‘Barbecue, Mongolian barbecue!’
‘Barbecued lamb kebabs, genuine Xinjiang lamb kebabs!’
‘Beef teppanyaki!’
‘Barbecued goslings!’
At a wave of Lan Laoda's hand, the bodyguards shout in unison: ‘One of each, and hurry!’
Four large platters of fragrant, steaming, sizzling, grease-dripping meat are brought up to one of the nannies, who hurriedly sets up a folding table and places it in front of the boy. The other woman ties a pink bib, with a little embroidered teddy bear, under his chin. The table is only big enough for two platters, so the bodyguards stand holding the other two, waiting to replace the first two as soon as they're empty. The nannies stand on either side to help the boy eat, which he does with his hands. He stuffs the meat, piece after piece, into his mouth. His cheeks bulge so much I can't see him actually chew, but I envision the chunks of meat working their way down his outstretched neck like little mice. I'd always considered myself a champion carnivore, and seeing this child putting meat away is like seeing a carnivorous twin, though I've taken a vow to never eat meat again. This boy is a carnivorous genius, way ahead of where I was as a youngster. I could eat meat, but I had to chew it awhile before swallowing it. There's no chewing with this five-year-old—he just stuffs it into his mouth. Two large platters of barbecued meat are gone in no time—he's definitely earned my respect. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better—how true that is! The nannies whisk away the empty platters and the bodyguards lay the next two onto the table. The boy wastes no time in grabbing a goose drumstick. His teeth are so sharp they clean away tendons better than any knife. Lan Laoda's eyes don't leave the boy's mouth for a moment. Unconsciously, his mouth moves along with the boy's, as if he too were eating. That movement epitomizes his deep feelings for the child. Only one's flesh and blood could inspire such a depth of emotion. At this point I conclude that the young carnivore is the son of Lan Laoda and the now cloistered Shen Yaoyao.
As I mulled the relationship between man and meat, I arrived at the entrance to Father's meatpacking plant. The main gate was closed and so was a smaller side gate. I knocked on the latter, which made a loud, scary noise. Since school was still in session, Father and Mother would not have been happy to see me, no matter what excuse I came up with. Lao Lan had already poisoned their minds into thinking that only by attending school could I rise above others, something they assumed was a foregone conclusion. They couldn't possibly understand me, even if I revealed everything that went on in my head. That, in essence, is the agonizing cost of genius. This was no time to show up in front of my father's plant but I was defenceless against the smell of meat rushing at me from the kitchen. I looked into the sunny blue sky and saw that it wasn't yet time for a meal at Lao Lan's. Why go to his house for lunch? Neither Father nor Mother went home to eat. Nor did Lao Lan. Instead, he had Huang Biao's daughter-in-law do all the cooking and look after his invalid wife. Lao Lan's daughter, Tiangua, was a third-grader in school. I'd never much cared for the light-haired girl, although that had now changed, for the simple reason that she was a dimwit. Her thoughts were always remarkably shallow, and getting as much as one question wrong in an exam had her in tears, the moron. Jiaojiao always joined me for lunch at Lao Lan's. She too was gifted. And, like me, she was in the habit of falling asleep in class. And, like me, going without meat at even one meal made her listless. But not Tiangua—not only did she not eat meat, she actually called us ravenous wolves when she saw how much we enjoyed it. In return, we took one look at her pathetic vegetarian fare and called her a goat. Huang Biao's wife, a shrewd woman with fair skin and big eyes, wore her hair short and had a pretty mouth—red lips over white teeth. She was always smiling, even when she was alone in the kitchen doing the dishes. She knew that Jiaojiao and I were there to eat but, since Tiangua and her mother were her primary responsibility, she mainly prepared vegetarian food. Only occasionally did she prepare a meat dish, invariably bland and tasteless, something simply thrown together. Needless to say, eating at Lao Lan's house was no treat, but it was all right, since a good meaty dinner awaited us at home in the evening.
The changes in our lives during the six months Father had been back were monumental. Things I hadn't dared dream of in the past had now become realities. Both he and my mother were different people, and issues that had led to quarrels in the past were now brushed away as trivial. I knew that their transformation had come about because of the new relationship with Lao Lan. Honestly, a person takes on the colour of his surroundings. You learn from those nearest you. If it's a witch, then you learn the dance of a sorceress.
Though Lao Lan's wife was an invalid, she managed to retain her poise through her illness. We were never told what she suffered from, but she had a sickly, pale complexion and was extremely frail. For me, the best comparison was of potato sprouts in a dank cellar. We often heard moans coming from her bedroom, but they stopped abruptly when she heard footsteps. Jiaojiao and I called her Aunt, and she gave us the funniest looks, with hints of a mysterious smile at the corners of her mouth. We couldn't help noticing that Tiangua didn't act like a dutiful daughter round her, almost as if she wasn't her real mother. I was well aware that mysterious relationships often infect the homes of influential people, and Lao Lan was an influential man whose home gave rise to matters most people could never comprehend.
So I left that small iron gate, the thoughts galloping through my mind like wild horses and, hugging the wall, made my way to the kitchen. As the distance shrank between me and the meat being cooked inside, the aroma intensified and I could visualize great hunks of the lovely stuff stewing in a big pot. The already high wall seemed to tower over me as I stood there looking up. Not even a grown-up—let alone a child my size—could scale a wall that high, especially since it was topped by barbed wire. But, as they say, where there's a will there's a way. Just as I was about to give up, I spotted a sewage ditch for funnelling foul water out of the kitchen. Was it dirty? Of course it was—it was a sewer. I picked up a fallen branch and moved away pig bristles and feathers and created a passage. Any hole that could accommodate my head, as I knew from experience, was big enough to crawl through, since that's the only body part that can't be made smaller. By using the dead branch as a measuring stick, I determined that the hole was larger than my head, but before squeezing my way in I took off my jacket and my pants, then spread some dirt over the sewage to keep from getting wet. I looked round—there were no people on the street, and a tractor had just passed by; a horse cart was too far away to see what I was up to. I couldn't have asked for a better time to make my move. But even though it was larger than my head, squeezing through that little hole would not be easy. I flattened on my belly and stuck my head in. A complex mixture of smells rose out of the sewer, so I held my breath to keep the foul air out of my lungs. About half way in my head got stuck, and I panicked. But only for a moment. I had to stay calm, because I knew that panicky thoughts make your head grow bigger, and then I'd really be stuck. If that happened, this sewer was where I'd end my days, and the death of Luo Xiaotong would have been a terrible waste. My first reaction was to pull my head back out. It didn't work. I knew then that I was in trouble, but I stayed calm and turned my head until I felt it loosen up a bit. Next, I stretched out my neck to free my ears; once that was done I knew I'd made it past the hardest part. Now all I had to do was shift my body slightly and I could make it through to the other side. So I did, and a moment later I was standing inside Father's plant. After hooking my clothes on the other side with a piece of wire, I cleaned most of the sewer filth off my body with a handful of grass and got dressed. Then, in a crouch, I negotiated the narrow path between the brick wall and the kitchen. When I reached the first window, I was swathed in meaty aromas, almost as if I was immersed in a sticky meat broth.