Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Huan and Pang Fenghuang were dressed in the latest fashions, and their faces glowed. Your son was wearing passe clothes, and his face was, as always, ugly.
    There wasn’t a boy alive who could fail to be attracted to a pretty, sexy girl like Pang Fenghuang; your son was no exception. Think back to that day when he flung mud in your face, and then think back to the day I followed your scent to Lüdian Township. Now you see what I mean. Even at that early age, he was Fenghuang’s little slave, someone to do her bidding. The seeds of the tragedy that would occur later were planted way back then.
    “No one else is coming, are they?” Fenghuang asked lazily as she leaned back in her chair.
    “Today the yard belongs to us three,” Ximen Huan said.
    “Don’t forget him!” She pointed her delicate finger at the sleeping figure at the base of the wall — me. “That old dog.” She sat up straight. “Our dog is his sister.”
    “He also has a couple of brothers,” your son said, obviously in low spirits. “They’re in Ximen Village, one at his house”—he pointed at Ximen Huan—“and one at my aunt’s house.”
    “Our dog died,” Fenghuang said. “She died having pups. All I remember about her is that she was constantly having pups, one litter after another.” She raised her voice. “The world is unfair. After the male dog finishes his business, he takes off and leaves her behind to suffer.”
    “That’s why we all sing our mothers’ praises,” your son said in a fit of pique.
    “Did you hear that, Ximen Huan?” Fenghuang said with a laugh. “Neither you nor I could ever say something that profound. Only Old Lan here could.”
    “There’s no need to mock me,” your son said, embarrassed.
    “Nobody’s mocking you,” she said. “That was intended as a compliment!” She reached into her white handbag and took out a pack of Marlboros and a solid gold lighter with diamond chips. “With the old stick-in-the-muds out of the way, we can take it easy and enjoy ourselves.”
    A single cigarette popped up when she tapped the pack with a dainty finger tipped with a painted nail and wound up between painted lips. She flicked the lighter, which sent a blue flame into the air, then tossed it and the pack onto the table and took a deep drag on her cigarette. Leaning back until her neck was resting on the back of the chair, faceup, lips puckered, she gazed into the deep blue sky and blew the smoke out like an actress in a TV soap who doesn’t know how to smoke.
    Ximen Huan took a cigarette from the pack and tossed it to your son, who shook his head. A good boy, no doubt about it. But Fenghuang snorted and said derisively:
    “Don’t put on that good-little-boy act. Go ahead, smoke it! The younger you are when you start, the easier it is for your body to adapt to the nicotine. England’s prime minister Churchill started smoking his granddad’s pipe when he was eight, and he died in his nineties. So you see, starting late is worse than starting early.”
    Your son picked up the cigarette and hesitated; but in the end he put it in his mouth, and Ximen Huan lit it. His first cigarette. He couldn’t stop coughing, and his face turned black. But he’d become a chain smoker in no time.
    Ximen Huan turned Fenghuang’s gold cigarette lighter over in his hand.
    “Damn, this is top-of-the-line stuff!” he said.
    “Like it?” Fenghuang asked with disdainful indifference. “Keep it. It was a gift from one of those assholes who want to get an official position or a building contract.”
    “But your mother—”
    “My mother’s an asshole too!” she said, holding her cigarette daintily with three fingers. With her other hand she pointed to Ximen Huan. “Your dad’s an even bigger asshole! And your dad”—the finger was now pointed at your son—“is an asshole too!” She laughed. “Those assholes are all a bunch of phonies, always putting on an act, giving us so-called guidance and telling us not to do one thing or another. But what about them? They’re always doing one thing and another!”
    “So that’s what we’ll do!” Ximen Huan said enthusiastically.
    “Right,” Fenghuang agreed. “They want us to be good little boys and girls, not bad ones. Well, what makes someone a good kid and what makes someone a bad one? We’re good kids. The best, better than anyone!” She flipped her cigarette butt toward the parasol tree, but it landed on one of the eave tiles, where it