The Republic of Wine

and let those idiots blather away.
    The story I sent you last time, ‘Meat Boy,’ is not a piece of reportage, but it reads like one. It is absolutely true that some of Liquorland’s totally corrupt and inhuman Party cadres feast on little boys. I hear that someone has been sent down to investigate, and if someday all this comes to light, it will rock the world. In the future, who but your disciple could write a piece of reportage about this major story? With the explosive material I have at hand, tell me, who has a claim to arrogance, if not me?
    I have heard nothing from Citizens’ Literature . I’d be grateful if you’d lean on them for me.
    Our Liu Yan is a deckle-faced, glowering’ woman, and could be the ‘pale-faced glowering’ woman you recall. Her freckles might be the byproduct of several illicit pregnancies. She told me once that she is the most fertile of soils, and gets pregnant by any man who comes in contact with her. She also said that the unborn fetuses she leaves behind are invariably snatched away to be consumed by hospital personnel. I’ve heard that the nutritional value of a six- or seven-month-old fetus is very high, and that makes sense. The fetus of a deer is widely known to be a high-potency tonic, isn’t it? An embryonic egg has high nourishment value, hasn’t it?
    I’m including my most recent work, ‘Child Prodigy,’ with this letter. It is written in the style of ‘demonic realism.’ After you’ve given it a critical reading, please forward it to Citizens’ Literature . I’ll not rest until I’ve broken through this ‘Gate of Hell’!
    Wishing you
    Happy writing,
    Your disciple
    Li Yidou
    III
    Child Prodigy, by Li Yidou
    Gentle reader, not long ago I wrote a story for you about a meat child. In it I took pains to paint a picture of a little boy wrapped in red cloth. Perhaps you can recall his extraordinary eyes: mere slits through which a cold but mature glare emanated. They were the typical eyes of a conspirator. Yet they grew not in the face of a conspirator, but were inlaid in the face of a boy not quite three feet tall, which is why they are so unforgettable, and why they had such a shocking effect on a decent farmer in the Liquorland suburbs, Jin Yuanbao. Within the confines of that medium-length story it was impossible to delve deeply into the child’s background, so he appears as a full-blown stock image: the body of a not-quite three-foot-tall boy with a shock of bristly hair, the eyes of a conspirator, a pair of large, fleshy ears, and a gravelly voice. He is a little boy, nothing more, nothing less.
    This story unfolds in the Special Purchasing Section of a Culinary Academy, beginning at dusk. Gentle reader, ‘our story, in fact, is already well underway.’
    The moon was out that night, because we needed it to be. A big red moon rose slowly from behind the artificial hill at the Culinary Academy, its rosy beams slanting in through the double-paned windows like a pink waterfall and turning their faces soft and gentle. They were all little boys, and if you have read my ‘Meat Boy,’ you know who I’m talking about. The little demon was one of them, and would soon be in the position of their leader, or their despot. We shall see.
    The boys had cried themselves out before the sun went down behind the mountain. Their faces were tear-streaked, their voices hoarse, all but the little demon, of course. You’d never catch him crying! Back while the other boys were crying their eyes out, he paced the floor like an overgrown goose, hands clasped behind his back as he circled the large room with its lovely scenery. Every once in a while he landed a well-placed kick on the backside of a bawling child. That invariably produced a high-pitched squeal, followed by muted sobs. His foot was transformed into a cure for the weeps. Eventually, he kicked all thirty-one children. And in the midst of sobs from the smallest boy among them, they saw the lovely moon leaping about on the artificial hill like a proud red steed.
    Crowding up to the window, they grasped the sill and gazed outside. Those stuck behind the front row held on to the shoulders ahead of them. A fat little boy with a snotty nose raised a chubby finger and pointed skyward.
    ‘Mama Moon,’ he whimpered, ‘Mama Moon …’ One of the other boys smacked his lips and said: ‘It’s Auntie Moon, not Mama Moon. Auntie Moon.’ A sneer worked its way down the face of the little demon, who screeched like an