Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When Xu Sanguan emerged from Lin Fenfang’s house, he felt as drained as a man who has just come from the steam room of a public bathhouse. He moved down the sun-drenched summer street bathed in sweat. Just as he was about to turn down another street, he caught sight of two peasants from out of the corner of his eye. Waving their arms despite the empty carrying poles suspended from their shoulders, they shouted across the street, “Aren’t you Xu Sanguan?”

Xu Sanguan said, “Yeah, I’m Xu Sanguan.”

It was only then that Xu Sanguan recognized them. They had come from the village where his grandpa, who had died a few years before, had lived.

Pointing his arm back in their direction, he called, “I know you all right! You’re Ah Fang, and you’re Genlong. I know what you’re doing in town too. You came in today to sell blood. And I know why you’re both carrying empty mugs. You used to have bowls, but I guess you’ve switched to mugs. How much water have you drunk this time?”

“How much have we drunk?” Genlong asked Ah Fang.

Genlong and Ah Fang crossed the street toward Xu Sanguan. Ah Fang said, “Truth be told, we don’t really know how much we’ve drunk.”

Xu Sanguan suddenly recalled something Blood Chief Li had told them ten years before. “Do you still remember? Blood Chief Li was saying your bellies, I mean your bladders, were bigger than a pregnant lady. Actually, what he said was your bladders. Bladder’s the scientific word for it.”

They stood laughing in the street. Xu Sanguan had seen them only twice since they had sold blood together ten years before. On both occasions he had gone down to the countryside for a funeral. The first funeral had been for his grandpa, and the second had been for his fourth uncle. Ah Fang said, “Xu Sanguan, it’s been seven or eight years since you last came to see us.”

Xu Sanguan said, “My grandpa died and then my fourth uncle died too. They were my only family in the country, so I don’t have as much reason to come anymore.”

In the seven or eight years in between, it seemed to Xu Sanguan that Ah Fang had grown old. His hair was going gray, and when he smiled, his face creased into a whorl of wrinkles like the waves that fan out across the surface of a pond after a rock has hit the water. Xu Sanguan said to Ah Fang, “You’ve aged.”

Ah Fang nodded. “Well, I’m already forty-five.”

Genlong added, “We country folks show our age. A forty-fiveyear-old in town looks about thirty to us.”

Xu Sanguan glanced at Genlong. Genlong, wearing a sleeveless undershirt, looked much sturdier than he had before, and his chest and arms were braided with solid clumps of muscle. Xu Sanguan said to him, “Genlong, you’re getting stronger and stronger. Look at those muscles. Every time you move, it looks like a little squirrel’s running back and forth across your chest. Did you ever get together with Guihua, the girl with the big behind? You still hadn’t gotten married when my fourth uncle died.”

Genlong said, “She’s given me two sons.”

Ah Fang asked Xu Sanguan, “How many sons has your woman given you?”

At first Xu Sanguan wanted to say three, but he quickly changed his mind. Yile, after all, was He Xiaoyong’s child.

“Just the same as Genlong’s woman. Two sons.” Xu Sanguan thought to himself, If Ah Fang had asked me the same question two months ago, I would have said I have three sons. They don’t know that I’ve been a cuckold for nine years now. And what they don’t know, I’m not going to tell them. He continued, “I don’t know why, but as soon as I saw you two on your way to sell blood, I started to feel a little itch to sell some blood myself.”

Ah Fang and Genlong said, “That little itch means you have too much blood in you. It can be awfully uncomfortable, having too much blood. Your whole body starts to itch and swell and all that. You better come with us and sell some blood too.”

Xu Sanguan thought for a moment, then decided to walk with them over to the hospital. As he walked, he thought about Lin Fenfang. He couldn’t help feeling she had been very good to him. When he wanted to rub her feet, she let him. When he wanted to touch her thigh, she let him. When he had jumped up to squeeze her breasts, she had let him squeeze. She had let him do whatever he wanted to do. She had let him do whatever he liked despite the fact that her leg was broken. When he had bumped painfully against her leg, she had merely let out a little grunt. Xu Sanguan was thinking that he really ought to give her ten pounds of soup bones and five pounds of yellow beans. The doctors in the hospital were always telling people with broken bones, “You ought to eat a lot of yellow beans stewed with soup bones.”

But merely giving her soup bones and yellow beans somehow didn’t seem sufficient. He thought he should give her some mung beans as well, because mung beans were cooling. Lin Fenfang was lying inside all day, and the weather was so hot lately. She would certainly feel cooler after eating some mung beans. And he ought to give her a pound of dried chrysanthemums too. Chrysanthemum tea had cooling properties as well. He would go sell blood with Ah Fang and Genlong so he could earn enough to buy her the soup bones, yellow beans, mung beans, and chrysanthemums. That way he could pay her back for her kindness.

He could earn thirty-five yuan selling blood. After he bought the things for Lin Fenfang, he would still have a little more than thirty left over. He would put away what was left to spend on himself, on Erle, and on Sanle. He might even spend some on Xu Yulan from time to time. Anything he liked — as long as he didn’t spend any on Yile.

Xu Sanguan followed Ah Fang and Genlong to the hospital. When they got there, they didn’t go right in, because Xu Sanguan had yet to have any water. They went instead to the well near the hospital. Genlong picked up the wooden bucket and drew some water from the well. At the same time Ah Fang handed Xu Sanguan his ceramic mug. Xu Sanguan knelt down next to the well, mug in hand, and drank mug after mug of the cold water. Ah Fang stood over him counting. By the time Xu Sanguan had finished six mugs of water, he said he couldn’t drink any more. Ah Fang told him he had to drink at least ten mugs, and Genlong said Ah Fang was right. Xu Sanguan started in on his seventh cup. But after a few sips, he began to gasp for air. When he reached the ninth mug, he stood up and told them he really couldn’t take any more. If he drank any more, he said, he might die, and besides, he had pins and needles from squatting by the side of the well. Ah Fang said if his legs had fallen asleep, he should drink the water standing up. Genlong told him to drink another mugful. Xu Sanguan shook his head and told them he simply could not swallow any more. His blood was already swollen, he added, and if he were to drink any more, he might burst. With that, Ah Fang suggested that they set out for the hospital. And so they walked through the hospital gate.

AFTER THEY SOLD their blood to Blood Chief Li and he handed them their money, they made their way to the Victory Restaurant and sat down at a table by the window. Xu Sanguan, beating Ah Fang and Genlong to the punch, pounded on the table and called to the waiter, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine. And warm the wine up for me.”

Then he sat back and watched contentedly as Ah Fang and Genlong each pounded the table, calling out to the waiter in turn:

“A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”

“A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”

When Xu Sanguan noticed that they had forgotten to add the part about warming up the wine, he waved the departing waiter back to the table, pointed at Ah Fang and Genlong, and added, “Warm up the wine for them.”

The waiter said, “In all my forty-three years in this business, I’ve never once seen anyone ask for warm wine on a hot summer day.”

Xu Sanguan glanced over at Ah Fang and Genlong. The bemused smiles lighting up their faces told him that he had made a fool of himself. He laughed along with them.

After a good long chuckle, Ah Fang said to Xu Sanguan, “Now remember. You shouldn’t sleep with a woman for at least ten days after you sell blood.”

Xu Sanguan asked, “Why do you say that?”

Ah Fang said, “Eating a bowl of rice will get you no more than a few drops of blood. And you need a whole bowl of blood just to produce some seed. Well, anyway, that’s what we country folk call it, though I guess Blood Chief Li would call it sperm.”

Xu Sanguan felt a sudden jolt of alarm. After all, he had just finished his business with Lin Fenfang moments before. He might end up crippled if he went on like this. He asked Ah Fang, “What if you slept with someone just before you went to sell blood?”

Ah Fang said, “You’d be a dead man.”