Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Xu Yulan spent twenty-one and a half of the thirty yuan that she had captured from Xu Sanguan’s outstretched fingers to make new clothes. She made herself a new pair of gray cotton pants and a light blue cotton-padded jacket embroidered with dark blue flowers. Yile, Erle, and Sanle each got a new cotton-padded jacket as well. Xu Sanguan was the only one in the family who didn’t get any new clothes, because every time Xu Yulan thought of the incident with Lin Fenfang, she was too angry.

Soon winter came. When Xu Sanguan saw that Xu Yulan, Yile, Erle, and Sanle all had new padded jackets, he said to Xu Yulan, “If you spend the money I earned selling blood on yourself or on Erle and Sanle, that’s fine with me. But I can’t stand for you to spend it on Yile.”

“Would you feel any better if I spent it on Fatty Lin?”

Xu Sanguan, hurt by this outburst, lowered his head and continued quietly, “Yile’s not my son. I’ve raised him for nine years already, and it looks like there’ll be many more years to come. I’ve already accepted that. And I’m perfectly willing to spend the money I make sweating over at the factory on him. But it just doesn’t feel right to spend any more of my blood money on him.”

Xu Yulan took the remaining eight and a half yuan, supplemented the sum with two yuan of her own, and used it to make Xu Sanguan a navy blue Mao jacket. She told Xu Sanguan, “This jacket was made with the money you earned selling blood. And I contributed two yuan of my own. Do you feel any better now?”

Xu Sanguan remained silent. Xu Yulan had something on him now, and he couldn’t afford to ride as high as he once had. In the past Xu Yulan had taken care of all the household chores while Xu Sanguan worked at the factory. After the affair with Lin Fenfang came out into the open, it was Xu Yulan’s turn to ride high. She took to wearing her finely woven sweater and strolling around with a handful of melon seeds, leisurely ducking in and out of the neighbors’ places for a chat. And once they had gotten started, she and her friends might prattle on for two, even three hours. Xu Sanguan, meanwhile, would be in the kitchen cooking rice and stir-frying some dishes, bathed in sweat. His neighbors would often poke their heads inside the door and, catching sight of Xu Sanguan busy with his cookery, laugh and say:

“Xu Sanguan, cooking again tonight?”

“Xu Sanguan, go a little easier. Chopping vegetables isn’t like chopping firewood, you know.”

“Xu Sanguan, since when did you get become so hard-working?”

Xu Sanguan would say to them, “There’s nothing I can do. Xu Yulan’s got something on me. It’s like the old saying goes: ‘A moment of pleasure leads to a lifetime of regret.’ ”

For her part, Xu Yulan was wont to tell the others, “I think I’ve finally got things straight. It used to be that I was always looking out for my man and doing everything for the sake of the kids. Just as long as they got enough to eat, I was perfectly happy to go hungry. As long as they were comfortable, I was willing to put up with any kind of discomfort. But I’ve finally got things straight. In the future, I’m going to look after myself. If I don’t care about my own welfare, no one else will. You just can’t trust men. Even if they have a beauty at home, they still think they can play around with other women. You can’t count on the kids either.”

Xu Sanguan realized how stupid he had been. The affair itself was one thing, but buying Lin Fenfang a heap of soup bones and yellow beans had been stupid. Even an idiot would have started to suspect something was going on when he found all those things on his wife’s table.

But the more he thought about it, the more he felt that the affair with Lin Fenfang hadn’t done much harm. After all, he hadn’t knocked her up. That was more than he could say for He Xiaoyong and Xu Yulan. They had produced Yile, and he was still responsible for the boy.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. So he called Xu Yulan over and told her, “From this day on, I’m not doing the housework anymore.” He said to Xu Yulan, “You did it one time with He Xiaoyong, and I did it once with Lin Fenfang. You and He Xiaoyong ended up with Yile. Did Lin Fenfang and I make a ‘Four-le’? We did not. We’ve both made serious mistakes, but yours was much more serious than mine.”

Xu Yulan burst into howls of protest and jabbed both hands toward his face. “You’re really no better than a beast. I’d already forgotten about your affair with that bitch. Now you insist on reminding me. What did I do in my past life to deserve this? Whatever it was, it’s coming back to haunt me.”

As she shouted, she edged toward her place on the doorstep.

Xu Sanguan rushed to block her way, saying as he held her fast, “Okay, okay, okay then, I’ll never bring it up again, all right?”