Brothers

EPILOGUE

THREE YEARS ELAPSED, during which time some people died and others were born. Old Scissors Guan departed from the world, as did Tailor Zhang, but during those same three years three infants named Guan and nine infants named Zhang arrived. Day in and day out, Liu Town was constantly replenishing itself.

No one knew the impact that Song Gangs death had had on Lin Hongs heart; they knew only that she had quit her job at the knitting factory and moved out of the building where they had lived together. She used the money from the tofu banquet to buy a new apartment, then stayed there by herself, living in complete seclusion for half a year. The people of Liu Town rarely saw her, and when they did, she would always have a cold expression — everyone called it a widows expression. There were just a handful of observant people who noticed her gradual transformation, and they pointed out that her clothing was becoming increasingly fashionable. After her old place had been vacant for half a year, she started to appear in public more and more frequently, thereby bringing to an end her period of isolation. She renovated her old place and made it into a beauty salon, then became the salons proprietor. From then on, music emanated from the salon, a neon sign flickered overhead, and business boomed. When the men of Liu arrived at her beauty salon, they wouldn't use the rustic phrase cut their hair but, rather, would speak more fashionably of styling their hair. Even those who were always cursing like sailors wouldn't say cut their hair but rather, style their fucking hair.

During this period, Wanderless Zhou in the snack shop across the street continued to proclaim that within three years’ time he would open one hundred Wanderless Zhou chain stores throughout China. But after repeating this boast for three straight years, not only did he not open a single store outside of Liu Town; he didn't even make any progress on the two proposed stores within Liu Town itself. Wanderless Zhou continued to boast wildly that he would make the price of McDonald's stock drop by half. Missy Su had grown accustomed to his boasts and knew that if he didn't boast during the day and watch his Korean soaps at night, he would be reduced to a state worse than death. Consequently, she had long since lost the capacity of being embarrassed for him.

Wanderless Zhou's Snack Shop continued on as before, but Lin Hongs beauty salon was quietly changing. At first there were three male hair stylists and three female hair washers. Within a year, one girl after another began to arrive from all over. Regardless of whether they were tall or short, fat or thin, pretty or homely, they all nevertheless wore the same décolleté tops and superminiskirts. There were twenty-three of them in all, and after they arrived in Liu Town, they moved into the same six-story building. One after another, the families originally living in the building moved out, and Poet Zhao moved out with them. Then Lin Hong rented each of the one-bedroom apartments and, after renovating them, housed two girls in each apartment, whereupon the entire building rang out with accents and dialects from throughout China.

These girls would sleep peacefully during the day but then become active each night, when these twenty-three heavily made-up and gaudily attired girls would crowd into the beauty salon, brightly soliciting customers like twenty-three red lanterns at New Years. The men would stand outside and furtively peer in as the girls would glance seductively back out at them. Then the beauty salon began to resemble a black market, abuzz with the sounds of people bargaining. The men would speak carefully, as if they were buying drugs, while the girls would speak boldly, as though they were selling cosmetics. After finding a girl and agreeing on a price, the men and their chosen girls would walk up the stairs, bantering lewdly. After entering a room, they would produce all kinds of sounds imaginable, transforming the six-floor building into a virtual zoo, a veritable encyclopedia of men and women's lovemaking noises.

Everyone in Liu Town referred to the building as the town's red-light district, and since Wanderless Zhou's Snack Shop was directly across the street, his business also increased impressively. In the past, the snack shop would close its doors at eleven each night, but now it stayed open twenty-four hours a day. From one till four or five o'clock each morning, the constant stream of men and young women emerging from the building would pour across the street and into the snack shop, where they would sit and suck down their straw-embedded mini-buns.

Was there anyone in Liu Town who could have accurately predicted Lin Hongs life trajectory? Beginning as a pure and easily embarrassed young girl, she was transformed into a sweet young woman in love, a virtuous wife completely devoted to Song Gang, a crazy lover who made crazy love to Baldy Li for three months, a solitary widow, an expressionless single woman living in complete isolation, a beauty salon proprietess, and finally this business-minded madam who always had a smile for her clients. After those heavily made-up young women started appearing in Liu, Lin Hong became smoother and warmer in her social interactions. The young women didn't call her Lin Hong but, rather, Madam Lin, and gradually the people of Liu started calling her that as well. Lin Hong became a Janus-like figure: Whenever a prospective customer walked in the door, she would break out into a radiant smile and speak to him sweetly, yet when she ran into a man unrelated to her business, she would look at him with eyes as cold as ice.

Although, by that time, Madam Lin's eyes and forehead were full of wrinkles, she was nevertheless very fashionable and wore tight-fitting black clothes, showing off her curvy breasts and buttocks. She always carried a cell phone, grasping it tightly as though it were a strand of gold. Her cell rang throughout the day and night, and she would smile into it, addressing people as Bureau Director, Manager, and Brother, then saying, "A few older ones have left, and some new ones have arrived, each of whom is young and pretty."

If she then said, "I'll send one over for you to take a look," that meant that the person on the other end of the line was a VIP customer— either a powerful provincial official or a rich provincial businessman. If it was a working stiff who had called, however, she would still smile, but in a very different tone of voice would simply say "Our girls are all very pretty."

BLACKSMITH TONG was one of Madam Lin's VIP customers. He was now more than sixty years old, and his wife a year older than he. Tong had opened three stores of his supermarket chain. Everyone addressed him as Boss Tong, but he wouldn't let his workers call him this, insisting that they continue calling him Blacksmith Tong, since he thought that sounded more vigorous.

The sixty-something Blacksmith Tong was still as randy as a young man, and when he saw a young woman, his eyes would light up like a thief spotting money. When she was in her fifties, his formerly plump wife had two major operations, one that removed half her stomach and the other, her entire uterus. After his wife's body collapsed and she became reduced to skin and bones, her libido also completely collapsed. Blacksmith Tong, however, still full of vitality, needed to have sex at least twice a week and invariably would leave his wife so anguished that she no longer wanted to live. She said that each time they finished, she felt as though she had just had another hysterectomy, and it would take her at least half a month to recover, but within a few days Blacksmith Tong was raring to go again.

In order to survive, Blacksmith Tongs wife resolved not to let him have sex with her anymore, leading him to develop a temper like a boar in heat unable to find a sow. He smashed dishes while at home and cursed his employees at the supermarkets. Once he even came to blows with a customer. His wife felt that if he continued to throw these tantrums, sooner or later something would happen — either another woman would seduce him or else he would take a handful of mistresses, but either way the money he had painstakingly earned and couldn't bring himself to spend would all be taken away by some other woman. After considering every possibility, his wife finally decided to send him over to Madam Lin's and have one of her girls cure his explosive temper. The girls would want a tip, and Madam Lin would charge an administrative fee, all of which wouldn't come cheap, but though it distressed Tongs wife to have to part with all that money, she preferred to think of it as medical expenses for her husband. In this way she was able to put her mind at rest, telling herself that this was well-spent preventive care.

Every time Blacksmith Tong came to Madam Lin's place, he would enter boldly, his wife at his side. His wife was afraid that he would get cheated and therefore insisted on helping him pick the girls herself and negotiate a good price. She would leave only after having settled the bill and go home to wait for Blacksmith Tong to return with his report.

The first time he returned home after going whoring, his wife was very critical of the fact that he and the girl had carried on for more than an hour and demanded to know whether or not he had fallen in love with that slut. Blacksmith Tong retorted that, given that they had already spent the money, why shouldn't he reap the benefits? "This is called having the return be proportional to the investment."

Blacksmith Tongs wife felt that her husband had a point, and therefore each time she would always want to make sure that the girl had done it long enough. Despite his age, Tong was still indomitable, and each time he visited a prostitute, he would go on for more than an hour. His wife was very pleased, feeling they were getting a good return on their investment. Occasionally he would fail to give a good performance, and a few times he finished up after just half an hour, making his wife feel that they weren't getting a good enough return. Therefore, she adjusted her strategy and, rather than allowing him to go whoring twice a week, she switched to a once-a-week plan.

Blacksmith Tong felt humiliated because, in order to save money, his wife would always pick relatively homely girls for him. At first he felt that they were all right and told himself that, although they weren't very pretty, at least they were young. Gradually, however, he began to lose interest in girls who weren't pretty, and therefore the number of rounds he could rouse himself for carnal battle also diminished. In Madam Lin's building there were some very pretty girls whom Blacksmith Tong lusted after with all his heart. He would beg his wife to pick him a pretty one, but she would refuse on the ground that the pretty ones were more expensive and therefore her cost would dramatically increase. Blacksmith Tong swore that if he got a pretty girl, he would definitely do her for at least two hours and therefore make good on their investment.

During the several decades they had been married, Blacksmith Tong had always strutted about proudly in front of his wife. Especially since he opened his store, then his chain of supermarkets, his success in business made him even prouder, and he would often reprimand and curse her. Now, however, he frequently implored her to find him a pretty girl and didn't hesitate to kneel with tears streaming down his face. When his wife saw him like this and remembered his former cockiness, she couldn't help but shake her head and, sighing, ask, "Why are men such losers?"

She then agreed to find him a pretty girl for holidays and festivals. Blacksmith Tong reacted as though he had just received a royal blessing and immediately rushed off to find a calendar and make a list of all of the holidays. Starting with the Chinese Lunar New Year, he first wrote down the traditional Chinese holidays, including the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Duanwu Dragon Boat Festival, the Chongyang Double Ninth Festival, the Qingming Ancestors’ Festival, and so forth. Then he added Labor Day, Youth Day, Army Building Day, and National Day, together with Teachers’ Day, Valentines Day, Bachelors’ Day, and Elders’ Day, as well as the foreigners’ holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and finally added Women's Day and Children's Day as well. When Blacksmith Tong told his wife all of the holidays he had found, she jumped in alarm and cried out hoarsely, "Oh, my God!"

Then the two started bargaining feverishly. Blacksmith Tongs wife first tried to eliminate all the foreigners’ holidays, declaring nationalis-tically "We are Chinese and don't observe foreigners’ holidays."

Blacksmith Tong didn't agree. He had worked in business for more than ten years and naturally knew more than his wife, and therefore he admonished her, "What era do we live in? This is the age of globalization. Our refrigerator, television, and washing machine are all foreign brands. Can you possibly claim that, because you are Chinese, therefore you won't use foreign brands?"

His wife opened her mouth, but no words came out. Finally, she simply said, "I'm no match for you."

After the foreigners’ holidays were preserved, Blacksmith Tongs wife picked out the Qingming Ancestors’ Festival from among the traditional Chinese holidays and said, "This is a festival of the dead, and therefore you can't count it among your own."

Blacksmith Tong didn't agree with that either and said, "The Qingming festival is for the living to mourn the deceased, and therefore it is actually a holiday for the living. On that day every year, we first go visit my parents’ graves and then visit yours. Why wouldn't this count?"

His wife pondered for a long time and finally again conceded, "I'm no match for you."

Therefore, the Qingming festival was also preserved. Next, his wife firmly opposed his inclusion of Youth Day, Teachers’ Day, and Children's Day. Blacksmith Tong agreed to leave out Teachers’ Day but insisted that he be allowed to keep the others. He said that it was only after having experienced his own childhood and youth that he was able to have his current old age, and he declared boldly, "Comrade Lenin taught us: To forget the past is to betray it."

The two continued going back and forth, and after they had argued for more than an hour, Blacksmith Tongs wife once again gave in, saying, "I'm no match for you."

Finally, the dispute came down to Women's Day, and Blacksmith Tongs wife asked him, "What does Women's Day have to do with you?"

Blacksmith Tong replied, "Precisely because it is Women's Day, one must go find oneself a woman."

His wife suddenly became downcast and, wiping her tears, said, "No matter what I say, I'll never be a match for you."

Buoyed by his success, Blacksmith Tong thought of two more holidays. "There are two more: your birthday and mine."

His wife finally became infuriated and cried out, "So you want to go find a prostitute even on my birthday?"

Blacksmith Tong realized his mistake and immediately corrected himself. He shook his head and waved away the thought. "No, no, of course not! I won't go anywhere on your birthday but will spend the entire day with you. I won't go anywhere on my birthday either and will spend that entire day with you as well. Our two birthdays count as my Chastity Days, and not only will I not sleep with other women on either of those days, I won't even look in their direction."

Blacksmith Tongs last concession made his simpleminded wife believe that she had finally achieved a victory. Gratified, she said, "At any rate, I'm no match for you."

Blacksmith Tongs wife continued to personally escort him to Madam Lin's, and every holiday and festival he received a bonus allowing him to hire a more expensive girl. All the married men in Liu Town were extremely envious and remarked that this proved that Blacksmith Tong was indeed born lucky, to have such a sensible and enlightened wife who supported him when he went whoring while she herself remained chaste. They decided that, even if Tong were reduced to a pile of dog shit, he would still manage to find some dog-shit fortune— he was that lucky. They then looked again at their own wives, each of whom was unreasonable and had a rigid way of thinking, grasping their husbands’ wallets with one hand and their belts with the other. The men sighed, and when they ran into Blacksmith Tong they would ask quietly, "How did you manage to have such good fortune?"

With a pleasant expression, Tong would say modestly, "I simply had the fortune to find a good wife."

If his wife was by his side, he would add, "This good wife of mine is one of a kind, and even if you took a red lantern to search heaven, hell, and the bottom of the sea, you still wouldn't find another like her."

From the time Blacksmith Tongs wife started accompanying him to Madam Lin's to hire girls, his tantrums abruptly disappeared. The cockiness his wife had endured for decades disappeared too, and he stopped cursing his employees, becoming instead as polite and refined as an intellectual, always smiling and not uttering a single curse word when he spoke. His wife was very pleased with his transformation, because not only did he abandon his cocky attitude but he furthermore became quite subservient when he was with her. Before, he wasn't even willing to go shopping with her, and now he would carry her bag; previously he refused to discuss anything with her, but now he asked her permission for everything. Blacksmith Tong even dismissed the chairman of his company's board of directors and appointed his wife in his place, and he himself settled for being company president. Therefore, his wife had to sign all the company's papers — she had no understanding of what was going on, she just knew that she had to sign everything her husband brought her. When other people brought her documents, she would categorically refuse to sign anything she didn't fully understand — unless she saw that her husband had signed it before her. Blacksmith Tongs wife was no longer a housewife and instead went to work with her husband every day. As a result, she began to pay more attention to her dress and makeup, to the point of wearing name-brand clothing and name-brand lipstick. The company's employees would nod and bow when they saw her, making her feel as if she had a successful career. She liked to lecture others, and whenever she ran into women who had been housewives for several decades, like herself, she would try to enlighten them, saying that women shouldn't rely entirely on men but, rather, should have their own careers. At the end of her lecture, she would add a fashionable phrase: "They should find their own self-worth."

Blacksmith Tong now had each holiday and festival etched in his memory and therefore became Liu Town's own living calendar. When the women of Liu wanted their husbands to let them buy some new outfit, they would call out to Blacksmith Tong, "Are there any holidays coming up?"

When the men of Liu wanted to find an excuse for their wives to let them spend the night out playing mahjong, they too would ask Blacksmith Tong, "What holiday is it today?"

When children were harassing their parents to purchase them a toy, if Blacksmith Tong happened to walk by, they would ask him, "Blacksmith Tong, is there a kid's holiday today?"

After Tong became Liu Town's famous King of Holidays, he attacked his work with increased vigor, and not only did business at his supermarkets continue to improve but he expanded into a wholesale business in household products. Many of the shops in Liu Town bought their goods through Blacksmith Tongs company, and therefore his profits increased each quarter. His wife decided that this was due to her brilliant tactics, because ever since she made her timely intervention to resolve Blacksmith Tongs libido crisis, his vigor increased dramatically and his company's fortunes rose day by day. Compared with the rise in his profits, the money they spent on girls didn't amount to much. Blacksmith Tongs wife felt that their rewards already far outweighed her investment, and occasionally she would splurge and hire her husband a pretty, high-class call girl even when it wasn't a holiday or a festival.

Twice each week this sixty-something couple would climb up the stairs of Madam Lin's bordello — Blacksmith Tong glowing and his wife panting heavily, the two speaking to each other heedless of who might be listening. After the first time Tong was allowed to hire a pretty call girl even though it wasn't a holiday, he wanted to do so every time. He would stand in front of the building entreating his wife like a child begging his parents to buy him a toy, saying pathetically, "Darling, please find me a high-class call girl."

His wife would say firmly, like the chairman of the board, "No, today is not a holiday, and neither is it a festival."

Like one of the chairman's subordinates, he would reply, "Today an account receivable was deposited to our account."

When his board-chairman wife heard this, she would smile and nod and say, "Okay, I'll find you a high-class call girl."

None of the girls working there liked Blacksmith Tong, and in fact they all agreed they couldn't stand him, because once he got started, there was no stopping him. Tong already had gray hair and a gray beard, but when he got into bed, he was like a man in his twenties, though afterward he would leave a smaller tip than anyone else. Furthermore, his invalid wife would always accompany him and insist on receiving a discount, leading to an exhausting, teeth-grinding negotiation that could last up to an hour. After his wife had spoken for a few minutes, she would have to take a drink of water and catch her breath for a few minutes, and only after resting for a while would she be able to continue to bargain down the girl's asking price. The girls all felt that servicing Blacksmith Tong was more exhausting than servicing any four other men combined, but with him they received payment for only a single customer and even had to grant him a discount. Therefore, they were all unwilling to service Blacksmith Tong, but since he was an important figure in Liu and furthermore was one of Madam Lin's VIPs, they couldn't refuse. Whenever Tong and his wife picked out a girl, she would laugh bitterly and sigh, saying, "That's it. I will need to imitate the revolutionary martyr, Lei Feng."

SUCCESS LIU — a.k.a. Writer Liu, a.k.a. PR Liu, a.k.a. Deputy Liu — was now CEO Liu and also one of Madam Lin's VIPs. After Song Gang's death, Baldy Li gave Liu the position of company president, and after Executive Deputy Liu became President Liu, he decided he didn't like people calling him President Liu and instead asked them to call him CEO Liu. The people of Liu Town decided that pronouncing four syllables was altogether too much trouble and furthermore said that it sounded more like a Japanese name than a Chinese one; therefore they shortened it to C Liu. In this way, Success Liu was transformed from the poor bachelor Writer Liu to the tycoon C Liu. He wore Italian name-brand suits, rode in the white BMW sedan Baldy Li had given him, and spent a million yuan buying his way out of his marriage, saying that this was compensation for his wife's loss of her youthful innocence. In this way he was finally able to rid himself of the woman he had tried to abandon twenty years earlier, and then proceeded to find one, two, three, four, even five pretty girls to be his girlfriends. As he put it, these girlfriends were sunshine girls. His house was already filled with spring beauty, but often he still couldn't resist coming over to Madam Lin's to roam. He said that after eating in most nights, he needed to drop by Madam Lin's and tickle his palate with some exotic flavors.

By this point C Liu had become more disdainful than ever toward Poet Zhao. Zhao still boasted about his constant toiling at his craft, while C Liu said that Zhao's playing around with words was a form of suicide, and that he might as well tie a noose around his neck and hang himself. C Liu held up four fingers and enumerated Poet Zhao's failings: "He has been writing for almost thirty years, starting with that early mimeographed magazine in which he published those four lines of poetry. But after all these years he hasn't published even a single punctuation mark. And he still calls himself Poet Zhao! Wouldn't it be more appropriate if he called himself Mimeographed Magazine Poet Zhao?"

Poet Zhao, who had been laid off and unemployed for several years, was equally disdainful toward C Liu. When he heard that Liu was enumerating his failings and calling him a mimeographed magazine poet, he initially became furious but then laughed disdainfully and said that he didn't even need to hold up four fingers in appraising an opportunist like C Liu, since even one finger would be more than he deserved. Poet Zhao held up one finger and said simply, "He has sold his soul."

After Poet Zhao moved out of his house in Liu Town s red-light district, he rented a cheap room next to the railroad tracks on the west side of town. Every day more than a hundred trains would rumble by, making his room tremble as though it had been hit by an earthquake. His table, chairs, and bed would also tremble, as would his cabinet, dishes, and chopsticks and even his ceiling and floor. Zhao would compare the trembling of his cheap room to contractions from an electrical shock, and this metaphor pleased him to no end. At night, when the trains passing by made his room go into tremors, he would frequently dream that he was sitting in an electric chair and, his face full of tears, bidding farewell to the mortal world.

The abjectly poor Poet Zhao depended for his survival on the rent Madam Lin paid him every month, and although he continued to wear a suit every day, it was now all wrinkled and dirty. The people of Liu had been watching color television for more than twenty years and now were beginning to switch over to high-definition rear-projection and plasma units, while Poet Zhao was still watching his fourteen-inch black-and-white television, which frequently would go blank. Zhao would carry it around throughout the towns streets and alleys but couldn't find anyone able to fix a black-and-white television, so in the end he had no choice but to fix it himself. Therefore, the next time the picture went out, he hit it as if he were slapping someone across the face, and sure enough the picture reappeared. Sometimes, however, the picture wouldn't reappear even after he had hit it several times, and he would have to resort to the leg-sweeping kick of his youth and sweep-kick the picture back on.

The formerly polite and refined Poet Zhao had become angry and cynical, always cursing up a storm. While C Liu was living amid a bevy of beauties, Zhao didn't have a single woman in his life and had to settle for hanging an old pinup poster on the crumbling wall of his dilapidated apartment and staring at it ravenously, like a man who paints a cake to assuage his hunger. There was not a living woman who was willing to look him in the eye, and even when he once tried to chat up some old widows, they saw through his ruse and told him straight up that he should first figure out how to provide for himself before entertaining thoughts of finding a companion. Zhao became extremely depressed. Many years earlier he had had an elegant and attractive girlfriend, and the two had enjoyed a yearlong loving relationship, but then he tried to straddle two boats simultaneously as he pursued Lin Hong, and as a result, not only did he not secure Lin Hong but his girlfriend ran off with someone else.

Meanwhile, after C Liu's former wife was cast off, although she was very satisfied with the million yuan she had in her bank account, she would nevertheless stand in the street crying woefully, complaining that C Liu was heartless and cruel. She would again hold up all ten fingers, though now of course what she was counting was not the number of times they had slept together but, rather, the matrimonial bliss they had shared over twenty years of marriage. She said that over the past twenty years she had cooked for C Liu and washed his clothes and looked after him through good times and bad. After C Liu was laid off and became unemployed, she didn't leave him but, rather, cared for him even more considerately. She said that her body was like a stove in winter, warming him up, and like an ice cube in the summer, cooling him down. She tearfully complained that his entire being was obsessed with money, just as his mind was obsessed with sex. She said that, in the past, he had been a high-minded writer, walking elegantly and speaking with refinement. She had fallen in love with him and married him because he was Writer Liu, but now that Writer Liu no longer existed, her husband no longer existed either.

At that point, one of her listeners remembered Poet Zhao and, in an attempt to play the role of a pimp, said, "Although it's true that Writer Liu doesn't exist anymore, there is still Poet Zhao, who has not yet married. He's a bachelor about to approach his diamond anniversary— a rare gem."

"Poet Zhao? A rare gem?" She snorted a couple of times. "He wouldn't even stand out in a bachelor remainder sale."

Liu's wife considered herself one of Liu Town's rich maidens, and for someone to mention her and that poor bachelor Zhao in the same breath was profoundly humiliating for her. She angrily added, "Even an old hen wouldn't deign to give him a second glance."

Poet Zhao, to whom even an old hen wouldn't give a second glance, would often come in and out of Popsicle Wangs five-star reception booth and sit on Wangs Italian sofa, caress his French cabinet, and lie down in the German bed, and if he happened to have a chance to wash and dry his butt in the TOTO toilet, he naturally wouldn't pass that up either. Zhao was very complimentary of the giant high-definition plasma television Wang had hung on the wall. He said that it was several millimeters thinner than the poetry collection he was preparing to publish and that the number of television programs it played was even greater than the number of poems in that forthcoming collection. When Popsicle Wang heard Poet Zhao speaking of his forthcoming publication, he sent Zhao a congratulatory card and asked where it would be published. "You wouldn't be publishing it in Liu Town, would you?"

"Of course not," Zhao replied. He recalled how, at the Virgin Beauty Competition, Wandering Zhou had mentioned a place-name and, impulsively borrowing it, he said, "It's being published in the British Virgin Islands."

POPSICLE WANG led a luxurious and boring life. Day after day he used his television channels to pursue traces of Yanker Yu's political activities, continuously regaling people with tales of them. The people of Liu eventually grew tired of hearing these tales and began calling Popsicle Wang Brother Xianglin, after Sister Xianglin, the compulsively repetitive protagonist of that Lu Xun story. In the end, Poet Zhao was the only one who did not grow weary of Wang's stories; each time he would listen attentively, looking completely entranced and making Popsicle Wang believe that it was enough to have just one true friend in life. In fact, what Poet Zhao did not tire of was all the drinks in Wang's giant refrigerator, the empty bottles from which would pile into a mountain that scraped the sky.

At this point, a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment swept through the nation, and the anti-Japanese parades in Shanghai and Beijing could be seen on television, in the newspapers, and all over the Web. Seeing Japanese stores in Shanghai being destroyed and Japanese cars in Shanghai being burned, a crowd of townspeople from Liu didn't want to miss out on the action, so they also went marching with big banners, looking for something to destroy or burn. When they came upon Baldy Li's sushi shop, they spiritedly walked up and smashed the windows, then brought the chairs out and burned them for two hours, though they refrained from destroying the other installations. Blacksmith Tong saw them and decided that things were not looking good, so he immediately threw out all the Japanese goods in his supermarkets and hung a huge banner in the entranceway saying: WE REFUSE TO SELL JAPANESE PRODUCTS!

After Yanker Yu returned from his globe-trotting pursuit of political hotspots, Popsicle Wang promptly lost interest in Poet Zhao now that his real best friend had returned. Wang closed the door to the luxurious reception booth, shutting out Poet Zhao, who gazed through the window at Popsicle Wangs giant refrigerator, swallowing his saliva and sighing as he thought of the refreshments inside it.

Wang devoutly followed Yanker Yu everywhere he went, leaving early each morning and not returning until late each evening; each night he would even yearn to share a bed with Yu. Liu Towns anti-Japanese demonstrations had in fact run their course, but after Yanker Yu returned, they again picked up steam. Whenever he spoke, political slogans in ten different languages would stream out of his mouth, which the people of Liu then learned by heart, and within ten days or so they too could utter this string of foreign slogans as needed. Yanker Yu was no longer the best tooth-yanker within one hundred li; now, having experienced political disturbances around the world, he returned to Liu Town looking and sounding like a true political leader. As he put it, "I have weathered countless political storms."

Yanker Yu decided to take Popsicle Wang to Tokyo in order to oppose Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi s annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine. When Popsicle Wang heard this, he muttered, "I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have left Liu Town, much less left the country, and now he wants me to go to someone else's country and protest against their prime minister?" Popsicle Wang really had his doubts. He suggested delicately, "How about if we continue our protests here in Liu Town?"

"If we protest in Liu Town, you will merely be one of the masses." Yanker Yu had political ambitions, and he directed Popsicle Wang, "But if we go to Tokyo to protest, you will truly be a politician."

Wang couldn't care less about either the masses or politicians; all he cared about was Yanker Yu. He idolized him and knew that Yu's horizons were much broader than his own; therefore, as long as he followed Yanker Yu, he couldn't go wrong. Popsicle Wang looked at his aged face in the mirror and thought to himself that his life was almost over and he had not visited a single foreign country. He therefore gritted his teeth and resolved to accompany Yanker Yu to Tokyo, and while Yu was carrying out his political activities, Wang could do some foreign touring.

C Liu took very seriously the company's second- and third-largest shareholders’ upcoming trip to Tokyo and arranged for a newly arrived Toyota Crown sedan to take them to the Shanghai airport. C Liu was full of good intentions. He said this was a brand-new sedan that no one had ever ridden in before and therefore Yu and Wang would be riding in a virgin car.

Yanker Yu and Popsicle Wang sat on the Italian sofa in the luxurious reception area, waiting. When Yu saw that it was a Japanese sedan that had arrived to pick them up, he waved the chauffeur over and in an even tone told him, "Go and bring me a big iron hammer."

The chauffeur was completely baffled. He looked at Yanker Yu and then at Popsicle Wang, but Wang was similarly baffled. Yanker Yu continued urging the chauffeur, "Go on."

Popsicle Wang didn't know what the hammer was for but figured that whatever Yanker Yu said must be correct, so he too urged the chauffeur, "Go, quickly!"

The chauffeur left stupidly, and Popsicle Wang asked Yanker Yu, "What is the hammer for?"

"This is a Japanese product." Yu pointed at the Toyota Crown sedan outside and, crossing his legs on the Italian sofa, said, "If we ride a Japanese sedan to protest in Japan, it would become politically very sensitive."

Wang finally understood and nodded repeatedly. He thought that Yanker Yu was truly impressive and a born politician, and that C Liu was genuinely confused. Liu knew full well that they were going to Japan to protest but still sent a Japanese sedan to pick them up, indicating that he didn't have any understanding of politics whatsoever.

At this point the chauffeur showed up with the hammer and stood at the door of the reception area waiting for Yanker Yu's instructions. Yu gestured and said, "Smash it."

"Smash what?"

"Smash the Japanese product," said Yanker Yu, still speaking in an even tone of voice.

"What Japanese product?"

Yu pointed at the sedan outside the window and said, "That car."

The chauffeur jumped in astonishment and stared at these two stockholders. He slowly backed out until he was standing in front of the Toyota Crown sedan, then he dropped the hammer and ran away. After a while, C Liu came over, all smiles, and explained to the two stockholders that this Toyota Crown sedan was actually not a Japanese product but, rather, a Chinese-Japanese joint venture product, and therefore at least 50 percent of it belonged to China. Popsicle Wang had always trusted C Liu and said to Yanker Yu, "That's right, its not a Japanese product."

Yanker Yu replied very deliberately, "All political matters are of paramount importance and can't be treated haphazardly. We should retain the fifty percent that belongs to China and destroy the fifty percent that is Japanese."

Popsicle Wang immediately sided with Yanker Yu and said, "That's right. We should destroy fifty percent."

C Liu became livid and thought to himself that what he should be smashing with that iron hammer were those two bastards’ thick skulls. He didn't dare lose his temper in front of the stockholders, so he turned and charged toward the chauffeur, shouting, "Smash it! Quick, smash it!"

C Liu stalked away furiously while the chauffeur lifted his hammer and, after a long hesitation, brought it down on the windshield. Yanker Yu stood up with satisfaction and, taking Popsicle Wang by the hand, said, "Let's go."

"If we don't have a car, how are we going to get there?"

"We'll hitch a ride," Yanker Yu replied. "We'll hitch a ride in a German sedan to go to Shanghai."

Therefore, these two seventy-year-old tycoons walked down the street pulling their suitcases and tried to hail a taxi. Popsicle Wang was very complimentary of Yanker Yu's calm manner. Yanker Yu hadn't uttered a single vicious word, but what he had accomplished was extremely vicious. Yanker Yu nodded and said to Wang, "Politicians don't need to utter vicious words. It is only little hooligans fighting among themselves that need to use vicious language."

Popsicle Wang nodded repeatedly, and upon remembering that he was soon going to accompany this extraordinary Yanker Yu to Japan, he couldn't help but feel a rush of pride. But when he thought the situation over again, he again became anxious and softly asked Yanker Yu, "When we go to Japan to protest, won't the Japanese police arrest us?"

"They won't," Yu assured him, then added, "though actually, in my heart of hearts I wish they would."

"Why?" Popsicle Wang jumped in alarm.

Yanker Yu looked around to make sure no one was listening, then said quietly, "If we are arrested by the Japanese police, China would certainly protest and negotiate on our behalf, the United Nations would mediate, and newspapers throughout the world would print our pictures, because aren't we world-famous celebrities?"

Seeing Popsicle Wang's confused expression, Yanker Yu said in a voice dripping with pity, "You just don't understand politics, do you?"

BALDY LI was not one of Madam Lin's VIP customers. More than three years elapsed, and Baldy Li hadn't seen Lin Hong a single time, nor did he see any other women. The last time he and Lin Hong made love had become their eternal elegy. The news of Song Gang's death had made Baldy Li leap away from Lin Hong as though she were on fire, and that instant of surprise followed by remorse left Baldy Li at a point of complete collapse. From that point on, he became impotent or, to use his own words, "I've lost all my superpowers."

After Baldy Li lost all his superpowers, his ambition also disappeared. When he went to work at the company, it was completely routine, like casting and then drying his nets, and he increasingly resembled a decadent emperor who had lost interest in ruling. After organizing the tofu banquet for Lin Hong, Baldy Li had handed over the position of company president to Deputy Liu.

The day Baldy Li handed over his presidency was April 28, 2001. That night he sat on the gold-plated toilet in his bathroom as the plasma television on the wall showed an image of a Russian Federation rocket taking off. Having bought a ticket for $20 million, the American businessman Dennis Tito was wearing a space suit with an astronaut's expression to match, proudly departing on a space tour. When Baldy Li turned to look at his own reflection in the mirror and saw his pissing and shitting expression, he felt as though he had just seen a fresh flower followed by a pile of cow dung. Baldy Li was very dissatisfied by his reflection and thought how this American was traveling into space to eat, drink, piss, and shit, while here he was, wasting away his years on this toilet in this tiny town. He told himself, "I want to go, too."

More than a year later, the South African Internet tycoon Mark Shuttleworth also spent $20 million to hitch a ride on a Russian Federation rocket. He said that they orbited the earth sixteen times a day, and therefore every day he could see sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. Next the American pop star Lance Bass announced that he too would fly into space. By this point Baldy Li was as anxious as an ant on a hot frying pan and said impatiently, "There have already been three bastards who have jumped ahead of me."

Baldy Li hired foreign students from Russia to eat and live with him and teach him Russian. To help improve his Russian faster, he vowed that he would speak only Russian in his mansion and no Chinese. This rule caused C Liu considerable distress, since when he came to report on the company's business every month, it would take him more than three hours to say what he should have been able to cover in twenty minutes. Baldy Li obviously understood everything he said but pretended he didn't understand Chinese and therefore asked the two Russian students to translate everything into Russian. After hearing the Russian, Baldy Li would shake his head pensively and would search his extremely limited Russian vocabulary for the appropriate word to respond. Unable to find the correct word, he would instead come up with some rough approximations, which the Russian students would then translate back into Chinese; but when C Liu heard the translation he would merely stare in bewilderment, having no idea what Baldy Li was trying to say. Baldy Li would also realize it hadn't come out right, but he couldn't allow himself to correct it, on account of his vow not to speak Chinese. Therefore, he would continue fruitlessly searching for the appropriate Russian words. In the end, C Liu was exhausted and felt that he was trying to speak human language with an animal, or animal language with a human, and would silently curse Baldy Li, This fucking fake foreigner!

As Baldy Li was struggling to learn Russian he also started to train his body. First he would train in the gym, and then he started running and swimming, followed by Ping-Pong, badminton, basketball, tennis, soccer, bowling, and golf. His training routine was constantly changing — he would grow tired of each new routine before two weeks had elapsed. By this point Baldy Li was leading a pure and celibate existence, having even become a vegetarian, like a monk. Apart from his Russian studies and his physical training, he would often reminisce about the excellent rice Song Gang had cooked when they were young. At the mention of Song Gang, Baldy Li would forget to speak Russian and, with an orphans pathos, he would burst into Liu Town vernacular and recite that final line of Song Gangs suicide note: "Even if we are parted by death, we will still be brothers."

Baldy Li owned eleven restaurants in Liu Town, so he tried out each of them but couldn't find in any of them rice as good as that first successful pot of rice that Song Gang made. Baldy Li also went to other people s restaurants but couldn't find any there either. Being a generous tipper, he would still place one hundred yuan on the table before getting up and walking out when each time he found that it wasn't Song Gang rice. The people of Liu would all cook rice at home and invite Baldy Li to come over and see if it compared to the legendary Song Gang rice. For a while he went from house to house trying them out, but after a while he could tell at a glance that it wasn't Song Gang rice. He would then leave the money on the table, stand up shaking his head, and say, "It's not Song Gang rice."

Seeing how much Baldy Li reminisced about his Song Gang rice, a few townspeople with a nose for business saw an opportunity. Like archeologists, they unearthed Song Gang's relics and tried to sell them to Baldy Li for a good price. One lucky youngster even found the travel bag with SHANGHAI printed on the side that Song Gang was carrying when he left Liu Town with Wandering Zhou but that Wandering Zhou had thrown in the garbage. When Baldy Li saw the travel bag, he recognized it right away, and memories started rushing back to him. He felt a wave of loneliness as he grasped the bag and then bought it back for twenty thousand yuan.

With that, Liu Town exploded, and countless Song Gang relics, both real and counterfeit, were quickly unearthed. Poet Zhao found a Song Gang relic and carried an old, tattered pair of yellow sneakers to all sorts of different ball courts until he finally found Baldy Li training at the tennis courts. Zhao devoutly held out the sneakers and warmly called out, "Boss Li, Boss Li. Please come take a look."

Baldy Li stopped and glanced at the tattered yellow sneakers, asking, "What is the meaning of this?"

Poet Zhao said ingratiatingly, "This is a Song Gang relic!"

Baldy Li took the shoes and studied them for a second, then handed them back to Poet Zhao, saying, "Song Gang never wore these sneakers."

"It's true that Song Gang never wore them," Poet Zhao hurried to explain. "I wore them, don't you remember? When we were little and I gave the two of you my leg-sweeping kicks, I was wearing these shoes. I primarily leg-swept Song Gang and secondarily leg-swept you, and therefore these shoes also count as Song Gang relics."

When Baldy Li heard this, he cried out in fury and proceeded to give Poet Zhao eighteen leg-sweeping kicks right there on the court. The fifty-something Poet Zhao tumbled head over heels eighteen times, leaving his entire body racked with pain. Baldy Li kicked him until he was breathing heavily and covered with sweat and kept shouting out, "Damn, that feels good!"

In the process, Baldy Li unexpectedly discovered that leg-sweeping kicks were actually his favorite form of physical training. He looked down at Poet Zhao moaning in the grass and gestured for him to get up. Zhao didn't stand but sat up, moaning, and Baldy Li asked him, "Would you like to work for me?"

When Poet Zhao heard this, he stopped moaning, jumped up, and asked delightedly, "Boss Li, what kind of work?"

"Physical trainer," Baldy Li replied. "You would receive the salary of a mid-rank employee in my company."

Therefore, while Poet Zhao didn't succeed in selling off his old shoes, he did manage to secure a high-paying position as Baldy Li's personal trainer. From then on, Poet Zhao would wear knee and elbow pads and even on hot days would wear a padded jacket and pants. Rain or shine, he would stand in the grass of the tennis court and obediently wait for Baldy Li to come and leg-sweep him.

Baldy Li studied Russian for three years, during which time his Russian improved dramatically. During his three years of physical training, his physical fitness also improved daily. In six months he would go to the Russian space-training center to receive the basic training to be a cosmonaut. The day he would get to see outer space grew closer and closer, and Baldy Li began to let his thoughts run wild. Often, while sitting on the sofa in his living room, he would forget his own rule and begin alternating between speaking in Russian and in the Liu Town vernacular.

As garrulous as an old man, he began addressing the two Russian students as though they were both Song Gang. Counting on his fingers, he said, "When that American, Tito, went into space, he took with him a camera, a video recorder, a laser disc, and pictures of his wife and children. When Shuttleworth went into orbit, he took with him photos of his family and friends, together with a microscope, a notebook computer, and a disc." Then Baldy Li held out one finger and said that the Chinese Baldy Li would take only one thing into space with him. And what was that? It was Song Gangs ashes. Baldy Li looked through his french windows, saw the bright, distant sky, and, with a romantic look in his eyes, declared that he wanted to place Song Gangs ashes in orbit, so that every day they could see sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets. That way Song Gang would perpetually be traveling between the moon and the stars.

"From that point on," Baldy Li suddenly declared in Russian, "my brother Song Gang will be a space alien!"