The Republic of Wine

of kung-fu novels, your disciple - that’s me - will definitely read a few; maybe I’ll benefit from them. As for Ms Ladybug, I think I came across her name in a public toilet somewhere. Apparently, she likes to write scenes with a ‘bloody flesh pillar growing out of the ground,’ with strong sexual overtones. I haven’t read anything by her. When I find time, I’ll get one or two of her stories for bathroom reading. Ivan Michurin ran a brothel in God’s botanical garden. Would Big Sister Hua, who wears the writer’s laurel on her head, dare to open a brothel in the fiction garden of socialism?
    2. You’re concerned that my famous Donkey Avenue dish Dragon and Phoenix Lucky Together would attract flies. Please forgive my arrogance, but I think Mo Yan doth protest too much. What’s filthy about a dish that even famed critics and renowned musicians from Beijing shovel down their throats as fast as they can? What we are pursuing is beauty, nothing but beauty. It’s not true beauty if we didn’t create it. Creating beauty with beauty is not true beauty either; real beauty is achieved by transforming the ugly into the beautiful This has two levels of significance. Let me explain. First, there’s no beauty in sticking a donkey dick inside a donkey pussy and putting them on a plate, because they are dark as pitch, incredibly filthy, and they stink like hell No one would eat them, that’s for sure. But the head chef in Yichi Tavern soaks them in fresh water three times, bathes them in bloody water three times, and boils them three times in soda water. Then he strips the penis of its sinewy parts and plucks the pubic hair before frying them both in oil, simmering them in an earthen pot, and steaming them in a pressure cooker, after which he carves different patterns with his refined skills, adds rare seasoning, decorates the dish with bright-colored cabbage hearts, and, voila , the male donkey organ is transformed into a black dragon and the female organ into a black phoenix. A dragon and a phoenix kissing and copulating, coiling around an array of reds and purples, filling the air with fragrance and looking so alive, a treat for the mind and the eye. Isn’t that transforming the ugly into the beautiful? Second, donkey dick and donkey pussy are vulgar terms that assail one’s sense of propriety and cause the imagination of the weak-willed to run wild. Now we change the former’s name into dragon and the latter into phoenix, for the dragon and the phoenix are solemn totems of the Chinese race, lofty, sacred, and beautiful symbols that signify meanings too numerous to mention. Can’t you see that this too is transforming the ugly into the beautiful? Sir, suddenly I sense how similar the process of producing Donkey Avenue’s most famous culinary dish is to the creative process in literature and the arts. Both originate from life yet transcend life. Both transform nature to benefit the human world. Both elevate the vulgar to the level of nobility, convert sensual desire into art, convert grain into alcohol, and turn grief into power.
    Sir, I will never replace this dish, regardless of the scare tactics you choose to persuade me.
    I believe that ‘Ecstasy’ and ‘Red Locusts’ are two of your best works. Those people who criticize you do so because they have eaten so many placentas and so many babies that the inner heat has risen and fried their brains. Why worry about what they say? The head of Liquorland’s Writers Association is one of those who can’t go without his placenta for even a day. He drinks a soupy mix of placenta and duck eggs, a whole bowlful, which is why his essays are heavy with ‘human taste.’
    3. Sir, Yu Yichi is so mysterious, I’m afraid of him. He wants me to write his biography and promises me a big payday, so I’m conflicted. But since you encouraged me to write, I’ll embolden myself by gulping down the soup of courage. But now I want even more for the two of us to collaborate. You’re famous enough that if you helped on the writing, Yu Yichi would be so overjoyed his ass would swing like a pendulum. You don’t know how adorable he is when his ass swings, but just imagine a little Peke frolicking in the snow. He has deep pockets and is never stingy with his money, so you’ll be amply rewarded for your troubles. Besides, you must come visit our Liquorland, take a tour to broaden your views. I think that would benefit your writing, just as a baby banquet is beneficial to