The township's most notorious female free spirit, whose name was Jiena but whom everyone called Little Black Girl, had a remarkable voice. Her songs had been broadcast daily over the loudspeakers in the days of the Cultural Revolution. A bad family background stood in the way of a splendid future, and she had been forced to marry a dyer from a working-class family. He went out every day on his bicycle to pick up clothes to be dyed. High-quality fabric was in short supply in those days, so young people tore up old white cloth and had it dyed green to resemble faddish army gear. Even caustic soda was ineffective in cleaning the green stains from the dyer's hands, and what that would have meant for Jiena's milky white breasts is not hard to contemplate. And so Jiena strayed from her marriage vows. Her relationship with Lao Lan went back a long time, so when he made his fortune she looked him up. I'd always liked this charming woman. She had a captivating voice, thanks to her musical past. But I could not let that stop me from aiming the fifteenth shell at her house, where she and Lao Lan were reminiscing, teary-eyed, over a shared bottle and indulging in pillow talk. The missile landed in an old dye vat, sending green dye flying everywhere. The dyer would not only wear the green hat of a cuckold but also live in the green house of one.
The sixteenth shell was supposed to hit the meatpacking plant's conference room but it was missing one of its wings and began to wobble in mid-air. It landed in Yao Qi's pigsty, killing the sow they had spoilt so badly.
The meat-inspection office was the recipient of the seventeenth shell. Chief Inspector Han and his deputy were lightly wounded. One piece of shrapnel, big enough to end Lao Lan's life, hit the model-worker brass medal, presented by the city officials and pinned to the left breast of his jacket. The impact sent him reeling into the wall. His face paled and he all but spat blood. It was the most damage any of my shells had inflicted on him so far; and even though he survived the blow it scared the hell out of him.
If any of the shells was assured of taking Lao Lan out it was the eighteenth—because he was standing in an open-air public toilet relieving himself, totally exposed. The projectile could easily slip through the gaps of the parasol-tree branches overhead. But then I was reminded of the hero from the old couple's village who had killed an enemy soldier while he was taking a shit—what a shameful way to kill a man. Killing Lao Lan while he was taking a leak would not bring me glory, and so I had no choice but to alter the course slightly and have the shell land in the nearby privy. POW! He was covered in shit. A lot of fun but a low blow.
After firing the nineteenth shell, I realized that I had just violated an international treaty. It landed in the township treatment room and sent glass flying everywhere. The nurse on duty, the lazy sister-in-law of the deputy township head, normally sat in a chair behind a patient spread-eagled over a table, arse in the air, ready to receive to an injection. When the mortar shell hit she was so frightened that she squatted on the floor and cried like a baby. Lao Lan lay in bed hooked up to an IV drip filled with artery-cleaning serum. The blood of people like him who feast on rich, fatty food sticks to the artery walls like glue.
Along with the municipalization of agricultural populations came the rise of rampant consumerism. A bowling alley had been built near the township headquarters. Lao Lan was a champion bowler, a master of strikes, despite his terrible form. He used a twelve-pound purple ball. Spurning an approach, he walked to the line, swung his arm and the ball, like a shell from a mortar, shot straight into the pins; they toppled over with cries of anguish. My twentieth shell landed on the bowling-alley lane. Smoke rose and shrapnel flew.
Lao Lan emerged unscathed. Was the son of a bitch wearing a protective talisman?
The twenty-first shell landed in the meatpacking plant's fresh-water well. Lao Lan was standing beside it gazing at the reflection of the moon, and I assumed he was musing over the story of the monkey that tried to scoop the moon out the water. I can't think of anything else he might have come out to see in the middle of the night. That well played a prominent role in my life, as you know, Wise Monk, so I won't go into that here. The moon was bright and pristine. When it fell into the well, the shell failed to explode but it did shatter the moon's pristine reflection and muddy the water.
Despite the twenty-first shell's failure to kill Lao Lan, his poise and aplomb had deserted him. Sooner or later an earthen well jar will break—it's inevitable. One of these exploding shells has your name on it and the Western Heaven awaits your arrival. Resorting to trickery, Lao Lan put on a worker's clothes and tried to pass himself off as one of the night-shift men in the kill room. What looked like an attempt to become one with the masses was in fact a ploy to save his skin. He greeted the workers, even slapped some of them familiarly on the shoulder, producing smiles from those favoured by such an unexpected but welcome gesture. At the moment they were slaughtering camels, those ships of the desert, dispatched in great numbers because their hooves were sought after at formal banquets on the tables of Han and Manchu diners. Camel was the ‘in’ meat of the day, as a result of Lao Lan's success in buying off several nutrition experts and local reporters who then published a series of articles extolling the virtues of camel meat. There was a plentiful supply of the animals from Gansu and Inner Mongolia, although the finest were imported from the Middle East. By this time the kill rooms were semi-automated. The animals were transported by hoists from the meat-cleansing workshop into Kill Room No. 1, where they were first washed with cold water and then subjected to a steam bath. Their legs flailed wildly as they hung from the hoists. Lao Lan was standing under one of the suspended camels, listening to the workshop foreman Feng Tiehan, when I seized the moment and dropped the twenty-second shell into the tube. Trailing a live wire, it flew to its target, exploding on the roof and severing the steel cable supporting the unfortunate camel. It plunged to its death.
The twenty-third shell entered the workshop through the hole opened by its predecessor and rolled on the killing floor like a giant spinning top. With no thought for his safety, Feng Tiehan threw himself at Lao Lan, knocking him to the floor and covering him with his body. POW! Blast waves and billowing gunpowder smoke swept through the workshop. Four hooves flew for a distance and then fell onto Feng's back, where they looked like frogs engaged in a serious discussion.
Lao Lan crawled out from under Feng's body, wiped the steel splinters and camel blood off his face and sneezed. His clothes lay in tatters at his feet; all that remained on him was a leather belt. ‘Luo Xiaotong,’ he screamed, picking up a rag to cover his privates, ‘you little prick, what did I ever do to you?’
You've never done anything to or for me. I took the twenty-fourth shell from the old man and dropped it down the tube. This would be my answer. Taking the same course as its two predecessors, it landed in the new crater. Lao Lan hit the ground and rolled over to take cover behind the camel carcass. The edge of the crater blocked splinters of shrapnel and saved him from injury. Some of the other men lay flat on the workshop floor but a few stood stock still. One especially brave man crawled up to Lao Lan. ‘Are you hurt, General Manager?’ he asked. ‘Get me some clothes,’ Lao Lan said. Hiding behind a dead camel with his bare arse sticking up in the air put him in a very sorry state.
The courageous worker ran into the foreman's office to fetch a set of clothes, but as he handed them to Lao Lan the twenty-fifth shell streaked towards him. With a burst of inspiration, he caught the flying missile in the heavy canvas clothing and flung it out the window. That action not only displayed how cool-headed and decisive he could be, but was also testimony to his superior strength. If he'd been a soldier during wartime, he'd have been a hero extraordinaire. The shell exploded outside the window—POW!
Before it was time to fire the twenty-sixth shell, the old woman hobbled up to me, took a piece of turnip from her mouth and stuffed it into mine. That was revolting, I don't deny it. But thoughts of how pigeons exchange food and crows feed their aged parents turned my revulsion into a feeling of intimacy. I was also reminded of an incid
ent with my mother. It was back when my father had gone off to the northeast and Mother and I were dealing in scrap. We were taking a break at a roadside stall—she'd spent twenty fen that day for two bowls of beef-entrail soup for us to soak our hard biscuits in. A blind couple with a chubby, fair-skinned baby were eating at the stall. The baby, obviously hungry, was crying. The woman, hearing my mother's voice, asked if she would feed the baby. So Mother took the baby from her and a hard biscuit from the man, which she chewed into pulp before feeding him mouth-to-mouth. Afterwards she said: ‘That's what's called pigeons feeding each other.’ I swallowed the turnip the old woman put in my mouth and felt suddenly sharp-eyed and clear-headed. I aimed the twenty-sixth shell at Lao Lan's bare arse, but it was still in the air when the workshop collapsed with a roar. It was an amazing sight, like those demolitions you see on TV. The shell landed amid the rubble and knocked aside a steel beam that had pinned Lao Lan underneath, creating an opening through which he crawled free and once again escaped death.
I was beginning to get flustered, if you want to know the truth. The twenty-seventh shell had Lao Lan's bare arse in its sights once more. When it exploded, the blast sheared the roadside trees in half. But Lao Lan survived yet again. Goddamn it, what's going on?
I began to wonder if the destructive power of the shells had deteriorated because of their age. So I left the mortar and walked over to the ammunition cases to examine the contents. The boy was conscientiously cleaning the grease off each shell, which then sparkled like fine jewels. Anything that looked that good had to be powerful. So the fault lay not in the shells but in Lao Lan's cunning. ‘How am I doing, Big Brother?’ the boy asked. I was moved by his slightly fawning attitude and struck by how much he resembled my sister, even though one was a boy, the other a girl. I patted him on the head. ‘You're doing a terrific job. You're my number three artilleryman.’
‘Do you think I could fire one?’ he asked me shyly, after he'd finished cleaning the shells. ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘Maybe you'll be the one to blow Lao Lan to bits. I led him over to the mortar, handed him a shell and said, ‘The twenty-eighth shell. The target—Lao Lan. Distance—eight hundred. Ready—fire!’ ‘I hit him, I hit him!’ the boy shouted, clapping joyfully. Lao Lan had in fact been knocked to the ground. But he jumped to his feet, panther-quick, and took cover in the packaging workshop. Tasting blood, the boy asked if he could fire another. I agreed.
I left him on his own for the twenty-ninth shell, which veered off course and landed in a pile of coal at the little train station's abandoned freight yard. Coal dust and gunpowder smoke blotted out great swaths of moonlight.
Embarrassed by this mistake, he scratched his head and went back to his cleaning station.
This gave Lao Lan time to change into blue work clothes, then stand on a pile of cardboard boxes and shout: ‘Give it up, Luo Xiaotong. Save the remaining shells for hunting rabbits.’ That really pissed me off, so I took aim at his head and fired the thirtieth shell. He sprinted into the workshop and shut the door behind him, thereby saving himself from injury once again.
The thirty-first shell tore a hole in the workshop roof and landed in a pile of cardboard boxes, shredding at least a dozen of them and turning camel steaks into a meaty pulp, then searing it in the superheated air. The smell of burnt flesh merged with that of gunpowder.
Lao Lan's arrogance made me lose my bearings, and I forgot to conserve my ammunition. In rapid succession I fired off shells thirty-two, thirty-three and thirty-four to form a tight triangular pattern, as taught in artillery courses. They did not succeed in killing Lao Lan, but they did blow up the packaging workshop just as an earlier shell had blown up the kill room.
The old man, like a child, asked to fire off a few rounds. I wanted to say no but he was my elder and the one who had supplied the mortar shells; I had no excuse to refuse his request. He took a position alongside the tube, raised his thumb and shut his eye to gauge the distance. This thirty-fifth shell would take out the guardhouse beside the main gate. POW! No more guardhouse. With shell thirty-six, the newly erected water tower. POW! An enormous hole opened up halfway down the tower, releasing a powerful jet of water. The world-renowned Huachang United Meatpacking Ltd lay in ruins. But then I realized that six of the cases now stood empty, leaving only the last one with its five shells.
Night-shift workers were running pell-mell amid the ruins, stepping in bloodied water. Some of the workers may even have been trapped in the rubble. A red fire truck, siren blaring, was on its way from the county seat, followed by a white ambulance and a yellow motor crane. Orange tongues of flame licked the air here and there, probably from torn electric wires. Amid the chaos, Lao Lan climbed up the rebirth platform in the northeast corner of the yard. Once the highest structure in the compound, now that the workshop and water tower had been levelled, it looked taller and more impressive than ever, seemingly able to reach the stars and touch the moon. You're encroaching on my father's domain, Lao Lan. What are you doing up there? Without a second thought, I fired shell thirty-seven at the platform, some eight hundred and fifty yards away.
The shell passed through the gaps in the trees and struck an enclosing wall made of bricks taken from gravesites. A fireball blew a hole in the wall. I'd once heard a story about something that had occurred during a tomb-opening campaign; I had not been born and was thus denied the opportunity to witness the madness. A crowd had gathered in front of an old tomb with statues of men and horses—Lao Lan's ancestral tombs—holding handkerchiefs over their noses as they watched men carry out a rusted piece of artillery. A specialist from the urban Institute for Archaeological Studies commented that he'd never seen anyone buried with a cannon. Which posed the question: Why here? No credible explanation had been offered so far. When Lao Lan mentioned the desecration of his family tombs, he was both aggrieved and bitter. ‘You bastards have destroyed the Lan family feng shui and made impossible the birth of a future president of the country!’
Lao Lan was supporting himself by a wooden post at the top of the platform as he gazed off to the northeast. That was where my father used to gaze too. I knew why—it was where he and Aunty Wild Mule had spent days of sadness and moments of joy. What right have you to copy him, Lan Lan? I set my sights on his back. POW! Shell thirty-eight took the top off the spire. He remained unmoved.
The unhappy boy did such a sloppy job in cleaning the thirty-ninth shell that, as he was handing it to the old man, slipped out of his hands and hit the ground. I yelled, taking cover behind the mortar. The shell spun round and round on the rooftop, then we heard a clank. The old man, the old woman and the young boy stood there transfixed, mouths agape. Damn! If the thing explodes here and sets off a chain reaction with the last two shells, all four of us are dead. ‘Hit the ground!’ I shouted but got no reaction from the frozen figures. The shell careened up to my feet as if it wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk. I grabbed it round the neck and flung it as far as I could. POW! It blew up down the lane, wasted. What a shame.
The old man handed me the fortieth shell as if it were a precious object. I did not need a reminder that, after this one left the tube, the end game of the battle against Lao Lan was upon us. I took the shell with care, as though I were carrying the sole infant heir of a hereditary line. My heart was pounding. Briefly reflecting on the first thirty-nine firings, I had to admit that failing to kill Lao Lan was mandated by the heavens; it had nothing to do with a lack of skill on my part. Apparently, even the King of Hell wanted none of Lao Lan. I double-checked the sight, recalculated the distance and reviewed the procedures. Everything was as it should be. Unless a force-three gale erupted while the missile was in flight or it was struck by falling debris from a dying satellite, unless something beyond my ability to predict occurred, this shell ought to land on Lao Lan's head. It would kill him even if it failed to explode. Just before letting the shell slide down the tube, I whispered: ‘Don't fail me, mortar shell!’ It flew into the air. No wind and no satellite debris. It landed on
the tip of the platform and—nothing happened.
The old woman threw away what remained of her turnip, took shell forty-one from the old man and shouldered me out of the way. ‘Idiot!’ she muttered. Standing beside the mortar and huffing loudly, she dropped it in the tube. Shell forty-one fluttered out like a kite cut loose from its string. It flew and it flew, a lazy, distracted arc, on and on aimlessly, this way and that, like a young goat running amok. In the end it fell reluctantly to the ground about twenty yards from the rebirth platform. One second and counting, two seconds, three—and nothing. Damn! ‘Another dud.’ The words were barely out of my mouth, when POW! The air shuddered, like ripped cotton. A single piece of shrapnel, a little bigger than the palm of my hand, whistled through the air and sliced Lao Lan in half…
An immature crowing floats on the air from a distant village, the sound of one of this year's young roosters learning how to announce the dawn. I've welcomed the dawn with a narrative replete with artillery fire that has crisscrossed the earth with scars. During the course of my tale, most of the Wutong Temple has crumbled, leaving only a single column perilously holding up part of the dilapidated tile roof, now more like a mat screen against the morning dew. Dear Wise Monk, it no longer matters whether or not I renounce the world. What I want to know is: Has my tale moved you? What I hope you can tell me is: Is what Lao Lan said about his third uncle true or is it all a lie? Can you tell me, or not? The Wise Monk sighs, raises his hand and points to the road in front of the temple. I am surprised to see two processions. The one from the west comprises beef cattle in fancy dress, each with a big character written on its raiments, together spelling out slogans that oppose the construction of the Meat God Temple. There are exactly forty-one heads of cattle. They trot down the road and form a circle at our temple, with the Wise Monk and me in the middle. Daggers have been tied to their horns. Lowering their heads, they seem ready to charge, slobber snorting from their noses, flames of anger shooting from their eyes. The one from the east comprises naked women with big characters written on their bodies, together spelling out slogans that support the rebuilding of the Wutong Temple. There are exactly forty-one naked women. They run down the road, then mount the forty-one bulls like equestriennes and surround the Wise Monk and me. Scared witless, I take refuge behind the Wise Monk but even that is no guarantee of safety. Niang, help me…