"I had lots of discussions," Baldy Li interrupted, not waiting for Blacksmith Tong to finish his question. He proudly counted on his fingers: "I spoke with twenty clothing companies, of which three were foreign companies."
Little Guan exclaimed in surprise, "So that's why you look like Marx and Engels."
"What about Marx and Engels?" Baldy Li had no idea what Guan was talking about.
Tailor Zhang explained, "With your long hair and beard, we figured you must have been speaking with foreign businessmen and therefore had begun to look like a foreigner."
"What do you mean, look like a foreigner'?" Baldy Li still didn't understand.
Blacksmith Tong saw that he was about to digress again, and immediately jumped in: "We were discussing your business negotiations. How did they go?"
"They went well," Baldy Li answered. "And not just business. I also reached an agreement with them on the question of the brand names—"
Mama Su shouted, "And that's why you sent me that telegram, saying that you wanted to change Meat Bun Brand to Dim Sum Brand?"
Baldy Li racked his brains as if trying to remember. Suddenly, eyes gleaming, he said, "Yes, yes, that's right."
Mama Su shot the others a triumphant glance, and they nodded. Blacksmith Tong realized that Baldy Li was about to digress again and quickly prompted, "Of the twenty companies you spoke to, how many did you reach an agreement with?"
Baldy Li sighed, and the sound of that sigh was like a bucket of cold water dumped over the heads of his partners. Their newfound excitement fell from their faces. Baldy Li gazed at each of them in turn, held up five fingers, and said, "Five years ago I went to Shanghai to drum up business for the Good Works Factory, and all I had to do was take out the family portraits of the handicapped workers, combined with my earnest attitude, and I could move every employee of every company, thereby raising an enormous amount of business for the factory. Five years later I took my world map and again went to Shanghai to drum up business, only this time for myself. This time I was even more sincere, even more earnest, and even more mature than before, but…" Baldy Li retracted his five fingers and mimed the act of counting cash. "Now we live in a different era. Society has changed, and it is necessary to offer large bribes in order to get business. I had never expected that these evil winds would have swept over the country so quickly." Baldy Li's fingers stopped counting his imaginary money. Instead he held up his fingers again and sighed. "In just five years’ time, those winds have blown over our entire country."
His six partners stared at him in shock. Blacksmith Tong nervously followed up, "So did you offer bribes?"
"No." Baldy Li shook his head. "By the time I finally figured out this principle of offering bribes, I only had enough money in my pocket to buy a one-way bus ticket back to Liu."
"So that means," Blacksmith Tong deduced with a quavering voice, "that you didn't secure a single business deal?"
Baldy Li answered definitively: "Nope. Not a one."
As if struck by lightning, the six partners reeled from the impact of Baldy Li's answer. They stood staring at one another in stunned silence. Tailor Zhang was the first to recover and, trembling all over, he asked Baldy Li, "So our blood-and-sweat money has been lost, just like that?"
Blacksmith Tong was also shaken to the core. He glanced over at Tailor Zhang but couldn't make out whether he was nodding or shaking his head.
Popsicle Wang began to sob. "That was the money that was going to save my life!"
Mama Su also began to sob, but when she remembered that she hadn't contributed any money in the first place, she immediately stopped. Little Guan and Yanker Yu were completely bathed in cold sweat as they stared at Baldy Li in alarm, stammering, "You, you, how could you have lost our money?"
"You can't say that the money was lost," Baldy Li answered. Looking at their stricken faces, he said resolutely, "Failure is the mother of success, and if you can help me raise money for another hundred shares, I'll go back to Shanghai and give everyone bribes and promise that I'll bring you back a lot of business."
Popsicle Wang was still sobbing. He rubbed his eyes and said to Blacksmith Tong, "Well, I don't have a single cent left."
Blacksmith Tong looked at the disconsolate Yanker Yu and Scissors Guan, then at Tailor Zhang, who was trembling from head to toe. Finally, he shook his head, let out a deep sigh, and said, "How do you expect us to have any more money?"
"You don't have any more money?" Baldy Li looked very disappointed. He waved his hand, saying, "Then there is nothing I can do. We must accept this loss, and my own four hundred yuan is also lost."
When Baldy Li was finished, he couldn't help but giggle at the look of shock and distress on the faces of his business partners. Popsicle Wang pointed at him and asked Blacksmith Tong, "How dare he laugh at a time like this?"
"In life you'll win some and lose some, and you've got to take it like a man," Baldy Li lectured his partners. "The six of you are sitting there so depressed, like war captives. Can't you even handle this sort of minor setback?"
"Fuck you!" Blacksmith Tong roared. "You're the one who is like a war captive."
Blacksmith Tong raised his right hand and pounded Baldy Li's face as if he were hammering iron. With one blow he knocked Baldy Li off the bench, then roared, "I put up four thousand yuan!"
Baldy Li jumped up, holding his face, and said angrily, "What do you think you're doing?"
He sat back down on the bench and again crossed his legs, looking as if he was prepared to talk things over with Blacksmith Tong. Tailor Zhang, Scissors Guan, and Yanker Yu all cried out, "A thousand yuan!" and immediately launched themselves on Baldy Li, kicking him until he jumped onto the bench. He squatted there and shouted, "What do you think you're doing?" Zhang, Guan, and Yu had also accidentally kicked one another and were now crying out in pain. Popsicle Wang was the last to join in and, with the air of a martyr, launched himself toward Baldy Li as if he had been fired from the muzzle of a gun. Crying out "Five hundred yuan!" and swooping in like a kamikaze pilot making his last dive, he grabbed Baldy Li's shoulders and bit down hard, as if he were trying to bite off a five-hundred-yuan hunk of flesh. Screaming like a slaughtered pig, Baldy Li jumped down off the bench and shook himself violently until he was finally able to dislodge Popsicle Wang from his back. Seeing that things were not going well, Baldy Li took his travel bag and world map and ran out of the blacksmith shop. Standing outside the door, where he felt that he was now safely distanced from peril, he pointed angrily at people inside and shouted, "What are you doing? What are you doing? Even if business doesn't go well, we still have our principles. We should sit down and discuss things rationally."
Baldy Li had planned to continue arguing with them, but seeing Blacksmith Tong come out waving his hammer, he changed his mind and hastily added, "But let's not discuss this anymore today."
Recognizing that this was probably a good time to retreat, Baldy Li turned and sprinted away. Blacksmith Tong chased him with his hammer all the way to the end of the alley before finally stopping. He then hollered after Baldy Li as he scurried away, "You fucking listen to me. The next time I see you, I'll beat you up, and every descendant of mine will beat up every one of yours!"
After uttering this heroic threat and heading back, Blacksmith Tong remembered his lost four thousand yuan and wilted like crops hit by a sudden frost. With a drooping head he returned to his shop. At the thought of how their money had been squandered, tears began to well up in the other partners’ eyes. Spotting Blacksmith Tong walking back with his hammer, Popsicle Wang began to wail and Tailor Zhang sobbed, "So all of our blood-and-sweat money has been lost, just like that?"