‘Could you stop eating for a second?’
She stopped chewing. I took out twenty
yuan.
‘Throw that shit away.’
She took the money, but was puzzled. I turned just as I was leaving. She drank another gulp of water and stuffed the remaining bread in her mouth.
I approached a noodle shop. The young girl in the doorway bowed: ‘Welcome.’ I looked at her tightly pressed lips. How strange, I thought. I watched as another customer arrived. Yet again, the words came out but her lips didn’t move. It was a supernatural power, like those guys on the street who hand out leaflets and somehow always manage to slice them into people’s hands like a knife through turnip.
T
he meaning of life:
Boredom.
Repetition.
Order.
Entrapment.
Imprisonment.
I spent twenty
yuan
to have a shower in the public baths and another ten to stay the night. I rested on the sofa in the main hall and, for the first time in ages, watched TV. The anchor was a woman, dressed in blue and with a slight wave in her hair. She looked proper, but her voice was hard like bullets. She fired a whole box of them. Not one mistake. She must have had years of elocution lessons. It made me feel like all the news broadcasts were somehow filtered through her brain. Everything was reported in the same tone, whether the news was happy, tragic, outrageous or mundane.
She finished telling the viewers that ‘two hundred citizens have been engulfed in a forest fire’, turned over her papers and continued. ‘Today more than thirty people were killed when a suicide bomb exploded.’ I listened as she read on, smiled and announced the end
of the programme. Nothing about me. I’d been forgotten. Or replaced. I had always thought news broadcasting to be a righteous enterprise, but now I knew there was nothing more shameless. It takes victims by the hand with hot tears in its eyes, listens to them pour their heart out and drops them again as soon as something new comes along. It’s all about feeding the consumers with the spiciest informational treats. I was past my sell-by date. I’d lost my notoriety. I was beginning to feel bored with myself too.
Just then I heard noises in the hall answering each other, infecting each other, like a herd of hippos grunting at each other. I kept jumping to my feet, looking for wire to tie around their fleshy necks (and strangle the crap out of them). The girl at the front desk noticed my discomfort and led me upstairs, where I could rest in peace.
She gave me a single room and an old mother figure came in, carrying a bag. I was a wreck. All because she went into the bathroom and took off her T-shirt, undid her bra and removed her trousers and underpants, as if she was at home. I could see her flabby yellow breasts, bellybutton and her pudenda. For me, sex should be mystical, like an offering to the gods. It has to start with rituals. But she was presenting her privates like a plate of melon seeds. I shrank back into the bed as she pulled
my trousers down. She grabbed hold of my erection and tugged roughly (it felt like sandpaper). I begged her to stop, but she rubbed her knees and climbed up. She then prised herself apart and sat on my cock. I tried pushing her away, but she flattened me like a steamroller. She screamed as if in pain. I mumbled something, but she was immersed in her work.
‘Enough!’
She fell silent, but she kept grinding.
‘I’m done,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said, rubbing her lower belly and picking herself up unceremoniously.
She stepped quickly into her pants. I reached out sadly, trying to get her to wait. But she dressed, put on her ugly high heels and left.
I went to the second floor, where the sound of snoring formed a chorus that was getting louder and louder and continued downwards into the baths. The attendant thrust a towel in my hands and smiled. There was meaning in that smile, I thought. The old woman had told everyone that I shot my load too early. ‘That boy, he was barely in before he came!’ It was humiliating.
I spent the night curled up in bed and couldn’t sleep. Some screws must have come loose at the joins in the water pipes. The gurgling sound was like a
crawling gecko, until a roar of water echoed around the otherwise quiet bathhouse. Like a meteorite shower splashing into the ocean. The loneliness was like a slaughter.
T
he next morning I got on a bus to the Western Hills. In ancient times they were known as the Qin Mountains, as China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang, was supposed to have reached this spot after conquering the Warring States, forming roads with his whip and slicing mountains with his sword. I was just here for the view from the top, where I could catch the sunrise. I wasn’t the only one to have the same idea, so we sat together in the darkness, like strangers in a doctor’s waiting room.
The sky slowly turned from blue to faded red. It was coming in from the sea. When the sun came peeping from behind the clouds, everyone whooped for joy, but I was disappointed. To be honest it looked a floating orange ping-pong ball gradually moving closer, hotter, spreading its arms out towards us. I was scared, as if I was being examined. I couldn’t escape its evil clutches.
In its overenthusiasm, the sun spat out tongues of fire. At first it was like a ball of dry grass going up in flames, a fireball at its centre and with dry singed outer edges. I could no longer look at it straight. Eventually the
metal and rays of light began to melt and fall. It was leaving us, as if trying to flee the sky. A bright black hole burning in it. Then a freeze-frame. And it was back to being that normal sun, the one we see every day. My skin was greasy and my clothes were wet. I was itchy all over. I hadn’t had enough sleep and felt like being sick.
I took my bag and walked down the other side of the hill, where there was still some shade. I checked there was no one around, put down my bag and suddenly cried out, ‘I’m here!’
The sound was like a stone skimmed across the water’s surface, as it travelled up through each layer of cloud and out into the sky. Then I took out the last three banknotes in my possession. Their serial numbers ended with 1, 2 and 3 respectively.
1. Keep running.
2. Give myself up.
3. Suicide.
I would listen to God. I folded and mixed them until I could no longer tell them apart. I reached for one, but unfolded another. HQ24947723. A crooked name written in ballpoint pen: Li Jixi. It had once been in the possession of a poor peasant. And now it wanted me to kill myself.
I removed a nylon rope from my bag (I had planned for this) and started patting nearby trees like a carpenter. I chose one that must have been at least a hundred years old, one that had calmly faced down hail, lightning and snowstorms and would continue to do so for some time to come. I carried two stones, stacked them, knotted the rope and fastened it to a thick branch above. I looked around me. Beyond the dense forest a road circled and beyond that I could see small box-like houses with people crawling around them like insects.
I stepped up and secured the rope around my neck. I kicked away the stones and felt my body plummet, only to then get jerked back up again, as if the lift I’d be been riding had lost control. It all happened in slow motion, but before I knew it I was hanging, the rope digging into my neck. I felt the blood surge upwards, but it quickly sank back down. Then a pain and itch in my extremities, followed by numbness. The only thing I could feel was above the neck. It was as if my insides had been squeezed out of my body by a car.
The sky was receding ever higher as I swung from the branch. In the distance I could hear the sound of splitting wood. I continued to hang for a few moments and then dropped like a bag of pork to the ground. I lay there, trying to catch my breath, before ripping away at the claws around my throat. But I couldn’t loosen the
rope, so I scrambled to my feet and stumbled on. I wasn’t dying but it had to come off. I was going crazy.
I don’t remember who cut the rope, someone with a knife. But I recall my body’s first reaction to freedom was to erupt in a violent fit, calmed only as the blood returned to my limbs. I stood up. The sweat poured off me and my trousers were weighed down with shit, but I pushed through the crowd of tourists and made my way down the hill. I was starving. I washed myself in the cold lake water and decided never to do that again.
M
idway down the hill was a small village. Shop flags fluttered in the wind and plumes of steam from baskets of buns filled the air. Locals were laying out displays of walnuts and almonds by a line of parked buses, with tour groups poking at their wares. I’d stepped out of a cold and desolate world into one of warmth and sensuality. They knew nothing of what I’d been through, the horror that had just befallen me.
Breakfast restored me and I went to find a telephone kiosk.
‘Who is this?’ the voice from the other end said, clearly shaken.
‘Li Yong, it’s me.’
‘Who?’
‘Me.’
His silence told me he knew.
‘Don’t worry. I just called to say one thing. Remember this day and raise a glass to me every year. I’ll be your brother in the next life too.’
The idiot started crying. ‘Of course.’
I had planned to ask him what people were saying about me, but I decided I could well imagine. So I hung up.
I found a shady billiard shack, picked up a cue and started playing. The boss wanted the business, so he came over to play with me. I took out my last three hundred and placed them under a stone at the edge of the table. ‘One hundred a game.’ The boss looked me up and down and said we should play a game first.
It was just as well, as he was an impatient guy who didn’t put any thought into his shots. Balls that needed only the lightest nudge, he’d thwack. I played carefully, trying to prolong the game with tactics. It wasn’t my usual style, but right now I thought it might not be a bad option. It was like playing mah-jong with the boss; you had to let him win, but not too easily. He accused me at times of taking too long. He had a dirty mouth and after a while I too started recklessly smashing balls. At least that way he stayed and played.
I was controlling him and I wasn’t going to let the game finish just yet. Only when a group of guys came
in did I let my real skills show, leaving the boss reeling in shock.
‘I just wanted you to help me kill time.’
He looked insulted, picked up the cue and started thumping it against the table. I didn’t look at him but went over to the refrigerator, took out a cola and a packet of cigarettes and dropped a hundred note.
‘Keep the change.’
I drank a long gulp of the cola, puffed on a cigarette and examined the suits who had just strode in. They looked over a few times, but dismissed me.
‘Who you looking for?’ I asked gruffly.
They came over. One took out a photo and showed it to me. I was looking at a picture of myself with a grisly beard and messy hair. I was staring down the lens. I don’t think I’d have recognised myself either.
‘What a bunch of novices.’
They looked insulted and turned to leave. I blew out a curl of smoke and reached out as it clouded my eyes.
‘I killed Kong Jie.’
I only said it because of the smoke in my eyes.
They looked at each other and then swarmed around me, pushing at my shoulders, stamping on my legs, trying to wrestle me to the floor.
‘I could have been long gone, if I’d wanted to.’
Once in the back of the car, they treated me with a
bit more reverence. I was a murderer, after all, not just some tramp. In fact, they handled me like an expensive ceramic vase, afraid I’d break. They couldn’t hide their latent narcissism, though.
‘How did you know who we were?’
‘The leather belts.’
They looked down at their waists. The buckles were printed with a police crest.
‘I want a KFC,’ I said, and then dropped off to sleep.
T
hey covered my head. The sound of their voices was distant; it felt like I was the only one in the car. We drove faster and faster until suddenly we came to a stop. Firecrackers were exploding outside the window and a commanding officer barked some instructions. I was pulled out of the car and made to walk. I heard the
pa-pa-pa
of camera shutters. Everything was sharp, bumping into me, until up ahead the road emptied, where it was like being pushed towards the lonely night.
They lifted the cloth from my head and I saw walls. A metal door. A window pulled shut. They pushed a piece of paper towards me to sign and then attached me by the hands to the metal loops fastened to the wall. I couldn’t stand properly, only on my tiptoes. I protested and their response was to fetter my feet. I decided not to make any more requests.
My body kept sinking and I had to fight for the right to rest. Sometimes my poor hands would let my feet take the burden, sometimes the other way round.
‘I need a pee!’ I shouted at one point, the response to which was the sound of clanging from outside and then, ‘Go on then.’
The urine ran down my trousers and thighs and out between my toes, like a bottle of warm, spilt milk. There must have been a camera. I was being watched. I figured I might as well fart a few times, spit on the wall, talk to myself. I wasn’t going to get to sleep. I was starting to feel jealous of people who were free to hang themselves from bridges, or get beaten up.
As the light disappeared, they came to undo my handcuffs. I flopped to the ground. They dragged me into a dark room, placed me on a low chair and then disappeared. Just as I drifted into sleep a terrifying light shone in my face. It looked like one of those lights photographers use that burn your skin. I squinted. A fluorescent lamp above followed, its dim light falling like a waterfall onto a head of dense silver hair before me. I could only make out an outline of the man, sitting proudly. He was chewing. I could hear the sound of his tongue slurping as he licked his fingers.
‘You should always eat chicken wings while they’re still hot, or the fat coagulates as they cool and they lose their taste.’
I wasn’t unsympathetic to this opinion.