Brothers (79 page)

Leading the way were twenty convertibles carrying Baldy Li and Tao Qing, the competition organizing committee, political leaders and judges, corporate sponsors and VIPs, with Popsicle Wang and Yanker Yu bringing up the rear in the final car. Yanker Yu had been on his way from Europe to Africa, but after Popsicle Wang called him up and told him about the Virgin Beauty Competition, he immediately changed plans and returned to Liu, deciding that, given the momentous occasion, it was high time for him to show his face. Yu stood in the open car
wearing an exquisitely tailored suit with a perfectly matched shirt and tie. He looked so at home in his suit, it was as if he had never worn anything else in his entire life. He glanced over at Popsicle Wang standing next to him. Wang was also wearing a suit, but the sleeves were so long they covered the tips of his fingers, and the collar was so large that even buttoned up you could still see his collarbone. On top of that, he was wearing one of those cheap red ties that looked like an emergency pull tab. Disappointed by Popsicle Wangs attire, Yanker Yu shook his head and said, "You have no sense of style."

Behind the twenty sedan convertibles was a convoy of trucks. Leading the way was the truck for the VIPs, with tables, chairs, drinks, and fruits. Then came the truck for the A-list guests, which had everything the VIP truck had except for the tables. Next came the truck for the B-list guests, which lacked both tables and chairs and instead had the guests standing in two rows. The C-list truck had guests standing in four rows, and on the D-list truck the passengers were packed like sardines. Behind the trucks was an endless line of tractors for the regular ticket holders, on which people were packed like livestock on the way to market.

PR Liu was not riding in one of the sedans at the front but, rather, was standing at the entrance to the street with a starter gun in his hand, like an Olympic judge. The director of the organizing committee, who passed by in the first sedan, was a political leader Baldy Li had asked PR Liu to invite. He rambled into the microphone a lot of political pablum about how much Our Country had taken off thanks to the Reform and Opening Up Campaign, about how it had increased not only the national and provincial GDP but also that of the cities and towns. Just as he got around to speaking about Liu Town, he switched back to speaking about Our Country. After going on grandiosely for a while, he again turned back to Liu Town and specifically the Virgin Beauty Contest that was about to begin. He spoke about how the contest was evidence of the rise in both Our Peoples standard of living and Chinas international standing. The Virgin Beauty Competition not only would promote traditional Chinese culture but was also right on track with the tide of globalization. After going on in this fashion for more than half an hour, he finally cried out, "I hereby announce the beginning of the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition!"

PR Liu fired his gun, and the sedans, trucks, and tractors full of inspectors coming to watch the virgin beauties ceremoniously filed in,
as magnificent as a marathon. They rumbled along at a snails pace, gradually making their way down the streets into the sunset. The three thousand virgin beauties, who had been pushed to their limits from the continual sexual harassment by the spectators, all sprang to attention at the sound of the starting gun. Each and every one of them stuck out their chests, swiveled their hips, and posed with smiles on their faces— composing a veritable gallery of three thousand different flirtatious expressions.

They watched as the political leaders and judges drove by in their convertibles, followed by an endless convoy of trucks and tractors full of inspectors. Still being groped by the men behind them, the contestants by now just wanted the competition to end so that they could go home and scrub themselves clean. But what kind of person was Baldy Li? He was always one step ahead of everyone and had already anticipated that the beauties would want to turn around and walk away as soon as the judges’ sedans had passed, leaving the ticket holders in the trucks and tractors with nothing to see other than the setting sun, whereupon they would surely have rioted in front of the offices of the organizing committee. In order to avoid this problem, and also to increase peoples interest in buying inspection tickets, Baldy Li arranged for the results of the first round of competition to be determined not by those first ten judges but, rather, by the five thousand ticket holders following behind.

Just think, with one hundred thousand sweaty people crowded together on a summer evening, how the stench of their sweat permeated the atmosphere of Liu. One hundred thousand people were exhaling carbon dioxide, and among them were five thousand who also had bad breath; one hundred thousand people meant two hundred thousand armpits, including six thousand armpits that reeked of BO; one hundred thousand people meant one hundred thousand assholes, of which at least seven thousand were farting, some more than once. The slower the cars drove, the more exhaust they emitted, but at least the car exhaust was gray and made the street look like a steam-filled sauna. Much worse were the streams of billowing black smoke coming from the tractors, as if they were burning houses.

The polluted atmosphere of Liu Town contaminated the three thousand beautiful virgins. For three hours they had to stand with their chests out and their hips swiveled, smiles plastered on their faces and flirtatious looks in their eyes, all in an attempt to have the country
bumpkins riding in the trucks and tractors select them. Each of those five thousand bumpkins thought of himself as a competition judge. This was particularly true of those riding on the tractors, who, though they were crowded together like cattle, were actually the world s most conscientious judges. As soon as they pushed aside the heads in front of them, their own heads would be pushed aside by the people behind them, but they all nevertheless kept their eyes wide open, wanting to examine the virgin beauties carefully, and—holding their papers and pens above their heads—they recorded the pretty ones. They recommended and critiqued the virgins as earnestly as if they were investing in stocks. The spectators standing in the back were particularly conscientious, even though often, as soon as they glimpsed a virgin beauty with a decent face and physique, the tractor would drive past before they had a chance to see the number on her chest. Therefore, they would call out anxiously to the people in front and ask what was the number of the virgin who looked a certain way, acting as if they were afraid they might miss out on a stock that was about to open big the next day.

The three thousand virgin beauties had been standing all afternoon. They had spent about two hours simply lining up along the street and three hours more posing for the spectators. Whether they had started out wearing heavy or light makeup, by this point sweat had melted everything on their faces into a multicolored puddle. After the two-plus-mile caravan of convertibles, trucks, and tractors had driven by, the exhaust added a layer of black on top of the color. As a result, they were all as black as chimney sweeps, and the delighted crowds said that they looked like African virgin beauties.

The carnivalesque first round of competition finally concluded at nightfall, but the five thousand country bumpkins were still very excited as they went, with their sweat-drenched papers, to line up in front of the organizing committee s building and waited there until the middle of the night to turn in their ballots. They felt that they had purchased not merely inspection tickets but, rather, the opportunity to serve as judges for a national competition; this was an experience they planned to savor for the rest of their lives. PR Liu gazed out at the passionate and foolish lot of them and thought scornfully that bumpkins will be bumpkins, and even if you were to plop them down in New York or Paris, they would remain unqualified bumpkins. And it was precisely these bumpkin judges who eliminated two thousand of the virgin beauties, leaving only one thousand to enter the semifinals.

Of the two virgin beauties living in Poet Zhao's house, only one managed to qualify for the semifinals. Therefore, she happily checked into a hotel, now that they had some vacancies, while the other beauty packed her bags and left in a funk.

By this point Wandering Zhou had slept on the straw mat under the open sky for seven nights straight. He had managed to sell forty-three artificial hymens, and therefore now had some cash in his pocket. He paid Poet Zhao 140 yuan, explaining that it was his bed fee for the past seven nights, emphasizing the fact that he was treating Poet Zhao to his portion of the charges. Then he turned and walked into the snack shop across the street, sat down, and proceeded to chat intimately with Missy Su while sipping from his straw-embedded buns. The straw-embedded buns had been perfected, and consequently he couldn't continue sampling them for free on the pretense that he was testing them out. Therefore, he started to run up a tab at the snack shop, saying that it was too much trouble for him to pay such a small amount of money each day and that he would pay everything off when he left.

After Wandering Zhou emerged from the snack shop, Poet Zhao thought that he, too, was going to get a room in a hotel, but instead he came to stay at Poet Zhao's house. Upon entering he took one look at Poet Zhao's cramped home and said, his voice dripping with disdain, "Fine, I'll just sleep on your tattered couch."

Poet Zhao said, "This is simply too humiliating. You should go and stay in a hotel."

Wandering Zhou shook his head, crossed his legs and made himself comfortable on the old, tattered sofa, as if he were in his own home. He said, "I'm not used to sleeping in a regular hotel room. When I stay at hotels, the cheapest room I ever get is a suite, but the suites here have all been rented out to the political leaders and judges."

Poet Zhao suggested, "You could rent two rooms, and that would make a suite."

"Nonsense," Wandering Zhou replied. "How can you call two rooms a suite? How can I sleep in two rooms?"

Poet Zhao said, "You could sleep in one room the first half of the night, and in the other room the second half."

Wandering Zhou laughed out loud, saying, "To tell the truth, I'm not really comfortable in a regular suite. When I stay in hotels, I only use the presidential suites."

Poet Zhao said, "Then why don't you rent an entire floor? You could take a nap in every room. Wouldn't that be a presidential suite?

Wandering Zhou glared at Poet Zhao. "Don't start with me. I just want to sleep on your old, tattered couch. I've had my share of abalone and shark fin, and right now I'm in the mood for some pickled vegetables and rice gruel."

Though this charlatan was Poet Zhao's temporary boss, he hadn't yet paid him. If Zhou wanted to hang out in Poet Zhao's home, therefore, Poet Zhao had no choice but to grin and bear it. After all, if he were to shoo him away, he might also be shooing away his own wages.

CHAPTER 64

T
HE SEMIFINALS
of the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition were held two evenings later. Once again, tens of thousands of townspeople streamed into the streets to watch the excitement. This time, however, there weren't any trucks or tractors, nor were there any country bumpkins serving as judges. Instead, a giant platform covered with sponsors’ ads had been erected in the middle of the street, which was lined with billboards advertising everything from cell phones to tourism, beauty products to laxatives, underwear to quilts, toys to health products. There were ads for things to eat, to play with, and to use; things for living people and dead people; things from China and things from abroad; things for people and things for pets. Even if you were to rack your brain like a high school student preparing for the college entrance exams, you wouldn't be able to come up with a product not covered by these ads.

Baldy Li and the organizing committee's political leaders and judges all sat on the platform, joined by Yanker Yu and Popsicle Wang. Under Yu's careful tutelage, Wang was now also dressed to the nines. Pop music blared from loudspeakers, but after every two lines or so the crooning would be interrupted by a commercial. After one ad concluded, the song would play for two more lines before being interrupted by another commercial. Each song would be interrupted at least four times, with the result that the famous stars singing through the loudspeakers were transformed into stuttering singers. One thousand virgins lined up, and each paraded back and forth three times in front of the platform to the beat of the stuttering music and the blaring commercials. This time the crowds were roped off, so the men couldn't grope the contestants’ bottoms but could merely harass them from a distance with lecherous gazes and salacious comments. By the time each of the virgin beauties had paraded back and forth three times, the sun had set behind the mountains, thus concluding the semifinals of the competition. Baldy Li, the political leaders, and the judges all left, as did the one thousand virgin beauties and the tens of thousands of
spectators. The loudspeakers, however, continued blaring commercials late into the night.

The semifinals eliminated nine hundred more contestants, leaving only one hundred to compete in the finals. The finals would be held in a movie theater, thereby allowing Baldy Li to sell more tickets and stuff his pockets with more wads of cash. Baldy Li had become a professional escort—escorting party leaders, judges, and sponsors to eat, play, and admire female beauty. As a result, the formerly awe-inspiring Baldy Li now simply spent the entire day smiling broadly as he escorted people around, to the point that he even began to resemble PR Liu.

The original three thousand virgin beauties had left him blurry-eyed and dizzy; the one thousand semifinalists had left him blurry-eyed but no longer dizzy; the one hundred finalists left him completely clear-eyed and clearheaded again. He summoned PR Liu, saying that if he didn't get his hands on some of these virgins now, he would lose his chance. He was sure that as soon as the competition concluded, they would disperse, and his only chance to bed one of them would be in his dreams. He remarked that all of the one hundred remaining beauties were quite fine, and he would be interested in sleeping with all of them; but since only a few days were left, he had to make some choices. The first one who caught his eye was contestant #1358—a beauty six feet two, perfectly proportioned, with a red-hot body. Baldy Li said that the tallest woman he had previously slept with had been just six feet, and therefore he was now in a position to break two personal Guinness records at once: his record for the tallest woman he had slept with, and also his first virgin.