The Explosion Chronicles (18 page)

“I never expected you would end up being such a good-for-nothing.” Mingliang looked at his eldest brother, and said in a soft voice, “There are so many girls at Otherworldly Delights, but instead you have an affair with your maid.”

Mingguang blushed and replied in an equally soft voice, “When I’m with Little Cui, I understand what true love is.”

Mingliang pursed his lips and said, “If you break up with Little Cui, then first thing tomorrow I will dismiss the school principal and announce that you will replace him.”

Mingguang smiled and said, “I don’t want to be principal, because now I know what love is.”

Mingliang said, “Fuck love. Love is a pile of shit. You should stay with Qinfang, and after you have finished your term as school principal you can serve as deputy town mayor or county mayor.”

Mingguang said, “Love is like a chrysanthemum blossom blooming on a peony stem. No one but the peony and chrysanthemum can understand it.”

“One day, the middle school will become a college, and if you don’t maintain your reputation, will you be able to serve as college president?”

“I couldn’t care less whether it is a high school or a college,” Mingguang said. “Now I know what love is. You’re my brother, so you should help me secure a divorce from your sister-in-law. She is an obstacle standing in the way of love.”

The two brothers then separated. A car from the town was going to take the mayor to the county seat for a meeting. When Mingliang got into the car, he shouted back to Mingguang, “Brother, please think this over carefully!”

Mingguang replied, “I’ve found love—and now realize that up till now my life has been pointless!”

Mingguang and Little Cui moved in together, to enjoy a springlike love life. Their new house had previously belonged to Second Dog, and came with furniture, beds, and pots and pans. After Second Dog stepped down as the warehouse guard, he resumed his former career as a thief and, in addition to stealing from trains, he also stole from the forests and workshops, or from neighboring villages. In this way, he, like everyone else, became increasingly wealthy, and along the town’s main street he built several houses that he could either live in or rent out, meaning that his own former house was left empty. After Mingguang and Little Cui moved in, the house suddenly became very animated, but Second Dog told Mingguang three things:

First, he said, “You are the mayor’s elder brother. You can live here as long as you like.”

Second, he said, “Will you ever become an official? If you do, I’ll simply give you the house.”

Third, he said, “There is one thing you have to agree to, which is that you convince the mayor to call me Brother, as he used to.”

Mingguang and his wife therefore moved in and proceeded to sweep, clean, and wipe everything down. They also posted red
double happiness
characters on the walls, like newlyweds. In the large courtyard, several apple and pear trees were slowly growing. On the
apple tree there were pear blossoms, and in summer the pear tree was full of red apples. When the outer gate was closed, they felt as though they were in a fruit orchard. In the middle was the apple tree with its pink and white flowers, while walnut-size green pears hung from its branches. Mingguang cooked food and took it over to Little Cui. The dining table was under the fruit trees and was surrounded by the fragrant smell of flowers and fruits. Previously, it had always been Little Cui who would cook for the Kong household, but now love changed the color of the sky and Mingguang cooked for her. Little Cui was pampered like a princess. When it was time for Mingguang to go to school, he would wait until the last moment before leaving, and in the afternoon he would return home before school was even over. When he returned, he would bring either vegetables or grain or rice. Little Cui didn’t go anywhere, and at most, after Mingguang left for work, she would walk to Otherworldly Delights to see her sisters and exchange a few words with Zhu Ying, but then she would immediately return home. When she returned, she would bring either some meat or a fresh fish, as though she had gone out grocery shopping for Mingguang.

Once, Mingguang was returning from school with a bag of fresh vegetables and Little Cui was returning from the market with two
jin
of beef. They ran into each other in what had formerly been the Explosion village square. They both saw the graves there, and laughed. Mingguang said, “The weather is quite good. I hear that the town has discovered another sizable copper deposit.”

Little Cui said, “Really? I hear that over in the mountains, they have discovered a deposit of gold ore. In the future, when the people of Explosion buy fish and meat, they will simply pay for it in gold.”

They laughed, gazed at each other for a while, then kissed in the middle of the square. Seeing that the street was completely empty and as peaceful as though it were the middle of the night,
and that everyone was at work either in town, in the factories, or in the mines, they placed their bags of vegetables and meat on one of the tombstones and proceeded to engage in a raucous bout of sex. After they were finished, they got up, put their clothes back on, and brushed off the dust, then noticed that a dog was standing there watching them in surprise. They threw several rocks at the dog and returned to their house in back of the village. They held hands as they walked, and their fingertips tingled with love, like a dog running up and down the street unable to find its way home. When they got to Second Dog’s house, they shut the gate and looked at the bees and butterflies flying around the fruit trees. Little Cui said to Mingguang, “I’m going to cook some food. I’m the maid, and you’re the bookworm.”

He replied, “Books are dog shit. You are the empress and the dictionary of all of the world’s intellectuals.” He then took the vegetables, beef, and washbasin from her and proceeded to wash the vegetables while watching her remove her shirt. By this point she had already taken off the rest of her clothes and hung them on a branch of the fruit tree. Her red dress and purple underwear fluttered in the wind like a couple of flags. Her thin yellow sweater resembled a wild chrysanthemum blossom. Every time he completed a certain task, she would remove a different article of clothing and either hang it from a tree branch or drape it over a chair. By the time she removed all of her clothing, he had already cleaned and cut up the meat and vegetables. One of them stood inside the kitchen, while the other stood outside, as the early summer humidity washed through the courtyard like a sauna. The redbrick courtyard wall surrounded her like a wall of fire, and the sound of machinery could be heard coming from the distant factories, while at the base of the mountain the roads running along both banks of the river were loud and grating. They proceeded to embrace each other passionately, as though there
were nothing left in the world but sex. Mingguang smelled her body’s sweet fragrance and once again saw her naked body in the sunlight produce a glow like a soft thorn. Her body’s aura resembled sunlight shining through a cloud. She had a peach-like smile, like a shining lamp immersed in water.

She asked, “Am I beautiful?”

He said, “I want to get divorced.”

She smiled and said, “I want to marry you, and I wouldn’t care even if you were unimaginably poor or ugly.”

He replied, “I can earn a lot of money. I can have every student in the school pay significantly more tuition every semester, and all of that tuition will then belong to us. We’ll have so much money that you won’t even be able to spend it all. We’ll have so much money, you won’t even be able to hide it all.”

She suddenly turned serious and said,

“Hurry up and get divorced. I can’t keep waiting anymore.”

“I’ll get divorced later this year.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“I’ll get divorced later this month.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“I’ll get divorced later today.”

“I can’t wait that long!”

“I’ll get divorced as soon as we finish eating.”

She considered for a moment, then nodded. Her hair bun had come undone, and her black hair now covered her shoulders. Then she brushed past him as she went into the kitchen to cook the food. As she walked back and forth naked in the kitchen, cooking him lunch, she resembled a glimmer of sunlight. When they encountered each other, he touched her breasts with his fingertips, but she pulled his hand away and said, “Go get divorced. I can’t keep waiting.” She glanced at him, then continued cooking. In all, she prepared
eight dishes and two bowls of soup. She carried these dishes into the courtyard, where she placed them on a reed mat. The sun was shining brightly, so that the mat glowed in the sunlight. Completely naked, she lay down on the mat, her tender skin resembling white jade and her body like an agate statue. Then she carefully picked up each of the dishes on the mat and placed them on her chest, on her breasts, on her belly, and on her thighs—so that he could sit next to her and eat off her own body the banquet she had prepared for him. She also poured him a glass of wine, and handed him both the glass and his chopsticks. Then she repeated,

“Go get divorced. I can’t keep waiting.”

His right hand, holding his chopsticks, trembled slightly. He wanted to use his left hand to stroke her jade-like body, which was covered with white and blue dishes, but discovered that his entire right arm was shaking. He saw her jet-black hair hanging down from her apple-red face to the snow-white reed mat. He saw her black, round eyes right under the tree’s shadow. He saw her nipples peeking out from between several of the dishes. He also saw her porcelain-like skin and her navel, which resembled an eye staring back at him. He licked his lips, swallowed his saliva, then looked up. He looked at the sun overhead and at the sunlit courtyard, and then in a voice as dry as fire he asked, “Do I have to go get divorced right now?”

“I’ll serve you a naked banquet every day.”

Without saying a word, he placed his chopsticks on a plate of grilled fish that was sitting on her belly and immediately headed home to get divorced. He walked quickly and resolutely, but when he went out the gate he turned around and said to her,

“Don’t move. If I don’t bring back a divorce agreement when I return, then you can throw all of these plates and dishes at my head!”

She stared at him from beneath those plates and dishes, and nodded.

IV.

Kong Mingliang was hosting an oath ceremony in the town’s assembly hall, affirming everyone’s determination to have the town be redesignated as a county as quickly as possible. Because this was such a momentous event, the ceremony continued for an entire day and night, and still had not concluded. Eventually, his secretary called him down from the podium. Behind the podium, apart from a curtain, a table, and the auditorium’s lamps, chairs, electrical cables, and some drums, there were also some portraits of leaders and some discarded tissues used by couples who had come for secret sex.

When Mingliang retreated behind the curtain, he saw his brother Mingguang standing next to an enormous portrait of a leader. Mingguang’s face was sallow, and sweat was running down his cheeks like rain. Before Mingliang had a chance to walk over, Mingguang rushed up to him and exclaimed,

“Mingliang, do you want me to kneel down before you?”

Kong Mingguang proceeded to kneel down in front of his brother. He said, “Don’t forget that when you were village chief, this brother of yours wrote your speeches for you. When you transformed the village into a town, this brother of yours wrote the initial drafts of the documents you needed. I wrote hundreds, and even thousands, of pages for you, but now all I want is for you to give me one page in return.” Mingguang knelt as he was saying this, and continued kneeling. Mingliang was so startled that he took several steps backward until he bumped into a table. The corner of the table poked him in the back, awakening him from his daze. He glanced over at the town secretary, who had called him down from the stage, and after waiting for the secretary to step aside, he proceeded to pull his brother to his feet.

“If you have something to say, then get up and say it!”

Mingguang leaned forward and said, “I just need one sheet of paper.”

“What is it?”

“A divorce certificate.”

“Brother, have you gone mad?”

“I’ve found love.” Mingguang became emotional. “I’ve found love. All I ask is that you give me one sheet of paper. If you don’t, then our work to secure this town and its corresponding mayoral seat will have been for nothing. Having a brother as town mayor will have been for nothing. And if tomorrow you were to be appointed county mayor, that will also have been for nothing.”

Mingliang stood there staring at his brother.

“If you can’t even provide me with this one sheet of paper, then what’s the point of having the town be promoted to a county and of you becoming the new county mayor?”

Mingliang stared back at his brother.

“If you can’t even provide me with this one sheet of paper, then what’s the point of having our Kong family produce a county mayor, a city mayor, or even an emperor?”

Kong Mingliang turned pale. He spat on the ground in front of his brother, then wiped his mouth. After glancing down again at his brother kneeling before him, Mingliang gestured toward the town secretary, who was standing a fair distance behind him, and said a few words to him. Then he led his brother out of the auditorium. The sound of people talking onstage was broadcast over loudspeakers to every corner of the auditorium. The sound echoed off the walls like waves bouncing off a riverbank. The two brothers retreated from this noise, with the mayor walking in front and his brother following behind. They quickly proceeded down the town’s main street, then passed through two small alleys. Bathed in sweat, neither of them spoke a single word, as though they were silently going to assassinate someone. When they got home, they didn’t see Cai Qinfang but knew that she had gone out to buy some food—since it turned out that after
Little Cui and Mingguang moved out together, Qinfang continued caring for her father-in-law like a maid. Therefore, Mingliang took his brother to the market to look for Qinfang, while at the same time sending someone ahead to find her. As a result, when they ran into Qinfang in front of the town bridge, she was being escorted back.