Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

broth? Are you implying I’m drunk?” He glared at her, crusted material in the corners of his puffy eyes. “I’m not drunk!” he bellowed unhappily. “My bones and my flesh might be affected by alcohol, but my mind is as clear and bright as the moon or a shiny mirror. Don’t think you can put something over on me, no ma’am! Liquor, where’s the liquor? You small-time capitalists, you petty entrepreneurs, are like winter leeks. The roots may be withered and the outer skin dry, but the spark of life persists until the weather turns good and you start sprouting buds. Money is the only language you people speak. Well, I’ve got money, so bring me some liquor!”
    Qiuxiang winked at Huzhu, who carried a white bowl over to Hong.
    “Party Secretary, try this first.”
    Hong Taiyue took a sip and spit it out. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said in a loud voice that sounded both dreary and tragic:
    “I never thought you’d gang up on me, too, Huzhu. I ask you for liquor, and you give me vinegar. My heart has been steeping in vinegar for so long that my spit is sour, and you give me vinegar. Where’s Jinlong? Call him over here so I can ask him if Ximen Village is still part of the Communist Party realm.”
    From the moment Hong walked into the compound, he was the focus of attention. All the while he was entertaining the crowd with witty remarks, everyone — including Yang Qi, who was kneeling on the ground — was enthralled, watching him with open mouths, not to snap out of it until Hong was drinking again.
    “All of you, come over here and beat me, give me back everything I gave you . . . ,” Yang Qi implored. “If you don’t, you have no right to call yourselves human, and if you aren’t human, then you must be the offspring of horses, mule spawn, sprung from the eggs of chickens, little bastards covered with fuzz . . .”
    “Yang Qi,” Wu Yuan, leader of the onetime bad elements, said, unable to hold back any longer, “Elder Yang, we give up, how’s that? When you were beating us you did so as a representative of the government to teach us a lesson. If you hadn’t done that, how could we ever have reformed ourselves? It was your rattan switch that made it possible for us to cast off our old selves and be transformed into new people, so get up, please get up.” Wu Yuan called the others over. “Come, let’s drink a toast to Yang Qi to thank him for educating us.” The onetime bad elements raised their glasses and offered a toast to Yang; he refused to accept it. “Stop that!” he insisted as he wiped the beer foam from his face. “That’s not going to work. I’m not getting up until you do as I ask. Murder demands the death penalty, and borrowed money has to be repaid. You owe me.”
    Wu Yuan looked around and, seeing no way out, said, “Elder Yang, since you’re going to be stubborn, it looks like hitting you is the only way this will be settled. So on behalf of all bad elements, I’ll slap you across the face and the account will be settled.”
    “No way will one slap settle accounts. I gave you people no fewer than three thousand lashes, so you owe me three thousand slaps, not one less.”
    “Yang Qi, you son of a bitch,” Wu Yuan said as he walked up close to Yang, “you’re going to drive me out of my mind. A bunch of us who suffered for decades are here to enjoy ourselves, but you’ve made that impossible. You call this an apology? This is just another way for you to bully us. . . . Well, I’m not going to take it any longer. I’m slapping you today, no matter who you are.” And that’s exactly what he did, right across Yang Qi’s pear-shaped face.
    With the sound reverberating in the air, Yang wobbled on his knees, but managed to stay upright. “More!” he cried out fiercely. “That was one. You’ve just started. You’re not men if you don’t give me 2,999 more.”
    His shout hadn’t even died out when Hong Taiyue slammed his canteen down on the table and got to his feet, however unsteadily He pointed to the table where the onetime bad elements were sitting, his right index finger straight as the cannon on a sailing ship being tossed on the waves.
    “You’re rebellingYou bunch of landlords, rich peasants, traitors, spies, and historical counterrevolutionaries, enemies of the proletariat, every one of you, how dare you sit there like normal people drinking and enjoying yourselves! Stand up!”
    Hong had been relieved of his position of authority for