Leave Me Alone

by Murong Xuecun

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  When I arrived at work, Old Yu was waiting in my office for his 170,000. At the end of last year I’d bought 260,000 yuan worth of car parts. I’d heard that the government was going to increase the price of small factory parts and I wanted to help our company cut its procurement costs. I never expected that a few months later the price rise still wouldn’t have materialised. In fact, the more parts that were sold the cheaper they got. I worked out that if I got rid of them at the current price, I’d lose at least 30,000. When I talked to Old Yu about a settlement, however, he said he’d rather die than concede a discount. I told the accountant to suspend payments. After six months had gone by, Old Yu got worried and he made a threatening phone call. He said he was ready to take the case to court. I laughed loudly.

  ‘You do that,’ I said. ‘Start your case. You’ll definitely win.’

  By the time the court reached a judgment, at least another two months would have passed. Old Yu would be sick of the whole thing. And even if the court decided against me, the worst that could happen was I’d have to return the parts. Would he really be willing to give up as much as 170,000 yuan?

  After Old Yu had thought it through and reached the same conclusion as me, he got very depressed. After that he visited me every day like a well-behaved grandson, lighting me cigarettes, being respectful. He was stuck to me like a plaster and I couldn’t get rid of him.

  Sure enough, when he saw me, Old Yu’s face instantly became fawning. He lit me a cigarette, made tea, and chattered away endlessly. Apparently his family were having difficulties. His kid was about to start school, and his wife needed medical treatment. His eighty-year-old mother needed to be cremated.

  Forcing a laugh, I said, ‘This has nothing to do with me any more. You should talk to Fatty Dong. I’ve been fired.’

  Old Yu’s mouth fell open, displaying a row of brown front teeth. He stared at me as if he’d seen a ghost.

  The decision from Head Office about how to deal with me had two main components. Firstly, fire Chen Zhong immediately, with Liu Three taking over the sales department. Secondly, stop all salary payments, living subsidies and expense reimbursements. The remaining 260,900 yuan I owed had to be paid off within ten days, otherwise the police would be called in.

  Before Fatty Dong had finished reading out the decision, my face felt like it had turned white and my stomach filled with gas. I was petrified.

  Afterwards Fatty played Mr Nice Guy, patting my shoulder and saying, ‘Chen Zhong, we are colleagues. I never wanted this to happen. You look after yourself.’

  His smile infuriated me. I kicked over a chair with my foot, leapt and thrust my fist into his fat face. Fatty Dong slammed against the wall like a mountain of lard, making a sickening sound. Everyone started as if they’d had electric shocks. I threw open the door, my hair on end and my teeth clenched.

  ‘Fuck you. Just you wait,’ I yelled at Fatty Dong.

  This catastrophe was of course one hundred per cent Dong’s doing. After my telephone conversation with Boss Liu, my mind worked at lightning speed, trying to get it all straight. Now I knew why Fatty Dong had insisted on going to Chongqing during the sales fair. He’d gone to dig up the sales contract from two years ago. It was also obvious why Boss Liu had suddenly gone cool on me. I visualised how they’d plotted, dug their hole and then stepped to one side waiting for me to fall in. Those dogs — fuck! At the same time I felt a confused hatred for myself. I should not have called Old Lai that time. If Boss Liu hadn’t been there, I could have shamelessly insisted there was no evidence other than his word. Where were the written records? What could the company do? I’d never dreamed the company would go so far as to fire me. Now it didn’t matter what I said — none of it was any use.

  In my penultimate year of university, I’d nearly been expelled because of the notorious porn film incident. That was the first serious crisis of my life. Afterwards, I told Li Liang that if I’d been thrown out, I’d have lain down on some icy railway track, just like our idol, Hai Zi.

  In the early 1990s, the craze was for university students to run some kind of business. Everyone debated whether those who sold tea or those who sold eggs would be most likely to make a fortune. It was as if we had been rudely woken by a stream of piss and thrown off Chinese students’ historic burden of: ‘standing upright for heaven, giving our life for the people, studying to achieve saintliness and win peace for all ages’.

  We almost lost our minds in the struggle to be first; lost our way because we were crazy for cash. At that time, anyone who couldn’t say that they’d at least been a street vendor was embarrassed. At the height of the business craze, our canteen door was plastered with every kind of advertisement: for books, for family education; the words all gaudy and enticing. Outside our dormitory a forest of small stalls sprang up — noisy from day to night, and livelier than the vegetable market. Every individual was a trading company. Our dormitory door was knocked at eighty times a day by people selling shirts and socks, instant noodles and hot pickled mustard, combs, mirrors and make-up. Some even sold condoms. There were lots of urban myths about people getting rich overnight. It was said that a student at Normal University had made several million from trading steel, and drove a Lincoln to class every day. Another rumour had it that a girl from the politics department had invested a few thousand in stocks and in less than a year had turned a million.

  I was no laggard in this matter of making a fortune. I started a beer room, and then rented a book store, then a pool hall. I had a small stand selling cheap clothes and books. Finally, in the second semester of my third year, I hit on the screening room idea.

  At that time I had a catchphrase: Money is earned, not saved. Even though I had several businesses, I never actually had much cash: my profits all went on beer. The screening room was a good earner though, the best of all. The English department’s Hu Jiangchao hired it for three months and even his piss turned to oil. Every day he ate all three meals outside campus. My requirements at that time weren’t so grand: I just wanted to be able to buy Zhao Yue clothes once in a while, and treat friends to the occasional meal.

  I was in the film business for nearly a whole semester, and made plenty of money, but finally lost it all.

  At the start, trade wasn’t actually that great. Each day there were only around fifty or sixty customers and the box office didn’t come close to covering the rental fee. I went everywhere to get big films: Gone with the Wind, Waterloo Bridge, Jurassic Park, Silence of the Lambs, and the Kung Fu films of Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat. I pasted up enough posters to blot out the sun. Every Saturday I screened one session of classics, then all through the night showed TV programs popular from our youth. Suddenly the business took off. On the best day I sold more than 400 tickets. When you added sales of soda, melon, bread, cigarettes and so on, our profit was more than 1200. I soon felt sick from smiling.

  The holidays began on the 2nd of July. I’d planned to suspend my business and go with Zhao Yue to the north-east to enjoy a vacation. However, the PE department’s Hao Feng came looking for me and handed me three ‘porn’ movies: Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I’m Crazy For It and Sex and Zen.

  He pleaded with me for ages to put them on, saying that I could charge whatever price I liked. My resolve slowly weakened and I reflected that there hadn’t been an inspection for ages, so it was unlikely anything would go wrong. Showing the films would also avert the possibility of any trouble from the jocks. However, I never expected the guy to immediately round up an audience of thirty or more fellow athletes. I got nervous and told him, ‘Too many people, it’s not safe. I can’t do this.’

  Hao Feng encouraged the jocks to join him in egging me on. They kept saying I’d be a hero. After a while I couldn’t resist any longer and I said, ‘Let’s do it. If the sky falls down I’ll hold it up.’

  Some poet once said that ‘life is a river’ and I understood. Beneath the smooth surface of the river there were dangerous undercurrent
s. A little carelessness could lead to the boat overturning.

  If I hadn’t been so impetuous that day, I’d never have been barred from getting an honours degree. And if I’d got my honours degree, I wouldn’t have been rejected by the provincial Communist Party Committee propaganda department and forced to take a job at a car company. If I hadn’t gone to the car company, the chances are I wouldn’t be staggering along now like a stray dog in the polluted air by the West Station: my vision blurred, my face twisted and my spirit depressed.

  On that summer night seven years before in the screening room, porn goddesses Ye Zimei and Xu Jinjiang were having a cat fight in a bathtub. More than thirty guys, saliva dribbling down their chins, watched as the girls stripped each other. With more than 200 yuan in my pockets, I was laughing. Then, suddenly, the door was kicked in, the lights turned up. The campus security department’s Boss Tang brutally ordered me to go with him. Behind him, several guards scoured the room like nationalist bandits searching the mountains. The place was thrown into chaos. There was a clamour of running footsteps, of seats banging, of confused voices. Two guys tried to flee through the window, but were stopped by Old Tang’s cry: ‘Not one of you leave! Call their faculty heads to take charge of them!’

  Then he grabbed me. ‘You, come with me at once to the security office!’

  I felt like my whole world had collapsed. Hao Feng tried to apologise, but I pushed him away and staggered with Old Tang towards the security office. Once there I couldn’t support myself any more, and had to lean against the wall, gasping for breath, my arms and legs turned to water.

  I was prepared to die. I vowed tearfully that if the university expelled me, I’d jump from the sixteenth floor of the teaching building. This scared my faculty head so much that the old guy’s face turned white. He went to the student administration office and risked his position to say good things about me. Meanwhile, I got together all my profits from the past few months, about 10,000, and distributed them as bribes to the Dean and the student administration office. Finally I handed a fat red envelope to the deputy university head who was in charge of student affairs. At first he took the moral high ground, attacking my shamelessness in trying to buy personal favours. After I’d pleaded with him, and sworn to keep it a secret, he finally accepted, looking embarrassed. Still wearing his holier-than-thou holy face he told me, ‘OK, you won’t be expelled. Go back to your dorm.’

  From then on, I was very clear about one thing: in this world there was no evil that couldn’t be redeemed by money. There was no incorruptible virtue. Li Liang was very indignant and wrote a poem proclaiming:

  Even if I can’t be let off

  I want to cry out in hell

  Saints … my sin

  Comes from you gods.

  Back then we were all quite innocent. No one questioned the cause of this disaster. It wasn’t until three years later, when my old girlfriend Black Peony got married, that I suddenly saw the light.

  When I first started getting serious with Zhao Yue, I was still with Black Peony. My behaviour of having a foot in two boats made her angry. She was one of those girls who is outwardly coarse but inwardly refined. When she took off her clothes, her body was very hairy. One night just before lights out, she called me downstairs and said fiercely, ‘Do you want me or her?’

  I prevaricated for ages before finally finding some moral courage. ‘I have the stronger feeling for Zhao Yue,’ I told her.

  Black Peony made a massive fist. It seemed inevitable that she was going to hit me and I shut my eyes, preparing for her thunderbolt. Luckily for my face, nothing happened: when I opened my eyes again, I saw that she was going back upstairs, her shoulders rising and falling in the moonlight.

  Anyway, her groom, a big manly Inner Mongolian guy from the PE department called Yao Zhiqiang, had been in the screening room that night. He was one of just two people who didn’t get dragged off to the security office.

  Plant melons and you get melons; plant beans and you get beans. A Buddhist monk once said: Misfortune and disaster have no roots. Everything is brought on by yourself. The mountains before you were created by your eyes.

  Standing on the concourse of busy West Station, I thought: you, Chen Zhong, what have you made for yourself?

  This Chengdu, as familiar as my own palm, was a place of danger, turbulence and uncertainty. Walls and buildings were always being demolished, holes being dug and roads being repaired. There were always vendors and hustlers who would grab your sleeve and harass you.

  Carrying one insubstantial paper bag, I squeezed my way through the crowds. My soul felt as worn as the pattern on the sole of an old shoe. In the bag were personal items from the office: a few books (sales and marketing), some certificates of achievement, plus photos I’d never dared to let Zhao Yue see — me and my breadstick lover, me and Zhou Yan, me with Miss Sichuan. I’d lived like a cicada that didn’t know autumn was coming, spending my reserves of happiness. I’d made millions for the company over the past few years. All I had for myself was this small bag.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Actually, there was 58,000 in my account. Everything the old man owned wouldn’t be worth more than that. My sister had money until recently, but in August she’d bought an apartment. What she had left wasn’t even enough for redecorating. Whenever I thought about money I had to fight an urge to bang my head against a brick wall. My insides hurt. There was no taste to my food, and when I slept I had nightmares. My urine was as yellow as freshly squeezed orange juice. One morning when I woke up I discovered a big blister in my mouth; it burst while I was brushing my teeth, and it was so painful that I couldn’t stop jumping around.

  Head Office’s lawyer had arrived in Chengdu: the day before he’d called me to say that Boss Liu’s instructions were to spare no effort to get all the money back.

  ‘Even if you run, your guarantor won’t be able to,’ he told me.

  As I listened to him, I felt as if I’d ground my teeth down to the roots. I was desperate to reach a fist down the telephone and grab him by the throat. The guarantor he was referring to was none other than my dad. When I first joined the company, he’d signed a ‘guarantor contract’ vouching for my character and guaranteeing to reimburse any economic losses I may cause the company.

  My brother-in-law said this was punishing someone else for another’s misdeeds. The old man still didn’t know what had happened.

  After I’d finished talking to the lawyer, I went to my parents’ house. As soon as I got in the door, I saw those two oldies squatting inside my room repairing my bed. My mother was still urging me to move home again.

  ‘Look, you’ve lost weight. Of course, away from home you don’t get enough hot food.’

  On the way there, I’d decided to come clean with them. But faced with this scene, I just couldn’t find the words. While we were eating, Dad asked me how things were going at work. Although I nearly dropped my chopsticks, somehow I managed to say, ‘Fine, just fine.’ Inside, such was my shame that I felt like leaping right out the window.

  I discussed the situation with Zhou Weidong and he comforted me, and said that the company was making an empty show of strength.

  ‘At most this is a civil court matter. They can’t off-load any legal responsibility onto you. What the hell are you afraid of?’

  But I was pessimistic because I’d seen how Bighead Wang handled such cases. The former boss of Yingdao company had been completely done over just because he’d imported a few cartons of fake cigarettes. He’d been fined, beaten, and had eventually lost his family fortune.

  ‘Once you’re in the detention centre, forget guilt or innocence,’ Bighead Wang told me. ‘There’s just good luck or bad luck. There’s never any chance to speak in your own defence.’

  It was impossible to deny my debt. Anyway, if the company really wanted to finish me, they just had to give a few thousand to the cops. I wouldn’t even know how I’d died.

  There’d been no contact between Bighead
and me since the Li Liang incident. I supposed he’d understood that unless he came up with an explanation then neither I nor Li Liang wanted his friendship: there was no need to spell it out.

  Li Liang found it difficult to trust people, including me, his best friend. We’d known each other for ten years, but now I felt estranged from him, and this suggested to me that I’d never really entered his life, his heart.

  Ever since he found out about the fling with Ye Mei, his attitude towards me had been weird, as he was neither friendly nor completely aloof. Recently I’d got my mum to make a pot of Angelica Chicken, which I’d then taken to him in a heat-preserving container. When I said I wanted him to get better, he looked touched. But a few days later I went to his house again and found the container in a corner of the kitchen. It hadn’t been opened. When I discovered that the expression of my goodwill was growing green mould, I asked him why he hadn’t eaten it, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted it. The meaning of the unopened container was perfectly clear: Li Liang wasn’t ready to accept any kindness from me. This attitude made me both indignant and sad.

  I didn’t know how he’d react if I asked to borrow money from him but for my part, I’d rather go to jail than be humiliated by Li Liang’s refusal. At least that way I’d still be something of a man. I wouldn’t have completely sold out our youthful principles.

  In our second year at university, the literature society paper Maybe started up. It instantly made waves on our campus. Li Liang published an article in it in which he wrote: We won’t sink into degradation. We choose two kinds of death: brilliant or heroic. This sentiment sparked an all-night debate, and was judged by Big Brother to be ‘7.8 fucking brilliant on the Richter scale.’