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Mother was dead, Father was under arrest. Lao Han, who supposedly knew the law, said that Father was guilty of a capital crime and that the best he could expect was a death sentence with a two-year reprieve. A death sentence without a reprieve was a distinct possibility.

Jiaojiao and I were now orphans.

I'll never forget the day they arrested Father. It was ten years ago today. It had rained heavily the night before, and the morning was as hot and humid as it is today, with the same blistering sun. A municipal police car drove into the village a little after nine in the morning, siren blaring. People poured out of their homes to stare. The car stopped in front of the village office, where Lao Wang and Wu Jinhu of the local militia brought Father out of the Township Station house. Wu removed the handcuffs and a municipal policeman came up and cuffed Father with a new pair.

Jiaojiao and I stood by the side of the road staring at Father's puffy face; his hair had turned white overnight. My tears flowed (although I must confess that I didn't feel all that bad). Father nodded to us, a signal for us to go over, which we did, hesitantly. We stopped a few steps before we reached him, and he raised his hands as if he was going to touch us. But he didn't. His handcuffs sparkled in the sunlight, temporarily blinding us. ‘Xiaotong, Jiaojiao,’ he said softly, ‘I lost my head out there…If you need anything, go see Lao Lan, he'll take care of you.’

I thought my ears were deceiving me. I looked to where he was pointing, and there was Lao Lan, his arms hanging loose, bleary-eyed from drink. His freshly shaved scalp was a mass of bumps and dents. He'd also just shaved, revealing a big, strong chin. His deformed ear was uglier than ever, actually quite pitiful looking.

After the police car drove off, the staring crowd slowly dispersed. Lao Lan wove his way up to us on unsteady legs, a look of abject sadness on his face. ‘Children,’ he said, ‘from now on you'll stay with me. You'll never go hungry as long as I've got food, and I'll make sure you always have clothes to wear.’

I shook my head to drive out all the emotional turmoil and concentrate my energy on thinking clearly. ‘Lao Lan,’ I said, ‘we can't stay with you. We haven't got everything figured out yet, but that's not going to happen.’

I took my sister's hand and walked back to our house.

Huang Biao's wife, in black, with white shoes and a yellow hair clasp shaped like a dragonfly, was waiting at the gate with a basket of food. She couldn't look us in the eye. I wanted to send her away because I knew she was there on Lao Lan's order. But I didn't have to; she laid the basket on the
ground and left before I could speak to her, walking off quickly, wiggling her bottom and without another glance in our direction. I felt like kicking the basket away but the meaty fragrance stopped me. With a dead mother and a departed father, we were filled with sorrow, but we hadn't eaten for two days and hunger gnawed at our insides. I could go without, but Jiaojiao was just a child; every missed meal cost her tens of thousands of brain cells. Losing a little weight was all right but, as her older brother, how could I do justice to Father and Aunty Wild Mule if I let hunger turn her mad? I recalled some films and illustrated storybooks where revolutionaries capture an enemy field cauldron filled with fragrant meat and steaming white buns. In high spirits, the commander says, ‘Dig in, Comrades!’ So I picked up the basket and took it inside; I removed the food, laid it out on the table and, like the commander, said to my sister, ‘Dig in, Jiaojiao!’

We gobbled up the food like starving beasts and didn't stop till our bellies bulged. I rested briefly, and then it was time to think about life. Everything seemed like a bad dream. Our fate had changed almost before we knew it. Who'd caused this tragedy? Father? Mother? Lao Lan? Su Zhou? Yao Qi? Who were our enemies? Who were our friends? I was confused, I was undecided; my intelligence was being put to its greatest test. The face of Lao Lan flickered in front of me. Was he our enemy? Yes, he was. We were not about to take Father's advice. How could we possibly live at his house? I was still young but I'd led the meat-cleansing workshop and I'd participated in a meat-eating contest and, in the process, seen all those grown men bow their heads before me in defeat. I had been pretty tough to begin with; I was even tougher now. ‘When mother-in-law dies, daughter-in-law is matriarch. When father dies, eldest son is king of the roost.’ My father hadn't died but he might as well have. My time as king of the roost had arrived, and I had revenge on my mind.

‘Jiaojiao,’ I said to her, ‘Lao Lan is our mortal enemy and we're going to kill him.’

She shook her head: ‘He's a good man!’

‘Jiaojiao,’ I said earnestly, ‘you're young and inexperienced, and you can't tell what a man is like by his appearance alone. Lao Lan is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Do you understand what that means?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Jiaojiao said. ‘Let's kill him then. Shall we take him to the workshop first and give him the water treatment?’

‘“For a gentleman to see revenge, even ten years is not too long,” as they say. It is for me but we can't be in too big a hurry. Not today but not in ten years either. First, we need to get our hands on a good, sharp knife. Then, we wait for the right moment. We need to pretend that we're a couple of pitiful children, make everyone feel sorry for us, lull them to sleep. Then strike! He's a powerful man—if we fight him on his terms we'll lose, especially because he has the protection of the martial-arts master Huang Biao.’ I had to consider our situation from every angle. ‘As for the water treatment, let's wait and see.’

‘Whatever you say, Elder Brother.’

One morning, not much later, we were invited to share a pot of bone soup at the home of Cheng Tianle. Nutritious and loaded with calcium, the soup was just the sort of thing Jiaojiao, who was still growing, needed. It was a big pot, with lots of bones. If anyone knew his bones it was me—horse, cattle, sheep, donkey, dog, pig, camel and fox. Mix a donkey bone in with a pile of cow bones and I could pick it out every time. But the bones in this pot were new to me. The well-developed leg bones, the thick vertebra and the rock-solid tailbone put the thought of a fierce feline in my mind. Cheng Tianle was a good man, that I knew, and he liked me. He'd never do anything to hurt me, so there would be nothing wrong with what he fed us. Jiaojiao and I sat at a square little table next to the pot and began to eat, one bowlful followed by another and another, until we'd each had four. Cheng's wife stood by with a ladle, filling our bowls as soon as they were empty while Cheng urged us to eat our fill.

At Cheng's house we managed to get our hands on a rusty dagger with a blade shaped like a cow's ear. We didn't want a big knife but one we could hide on us, and this one fit the bill. We carried a whetstone into our house, turned up the volume on the TV, shut the door, blocked out the windows and then began to sharpen the knife with which we were going to kill Lao Lan.

My sister and I seemed to have become honoured guests at homes throughout the village during that time and were fed nothing but the best food. We ate camel's hump (a lump of fat), sheep's tail (pure lard), fox brain (a plate full of cunning). I can't list every item we ate, but I have to tell you
that at Cheng Tianle's, besides bone soup, we were treated to a bowl of a green, bitter liquor. He didn't tell us what it was but I guessed its origin—liquor in which had been steeped the gallbladder of a leopard. I assumed that the bones in the pot were those of that same leopard. So Jiaojiao and I ate leopard gallbladder—the so-called seat of courage—which converted us from timid, mouse-like creatures into youngsters whose courage knew no bounds.

By plying us with the best food they had, my fellow villagers instilled us with enviable strength and courage. And though no one breathed a word about it, we had no doubts about what lay behind all this nurturing. Usually, after we'd been treated to a fine meal, we'd thank our hosts with vague expressions of appreciation: ‘Elder Master and Mistress, Elder Uncle and Aunt, Elder Brother and Sister, please be patient. My sister and I are people who know their history and are committed to the cause of righteousness. We will avenge every slight and repay every kindness.’

Every time I uttered this little monologue, a sense of solemnity flooded my mind and hot blood raced through my veins. Those who heard our little piece were invariably moved; their eyes would light up and heartfelt sighs escape their mouths.

The day of reckoning drew nearer.

And then it arrived.

A meeting was held that day in the plant's conference room to discuss a major structural change—the shift from a collective ownership to a stockholder system. Jiaojiao and I were stockholders, with twenty shares each. I won't waste time talking about that foolish meeting; the only reason it became the talk of the town, so to speak, was because of our attempt to wreak vengeance. I drew the dagger from my belt. ‘Lao Lan,’ I shouted, ‘give me back my parents!’

My sister pulled a pair of rusty scissors from her sleeve—before we set out I'd asked her to sharpen them but she'd said that rusted scissors would give him tetanus. ‘Lao Lan,’ she shouted, ‘give me back my parents!’

We raised our weapons and ran at Lao Lan behind the podium.

Jiaojiao tripped on the stairs, fell flat on her face and began to bawl.

Lao Lan stopped talking, walked over and picked her up.

He turned up her lip with a finger, and I saw a cut—there was blood on her teeth.

My plans too fell flat. Like a punctured tyre, I felt my anger dissipate. But then how would I face my fellow villagers or fulfil my debt to my parents if I just gave up? So, holding my breath, I raised my dagger once more and, as I moved towards Lao Lan, I had a vision of my father moving towards the same man with his hatchet held high.

Lao Lan dried Jiaojiao's tears with his hand. ‘That's a good girl,’ he said, ‘don't cry, don't cry…’ There were tears in his eyes as he handed my sister to the barber Fan Zhaoxia in the front row. ‘Take her to the clinic and have something put on this,’ he said.

Fan took her in her arms. Lao Lan bent to pick up the scissors and tossed them onto the podium. Then he picked up a chair, carried it up to me, set it down and sat in it.

‘Right here, worthy Nephew,’ he said as he patted his chest.

Then he closed his eyes.

I looked first at his pitted, freshly shaved scalp, then at his newly shaved chin and the ear my father had taken a bite out of and finally at the trails of tears on his twitching face. Sorrow washed over me along with the shameful desire to throw myself into the son of a bitch's arms. At that moment I realized why Father had buried the hatchet in Mother's skull. But there was no one close to Lao Lan, and I had no argument with anyone in the seats before us—so who was I supposed to stab? I was stuck. But, as they say, heaven doesn't shut all the doors at once. Lao Lan's bodyguard, Huang Biao, burst into the room. That tiger-feeding bastard—killing him would be like cutting off Lao Lan's right arm. So I raised my dagger and charged at him, a war cry on my lips, my mind a blank. I've already told you about Huang Biao. Who was I, a young weakling, to take on a man with his uncommon martial skills? I thrust the dagger at his midsection but he merely reached out, grabbed me by the wrist and jerked my arm upward.

I heard a
pop
as my shoulder dislocated.

My act of vengeance came to a whimpering end.

For a long time after that, Luo Xiaotong's ‘act of vengeance’ was the most popular joke in the village. My sister and I suffered both from considerable
humiliation but also from a spot of fame. Some people even came to our defence and said that we were not to be taken lightly, that Lao Lan's day of judgement would come once we grew up. Be that as it may, people stopped inviting us to their homes for a meal. Lao Lan had Huang Biao's wife send food over a few times, but not for long. Huang Biao put aside any grudges he might have had to deliver a message from Lao Lan: I was invited to return to United Meatpacking as director of the meat-cleansing workshop. I turned him down. I may have been small and insignificant but I had my pride. Did he really expect me to go back to work at the plant, now that neither my father nor my mother was there? But that decision had no effect on my memories of the good times in the plant, and Jiaojiao and I often found ourselves walking past it without intending to. Our legs just carried us over on their own, and there we were confronted by an imposing gateway of black granite that sported a new sign—the company's name in a large bold script—and an automated double gate, all modern improvements. The plant had been transformed from the modest United Meatpacking Plant into the imposing Rare Animals Slaughterhouse Corporation. The grounds were landscaped with exotic plants and trees and the workers streaming in and out all wore white smocks. People familiar with the place knew it was a slaughterhouse, but everyone else would have thought it was a hospital. There was one thing, however, that hadn't changed—the pine rebirth platform, which still stood in a corner of the yard, a symbolic link to the past. One night, both Jiaojiao and I dreamt that we climbed the platform and saw Father and Mother moving rapidly along a newly paved road in a wagon pulled by a camel. She saw both our mothers seated at a table groaning under plates of good food, repeatedly clinking their glasses for a toast. The liquor in their glasses was green, she said, and she wondered if it was infused with leopard gallbladder.