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and crying your eyes out.’ Those were particularly cold days, so cold that the dogs tucked their tails between their legs when they walked. Shen Gang bit down on the frozen sausage and said indifferently: ‘Lao Lan, you prick of a village head, you should be happy to see one of your villagers get rich. Don't worry, you'll get your tribute.’ ‘Shen Gang,’ replied Lao Lan, ‘don't take a good man's heart for a donkey's guts, and don't be in too big a hurry to congratulate yourself. The day will come when you'll beg me to help. The man who runs the township's cold storage is my sworn brother.’ ‘Thanks,’ said Shen Gang, still cocky, ‘many thanks. But I'll let my sausage turn to dog shit before I come begging at your door.’ Lao Lan's eyes narrowed into a smile. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘you've got spine, and if there's one thing we Lans admire, it's that. Back during our wealthier days, we always placed a pair of vats outside our gate over lunar New Year's. One was filled with white flour, the other with millet, and any family too poor to celebrate the holiday was encouraged to take what they needed. There was only one man, a beggar, Luo Tong's grandfather, who stood in the gateway and cursed my grandfather: “Lan Rong, can you hear me, Lan Rong? I'll die of hunger before I take a kernel of your rice!” My grandfather summoned all my uncles and said: “Hear that? The man out there shouting insults at us has balls! You can offend other people but not him. If you meet up with him, bow your heads and bend low!”’ ‘That's enough,’ Shen Gang interrupted. ‘You can stop boasting about your glorious past.’ ‘Sorry about that,’ Lao Lan said. ‘Worthless descendants simply can't forget their predecessors’ glories. Good luck with your get-rich scheme.’

    Unfortunately for Shen, what happened next proved the wisdom of Lao Lan's words. During the holidays, a freak warm southeast wind rose up and turned the willow trees green. The cold-storage building in town was full, and there was no room for Shen Gang's meat. Moving his sausage crates out onto the street, he bellowed through a battery-powered bullhorn: ‘Village elders, fellow citizens, help me, please. Take a crate of sausage home to your tables. Pay me only if can. If you can't, consider it a respectful gift.’ But no one came to claim any of the gloomy, rapidly spoiling sausages. Except for the dogs, for whom spoilt meat was still meat. They tore open the crates and ran off with lengths of sausage, turning the village into a big banquet table and adding a new unpleasant odour to air already heavy with the fetid smell of slaughter. It was a year to remember for the wild dogs. The day the meat began to spoil, Mother paid him her first visit. But the loan remained unpaid until…

    Father's second departure was perhaps more important to Mother than Shen Gang's delinquent loan, because all she did was greet him with a wordless glower. A grease-covered tin on the rear rack of Shen's bicycle gave off a mouth-watering smell. I knew what it was—red steamed pig's head and cooked entrails. My mind was flooded with the captivating image of braised pig's feet and twisted lengths of braised pig's guts, and I swallowed hungrily. The momentous family occurrence of that morning had not eradicated—in fact, it had increased—my yearning for meat. The sky is high, the earth is vast, but neither is the equal of Lao Lan's mouth; Father is close, Mother is dear, but neither matches the appeal of meat! Meat, ah, meat, the loveliest thing on earth, that which makes my soul take flight. Today was supposed to be a day when I could satisfy my yearning for meat but Father's second departure shattered that fanciful dream, or at least put it off for a while. I hoped it was only a slight delay.

    The pig's head hung from Mother's hand; I could eat some of it if Father came home with us. But if he remained unshakeable in his refusal to return, whether Mother, in a fit of anger, would cook it and let me at it or sell it and make me go hungry was anyone's guess. Wise Monk, I was a truly unworthy child. Only moments before I'd been in agony over my Father's second departure, but then the smell of meat drove out every other thought from my mind. I knew I'd never amount to much. If I'd been born during a time of revolution and was unfortunate enough to be an officer in the enemy camp, all the revolutionary forces would have had to do was offer me a plateful of meat