Pow!

kill us!’

    ‘If you don't,’ Jiaojiao added, ‘you're a cowardly son of a bitch!’

    The blood rushed to his face. ‘What kind of a joke is this?’

    ‘It's no joke. We're here to ask you to kill us.’

    ‘Children,’ he said with an unhappy smile, ‘You are the victims of a huge misunderstanding. You're too young to truly understand what happens with adults. I'll bet some evil person has put you up to this. You'll understand some day, so I won't try to explain things to you now. If you hate me so much, you can kill me any time you please. I'll be waiting.’

    ‘Kill you? Why would we want to do that? And we don't hate you. We just have no desire to go on living and would like to die at your hands. Please, do it for us.’

    ‘I'm a son of a bitch, a real son of a bitch. How's that?’

    ‘Not good enough,’ Jiaojiao insisted. ‘You have to kill us.’

    ‘Xiaotong, Jiaojiao, be good children and give up this charade. I feel terrible about what happened to your parents, just terrible. I have no peace of mind. And I've been thinking about your future. Listen to me. If it's a job you want, I'll take care of it, and if you'd rather go to school, I'll take care of that too. What do you say?’

    ‘Dying is the only thing we want. You have to do it today.’

    ‘Where'd you get these two?’ one of the clients, a fat man, laughed. ‘I'm impressed.’

    ‘They're a couple of whiz kids,’ answered Lao Lan with a smile. Then he turned back to us. ‘Xiaotong, Jiaojiao, go get something to eat—have Huang Biao give you the best meat we've got. I'm busy right now but I'll make sure we find a way to deal with this problem.’

    ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don't care how busy you are, this'll only take a minute. Two quick stabs is all you'll need. Once we're dead, you can go on with what you're doing. We won't take much of your time. If you don't finish us off now, we'll keep pestering you for as long as it takes.’

    ‘You really are a pain, you foolish children!’ Lao Lan said gruffly, clearly upset. ‘Huang Biao, take them out of here!’

    Huang Biao came up and grabbed me by the neck with one hand and Jiaojiao with the other. We did not put up a fight as he dragged us out of the room. But the second he let go, back we'd run, weapons in hand, begging for Lao Lan to kill us.

    Our prestige soared, like fireworks lighting up the sky, and we took advantage of that by seeking out Lao Lan every day. And when we found him we begged him to kill us. When he stationed guards at the gate, we sat outside, waiting for a glimpse of his car. Then we'd run over to it, kneel before it, raise our weapons over our heads and beg him to kill us. Eventually, he stopped leaving the compound, so we stood outside the gate and shouted: ‘Lao Lan, oh, Lao Lan, come out and kill us—Lao Lan, oh, Lao Lan, do us a favour and kill us—’

    When we were alone we sat there quietly, but when there were people about we stood up and began to shout. Passers-by came up to ask what we were doing. ‘Lao Lan, oh, Lao Lan,’ we'd respond, shouting even louder, ‘come kill us—we beg you—’

    We knew it wouldn't take long for news to reach half way round the county, and it didn't. Actually, it was more like half way round the province, or even the country, because Huachang's customers came from far and wide.

    One day Lao Lan disguised himself as an old man and tried to leave the plant in an old Jeep. Jiaojiao and I detected his peculiar odour long before he reached the gate. We blocked the Jeep, then dragged him out and crammed our dagger and scissors into his hand. ‘An unlanced boil,’ he said, scowling at us, ‘will cause trouble sooner or later.’

    He placed his right foot on the Jeep's running board, rolled up his trouser leg, took aim with the dagger and embedded it in his calf. Then he placed his left foot on the running board, rolled up his trouser leg, took aim with the rusty scissors and embedded them in his other calf. Then he stepped down, held up both trouser legs above the wounds and their embedded weapons and circled the gate area twice, leaving a trail of blood on the ground. Then he stepped onto the running board with his right foot, plucked out the dagger—releasing a spurt of dark-red blood—and threw it at my feet. Next he stepped up with his left foot, plucked out the scissors—releasing a spurt of blue blood—and threw it at Jiaojiao's feet. ‘Let's see what you're made of, you little punk,’ he