The Republic of Wine

reflected in what looked like a bronze mirror lining the bottom. The apes hung by their arms, a whole line of them, like you read about in stories. It was a beautiful sight, all those cute, cuddly apes, with their weird expressions. If only he had a camera, he was thinking, this picture would rock the world of photojournalism and earn him a big-time international award worth 100,000 US, which would convert into 600,000 of People’s Currency, enough for him to eat and drink in style for the rest of his life and still have plenty left over for his son to go to college and get married. The boy’s teeth had grown in already, two big incisors with a gap between them, which gave him the appearance of a dippy little girl All of a sudden, the apes began dropping into the well, splintering the moon’s watery reflection and sending splashes of gold flying, making rustling noises as they stuck to the sides of the well like dollops of syrup. Moss grew on the stone walls alongside a type of fungus known as supernatural grass, which is golden red. A red-crested heron swept down and carried off one of the supernatural grass stalks, then stuck out its legs, stretched its wings, and flew into the bright moon. No doubt taking it as a gift to Chang’e, the goddess of the moon, a celestial body covered by soft golden sand in which two tracks of human footprints, left there by American astronauts, will last for half a million years. Two astronauts, a pair of spectral wanderers. The sun’s reflection on the moon is too bright for human eyes to endure. He stood beneath the moon, his hair transformed into golden threads, clean-shaven but dressed in rags, his face battered and bruised; he carried an oaken bucket in one hand and a wooden ladle in the other. Scooping liquor from the bucket, he poured it slowly onto the ground, where it formed semi-transparent honey-colored ribbons of liquid that quickly turned gummy, like newly made rubber. It looked so tasty he could hardly wait to sample it. Are you that professor from Liquorland’s Brewer’s College, the one who’s supposed to be not quite right in the head? he wanted to ask. He said, I am China’s King Lear, standing beneath the captivating moon. King Lear stood in a violent rainstorm cursing Heaven and earth, while I stand in the moonlight singing the praises of mankind. Ancient fairy tales sooner or later become reality, liquor is mankind’s greatest discovery. Without it there would be no Bible, there would be no Egyptian pyramids, there would be no Great Wall of China, no music, no fortresses, no scaling ladders to storm others’ fortresses, no nuclear fission, no salmon in the Wusuli River, and no fish or bird migrations. A fetus in its mother’s womb can detect the smell of liquor; the scaly skin of an alligator makes first-rate liquor pouches. Martial-arts novels have advanced the brewer’s art. What was the source of Qu Yuan’s lament? There was no liquor for him to drink. Drug peddling and drug use are rampant in Yunnan. Why? Because the liquor there is inferior. Cao Cao forbade the production of liquor as a grain-conservation measure; a perfect example of a wise man doing something stupid. How can anyone prohibit liquor? Prohibiting the production and consumption of liquor is on a par with prohibiting sexual intercourse while urging an increase in population - it can’t be done. Avoiding the stuff is harder than breaking free of the pull of gravity; the day an apple falls up is the day liquor can be prohibited. The lunar craters look just like liquor cups of unsurpassed excellence, the Roman Coliseum could be converted into a giant fermentation cellar. Sour-Plum Wine, Bamboo-Leaf Green, Imperial-Scholar Red, Out-of-Bottle Redolence, Sunny Spring, Intoxicated Emperor, Almond Village, Lotus-Blossom White… these are all pretty good liquors. But compared to my Ape Liquor, it’s night and day. Someone once said you can enhance liquor with human piss. That’s an imaginative manifestation. In Japan, treating ailments with urine has gained considerable popularity; they say you can ward off a host of diseases by drinking a cup of your own urine every morning. The legendary physician Li Shizhen had a good point when he said that a child’s urine can lower internal fires. True connoisseurs of liquor do not need to snack when they drink, so Diamond Jin and his ilk show what inferior drinkers they are by cooking infants to go with their liquor…

Chapter Nine
    I
    Dear Mo