on the wall and turned on me, saying I’d raped her, that I ran roughshod over her, that Ximen Bai mistreated her on a daily basis; she even opened her blouse in front of a crowd of men at the great account-settling meeting and pointed out scars on her breasts, wailing and sputtering loudly, This is where the landlord’s wife burned me with the red-hot bowl of a pipe, these are where that tyrant Ximen Nao poked me with an awl. As someone who’d studied to be a stage actress, she knew exactly how to worm her way into people’s hearts. I, Ximen Nao, brought her into my house out of kindness. She was at the time a teenager whose hair was still in braids as she followed her blind father from place to place and sang for money. Unfortunately, her father died on the street one day, and she had to sell herself in order to bury him. I took her in as a maidservant. You ungrateful bitch, if Ximen Nao hadn’t come to your rescue, you’d have died from the elements or been forced into a life of prostitution. The whore made tearful accusations, spouting lies that sounded so truthful that the women at the foot of the stage were sobbing openly, whetting their glistening sleeves with a torrent of tears. The slogans took over, rage swept over the crowd, and that sealed my doom. I’d known that in the end I’d die at this whore’s hand. She wept, she howled, but before long, she stole a glance at me out of those long, narrow eyes. If not for the two militiamen who had me by the arms, I’d have rushed up, not giving a damn what happened to me afterward, and slapped her hard — once, twice, three times. I’m not afraid to tell the truth: at home, because of all the lies she told, I did that, I slapped her three times, and she fell to her knees, wrapped her arms around my legs, tears clouding her eyes, and I saw that look, so enchanting, so pitiful, so full of affection, that my heart softened and my maleness hardened; what can you do with a woman who can’t stop telling lies, who’s lazy and spoiled? But three hard slaps, and they crawl into bed with you as if drunk. A flirtatious woman like that, I tell you, was my punishment. Old Master, Old Master, dear Elder Brother, go ahead, kill me, put me to death, cut me to pieces, but my soul will still wrap itself around you . . . she pulled a pair of scissors out of her bodice and tried to stab me, but was stopped by the militiamen and dragged down off the stage. Up till that moment I’d clung to the idea that she was putting on an act to protect herself; I couldn’t believe that any woman could have such deep-seated loathing for someone she’d cuddled with in bed . . .
    She picked up Huzhu and Hezuo in their baskets, apparently heading to market, and gave Hong Taiyue a come-hither look. Her dark little face was like a black peony.
    “Huang Tong,” Hong said, “keep an eye on her, she’s in need of remolding. Make sure she stops acting like a landlord’s mistress. Send her out to work in the fields and stop her from going from one marketplace to another.”
    “Are you listening?” Huang Tong placed himself in front of Qiuxiang. “The Party secretary is talking about