With a piece of rusty metal I jimmied the two window sections until the last obstacle to a view of the inside fell open. A blast of meaty aromas hit me, as a huge pot atop a blazing stove about fifteen feet from the window caught my attention. Soup was boiling so fiercely that waves of it nearly splashed over the sides. Huang Biao, in a white apron and over-sleeves walked into the room. I frantically scurried away from the window so he wouldn't spot me. He picked up a long-handled hook and stirred the mixture in the pot, bringing into view sections of oxtails, pig's knuckles, dog's leg and sheep's leg. Pig, dog, cow and sheep, together in one pot. They danced, they sang, they greeted me. Their aromas blended into a heavy fragrance, though I could pick out the individual smells.
Huang Biao snared a pig's knuckle and examined it. What was he looking for? It was soft and fully cooked, and would be overdone if he let it stew any longer. But he threw it back in, picked out a dog's leg and then went through the same motions, although this time he sniffed it too. What are you doing, you moron? It's ready to eat, so turn down the heat before it turns to mush. Next came a sheep's leg, and once again it was examine and smell. Why don't you taste it, you fool? Finally, satisfied that it had cooked long enough, he pulled out the partially burnt kindling and stuffed the hot ends into a sand-filled metal pail, which sent a pall of white smoke into the air and injected the meaty fragrance with a charcoal-like odour. Now that the heat had diminished, the liquid was no longer roiling, although a few ripples remained in the spaces between the cuts of meat, whose song had softened as they waited to be eaten. Huang Biao brought up a sheep's leg with his hook and laid it on a metal platter behind a smaller stove next to the first one. Then he added a dog's leg, two sections of oxtail and a pig's knuckle. Free of the crowd, they cried out happily and waved me over. They had tiny hands, about the size of hedgehog paws. What happened next was, to say the least, entertaining. Huang Biao walked to the door, looked round, then came back in and shut the door behind him. I just knew the bastard was about to dig in and eat all the meat that had invited me to feast on it. Pangs of jealousy rose in me. But he did nothing of the sort—not a single bite (a bit of a relief—at first). Instead, he moved a stool up to the pot, climbed onto it, undid the buttons of his pants, took out a demonic tool and then released a stream of yellow piss into the meaty mixture.
The meat cried out shrilly and huddled up, trying to hide by crowding together. But there was no escape. The powerful stream subjected them to crippling humiliation. Their smell changed. They frowned and they wept. When he was finished, he put the now-contented object back inside his pants, climbed off the stool with a smirk and picked up a spade-like object, which he dipped in the pot to stir the meat, which whined as it tumbled in the fouled soup. After laying down the spade, Huang Biao picked up a small copper ladle, scooped up some of the liquid and held it under his nose. With a satisfied smile, he said: ‘Just right. Now you bastards can eat my piss.’
I threw open the window, intending to voice my outrage. But the shout caught in my throat. I felt sullied and was filled with uncommon loathing. Startled by the sound, Huang Biao dropped the ladle, spun round and stared at me. As his face turned purple, he grimaced and then gave a sinister little laugh. ‘Oh, it's you, Xiaotong,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
I glared at him without answering.
‘All right, boy, come here,’ he said, waving me over. ‘I know how much you love meat. Today you can eat as much as you want.’
I sprang through the window and landed on the kitchen floor. Huang Biao solicitously moved over a campstool for me to sit on, followed by the stool he'd stood on, and then laid a platter on it. Flashing a crafty smile, he picked up his hook and dragged a sheep's leg out of the pot, broth dripping from it as he placed it before me.
‘Eat up,’ he said. ‘Stretch your stomach as far as it'll go. Here's a sheep's leg. There are dogs’ legs in there, pig's knuckles and oxtails. Take your pick.’
I looked down at the tortured expression on the sheep's leg.
‘I saw everything,’ I said coldly.
‘You saw what?’
‘Everything.’
Huang Biao scratched his neck and released yet another sinister laugh. ‘I hate those people,’ he said. ‘They come here every day for a free meal, and I hate them. This has nothing to do with your parents—’
‘But they'll eat this too!’
‘Yes, they will,’ he said with a smile. ‘The ancients have said, “What the eye does not see cannot be dirty.” Don't you agree? If you want the truth, the urine makes the meat fresher and more tender. What you saw as urine is really fine cooking wine.’
‘Then you eat it.’
‘Now that poses a psychological problem, because people aren't supposed to drink their own urine.’ He laughed. ‘But since you saw what happened, I guess I can't expect you to eat any of it.’ He dumped the sheep's leg back into the pot, picked up the platter with the meat he'd taken out before urinating and set it down in front of me. ‘You saw that this meat was taken out before the “cooking wine” was added, old friend, so you can eat it with no worries.’ Next he picked up a bowl of garlic paste off the chopping board and set it in front of me. ‘Dip the meat in this. Your Uncle Huang cooks the best meat. Fully cooked but not mushy, fatty but not greasy. They hired me for one reason alone—so they could enjoy the meat I prepare.’
I cast my eyes at the platter brimming with joyous promise, observed the expressions of excitement, marvelled at the little hands that quivered like tendrils on a grapevine and listened to the mellifluous buzzing of speech, all of which moved me to my soul. It spoke softly, but what it said was clear and distinct, each word a gem of comprehensible speech. It called my name and described itself as wonderful, it revealed to me how pure and untainted it was, it spoke to me of its youth and beauty: ‘We were once part of a living dog or a cow or a pig or a sheep,’ it said, ‘but we were washed three times and then steeped in boiling water for three hours and we are now independent living beings with powers of thought and, of course, emotion. The infusion of salt imbued us with souls, the injection of vinegar and alcohol supplied us with emotions and the addition of onions, ginger, anise, cinnamon, cardamom and pepper imbued us with expression. We belong to you, to you alone, you are whom we sought. We called out to you when we were suffering the agonies of boiling water, we longed for you. We want you to eat us and we are fearful of being eaten by anyone but you. Yet we have no say in the matter. A woman has the ability to end her life to preserve her chastity but even that is denied us. We were born in debased circumstances and are resigned to our fate. If you had not come to feast upon us, who knows to which low and vulgar mouths that privilege would be granted. They might take a single bite before tossing us onto a table to soak in cheap liquor spills. Or they might stub out their cigarettes on our bodies and poison our souls with nicotine and pungent smoke. Together with the skins of shrimp and crabs and soiled paper napkins, they will sweep us into garbage pails. The world can boast a handful of individuals like you, people who love, understand and appreciate meat, Luo Xiaotong. Dear Luo Xiaotong, you love meat and meat loves you. We love you, so come eat us. Being eaten by you makes us feel like a bride being taken by the man she loves. Come, Xiaotong, our virtual husband, what are you waiting for? What is bothering you? Come, don't waste another minute. Tear us apart, chew us up, send us straight down into your guts. Whether or not you know it, all the meat in the world longs for you, it admires you. All the meat in the world considers you its lover, so what is holding you back? Ah, Luo Xiaotong, our lover, might you be worried that we're unclean? Worried that when we were still attached to dogs, cows, sheep and pigs, we were contaminated by feed that included growth hormones, lean meat powder and other poisons? You are right to be concerned about this cruel reality. Unadulterated meat is a rarity in this world—you can look high and low and still be frustrated in your search for animals untainted by poisons in their sheds cotes sties and pens, finding instead only hormonal cows, chemical sheep, garbage pigs and prescription dogs. But we are clean, Xiaotong, we have been brought here from deep in South Mountain by Huang Biao on orders from your father. We are we are cows and sheep that have grown to maturity grazing grassy fields and drinking spring water, we are pigs that ran wild in remote mountain ravines and we are local dogs that have grown to adulthood eating bran and wild plants. Not once, either before or after being slaughtered, were we subjected to the injection of water, and we never came into contact with a drop of formaldehyde. You will not easily find meat as pure and uncontaminated as us. So hurry up and eat, Luo Xiaotong. If you don't, Huang Biao will. Though he pretends to be a dutiful son, though he treats a cow as his mother and though he supplies his dogs, his hormonal animals, with her milk, he injects his butchered dogs with water and he's the last person we want to eat us…’