The Republic of Wine

is very much alive, right here in Liquorland. The protagonist of the piece is also called Yu Yichi! So I suspect that he is the author.
    Mr Yu, you are confusing me something awful. First you work in a tavern, then you’re a scaly young warrior who comes and goes like a shadow, and then you’re a clown in a performing troupe. Now you’re the prestigious owner of a tavern - your life is a mixture of truth and untruth, filled with countless transformations. How is anyone to write your life story?
    He laughed uproariously. Who’d have guessed that such loud, crisp laughter could emerge from the chicken-breast chest of such a tiny dwarf. He tapped on the telephone buttons, making the little computer inside whirl dizzily. Then he tossed a teacup made of fine china from the town of Jingde toward the ceiling, sending it and the tea inside, aided by the pull of gravity, crashing and splashing onto the gorgeous, and expensive, wool carpet. Reaching into a drawer, he withdrew a stack of color photographs and flapped them in the air, making them flutter like a swarm of gaudy butterflies. Do you know these women, he asked smugly. I picked up the photos and studied them greedily, a hypocritical look of shyness on my face. Every one of the women was a beauty, totally naked, and they all looked familiar. He said their names were on the back. There I found the women’s work units, their ages, their names, and the dates they had sex with him. They were all from Liquorland. He was very close to realizing his glorious aspiration.
    So, Doctor of Liquor Studies, this crowning success by an ugly little dwarf ought to earn him the right to have his biography written, don’t you think? Have that rascal Mo Yan get his ass over here as soon as possible. Wait too long and I might kill myself.
    I, Yu Yichi, age unclear, stand seventy-five centimeters tall. Born into poverty, I wandered from place to place. I hit my stride in my middle years, serving as Chairman of the Metropolitan Entrepreneurs Association, earning distinction as provincial model worker, assuming proprietorship of Yichi Tavern, anointed as a candidate for Party membership, and having sex with twenty-nine of Liquorland’s most beautiful women. I have a mental state beyond the imagination of mortal men, and abilities that surpass the best of them. I also have a rich supply of the sort of experiences that are the stuff of legend. My biography will rank as the world’s most phenomenal book. Tell that rascal Mo Yan to make up his mind at once. Will he write it or won’t he? Shit or get off the pot.

Chapter Six
    I
    Ding Gou’er sensed the gold-trimmed Gate of Hell open with a loud rumble. To his astonishment he discovered that Hell wasn’t the dark, shadowy place mythology had made it out to be. No, it was dazzling, drenched simultaneously in rays from the red sun and the blue moon. Schools of beautifully striped, armored sea creatures, with soft, lithe limbs circled his body as it floated aimlessly. He sensed that a pointy-mouthed, multi-hued fish was nibbling at his anus, gently removing his hemorrhoids with the surgical skill of a trained proctologist. The butterfly of his consciousness returned to the body from which it had separated itself for so long, bringing a coolness to his brain. The special investigator, intoxicated for so long, opened his eyes: Sitting beside him was the lady trucker, naked as the day she was born, rubbing down her body with a sour-smelling liquid on a sponge she used to wash her truck. He, too, was stark naked, as he quickly discovered, lying on a sparkling teakwood floor. Images of the recent past seeped into his mind. He tried to get up, but couldn’t. The lady trucker was carefully rubbing down her breasts, absorbed in her task, as if alone, like a mother about to suckle a baby. As if in slow motion, glistening tears welled up in her eyes, formed two threads, slithered down her cheeks, and fell directly onto her purplish nipples. A divine emotion rose in the investigator’s heart. He was about to say something, when the lady trucker threw herself on him and sealed his lips with hers. Then, for the second time, he sensed that fish were schooling in the air around him -he could smell them. He sensed the essence of alcohol that had flourished in his body saturate hers. He awoke. With an eerie scream, she collapsed in a heap on the floor.
    The investigator stood up on rubbery legs; still light-headed, he supported himself with his hand on