In those days countless men spied in the public latrine, but nothing ever happened to them. When Baldy Li tried it, however, he was caught and paraded down the street; and when Baldy Li's father did it, he fell into the cesspool and drowned. Baldy Li felt that his father must have had the most boneheaded bad luck imaginable to have kicked the bucket for a glimpse of ass. Even if someone were to, as the proverb has it, pick up a sesame seed only to lose a watermelon, he would still get a better deal than Baldy Li's father had. Meanwhile, Baldy Li felt that he himself was the second-unluckiest person in the world. But at least he didn't lose his life in the process, and furthermore, he had
managed to turn a profit with those fifty-six bowls of house-special noodles. As they say, as long as you own the mountain, there's no need to worry about firewood. Baldy Li's mother, however, had neither a mountain nor firewood, and in the end all the fathers and sons bad luck fell on her innocent shoulders, making her truly the worlds unluckiest woman.
Baldy Li didn't know how many butts his father saw that time, but according to his own experience, he figured that his father must have crouched down too low. He must have wanted to see the women's pubic hair and therefore lowered his body farther and farther down, until his legs were almost suspended in midair while the entire weight of his body rested on his hands. His hands would have tightly gripped the wooden slats, over which untold numbers of butts had once squatted, polishing them smooth and slick. This unlucky man may very well have glimpsed the pubic hair that he had dreamed about, his eyes bugging out like birds’ eggs. The nauseating stench of the cesspool would have made his eyes tear up and become unbearably itchy, but at that moment he certainly wouldn't have dared to blink. Excitement and trepidation would have made his hands slick with sweat, and that sweat would have made the boards he was grasping even more slippery.
Just at that moment, a man more than six feet tall had rushed into the toilet, frantically unbuttoning his pants with one hand. All he saw when he entered were two legs sticking straight up in the air, making him scream as if he had seen a ghost. This scream scared the living daylights out of Baldy Li's father, making him lose his grip and fall headfirst into the thick, viscous goo below. In seconds, the excrement filled his mouth and nose and then his lungs, and that was how Baldy Li's father drowned.
The man who let out the cry was Song Gang's father, Song Fanping, who later became Baldy Li's stepfather. As Baldy Li's birth father fell into the cesspool, his future stepfather watched in shock. It appeared to Song Fanping that the pair of legs had disappeared in the blink of an eye. Beads of cold sweat covered his forehead as he contemplated the possibility that he might have seen a ghost in broad daylight. At that moment, a shriek was heard from the women's side of the toilet: Baldy Li's father had hit the cesspool like a cannonball, and now the women's backsides were all covered in shit. They jumped up, startled, and when they looked down, they saw that there was a man lying in the cesspool below.
Utter chaos ensued. The women cried out repeatedly, like summer cicadas, attracting a curious crowd. One of the women ran out of the toilet without remembering to pull her pants up, but when she saw the men in the crowd staring at her lecherously, she let out another scream and ran back in. The women with their backsides covered in shit discovered that they didn't have enough toilet paper to clean themselves off and started begging the crowd to gather some leaves for them. Three men immediately climbed up a wutong tree and collected at least half of its broad leaves, then asked a young woman to take them inside.
In the men's section, at the other end, crowds of men stood around engaged in animated discussion. They peered down through the eleven toilet holes at Baldy Li's father, debating whether he was dead or alive and how to retrieve him. Someone suggested using a bamboo pole, but someone else pointed out that while bamboo might suffice for lifting a chicken, for a grown man they would need a metal rod. The question was where they would find a rod long enough.
At that moment, as everyone was standing around chattering, Baldy Li's future stepfather, Song Fanping, walked up to the cesspool opening where the sanitation workers siphon off the waste and proceeded to jump right in. Is this why Li Lan would come to love this man so deeply? Buried in human waste up to his chest, he held up his arms and slowly dragged himself through the muck. Maggots crawled up to his neck and face, but he still moved forward with his arms over his head. Only when the maggots climbed up to his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears did he reach down to sweep them off.
Song Fanping moved through the cesspool, picked up Baldy Li's father, and slowly made his way back out again. He lifted Baldy Li's father out of the pit and then climbed out himself.
The crowds around the latrine quickly moved away. When they saw Baldy Li's father and Song Fanping, both covered in shit and maggots, they felt their skin prickle with revulsion. They held their noses and covered their mouths, complaining incessantly. After Song Fanping climbed out, he squatted near Baldy Li's father's body and held his finger under the man's nose, then felt his chest. Eventually he stood up and announced to the crowd, "He's dead."
At that point, the tall and muscular Song Fanping hoisted Baldy Li's father onto his back and walked away. The sight of the two of them caused an even greater commotion than Baldy Li's parade would years later: a live man walking down the street with a dead man, both of them completely covered in excrement, with filth sloughing off them, leaving behind a stream of stench extending several blocks. About two thousand people came to watch the spectacle; of these, a hundred or so yelled that their shoes had been stepped on, a dozen women shrieked that they were being felt up, and a few men cursed that their cigarettes had been picked from their pockets. It was through this sea of humanity that Baldy Li's once and future fathers both arrived at his doorstep.
Baldy Li at this point was still in his mothers belly. She had heard the tragic news and was standing in the doorway with her huge belly, supporting herself by leaning against the door frame. She saw her husband being lowered from a mans back and placed, motionless, on the ground. Her dead husband looked like a stranger lying there. To those who saw her, Li Lan s eyes appeared utterly vacant. This sudden blow left her dazed, and she seemed not to grasp what she was seeing or even understand where she was.
After placing Baldy Li's father down, Song Fanping proceeded to the well, where he lifted pail after pail of water to rinse himself. It was May, and the icy well water ran down his neck onto his clothes, making him shudder uncontrollably. After he finished rinsing himself off, he turned to take a look at Li Lan, whose blank gaze convinced him to stay a little longer. He used the well water to rinse off Baldy Li's father, turning the body over several times, then stood up and looked at Li Lan, whose wooden expression made him shake his head. Song Fanping lifted Baldy Li's father and walked to the door, but Li Lan still stood there motionless, so he had to carry the corpse in sideways.
Song Fanping saw that the pillowcases, bedspread, and blankets in the inner room were all embroidered with a big red Double Happiness character, indicating newlyweds. He hesitated for a moment, but in the end he didn't place Baldy Li's father's wet corpse on the ground but, rather, on the newlyweds’ bed. When he turned to leave, Li Lan was still standing motionless and leaning against the door frame. Song Fanping saw the people outside, all looking as if they were watching a show, and in a low voice he urged Li Lan to come inside and close the door. She acted as if she hadn't heard him. Eventually Song Fanping had no choice but to walk out, dripping wet, into the crowd. When the people saw him coming toward them, they immediately opened up a path, as if he were still covered in shit. In the resulting commotion, it seemed that there were more people who lost their shoes and more women's butts that got felt up. The icy well water made Song Fanping sneeze repeatedly as he walked out of the narrow alley and into the street. The crowds returned, continuing to watch the pitiful Li Lan.