Pow!

stand up, no matter how hard I wished it back down. To be honest, loose women have always disgusted me, but that had no effect on my desire to keep looking at her, which in turn led to feelings of guilt. I should have looked away. But she was like a magnet for my eyeballs; and when she saw me staring at her she flashed me a smile that reeked of sex.

    ‘Director Yang,’ she said, ‘Boss Lan is asking for you.’

    Mother glanced at Father with the strangest expression.

    Father kept his head down and continued making entries in the book.

    So Mother followed the shifting buttocks of Huang Biao's wife out the door. Damn her, she made my face itch. She ought to be shot.

    Xiao Han, whose eyes had been glued on those buttocks, said emotionally: ‘A man of substance can't find a decent mate, a warty toad winds up with a flower of a woman.’

    ‘Huang Biao is just a front man,’ said Ma Kui, who was chain-smoking free cigarettes. ‘Who knows who's the real husband!’

    ‘Who are you talking about?’ Jiaojiao asked.

    Father banged his writing brush on the table, spilling ink in the box.

    ‘What's wrong, Dieh?’ Jiaojiao said.

    ‘Shut up!’ he barked.

    ‘Luo Tong,’ Ma Kui said with a shake of his head, ‘why erupt like that?’

    ‘Fuck off,’ Xiao Han retorted. ‘Do you plan to smoke those free cigarettes till you've got your hundred-RMB's worth?’

    Ma Kui plucked two more cigarettes out of the tin, lit one with the smouldering butt of another and tucked the other behind his ear. Then he stood up and walked to the door. ‘If you want to know,’ he said on his way out, ‘Boss Lan and I are related, since his third uncle's daughter-in-law is the niece of my son-in-law's third uncle.’

    ‘Xiaotong,’ Father said, ‘go home, and take Jiaojiao with you. I don't want you getting mixed up in all this.’

    ‘No,’ Jiaojiao said. ‘It's too much fun here.’

    ‘I said take her home, Xiaotong!’ he insisted.

    The look on his face, the sternest I'd seen since his return, scared me enough to make me grab my sister's hand and take her home. But she dug in her heels and grumbled, her body swaying as she resisted my efforts. Father was about to slap her when Mother walked in. He dropped his hand.

    ‘Lao Luo,’ Mother said gravely, ‘Boss Lan wants us to let Xiaotong take the role of the dutiful son. He can join Tiangua to keep a vigil at the bier and smash the clay pot used to burn the spirit money.’

    A look of desolation spread across Father's face. He lit a cigarette and puffed on it so intensely that a smoky cloud blurred his features and increased the look of desolation. ‘Did you agree?’ he said at last.

    ‘I don't see any problem,’ Mother said, slightly embarrassed. ‘Huang Biao's wife says that when he and Jiaojiao were taking their meals there, her mistress said she'd like him as a surrogate son. Lao Lan says that having a son had been her lifelong wish and this would fulfil that wish.’ Mother looked my way. ‘Xiaotong, do you know if that's something Aunty said?’

    ‘I'm not sure…’

    ‘How about you, Jiaojiao? Did Aunty ever say she'd like your brother to be her surrogate son?’

    ‘Yes, she did,’ Jiaojiao confirmed.

    Father reached over and rapped Jiaojiao on the head. ‘You can't stop sticking your nose into things! You've been spoilt rotten.’

    Jiaojiao burst into tears, and those tears made up my mind.

    ‘Yes, she did say that, and I told her I'd be happy to. And not just Aunty but Uncle Lan said the same thing, in the presence of Bureau Chief Qin, no less.’

    ‘It's no big deal,’ Mother said indignantly, ‘certainly not worth blowing up over. It could give the deceased a bit of consolation.’

    ‘Does the deceased know that?’ Father said icily.

    ‘What do you think?’ Mother said, looking glum. ‘A person's heart lives on after death.’

    ‘Please stop spouting nonsense!’ Father railed.

    ‘What do you mean, nonsense?’

    ‘I'm not going to argue with you.’ Father lowered his voice. ‘He's your son, have him do what you want.’

    Xiao Han, who had been crouching nearby, stood up.

    ‘Don't be so stubborn, Manager Luo. Since Director Yang's already told Boss Lan it's all right, and Director Xiaotong has no objections, why not let them have their way? Besides, it's just play-acting. Xiaotong could play the role of dutiful son ten thousand times, but he'd still be your son and no one could take that away from you. In fact,