Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Xu Yulan saw a thirty-year-old woman sitting by his door scrubbing clothes on a washing board. This, she knew, was He Xiaoyong’s woman. He Xiaoyong’s woman was as skinny as a bamboo pole. She had been just as skinny ten years before, when she had walked through the streets with He Xiaoyong in tow, letting out a little snort of derision whenever they happened to run into Xu Yulan and bursting into giggles after they had passed her by. At the time Xu Yulan had thought to herself, He Xiaoyong’s gone and married a woman without any tits or ass. Now she saw that the woman still didn’t have any tits and that her ass was sitting squarely atop a stool.

Xu Yulan shouted into the open front door, “He Xiaoyong! He Xiaoyong!”

“Who is it?”

He Xiaoyong stuck his head from out of the second-floor window. But when he realized to his dismay that it was Xu Yulan standing outside, he immediately recoiled. After a moment his head reappeared, and his eyes looked down in her direction. He looked at this woman standing downstairs who was prettier than his own wife, this woman with whom he had made love; this woman who never talked to him anymore when they ran into each other in the street; this was the woman who was smiling in his direction. He spluttered, “What do you want?”

Xu Yulan said, “He Xiaoyong, I haven’t seen you for a long time. You’ve gained weight. You even have a double chin now.”

He Xiaoyong heard the sound of his wife spitting in disgust. “What do you want?”

Xu Yulan said, “Come down here. We can talk after you come downstairs.”

He Xiaoyong, eyes on his woman, said, “I’m not coming down. I’m just fine up here. Why should I come down?”

Xu Yulan said, “Come downstairs. It’ll be easier to talk if you’re down here.”

“I’m staying up here.”

Xu Yulan glanced at He Xiaoyong’s woman, then smiled up at He Xiaoyong. “He Xiaoyong, could it be that you’re actually afraid to come down and talk to me?”

He Xiaoyong looked over toward his wife, then said in a low, diffident voice, “I’m not afraid of anything.”

At this point his wife could no longer remain silent. She got to her feet, looked up at the window, and said, “He Xiaoyong, come down here. What can she do to you? She’s not going to eat you, for heaven’s sake.”

He Xiaoyong came down the stairs and walked over to where Xu Yulan was standing. “Say whatever it is you have to say, and make it quick. I don’t have time for this shit.”

Xu Yulan smiled nicely and said, “I came to tell you the good news. It’s Xu Sanguan. He says he’s not going to come and settle his debt with you, so you can put your mind at rest on that score. At first he was planning to chop you into pieces with a cleaver, because you knocked up his woman and forced him to take care of your own son for nine years. That’s why he was going to chop you to bits with a cleaver. And if he had, no one would have blamed him for it either. Xu Sanguan says he’s not going to ask you to pay back the money he’s spent on Yile. And he’s not going to send him back to live with you. He Xiaoyong, you’re getting off pretty easy, having someone else raise your son for you and never having to lift a finger to help. You get to be a dad for nothing. But Xu Sanguan has had himself a raw deal, from the very start. After Yile was born, he never got any sleep. He’d hold the baby and walk back and forth across the room all night so he wouldn’t cry. Xu Sanguan washed all of Yile’s diapers, and every year he made him a new set of clothes. Not to mention that he always provided him food to eat and water to drink, day in and day out. And Yile eats more than I do. He Xiaoyong, Xu Sanguan says he’s not going to settle his accounts with you. And he says all you have to do in return is give the money to Blacksmith Fang.”

He Xiaoyong said, “What does Blacksmith Fang’s son being in the hospital have to do with me?”

“Your son smashed his head in with a rock.”

“I don’t have a son,” He Xiaoyong said. “Since when do I have a son? All I have is two daughters. One’s called He Xiaoying and the other’s He Xiaohong.”

“You really have no conscience, do you?” Xu Yulan jabbed her finger toward him. “I suppose you’ve forgotten that summer when you took advantage of my dad’s going to the public toilet and pulled me onto the bed. You’re a heartless bastard. What did I do in my past life to deserve this? What did I do to deserve your bastard seed finding its way into my belly?”

He Xiaoyong brushed away her finger with his hand. “Do you think I would waste my precious seed on a bitch like you? That kid is Xu Sanguan’s bastard, and there’s two more where he came from.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Xu Yulan’s tears began to come. “Everyone who sees Yile says so. They all say he’s the spitting image of He Xiaoyong. Don’t think you can deny it. Even if your face was scarred by fire or scalded by coals, you wouldn’t be able to deny it. Because he looks more and more like you every day.”

When she saw that a group of spectators had begun to gather around and watch, He Xiaoyong’s woman chimed in, “Take a good look. She’s a shameless bitch, this one. Trying to steal my man in broad daylight.”

Xu Yulan swung around to look at her. “If I was going to steal anyone, it sure as hell wouldn’t be He Xiaoyong. He Xiaoyong! Back then I was as pretty as a flower. Everybody called me the Fried Dough Queen. He Xiaoyong was nothing to me. I threw He Xiaoyong out like a piece of trash, and you stooped down to collect him like he was some kind of treasure.”

He Xiaoyong’s woman straightened and slapped Xu Yulan across the face. Xu Yulan slapped her right back. In an instant their arms were flailing through the air, and each had grasped hold of the other’s hair and was tugging with all her might. As she pulled at Xu Yulan’s hair, He Xiaoyong’s woman called out to her husband, “He Xiaoyong! He Xiaoyong!”

He Xiaoyong stepped forward, grabbed hold of Xu Yulan’s arms, and squeezed them so hard that she was forced to let go of her opponent with an anguished “Aiya!” He let fly with a slap to her face that sent her tumbling to the ground.

Xu Yulan, rubbing her own face, burst into tears. “He Xiaoyong, you ought to be cut to pieces with a thousand knives! You’re a bastard, a son of a bitch, your conscience must have been eaten by a pack of dogs.” She stood up from the pavement and pointed an accusing finger at him. “Just you wait, He Xiaoyong! You won’t live to see another day. I’ll send Xu Sanguan after you with a cleaver. He’ll chop you to pieces. You won’t live to see another day.”

But Xu Sanguan didn’t support the death sentence Xu Yulan had pronounced so summarily for He Xiaoyong. When Xu Yulan got home, Xu Sanguan was still working on his mop. Xu Yulan sat down exhaustedly across from him, her face streaked with tears, and gazed in his direction. After a while her tears began to fall again.

When Xu Sanguan saw that she was crying, he knew she hadn’t succeeded in getting any money from He Xiaoyong. “I knew you’d come back empty-handed.”

Xu Yulan said, “Xu Sanguan, go chop him to pieces.”

Xu Sanguan said, “You fell to fucking pieces as soon as you saw him, didn’t you? You went soft, right? Couldn’t bear to ask for the money after all?”

Xu Yulan said, “Xu Sanguan, go chop him to pieces.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’m telling you, if you don’t get the money today, Blacksmith Fang is going to come tomorrow and confiscate all our things. He’s going to take your bed, your table, your clothes, your Snowflower cream, your silk scarf. He’s gonna fucking take it all away.”

Xu Yulan began to weep. “I asked them for the money. They wouldn’t give it to me. And they pulled my hair, and he slapped me right across my face. Xu Sanguan, are you actually going to let someone get away with treating your woman that way? Xu Sanguan, I’m begging you to go chop him to pieces. There’s a cleaver in the kitchen. I sharpened it just yesterday. Go cut him to pieces.”