Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh

give He Liping the red leaves, so when they were back on the waterwheel, he giggled, “Want me to be your matchmaker?”
    Junior blushed to the roots of his ears. “Hell no!”
    “Little He isn't bad,” Guo Three went on. “Nice perky tits and a good broad beam.”
    “Don't talk like that,” Junior protested. “She's an educated city girl.. . ten years older than me … so tall. .. .”
    “So what?” Guo Three replied. “Educated girls like doing it as much as anybody. And ten years older, for a girl, is nothing. Besides, ‘Tall girl, short boy — tits in the face, what a joy.’ Now that's living!”
    This little monologue by Guo Three had poor Junior's rear end squirming and his body temperature soaring.
    “The little sparrow's standing up,” Guo Three remarked. “And not so little, at that.”
    From that day onward, Guo Three hardly stopped coaching Junior in certain matters, until finally, unable to suppress his curiosity any longer, Junior broached the subject of the “big teapot.” Guo Three happily obliged with a graphic description of what went on in a whorehouse.
    Junior turned the waterwheel, but his thoughts were miles away: He Liping's image fluttered before his eyes. Guo Three took this as an invitation for even more salacious talk.
    With a crack in his voice, Junior pleaded, “Master Three, please don't talk about things like that.”
    “You dumb prick, what are you getting all weepy about? Go to her. She's itching for it, too!”
    So one day Junior went into the production team's vegetable garden and stole a carrot, which he washed off and hid in tall grass until He Liping carne along. The oldster Guo Three hadn't arrived when she showed up, so Junior handed her the carrot.
    She studied his face as she accepted the gift.
    Junior could only imagine what he looked like at that moment, with his matted, grass-stained hair and tattered clothes.
    “Why are you giving me this carrot?” He Liping asked him.
    “Because I like you,” he said.
    She sighed and rubbed the carrot's orange, glossy skin. “But you're still a child… .” She rubbed his head and walked off with her carrot.
    Junior and He Liping went to the distant field to re-sow the millet field. Since draft animals needed room to turn around, some spots were left vacant. They arrived at a field where sorghum had just been harvested. Buds were beginning to appear on the newly planted millet, and dry sorghum stalks were stacked at the head of the patch of ground. It was late autumn by then, and getting cold. After spreading their millet seeds for a while, He Liping and Junior rested in front of a sorghum stack to soak up the warm, inviting rays of sunlight. They had an unobstructed view of the newly harvested and deserted field, over which birds circled noisily.
    He Liping laid some bundles of sorghum stalks on the ground and stretched out lazily against them. Junior stood off to the side, gazing down at her. Her face shone in sunlight that was bright enough to make her squint; pretty white teeth showed between her moist, slightly parted lips.
    Junior shivered; his lips felt dry, and there was a lump in his throat. “Guo Three and Li Gaofa's wife do you-know-what,” he managed to say. “Goes there every day …”
    Still squinting, He Liping smiled radiantly.
    “… Guo Three says bad things . .. says you …”
    Still squinting, He Liping spread her arms and legs wide.
    Junior took a step closer. “Guo Three says you're always thinking about doing you-know-what… .”
    He Liping looked up and smiled.
    Junior knelt alongside her. “Guo Three wishes I had the nerve to touch you. …”
    He Liping was smiling.
    Junior began to sob. Through his tears, he said, “Big Sister, I want to touch you … want to touch you, Big Sister… .”
    Junior's hand was no sooner resting upon He Liping's breast than she wrapped her arms and legs tightly around him… .
    The following year, He Liping gave birth to twins, an event that rocked all of Gaomi Township.

Shen Garden
    A THUNDERBOLT CRACKLED ABOVE A LOCUST TREE OUTSIDE THE bakery, sending brilliant sparks flying off a streetcar cable strung beneath the tree. The summer's first clap of thunder caught people out on the street by surprise; they quickly ran for cover under shop overhangs on both sides of the street. Those on bicycles bent low over their handlebars, hugging the sidewalks and pedaling for all they were worth. A cool wind blew amid sheets of rain slanting down. The chaos