Pow!

apprentices, someone who would always hold back enough for a safety net. Lao Lan's meat was water-injected, like everyone else's, but it looked fresher and smelt sweeter. You could leave it out in the sun for two days and it wouldn't spoil, while the others’ would be maggot-infested if it didn't sell by the first day. So Lao Lan never had to worry about cutting prices if his supply didn't sell right away; meat that looked that good was never in danger of going unsold. My father told me it wasn't water that Lao Lan injected into his meat but formaldehyde. Later, after relations between Lao Lan and our family took a turn for the better, Lao Lan told us that it wasn't enough for the meat to be injected with formaldehyde; in order to keep its freshness and colour, it also needed to be smoked with sulphur for three hours.

    A woman who's covered her head with a red coat storms into the temple, interrupting my recitation. Her entrance reminds me of the woman who had been sprawled in the breach in the wall not long before. Where has she gone? Perhaps this woman in red is the incarnation of that one in green. She removes the coat and nods apologetically. Her lips are purple, her skin pasty, her face covered with grey lumps, like a plucked chicken. The light in her eyes is like the cold rain outside. She must have been partly frozen, and completely terrified. She doesn't know how to say what she wants, but it's obvious that her mind is clear. Her coat is made of a cheap fabric from which red water drips to the floor—blood, if I ever saw it. A woman, blood, lightning, thunder, the full range of taboos all at one time. She really needs to be driven out of the temple, but the Wise Monk sits in repose, his eyes shut, steadier even than the human-headed Horse Spirit behind him. As for me, I don't have the heart to force a young full-figured woman out into the storm. Besides, with the temple doors thrown open, anyone is free to enter, so by what authority can I drive her out? With her back to us, she holds her hands out through the door and turns her head away from the rain as she wrings out the coat, sending rivulets of red running across the ground to merge with the rain; the colour remains for a brief moment before flowing out of sight. It hasn't rained like this for a very long time. Water cascades off the eaves, a grey waterfall that imitates the roar of galloping horses. Our little temple shudders in the rain, the bats shriek in fear. Then water seeps in through the roof and bounces, with metallic pings, off the Wise Monk's brass washbasin. After wringing as much water out of her coat as she can, the woman turns and nods once again in a show of embarrassment. Her lips twitch briefly, emitting a thin mosquito-like whine. Those swollen lips look like overripe grapes, a more attractive colour than you see in town on that other type of woman standing beneath a street lamp, moving her legs seductively and puffing away on a cigarette. I notice how her white undergarments stick wetly to her skin, highlighting the curves of her body. Her taut breasts are shaped like frozen pears; they must be icy cold. If I could, I'm thinking, and I truly wish I could, I'd remove her wet clothes, have her lie in a tub of hot water to soak up its warmth and bathe from head to toe. Then she'd wrap a large, dry robe round her, sit on a soft, springy sofa, and I'd make her a cup of hot tea—black tea would be best—with milk, and give her some steamed bread. Finally, after the tea and the bread, she'd get into bed and sleep…I hear the Wise Monk heave a sigh, bringing an end to my fantasies, although I can't stop staring at her body. She's looking away now, leaning her left shoulder against the door as she gazes at the falling rain. Her coat, which she holds in her right hand, looks like a newly peeled foxskin. I‘ll continue, Wise Monk. My voice sounds unnatural because my audience has doubled —

    My father and Lao Lan once had a savage fight, during which Lao Lan broke one of my father's little fingers and my father bit off a piece of Lao Lan's ear. Intense hostility broke out between our families, until Father ran off with Aunty Wild Mule; after that a friendship developed between Mother and Lao Lan, and he sold us his old walking tractor for what it would have brought as scrap. He even gave her free, hands-on lessons on how to drive it. Naturally, this was grist for the village gossip mill, which spread unsavoury rumours about Lao Lan and