Brothers (89 page)

After Baldy Li had had crazy sex with Lin Hong for three months, he suddenly felt that the sex had become stale. They had done it on the bed, on the couch, on the floor, in the bath, in the car; they had done it standing, sitting, kneeling, missionary and doggy style, sideways and up and down. In short, they had tried every position imaginable, and Lin Hong had cried out every imaginable sound. After the lovemaking lost its freshness for Baldy Li, he began to reminisce and remarked that it would have been perfect if only they had been able to make love twenty years earlier. Baldy Li told her that back then, as soon as it got dark, he would always fantasize about those three parts of her body as he masturbated. He asked her, "Do you know how many days a year I masturbated to you?"

Lin Hong shook her head. "No."

"Three hundred sixty-five days a year. I didn't even take time off for New Years or other holidays."

Then Baldy Li's eyes grew bright as he cried out, "And to think that at the time you were still a virgin!"

After he had repeated this three times, he decided to send Lin Hong to a hospital in Shanghai to have hymen-recon surgery. Once she became a virgin again, he would make love to her once more and pretend that it was taking place twenty years earlier. After that they would never do it again. "With that, I'll return you to Song Gang!"

Realizing that their time together was about to be up, Lin Hong became very depressed. She had fully indulged her own craziness, and during this period her heart and body had become increasingly separated from each other, as if countless mountains and rivers had come between them. Her heart longed every day for Song Gang, but her body lusted for Baldy Li. She didn't know how, without the powerful Baldy Li, she would ever make it through the interminable nights. Her desire was like a forest fire, and once it started burning, it was almost impossible to extinguish. She realized sadly that she could never return to her former state of abstinence. She hated herself for this, but there was nothing she could do about it.

At this point, Lin Hong began to sense that Song Gang was about to
return home to Liu. Wandering Zhou, who had led him away in the first place, had suddenly reappeared in Missy Sus snack shop a month earlier. Lin Hong had heard about this and also seen him with her own eyes. At that moment she had felt a jolt of surprise and wanted to rush over to him and ask about Song Gang, but just then Baldy Li's white BMW had driven up, and she lost her courage. Afterward she sent Deputy Liu to ask Wandering Zhou on her behalf, and she learned that Song Gang was temporarily unable to return. Wandering Zhou told Deputy Liu that Song Gang was still selling health products in Hainan, where he had already made a considerable profit, and therefore had no interest in coming home.

Lin Hong was still uneasy and worried every day that Song Gang might suddenly show up. This anxiety gradually began to take its toll on her libido. Whenever she thought of Song Gang, she would burst into tears and feel that she was committing a crime. As a result, her frenzied desire for Baldy Li began to ebb. She felt that for her and Baldy Li to have had these three months was more than enough; this way, when Song Gang returned home, she would be able to love and cherish him with renewed intensity. She understood Song Gang and knew that he was the kindest man in the world, and that no matter what she might do to betray him, he would continue to love her as before. Therefore, she hoped to break off her relationship with Baldy Li before Song Gang returned and agreed to travel to Shanghai for the hymen-recon surgery.

The next day Baldy Li and Lin Hong took the white BMW to Shanghai. Baldy Li needed to go to Beijing and the northeast to do business and would be gone for half a month. He knew that the hymen-recon surgery would take less than an hour. Therefore, he asked Lin Hong to wait for him in Shanghai. He would leave the BMW and a driver for her and told her to use her time in Shanghai to wine, dine, and shop.

When Wandering Zhou reappeared in Liu Town in October, he looked just as he had the first time he arrived—carrying two large cardboard boxes. This time, however, the boxes were not filled with artificial hymens but, rather, with children's toys. And this time, instead of walking over from the bus depot, Wandering Zhou hailed a pedicab and returned in glory. Seeing the men and women along the road, he remarked regretfully to the driver, "Not much has changed. It's still the same people as before."

After the pedicab delivered him to Missy Sus snack shop, Wandering Zhou paid the driver three yuan and asked him to carry his two cardboard boxes for him. Zhou then strutted into the snack shop, and when he saw Missy Su sitting at the cashiers counter, he acted as though he hadn't disappeared without a word for an entire year but, rather, had merely gone on a short business trip. He said warmly, "My dear, I'm home."

Missy Su looked as though she had seen a ghost. Her entire body began to tremble, and she immediately scurried off into the kitchen. Wandering Zhou smiled as he looked around. Noticing some people eating steamed buns staring at him, he asked them, as if he were the restaurant's proprietor, "Taste good, don't they?"

Then he noticed Mama Su sitting there flabbergasted, holding a four- or five-month-old infant. Zhou smiled at her and said sweetly, "Ma, I'm back."

Mama Su didn't know how to respond and, like her daughter, started trembling from head to toe. Wandering Zhou took the infant from her and kissed it repeatedly, saying affectionately, "Daughter, did you miss your daddy?"

Zhou asked the pedicab driver to open the two boxes, and then he put all the toys on the table. He placed his daughter in the middle of the toys, and started playing with her as if no one else were around. The soft-spoken Mama Su stared in astonishment at how easily Wandering Zhou was bantering with everyone, as if he had never left. The other customers finally came to their senses and realized that he was the one who had gotten Missy Su knocked up. Everyone began to laugh and chatter all at once, pointing at the infant playing with the toys on the table and asking Zhou, "Is this your daughter?"

"Of course," Wandering Zhou answered without hesitation.

Everyone looked around and asked again, "Are you and Missy Su married?"

"Of course," Wandering Zhou answered again without equivocation.

"When?" they asked, trying to get to the bottom of things.

"Earlier," Wandering Zhou replied simply.

"Earlier?" Everyone was confused. "How is it that we didn't know?"

"Why would you have known?" Wandering Zhou also looked confused.

This charlatan played happily with his daughter while exchanging nonsensical remarks with the customers, making them more and more
confused until in the end some actually believed him and told each other, "They are really married."

Mama Su shook her head repeatedly thinking that he was a bald-faced liar. Missy Su, meanwhile, never reemerged after having fled into the kitchen. Even after the sun had gone down, she could still hear Wandering Zhou chatting with the customers, but she was simply too embarrassed to come out and face everyone. Eventually she ended up sneaking out the side door. At eleven o'clock the snack shop closed for the night, and Wandering Zhou picked up the sleeping infant and calmly followed Mama Su home. He chatted warmly with Mama Su the entire way home, but she merely bowed her head and refused to answer. She tried several times to take her granddaughter away from him, but each time he politely declined, saying, "Ma, I'll hold her."

When they reached home, she didn't immediately close the door but stood looking at Wandering Zhou. She hesitated a moment but in the end couldn't bring herself to send him away. He slept on the couch in the living room for three days, and during that time, whenever he was in the house, Missy Su would lock herself in her room and refuse to come out. Wandering Zhou, however, acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary. He happily went to the snack shop with Mama Su every morning and every night happily followed her home. During those three days, Missy Su didn't go to the snack shop at all but instead stayed home with her daughter. Wandering Zhou was very tactful: Although he wasn't able to see his daughter during the days and every night when he returned home she was in Missy Sus room, he'd nevertheless go to sleep on the couch without saying a word. On the fourth evening, however, Mama Su went into her daughter's room and sat on her bed for about half an hour, softly repeating one thing over and over: "No matter how much he may have done wrong, at the very least your man knew to come back."

Missy Su lay on the bed sobbing. Her mother sighed, picked up the sleeping infant, and walked out of the room. She took the baby to Wandering Zhou, who was sleeping soundly on the couch. Zhou immediately sprang up, wanting to take the infant from her, but Mama Su shook her head and pointed toward Missy Sus room. Wandering Zhou saw that her door was ajar, so he kissed his daughter on the forehead and marched into the bedroom. After shutting the door, he walked toward the bed as if he slept in this room every night, then climbed
under the covers and turned off the light. Missy Su was lying with her back to him, and he casually leaned over and hugged her. She struggled briefly but then let him. After hugging her, he didn't take the next step but simply said, "I don't intend to go away on any more business trips."

CHAPTER 71

T
HAT AUTUMN
Song Gang continued wandering throughHainan, carrying with him the remaining vials of Boobs cream. Without Wandering Zhou by his side, he didn't know what to do. He didn't have the courage to unbutton his shirt and flaunt his fake breasts and therefore simply stood on street corners with a dull look in his eyes, as silent as a bump on a log, with his vials of bust-enhancing cream arranged neatly in the cardboard box. The people walking by stared at him curiously, seeing that big-breasted man standing there motionless, hour after hour. A few women leaned over and looked at the vials of bust-enhancing cream, then took them out to inspect them more carefully. Noticing Song Gang's huge breasts under his shirt, they would cover their mouths and chortle. Initially too embarrassed to ask about them, the women would look down at the cream in their hands, then up at Song Gang's breasts, struggling to understand the relationship between the two. Finally, lifting the bust-enhancing cream, they would point first at the cream, then at his breasts, and ask Song Gang, "Did you use this to make those so big?"

Song Gang would blush and, out of habit, look around for Wandering Zhou, only to find himself surrounded by strange faces. Now he had to answer the questions Zhou would normally have answered on his behalf. He nodded uneasily and, lowering his head in shame, would say softly, "Uh-huh."

His shame moved many of the women and made them think that this man looked honest and reliable. Therefore, even without Wandering Zhou's clever talk and ingratiating manner, Song Gang continued to sell vial after vial of the cream. The male passersby were not as tactful as the women, and when they saw Song Gang's breasts, they would respond as if they were drugged, their eyes glued to Song Gang's chest as if they were staring through a microscope.

Song Gang didn't know, as he wandered through Hainan, that the silicone implants had begun to harden. He just knew that the breasts were beginning to feel as hard as stones. At the same time, his lung disease staged a comeback. Before he quit taking his medicine, he had
stopped coughing, but now, exhausted from traveling continuously, he often felt that he was suffocating and would wake up coughing in the middle of the night. Song Gang was worried not so much about his body as about the future. He saw the box of bust-enhancing cream become emptier and emptier, until finally there were only five vials left. He was disconsolate, because he didn't know what he would sell after the Boobs cream was gone. Without Zhou, Song Gang was adrift, like a leaf fluttering aimlessly after leaving the tree. It was then that he came to understand what solitude was, the only thing keeping him company being the photograph of himself and Lin Hong. He carried it with him wherever he went, but he couldn't bring himself to actually look at it. He wanted desperately to go home but hadn't yet earned enough money to provide for Lin Hong for the rest of her life. Therefore, he had no choice but to continue wandering aimlessly, like a solitary leaf.

Song Gang was standing in the marketplace of some small town, trying to sell the final five vials of bust-enhancing cream. A fifty-year-old man was shouting himself hoarse hawking cutlery. This man had more than ten kinds of knives spread out on the ground, including kitchen knives, cleavers, fruit knives and paring knives, as well as bayonets, throwing knives, and daggers. Holding a cleaver in his hand, he cried out, "This is forged from tungsten steel and can cut through carbon steel, cold-pressed steel, stainless steel, cast steel, and titanium alloy. Every cleaver here is guaranteed to draw blood without a single nick in the blade."

As he spoke the man knelt down and demonstrated, with one blow slicing through a thick metal wire. After he stood up, he lifted the cleaver and walked around, asking the onlookers to inspect the blade to see if it had gotten chipped. After all the onlookers confirmed that it was not chipped, he squatted down again, rolled up his pants, and then began using the blade to shave off his leg hair as though he were shaving his beard. He then stood up with a fistful of leg hair in his hand and walked around, letting the onlookers get a good look.

"Do you see?" he cried out. "This is a legendary precious blade, which can slice through steel as through clay and shaves hair as if with a mere breath." Then he explained, "What is tungsten steel? It is the world's hardest and most precious metal and is used not only for blades but also for expensive watches. Tungsten-steel watches are even more
valuable than gold ones. The two Swiss ‘Ni brands and the Chinese Yibo brand are all tungsten-steel watches."

"What do you mean by the two Swiss ‘Ni brands and the Chinese Yibo brand?" the onlookers asked in confusion.

"The two Swiss ‘Ni brands are Genie and Rossini, both of which are known around the world." He added, "Yibo watches are China's own famous brand."