Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

already planning my revenge. But the honest truth was, this unforeseen incident, sudden and effective, instilled in me a degree of grudging respect toward the unimpressive, bowlegged little man. That there were people like that in the world, someone who made a living castrating animals and was good at his job — relentless, accurate, fast — was something you’d have to see to believe. Hee-haw, Hee-haw — My gonad, tonight you’ll accompany a mouthful of strong liquor down into Xu Bao’s guts, only to wind up in the privy tomorrow, my gonad, gonad.
    We’d only walked a short distance when we heard Xu Bao call out from behind:
    “Lan Lian, know what I call that gambit I just employed?”
    “Fuck you and your ancestors!” Lan Lian fired back.
    This was greeted with raucous laughter from the gawkers.
    “Listen carefully,” Xu Bao said smugly. “You and your donkey both. I call it ‘Stealing peaches under the leaves.’”
    “Xu Bao Xu Bao, stealing peaches under the leaves! Lan Lian Lan Lian, embarrassment teaches . . .” The young geniuses made up new lines, which they sang as they walked behind us all the way to the Ximen estate compound.
    Lots of people created a lively atmosphere in the compound. The five children from the east and west rooms, all dressed in New Year’s finery, were running and hopping all over the place. Lan Jinlong and Lan Baofeng had reached school age, but hadn’t yet started school. Jinlong was a melancholy boy, seemingly weighted down with concerns; Baofeng was an innocent little girl, and a real beauty. Though they were the offspring of Ximen Nao, there were no bonds between them and Ximen Donkey. The true bonds had been between Ximen Donkey and the two offspring delivered to the donkey belonging to Han Huahua, but tragically, they and their mother had all died when the youngsters were barely six months old. The death of Huahua was a terrible emotional blow to Ximen Donkey. She had been poisoned; the two babies, the fruits of my loins, died from drinking their mother’s milk. The birth of twin donkeys had been a joyous event in the village, and their deaths, along with their mother, had saddened the villagers. Stonemason Han had nearly cried himself sick, but someone unknown was very happy; that someone was the person who had mixed poison into Huahua’s feed. District headquarters, thrown into turmoil over the incident, sent a special investigator, Liu Changfa — Long-haired Liu — to solve the case. A crude and inept individual, Liu summoned the residents in groups to the village government offices and interrogated them by asking the sorts of questions you might hear on a phonograph record. The results? No results. After the incident, in his story “The Black Donkey,” Mo Yan fixed the blame for poisoning the Han family’s donkey on Huang Tong, and although he made what appeared to be an air-tight case, who believes anything a novelist says?
    Now I want to tell you, Lan Jiefang, born on the same day of the same month in the same year as I, I mean you, you know who you are, but I’ll refer to you as He, well, He was five years old, plus a little, and as He grew older, the birthmark on his face got bluer and bluer. Granted, He was an ugly child, but a cheerful one, lively and so full of energy He couldn’t stand still. And talk? That mouth of his never stopped, not for a second. He dressed like his half brother Jinlong, but since He was shorter, the clothes always looked too big and baggy. With his cuffs and shirtsleeves rolled up, He looked like a miniature gangster. But I knew He was a good-hearted boy who found it hard to get people to like him, and my guess is He could thank his nonstop talking and his blue birthmark for that.
    Now that we’ve gotten him out of the way, let’s talk about the two girls of the Huang family, Huang Huzhu and Huang Hezuo. They wore lined jackets with the same floral pattern, cinched at the waist by sashes with butterfly knots. Their skin was fair, their eyes narrow and lovely. The Lan and Huang families were neither especially close nor particularly distant, altogether a complicated relationship. For the adults, getting together was awkward and uncomfortable, since Yingchun and Qiuxiang had both shared a bed with Ximen Nao, making them simultaneously rivals and sisters; now they were both remarried, but they still shared the same compound, living with different men in different times. By comparison, the children got along fine, a