“What are those marks for?”
She was in the habit of making a note on the calendar each time she returned from a tryst with Zhuang. When she was free, she could count them and savor the details. The question came out of the blue, and she was so startled that she shuddered, with goose bumps sprouting on her arms. She hung the calendar back up. “What for? I’m counting how many days a cattie of cooking oil lasts us, when I last bought pork, and how much we can afford to eat. Why did you sneak up on me like that? For a moment there I thought you were an intruder.”
She was so convincing that he did not doubt her. “What would you have done if I had been an intruder?”
“What do you think? I’d screw him! What’s the matter with you today? You’re acting weird, like I’m keeping a lover at home while you’re out.”
Feeling certain he was in the wrong, Zhou Min laughed off the discussion.
But Niu Yueqing had a huge fight with Zhuang that night, saying that he and Tang Wan’er must have been on very good terms, better than good friends; otherwise, why would he have lied about her going home early? Zhuang tried to talk her around, but she would have none of it, insisting that he tell her how they got together, how intimate they had been, if they had made love, and if so, how and where. Zhuang decided to keep his mouth shut, but the more he refused to respond, the angrier she got. Irritated, he headed for his study, but she followed him, so he went into the bedroom, only to see her walk in behind him. He got into bed fully dressed, with a terrycloth blanket over his face, and she lay down next to him, not letting up on her interrogation. Then she went on about how hard she worked for the family, how she had been underappreciated by him since the day they were married, how he never went shopping with her on holidays or weekends, how he never went to a movie with her, how he never lifted a finger when it came to the household chores. She took care of his food and clothes, and she also had to take care of all the guests, ignoring her job and her own mother, all to please him. But in the end, he had eyes only for someone else.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment?” she asked. “You think everything will be fine if you don’t say anything? I’ve let you off the hook in the past when you’ve clammed up, but it’s not going to work this time. I want you to tell me what’s going on. Go on, tell me everything.”
But Zhuang slept on, even snoring softly. Niu Yueqing snatched the blanket away and jerked at his collar, “You’re asleep? You’ve actually fallen asleep? You don’t treat me like a human being. What kind of wife am I to you? If I were a dog or a cat, you wouldn’t ignore me and fall asleep like that.”
He sat up and shook her off, then got out of bed and headed to the study. She began to sob. When Liu Yue heard the sobbing from her room, she knew it was all because of her, yet she was waiting to see what would happen next. She got nervous when Niu Yueqing started to wail, so she went into the bedroom to talk to Niu, who realized that the girl had heard everything. Feeling a great loss of face in front of her maid, Niu Yueqing threw caution to the wind and ran over to the study, where she wrested a painting album out of Zhuang’s hands and threw it to the floor.
“Look at this good wife, Liu Yue,” he said. “She’s started throwing things.”
“Watch out for that pen on the desk, Zhuang Laoshi,” Liu Yue said unexpectedly. “That’s how you make a living, so make sure Dajie doesn’t destroy it out of anger.”
That only spurred Niu Yueqing into grabbing the pen and flinging it against the door. “I am a good wife, and I know how to throw things. I’ll show you how good I am.” She turned on Liu Yue. “Go back to your room. Why are you out here stirring things up?”
“What am I stirring up? Nothing. You’re upset, so go ahead and vent your anger on me. I’m your maid, so I can’t be mad at you.”
Niu Yueqing was so furious that she went to her bedroom and let out a scream.
After a restless night, the three of them woke up with puffy eyes. Liu Yue made breakfast and brought it out; Zhuang slurped away while Niu Yueqing refused to eat. “Eat something,” Zhuang said, “so you’ll have enough energy to fight with me.”
“You clam up when you should be talking, Zhuang Laoshi,” Liu Yue said, “and you say all these clever things when you should be keeping your mouth shut.”
“It’s all your fault, Liu Yue. You told Dajie that Tang Wan’er and I have something going on.” He winked her.
“Impossible. I just said you and Tang Wan’er were waiting for me at City Hall. What’s wrong with that? Just tell her what you were talking about while you waited.”
“We were just chatting. How can I remember any of that? Oh, now I see — I need to carry a tape recorder with me.”
Niu Yueqing heard every word of the exchange, but she didn’t say a thing.
“Eat something,” Zhuang said to her. “After breakfast, go to the mayor’s house with Liu Yue. We have important matters to attend to. Tell the mayor’s wife about the lawsuit, and ask the mayor to see the secretary for the Committee on Politics and the Law and the chief judge. This has to be done as soon as possible, since it will take the mayor a couple of days. Time is running out. We mustn’t delay.”
“You want me to talk to the mayor’s wife?” Niu Yueqing finally spoke up. “So you need me now?”
“It’s easier when a woman is talking to another woman.”
“I won’t do it. You love Jing Xueyin, you love women. So why should you be afraid of lawsuits? A lawsuit over a sex scandal, it sounds so nice. Didn’t you always say you would rather die at the hands of a woman, since you’d become a romantic ghost? It would surely be romantic if the court sentenced you to death. So why would I want to talk to her? If I try to cover things up when my own husband’s affair is exposed, what kind of woman does that make me? Am I that worthless, that stupid?”
Zhuang silently listened as she continued to rant about the same thing. “Are you finished?” he asked as she fumed.
“You think you’re in the right, so explain yourself,” she said.
“You don’t want to go see the mayor, and I’m not going to go. You say Tang Wan’er and I are seeing each other, so you can fantasize about how close we are. Well, I don’t care. You can call Zhou Min again, even start an investigation with him.” He walked out, but immediately returned to pick up his cigarettes.
Niu Yueqing did not go to work that day. She stayed home and cried her heart out until her hands and feet went cold. Liu Yue tried to talk her around but earned a scolding, so she sat in the study, where she stared blankly at the traffic outside. For over an hour, the junkman shouted, “Junkman — collecting junk — junk — I buy junk.” It was annoying beyond words, and someone in the next unit threw open the window and shouted, “Hey, you, junkman.” He looked up and said, “Over here. You’ve got junk?”
“Fuck you!”
Unperturbed, the old man pulled his cart along and sang another of his ditties:
First-rate writers enter politics
ink up with officials and become their aides.
Second-rate writers switch fields
they write ads instead of tirades.
Third-rate writers join the underworld
reprinting porn for accolades.
Fourth-rate writers sit down to write
going hungry, their good name made.
Fifth-rate writers fall on hard times
screwing themselves in a quest delayed.