‘I want to compete,’ shouted Jiaojiao.
The crowd heard her words, and all eyes swung in her direction. You couldn't have asked for a more delightful sight at that moment than my pig-tailed, limpid-eyed, plump little sister.
‘That's the spirit,’ Lao Lan called out. ‘There we have a case of “Heroes come from the ranks of youth, and every trade has its master practitioner.” What has the country's reform and opening-up policy achieved? I'll tell you: individual talent can no longer be suppressed. Even eating meat can bring fame and glory to an individual. All right, then, that ends the contest. If your shift is over, go on home. For the rest, it's time to go to work.’
The crowd broke up amid scattered comments. ‘Dr Fang,’ Lao Lan said, pointing to Liu Shengli and Wan Xiaojiang, who were still throwing up near the wall, ‘do they need an injection of something?’
‘For what? They'll be fine once they've emptied their stomachs.’ He turned and pointed to me with his chin. ‘He's the one I'm worried about,’ he said. ‘He ate the most.’
Lao Lan patted the doctor on the shoulder. ‘My friend,’ he said with a laugh, ‘your concerns are wasted on that youngster. He's special, a sort of meat god. He's been sent down to earth for the sole purpose of eating meat. His stomach is built differently from ours. Isn't that right, Luo Xiaotong? Do you feel stuffed? Want the doctor to have a look?’
‘I'm fine, thank you,’ I said to the doctor. ‘In fact I've never felt better.’
POW! 37
A nightlong torrential downpour has washed away the vomit of the poison victims. The street looks newly scrubbed and the leaves on the trees oily green. Thanks to the rain, a hole in the temple roof is now as big as a millstone, and through it sunlight pours in. Dozens of rats, flushed out by the water, crouch atop the crumbling remains of clay idols. The woman from last night, the spitting image of Aunty Wild Mule, hasn't shown up and, since I'm hungry, I go ahead and eat the mushrooms growing round the Wise Monk's straw mat. That energizes me, puts a sparkle in my eyes and clears my head. Scenes from my past float up from the recesses of my brain: at a gravesite backed against the mountains and facing the sea—the ideal feng shui—a woman in black sits in front of a marble tombstone. The headstone likeness shows that it is the grave of Lan Daguan's son, and the mole near the woman's mouth tells me that she is the Buddhist nun Shen Yaoyao. There are no tears on her face and no signs of mourning. A subtle fragrance emanates from the bouquet of calla lilies in front of the headstone. A woman walks up lightly behind Lan Daguan, whose eyes are shut and who seems deep in thought. ‘Mr Lan,’ she says softly, ‘Master Huiming passed away last night.’ Lan sighs as if shedding a great burden. ‘Now,’ he says to himself, ‘I am truly worry-free’. He gulps down a glassful of liquor and then says: ‘Have Xiao Qin send for a couple of women.’ ‘Mr—’ the woman exclaims. ‘Mr what? I'm going to commemorate his passing with frenzied, unbridled sex!’ As he cavorts with wild abandon with two long-legged, slope-shouldered women, the four craftsmen who had built the idol stagger into the yard in front of the Wutong Temple and cry out in alarm when they see the marred face of the rain-ravaged Meat God. The master craftsman rebukes the three younger men for not covering its face with plastic or dressing it in rain cloak and bamboo hat. They hang their heads and accept the tongue-lashing without a word of protest. The two long-legged women kneel on the carpet and plead coquettishly: ‘Be good to us, Patron. Our breasts are Yaoyao's breasts, our legs are Yaoyao's legs, we are Yaoyao's stand-ins, so treat us with tenderness.’ ‘Do you know who Yaoyao was?’ Lan asks unemotionally. ‘No,’ they reply. ‘All we know is that we can please Patron by pretending to be her. And when Patron is happy, he treats us fondly.’ Lan Daguan reacts with a belly laugh as tears spill from his eyes. Two of the young craftsmen walk up with buckets of clean water while the third has discovered a wire brush. With the foreman in charge, they scrub the paint off the idol. It howls a complaint, and my skin turns itchy and painful. Once the paint has been cleaned off, I see the original colour and grain of the willow tree. ‘We'll paint it again after it dries’ the foreman tells them. ‘Xiaobao, go see Director Yan for the funds. Tell him we'll take the Meat God back and chop it up for kindling if he doesn't come up with the money’ ‘Be careful you don't wind up with a toothache’ warns Shifu, the worker who suffered the night before. ‘The Meat God knows what I'm doing, the foreman says unemotionally. The young man takes off running, hips churning. The foreman walks into the temple to inspect the crumbling Wutong Spirit. His bookish apprentice follows him in as the foreman pats the Horse Spirit on the rump—a piece of clay falls off. ‘This is our meal ticket’ he says. ‘These five spirits will keep us busy for quite some time.’ ‘What worries me, Shifu,’ his disciple says, ‘is that things will change.’ ‘Change how?’ the foreman asks with a glare. ‘After what happened last night, Shifu, with more than a hundred poisoned, what are the chances that the Carnivore Festival will continue? If they cancel the festival, there'll be no Meat God Temple and they won't want to refurbish this Wutong Temple. Didn't you hear the lieutenant governor last night when he talked about the Meat God and the Wutong Temples in the same breath?’ ‘You've got a point, the foreman says, ‘but, young fellow, there are things in this world you don't understand. If nothing had happened last night, the festival might well have been cancelled next year. But, because it did, there's no chance it won't be held next year. And bigger than ever.’ The apprentice can only shake his head. ‘You're right, I don't understand’ ‘That won't kill you, boy,’ the foreman says. ‘There are things you young people don't need to understand. Just keep doing your job and you'll understand when you reach a certain age.’ ‘That I understand, Shifu,’ the youngster answers. With his chin the foreman points to the two men out in the yard with the Meat God. ‘Those two are fine with manual labour, but I'm going to count on you for what needs to be done with the Wutong Spirit.’ ‘I'll do my best, Shifu, but what if my best isn't good enough and I don't live up to your expectations?’ ‘Don't sell yourself short. I'm an excellent judge of people. Four of the five spirits are pretty much ruined, and it's not going to be easy putting them back the way they were. But I've got an old edition of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, which describes what the five spirits are supposed to look like, though we'll have to make some improvements to keep up with the times. We can't just imitate the old style. Take this Horse Spirit. It looks more equine than human, the foreman says as his hands move around the idol. We need to make it look more human so it won't scare all the women away. But won't other teams also want the job, Shifu? the concerned young worker asks. Only Nie Liu and Lao Han's gangs, and they're lucky if they can throw together a local earth god. These five spirits are way above their ability.’ ‘Don't underestimate them, Shifu,’ the youngster says. ‘I hear that Nie Liu sent his son to a fine-arts school to study sculpting. When he comes back to take over from his father, we won't be in his league.’ ‘Are you talking about his blockhead son? A fine-arts school, you say? He'd be no good even if he'd gone to an art academy. The first requirement for working on religious idols is to have the spirit in you. Without it, no matter how talented you are, you'll never create anything but lumps of clay. But you're right, we must be careful and alert. The world is full of talented people, and who's to say that a master sculptor won't show up some day? Keep that in mind.’ ‘Thanks, Shifu,’ the youngster says. ‘Now,’ the foreman says, ‘find a way to strike up a friendship with Lao Lan, the Slaughterhouse Village head, since it was his ancestors who built the Wutong Temple. He'll put up most of the money for the refurbishment, especially since word has it that he's recently received something like ten million from overseas. Whoever he wants to repair the idols has the best chance of getting the job.’ ‘Don't you worry, Shifu,’ the youngster says confidently. ‘My sister-in-law is the cousin of his wife, Fan Zhaoxia. I checked—people say that Lao Lan does what his wife tells him.’ The foreman nods appreciatively. Lan Daguan flings his glass to the floor and g
ets up unsteadily. The two servants rush up and catch him under his arms. ‘You've had too much to drink, sir,’ one of them says. ‘Me? Too much to drink? Maybe. You—‘he shrugs his arms to free them from the women's grip and glares at them, ‘go get two women to come sober me up.’ Shall I keep talking, Wise Monk?
Three months before Lao Lan's wife died, he and I dealt with two clandestine visits by reporters and were each proud to have managed so successfully.
The first came disguised as a peasant sheep-seller. With a scrawny old sheep in tow, he mixed in with the crowd of people who had brought animals to sell—cows and sheep on the hoof, pigs in handcarts, dogs on shoulder poles. Why shoulder poles? Try putting a halter on the dogs! The sellers dull the animals’ senses with liquor-laced buns, tie their rear legs together, slip their poles under the ropes and then hoist them onto their shoulders. Since it was market day, the sellers formed a large crowd. Once I'd planned the day's production schedule, I took a walk round the plant with Jiaojiao.
Our prestige soared in the wake of the contest. Nearly all of the workers we encountered looked at us with respect. As for my defeated combatants, Liu Shengli and Wan Xiaojiang, they nodded and bowed and greeted me as Young Master. Despite their sarcasm, their admiration was genuine. Though Feng Tiehan maintained the restraint he'd displayed during the competition, there was no hiding his admiration either. Father observed everything and then took me aside for a heart-to-heart talk, urging me to act humbly and to avoid any signs of arrogance: ‘People shun fame, pigs fear bulk,’ he said. ‘A dead pig doesn't fear boiling water,’ I countered with a giggle. ‘Xiaotong, my son,’ Father sighed, ‘you're too young to take my words seriously. It's in one ear and out the other. You won't know how hard a brick wall is till you smash your nose against it.’ ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘I know how hard a brick wall is. Not only that, I know that a pickaxe is even harder.’ ‘You must do as you see fit, son,’ he said resignedly. ‘This isn't how I wanted my children to turn out, but there's nothing I can do about that now. I've not been a good father, so I guess I'm to blame for how you've turned out.’ ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘I know what you wanted of us. You wanted us to go to school, to go to college. Then abroad, to complete our education. But Jiaojiao and I aren't student material, Dieh, any more than you're official material. But we have our unique talents, so why should we follow in everyone else's footsteps on the path to success? As they say, if you have something fresh to offer, you'll never go hungry. We can do things the way we want.’ Father hung his head. ‘What unique talents do any of us have?’ he wondered aloud, dispirited. ‘Dieh,’ I said, ‘other people can look down on us, but we can't look down on ourselves. Of course we have unique talents. Yours is evaluating livestock, ours is eating meat.’ He sighed again: ‘Son, how can you call that a unique talent?’ ‘Dieh,’ I replied, ‘as you very well know, it's not everyone who can consume five pounds of meat at one sitting without adverse effects. And it takes a unique talent to determine the gross weight of a cow just by looking at it. Don't you call those unique talents? If you don't, then the whole concept of unique talent is meaningless.’ He shook his head: ‘Son, the way I see it, your unique talent isn't eating meat, but twisting false logic until it seems true. You should be somewhere where you can show off your eloquence, somewhere like the United Nations. That's where you belong, a place where you can debate to your heart's content.’ ‘Would you look closely at that place where you think I belong, Dieh? The UN? What would I do in a place like that? Despite their Western suits and leather shoes, those people are all phonies. The one thing I can't stand is to be tied down. I need to be free. But even worse, there'd be no meat for me there and I won't go anywhere where there's no meat, not even Heaven.’ ‘I'm not going to argue with you,’ Father said, exasperated. ‘It's the same thing all over. Since you say you're no longer a child, then you have to answer to yourself for whatever happens. Don't come crying to me in the future if things don't work out.’ ‘Take it easy, Dieh,’ I said. ‘Future? What does that mean? Why waste time thinking about the future? There's a saying: “When the cart reaches the mountain, there'll be a road, and a boat can sail even upwind.” And another one that goes: “Favoured people are free of hustle and bustle, others blindly rush about.” Lao Lan says that Jiaojiao and I were sent down to earth to eat meat and that we'll go back after we've consumed our allotted amount. The future? Not for us, thank you!’ I could see he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, which delighted me. I now knew that I had put Father behind me as a result of the meat-eating contest. A man I'd once revered was no longer worthy of that feeling. Nor, for that matter, was Lao Lan. I was struck by the realization that while they seem complicated, the affairs of the world are in fact quite simple. There's only one issue that deserves worldwide attention—meat. The world's vast population can be divided into meat categories. In simplest terms, those who eat meat and those who don't, and those who are true meat-eaters and those who aren't. Then there are those who would eat meat if they had access to it and those who have access but don't eat it. Finally, there are those who thrive by eating meat and those who suffer over it. Amid those vast numbers of people, I am among the very few who desire meat, who have a capacity for meat and love it, who have constant access to meat and who thrive by eating it. That is the primary source of my abundant self-confidence. See how long-winded I get, Wise Monk, when the talk turns to meat? People find that annoying, I know, so I'll change the subject and talk about the reporter who dressed up like a peasant.
He was wearing a tattered blue jacket over grey cotton trousers. He had yellow rubber sandals on his feet and a bulging old khaki bag over his shoulder as he joined the crowd with his scrawny, tethered sheep. His jacket was too big for him and his trousers too long, which made him look sort of lost in his clothes. His hair was a mess, his face ghostly pale and his eyes constantly darted here and there. He didn't fool me for a minute, but I didn't take him for a reporter, at least not at first. When Jiaojiao and I approached him, he looked away. Something in his eyes bothered me, so I scrutinized him more closely. Refusing to look me in the eye, he covered up his discomfort by whistling, which made me even more suspicious. But I still didn't think he was a reporter in disguise. I thought he might be a delinquent from town who'd stolen a sheep and brought it here to sell. I nearly went up to tell him he didn't have to worry, since we never asked where our animals came from. None of the cows the West County peddlers brought came with a pedigree. I took a look at his sheep—a castrated old ram with curled horns. It had been recently sheared, but not professionally, evident from the unevenly scissored patches and a few spots where the skin had been nicked. A sad, scrawny old ram with a terrible haircut that might have been remotely presentable had it been favoured with a full coat. Attracted by the short fleece, Jiaojiao reached out to touch the animal and startled it into a leap. The unexpected movement caused the fellow to stumble and jerked the lead out of his hand, freeing the animal to meander up to the queue of sellers and their animals, the rope dragging on the ground behind it. The fellow ran after it, taking big strides and swinging his arms wildly as he tried to step on the moving rope, but missed every time. It almost looked as if he was putting on an act for the crowd. Every time he bent over to grab the rope, it slipped out of range. By now, his clumsy, comical performance had everyone in stitches. Including me.
‘Elder Brother,’ Jiaojiao said with a laugh, ‘who is that man?’
‘A fool, but a funny one,’ I said.
‘You think he's a fool?’ said an old fellow with four dogs on his pole. He seemed to know us, but we didn't know him. His jacket draped over his shoulders, his arms crossed, he held a pipe between his teeth. ‘He's no fool,’ he said as he launched a mouthful of phlegm. ‘Look at those shifty eyes, how they take in everything. He's not an honest man,’ he continued under his breath, ‘not with those eyes.’
I knew what he was getting at. ‘We know,’ I said softly, ‘he's a thief.’
‘So call the police.’
/> I called the old fellow's attention to the queue of animals and their sellers. ‘We've got plenty on our hands already, Uncle.’
‘Thunder always rumbles after a temple festival. There are thieves everywhere you look these days,’ he said. ‘I was going to feed these four dogs another month before taking them out of their pens, but I couldn't take the chance. The thieves toss knockout drugs into dog pens—ones that are effective for days—then steal the dogs and sell them outside the area.’
‘What can you tell me about those drugs?’ I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Now that the days were turning cold, men in the city were looking for tonics to increase their vitality, which meant that dog meat pots were getting fired up. We supplied the city with dog meat, and had to attend to the issue of canine water-cleansing. The animals could inflict serious damage if they were spooked, and a knockout drug could solve that problem. Once the dogs were doped, we could hang them up and start the treatment. That done, it wouldn't matter if they came to, since they'd be more like pigs than dogs and no longer a threat. All that remained then was to drag them over to the killing room, not dead but barely alive.
‘I'm told it's a red powder bomb that makes a muffled noise when it hits the ground and releases a pink mist and a strange smell somewhere between fragrant and noxious. Even an attack dog will keel over after one whiff.’ In a tone that was equal parts anger and dread, he added, ‘Those thieves are no different than women who drug and kidnap children. They all belong to secret societies, and ordinary peasants have no way of laying hands on their formulas. It's probably some strange concoction we could never track down.’