Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

with me. Secretary Hong blamed me for letting you loose. You know I was a landlord’s wife, not a good thing to be these days, and Secretary Hong has done me a favor by letting me tend to you. You mustn’t act up, that will only bring me trouble!”
    What a tangle of thoughts ran through my mind as tears welled up in my eyes and dripped to the ground.
    “Are you crying, Pig Sixteen?” Surprised? Yes, she was. But also saddened. Stroking my ears, she looked up at the moon. “My husband,” she said, “with Jinlong dead, the Ximen family has truly come to its end ...”
    Jinlong, of course, was not dead. If he’d died, the curtain would have fallen on this drama. Baofeng’s medical skills brought him back from certain death, only to have him rant and rave, leaping and jumping, eyes bloodshot, wanting nothing to do with friends or family. “I don’t want to live!” he shouted. “No more for me. . . .” He clutched his chest. “I feel terrible, I can’t stand it, I want to die, Mother. . . .” Hong Taiyue stepped up, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Jinlong!” he roared. “What do you think you’re doing? You call yourself a member of the Communist Party? The branch secretary of the Youth League? You disappoint me. You embarrass me!” Yingchun rushed up and pulled Hong’s arms away, then stood between them. “I won’t let you treat my son like that!” she threatened. Then she turned and threw her arms around Jinlong, who was a head taller than she, rubbed his face, and murmured, “Good boy, don’t be afraid, Mother’s here, she won’t let them hurt you. . . .”
    Jinlong pushed her away and forced the others, who tried to block his way, to back off; lowering his shoulder, he ran out. The moonlight settled on his arms like a blue curtain of gauze that gently laid him down on the ground, where he rolled around like an overworked donkey. “Mother, I can’t stand it, I want to die. Bring me two more bottles of liquor, two more bottles, two more . . .” “Is he crazy or is he drunk?” Hong asked Baofeng sternly. Her mouth twitched. “Drunk, I expect,” she said with a sneer. With a look at Yingchun, Huang Tong, Qiuxiang, Hezuo, and Huzhu, Hong Taiyue could only shake his head, like a powerless father. He sighed. “You people have really let me down.” He turned and walked off, swaying slightly, but instead of heading toward the village, he went into the apricot grove, leaving light blue footprints in the carpet of apricot petals.
    Meanwhile, Jinlong was still donkey-rolling on the ground. “Go get some vinegar, Hezuo,” Qiuxiang chirped, “and pour it down his throat. Do you hear me, Hezuo? Go home and get it.” But Hezuo had her arms wrapped around an apricot tree and her face pressed up against the bark, until she nearly looked like an outgrowth of the tree itself. “Huzhu, you go then.” But the girl’s silhouette had blended with the distant moonbeams. Once Hong Taiyue had left, the crowd began to disperse. Even Baofeng, medical kit over her back, walked off. “Baofeng!” Yingchun cried out to her, “give your brother an injection of something. All that alcohol will rot his insides . . .”
    “Here’s the vinegar,” Mo Yan called out, holding a bottle in his hand. “I’ve got it.” He was fast, really fast, and an eager helper. He was one of those youngsters who feels the rain as soon as he hears the wind. “I got the snack shop to open,” he announced proudly, “and when the clerk asked me for money I said this was Secretary Hong’s vinegar, so put it on his bill. He gave it to me without a word of protest.”
    It took some doing, but Sun Three finally managed to pin donkey-rolling Jinlong to the ground, though not without a struggle — teeth, feet, everything. Qiuxiang put the vinegar bottle up to his lips and began to pour. A peculiar sound tore from his throat, sort of like a rooster that has carelessly swallowed a poisonous bug. His eyes had rolled back in his head — unmistakably all white in the moonlight. “You heartless brat, you’ve killed my son!” Yingchun cried out as Huang Tong thumped Jinlong on the back, driving streams of sour, rank liquid out of his mouth and nose . ..

28

Hezuo Marries Jiefang against Her Will
Huzhu Is Happily Mated to Jinlong
    Two months passed, and neither of the brothers, Lan Jiefang and Ximen Jinlong, was on the road to recovery. Something was wrong with the mental state of the Huang sisters as well. If Mo