CHAPTER 53
LIU TOWN was turned upside down. The big-shot Baldy Li and County Governor Tao Qing now spoke as one and jointly announced that they were going to tear down the old Liu Town and build a new one. Everyone said that this was a classic case of collusion of business and government, with Tao Qing providing the official documents and Baldy Li providing the capital and labor. They demolished one street after another, gradually transforming the face of the entire town. For five full years, Liu Town was covered in dirt and dust from dawn to dusk. Everyone complained that they were inhaling more dust than oxygen and that the layer of dirt permanently caked on their necks was thicker than a scarf. They said that Baldy Li was like a B-52 bomber, carpet-bombing the formerly beautiful town. A few educated townspeople became more embittered than the rest; they remarked that the classic novel Romance of Three Kingdoms had a scene that was set in Liu, Journey to the West had a scene and a half, while Water Margin had two entire scenes — but now Baldy Li had demolished the town and its landmarks.
Baldy Li demolished the old Liu Town and built a new one. In just five years he expanded the roads and alleys and built countless new buildings, after which the townspeople stopped finding dirt on their collars and the amount of oxygen in their lungs again exceeded the dust. They still complained, however, saying that even though their old houses might have been old and decrepit, at least they had gotten them from the government. Although the new houses were big and new, it was nevertheless necessary to buy them from Baldy Li. There is a saying that rabbits will spare the grass growing next to their burrow. But Baldy Li was really rotten to the core and had chomped down on every last blade of grass around his home, given that all of his profit was extracted directly from his fellow townspeople. The people of Liu also complained that todays money had depreciated, that one thousand yuan today wasn't worth as much as one hundred yuan used to be. The town elders complained that now that the streets had been broadened, they were full of cars and bicycles, and the sound of horns could be heard from morning to evening. In the past, though it was true that the streets were indeed cramped and narrow, two people could nevertheless stand on either side and chat all day long without growing tired. Now, however, the streets were so broad that if two people stood on opposite sides, they wouldn't be able to hear each other, and even if they stood next to each other, they had to shout to make themselves heard over the din. There used to be only a single department store and one clothing store; but now there were at least seven or eight supermarkets, and clothing stores had begun to sprout up like mushrooms after a shower, to the point that both sides of the street were now lined with displays of garish garb for men and women.
The townspeople of Liu watched in astonishment as Baldy Li became as rich as a ten-thousand-ton oil tanker. If you ate at the most extravagant restaurant in Liu, it would be owned by Baldy Li; if you bathed at the ritziest bathhouse, it would be owned by Baldy Li; and if you went shopping at the largest shopping center, it also would be owned by Baldy Li. The ties everyone wore around their necks, the socks they wore on their feet, their undershirts and underwear, their leather jacket and leather shoes, sweaters and coats, as well as their Western suits — they were all international name brands whose China-based factories were run by Baldy Li. Baldy Li designed the houses that everyone lived in and supplied the fruits and vegetables they ate. He even bought up the crematorium and cemetery, so that the town s dead had to be handed over to him. He provided those of us in Liu Town with everything, from what we ate to what we wore, from where we lived to what we used, and from birth to death. No one knew for certain how many businesses he owned or how much he earned. He once patted his chest and boasted that the entire fucking county government was run on the fucking taxes he paid. Someone observed obsequiously that Baldy Li was responsible for virtually the entire county's GDP. When Baldy Li heard this he was very satisfied, nodding in agreement. "I am indeed the entire fucking GDP."
Yanker Yu and Popsicle Wang got filthy rich along with him. Popsicle Wang spent every day strolling down Main Street, now that he no longer had to earn a living. But he would complain anxiously that he didn't know how to spend money since he was meant to be poor. Now he had so much money he couldn't count it all, much less spend it. After Yanker Yu struck it rich, he disappeared without a trace, spending all his time off traveling and sightseeing. He covered the entire country in five years and now was traveling the world as part of a tour group. As for the fourteen handicapped workers at the Good Works Factory, in the blink of an eye they became fourteen senior researchers, and from that point on they enjoyed their high prestige and lived in comfort. Everyone agreed that they had turned into fourteen dandies.
It was during this period that the metal factory went bankrupt, and as a result Writer Liu and Song Gang became unemployed. Writer Liu ran a gamut of emotions, never having expected that the world would change so quickly or that the scrap-collecting Baldy Li would become the town s multimillionaire while he himself would lose his job and end up with nowhere to go. When Liu ran into Song Gang in the street, they commiserated with each other. Liu patted Song Gangs shoulder, then suddenly thought of something, saying, "No matter what, you are still Baldy Li's brother…"
Writer Liu cursed Baldy Li passionately, asking how there could be someone like him who, after striking it rich, began looking after everyone yet completely ignored his own brother. Not only Yanker Yu and Popsicle Wang but also the fourteen handicapped workers from the Good Works Factory had become the towns nouveaux riches, while Baldy Li's own brother was so poor that he didn't have enough to eat. Baldy Li seemed to have paid no attention and pretended he didn't know what had become of Song Gang. Writer Liu seized on this issue to suggest, "Your relationship to Baldy Li reminds me of that famous line by Du Fu: Within the vermilion gates everything reeks of wine and meat, while in the street lie frozen bones. "
"I haven't starved to death," Song Gang replied coldly, "and Baldy Li doesn't reek of wine and meat."
The day Song Gang lost his job was like any other. That evening he rode his Eternity bicycle over to the knitting factory to pick up Lin Hong, as he had done every day, rain or shine, for more than a decade. By this point, the other women at the knitting factory had their own bicycles, all foreign brands, and many of them rode mopeds. In fact, the stores in Liu Town no longer sold Eternity bicycles. Although Lin Hong and Song Gang didn't live extravagantly, they did have a color television, a refrigerator, and a washing machine; to buy a new bicycle, therefore, would not have been a big deal for them. Lin Hong recognized that their bicycle was old and outdated, but she held off buying a new one precisely because for more than ten years Song Gang had used that Eternity bicycle to take her to and from work. While her other female workmates all rode their brand-new bicycles or mopeds, Lin Hong still hopped onto the backseat of the Eternity bicycle, hugging Song Gangs waist and smiling contentedly. Now her happiness lay not in having her own special bicycle but, rather, in the decade-long faithfulness her man and his bicycle had shown her.
Having just lost his job, Song Gang stood with his bicycle outside the knitting factory in the evening light, staring through the iron gate at the workers inside. The bell rang, marking the end of the workday, and when the gate swung open, several hundred bicycles, motorized bicycles, and mopeds poured out as if competing in a race, their bells and horns all sounding at once. After this wave of vehicles passed, Song Gang spotted Lin Hong walking down the empty road, looking like a piece of coral the tide had left behind on the beach.