by Liu Zhenyun
“Will that work?” Liu felt uneasy about the scam.
Yang sighed. “Well, the way things are now, we’ll have to try to sell a dead horse as if it was still alive.” But then, with a troubled look, he said, “We haven’t seen the real drive, so we don’t know what it looks like.”
Then he pounded Liu’s bed with a balled fist. “We’ll just have to risk it.”
With the drive in his possession, Liu had not wanted to be part of Yang’s scheme, but on second thought he realized he could see how Yang planned to sell the fake drive and then sell the genuine one on his own. So he went along.
Before long it was light outside. With Liu in tow, Yang went out to find a pay phone. Back in Yan’s house in the villa compound, he had taken a box of Qu Li’s business cards, whose unusual triangular shape and hiding place had him puzzled. He dialed the number on the card and it went through. He gave his instructions, including the lowest possible price of three hundred thousand; he could have asked for more and negotiated a better price if he’d actually had the drive. But since Lao Xing and his people were also looking for it, Yang knew he had to act fast and get the money in case Xing found it before the deal went through.
As the saying goes, a long night produces many dreams. The sooner he concluded the transaction, the sooner he could leave the whole thing behind him. Naturally he had no intention of splitting evenly with Liu; he was the one who got everything started, so he deserved the larger share. Put differently, he’d eat the meat and give Liu the broth. The money, which would be enough to pay off his debt to Brother Cao’s people, meant he’d no longer be under their thumb; he’d be free. He’d thought that Qu Li would want to bargain, and was surprised when she agreed right off. Now he almost wished he’d asked for more, but at least her response was an indication that the drive really was valuable.
Liu was worried when Yang hung up.
“I didn’t know you were going to do that. That’s extortion.”
“What’s extortion? If you kidnap someone and demand a ransom, that’s extortion. But here we have something to sell and someone who wants to buy it. That’s a business deal.” He took Liu to buy a USB drive.
Yang picked the most expensive drive, one that cost nearly a thousand. Liu knew it wasn’t the right type—the wrong shape and blue instead of red. It was a fake, but the scam was real, which had Liu increasingly on edge; there was no going back, it seemed. In his view, the deal was unsound and he would definitely not have done it that way if he’d been alone. But he wouldn’t be able to make any deal on his own without Yang. He consoled himself with the thought that he’d hand over the real drive once the money changed hands. That wouldn’t be cheating, would it? Yang was pretending the fake one was real, and Liu would replace the fake one with the real one, at least if everything went smoothly. If there was a problem during the exchange, he had a way out and would not lose anything. He was no longer worried.
That evening, the two of them took the subway, then switched to a bus before arriving at the Sijiqing Bridge, where they hid and smoked at a peddlers’ market east of the bridge. All was quiet now that the peddlers had gone home. At two in the morning, a cab drove up, stopped, and out stepped a woman with a purse. As she walked toward them, Yang could tell it was Qu Li, whose naked body he’d once seen. The purse looked heavy.
“We’re rich.” Yang slapped Liu.
He surveyed the area for half an hour, and, seeing nothing suspicious, told Liu it was time to move. Petrified by the imminent action, Liu got to his feet unsteadily and said, his eyes on Qu, who was waiting by the bridge:
“We could go to jail if this falls apart.” He was gripped by a worrisome question: “I’m just trying to find my money, so how did it turn into extortion?”
Yang gave him a punch. “Don’t be such a coward. Take a good look. There before you is money, not prison.” He added, “Who doesn’t get his money this way in this day and age? You have to take risks if you want to be rich.”
Liu had a change of heart. “You go on ahead. I’m staying here.”
Yang glanced at Liu, then at Qu, who was still waiting by the bridge, and then around them to make sure nothing was amiss.
“Sure, I can go by myself, but when I get the money it’s not going to be fifty-fifty anymore. It’ll have to be seventy-thirty.” He continued, “This will work better actually. I won’t show her the fake drive in case she gets suspicious. I’ll tell her you have it.”
Then he grabbed Liu.
“But don’t even think about double-crossing me. Everyone knows you have the drive, so you’ll have to step up to show her when I call out to you.”
Realizing there was no turning back, Liu nodded weakly while looking around to make sure he could get away if the deal fell through. If everything went smoothly, he’d hand over the genuine USB drive, since he had no use for it anyway.
As he walked toward the bridge, Yang also had a change of heart. He’d lied to Liu earlier. Instead of driving, Qu Li had taken a cab, which left after she got out, a sign of good faith. It also meant she did have money in her bag. She was a woman and he was a man. At this point, he was no longer interested in extortion; instead he planned to rob her, like the Gansu gang. It was a tactless move, but the circumstances called for drastic action, which would work better with a fake drive, since he wouldn’t need to deceive her, and they wouldn’t have to negotiate. When he got closer, he’d zero in on the bag, snatch it and run. Like all thieves, Yang was a fast runner, and a woman like that would not be able to catch him. As to the cowardly Liu Yuejin, he’d leave him behind; it was neither nice nor righteous, but he had no choice. Liu would just have to continue searching for his fanny pack.
With the plan all thought out, he felt energized, his muscles and joints ready for combat, like a ball player before a game. Imagine his shock when several brawny guys leaped out from behind a bridge pylon before he even had a chance to run off with the bag. Led by Yan’s driver, Little Bai, they pounced on him and wrestled him to the ground. The shock on Qu Li’s face told Yang that the ambush was not her idea. On her part, she knew that Little Bai’s group had spoiled her plan, which meant that Yan Ge was behind it. So he had had her followed in order to get to the drive first.
As Yang continued to struggle, Qu Li went up and slapped Little Bai.
“Get out of here. This is my business.”
But none of them moved. Bai took his revenge for the slap out on Yang by kicking and hitting him savagely. Soon Yang’s nose and mouth were bleeding and a piercing pain told him he had a broken rib.
“Give me the fucking drive!”
Yang knew he’d been had, not by the woman, but by someone else. At this point, it really didn’t matter; he had a broken rib and no USB drive.
“I don’t have it.”
Another round of savage beating followed and another rib was broken. He decided to show them the fake drive.
“It’s not the right one,” Bai and Qu said in unison.
“Who are you, anyway?” Qu demanded.
Bai and his friends kicked Yang again. He began to cry and, looking in the direction of the market, he cursed:
“That damned cook.”
Following his gaze, the men saw a figure leap over the wall and run down the alley; they took off in the same direction, leaving one man to guard Yang.
25
Ma Manli and Yuan Datou
Ma Manli was involved three years earlier with Lao Yuan, a thirty-seven-year-old man from Zhoushan, Zhejiang. A peddlers’ market two blocks from the Manli Hair Salon was where Yuan sold seafood, mostly ribbonfish, but also yellow croakers, mackerel, frozen shrimps, small white clams, kelp, and seaweed. Manli visited his stall often because of her love for fried Zhoushan ribbonfish, while Yuan came to her place to have his hair washed and cut. Soon they got to know each other well. She still frequented his stall because of the ribbonfish, but, as he revealed to her after they were together, he came to the salon not for grooming purposes but for her. He like
d everything about her, her willowy waist, for instance, though he found her eyes most attractive. Manli’s eyes were not big, and no one had ever said they were pretty, no one but Yuan, who agreed that they were small—most of the time. But when she got angry and raised her brows, those eyes, so-called phoenix eyes, were beautiful.
“You call these phoenix eyes?” Manli was doubtful.
“Of course they are,” Yuan said decisively.
Yuan proceeded to tell her that, in addition to her eyes, he loved the way she looked at people. At thirty-seven, he’d seen enough people, men and women, young and old, with all their different expressions, yet found they all had one thing in common. That was, the eyes began to turn clouded beginning at the age of eight, since everything we experienced was retained in our eyes, even after it vanished from our brains. So after we turned thirty, our eyes were basically like a bowl of congee and quite unattractive. Manli’s eyes were similarly clouded, but a ray of bright light returned when she looked at people, which was uncommon. Manli would have none of it, so he added that he really did like her expression, but he also liked to hear her sigh. When they were engaged in a conversation she would suddenly sigh. People normally sigh when they have something on their minds, and most do so for a specific reason with a clear purpose. Her sigh, on the other hand, lacked a goal; when she sighed, it was usually not about whatever it was they were talking about, but more like she was reminded of other troubles. It was a deep and complex sigh and utterly intriguing. In his view, you could learn a lot about a person simply through a sigh. Then, as if that were not enough to convince her, he continued to say that besides her sigh, he also liked the way she walked, her voice, the way she smiled, and her changing manner at various times. In other words, he liked everything about her, because she was different from all other women. Finally convinced, she assumed he knew a lot about women and, about her in particular; he might even have known more about her than she herself did. Her husband, Zhao Xiaojun, was the opposite; he noticed nothing in her that Yuan saw; all he ever spotted were her shortcomings, such as her small breasts.
“What do you have to say for yourself? You’re a man in drag.” Zhao would say whenever they had a fight.
Manli did not like Yuan for the same reasons he liked her. Yuan had a big head and thick neck, which was why he was nicknamed Yuan Datou, Big Head Yuan. He was not tall, had a long torso and stumpy legs, and was not handsome, unlike so many Zhejiang men. If Yuan liked everything about her, she liked him for his conversation, but not because he always said what she wanted to hear, though; she was not that self-centered. He captivated her whenever he talked, in particular for his sense of humor. He’d say the same thing as everyone else, but the effect was different. She’d met other witty people who made her laugh the moment they began to talk, but Yuan was not like them. When they were face to face, she might not find what he was saying funny, but she’d burst out laughing later when she thought about it. Then she’d laugh a second time as she recalled what he’d said, but for a different reason. It became clear to her that Yuan’s humor came from his wit, while others just told jokes. For instance, during her first ribbonfish purchase at his stall, before they were acquainted, she disparaged his merchandise as a ruse to bargain for a lower price.
“What nerve! You want five-fifty for a fish as thin as a shoestring. Over there, a big one like a blade of a knife only costs four-eighty.”
She’d made up “over there” to support her claim, of course, and if it had been any other fishmonger, she’d have been mocked and her lie exposed. “If it’s cheaper over there, buy it over there,” they’d say.
Yuan did not poke a hole in her claim, nor did he refute her exaggerated description of his ribbonfish. Instead, he said:
“Don’t blame me. It’s the fault of whoever named the fish in the first place. It’s called a ribbonfish, so it has to look like a ribbon or a shoestring. Those over there, thick as a knife, I’m afraid they’re puffed up because they suffered from diabetes.”
Since she was focused on bargaining with him, she paid no attention to his retort, but on her way back with the fish, she recalled what he’d said and burst out laughing. And later, while frying the fish, she laughed again.
Or take his first haircut, for instance. By then they knew each other pretty well. A haircut cost five yuan, but she said:
“For others five yuan, for you, ten.”
Yuan knew she was referring to his oversized head.
“If you’re going to charge by size, you should run a pet shop.”
“What do you mean?” Manli asked.
“The last time I was in a pet shop I saw that they charged two hundred to shave off all the hair on a dog the size of my fist.”
She made a coquettish sound before starting in on his hair. After he left, she burst out laughing at the sight of a fist-sized dog walking on a leash, and she laughed again that night as she lay in bed and recalled his comment about shaving off all the hair. Yuan was one of those who could say something dirty without sounding filthy.
Another example. The first time they went to bed, Manli was shy about taking off her bra because of her husband’s complaint about the size of her breasts; so Yuan helped her take it off. Her breasts did look unusually small to him, but instead of commenting on their size, he felt them and said:
“Function over size.”
Then after putting his mouth over one of them, he added, “Too big. I can’t hold it in my mouth. Really big.”
She laughed out loud, then began to cry.
Her husband was diametrically different from Yuan, and if not for Zhao, she wouldn’t have gotten involved with Yuan. During her six-year marriage, they had six months of happiness, and after that everything went downhill. That had nothing to do with money, though they were poor. Yuan was a fishmonger, not a millionaire, but they got along beautifully.
At five feet ten inches, Zhao had long limbs, big eyes, fair skin, and nice features, all of which put him far above Yuan. She’d married him for his looks, and quickly learned that his good looks could only sustain their marriage for half a year, after which problems cropped up. Zhao was a reseller, buying from one city to sell in another; some resellers made fortunes, particularly when they had the right merchandise. But not Zhao; he was good at what he did, but he wanted to get rich so fast he never stayed with one kind of merchandise for long. Whatever he wasn’t peddling at the moment always seemed better to him. Sometimes, he might be about to strike it big, but didn’t have the patience to stay with whatever it was and lost money, while others made fortunes. He’d then complain about how others did so well. All in all, he’d sold cigarettes, liquor, rice, furs, and pets, even came close to human trafficking. He made some money and lost some money, which was normal; the problem was, he was never himself. Either arrogantly overbearing or dolefully miserable, his reactions were exaggeration personified, overblowing every little thing. He wore a Western suit all year round, drenched in sweat on a clear summer day and spattered in mud when it rained, as if he were the busiest man in the world.
But neither of these bothered her as much as the way Zhao talked. He talked about everything in a matter-of-fact manner and was always straightforward, with no subtlety, let alone humor. You could say he was humorless. To be sure, there are plenty of people like him; the problem for her was, when they argued, he stopped being matter-of-fact, twisting one thing into another or confusing two matters. It was hard to tell whether he’d been born with an addled brain or was doing it on purpose. How was she supposed to have a good argument if he refused to stay on topic? It was a different kind of quarrel, to be sure, but the core of their problem—money—usually surfaced quickly. They might have started arguing over something else, but eventually it all came down to money. When they got into bed, the core issue of their sex life—her small breasts—came up in a similar fashion.
“Did I just have sex with a woman?” he’d sigh after they were finished. “It just felt like being with a man.”
> On it went, and their life together lost its spark. It took her a while to realize why—not money, nor her breasts, but the absence of fun, like an ungreased machine whose gears grind and grate against one another. Obviously they didn’t like each other, the only difference being that he disliked her because of her breasts, while she was turned off by everything about him. There was simply nothing about him she found attractive.
Then, three years before, he fell for someone else, another woman from the north named Dong Yuanyuan, an acquaintance of Manli’s. She said she was a nightclub accountant, but no one really knew what she did at night. Unlike Manli, she had big breasts, like a pair of bowling balls, or a couple of melons.
By rights Manli should have been upset and had it out with her husband over his affair, but she did not; instead, she felt liberated. Zhao liked big-breasted women, and now that he’d found one, Manli figured she was entitled to a relationship of her own. She might have gotten involved with Yuan out of spite, since Zhao shouldn’t be the only one having an affair; in the end, however, she recognized Yuan’s attraction. He was the first person whose conversation interested her, and she went to bed with him just so she could hear him talk, which was a first for her. Later on, she wondered how she’d done it.
She got pregnant once during their first two years together. It was aborted, since their relationship was secret. After her divorce, they could be open about it, but not to the point of getting married, because Yuan had a wife and children back in Zhoushan. In the beginning, she had no interest in marriage, since she’d already had a failed one with Zhao, and they were still fighting over money even after the divorce. Without marriage between them, she could enjoy simple, uncomplicated conversation and sex with Yuan. But after a while she began to care about marriage because of her age. Now in her thirties, she wanted to be married, and that did not scare him away.
“Which is easier, getting married or getting divorced?” Yuan asked her once.