“I’ve had more romantic relationships than you,” Gou said.
“But they all came to nothing. Have you ever thought about why? If you don’t ravish a woman you’re in love with, she’ll think you aren’t a man. Got that?” Li said.
“You have experience in this, Zhou Min. What do you think?”
Zhou thought it over and nodded.
“If Zhuang Zhidie had ravished Jing Xueyin years ago, would she be raising hell now, even if she weren’t married?” Li was talking a blue streak when a knock was heard at the door. He shut up and went to open the door. It was Zhong Weixian.
“I thought of something we must be careful about,” Zhong said. “Over the next few days, if you run into Jing, make sure to be nice and don’t say anything nasty. Don’t react even if she tries to provoke you. If we do, it will only make things worse.”
“You were a Rightist, you can do that,” Li said. “I can’t.”
“I’ve always gone along with you, but this time you have to listen to me,” Zhong said as he walked off.
“That’s really uncalled for, Hongwen. The old man is in such terrible shape, you shouldn’t be making things even harder on him,” Gou said.
“I think you’ll have to get more involved or get Zhuang Zhidie to work on this,” Li said. “Old Zhong can’t make things worse, but he can’t make them better, either. He’s been weak his whole life, but he’s now become a real coward, and we’ll be in serious trouble if we pin our hopes on him.”
Disconcerted by what he heard, Zhou Min wanted to ask for advice, but Li sat down and took out a bottle of hair tonic to rub on his scalp. He asked Gou if he saw any new growth.
“Maybe three new strands,” Gou replied as the crackle of firecrackers sounded outside.
Zhong ran in. “Who’s setting off firecrackers?”
Li, Gou, and Zhou all ran to the balcony, but Zhong said, “Dahai, you go check it out. It would be too obvious if all three of you were out there. Everyone in the Department of Culture is watching us, you know.”
Gou went to take a look and came back to say, “The second window on the west side of the third floor. When they saw me looking down, some people held up a newspaper that said ‘Bravo to the Magazine.’”
Zhong’s face darkened. “Those people never liked Jing Xueyin and questioned how she was qualified to be promoted to mid-level leadership, but the department ignored them, so they’re using us to vent their anger.” He told Gou to go down and stop them before they caused any more trouble. Li offered to go instead. He quickly returned, looking pale, as he told everyone that Wu Kun had taken his bureau chief to watch the fireworks display, raising a fuss about the current state of the Department of Culture. Wu Kun even complained that the previous editorial committee had been disbanded in vain, since the new team had failed to promote stability and unity. Zhong was outraged.
“Even if the magazine is shut down, that fucking Wu Kun has no chance of landing on his feet. Give me a cigarette.”
Gou Dahai didn’t have one to give him, so he went to the door to pick up a cigarette butt, but they were all soaking in dirty water.
. . .
Niu Yueqing went to Wang Ximian’s house for the cash. Wary of walking around with that much money, she asked Liu Yue to go with her. As a precaution, they changed into old clothes. Niu Yueqing put the money under some cabbage leaves in a shopping basket; Liu Yue walked three steps behind, gripping a rock so tightly that her palm was sweaty. They walked down East Avenue, past the post office near the clock tower, where a billboard advertised “The latest issue of Xijing Magazine, with an exclusive exposé of a secret affair by the celebrated writer Zhuang Zhidie.” Niu Yueqing stopped, crouched down, and set the basket between her legs. She told Liu Yue to buy a copy. She began reading and was soon breathing hard, her face dark. Not knowing what was in the magazine, Liu Yue knew better than to ask. They went home, but Zhuang was still out, so Niu Yueqing went to bed alone, so rattling Liu Yue that she didn’t know what to cook. She went in and asked Niu Yueqing.
“Anything,” was the answer.
What exactly was anything? Liu Yue decided to make fried millet cakes, her best dish — stir-fry some shredded potatoes and add half a pot of rice with dates. Night had fallen when she was finished, so she sat down in the living room, but was quickly bored. She stepped outside for some fresh air, just as Zhuang rode up on his scooter.
He was returning from the camera store, after passing the two-hour wait for the film to be developed by watching four old women play cards by the side of the road. All of them were wearing glasses, and they interrupted their play by talking to someone across the street, a big-boned woman with high cheekbones and a pointed mouth. She was drying persimmons on the mat in front of her door. They smelled bad to Zhuang, lacking a sweet aroma. When one of the old women saw Zhuang looking across the street, she blinked and said: “You don’t think she looks like much, do you? But she’s a rich lady who plays cards in her free time with money she keeps stuffed in her bra. She has piles of money in there.”
“What does she do to have so much money?” Zhuang asked.
“She’s from Mount Zhongnan. She rents this storefront to sell dried persimmons dusted with talcum powder that she passes off as a powdered sugar.”
“That’s terrible,” he said. “Won’t that cause diarrhea?”
“No one stops her. Want to ask her about it? Ma Xiangxiang,” she shouted across the street, “this comrade wants to talk to you.”
The ugly woman stopped to look at Zhuang. “Want some dried persimmons?”
“The sugar on your persimmons looks awfully white. Could it possibly be talcum powder?”
“What do you do?”
“I’m with the Writers’ Association, the Zuoxie.”
“Zuoxie, oh, a shoemaker,” she said, mishearing his words. You guys all take shortcuts with your shoes. I bought this pair last week, and the front’s already come unglued.”
“Not a shoemaker. I’m a writer. You know what a newspaper office is, don’t you? Well, Zuoxie is like that.”
The woman picked up the tray of persimmons, turned around, walked inside, and locked the door behind her, making all the old women laugh.
“What’s not fake these days?” one of them said. “Do you believe you can bite your own ears?”
“I think I could if I had a ladder,” Zhuang replied.
“Ah, so you’re a clown. I’ll show you how I do it.” She opened her mouth to reveal two rows of shiny white teeth, which she nudged with her tongue into her hand and put around her ear. Zhuang laughed.
“Cosmetic surgery is all the rage nowadays,” she said. “You can have fake eyebrows and fake noses. I even heard of fake breasts and fake buttocks. You can’t tell what’s real and what’s fake on the girls walking around these days.”
The humor and witty comments kept Zhuang around for a while before he checked his watch and saw that more than two hours had passed. He said good-bye and left for the camera shop. As he walked away, one of the women said, “He could be fake, too.”
Zhuang overheard her comment and began to wonder. Recalling what he had done with Tang Wan’er, which seemed like a dream now, he had the nagging feeling that he might not be Zhuang Zhidie after all. If he was, how would a coward like him have the nerve to do something so daring? If he wasn’t, then who was he? He paused to light a cigarette, and for the first time in his life, he noticed that the shadow of his cigarette smoke was not grayish-black, but dark red. Abruptly turning his head, he saw an elongated figure jump to the base of a wall, a sight so startling it gave him goose bumps. But when he looked closer, he realized it was his shadow, cast onto the wall by the reflection of sunlight from the opened glass door of a store. Not a man who was afraid of ghosts or the supernatural, he was nonetheless scared by his own shadow. He looked around to make sure that no one had seen his jittery state before rushing over to pick up his photos. He had another shock when he looked at the pictures of himself with Niu Yueqing and Tang Wan’er. Everything in his living room — the table and chairs, even the jade carving on the screens — had come out nice and clear, but the people were so faint they might as well have been invisible. Tang Wan’er and Niu Yueqing looked like disembodied heads set atop two pairs of shoulders. Everyone else looked the same in all the other photos. He asked the clerk what had happened, only to be scolded for bringing in negatives like that, complaining that it could ruin the shop’s reputation. Not daring to say more, Zhuang walked out, only to find that he could not start his scooter; he had no choice but to push it home, feeling quite dazed.