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Chairman of the Board and General Manager, Huachang Corporation.’

    ‘A peasant-turned-entrepreneur!’ said the man with a smile.

    ‘A peasant, yes,’ Lao Lan said modestly, ‘but hardly an entrepreneur.’

    ‘Just do a good job,’ said the official. ‘I don't see a Great Wall separating peasant and entrepreneur these days.’

    ‘Our leader is very wise,’ Lao Lan said. ‘We will, as you say, do a good job.’

    Lao Lan shook the official's hand a second time before relinquishing his spot to Father.

    ‘This is Luo Tong,’ introduced the minor official, ‘the plant manager, an expert on meat. He has an unerring eye, like the legendary chef Pao Ding.’

    ‘Really?’ the official remarked as he shook Father's hand. ‘I guess in your eyes there's no such thing as a living cow—just an accumulation of flesh and bones.’

    Father glanced down at the tips of the minor official's shoes as his face turned red and he muttered unintelligibly.

    ‘Pao Ding,’ official said to him, ‘it's up to you to see that no water is injected into the meat.’

    Finally Father managed a few words: ‘I guarantee…’

    Lao Lan led the VIP and his entourage into the plant compound. As if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Father moved away and watched the party pass by.

    His inability to perform in the limelight made me feel terrible. I'd have liked to run up, grab hold of his tie and throttle him till he snapped out of his muddle-headedness, till he stopped standing at the side of the road like some moron. All the spectators followed the VIPs through the gate but Father stayed where he was, looking lost. When I couldn't take it any longer, I went up to him; to avoid destroying the last vestige of his dignity, I did refrain from grabbing his tie. I just nudged him in the waist and said: ‘Don't stand here, Dieh. You need to stand next to Lao Lan. You have to give the guided tour.’

    ‘Lao Lan can handle it by himself,’ he replied, looking timid.

    Pinching his leg savagely, I whispered: ‘You really disappoint me, Dieh!’

    ‘You're stupid, Dieh!’ Jiaojiao remarked.

    ‘Now go!’ I said.

    ‘You're just children.’ Father looked down at us. ‘You can't understand how your father feels…but all right, I'll go.’

    He strode off towards the meeting site, as determined as I'd ever seen him, and I saw Yao Qi, who was standing by the gate, arms folded, reward him with a meaningful nod.

    The ceremony finally got underway and, as Lao Lan loudly made the opening remarks, Father walked over to the drainage ditch in front of the inspection station. He then lit a torch, held it high and waved it for the benefit of the spectators. Reporters rushed up and aimed their cameras at the torch in his hand. He spoke, though no one asked him to: ‘I guarantee that we will not inject our meat with water.’

    With that he flung the torch onto the pile of rotting, reeking kerosene-soaked meat.

    Seemingly before the torch actually touched it, flames roared into the sky and shrill screeches—a mixture of excitement and agony—emerged from the conflagration, carrying with them a sweet yet disagreeable smell. The flames leapt high into the sky, and twisting columns of black smoke accompanied the sound and the smell. The flames, a deep red, looked especially dense, and my thoughts were taken back a year or so, to the fires Mother and I set to burn discarded rubber tyres and plastic waste. There was a definite resemblance with the fire in front of me now, but also a fundamental difference. The fires back then had been industrial burns—plastic, chemical, toxic—while this fire was agrarian—animal, life, nutrients. Though spoilt, it was still meat, and incinerating meat like this made me hungry. I knew that Lao Lan had told my parents to buy it at the local market and then store it inside to let it rot. It had not been purchased for consumption but to be burnt, to play the role of an inferno. Which is to say, it was edible when my parents sent someone to buy it. Which is also to say, if they hadn't sent someone to buy it, someone else would have consumed it. Had fortune smiled upon the meat or hadn't it? The most cherished fate for meat is to be eaten by someone who both understands and loves it. The least cherished fate is to be incinerated. And so, as I watched it curl up in agony, struggle, moan and shriek in the flames, solemn and tragic feelings rose up in me, creating the illusion that I was