Pow!

emotional blow, she refused to let go of the pig's head. Instead of dropping it, the way a film actress might do, she held it tightly, like a beaten soldier who refuses to let go of his weapon. Holding on to me with one hand and clutching the unheard-of purchase of a pig's head, meant to patch up things with my dieh, with the other, she ran as fast as she could, though it was difficult. Water glistened on her gaunt cheeks. Sweat or tears? I couldn't tell. She was breathing hard, yet she continued to gasp out a stream of curses. Should she have been sent down to the Hell of Severed Tongues for that, Wise Monk?

    A motorbike passed us, a line of white geese hanging from the rear crossbar, necks twisting as they writhed like snakes. Dirty water dripped from their beaks, like a bull urinating as it walks; the hard, dry road was lined with water stains. The geese honked pitifully and their little black eyes were forlorn. I knew their stomachs had been filled with dirty water, for anything that emerged from Slaughterhouse Village, dead or alive, did so full of water: cows, goats, pigs, sometimes even hen's eggs. A Slaughterhouse Village riddle runs: In the village of butchers, what is the only thing you can't inject with water? After two years, no one but I knew the answer. How about you, Wise Monk, do you know the answer? It's water! In a village of butchers, the only thing you can't inject with water is water itself!

    The man on the motorbike turned to look at us. What's so damned interesting about us? I may have hated Mother, but not as much as I hated people who stared. She'd told me that people who laugh at widows and orphans suffer the wrath of Heaven. Which is what happened: he was so busy staring at us that he ran into a poplar tree. As he flew backward, his heels struck the goose-covered rear crossbar and all those soft, pliable necks got tangled up in his legs and he tumbled into a ditch. He was wearing a leather overcoat that shone like a suit of armour and a fashionable knit cap. Large-framed sunglasses perched on his nose. In a word, he was dressed like a film tough. There'd been rumours of bandits on the road for a while, so even Mother had begun to dress that way in an effort to keep up her courage; she even learnt how to smoke, though she refused to spend money on decent cigarettes. Wise Monk, if you could have seen Mother in her black leather overcoat and cap and sunglasses, a cigarette dangling from her lips, sitting proudly on our tractor, you wouldn't have believed she was a woman. I didn't get a good look at the man's face when he passed us, nor when he turned back to look. But when he somersaulted into the ice-covered ditch, his cap and sunglasses flying through the air, I had a perfect view—he was the township government's head cook and purchasing agent, a frequent visitor to our village. For years, he'd bought everything that contained animal fat or protein and then served it up on the tables of the Party and government officials. A man with political credentials impeccable enough to guarantee the safety, the very lives, of our township leaders, he'd been one of Father's drinking buddies. His name was Han, Han shifu. Father told me to call him Uncle Han.

    Back when Father used to go to town to share a meaty meal with Uncle Han, he'd usually let me tag along. Once, when he left me home, I ran the ten li into town and found them at a restaurant called Wenxiang Lai, where they appeared to be having a serious discussion. A steaming pot of dog meat on the table saturated the area round them with its fragrance. I burst out crying the minute I saw them—no, better to say I burst out crying the minute I smelt the dog meat. I was terribly upset with Father. Unconditionally loyal, firmly in his camp in all his disputes with Mother, I even went so far as to keep secret his relationship with Aunty Wild Mule. And he went off for a meal of good meat leaving me at home! No wonder I burst out crying. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked coldly when he saw me. ‘Why didn't you bring me along if you knew there was going to be meat? Am I your son or aren't I?’ Embarrassed, he turned to Uncle Han: ‘Lao Han, have you ever seen anyone with a greedier mouth than this son of mine?’ ‘You came here to enjoy some meat and left me home with Yang Yuzhen to eat turnips and salted greens, and you call me greedy? What kind of dieh are you?’ Just talking like that upset me even more. With the fragrance of the dog