By this point Song Gang had realized that Wandering Zhou was a charlatan. As their long-distance bus left Liu Town and set off toward Shanghai, Zhou pulled off Song Gangs face mask and threw it out the window into some tree branches. Wandering Zhou told Song Gang that now no one knew of his illness and therefore his lungs could be considered cured. Song Gang breathed the Shanghai air, then turned around and looked back at his face mask hanging from the branch. When the bus turned a corner, the mask disappeared from view.
It was a few days into their journey, though, that Song Gang really understood what kind of person Wandering Zhou was. After traveling down many dark alleys, they arrived at an underground warehouse full of counterfeit tobacco and liquor. In a dark corner of the warehouse, Wandering Zhou bought two boxes of virility-enhancing pills. Then he and Song Gang, carrying their boxes of Fierce Zhang Fei and Apollo pills, hopped aboard a train headed south and embarked on an excruciatingly long and unsuccessful year trying to sell them off.
The cheap "hard seat" rail compartment they rode in was full of itinerant workers heading south, speaking a wide variety of dialects. Some were going to Canton, and others planned to take the ferry to Hainan Island. All of them were young bachelors hoping to earn some money and then return home, get married, and have a child. Wandering Zhou sat among them, a smile plastered on his face, occasionally striking up a conversation with some of the laborers and periodically glancing up at the two boxes of virility-enhancing pills up in the luggage rack. Song Gang felt that Wandering Zhou looked quite comical, dressed so nicely and sitting among all of these itinerant laborers. Two laborers asked Wandering Zhou what he did for a living, and Zhou glanced at Song Gang and casually answered, "Health products." Zhou knew that these laborers didn't have any money to be swindled out of and therefore didn't even bother trying to make a sales pitch.
Song Gang realized that everything Wandering Zhou had said in Liu Town was a complete lie. He looked sadly out the window at the endless fields, feeling very agitated. What prospects did he have following this charlatan around? Song Gang didn't know. But when he remembered that Wandering Zhou had, in fact, earned a huge sum of money in Liu, Song Gang began to be feel more hopeful. He hoped that he could quickly earn a fortune and then return home. The sum he set his sights on was one hundred thousand yuan, because with that Lin Hong wouldn't have to worry about anything. For Lin Hong, Song Gang told himself, I'd be willing to do anything.
For several years, Song Gang had been breathing through a saliva-soaked face mask, so during the first few days without a mask he felt that the air had become unusually dry. While Song Gang was fairly quiet to begin with, after following Wandering Zhou on his swindles, he became even more silent. Often he would wake up in the middle of the night and recall his departure from Liu Town, imagining how Lin Hong must have ridden her bike home from the factory and found the house empty, and his eyes would tear up. Many mornings, when he would walk out of an unfamiliar hotel and into the streets of an unfamiliar part of the country, he would feel a strong urge to return to Liu Town, to Lin Hongs side. But the die was cast, and he told himself that he couldn't return empty-handed. Now he had to grin and bear it and follow Wandering Zhou on the road.
Song Gang would often take out that picture of himself and Lin Hong and examine it closely. Their lives had been so perfect, and that Eternity bicycle had been a symbol of their happiness. For the first few months, the photograph served as Song Gangs spiritual support, but after half a year he couldn't bring himself to even look at it. At the mere sight of Lin Hong's smiling face, he would begin to feel uneasy and be overcome by a wave of homesickness. Therefore, from that point on he left the photograph locked up in his luggage and struggled to forget it existed.
The two traveled to five cities over the course of the next two months. Zhou's method of hawking his virility-enhancing pills resembled that of a highway bandit: He would grab a passerby by the shoulder and begin speaking nonstop. He shouted himself hoarse but during those two months only managed to sell ten vials of medicine, five each of the Apollo and Fierce Zhang Fei brands. Song Gang also tried to sell the pills but proceeded much as he had when selling the little magnolia flowers in Liu Town — politely inquiring of middle-aged men as they walked by, "Do you need enhancing pills?"
"Enhancing what pills?"
Song Gang would smile, hand them the instructions to the Apollo and Fierce Zheng Fei pills, and patiently wait while they read them and decided whether they wanted to buy some or not. Some people read the instructions over and over again but in the end left empty-handed. Wandering Zhou felt that Song Gang missed out on a lot of good opportunities, but Song Gang disagreed. He felt that the efficacy of these pills was very dubious to begin with, and a hard sell would only make people more suspicious. He said that when selling something, one should use reverse psychology. After two months, Song Gang had sold twenty-three vials of virility-enhancing pills. His reverse-psychology business model turned out to be twice as effective as Wandering Zhou's highway-bandit approach.
Wandering Zhou began to look at Song Gang with newfound respect. He no longer regarded Song Gang as his assistant but, rather, as a partner, saying that they would divide their profits 80/20, with Wandering Zhou taking 80 percent and Song Gang 20 percent. Furthermore, from here on out he would make his financial operations completely transparent. That night they stayed in a small town in Fujian, in the basement of a small hotel. Wandering Zhou had a worried look and said that even though they had stayed in the cheapest hotels and eaten the cheapest food, they nevertheless had sold only thirty-three vials over the past two months, and consequently all of their revenue had been spent on room and board. Song Gang didn't respond for a long time, since his thoughts had once again wandered to Lin Hong all alone in Liu Town.
After he returned to the present, with some hesitation he told Wandering Zhou that when he was selling magnolia blossoms in Liu Town, he discovered that it was easier to sell them when standing in the door of a clothing store rather than in the street. Why was that? Because young women who are fond of beauty go to clothing stores, and after buying clothing they were likely to buy a string of magnolia blossoms.
"You have a point." Wandering Zhou nodded and asked Song Gang, "Where do men tend to congregate? Particularly those who aspire to become ‘real macho men'?"
"In bathhouses," Song Gang replied after considering for a moment. "Plus, there you can tell at a glance who is somewhat on the small side."
"You have a point." Wandering Zhou's eyes brightened. "That is called targeted marketing."
"But," Song Gang said hesitantly, "in order to get into the bathhouses, we would need to spend more money."
"We will spend what we need to spend," Wandering Zhou said firmly. "As they say, if you can't bear to sacrifice the child, you won't be able to lure the wolf into the trap."
The two of them decided to go with this plan, so they took ten vials each of the Apollo and Fierce Zhang Fei pills and went to a bathing center near the hotel. They left the pills in their locker, took off their clothes, and ventured inside. This bathhouse was not very fancy, but it was enough to astonish Song Gang. Inside there were three large pools: the middle one filled with water, a second filled with milk, and the third filled with roses. Wandering Zhou led the way to the milk pool, where he was joined by Song Gang. Zhou saw several men taking showers and whispered to Song Gang that, given that they had spent the money to get in, they might as well enjoy themselves. Song Gang nodded and submerged his body in the pool, then asked Wandering Zhou in a low voice, "Is this really milk?"