Pow!

few stood stock still. One especially brave man crawled up to Lao Lan. ‘Are you hurt, General Manager?’ he asked. ‘Get me some clothes,’ Lao Lan said. Hiding behind a dead camel with his bare arse sticking up in the air put him in a very sorry state.

    The courageous worker ran into the foreman's office to fetch a set of clothes, but as he handed them to Lao Lan the twenty-fifth shell streaked towards him. With a burst of inspiration, he caught the flying missile in the heavy canvas clothing and flung it out the window. That action not only displayed how cool-headed and decisive he could be, but was also testimony to his superior strength. If he'd been a soldier during wartime, he'd have been a hero extraordinaire. The shell exploded outside the window— POW!

    Before it was time to fire the twenty-sixth shell, the old woman hobbled up to me, took a piece of turnip from her mouth and stuffed it into mine. That was revolting, I don't deny it. But thoughts of how pigeons exchange food and crows feed their aged parents turned my revulsion into a feeling of intimacy. I was also reminded of an incident with my mother. It was back when my father had gone off to the northeast and Mother and I were dealing in scrap. We were taking a break at a roadside stall—she'd spent twenty fen that day for two bowls of beef-entrail soup for us to soak our hard biscuits in. A blind couple with a chubby, fair-skinned baby were eating at the stall. The baby, obviously hungry, was crying. The woman, hearing my mother's voice, asked if she would feed the baby. So Mother took the baby from her and a hard biscuit from the man, which she chewed into pulp before feeding him mouth-to-mouth. Afterwards she said: ‘That's what's called pigeons feeding each other.’ I swallowed the turnip the old woman put in my mouth and felt suddenly sharp-eyed and clear-headed. I aimed the twenty-sixth shell at Lao Lan's bare arse, but it was still in the air when the workshop collapsed with a roar. It was an amazing sight, like those demolitions you see on TV. The shell landed amid the rubble and knocked aside a steel beam that had pinned Lao Lan underneath, creating an opening through which he crawled free and once again escaped death.

    I was beginning to get flustered, if you want to know the truth. The twenty-seventh shell had Lao Lan's bare arse in its sights once more. When it exploded, the blast sheared the roadside trees in half. But Lao Lan survived yet again. Goddamn it, what's going on?

    I began to wonder if the destructive power of the shells had deteriorated because of their age. So I left the mortar and walked over to the ammunition cases to examine the contents. The boy was conscientiously cleaning the grease off each shell, which then sparkled like fine jewels. Anything that looked that good had to be powerful. So the fault lay not in the shells but in Lao Lan's cunning. ‘How am I doing, Big Brother?’ the boy asked. I was moved by his slightly fawning attitude and struck by how much he resembled my sister, even though one was a boy, the other a girl. I patted him on the head. ‘You're doing a terrific job. You're my number three artilleryman.’

    ‘Do you think I could fire one?’ he asked me shyly, after he'd finished cleaning the shells. ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Maybe you'll be the one to blow Lao Lan to bits. I led him over to the mortar, handed him a shell and said, ‘The twenty-eighth shell. The target—Lao Lan. Distance—eight hundred. Ready—fire!’ ‘I hit him, I hit him!’ the boy shouted, clapping joyfully. Lao Lan had in fact been knocked to the ground. But he jumped to his feet, panther-quick, and took cover in the packaging workshop. Tasting blood, the boy asked if he could fire another. I agreed.

    I left him on his own for the twenty-ninth shell, which veered off course and landed in a pile of coal at the little train station's abandoned freight yard. Coal dust and gunpowder smoke blotted out great swaths of moonlight.

    Embarrassed by this mistake, he scratched his head and went back to his cleaning station.

    This gave Lao Lan time to change into blue work clothes, then stand on a pile of cardboard boxes and shout: ‘Give it up, Luo Xiaotong. Save the remaining shells for hunting rabbits.’ That really pissed me off, so I took aim at his head and fired the thirtieth shell. He sprinted into the workshop and shut the door behind him, thereby saving himself from injury once again.

    The thirty-first