Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

CHAPTER ONE

Xu Sanguan worked in the silk factory in town, distributing silkworm cocoons to the spinners. But today he was out in the country visiting his grandpa. His grandpa’s eyes had dimmed and blurred with age, and he was having trouble making out who it was standing by the door. He called for Xu Sanguan to stand a bit closer, looked him over for a moment, and then asked, “Son, where’s your face?”

Xu Sanguan said, “Grandpa, I’m not your son, I’m your grandson, and my face is right here in front of you.” He pulled his grandpa’s hand over to his face, let him pat it, and then put it back in his lap. His grandpa’s palms felt like raw silk yarn.

His grandpa asked, “Why doesn’t your dad come and see me?”

“Dad died a long time ago.”

His grandpa nodded, and a string of saliva slipped out from between his lips. He tilted his head and sucked until some of it came back in. “Son, how’s your health?”

“Good,” Xu Sanguan said. “Grandpa, I’m not your son.”

His grandpa continued, “Do you sell your blood too?”

Xu Sanguan shook his head. “No, I’ve never sold my blood.”

“Son,” Grandpa said, “you’re telling me that you’re in good health, but you’ve never sold your blood. I think you’re trying to make a fool of me.”

“Grandpa, what are you trying to say? I don’t understand. Grandpa, are you senile?”

Grandpa shook his head.

Xu Sanguan added, “Grandpa, I’m not your son. I’m your grandson.”

“Son,” his grandpa continued, “your dad wouldn’t listen to me. Fell for some ‘flower’ or other in town.”

“Golden Flower. That’s my mom.”

“Your dad said he was old enough. He told me he wanted to go into town and marry some ‘flower’ or other. I said, ‘Your two older brothers haven’t gotten married yet.’ If the eldest hasn’t even gotten married yet, how could I let the youngest go ahead and take a wife before him? Around here, that’s not how you play by the rules.”

XU SANGUAN sat on his fourth uncle’s roof gazing at the horizon. The sky was a wash of crimson that seemed to emanate from the muddy paddies in the distance, shining across the fields, transforming the crops into a vast tomato-red expanse. Everything was bright red — the little streams and paths that crawled across the land, the trees, the thatched cottages and the fishponds, even the streams of smoke that poured crookedly out from village chimneys.

Xu Sanguan’s fourth uncle was spreading fertilizer across the melon patch beside the house as two women, one older, one younger, walked past. Xu Sanguan’s uncle said, “Guihua looks more and more like her mama.”

The younger of the two women smiled, and the older one caught sight of Xu Sanguan sitting on the roof. “Who’s that sitting on your roof?”

Xu Sanguan’s uncle said, “That’s my third brother’s son.”

The three people below all glanced up at Xu Sanguan. Xu Sanguan chuckled as he looked down toward the young woman called Guihua. Guihua lowered her eyes to the ground. The older woman said, “He looks just like his dad.”

Xu Sanguan’s uncle said, “Guihua’s getting married next month, isn’t she?”

The older woman shook her head, “Guihua’s not getting married next month. We’ve broken off the engagement.”

“Broken the engagement?” The fertilizing trowel in Xu Sanguan’s uncle’s hand dropped to the ground.

The older woman lowered her voice. “The boy’s health is no good. He can only eat one bowl of rice at a time. Even Guihua can eat two bowls of rice at a time.”

Xu Sanguan’s uncle lowered his voice as well. “How did that boy go and ruin his health?”

“I really don’t know how it happened. First I heard people say he hadn’t gone to the hospital to sell blood for almost a year. That got me wondering if maybe he had some kind of problem, so I sent someone to invite him over for dinner, just so I could see for myself how much he could eat. If he could eat a couple big bowls of rice, I figured I could set my mind at ease, and if he could eat three, well, Guihua would have been his. He ate one bowl, but when I went to get him some more, he said he was full, said he couldn’t eat any more. Imagine a big strong man like that not even being able to eat a little more. Well, I figured there’s something wrong with him for sure.”

Xu Sanguan’s uncle nodded his approval. “You’re a thoughtful mother.”

The older woman said, “That’s what mothers are for.”

The two women glanced up once more toward Xu Sanguan, who was still chuckling as he looked at the younger woman. The older woman said once again, “Looks just like his dad.”

The two women walked away, one in front of the other. Both of them had big rears, and as Xu Sanguan looked down on them from above, he had trouble distinguishing where their buttocks ended and their thighs began. When they were gone, Xu Sanguan watched Fourth Uncle continue to spread fertilizer across the melon patch as the sun set and his body grew increasingly indistinct in the haze of dusk.

“How much longer are you going to work, Uncle?”

“I’ll be done pretty soon now,” his uncle said.

“Uncle, there’s something I don’t understand that I want to ask you about.”

“Go on.”

“Is it true that people who sell their blood are really healthy?”

“That’s right,” Fourth Uncle said. “Didn’t you hear what Guihua’s ma said just now? Around here the men who haven’t sold blood can’t get themselves a wife.”

“What kind of rule is that?”

“I don’t know if there’s a rule or not, but everyone who’s strong enough goes to sell his blood. You get thirty-five yuan a shot. That’s more than you make in six months in the fields. And blood’s like well water. If you never go to the well, the source dries up, but if you use it every day, there’ll always be just as much water as there was before.”

“But Uncle, if what you say is true, then selling blood’s a real money tree.”

“That depends on whether or not you’re in shape. If you’re not in shape, you might as well sell your life away when you go sell blood. When you go sell blood, the hospital has to check you out first. First they take a tube of blood and check to see whether or not you’re healthy. They’ll only let you sell to them if you’re healthy.”

“Fourth Uncle, do you think I’m in good enough shape to sell blood?”

Fourth Uncle looked up at his nephew on the roof, who looked back at him, torso bared and grinning. The flesh on his arms looked solid, so Fourth Uncle said, “You could sell blood.”

Xu Sanguan grinned to himself until another thought crossed his mind, and he looked down at his uncle. “Fourth Uncle, I want to ask you something else.”

“What is it?”

“You said that when they check you at the hospital, they take a tube of blood, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Do they pay you for it?”

“No,” Fourth Uncle said, “you give it to them for free.”

THE THREE OF THEM walked down the road. The oldest was in his thirties, the youngest only nineteen. Xu Sanguan, who was walking in between them, was somewhere in the middle. He said to the two men walking beside him, “You’re carrying watermelons, and you’ve both got a big bowl in your pockets. Are you planning to sell watermelons in town when you’re done selling blood? One, two, three, four — you each have four watermelons. Why so few? Why not bring in a hundred pounds each? What are those bowls for anyway? Why didn’t you bring any food? What are you going to have for lunch?”

“We never bring anything to eat when we’re going to sell blood,” the nineteen-year-old, Genlong, replied, “When we’re finished selling blood, we’re going to go to a restaurant to have a plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”

The man in his thirties was called Ah Fang, who explained, “The pork livers build up the blood, and the rice wine gives it life.”

Xu Sanguan went on, “You said you sell four hundred milliliters each time. How much is that really?”

Ah Fang took a bowl from out of his pocket, “See this bowl?”

“Yeah.”

“Two bowls at a time.”

“Two bowls?” Xu Sanguan sucked in a breath. “They say it takes a whole bowl of rice just to make a few drops of blood. So how many bowls of rice do you have to eat to make two bowls of blood?”

Ah Fang and Genlong chuckled. Ah Fang said, “It’s no use at all if you only eat rice. You have to eat the pork livers and drink some rice wine.”

“Xu Sanguan,” Genlong went on, “didn’t you say just now that we don’t have enough watermelons? I’ll tell you something. We aren’t planning to sell any watermelons today. These melons are gifts.”

Ah Fang added, “These melons are for Blood Chief Li.”

“Who’s Blood Chief Li?”

They had arrived at the head of a little wooden bridge. A stream stretched into the distance, widening and narrowing as it flowed through the fields. Green weeds poked out above the surface of the water, clinging to the banks of the stream and climbing up the edges of the surrounding rice paddies.

Ah Fang stopped and said to Genlong, “Genlong, we’d better drink some water now.”

Genlong put down his melon-laden carrying pole and shouted, “Time to drink!”

They took their bowls out from their pockets and clambered down the embankment. Xu Sanguan crossed to the middle of the wooden bridge, standing to watch as they dipped their bowls into the stream, waving them back in forth in the water until they had swept away all the weeds and debris from the area directly in front of them. This accomplished, they noisily gulped down bowl after bowl of water — four or five bowls each.

Xu Sanguan, still standing above them, called out, “Did you two eat lots of salted pickles for breakfast?”

Ah Fang looked up. “We didn’t have any breakfast. We drank eight bowls of water though. And besides what we just drank, we still have to stop in town and have some more, until our stomachs are so swollen that it hurts and the roots of our teeth start to ache. Because the more water you drink, the more blood there will be. The water sinks into the blood.”

“When the water sinks into the blood, does the blood get watery?”

“Sure. But there’s more of it.”

“Now I know why you brought the bowls along,” Xu Sanguan said, as he too climbed down the embankment toward the stream.

“Will one of you lend me a bowl? I’ll drink some too.”

Genlong handed him his bowl. “Take mine.”

Xu Sanguan took hold of the bowl and squatted down by the stream.

Ah Fang said, “The water on top’s dirty, and the stuff on the bottom is too. You want to drink from the middle.”

When they had finished drinking from the stream, they continued down the road. This time Ah Fang and Genlong walked next to each other while Xu Sanguan walked to one side, listening to the rhythmic squeaking of their carrying poles.

Xu Sanguan said, “You’ve been carrying those the whole way. Let me take one.”

Genlong said, “Take Ah Fang’s for a while.”

Ah Fang said, “A few watermelons don’t bother me. When I go to town to sell melons, I usually carry a hundred pounds at a time.”

Xu Sanguan asked, “Just now you mentioned Blood Chief Li. Who’s he?”

“Blood Chief Li,” Genlong explained, “is the bald man who’s in charge of buying blood for the hospital. He’s the one that decides who gets to sell blood and who doesn’t.”

“And that’s why you call him Blood Chief Li,” Xu Sanguan concluded.

Ah Fang continued, “Sometimes there’s a lot of people who want to sell blood, but not very many patients in the hospital who need it. At times like those, everything depends on whether or not you’re on Blood Chief Li’s good side. Because the people who are on his good side are the ones who’ll get to sell their blood.”

Ah Fang added by way of explanation, “And what exactly does it mean to be on Blood Chief Li’s good side? In Blood Chief Li’s own words, ‘When someone remembers me even when he doesn’t need to sell any blood. When he remembers me from time to time.’ And what does it mean to remember him from time to time?”

Ah Fang pointed at the watermelons dangling from the carrying pole, “This is what it means to remember him from time to time.”

“We’re not the only ones who remember him either,” Genlong added. “That girl named Ying something or other remembers him all the time.”

The pair burst into broad grins. Ah Fang told Xu Sanguan, “She gets on his good side under the covers. If she wanted to sell some blood, everyone else would have to stand aside, no matter who it happened to be. And if somebody should offend her, well, it wouldn’t matter if his blood belonged to an Immortal, because Blood Chief Li wouldn’t even let him give it away.”

They arrived at the edge of town as they spoke. As soon as they got into the city, Xu Sanguan took the lead, because he was from town and knew his way around. They told him they wanted to find a good place to drink some more water. Xu Sanguan said, “Once you get into town, you shouldn’t drink stream water anymore. It’s dirty here. I’ll take you to drink well water.”

The two followed Xu Sanguan’s lead as he guided them down a twisting narrow lane, saying as he went, “I can’t hold it in anymore. Let’s find somewhere to pee.”

Genlong said, “You can’t pee. If you pee, all that water will go to waste. And you’ll have less blood to spare.”

Ah Fang said to Xu Sanguan, “We drank a lot more than you, and we’re still holding it in.” He turned to Genlong. “His bladder’s small.”

Xu Sanguan, brows furrowed against the pain of his swollen bladder, began to move more and more slowly down the lane. “Can it kill?”

“What do you mean can it kill?”

“Kill me! I mean, could my stomach burst?”

“Do the roots of your teeth ache?” Ah Fang asked.

“My teeth? Let me check. . No, I guess they don’t.”

“Then there’s nothing to be afraid of. As long as your teeth don’t ache, there’s no risk of the bladder bursting,” Ah Fang affirmed.

Xu Sanguan brought them to a stone well near the hospital, which stood under the canopy of an old tree, its sides carpeted in green moss. A wooden bucket with a length of neatly coiled hemp rope tied to its handle lay to one side of the well. They threw the bucket into the well, where it hit the water below like a resounding slap in the face. When they had drawn a bucketful of water, Genlong and Ah Fang each drank two bowls. Ah Fang handed Xu Sanguan his bowl, and he too drank a bowl of water. Ah Fang and Genlong urged him to drink another, but after Xu Sanguan poured the water into the bowl and took a couple of sips, he poured what was left back into the bucket. “My bladder’s too small. I can’t drink any more.”

They made their way toward the blood donation room at the hospital, moving as carefully as women in the final month of pregnancy, their faces tomato red with the effort of holding in the urine. Ah Fang and Genlong moved even more gingerly than Xu Sanguan, for they were still burdened by melon-laden carrying poles. Their hands were clasped around the cords from which the watermelons were strung so that the poles wouldn’t wobble back and forth with each step. But the hospital corridor was a narrow one, and a few of the people squeezing past could not help but jostle the poles. The water distending Ah Fang’s and Genlong’s bladders wobbled along with the watermelons, and their faces went crooked with pain. Each time they were jostled, they had to rest until the watermelons stopped swaying, then continue painstakingly down the hallway once the poles had steadied.

Blood Chief Li sat behind a desk in the blood donation room, feet propped atop an open desk drawer, and his legs splayed to reveal his crotch. All the buttons on his fly had fallen off, and a pair of flower-print underwear peeked through the gap between. There was no one else in the room besides Blood Chief Li. As soon as Xu Sanguan saw him, he thought to himself, So this is Blood Chief Li. Isn’t he the bald guy who comes by the factory to sell fried silkworm chips?

When Blood Chief Li saw Ah Fang and Genlong shuffle in with their carrying poles, his feet slid back onto the ground, and he gave out an affable chuckle. “So it’s you two! You’re back again.” Then he glanced toward Xu Sanguan and gestured in his direction. “I think I’ve seen this one before.”

“He lives in town,” Ah Fang said.

“That must be it,” Blood Chief Li said.

Xu Sanguan added, “You’re the one who comes by our factory to sell silkworm chips, right?”

“You’re at the silk factory?” Blood Chief Li asked.

“That’s right.”

“Damn,” Blood Chief Li went on. “No wonder I’ve seen you around. Are you here to sell some blood too?”

Ah Fang said, “We’ve brought you some watermelons. Fresh picked this morning from the fields.”

Blood Chief Li raised his buttocks from the chair to lean across the desk and inspect the watermelons more closely. He chuckled. “They’re pretty damn big too. Just set them down in the corner.”

Ah Fang and Genlong bent over in an effort to extract the watermelons from their baskets and set them down in the corner. But no matter how hard they tried, they were unable to bend far enough, and after several abortive tries, their faces went a fiery red and the sound of their panting filled the room.

The smile faded from Blood Chief Li’s lips as he watched them struggle. “Just how much water did you drink this time?”

Ah Fang replied, “Just three bowls.”

Genlong, standing to one side, corrected him, “He had three. I drank four.”

“Bullshit.” Blood Chief Li’s eyes were fixed on them. “You think I don’t know how big your bladders are by now? I know damn well that when you two really get going, your stomachs swell up as big as a pregnant lady’s belly. Ten bowls, at the very least.”

Ah Fang and Genlong broke into sheepish grins, and Blood Chief Li, won over by their smiles, waved his hand as if to dismiss the matter. “Forget it. At least you two still have a conscience. At least you two still remember me from time to time. You can sell this time, but don’t do it again.” Then he shifted his attention toward Xu Sanguan. “Come here.”

Xu Sanguan moved over to the desk.

“Move your head a little closer.”

Xu Sanguan lowered his head, and Blood Chief Li reached out a hand, grabbed hold of the skin around Xu’s eyes, and forced them wide open.

“Let’s take a look at your eyes. Let’s see if there’s any jaundice. No. . then stick out your tongue, let me see your innards. . Doesn’t look so bad. All right then, you can sell blood as well. And listen here. Usually the rule is that we’re supposed to take a sample first and check if you have any diseases. But you’re a friend of Ah Fang and Genlong, and I wouldn’t want them to lose any face — especially considering that this is our first meeting. In short, just consider this as my little gift to you.”

AFTER THE THREE MEN finished their transaction, they made their way, step by painstaking step, toward the hospital’s public lavatory. Xu Sanguan followed closely behind the other two. They kept their eyes to the floor, silent and grimacing with pain, wary of the one false move that might cause their bladders to burst.

They lined up in a row in front of the hospital urinal, and as they began to pee, a wave of intense pain rolled across the roots of their teeth. Their teeth began to chatter so resoundingly that the splatter of their urine on the wall was very nearly drowned out by the sound.

Not long afterward they arrived at the Victory Restaurant. The Victory Restaurant was nestled under an old bridge, and the peak of its roof barely reached the stone underside of the structure. A mass of weeds grew from in between the roof tiles, cascading over the eaves like eyebrows. The front door was almost indistinguishable from the tall windows, edged by wooden slats, that ran across the storefront. The three walked into the restaurant through one of these windows and took a table by another window that looked out over the creek that ran through the west end of town. A few discarded vegetable leaves floated past them on the current.

Ah Fang shouted to a waiter, “A plate of fried pork livers, and two shots of yellow rice wine, and make sure to warm up the wine for me.”

Genlong shouted in turn, “A plate of fried pork livers, two shots of yellow rice wine, and warm up my wine as well.”

Xu Sanguan had watched closely as they shouted out their orders and, impressed by the aplomb with which they had slapped the table for emphasis, followed suit with a shout, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine. Oh, and warm mine up too.”

In a twinkling three plates of fried pork livers and three pots of rice wine were delivered to their table. Xu Sanguan lifted his chopsticks and was just about to spear a piece of the pork liver when he noticed that Ah Fang and Genlong had lifted their wine pots instead. Squinting with anticipation, they slowly took a sip, and then simultaneously emitted a long hissing sound, upon which their facial muscles visibly relaxed and they both broke into satisfied smiles.

“That’s the best part,” Ah Fang said with a sigh.

Xu Sanguan put down his chopsticks, lifted his wine pot, and took a sip. The wine flowed down his throat, warming his insides as it went, and he too unwittingly emitted a long hissing sound.

Ah Fang and Genlong grinned. “Now that you’ve sold blood, do you feel dizzy?” Ah Fang asked.

“I’m not dizzy, but I feel like I don’t have any energy left, and my feet and legs seem kind of rubbery when I walk.”

Ah Fang said, “You’ve sold your energy. That’s why you feel weak. What we sold just now is energy, understand? City people call it blood, but we country folks call it energy. There are two kinds of energy. One kind comes from the blood, and the other comes from muscle. But the kind that comes from the blood is worth a lot more money.”

Xu Sanguan asked, “What kind of energy comes from the blood? What kind comes from muscle?”

Ah Fang said, “When you climb into bed, or when you pick up a bowl of rice from the table, or when you walk from my house over to Genlong’s, you don’t use much energy at all. That’s the kind that comes from the muscle. But when you go into the fields and work, or you carry a hundred pounds of watermelon into town, when it comes to that kind of hard labor, you have to use the kind of energy that comes from the blood.”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “I think I understand now. The kind of energy you’re talking about is like money in your pocket. If you spend some, you have to go out and earn some more.”

Ah Fang nodded and turned to Genlong. “These city folks are really pretty bright.”

Xu Sanguan said, “You two work in the fields every day, but you still have enough extra energy to sell your blood to the hospital. You’re really a lot stronger than me.”

Genlong said, “We’re not necessarily stronger than you. It’s just that we country folks are more used to spending our energy. We depend on selling blood to make enough money to afford a wife, or build a new house. We make just enough in the fields to make sure we don’t starve.”

Ah Fang said, “Genlong’s right. I’m saving the money I made today for a new house. Another couple of times, and I’ll have enough to start construction. Genlong’s selling blood because he’s got his eye on a girl named Guihua in our village. Originally she was engaged to someone else, but then they broke it off, and Genlong ended up falling for her instead.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’ve seen Guihua. Her behind is too big. Genlong, do you like big behinds?”

Genlong grinned while Ah Fang explained, “Women with big behinds are nice and solid. Being in bed with them is like being on a boat — nice and comfy.”

Xu Sanguan broke into a broad smile.

Ah Fang went on. “So, Xu Sanguan, have you thought it through? What you’re going to do with the money you earned from selling blood?”

“I don’t know yet,” Xu Sanguan said. “I’ve only just learned what it means to sell the kind of energy that comes from the blood. What I earn in the factory is just sweat money, but what I earned today is blood money. You can’t spend that kind of money on just anything. I have to find something important to spend it on.”

Genlong interrupted. “Hey, did you happen to notice those underpants Blood Chief Li had on?” Ah Fang smirked as Genlong continued. “Do you think they might have been that Ying Something-or-other’s panties?”

“Obviously. My guess is that they accidentally put on each other’s underwear when they got up this morning,” Ah Fang said.

“I would really like to see”—Genlong chuckled—“whether or not she’s wearing Blood Chief Li’s underwear.”