‘Do you understand science?’ she demanded angrily. If I could drive off, why stop? Besides, you’ve got my bucket.’
Ding Gou’er made a face, knowing that this little bit of humor might make a little girl giggle, but had no effect on this shrew. Yet he made the face, anyway, in spite of himself.
‘Don’t make a fool of yourself,’ she growled, ‘wrinkling your nose and giving me the evil eye like that. Now go get some water.’
‘Out here in the middle of nowhere? Where am I supposed to find it?’
‘If I knew, would I be sending you?’
Reluctantly, Ding Gou’er picked up the bucket, parted the yielding roadside shrubbery, stepped across the shallow, bone-dry roadside ditch, and found himself standing in the middle of a harvested field. It was not one of those fields to which he was accustomed, where you can see for miles in every direction, like a vast wilderness. Having made it to the outskirts of the urban center, he could see signs of where the city’s arms, or at least its fingers, had reached: here a lonely little multi-storied building, there a smokestack belching smoke, dissecting the field in crazy quilt fashion. Ding Gou’er stood there feeling unavoidably, if not overwhelmingly, sad. After a reflective moment, he looked up into the setting sun and its layers of red clouds on the western horizon, which effectively drove away his melancholy; he turned and strode in the direction of the nearest, and strangest-looking, building he saw.
‘Head for the mountains, and kill the horse.’ No statement was ever truer. Bathed in the blood red sunset, the building seemed so very near, but for the man on foot it was so very far. Cropland kept popping up between him and the building as if falling from the sky, keeping him from walking toward where his happiness lay. A major surprise awaited him in a harvested cornfield where only dry stalks remained.
By then dusk had nearly fallen, turning the sky the color of red wine. Cornstalks stood like silent sentries. Even though Ding Gou’er turned sideways to walk down a plowed row, he unavoidably brushed against silken corn tassels, making rustling sounds. All of a sudden, a hulking shadow appeared in his path, as if it had sprung up out of the ground, throwing such a fright into the investigator, a man of renowned courage, that he shivered from head to toe and his hair stood on end; instinctively brandishing the tin bucket, he was ready to strike. But the monster stepped back and said in a muffled voice:
‘What’s the big idea, trying to hit me?’
Once he had regained his composure, the investigator discovered that it was a very tall and very old man standing in his way. Starlight shining through the deepening dusk fell on the man’s bristly chin and rats’ nest of hair; two deep green eyes were circled by the hazy outline of a face. He sensed that the big-boned man, dressed in rags, was probably a hard-working, simple-living, diligent and courageous, decent man. His raspy breath came in thick, short bursts, mingled with metallic coughs.
‘What are you doing here?’ Ding Gou’er asked.
‘Cricket snatching,’ the old man replied, lifting a clay pot as proof.
‘Cricket catching?’
‘Cricket watching,’ the old man said.
Crickets were leaping around in his pot, banging loudly into the clay walls - pi-pi pa-pa - as the old man stood there quietly, his shifty green eyes looking like a pair of exhausted fireflies.
‘Cricket catching?’ Ding Gou’er asked. ‘Do folks around here enjoy cricket fighting?’
‘No. Folks around here enjoy cricket snacking,’ the old man drawled, as he turned, took a couple of steps, and knelt on the ground. Cornstalk leaves rustled, then settled on his head and shoulders, transforming him into a grave mound. Starlight kept getting brighter and brighter, cool breezes wafted this way and that, leaving no trace either way and creating an air of deep mystery. Ding Gou’er’s shoulders stiffened as a chill coursed through his heart. Fireflies glided through the air like optical illusions. And then the dreary calls of crickets erupted all around him; everywhere, it seemed, nothing but crickets. Ding Gou’er looked on as the old man turned on a tiny flashlight, sending a ray of golden light to the base of a cornstalk, where it wrapped itself around a nice fat cricket: bright red body, square head with protruding eyes, thick legs and a bulging abdomen, breathing heavily and poised to leap away at any second. The old man reached out and caught it in a little net. From there, into the clay pot. And, before long, from there into a pot full of hot oil; and, finally from there into a human stomach.
The investigator was vaguely reminded of an article he’d read in Haute Cuisine listing the nutritive value of crickets and the many ways they can be prepared.
The old man crawled forward. Ding Gou’er threaded his way through the cornfield and headed quickly for the light ahead.
It was an extraordinarily appealing, wholesome, lively night in which exploration and discovery went hand in hand, study and work stood shoulder to shoulder, love and revolution were united, starlight above and lamplight below echoed one another from afar to illuminate dark corners. Light from a mercury-vapor lamp lit up a rectangular sign until it dazzled the eyes. With his tin bucket in hand, Ding Gou’er squinted to read the large black characters on the white signboard, fashioned in the Song Dynasty calligraphic style:
SPECIAL FOODS CULTIVATION INSTITUTE
It was a relatively small institute. As a welter of thoughts raced through his mind, Ding Gou’er sized up the handsome little buildings and the large, brightly lit tents. A gateman in a brown uniform and wide-brimmed hat, with a holster on his hip, appeared from behind the gate and shouted breathlessly: ‘What do you want? Just what do you think you’re doing, poking around like that? You wouldn’t have a little thievery in mind, would you?’
Noting the tear-gas pistol in the man’s holster and the electric prod he was waving haughtily, Ding Gou’er’s anger took hold. ‘Mind your tongue, young man,’ he said.
‘What? What did you say?’ the young gateman bellowed as he moved up closer.
‘I told you to mind your tongue!’ Ding Gou’er was a favorite of the public security and judicial system, and used to getting his way. Being yelled at by a gateman made his palms itch, got his dander up, soured his mood. ‘Watchdog!’ he hissed.
The ‘watchdog’ let out a yelp, leaped a good twenty centimeters into the air, and roared, ‘You little bastard, who the hell do you think you’re talking to? You’re dead meat!’ He drew his tear-gas pistol and aimed it at Ding Gou’er.
With a deprecatory laugh, Ding said, ‘Careful you don’t shoot yourself with that. If you’re going to subdue someone with tear gas, you’d better be standing upwind.’
‘Well, who’d have guessed a little bastard like you could be such an expert?’
‘I use tear-gas guns like that to wipe my ass!’ Ding Gou’er said.
‘Bullshit!’
‘Here come your bosses!’ Ding Gou’er said, pursing his lips and pointing to a spot behind the gateman.
When the gateman turned to look, Ding Gou’er casually swung his tin bucket and knocked the tear-gas pistol out of the man’s hand. Then, with a swift kick, he unburdened him of his electric prod, which also flew out of his hand.
The gateman thought about bending over to pick up his gun, but Ding raised his bucket and said, Do that and you'll be flat on the ground like a dog fighting over shit.’
Knowing he’d met his match, the gateman backed off, then turned and ran for the little building. Ding Gou’er strode through the gate with a smile.
A gang of men dressed exactly like the gateman came running out of the building. One of them had a metal whistle in his mouth: Brrrt - brrt - brrt, he blew with all his might. That’s the guy -beat the shit out of that son of a bitch - a dozen or so electric prods waved in the air. Like a pack of mad dogs, they surrounded Ding Gou’er.
He reached into his waistband. Oops, his pistol was in his briefcase, which was in the truck back on the road.
One of the men, a red armband around his bicep - probably a minor commander or something - pointed
at Ding Gou’er with his electric prod and asked truculently:
‘What the hell do you want?’
Tm a truck driver,’ Ding Gou’er answered, raising his tin bucket as proof.
‘A driver?’ the commander asked suspiciously. Then what are you doing here?’
‘Looking for water. My radiator overheated.’
The tension lessened considerably; several brandished electric prods were lowered.
‘He’s no driver,’ the humiliated gateman shouted. ‘This guy knows how to use his fists and feet.’
‘All that proves is what a loser you are,’ Ding Gou’er said.
‘Who do you drive for?’ the commander continued the interrogation.
Ding Gou’er recalled the sign on the door of the truck. ‘Brewer’s College,’ he answered without missing a beat.
‘Where were you headed?’
‘The mine.’
‘Your papers?’
‘In my jacket pocket.’
‘Where’s your jacket?’
‘In the truck.’
‘Where’s the truck?’
‘On the highway.’
‘Who else is in the truck?’
‘A good-looking girl’
The commander giggled. ‘You Brewer’s College drivers are horny asses.’
‘Horny asses, you said it!’
‘Well, get a move on!’ the commander said. ‘We’ve got water inside, so what’re you hanging around out here for?’
As Ding Gou’er followed them into the building, from behind he heard the commander chewing out the gateman: ‘You incompetent moron, can’t you even handle a run-of-the-mill truck driver? If the forty thieves ever showed up, they’d probably trick you out of your balls.’
The blinding lights inside the building made Ding Gou’er dizzy. His feet sank into the soft folds of a scarlet lamb’s-wool carpet; hanging on the walls were colorful photographs, all farm products: corn, rice, millet, sorghum, plus some others he’d never seen before. Ding Gou’er surmised that these were hybrid grains that the institute’s agri-scientists had taken pains to develop. The commander, warming up to Ding Gou’er a bit, pointed the way to the toilet, where, he said, he could fill his bucket with water from a tap used for rinsing out rags. Ding Gou’er thanked him, then watched him and his troops file into a little room, from which thick, acrid smoke escaped when the door was opened. Probably playing poker or mahjong, he concluded, although they could just as easily be studying the latest Central Government directive. He smiled, but only for a moment, before picking up his bucket and proceeding cautiously to the toilet, noticing the wooden signs on doors as he passed them: Technical Section, Production Section, Accounting Section, Financial Section, Dossier Room, Reference Room, Laboratory, Video Room. The door to the Video Room was ajar; people were working inside.
Bucket in hand, he peeked inside, where a man and a woman were watching a videotape. The images on the big-screen TV shocked him, for there on the screen, in ancient official script, were the following words:
A Rare Delicacy - Chicken Head Rice.
The soundtrack was of the tantalizing Cantonese tune ‘Bright Clouds Chasing the Moon.’ At first he wasn’t interested in the video, but it quickly exerted a powerful pull on him. The cinematic images were breathtakingly beautiful A chicken-killing production line. Chicken heads methodically lopped off, one after another, as the music swelled. The announcer says, ‘The broad masses of cadres at the Special Foods Cultivation Institute, under the encouragement of… have pooled their efforts and the wisdom of the masses, and, in the spirit of “when attacking a stronghold, show no fear,” struggling without letup, day and night…’ A group of emaciated, large-headed individuals in white uniforms were doing something with an array of test tubes. Another group of individuals - lovely young women with their hair tucked under their caps and wearing white full-sized aprons - were picking up kernels of raw rice with tweezers and stuffing them into the decapitated chicken heads. Another group of women, dressed exactly like the previous group, and just as beautiful, buried the rice-stuffed chicken heads in fiery red flower pots. Then the scene changed, and rice sprouts had emerged from the pots. Dozens of sprinklers kept the rice sprouts watered. Another scene change, and the sprouts now have tassels. One final scene change, and they are several bowls of steaming, blood-red, shiny and moist pearl drops of rice laid out on a flower-bedecked banqueting table. Several dignitaries - some handsome, some buxom, some big and tall - sit around the table savoring this rare delicacy, smiles of satisfaction on their faces. With a sigh, Ding Gou’er realized how impoverished his knowledge was, like the proverbial frog at the bottom of a well. The man and woman in the room began talking even before the video ended, and Ding Gou’er, wanting to avoid a scene, picked up his bucket and walked off. A moment later, on his way out the gate, he fell under the withering glare of the gateman; he could feel the man’s eyes boring into his back. As he threaded his way back through the cornfield, the dry leaves brushed against his eyes and made them water. The old man catching crickets was nowhere in sight. He was still a long way from the truck when he heard the lady trucker bellow:
‘Where in the goddamned hell did you go to get that water, the Yellow River or the Yangtze?’
He set the bucket of water down and flexed his poor, numbed muscles.
‘I got it in your mama’s goddamned Yarlung Zangbou River.’
‘Goddamn it to hell, I thought you fell into the river and drowned.’
‘I not only didn’t drown, I watched one of your mama’s goddamned videos.’
‘One of those goddamn-it-to-hell kung-fu films or a porn job?’
It wasn’t one of your mama’s goddamn kung-fu films and it wasn’t a porn job. It was about that rare delicacy, chicken-head rice.’
‘What’s so rare about chicken-head rice and what the goddamn hell’s the idea of your mama’s goddamn this and your mama’s goddamn that?’
If not for those your mama’s goddamn this and goddamn thats I’d have to find some other way to shut your mama’s goddamn mouth.’
Ding Gou’er grabbed the lady trucker around the waist, wrapped his arms tightly around her, and crushed his multi-flavored mouth onto hers.
II
Dear Mo Yan
Your letter arrived safely.
Still no word from Citizens’ Literature. I’m getting anxious, and I wish you’d nudge the editors, Zhou Bao and Li Xiaobao, one more time, urging them to get in touch with me.
Last night I wrote another story, which I call ‘Donkey Avenue.’ For this story I adopted creative techniques from the martial-arts genre, and I ask you to read it with your customary discerning eye. You have my permission to forward it to the magazine of your choice.
I’m sending the research material on liquor you requested. As for the thirty bottles of fine liquor, I'll send them with the next bus to Beijing. For a master to drink his disciple’s liquor is in perfect accord with the nature of things. You’ll recall how Confucius asked for ten strings of dried meat from each of his disciples as ‘tuition’ for the instruction he dispensed.
The continued silence from Citizens’ Literature has sent me into a funk, as if my soul had taken flight. As someone who has had the same experience, you must understand how I feel
Respectfully wishing you
Happy writing!
Your disciple
Li Yidou
III
My Brother Yidou
I received your letter and the manuscript. The research material on liquor hasn’t arrived yet, but printed matter usually takes longer.
I do indeed understand how you feel, since I've been there myself. To be honest, I've done or considered doing just about anything I could think of to see one of my manuscripts get into print. As soon as I received your letter, I placed a phone call to Zhou Bao, who told me he’s read all three of your stories, several times each. He said he still can’t make up his mind, that he simply doesn’t know what to say. He wanted me to tell
you he’s agonizing over it. He’s sent all three to Li Xiaobao, asking him to give them a quick read and let him know what he thinks. The last thing he said was that even though there are parts of all three stories he has some problems with, the author’s talent is unquestioned. That should make you feel better. For a writer, talent is everything. Lots of people make a career out of writing, producing many works and knowing exactly what it takes to become a great writer. But they never break into the big time, because they lack one thing: talent, or a sufficient amount of it.
I’ve already read ‘Donkey Avenue’ three times, and my overall opinion is that it is unrestrained, bold. It reminds me a bit of a wild donkey rolling on the ground and kicking its legs in the air. In a word: wild. You didn’t happen to write it after drinking some Red-Maned Stallion, did you?
There were a few spots where I didn’t understand what you were getting at, so here are some hastily formed opinions:
i. Is that scaly boy who rides the little black donkey in the story, the one who can fly on eaves and walk on walls as if his feet were on solid ground, a chivalric hero or a thief? He has already made appearances in ‘Meat Boy’ and ‘Child Prodigy’ (he is the same person, isn’t he?), and always as a mere mortal, it seems. Now in this story he has become a sort of superman, half genie and half goblin, which may be a bit much, don’t you think? Of course, you never said that these stories comprised a series. But there’s also the question of his unclear relationship to the little goblin in red. In ‘Child Prodigy,’ if I’m not mistaken, you said that the little goblin was in fact that little scaly creature, right?
I’ve never dared to disparage kung-fu novels. Their ability to attract so many readers is enough to make them respectable. I read a stack of them last year over the summer break, and I was so absorbed in them, I nearly forgot to eat and sleep. But when I was finished, even I was baffled. Why, knowing full well there wasn’t a truthful word in any of them, was I so mesmerized? Some say kung-fii novels are fairy tales for adults, a theory I find convincing. Of course, after reading dozens of them, I’ve discovered that they’re heavily formulaic and that it wouldn’t be hard to cook up one of my own. But it would be no easy feat to reach the artistic level of a Jin Yong or a Gu Long. You attempted some ‘cross breeding’ in your novel, which is an intriguing idea, whether it succeeds or not. There is, as a matter of fact, a decidedly avant-garde woman writer named Big Sister Hua, whose experimentation with ‘cross breeding’ has been remarkably successful You might want to read some of her works. I hear she lives in Seven Stars county (where the county head is famous for selling rat poison), not far from Liquorland. When you find some free time, you should go see this ‘ladybug’ writer.