Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

cried for you. It was hard for you to choose one over the other, and I believe that what you wanted was for us both to stop, separate, shake hands, and go back to being loving brothers. His legs kept getting tangled up in the weeds, nearly causing him to fall, but as long as he could hop he could keep his balance. My strength was ebbing fast and I was panting like an ox; the pressure on my chest was becoming unbearable. All of a sudden, sharp pains struck both my ears; he’d taken his hands from my shoulders and was pulling on my ears. Hu Bin’s shrill voice rose beside us:
    “Good! Great! Fight! Fight!”
    He was clapping his hands. With the pain killing me, Hu Bin’s shouts distracting me, and your refusal to come to my aid disappointing me, I felt his leg wrap around mine; he flipped me onto my back and piled on, digging his knee into my belly. That hurt so much I think I peed my pants. Still holding my ears, he pressed my head into the ground. I saw white clouds and a bright sun in the blue sky above, and then I saw Ximen Jinlong’s long, skinny, angular face, with a downy mustache above his hard, thin lips, a high nose bridge, and eyes that held a menacing glow. There’s no way he had pure Han Chinese blood; maybe, like my ox, he had a mixed racial background, and by looking at his face I could imagine his likeness to Ximen Nao, a man I’d never met, but whose appearance had become the stuff of legend. I felt like cursing, but he was pulling my ears tightly, stretching the skin around my cheeks and mouth so taut that even I couldn’t make sense of what came out of my mouth. He lifted up my head and slammed it into the ground, once for each word:
    “Are — you — going — to — join — or — aren’t — you?”
    “No . . . never join . . .” My words emerged bathed in spittle.
    “As I said, starting today, I’m going to beat you every day until you agree to join the commune. Not only that, each day will be worse than the one before!”
    “I’ll tell Mother!”
    “She’s the one who told me to do this!”
    “I’ll see what Dad says,” I said in a more accommodating tone.
    “No, you have to join before he returns. And not only you, the ox comes with you.”
    “He was always good to you. Is this how you repay him?”
    “I’m bringing you into the commune to repay him.”
    Hu Bin was circling us the whole time. In near ecstasy, he was pulling at his own ears, rubbing his cheeks, clapping his hands, and chattering nonstop. Hovering around us, the black-hearted cuckold in his green hat who thought so highly of himself, and loathed everyone, though he didn’t dare actually oppose anyone, took great pleasure in seeing two brothers fight; in fact, he took pleasure from anyone else’s misery and pain. And at this point, you showed what you were made of.
    The ox lowered his head and drove it into Hu Bin’s backside, sending him sailing through the air like a cast-off coat, six feet off the ground, before gravity worked its magic and drove him into the reeds at a fateful slant, where he announced his landing with a screech that was as crooked as the tail of the Mongol ox. Clambering to his feet, Hu Bin careened off tall reeds that bent low with a loud rustle. The ox charged again, and Hu Bin was once again in flight.
    Ximen Jinlong immediately let go of me, jumped up, raised his whip, and brought it down on the ox. I got to my feet, wrapped my arms around him, and flipped him to the ground, landing on top of him. How dare you hit my ox! You’re a landlord’s kid with no sense of friendship, someone who repays kindness with hatred. A dog has eaten your conscience! The landlord’s kid arched upward and flung me off his back. Then he got to his feet, hit me with his whip, and ran over to rescue the whining Hu Bin, who was flailing and stumbling as he tried to escape from his reedy surroundings, like a beaten dog. It was a sight to behold! The evil man had gotten what he deserved, at last; justice had been served. It would have been perfect if you’d punished Ximen Jinlong before dishing out retribution to Hu Bin. But of course now I realize that you were being true to the notion that a mighty tiger will not eat one of its own, so that was understandable. Your son Ximen Jinlong went in pursuit with his whip. Hu Bin was running away — no, I shouldn’t say running. Buttons on his tattered army greatcoat, the emblem of his glorious history, were popping off as his coat flapped in the wind