Brothers (81 page)

He pointed to the magnifying glass, telescope, and microscope and continued, "I couldn't use the microscope, and it was only when I turned the telescope around that it showed me something interesting, as though I were peeking at a hymen from across the street. The magnifying glass was the most useful, allowing me to see everything clearly.

"My biggest regret," he concluded, "was that all four times I had to do it from behind."

Suddenly Baldy Li frowned, remembering the marks on #1358s belly. He was reminded of how, when doing this kind of thing with young mothers, he had seen similar marks on their bellies as well. Suddenly
realizing why Virgin Beauty #1358 had insisted on lying facedown, refusing to turn over, he cried out, "Damn it, I've been had!"

PR Liu stared at Baldy Li, who exclaimed, "She's had a baby! That's why she had stretch marks on her belly. She must have fucking had her hymen reconstructed. She wasn't an out-of-the-box virgin. She was a fucking refurbished one."

PR Liu stared at Baldy Li for a long time before finally understanding what had happened. Very uneasily he said, "I'm sorry, Boss Li. This is my fault, it's my fault that you didn't break your record."

"It wasn't your fault," said Baldy Li. "I was the one who picked her." Then he laughed magnanimously and said, "She did have a great body, though—a round ass, thin shoulders, long, plump legs, not to mention a pretty face. At the very least, I broke my height record."

PR Liu swore that he would go and find someone else, and this time he would make sure she was a real virgin. Before the Virgin Beauty Competition concluded, he promised, he was going to make sure Baldy Li broke his personal record.

Now that PR Liu had a sense of Baldy Li's type, he carefully inspected each of the finalists and found #864, who was also over six feet tall and who also had a round ass and long, plump legs, though her face wasn't as pretty as the first one's. PR Liu decided that that she would do.

What PR Liu didn't know, however, was that not only was contestant #864 not an original virgin; she wasn't even a refurbished one—at most she was just unassembled parts. In order to secure the championship, #864 had already slept with six of the judges and had already bought six Joan of Arc artificial hymens from that charlatan Wandering Zhou in order to have six bloody deflowerings. Therefore, all six judges were tricked into thinking that they had slept with a virgin. This #864, therefore, was even worse than #1358, because at least #1358 was a refurbished virgin who had maintained her secondary virginity until she went to bed with Baldy Li.

When PR Liu went to find #864, this unpackaged virgin was in the process of flirting with the seventh judge and was about to go to bed with him.

PR Liu met #864 in the café. He was quite pleased by this virgin beauty's bold and frank manner, which was quite different from #i358's false modesty. She snuggled up to Liu and spoke warmly. PR Liu was much more relaxed with her and didn't feel the need to beat
around the bush. He started by explaining that they had discovered that many of the contestants were no longer virgins, and furthermore that some, in order to gain an unfair advantage, had tried to win over the judges.

PR Liu didn't specify that the contestants had actually
slept
with the judges, instead using the euphemism
win over.
When #864 heard PR Liu speak this way, she became very nervous and thought that someone had ratted her out to Baldy Li. Blushing furiously, she denounced women for falsely accusing innocent contestants of sleeping with the judges after doing precisely that themselves. Tears streamed down her face, as she repeatedly insisted on her own purity, saying that she was willing to submit to a medical examination. "You are welcome to take me to the hospital for an examination, or even examine me yourself."

PR Liu had not expected the conversation to go so smoothly or to have reached this point so quickly. He laughed cordially and told her, "In order to prove your purity, you must be inspected, and furthermore you must be inspected personally by our Boss Li."

After Virgin Beauty #864 and PR Liu parted, she immediately went to find Wandering Zhou. By that point, Wandering Zhou had only a single Lady Meng Jiang domestic hymen left. He was sitting in the snack shop flirting with Missy Su. Virgin Beauty #864 sent Wandering Zhou a glance from the doorway, and he knew immediately that she needed another artificial hymen. She was Wandering Zhou's old customer, but he pretended that he didn't see her and continued flirting with Missy Su. Virgin Beauty #864 acted as if her house were on fire, but Zhou still waited until Missy Su got up to go check on the kitchen before walking slowly to the door. Virgin Beauty #864 urgently asked him for a Joan of Arc hymen, but he took out his last Lady Meng Jiang and said, "I don't have any more Joan of Arcs, just this final Lady Meng Jiang."

She accepted the hymen, handed over the money, and cursed, "That bunch of whores!"

At eight o'clock that night, PR Liu brought Virgin Beauty #864 to Baldy Li's bedroom, where Baldy Li was again watching television in his pajamas. While #864 stood there bashfully, Baldy Li didn't say anything romantic but simply turned off the television and stood up. This time he first bowed and apologized, then pointed to the bathroom and said gently, "Please go wash up."

Beauty #864 just stood there without moving, saying that she
wanted to say something first. Baldy Li couldn't imagine what she would want to say and thought to himself yet again that virgins truly are a pain and that he wouldn't attempt to screw any more of them after this batch. He felt that he simply didn't have the patience to deal with them.

She began to go on and on about how much she admired Baldy Li and how the first time she read an article about him in the paper, she told herself that if she was going to give herself to anyone, she should give herself to a man like Baldy Li. Having said that, she turned around and walked into the bathroom.

Baldy Li was elated, thinking that this #864 was certainly much more straightforward than #1358. He thought to himself that if he had realized this from the beginning, he would never have bothered to bow to her. After she finished washing up, she secretly inserted the artificial hymen into her vagina.

When she walked in wearing her nightgown, she saw that Baldy Li had already undressed and was sitting there butt-naked and grinning. She gasped in surprise and immediately covered her face with her hands. Baldy Li then removed her nightgown and pushed her down onto the bed. During the entire process, she never removed her hands from her face.

Baldy Li took his magnifying glass and first examined her stomach but didn't see any stretch marks. Very pleased, he then examined her hymen. He could see it clearly but felt it looked somewhat different from #i358's. He didn't think much about this, telling himself that it must be normal that there would be different kinds of hymens. In fact, even a woman's two breasts could be of different sizes.

As Baldy Li took his magnifying glass and telescope and excitedly began to examine her, #864 continued to cover her face, but her body began to sway suggestively. She lay on the bed in a bashful manner, delighting Baldy Li to no end and making him lose interest in continuing his examination. Therefore, he threw down his magnifying glass and telescope and climbed onto her. She took her hands from her eyes and used one to grasp his neck. They went at it for a while, #864 moaning softly as Baldy Li panted, but not only did the Lady Meng Jiang hymen not bleed; eventually Baldy Li even managed to accidentally poke it out.

In this way, Wandering Zhou's cheap counterfeit merchandise
almost destroyed #864 s beautiful future. When Baldy Li picked up the artificial hymen and stared at it with a look of bewilderment, #864 thought to herself that this was it. She trembled and watched Baldy Li with a look of genuine fear. He finally realized what he was holding in his hands and began to curse, "Damn it, another fake virgin."

Seeing Baldy Li furiously throw the artificial hymen away, #864 burst into tears. She begged him to allow her to explain. As she was in the process of trying to figure out what kind of explanation to give him, Baldy Li waved her away, indicating that he had neither the interest nor the patience to hear her stories. "Don't fucking cry, and also don't fucking try to explain. Given that you are not a virgin, then just be a whore. If you can please me, you can still take third place."

At first #864 stared at him in surprise, then she quickly wiped away her tears, turned over, and positioned Baldy Li beneath her. Baldy Li was astonished to discover how strong she was. She mounted him and began fucking him, moaning and twisting her body. She looked as though she was dancing the world's most erotic dance, and even a jaded old bastard like Baldy Li could only stare in amazement. Previously without rival in bed, Baldy Li had finally met his match. He gave it all he had, and so did she, as the two engaged in endless rounds of battle.

When PR Liu saw Baldy Li the next day, he noted his look of satisfaction and assumed it was because the night before he had finally encountered an authentic product. Baldy Li, however, told him, "She was also a fake. The fucking thing even fell out." Baldy Li said that as soon as he stuck his thing in, he felt that something wasn't right. "It was like when you have a sock in your shoe, so when you stick your foot in, you feel something."

Horrified, PR Liu again blamed himself, saying that he had handled things poorly. Liu cursed himself repeatedly and said, with a sigh, "Everything else I can try out for you first, but if I try out a virgin first, even if she were real, she would thereby become fake."

Baldy Li waved him away, saying that even though the previous night he didn't encounter a virgin, #864 still placed him on cloud nine. In all the years he had been whoring around, he had never before encountered a woman as wild and crazy and as fond of attack as #864. As they say,
it's enough in life to meet one true friend,
though in this case that true friend was a wild and crazy sex partner. He said that the
two of them had gone back and forth, with one blowing the spring winds and the other playing war drums. The East Wind did indeed blow away the West Wind, but then the West Wind blew it right back. He said that even calling her a whore was too fucking refined; instead she was the World Wide Whoring Federation Champion. He said that the previous night the two of them had fought endless rounds of an extraordinary carnal battle, and finally both ended up so wounded that they had to call it a draw.

Then Baldy Li instructed PR Liu to go find the ten judges and tell them not to select a champion or a third-place finalist, just a second-place finalist. He said that the champion would be #1358 and the third-place award would go to #864. Even though neither of them was a virgin, both of them had gone to bed with him. While in bed Baldy Li had made certain promises, and now he patted his chest as he announced, "I, Baldy Li, am someone whose word is as good as gold."

The curtain finally fell on the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition. PR Liu completed the task Baldy Li had given him in instructing the ten judges to award first place to #1358 and third place to #864. Second place, meanwhile, went to #79. This #79 was Wandering Zhou's best customer. She wasn't like #864, buying a new artificial hymen each time she slept with a different judge. Instead, she bought ten Joan of Arc hymens all at once and then proceeded to systematically devour all ten judges.

The festivities wrapped up quickly, with the one hundred finalists departing on the same day. Baldy Li stood in front of his company all day bidding farewell to the virgin beauties, to the political leaders of the organizing committee, as well as to the judges. While shaking hands with #1358, Baldy Li quietly asked her, "How old is your child?"

At first she looked confounded, but then she laughed knowingly and whispered back, "She's two."

When he shook hands with #864, Baldy Li leaned up to her ear and said, "I bow to my superior."

The ten judges were helped onto the bus like so many elderly cripples, all of them completely depleted. Two were running a low-grade fever, three could no longer keep food down, and four complained that their eyesight had degraded dramatically; only one still looked normal. He climbed aboard the bus himself, and while bidding goodbye to Baldy Li, he still had strength to speak. Baldy Li asked quietly
whether this time he had eaten his fill. The judge sighed and replied that he didn't even like women anymore.

After the competition concluded, a chorus of criticism emerged in the papers, radio, and television, complaining that this Virgin Beauty Competition represented a return of feudal values, that it trampled on women's self-confidence and self-esteem, and so forth. The focus of the criticisms was ultimately on the competition's creator, Baldy Li, though PR Liu was also implicated. The initial critiques were then followed by a flurry of rumors. Some of the beauties who weren't selected among the top three couldn't contain their fury and proceeded to anonymously leak the fact that the judges had accepted sexual bribes from some of the virgin contestants. Of course, the biggest scandal was the fact that the grand winner of the Virgin Beauty Competition was already a mother. This news immediately circulated throughout the country. But in dealing with the press, #1358 turned out to be a veritable female Baldy Li. She repeatedly stated her views and accepted all invitations for interviews. She admitted that, indeed, she had a two-year-old daughter, but she nevertheless insisted that she was still a virgin. She explained that, spiritually, she would always be a virgin, because she had maintained her spiritual purity. Contestant #1358 gave virginity a new definition, which in turn inspired wide-ranging social commentary. She had her detractors as well as her supporters, and they argued back and forth for more than half a year.

During that half year, Baldy Li was delighted. As long as discussions about him continued he would remain a choice bone. He fully supported #i358's new definition of virginity and told PR Liu that, ultimately, the most important thing was spiritual purity. Baldy Li sighed over how times had changed, complaining that today's women were all unreliable and that in a mere twenty years social mores had been turned upside down. Twenty years earlier, 90 percent of unmarried women were still virgins, but now at most one out of every ten was. Baldy Li immediately corrected himself, saying that out of every ten women today, there wasn't even half a virgin. Of the women strolling out on the streets, not a single one is a virgin. Nowadays, the only place one can still find virgins might be in preschool! Outside preschool, finding a virgin is harder than finding a needle in a haystack.