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low over the river at the moment, and they were so beautiful in flight. They skimmed the surface, raising tiny waves with their bellies and sending ripples to the banks. Others stood on the banks and dug their beaks into the mud. This was the season for building nests—apricot trees were in bloom, and buds on peach trees were waiting their turn to flower. There were new leaves on riverside weeping willows, and cries of cuckoos came on the air from afar. Everyone knew it was time for planting, but no one in Slaughterhouse Village worked the fields any more—it was a tiring, sweaty way to make a meagre living. Who but a moron would do that? There definitely were no morons in Slaughterhouse Village, where the fields were left fallow. When he returned home, my father planned to take up the plough, but that never happened. Lao Lan had given him the responsibility of managing the United Meatpacking Plant, while he himself was chairman and general manager of its parent company, the newly created Huachang Corporation.

    Father's plant was half a li east of the school, within sight of the bridge. Originally housing a number of canvas-production workshops, the buildings had been restructured for animal slaughter. Every creature that entered one of the buildings, except for the humans, went in alive and came out dead. I was much more interested in the plant than I was in school, but Father would not let me near it. Nor would Mother. He was the plant manager, she its bookkeeper and many of the village's independent butchers its workforce.

    I sauntered towards the plant. After being thrown out of class, I experienced a sense of unease over what I considered to be a smallish mistake—at first, that is. But that feeling left me as I strolled along on that glorious spring day. How incredibly foolish to sit cooped up inside a room listening to a teacher chatter away during that wonderful season. No less foolish than going out to tend a field day after day, knowing it only put you deeper in debt. Why should I have to go to school? The teachers didn't know any more than I did, perhaps even less. And while I knew practical, useful things, everything they knew was useless. Lao Lan had been right about everything except when he told my parents to send me to school. It was also a mistake to have them enrol my sister in preschool. I was tempted to rescue her from her ordeal and explore the secrets of nature with her. We could fish in the river with our bare hands, we could climb trees and trap birds, we could pick wildflowers in open fields. There was no limit to the things we could do, and every one of them was better than being in school.

    From my hiding place behind a riverside willow tree, I surveyed Father's plant, a large compound surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire. It looked more like a prison—rows of high-ceiling factory buildings inside the wall, with a row of squat buildings in the southwest corner in front of a massive smokestack belching out thick smoke. That, I knew, was the plant's kitchen, the source of the meaty aroma that frequently assailed my nostrils, even when I was in class. When that happened, my teacher and my classmates ceased to exist and my mind filled with beautiful images of meat that expelled bursts of heated fragrance as it lined up and hopped along a road paved with garlic paste and coriander and other spices, heading straight for me. I could smell it now. I had no trouble picking out the smell of beef, of lamb, of pork and of dog, and beautiful visions swam in my head. Yes, in my head, where meat always has form and is imbued with language; meat is a richly evocative living thing with which I enjoy a close relationship. These meats call out to me: ‘Come eat me! Come eat me, Xiaotong, and hurry.’

    The gate was shut, even though it was midday. Unlike the school gate, which was made of finger-thin steel bars with gaps wide enough to allow a young calf through, this was a sturdy double-panelled gate made of two iron plates that would require a pair of strong young men to push it open and pull it shut, two extremely creaky operations. Later, when I watched it being opened and shut, it was just as I'd assumed.

    The smell of meat drew me down off the riverbank and across the broad paved road, where I waved to a black dog out for a stroll. It looked up and gazed at me with the eyes of an old man living out his sad days, then made its way over to a roadside building, turned and lay down in