Poet Zhao was also there and agreed with everyone's assessment. Noting that he had known Baldy Li for a long time, Poet Zhao said that although in the past Baldy Li had not been very clever, neither had he been stupid, but since he had gone to work at the Good Works Factory — and especially since becoming the director of the cripples, idiots, and blind and deaf men — he had become dumber and dumber. Poet Zhao summed up the situation with an old expression: "This is a case of those close to ink become black, and those close to cinnabar become vermilion."
The boys sucked in their snot and hollered as if they were singing a song, first shouting "to court" for the length of one entire street, and then switching to "get married" for the second. By the time they reached the third street, they were calling out "go to bed." It was only then that they remembered Baldy Li's instructions that they not mention going to bed, so they backtracked and again sang about getting married but then remembered that he had instructed them not to speak of getting married either. When they tried to backtrack even further, they couldn't for the life of them remember the phrase to court. They stopped in the middle of the street and looked around, wiping their noses with their hands and then wiping the snot on their bottoms, making their pants look as shiny as if a slug had crawled all over them.
Poet Zhao happened to be wandering down the third street and overheard the boys’ argument. Reminded of how Baldy Li had bragged that he was going to beat him until his true laborer colors showed, Zhao laughed bitterly, then waved the boys over and told them quietly, "The word is intercourse."
The five boys looked at one another and felt that this sort of sounded like the phrase they had forgotten, yet it didn't seem quite right. Poet Zhao quickly added, "It is definitely intercourse."
The boys nodded and happily proceeded to the knitting factory. At the entrance they started calling out, and when they saw the gatekeeper, they shouted in unison in the direction of the closed iron gate, "Baldy Li wants to have intercourse with you!"
The old man initially leaned over curiously, and only after they had shouted it three times did he finally understand. Furiously, he grabbed the broom behind the door and rushed at them, making the boys scurry away in terror. The gatekeeper waved the broom and cursed, "Fuck your mother, and your grandmother, too!"
The boys apprehensively regrouped and embarrassedly told the old man, "Baldy Li told us to say that."
"Fuck Baldy Li's mother." The old man threw the broomstick down and yelled, "Does he dare come have intercourse with me? I'll rip him a new one."
The boys’ heads shook their heads vigorously, explaining to the old man, "Not with you, with Lin Hong."
"It doesn't matter who it's with, it's still not okay," the old man said sternly. "Even if it were with his own mother, it still wouldn't be okay."
The five boys didn't dare approach the factory gate again; instead they hid behind a nearby tree, staring intently at the old man. As soon as he came out they immediately ran away, and when he went back inside, they cautiously walked back to the tree and peeked out. Following Baldy Li's instructions, the boys waited, like a midnight cat waiting at a mouse hole for a midnight mouse, until the closing bell rang, signalling the end of the workday. Then they saw Lin Hong walking over with a crowd of female workmates. Two boys who recognized Lin Hong started waving energetically at her while the other three kept an eye out for the old man in the entranceway. The two boys called out softly, "Lin Hong, Lin Hong."
As Lin Hong was walking, chatting with the other women, she heard the mysterious call and stopped curiously to see the five boys hiding behind the tree. Her companions also stopped and joked that Lin Hong's beauty had spread so far and wide that even little boys wearing split pants came looking for her. At that moment, the boys shouted in unison, "Baldy Li wants to have intercourse with you!"
One boy then specified, "That is the same Baldy Li who peeked at your bottom in the public toilet."
Lin Hong immediately turned deathly pale. Initially stunned, the other women then covered their mouths and stared giggling. The boys continued shouting, "Baldy Li wants to have intercourse with you."
Lin Hong became so furious that her eyes welled up with tears. She bit her lip and rushed forward. Her workmates behind her couldn't stop laughing. The boys then remembered that there was another phrase that they hadn't yet uttered, and so they pursued her like a bunch of rabbits and shouted after her, "Are you ready?"
Now that they had completed the glorious task that Baldy Li had assigned them, they proceeded to traipse, flushed with excitement, around the group of factory workers. The young women caressed the boys’ heads and faces adoringly and asked them to describe everything from beginning to end. They did so, and the women doubled over in peals of laughter, laughing so hard that they couldn't get back up.
The boys ran back to the Good Works Factory, which by this point had also closed. Then they asked for directions and ran, hollering, to Baldy Li's house. As Baldy Li and Song Gang walked out the five children met them at the door with their right hands extended. Baldy Li knew that they had come to collect their reward, so he removed the five pieces of candy from his pocket and placed them one by one in their palms. The children immediately ripped off the wrappers and popped the candies into their mouths. Baldy Li asked them hopefully "Did she smile?" He mimed a shy smile for them and asked, "Did she smile like this?"
The children shook their heads and replied, "No, she cried."
Baldy Li looked at Song Gang in surprise and said, "She must have been very moved."
He again asked the children hopefully, "She must have blushed?"
The children again shook their heads and replied, "No, she turned pale."
He looked at Song Gang in befuddlement. "That can't be — she should have blushed."
"No, she definitely turned pale," the children replied.
Baldy Li started to look at the children suspiciously and said, "Did you by any chance shout the wrong thing?"
"Of course not," they replied. "We shouted, ‘Baldy Li wants to have intercourse with you.’ We even added, ‘Are you ready?'"
Baldy Li roared like a crazed beast, "Who told you to say intercourse? Who the fuck told you to say intercourse?"
The children started trembling from head to toe and stammered as they tried to explain. However, they didn't know Poet Zhao, and therefore they couldn't clearly identify who it was who had given them the wrong word. They slowly backed away as they spoke, then turned and fled. Baldy Li was so furious that his face turned ashen, even whiter than Lin Hong's had been. He waved his fist and roared, "That son-of-a-bitch class enemy, whoever he is, I swear I'll ferret him out, and will definitely carry out a proletarian revolution against him!"
Baldy Li was so furious that his chest heaved in and out like an accordion. Song Gang patted his shoulder and told him that there was no point in getting angry. Instead, Song Gang suggested, Baldy Li should immediately go find Lin Hong and apologize. So the following afternoon, when it was time for Lin Hong to get off work, Baldy Li and Song Gang were waiting outside the main door of the knitting factory. When the bell rang signaling the end of the workday and the women workers started filing out, Baldy Li began to feel a little nervous. He said it was time to go out to face the firing squad. He asked Song Gang to keep a close eye out, and if things started to look bad, Song Gang should immediately tug at his clothes.