The Republic of Wine

her!’ Without a thought for the gaily dressed boys and girls dancing nimbly across a dance floor laid with Laiyang Red marble, and unavoidably shattering the beautiful rhythms of the dance music, like a whipped, mangy dog smelling of rancid piss, he crashed through the main hall of Yichi Tavern, a place noted for scenes of debauchery.
    Only after hotfooting it into a darkened little lane did it dawn on him that the twin dwarfs in the doorway were so surprised and frightened by his passage that they screeched bloody murder. Leaning against the wall to catch his breath, he looked back at the bright lights of Yichi Tavern. A neon sign over the door kept changing color, turning the slanting raindrops red, then green, then yellow; meanwhile, he was aware that he was standing in the cold rain of an autumn night, leaning up against a frigid stone wall. Only the walls of a cemetery could be that cold, he was thinking. After all the misfortunes that had tied him inextricably to Liquorland, if tonight could not count as an escape from the jaws of death, at the very least he’d made it out of the tiger’s lair. Strains of lovely music from Yichi Tavern drifted over on the wind and faded out in the night air. As he strained to listen to the music, pangs of sorrow touched his heart and chilled tears of self-pity spilled from his eyes. For a brief moment he fancied himself to be a little prince in distress; but there was no princess to rescue him. The air was cold and damp; his aching hands and feet told him that the thermometer had dropped below zero. Liquorland’s weather had abruptly turned cruel and unfeeling; the raindrops froze on their way down, splintering when they hit the ground, then skittering around to form slicks all over the street. A solitary automobile slid and skidded its way along a distant roadway illuminated by streetlights. The memory of a herd of black donkeys running up Donkey Avenue returned like an ancient dream. Had it really happened? Does such a bizarre lady trucker truly exist? Has an investigator by the name of Ding Gou’er really been sent to Liquorland to investigate a case of child-eating? Is there even such a person as Ding Gou’er? If so, is that really me? He rubbed the wall with his hand; it was icy cold. He stomped the ground with his foot; it was hard as á rock. He coughed; pains shot through his chest. The sound of his cough carried far into the distance before being swallowed up by the darkness. This proved that it was all real, and the oppressive feelings lingered on.
    The icy raindrops falling on his cheek were refreshing, like an itch being scratched by a kitten’s claws. He sensed that his face must be burning up, which reminded him of his shameless face-slapping exhibition. Feelings of numbness returned, then a stinging sensation. The numbness and the stinging sensation were followed by thoughts of the lady trucker’s hideous face, which swayed back and forth in front of his eyes and wouldn’t go away. Her hideous face was replaced by a lovely one, which also swayed back and forth in front of his eyes and wouldn’t go away. Then came the image of the lady trucker and Yu Yichi, side by side, and after that feelings of anger and jealousy, side by side, merging like a strange, inferior liquor that began to poison his soul. As his mind cleared, he realized that the unthinkable had occurred: He’d fallen in love with the woman, and now their lives were bound together like a pair of locusts on a string.
    The investigator pounded the stone wall of the cemetery or the martyrs’ shrine, or whatever it was, with his fist. ‘Slut!’ he cursed. ‘Slut! Rotten slut! A rotten slut who’ll drop her pants for a dollar!’ The searing pain in his knuckles lessened the ache in his heart, so he doubled up his other fist and drove it into the stone wall. Then it was his head’s turn.
    A powerful beam of light trapped him. A pair of patrolmen asked sternly:
    ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
    He turned around slowly and shielded his eyes with his hand. Suddenly his tongue froze and he lost the power to speak.
    ‘Search him.’
    ‘What for? He’s nuts.’
    ‘Knock that off, you hear me?’
    ‘Go on home. Any more of that and we’ll take you in.’
    The patrolmen walked off, leaving the investigator surrounded by inky blackness. He was cold and hungry. He had a splitting headache. The darkness brought him back to his senses, the patrolmen’s brief interrogation reminded him