by Yan Lianke
“Sister-in-Law, did you try to see Second Brother again last month?
“… Did you go see him several times, only to have him refuse you?
“… Is he in fact a person, or rather a cold-blooded beast?”
Biting her lower lip, Zhu Ying took those documents back from Minghui, carefully folding them as before. Then, with a bitter laugh, she handed him the most recent photograph of his nephew and said,
“Perhaps you could go see him. After all, the two of you are brothers.
“… If you see him, please do one thing on my behalf: Have him look at this photograph and ask him whether or not his son resembles him.
“… Does his son resemble him or not? That’s all I need to know.”
After Minghui left Zhu Ying’s house, the sky over Explosion was finally sunny and warm. The thick clouds and fog had been washed away by a heavy snowfall that blanketed the earth, so that now the sky was left thoroughly cleansed and appeared brand-new. As Zhu Ying was walking Minghui out, she choked a bit on that new freshness. They walked out one after the other, then came to a stop under the apple tree that, several years earlier, had been transformed into a pear tree. They both stared silently at that apple-pear tree, though now it appeared that it was no longer a pear tree. The tree’s bark had been maroon-colored and was covered in wrinkles, but now the bark glowed brightly and was completely green, as though it were about to become a walnut tree. Perhaps, in spring, it would indeed become a walnut tree. Seeing that the tree branches were no longer curled like chicken fingers but were rather long and straight, Minghui said to Zhu Ying,
“Pears symbolize departure, while walnuts symbolize union. After I visit Second Brother this time, you’ll definitely be successfully reunited with him.”
Zhu Ying laughed softly as the flush faded from her cheek. “He won’t look back. I’ve already decided to ruin your second brother, and even if his life were threatened, I still wouldn’t help him.” Then she caressed Minghui’s head, hesitated a moment, and added, “In the Kong family, you are the only good and upright one. I trust you. Do you want to know where your second brother will fail?”
Minghui stood there staring at his sister-in-law, with no idea of what she was talking about. After looking at him for a moment, Zhu Ying took his hand, turned around, and walked away. She quickly passed through the courtyard and the living room, and went upstairs. From her pocket she produced a key and unlocked the door to a room. She then went inside, opened the window, and let in a ray of sunlight. Finally, she pulled in Minghui, who had followed behind and was in the doorway, and gaping in astonishment.
The room was oriented toward the south, was about twenty square meters in size, and didn’t have a single piece of furniture. Instead, it consisted of just four snowy-white walls, each of which was full of countless photographs of naked girls. Some of the girls had shoulder-length hair, while others wore their hair longer. All of the photographs were in color, and they were all full-frontal images. Each of them had been enlarged to one foot and two inches, and each of them had a name and number written in the lower right-hand corner. Several of the girls were wearing bras and lacy panties, but most of them were completely naked except for a peony or rose placed strategically between their legs. The photographs were arranged in a row, so that all of those girls’ eyebrows, smiles, breasts, and genitals were neatly aligned. The wall was filled with flirtatious faces, each of them smiling happily like a flower on a snowy day. This series of pert breasts and strategically placed peonies and roses made Minghui break out in a cold sweat.
“Can you hate and curse me?” Zhu Ying asked him with an odd smile. “These are all top students from the women’s vocational school, and they can make your brother return and kneel down before me. They can reduce all of the men in the world to the status of mere animals, and make them belong to me—to women.
“… All of this was prepared so that Explosion could become a provincial-level metropolis.” Zhu Ying paused for a moment, then quickly resumed. “In no time, Explosion will become as large as Beijing and Shanghai, and I had thought that when the city was redesignated as a provincial-level metropolis your brother would definitely return and ask me for these girls to send to Beijing as gifts. But now that he has your third brother to help him, he won’t come back to see me. He won’t use them and also won’t ask for my help, and as a result he’ll fail at their hands.
“… You are the person I trust the most, so I’m begging you not to tell your brother about any of this.” Zhu Ying paused to grind her teeth, as a sallow smile appeared on her face. “You’ve been good to me, but I have nothing with which to repay you. Why don’t you see which of these girls you like, and I’ll summon her for you.” She gestured toward a beautiful girl with the number 1949, and asked, “How about her? She’s one I prepared for a certain bureau director in Beijing.” Seeing that Minghui was not looking at that girl, Zhu Ying finally smiled and said solemnly, “If you don’t want one, that’s fine. If you don’t want one, that merely reassures me that in this world there is still one good person and that I still have a reason to continue living.”
As Minghui retreated from the room, the cold winter air brought him to his senses. It occurred to him that perhaps his sister-in-law had gone mad, and he should follow the almanac’s instructions and quickly summon Mingliang to her side. Only by having Mingliang return to her side could Zhu Ying’s illness be cured, and if he did not return, both the Kong family and Mingliang’s own family would be destroyed, like snow under the hot sun.
2. KONG MINGLIANG
When Explosion had been redesignated as a city, there had been only two sentries stationed at the front of the government building, but now there were six policemen stationed on the sentry stand. Their uniforms were neatly pressed, and the rifles they were holding sparkled bloodred. Originally, the government building gate had been thirty to fifty feet wide, with a pair of stone pillars on either side, but now the entrance was three hundred feet wide, and in the middle there was a new sliding gate. The gate was completely closed, and it would slide open only when a car drove up, while pedestrians used a separate entrance on the side. The officials going inside were all carrying municipal entry permits, and anyone who lacked this permit would have to go to the police office next door to register.
As Minghui was about to enter the building to visit his brother, he stared in surprise at the new entranceway, and the six sentries all turned to look at him. After he took a step forward, four of the sentries promptly surrounded him and sternly asked him,
“What do you think you’re doing?
“… You say you’re looking for your second brother? Who is your second brother?
“… You want the mayor to be your brother? Don’t you know that everyone in Explosion wants the mayor to be his godfather!”
As the sentries said this, they grabbed Minghui’s arm and pushed him into the police office. Inside, there was a burly thirtysomething policeman. He pushed Minghui down into a chair with his gaze, then repeated what the sentries had just said. At this point, Minghui took out a photograph of himself with Mingliang and showed it to the policeman. Then he took out a picture of all four brothers and showed it to him as well. Finally, he took out a family portrait from several years earlier and showed it to him. Upon seeing the third photograph, the policeman, who was a strong fellow, became gentle and compliant, as his oversize uniform hung on his thin frame like a set of barrels on a wooden stand.
When Minghui left this entry room, he was personally escorted by the policeman, who went to open the door for him. As they were leaving, the policeman even walked Minghui down the stairs and remained with him until they were inside the city government’s main building. Holding the photograph of him and his brother, Minghui walked through one doorway and then another, until finally they reached the building’s innermost doorway, where there were two sentries. Not only did these sentries not attempt to stop him, they even rushed forward to salute him. The sudden sound of their appr
oaching footsteps startled Minghui to the point that he simply stood frozen in the doorway. In shock, he saw the city government’s administrative secretary, Cheng Qing, walk toward him, smiling, as though a firepot in the middle of winter were facing him.
Cheng Qing had gained weight, and her face, which had previously been egg-shaped, was now quite round. When she laughed, that firepot resembled an enormous egg yolk swaying back and forth in midair. She asked, “How many years has it been since we last saw each other? Do you still remember that the mayor is your brother?” She then wiped the smile from her face and asked coldly, “All these years, no one from your family has come to visit the mayor.”
Minghui took the elevator up with her, then proceeded down a hallway. The entire way, Cheng Qing kept going on and on about how the mayor worked day and night on behalf of the citizens of Explosion, working his heart out on behalf of the people. She recounted how one day someone came from Beijing to inspect the city’s infrastructure from the perspective of its potential redesignation as a provincial-level metropolis, and to prepare for the inspection the mayor didn’t sleep for three full months. Exhausted, he became as limp as a scarecrow, and as soon as the inspectors from Beijing departed, the mayor was so drained that a gust of wind could have blown him away. Cheng Qing told Minghui, “It would have been nice if either you or your family had come to see the mayor. If you had, he wouldn’t have become so estranged from your family.” As she was saying this, Cheng Qing arrived at the office of the city government’s administrative secretary. She pushed the door open and sidled in.
Cheng Qing’s office was far more spacious and luxurious than he had imagined. It was as large as five houses, and the desk alone took up half of the entire floor. The folders on the desk were sorted by color into red, yellow, green, and so forth and arranged in piles. On the other side of the table there were red, black, and blue telephones. In addition, as in all other offices, there was a couch, a television set, a newspaper rack, and a water fountain, together with an array of bonsai plants and flowers in colors ranging from light green to jet-black. Minghui stood in the doorway staring at the office, a look of astonishment on his face. “If you hadn’t given up your position as director of the bureau of development, perhaps you would have such a large office?” Cheng Qing smiled and said, “Do you regret it? Do you still want to return to work?”
The tea on the tea table had grown cold, but Minghui still didn’t take a sip. When they had poured the water in, the green tea leaves had swirled in the boiling water, but now, even though the water had long since cooled and stopped steaming, the tea leaves were still swirling in the cup as fast as before. “I don’t need anything; I just want to see my brother.” The first time Minghui said this, the sun outside the window was bright yellow like a firefly; the second time he said it, the sun was fiery red; and by the third time he said it, the sun had entered a twilight color somewhere between red and yellow. Twilight had arrived without his noticing it, and within the room’s warmth there was a layer of coolness. Cheng Qing’s face had lost its former fiery brightness, and her yolk-like smile had also turned the color of twilight. Sitting in front of Minghui, from dawn to dusk she said the same thing:
“If you need anything, all you have to do is tell me. The mayor represents the citizens of Explosion, not only your Kong family. He is so busy that he doesn’t even have time to stop and breathe.”
Regardless of whether it was spring, summer, fall, or winter, Minghui kept saying the same thing:
“I don’t need anything; I just want to see my brother to say a few words to him.”
In the end, as the sky was turning dark, Cheng Qing went into another room in the office and made a telephone call, then returned. With a relieved smile, she said, “The mayor has gone to the city’s east side to host a leadership restructuring meeting. He’ll be back by nightfall, and if you want to wait for him, he said that you may wait in his office.”
Minghui therefore proceeded to his brother’s office. It was not very far and was on the same floor as Cheng Qing’s—with the two offices separated only by three conference rooms. The only difference between the two spaces was that outside the mayor’s office, there were two bodyguards, while next door there was the office of his administrative secretary, whom he could call whenever he wished. The bodyguards and secretaries all reported to Cheng Qing, and when they saw her they smiled and said, “Good day, Chief Secretary!” Cheng Qing nodded lazily, then gestured for Minghui to enter the mayor’s office. Inside, she exchanged a few more words with him, then slipped out, as though trying to avoid a leper.
“Just wait here patiently.
“… If you want some water, you can serve yourself.
“… Don’t touch your brother’s things. He never permits anyone to wait in his office alone.”
When Cheng Qing left, she shut the door behind her. The setting sun hung behind the enormous window like a piece of red fabric. This was the first time Minghui had entered his brother’s city mayor’s office. He didn’t see anything extraordinary about the office’s decorations or contents. There was a large red desk, but his brother Mingyao also had one of those; there were two evergreen trees, but Mingyao’s office had these as well. As for the rest, there was a couch, some newspapers, a telephone, documents, a water fountain, and a bookcase full of thick scholarly books. What else was there? Across from the red bookcase, there was also a display cabinet containing a variety of exquisite artifacts that foreign guests had brought as gifts when they had visited. But apart from this, the only thing that was somewhat unusual was the curtain hanging over the window. The curtain’s fabric was extremely thick and heavy, and was covered on both sides in high-quality cloth with embroidered borders. Also, next to the display cabinet containing the foreign gifts there was another room with the key still in the keyhole.
Minghui walked around the main room for a while, then opened the door to the other room.
The room was the office’s relaxation space. When Cheng Qing had told Minghui not to touch anything in the mayor’s office, she had probably meant that he should not enter this particular room. Minghui hesitated a moment but in the end still proceeded inside. He was the mayor’s younger brother, and when he entered the inner room he felt as though he had just entered the home of a close friend. There was a bed, wallpaper, a lamp, a white ceiling, and a desk piled high with newspapers and documents, while on the floor there was a dark-colored wool carpet. Minghui didn’t know that the carpet was made from the hair of sixteen-year-old girls, but when the light was turned on the carpet radiated a soft skin-like glow. The floor felt a bit slick, and it occurred to him that rather than the carpet, it would have been better to put down a bath towel. He opened the door to the washroom to take a look, and apart from the pristine white bathtub, a gold-rimmed urinal, a gold-plated faucet, and a solid gold soap dish, there was nothing else that struck him as particularly extraordinary. The light in the bathroom was pure white, and various bathing utensils were also made of pure gold, each of them so heavy that he almost couldn’t lift them. This made him feel a bit faint, as if he had accidentally entered the wrong room. He again remembered Cheng Qing’s instructions that he not touch anything in the mayor’s office, but as he was tearing his eyes away from those gold artifacts, he noticed that in the waste basket next to the sink there were some remains from a sexual encounter. When he saw this, his stomach began to rumble and he felt as though he were about to vomit. As he was rushing out of the bathroom, he noticed that next to the towel rack there was another door, on which there was a wooden sign that read, ENTRY PROHIBITED. Moreover, just like the “Mine until death do us part” that Sister-in-Law had inscribed below all of those pictures of Second Brother, the Entry Prohibited inscription was followed by a string of three exclamation marks. He now realized what Cheng Qing had meant when she said that he shouldn’t touch anything. He stood in front of the bathroom staring at that door. He wanted to walk away, but without realizing it he instead grasped that solid gold o
r gold-plated door handle. To his surprise, on one side of the door his brother had posted a plaque saying NO ADMITTANCE!!! while the secret door itself was unlocked—like a secret room in a bank when, because no one ever goes in, the staff doesn’t bother to lock it anymore.
After hesitating for a moment, Mingling pushed open the secret door.
As he had expected, there was a light switch on the wall next to the door.
He flipped the switch, and the light came on.
Under the white light, Minghui initially looked around in confusion, but he became increasingly alarmed as he gradually understood what he was seeing. There were several rooms with the windows all tightly sealed, as in a storeroom. Against the white walls there were shelves made from the most expensive yellow pear wood. Each shelf must have cost several hundred thousand or several million yuan, but they were full of the least expensive objects imaginable. Minghui entered that storeroom and stood in the middle, staring at those shelves that looked like something one would find in a palace treasure room. He inspected each shelf and saw that they had an array of different-sized boxes, and in each box there were exceedingly ordinary items collected from different hotels, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, slippers, hand towels, bathrobes, and disposable razors or hair dryers. Furthermore, under each item there was a date and the name of a hotel. In another display area, there were pen cases, pen racks, staplers, pencil sharpeners, and all sorts of fountain pens and ballpoint pens that he had collected from all sorts of different conference halls. Beneath these items from around the country, there was also a date and the name of the organization to which the hall belonged. In the display area beneath it, there were artifacts collected from countless foreign banquet halls, including forks and knives, Korean tin chopsticks and Japanese copper ones, together with an occasional ordinary dish or bowl. In the fourth display area, there were some slightly more valuable artifacts, such as an oddly shaped telephone and several cigarette lighters in the form of a handgun. There were also drinking glasses with PEOPLE’S MEETING HALL or ZHONGNANHAI printed on them. It was when Minghui’s gaze alighted on the final display area, however, that he felt he had finally found his brother—and specifically his brother’s fraternal warmth. In the darkest inner corner of the display case, there were several pieces of coal and coke, cheap cigarettes and wine, and the sorts of cheap suits, clothing, hats, and shoes that only peasants from rural areas would wear.