That night Lin Hong sat under her lamp and read Song Gangs letter over and over again, and it wasn't until her tears had made the writing virtually illegible that she finally put the letter down. She didn't blame Song Gang, because she knew that he was doing this for her. Instead, she blamed herself for not realizing his determination to leave. The next several days seemed like an eternity. At the factory she continued to endure the chain-smoking Director Liu's harassment, and each evening she returned home to an empty house. In her loneliness, she had no choice but to spend countless hours in front of the TV, which merely made her miss Song Gang even more desperately. Before falling asleep at night, she would feel a twinge of anguish as she remembered how, when he left, he hadn't taken a single cent of their money.
Lin Hong didn't tell anyone that Song Gang had left with Wandering Zhou, saying only that he had gone to Canton to do business. When Wandering Zhou first arrived in Liu, Lin Hong had sensed that he was up to no good. Assuming that Wandering Zhou and Song Gang would continue selling artificial hymens when they reached Canton, Lin Hong couldn't bring herself to tell people what Song Gang would be doing.
Lin Hong waited every day for a letter from Song Gang, and every day at noon she would go to the reception office of her factory and watch as the postman threw a bundle of letters onto the counter. She would urgently open the bundle and search for a letter with her name on it. Song Gang didn't write her, but a month later he did call her. It was nighttime, and he called Mama Sus snack shop. Mama Su rushed across the street and knocked on Lin Hongs door. Lin Hong rushed back across the street into the snack shop and picked up the phone. On the other end of the line, Song Gang asked, "Lin Hong, are you well?" When Lin Hong heard Song Gangs voice, her eyes teared up and she yelled into the receiver, "Come back, you must come back immediately!"
On the other end of the line, Song Gang said, "I will come back—" Lin Hong continued to shout, "You must return right away!" The two continued on in this way for a while, with Lin Hong demanding that Song Gang return immediately and Song Gang saying that he would. At first, Lin Hong issued her cry to return as an imperative, but later she began to plead with him. As for Song Gang, he initially insisted that he would definitely return but eventually said that he was going to have to hang up, since this was a very expensive longdistance call. Lin Hong, however, continued to plead with him, "Song Gang, come back…"
Song Gang finally hung up as Lin Hong was still speaking into the receiver. When she heard the dial tone, she disappointedly put the phone down. Then it occurred to her that she hadn't asked Song Gang how or what he was doing but had only repeated "Come back" over and over again. She bit her lip in frustration, then looked at Missy Su, who was sitting somberly at the counter. Lin Hong laughed bitterly in Missy Sus direction, and Missy Su laughed bitterly in response. When Lin Hong left the snack shop, she wanted to say something to Missy Su but couldn't think of what to say. Therefore, she merely bowed her head and walked out.
For the next several months, Missy Su and Lin Hong were similarly depressed. Five months after the charlatan Wandering Zhou left without saying goodbye, Missy Sus growing belly began to show, leading everyone to speculate who might be responsible. As their imaginations ran wild the number of suspects increased until they finally reached a list of 101. Poet Zhao was also a suspect, and in fact he was the 101st. Poet Zhao swore high and low that he had nothing to do with it, but this only made everyone even more convinced that he was the one. He bitterly told everyone that, even though Missy Su was not terribly pretty, it was common knowledge that she was loaded. Therefore, if he had been the one responsible for making her belly grow big, why would he still be living in his dilapidated old house? "I would have moved long ago into the snack shop across the street and become its boss."
Everyone then realized that Poet Zhao must be innocent of this whole affair and therefore once again started suspecting others, but during the entire process no one thought of Wandering Zhou. Zhou was an extraordinary charlatan. He arrived in Liu Town at the same time as the three thousand virgin beauties, who had slept with the judges, with the political leaders, with Baldy Li, with PR Liu— essentially with everyone. The judges, political leaders, Baldy Li, and PR Liu were all hoodwinked, having slept with women who either had surgically reconstructed hymens or were using artificial ones. Wandering Zhou, meanwhile, was the only one who slept with an authentic virgin, transforming the only genuine virgin in Liu Town, Missy Su, into an ex-virgin.
Missy Su still sat at the cashiers counter every day, but now she no longer chatted with the waitresses or customers. Wandering Zhou's unannounced departure had left her heartbroken, and from that point on she was somber and grim. Mama Su would often stare off into space and sigh, and sometimes she would secretly cry. What she couldn't figure out was why her fate was now being repeated by her daughter. At first everyone was curious and excited, but gradually they got used to the situation, pointing out that the same thing had happened to Mama Su and that no one knew who had gotten her knocked up — they only knew that she subsequently gave birth to Missy Su. Now Missy Sus belly was made big by a mysterious man, and nine months later she too gave birth to a daughter. Missy Su named her Su Zhou, but even then no one suspected that the itinerant charlatan Wandering Zhou was the father. By this point everyone had lost interest in speculating and shifted their attention to divination: They predicted that after this girl grew up, her belly would also mysteriously get large, just like that of her grandmother and mother. They concluded confidently, "That is fate."
CHAPTER 66
WHEN WANDERING ZHOU left Liu Town for Shanghai with Song Gang, he headed south along the railway system and hoped to repeat his enormous success, this time selling male virility-enhancing pills. Zhou and Song Gang got off the train at a couple of midsize cities along the railroad and hawked their male-potency pills at the train station, at the wharf, and in the commercial districts. The neatly dressed Wandering Zhou held up a vial of imported Apollo pills in his right hand and one of domestic Fierce Zhang Fei pills in his left, announcing dramatically, "Every man wants to have a hard erection and fully display his virility. For many reasons, however, men often develop erectile problems as they grow older. This is very common."
Wandering Zhou shook the vials, letting the people crowded around hear the pills rattling inside. The Fierce Zhang Fei pills, he said, were made from a treasured formula of traditional Chinese medicine, originating in the imperial medical files of the Ming and Qing dynasties preserved in the Forbidden City's Palace Museum and created from a synthesis of the best concoctions used at the time. As for the imported Apollo ones, he said that they were the pride of foreigners, formulated on the basis of the American company Pfizer s Viagra but with additional genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Wandering Zhou was like a street vendor with his peddlers drum, waving the vials around and cordially telling everyone that their formal name was Virility Enhancing Pills but colloquially they were called Bigger, Thicker, Longer Lasting Pills. Wandering Zhou patted his chest and guaranteed that just two to three doses could make you a "real macho man."