“Your shimu is right,” Zhuang said to Zhao. “I’ve asked around and learned that Gong lost his mind before he died and destroyed everything in the house. His wife is still in Tianjin, and, Xiaoyi being Xiaoyi, well, it will be a sad sight at their house, with nothing left. Oh, right. Go buy three packages of opium from Liu Yezi and take them with us. Xiaoyi needs to take charge now, and I don’t think he has any opium left. He’s useless without it.”
It was dark out when the three of them rushed over to Gong’s house as soon as Zhao returned with the opium.
It was a well-preserved old-style compound, with four main rooms flanked by side rooms. In the relatively small yard, a toon tree as thick as a bucket had been planted at the spots where the eaves of the main rooms met the side room walls. There were artificial hills and trellises in the middle of the yard; on the sides of the entrance were a small room, a toilet, and the furnace room to heat the house in the winter. Zhuang, Zhao, and Niu Yueqing went straight to one of the central rooms; it was brightly lit, with no one inside. The lights were on in only two of the central rooms. To the east was Gong Jingyuan’s study, and to the west was the couple’s bedroom, with a room to receive guests in the center. In the middle of the main room, two black lacquered square tables had been pushed together, both with inlaid tabletops made of Lantian jade, surrounded by eight low drum-shaped stools. On each side of the door was an old-fashioned lattice window with plum flower carvings linked by carved ropes. Hung on the main wall were eight mahogany images carved in relief showing the famous calligraphers Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, Yan Zhenqing, Ouyang Xun, Liu Gongquan, Zhan Xu, Mi Fei, and Yu Youren. On the walls on the eastern and western sides hung framed calligraphy by Gong himself, one reading “Enjoy Life” and the other “Harmony.”
“No one died here. See, there’s no bier and no one is wailing,” Zhao said when a man with a mourning cloth wound around his head came out of one of the side rooms. “Ah, we have guests,” the man shouted. “In here.” Now they knew that the bier had been set up in a side room to the east, so they left the main room. In the middle of the room was a screen to separate a sleeping area from Gong’s large writing desk. On the desk, which had been prepared to serve as the bier, lay Gong’s body. It was covered in rice paper, with no blanket or sheet. Zhuang walked over to pull back the paper. Gong’s hair was a mess, framing his bluish-black face; his eyes and mouth were twisted, making for a terrifying sight. Niu Yueqing put her hands over her face and cried, “Why is he covered in paper? Don’t you have a blanket and sheet?”
One of the grieving relatives said that they had chosen to use rice paper because the blankets and sheets were too dirty. Niu Yueqing cried again while smoothing Gong’s lapel; she wailed until she fell to the edge of the bier when she saw that Gong was wearing the same old pair of shoes he had been wearing the time she ran into him at the City God Temple. Patting Gong’s face, Zhuang also teared up. “Brother Gong, how could you just die like that? How?” His chest tightened and he burst into tears. One of the relatives came over and offered them tea after they sat down.
Earlier, when Gong Jingyuan had come home and heard the story from Xiaoyi, he was enormously grateful to Zhuang, whom, to his regret, he hadn’t visited often, owing to his inflated view of his own talent and his addiction to gambling. Gong was particularly pleased when he learned how well his son had done this time, so he retrieved a suitcase from under the bed that contained bundles of bills totaling a hundred thousand yuan. He took out a stack and gave it to Xiaoyi to buy four bottles of Maotai, ten cartons of Hongtashan cigarettes, and three skeins of yarn and silk. He wanted to thank Zhuang Zhidie personally. Xiaoyi was astounded to see so much money.
“You have all this money and you hid it from me? Do you know how much trouble I had to go through to get sixty thousand yuan?”
“No matter how much I have, it would never fill that opium pit of yours. If I didn’t save the money, what would we do in an emergency? Your mother is away, and that’s why you’ve had a tough time. But you did well. I thought that no one would help you out with the way you are, but you actually managed to borrow the needed amount. Tell me who the lenders were, and we’ll pay them back tomorrow.”
“Who would lend me so much money? The Public Security Bureau gave me four days to pay the fine, so urgently it was like trying to put out a fire. Luckily an art dealer bought your calligraphy and paid enough for me to get you out.”
It was like a thunderclap to Gong, who hurried to open the closet. Ninety percent of his favorite works were gone, and a quick check told him that not much was left of the antique scrolls he had collected over the years. He overturned his desk and flew into a rage.
“You’re fucking hopeless. You sold off everything, all for sixty thousand yuan! You stupid shit. And you say you’ve saved me? You just killed me. I didn’t need you to save me. I’d rather spend five years in jail than have you destroy me like this. Why didn’t you sell the house while you were at it? Why didn’t you sell your mother, too?”
“Why are you so upset, Dad? You’re so tightfisted, it was like slicing off a piece of your flesh whenever I asked for a few measly yuan. How was I supposed to know we had that much money in the house? I didn’t have time to worry about how much I’d get for those scrolls; all I cared about was getting you out. You have talent and can produce more calligraphy, so what’s the big deal?”
Gong kicked Xiaoyi out the door. “What the fuck do you know?” he screamed. “You think I can write whenever I want? Am I a printer?” He continued his tirade, calling his son all sorts of names. Having finally tired himself out, Gong lay down on the bed, wondering how someone like him could have a prodigal son like that. Xiaoyi smoked so much opium that he barely looked human, and worse yet, the idiot had squandered nearly everything over a minor incident. What would become of them if he kept at it? Then his thoughts shifted to himself. In the past, he had spent up to three days in jail after being arrested, but few people knew about that. But this time the news had gotten around, and everyone would be calling him a gambling addict. Cradling his money, he had to curse the way the ease of getting money had ruined him and his son. Overcome by extreme sadness, he decided to end his life. He looped a rope over the rafter, made a noose, and climbed onto a stool.
But then his thoughts turned to the despicable man who had brokered the deal between his son and the art dealer. Who was the man, and who was the dealer? “Damn you, you thieves; you took advantage of me when you thought I didn’t have any money. You deserve to die a terrible death. I’m going to show you my wealth today before I die.” Jumping off the stool, he pasted hundred-yuan bills on the wall until all the cash was used up. He chortled when it was done before regretting his action, for that might bring more derision. With so much money in the house, why would the son have to sell everything for sixty thousand yuan to get his old man out of jail? He splashed ink on the walls before using a coal rake to scratch and scrape the walls until the money, along with the wall, was turned to pulp. Throwing the rake down, he sat on the floor and cried like a lowing old cow. “It’s over. It’s all over. Now I’m truly penniless.”
He slapped his hands on the floor, then bit off the three rings on his fingers, swallowing them one by one.
. . .
After a cup of tea, Zhuang was about to leave when Wang Ximian and Ruan Zhifei walked in, followed by several people who brought with them a large custom-made case for sacrificial implements. It was an intricate case: the bottom had a gold mountain and silver ridges made of colored slices of pigs’ heads, while the top displayed flour figurines depicting the eight immortals crossing the ocean, the several sages in the bamboo grove, the twelve beauties of Nanjing, and the eighteen club-wielding monks of Shaolin Temple, all delicately created and lifelike.