After that outing, Lin Hong and Song Gang were often seen in public together. She appeared even more beautiful than before, and always had an easygoing smile. The towns elders all agreed that this was obviously a girl who was soaking in honey. When Song Gang walked at her side, he was so happy he didn't know what to do. Even after several months, he maintained his look of awed contentment. The elders opined that he didn't at all look like a lover and that even the truculent Baldy Li fit the role better — Baldy Li at the very least was an overzeal-ous bodyguard, whereas Song Gang looked more like a lackey.
In his delirious happiness, Song Gang spent virtually all his savings on a shiny new Eternity bicycle. What was this Eternity bicycle? It was the equivalent of a Mercedes or BMW today. Only three Eternity bicycles were issued to Liu Town every year, so even if you had money to spare, you still might not be able to buy yourself one. Lin Hongs uncle, however, happened to be the manager of the metal-goods company, and it was completely at his discretion to whom those three Eternity bicycles would be sold. He cut an impressive figure, and most people, when they saw him, couldn't help bowing down. In order to allow Song Gang to truly stand out from the hoi polloi of Liu Town, Lin Hong repeatedly entreated her uncle to help her beloved obtain an Eternity bicycle. Lin Hongs father also pressured this younger brother of his, and her mother almost started cursing him out. In the end, the uncle had no alternative but to grit his teeth and take the bicycle that he was originally going to issue to the head of the county's Department of Armed Forces and assign it to Song Gang instead.
Song Gang seemed buoyed by the winds of good fortune as he sailed through Liu Town's streets and alleys on his brand-new bicycle. The shiny bicycle dazzled everyone's eyes, and the clear ring of its bell made their mouths salivate. After dismounting, he would take out a large ball of cotton that he kept stuffed under the seat and carefully wipe the dust off the bicycle, making sure that this Eternity bicycle remained eternally clean. His bicycle was always spotless, despite wind, rain, or even snow. In fact, it was cleaner than his person, since he would bathe only four times a month but would wipe down his bike every day.
Those days, Lin Hong felt like a princess. Every morning when she heard the clear sound of the bell ringing outside her door, she knew that her exclusive-use vehicle, that shiny new Eternity bicycle, had arrived. She would emerge with a smile on her face and would sit facing sideways on the back of the bicycle. All the way to the knitting factory she would soak in the envious gazes of passersby Every day when she got off work and walked out the factory's front gate, the handsome Song Gang would be waiting there. She would then sit on the shiny new bicycle with that handsome man in front of her. As soon as she mounted she would remind him, "Ring the bell. Quick, ring the bell."
Song Gang would immediately ring the bell several times in a row. Turning around and looking back at her workmates, Lin Hong would feel a surge of pride that they had to pedal themselves home after working all day, while she could be chauffeured back on her own exclusive-use vehicle.
Whenever she was astride the bike, the Eternity bell rang continuously. When they passed acquaintances on the street, she would remind Song Gang to ring the bell, and he would always do his best to make the ring last as long as possible.
It was at that point that the towns elders decided that Song Gang had finally acquired a lovers airs. They remarked that he rode his bicycle like a general on horseback, and when he rang his bell, it was as if he were flicking his whip.
Song Gang rode his bright and shiny Eternity bicycle with Lin Hong sitting behind him, ringing his bell whenever they passed anyone. The only exception was when he encountered Baldy Li. Baldy Li was still furious with him and would stare straight ahead whenever they passed. Song Gang, meanwhile, would turn away guiltily, as though he had done something wrong. Lin Hong, for her part, would urge that he ring the bell whenever they passed Baldy Li, but on those occasions Song Gang wouldn't be able to produce his distinctive ring; instead the bell would sound scattered and intermittent. Understanding the reason for this, Lin Hong would reach forward and hug his waist, pressing her face against his back as she stared at Baldy Li with a look of pride and contentment. Seeing him pretend to be calm, she would laugh. "Song Gang, look whose wet dog this is!"
When Baldy Li heard this, he would let out a long string of "fuck you s" that went on even longer than Song Gangs bicycle bell. Then his face would drop, and at the thought of his woman and his brother running off together, he would proceed to curse up a storm. Watching as the Eternity bicycle disappeared into the distance, Baldy Li would recover his confidence and say to himself, Life is long, and at the end of the day, who's to say who'll be the wet dog?
He'd then vow, I will get myself an extra-large Eternity bicycle, with the classic beauties Xi Shi sitting in front, Diao Chan behind me, Wang Zhaojun in my lap, and Yang Guifei perched on my back. With these four beauties I will ride for fucking forty-nine days, riding from the present into the past and back again. If I feel like it, I might even decide to ride into the future…
Once Lin Hong and Song Gang's affair was finally made public, the town's biggest romantic cliff-hanger was finally resolved, thereby breaking the hearts of all the remaining bachelors. Each of them went in search of other single women, and as a result, the amorous activity in Liu Town abruptly blossomed like spring bamboo after a shower, sweetening the streets and alleys of Liu and making it so the elders couldn't even take it all in. They counted on their fingers and said, "It looks like everyone has a woman … everyone except Baldy Li. Hasn't he landed anyone yet?"
The townspeople rarely saw Baldy Li out in the street, but when they did, he seemed to have lost a lot of weight, as if he had been gravely ill.
The night after his unsuccessful suicide, Song Gang had seized his happiness and walked out the door. Baldy Li cursed him furiously for an hour, then snored furiously for eight hours. When he woke up the next morning and saw that Song Gang's bed was still empty, he searched the room inside and out but couldn't find any evidence that Song Gang had returned. He tsk-tsked Song Gang, not realizing that his brother had spent the entire night standing guard in front of Lin Hong's house. Believing that Song Gang was merely trying to avoid him, he snorted, "You may be able to avoid me for a night, but you can't avoid me your entire life."
The next day Song Gang still had not returned home. That night Baldy Li sat at the table dreaming up one plot after another to enact against his brother but had to discard them all because they didn't strike him as sufficiently diabolical. He finally came up with a tear-jerking scheme that would consist of grabbing Song Gang's arm and then, in a rain of tears and snot, recalling their childhood together. As youngsters he and Song Gang had been as thick as thieves, given that they were both orphans and needed to rely on each other for survival. Baldy Li was confident that if he did this, Song Gang would surely bow his head in humiliation and return Lin Hong to him. Baldy Li was very proud of this plot and was convinced that it was truly diabolical. He waited up half the night, until he couldn't stop yawning and his eyelids were battling each other, but when Song Gang still hadn't returned, Baldy Li finally had no choice but to go to bed, cursing nonstop. Before retiring, he looked around and thought to himself that what they said was true: You can take the monk out of the temple, but you can't take the temple out of the monk—so sooner or later this monk would have to come home again, whereupon Baldy Li could try out his tear-jerking scheme.