Pow!

and I'd have surrendered my troops unconditionally. But then, if the tables were turned, and the enemy had offered me two bowls, I'd have brought my forces back and surrendered to them. Those were the kinds of despicable thoughts that filled my head. Later on, great changes occurred in my family, and once I could satisfy my desire whenever I felt like it, I finally realized that there were many things in this world more precious than meat.

    Another bicycle went past.

    ‘Hey, Yang Yuzhen, where are you off to? Going to sell that pig's head?’

    I knew this one too. He was someone else who cooked braised pork; he too carried a tin on his bicycle and it too gave off a meaty aroma. He was Lao Lan's brother-in-law. He'd been called Su Zhou as a child; I forget his formal name. Perhaps that was because his nickname was so special—the name of that city down south. Su Zhou, Suzhou, what were his parents thinking when they gave him a name like that? He was one of the few men in our village who was not a butcher. Some people said he was a Buddhist, that he was opposed to killing, but he braised and sold the entrails of slaughtered animals. Grease on his lips and cheeks all day long, he reeked of meat from head to toe—you'd be hard pressed to consider him a Buddhist. I also knew that he added food colouring and formaldehyde to the meat, so his products were just like Shen Gang's—bright colour, strange smell. Doctored meat was supposed to be bad for your health, but I'd rather eat unhealthy meat than healthy turnips or cabbages. I still thought of him as a good man. As Lao Lan's brother-in-law, as his virtual lackey, he should have got on well with the older man. Surprisingly, he did not. Most people tried to get on the good side of our local despot but usually came away disappointed; this made Su Zhou an odd man in their eyes. Su Zhou said, ‘There are consequences to everything, good and evil.’ He said it to adults, he said it to children and when he was alone he probably said it to himself.

    Su Zhou looked back as he rode past. ‘Yang Yuzhen,’ he shouted, ‘if you're selling that pig's head, you don't need to go to town. Take it over to my place and I'll give you the same price. “There are consequences to everything, good and evil.”’

    Mother ignored him and ran on, dragging me behind her. Su Zhou was pedalling hard, trying to move against a headwind that had suddenly begun to blow. It bent the bare branches of the roadside poplars and set up a loud rustle, and the sky turned dark; the sun, at a height double that of the trees, trickled down thin red rays. Every once in a while we saw dried-up cow patties on the whitened, windswept road. The farming life of our village was dead and buried; the fields lay fallow and no one raised cows any longer. So those droppings had been left by the furtive cattle merchants from West County. The sight of those patties took me back to the glorious days when I'd accompanied Father as he priced cattle and reminded me of the enchanting fragrance of cooked meat. I swallowed a mouthful of saliva and looked up at Mother's face. Rivulets of sweat—possibly mixed with tears—dampened the collar of her sweater. Yang Yuzhen, I hate you and I pity you! My thoughts then turned inescapably to the pink oval face of Aunty Wild Mule. Dark eyebrows that met in the middle, above a pair of eyes with a little white showing, atop a long and lovely pointed nose that rose above a wide mouth. The look on her face always reminded me of an animal although I didn't know which one. Later, a man came to our village selling a fine breed of foxes. When I looked into their rabbit-hutch cages and saw the secretive looks on their faces, then I knew.

    Every time I went with Father to Aunty Wild Mule's house, she greeted me with a smile and handed me a steaming piece of beef or pork. ‘Eat,’ she'd say, ‘eat as much as you want. There's more where that came from.’ Her smile seemed to me tinged with something slightly devious, slightly evil, as if she were trying to lure me into doing something wrong simply because it would amuse her. I liked her anyway. She never actually got me to do anything wrong. Even if she had, I'd have gone along with it. Then I saw her and Father in each other's arms— and I tell you the truth, Wise Monk —I was moved to tears by the sight. I didn't know then about what went on between men and women, and I couldn't understand why Father pressed his lips against hers,