As the plain grew hilly, the road became bumpier. The bus lurched along slopes and curves and swung at elbow turns like a boat, rocking most of the passengers into a drowse. We passed village after village and town after town. I dozed away most of the time. Though it was unpleasant to travel like this, my mind was relaxed. This was a change nonetheless.
It took almost five hours to arrive at Hanlong, a small town in Yimeng County. Its dirt streets were rutty in places, flecked with animal droppings and bits of cornstalk spilled from fodder sacks carried by ox and horse carts. Most houses here were built of adobe and a few of brownish rocks. Many chimneys were belching out white smoke; the air smelled of charcoal, and bellows croaked one after another. Before a larger house, which boasted two show windows and a roof of cement tiles and looked like a department store, three knots of small boys were waging mantis fights, their cries and curses sputtering. Most of them were barefoot, running about nimbly.
Since it was too late to go to the Commune Administration, I found the town guesthouse and checked in for the night. I told myself, Take it easy, tomorrow you’ll have a whole day for the investigation letter.
Even dinner was a change, too. In the dining room of the guesthouse I bought a bowl of sorghum porridge, a plate of stewed tofu, and a large chunk of sponge bread made of cornmeal and wheat flour mixed together. I disliked corn stuff, which was thought of as “coarse food,” but the bread was the only kind offered here. It was soft and sweetened with saccharin; somehow it tasted surprisingly good, and I ate it with relish. The tofu was fresh, different from the sour thing sold in my school’s dining hall. More interesting, at the other end of the low-ceilinged room a banquet was under way. I couldn’t see the attendees because a line of sky-blue screens separated them from us, the common diners. The banquet was boisterous — laughter and shouts surged up from time to time. I ate slowly on purpose, curious to find out what the country banquet was like. Soon my appetite for my dinner began dwindling, as the spicy, meaty smell of some dishes served at the feast pervaded the room, caressing my nostrils.
“To your health, Magistrate Chang!” a thick voice proposed loudly beyond the screens.
“Yes, he can swallow a lake!” added another man. What an odd way of praising someone’s capacity for alcohol, I thought.
“Drink up!”
“Hoo-ha-ha, raise your cup, everybody!”
“No one here should leave the table without getting drunk. Come on, drain your cup.”
“Who’ll take us home if we can’t walk?”
“We have plenty of rooms here.”
“Besides, his wife doesn’t want him back tonight.”
“Shut up, you bigmouth!”
Peals of laughter rang out and made some of the diners on this side of the room turn toward the screens, which carried the figures of prancing tigers and frolicking dragons. The creatures were golden, painted against the sky-blue backdrop. Then six waitresses in red aprons and orange pants and short-sleeved shirts stepped out of the kitchen, where burst forth the sizzle of a wok searing meat and the sound of a spatula scraping a cauldron briskly. They each held a large tureen containing a steamed turtle, on whose black carapace were stuck cooked garlic cloves and scallion stalks that made the dish look slimy. The second the waitresses entered the screened area, a commotion went up. “Goodness, we’re doing turtle!” cried a man.
“Armored fish!” several voices shouted. The air beyond the screens was almost gray with tobacco smoke.
Then came the clatter of ladles, porcelain spoons, and bowls. One of the waitresses gave a little shrill laugh and said, “Thank you, I don’t drink.”
“Come on, just a sip!” invited a man.
“That’s a good girl,” another voice piped in.
A rotund man eating at my table said to us, “That’s an expensive dinner, isn’t it?” He pulled a piece of gristle out of his mouth and threw it on the dirt floor.
A young fellow, who looked like a salesman, said over a bowl held under his chin, “They’re eating the peasants’ blood.” He slurped his cabbage soup.
Soon after the waitresses came out of the screened area, some men at the banquet began playing a finger-guessing game, and the room at once sounded like a marketplace. Several voices chanted together:
There’s a large red rooster
With a fluffy tail.
He digs into dirt like a miner
But won’t touch a snail.
His hens cry, “Stop, mister!”
Still he won’t give a damn.
No matter how they holler
He eats turd like yam. .
The smell of tobacco and alcohol grew so thick that I felt a little woozy. Hurriedly I finished dinner and left the table. Fascinated by the ditties they had been chanting, I sashayed to the entrance of the screened area in hopes of catching a glimpse of the finger-guessing game. But a beefy guard stood there with his arms crossed before his chest, his hands invisible as if holding concealed weapons. I dared not step closer, and instead headed away for the door. Before I could walk out, a balding, husky official, apparently coming back from the public latrine in the backyard, wobbled over from the opposite direction, holding a bottle of Five Star beer. He came up to me and put his free hand on my shoulder, saying with an obscene smile, “Come, take a swig, my pretty girl.” His face was as crimson as a boiled shrimp, dark goo around his lips.
I was perplexed, then realized he took me for one of the waitresses, perhaps because of my long hair and my yellowish short-sleeved shirt. I spat on the floor and cursed, “Pig!”
He guffawed, slapping his gut, and said, “Between pigs and men I don’t see any difference.”
As I was reaching the doorway, the waitresses came out of the kitchen again, each holding a platter of fried silkworm pupas. I turned away in disgust, despite knowing the dish was a kind of delicacy to the country people.
A crew from Shanning Film Studio was staying at the guesthouse. They had come to this mountainous area to shoot a movie. The two young fellows sharing the room with me were cameramen on the team. They told me they were making a movie about the historical figure Heng Zhang, who had been an upright official and an expert in earthquake forecasting in the Han Dynasty, about two thousand years ago.
“Why did you pick this place?” I asked the shorter man, who seemed better tempered than his hulking colleague.
“Because this is one of the poorest areas. Look at the landscape.” He waved his squarish hand as if he were sitting in the open air. “Rocky valleys and barren hills, they’re perfect scenery for the movie. The soil’s so poor it looks like even rabbits won’t shit here.”
I knew the story of Heng Zhang, but I couldn’t picture what the film would be like. I didn’t go to the movies very often and instead read books, so I was not terribly interested in what they were making. I picked up the washbasin from under my bed, fetched some hot water, and bathed my feet in it. My only desire now was to get some sleep. I went to bed early despite the two men chattering without cease. Exhausted by the trip, I slept soundly that night.