The Explosion Chronicles (12 page)

Everyone knows you can’t have a wedding without a wedding invitation, which should be printed on red paper and should say something propitious like “Together for a hundred years” or “Auspicious marriage.” Several hundred yuan should be placed in a red envelope, to serve as engagement money. A banquet should be arranged, at which the groom’s father or mother should hand the bride the wedding invitation, thereby signaling that the groom’s family approves of the marriage. After this formal engagement, the couple can then get married.

One morning in the fourth lunar month, Zhu Ying came over to the Kong family home to receive her wedding invitation. The sky was clear, and it was market day along the river in front of the village. All of the villagers had gone to the market to buy and sell their goods and were busy doing their own things. Zhu Ying was also in a hurry to return to the county seat to get on with her business, so she picked this date to meet with her fiancé’s mother and decide on a day for the wedding. After going to the city to make a reservation at Pleasure World, she would return for the wedding and then spend the remainder of her days helping Mingliang with Explosion’s business. It was also on this day that Zhu Ying, wearing the money-covered dress she had brought with her from the city, went to the Kong family home bearing countless wedding gifts.

“What if my father doesn’t agree to the marriage?” Mingliang asked.

“As soon as he sees me, he’ll definitely agree,” Zhu Ying replied confidently. “In this world, there isn’t anything I can’t do.” Then she turned and asked Mingliang, “Is there anything
you
can’t do?”

“No, there isn’t anything I can’t do,” Mingliang replied.

They rushed to the Kong family home to fetch the wedding invitation. As they passed through the village streets, side by side, they saw a middle-aged man taking some vegetables to market and stopped to talk to him. Zhu Ying asked how old the man’s daughter was and suggested that he let his daughter go into the city with her—saying that in a single day in the city his daughter could earn as much as he himself could earn in an entire year from selling vegetables. The man looked at her, whereupon Mingliang glanced at the new tile-roofed house the man had built, and added, “Let her go—if you have some more money, then when the village becomes a town you’ll be able to open a grocery store selling fresh vegetables. And after Explosion becomes a city, your daughter will have seen the world and could return to serve as a manager and open a department store or something. After she becomes a boss, you won’t even need to button your own clothes, since there will always be people to help you get dressed and put on your shoes.” Then they proceeded down the street and saw a child with a book bag on his way to school. Zhu Ying patted the child’s head, and Mingliang asked her,

“Shall we have a child next year?”

“Sure,” Zhu Ying replied. “Next year, when the village becomes a town, my child will be born into the town’s new prosperity.”

“Study hard,” Mingliang said with a smile as he patted that child’s head. “Work hard, and after you finish school you can become an engineer in Explosion City’s Bureau for Urban Planning.”

The two of them proceeded along. The conjugal affection they had felt for each other in Zhu Ying’s home—a feeling of love that surged up to their heads—hadn’t yet subsided. Love, like fire, was burning them up, making them feel that the entire world was full of promise. When they reached a street corner, Kong Mingliang said that in the future he wanted to build a one-star hotel on this street corner, for the people who would come to Explosion on business trips. Zhu Ying smiled at him mockingly and replied that he was being shortsighted. She said that if they were going to build a hotel, they should build a five-star one. That way, they wouldn’t risk opening it and feeling that it was already out of date.

“We should build a ten-star hotel!” Mingliang kissed her and said, “That way, when people from all around the fucking world come to this hotel, they’ll be left speechless.”

Zhu Ying smiled even more mockingly and said, “Five stars is as high as it goes!”

“Do you not believe that I can build a ten-star hotel with walls that are made entirely of gems?” Mingliang asked seriously. “Do you think that there is anything in this world that I can’t do? If you don’t believe in me, then why did you agree to marry me?”

This question left Zhu Ying speechless—and immediately reminded her of their urgent post-wedding plans. She did not say anything about believing in him but merely told him that he must have someone immediately write an announcement about Explosion being redesignated as a town and send it to the town government. One copy of the announcement should be sent directly to the county seat, and another should be taken to the city, to be placed on the mayor’s desk. In this way, they returned to reality, and to the things at hand that urgently needed to be done. They continued chatting until they arrived at the door of the Kong family home. All of the
houses in the village now had tile-covered roofs, and only the Kong family was still living in their original thatched-roof house. The old building abutting the courtyard wall was made of mud and crushed tiles, and under the wind and rain it was on the verge of collapse. There was a strong smell of dirt and dust around the gate. Zhu Ying walked up to the gate and looked at it and at the old house inside the courtyard.

“We should build a new house… . Wait until I am town mayor!”

“Reporters from the newspapers and the television stations are no longer interested in your affairs.” She replied coldly, “I don’t want to get married and live in this old house.” At this point, Mingliang’s mother walked out of the house. When she saw Zhu Ying, she stared in shock at her dress, then broke into a smile and accepted the clothing and gifts Zhu Ying was carrying. Smiling brightly, she led her son and Zhu Ying into the house.

In the morning air, there was the green scent of spring combined with the smell of wheat from the fields outside the village. Mingliang’s mother went into the kitchen to help Mingguang’s wife with the cooking, while Mingliang’s father and eldest brother sat in the living room. There were already five or six dishes on the dining table in the middle of the room, including chicken, beef, and fish. The aroma seeped out from under the dishes’ lids and filled the room. Several village cats had come over, attracted by the aroma, and were wandering around the table legs and Zhu Ying’s pants legs, their mewling sounding like music. A flock of magpies and orioles flew over and were circling the courtyard, then they flew inside and even circled around Zhu Ying’s head. When they began to tire, they alighted on the tree in the courtyard to rest. Zhu Ying’s body was covered in perfume, which smelled like fragrant osmanthus blossoms. A couple of canaries landed on her shoulders, and were followed by a flock of sparrows that also flew up to her in search of that aroma. As
a result, the entire house was filled with the sound of birds chirping and the smell of dirt. Only after Kong Dongde shouted at them did those birds begin to settle down.

No matter where Zhu Ying went, the canaries always landed on her shoulder, pecking at the coins printed on her clothes. She had to keep waving her arm to shoo them away, but it was not until she picked up a bowl of bitter melon that they finally scattered. Then, Kong Dongde led everyone into one of the interior rooms, where the family all sat around the table. There were more than a dozen dishes, all artfully arranged. The wineglasses and chopsticks were waiting impatiently in front of them. The father sat at the head of the table and his daughter-in-law Cai Qinfang sat with Zhu Ying. Cai Qinfang leaned over and smelled Zhu Ying’s clothes and said that it was no wonder the sparrows and butterflies were circling around. She also told Mingliang that he had a good eye, and that in finding Zhu Ying he had ensured that he would be able to spend the rest of his life in a honeypot.

Mingliang smiled, but after looking over at his father he immediately wiped the smile from his face.

Mingliang’s elder brother Mingguang didn’t say a word. Instead, with an expression of disappointment, he gazed first at Zhu Ying and then at his wife, Cai Qinfang.

The warmth in the room was unevenly distributed and alternated between warm and cold. Zhu Ying had considerable experience and had hosted guests from all over of the world, including rich and poor, high officials and lowly fishmongers—but everyone knew that today she had come to the Kong household to receive the wedding invitation, and that she would be subjected to a sort of vengeance banquet. Zhu Ying, however, was neither anxious nor angry. Before sitting down she brought out the wedding gifts and distributed them to everyone. Zhu Ying gave her future mother-in-law a pair of flannel
shoes like the ones people wear in the city, and gave Elder Brother a Western suit he could wear when he went to teach. She gave her sister-in-law a half-wool dress and two bottles of perfume and face cream covered in foreign writing—assuring Qinfang that this perfume and face cream were better than what she was currently using, and if she used them for a few days she would look a lot younger. Her sister-in-law’s hand trembled as she happily accepted these gifts. Then, Zhu Ying took out the jeans she had brought for Fourth Brother but set them aside, saying that the family should give them to him as soon as he returned from the city.

In the end, she would present a gift to her future father-in-law, Kong Dongde. When she gave him the gift, Kong Dongde naturally would take out the wedding invitation he had prepared and give it to his prospective daughter-in-law. After this ceremonial gift exchange, Zhu Ying would open the wedding invitation and read aloud the auspicious words written on it (while someone else would take the money in the envelope and count it out aloud in front of everyone). Finally, there would be a celebration, and the wedding invitation would conclude with a banquet.

Under the family’s expectant gaze, Zhu Ying pulled out a letter from the bottom of her bag of gifts. As everyone watched her with a smile, she returned to the table, opened the letter, and produced blueprints for two new mansions—one for a Chinesestyle courtyard compound and the other for the kind of expensive villa you might find in the city. She asked her future father-in-law to pick one of them, saying that the following month she would begin construction on whichever one he preferred. She exclaimed that it was humiliating for her father-in-law to have to live in such a dilapidated adobe house, and that he should instead live in a large Western-style mansion. She would install heat and air-conditioning in the new house, so that it wouldn’t be cold in the winter or hot
in the summer, and this way she hoped to grant her father-in-law everything that he previously lacked.

“Father, please pick one of the houses, and I’ll have it built for you this year,” Zhu Ying said loudly, then handed the blueprints to him.

Everyone’s gaze was riveted on Kong Dongde. He was in his sixties, with a thin but sturdy frame, and although his hair was beginning to turn gray, his face was increasingly bright. He looked at the blueprints Zhu Ying handed him, with a vigilant and depressed expression, as tears began to flow from his eyes as though trickling out from behind a dammed-up river. He looked at the blueprints but didn’t take them. Then he looked at his two sons and their wives sitting around the table, and saw that everyone was watching him expectantly. When Mingliang caught his eye, he subtly gave his father a look indicating which blueprint he should pick. Kong Dongde turned away from the table and took the two blueprints Zhu Ying was holding. With a smile, he said, “Please let me think about it before deciding.” Then he stared at the blueprints and saw that the one for the courtyard compound included a living room with a row of furniture, and next to the wall there was a kitchen cabinet that looked just like a rectangular coffin. He said, “This looks like a large pantry but also resembles a coffin.” The pleased look vanished from his face. He quickly turned to the blueprint for the villa and saw that in the living room there was one item that resembled a piece of furniture but was nevertheless clearly a coffin. Kong Dongde looked at Zhu Ying in astonishment and saw that she was not looking in that direction but rather was saying something to her sister-in-law. He immediately realized what was going on—she had hidden a coffin in each of the blueprints she gave him. He slowly accepted the blueprints, with a hard look on his face. Then he cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention
and he pulled a red envelope the size of a regular letter out of his pocket. On the envelope were written the words “Good Fortune for a Hundred Years.” He stared at these words for a moment and read them aloud. Then, as everyone was watching, he walked toward Zhu Ying.

Everyone smiled and applauded as he read those words aloud again. Zhu Ying’s look of concern vanished and was replaced with a peaceful expression. But when Zhu Ying received the red envelope and was about to open it in front of the family, Kong Dongde suddenly picked up his chopsticks and said, “Let’s eat first—there isn’t very much money, so you can open the envelope after you return home.” He smiled again. Zhu Ying smiled as well and put the red envelope in her pocket.

They all enjoyed the engagement banquet and, as they helped one another to more food, the family’s happiness spread to the entire table and gathered inside the house. The eldest son, Kong Mingguang, kept looking over at his new sister-in-law Zhu Ying’s face, then back at his own wife’s, and would crack a stupid joke to cover up his actions. Zhu Ying noticed what he was doing but feigned ignorance, and instead periodically peeked at Mingliang’s face, and then at her father-in-law, Kong Dongde. She detected something in their expressions and noticed that as Kong Mingliang ate his food, his gaze remained fixed on the pocket in which she had placed the red envelope. As everyone else was still eating, she suddenly excused herself, saying that she was going to the kitchen to get some more soup.

In the kitchen, she opened the red envelope Kong Dongde had given her. Inside, she found that there was no money but rather only a white sheet of paper that read: “You whore, what are you trying to do to the Kong family?”