Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

strategies from my hiding spot in the pen. I backed into a corner, figuring that was the best way to keep my jewels out of harm’s way. I hunkered down, feigning ignorance; but I had a plan: observe, wait, and employ passive resistance. Come on, Xu Bao. You think you’re going to get your hands on my jewels to go with your liquor. Well, I’ll bite yours off and avenge all the animals you mutilated.
    The evening sky darkened, and steam rose from the wet ground. The pigs were so hungry they stopped clamoring. The only sounds were the croaks of frogs. The murderous aura seemed to be drawing nearer, and I knew he was about to strike. His dry little face appeared, like a greasy walnut. No eyebrows, no eyelashes, no chin stubble. The guy actually smiled, and I nearly wet myself. But, goddamn it, I don’t care how much you smile! He opened the gate and stood in the opening, where he waved to me and uttered a greeting: “Soo-ee.” He wanted to trick me into leaving my pen, I saw that immediately. He’d leap into action as I walked out the gate and make off with my jewels. Well, you little bastard, nice try, but old Pig Sixteen isn’t about to fall for your tricks today. The pen could collapse but I won’t budge, and you can give me gourmet food but I won’t eat. Xu Bao tossed a corn cake into my pen. Pick it up and eat it yourself, you little bastard. Xu Bao played every trick he knew, but I stayed hunkered down in my corner.
    “That’s one demonic damned pig!” he cursed angrily.
    If Xu Bao had quit at that moment, would I have had the guts to run up and take him on? Hard to say. The son of a bitch was so addicted to eating animals’ testicles that he didn’t leave; he was so attracted by those objects hanging between my hind legs that he got down on his hands and knees in the mud and crawled into my pen.
    A mixture of anger and fear, like blue and yellow flames, flared up in my mind. The hour for revenge had arrived. Clenching my teeth and keeping still, I forced myself to stay calm. Okay, here I am. Come closer, a little closer. Wait till the enemy is in your house before you strike. Close combat, night combat, I’m ready. He wavered when he was a yard or so away and made faces to tempt me to come out to meet him. Forget that, you little bastard. Come on, here I am, just a dumb pig, no danger to you. Probably thinking he’d overestimated my intelligence, Xu Bao let his guard down and approached slowly, with hopes of scaring me into moving. He bent down a yard in front of me, and I felt my muscles tense, like a bow pulled taut. The arrow was on the string. I knew if I attacked then, he could hop like a flea and still not get away.
    It was no longer a case of will commanding body; it attacked on its own, driving itself right into Xu Bao’s belly and lifting him off the ground. His head hit the wall, and he thudded to the ground right where I normally relieved myself. His scream hung in the air well after he landed. His fighting capacity was gone. He lay in my refuse like a cadaver. I decided to carry out my complete plan in order to avenge my mutilated friends. I’d use the man’s own strategy against him. I was feeling slightly disgusted and hesitant, but since I’d put my idea into play, I had to see it through to the end. I bit down between his legs. I came up empty! Nothing but pants material. I pulled back and ripped the material off his crotch, and what I saw terrified me. Xu Bao, it turned out, was a natural-born eunuch. I was stupefied, but now I knew what he was all about, I understood why he had such loathing for testes in other males, why he’d honed his special skill, and why he’d developed such a taste for that delicacy. Gome to think of it, he was a luckless creature. Maybe he believed in the idea that you are what you eat, which is on the order of believing you can get blood out of a turnip or that a dead tree can sprout new leaves. In the heavy darkness I saw two lines of green blood snake out of his nostrils. How could he be so fragile that one head butt did him in? I stuck a hoof under his nose. I could feel no air coming out. Damn, the little bastard really was dead. I’d overheard someone from the country hospital tell villagers about GPR, and I’d personally seen Baofeng bring a drowning victim back to life. So I laid the guy out straight and pressed down on his chest with both hooves. Once, twice . . . Pushing with all my might, I could hear his rib cage creak, and I saw more