Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Xu Sanguan said to Blacksmith Fang, “Listen. She knows just as well as I do that you had no choice in the matter. It’s just that she’s a little upset right now.”

Then Xu Sanguan knelt down beside Xu Yulan and said, “Blacksmith Fang had no choice. The fact is that your son smashed his son’s head open with a rock. Blacksmith Fang has done his best to be kind to us. If it had been someone else, they’d have smashed all our things long ago.”

Xu Yulan covered her face with her hands and began a fresh bout of weeping.

Xu Sanguan hurriedly waved in Blacksmith Fang’s direction. “Go on, you go on now.”

Xu Sanguan looked on as his home of ten years, piled precariously atop two carts, clattered and wobbled down the lane. When the carts disappeared around the corner, he too began to cry. He bent over toward Xu Yulan, slumped down wearily beside her on the doorstep, and together they wept for the home they had lost.

The next day Xu Sanguan called Erle and Sanle to his side. “You two sons are all I have left now. I want you to remember who it was who brought us this low. We don’t even have a stool left to call our own. There was once a table where the two of you are standing now, and a trunk where I’m standing. Now everything’s gone. Our house was full of things before, and now it’s empty. Sleeping in my own house is like sleeping out in the open country. I want you to remember who brought us to this pass.”

His two sons said, “It was Blacksmith Fang.”

“It most definitely was not Blacksmith Fang,” Xu Sanguan said. “It was He Xiaoyong. Why do I say it was He Xiaoyong? Because He Xiaoyong knocked up your mom behind my back to make Yile, and then Yile broke Blacksmith Fang’s son’s head open with a rock. Don’t you think it was He Xiaoyong’s fault?”

His two sons nodded their heads.

“So”—Xu Sanguan paused for a mouthful of water—“when you two grow up, I want you to take revenge on He Xiaoyong for me. You know who He Xiaoyong’s daughters are, don’t you? You do. Do you know what their names are? No? Doesn’t matter, as long as you recognize them. Remember, when you’re all grown up, I want you to rape He Xiaoyong’s daughters for me.”

After one night’s sleep in his newly cavernous home, Xu Sanguan felt that he couldn’t go on like this, that he must get his things back from Blacksmith Fang no matter the cost. And it was thus that he thought once again of selling blood, because if he hadn’t gone to sell blood with Ah Fang and Genlong ten years earlier, he would never have had this home in the first place. Now he needed to sell blood once more. With the money he would earn selling blood, he could buy back his table, his trunks, and all his stools. But that would be letting He Xiaoyong off too easily. He had raised He Xiaoyong’s son for nine years. Would he now have to pay back his son’s debts for him as well? His heart began to sink, and his throat felt constricted. So he once again called Erle and Sanle to his side and told them that He Xiaoyong had two daughters, that taking proper revenge required patience, and that ten years was by no means too long to wait. What did patience mean? Patience meant that in ten years time he wanted Erle and Sanle to rape He Xiaoyong’s daughters.

When Xu Sanguan’s two sons listened again to his instruction that they should rape He Xiaoyong’s daughters, they began to giggle. Xu Sanguan quizzed them: “So what are you going to do after you grow up?”

The two sons replied, “Rape He Xiaoyong’s daughters.”

Xu Sanguan broke into roars of laughter. He felt better now. He felt good enough to go sell some of his blood. He walked out of the house and to the hospital. This was the decision he had made that morning: to go to the hospital, to look up the blood chief he hadn’t seen in many years, to let them tie a cord around his arm until the veins stuck out and the fattest needle the hospital had to offer slid into his thickest vein, sucking out his blood through a tube until it filled a big glass bottle. He had seen his own blood before. It was so thick that it looked black, with a bubbly whitish froth that rose to the top of the bottle.

Xu Sanguan, holding a pound of white sugar in one hand, pushed open the door to the blood donation room at the hospital. Blood Chief Li was sitting behind his desk, wearing a filthy white smock, and holding a newspaper that had been used to wrap some fried dough. The paper looked as if it had been soaked in oil, because it was almost transparent in the light that shone through the window and into the room.

Blood Chief Li set down his newspaper and watched as Xu Sanguan advanced toward him. Xu Sanguan placed the packet of sugar in front of him on the desk. Blood Chief Li reached out a hand to squeeze the parcel, then turned his attention back to Xu Sanguan.

Xu Sanguan smilingly took a seat across from the blood chief, noticing at the same time that Blood Chief Li had a lot less hair and a lot more flesh around his face than the last time he had seen him. He smiled and said, “It’s been quite a few years since you’ve come by the factory.”

Blood Chief Li nodded. “You’re from the factory?”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “I’ve come here before, with Ah Fang and Genlong. We met once a long time ago. You live over by the South Gate Bridge, right? How’s your family doing? You still remember me?”

Blood Chief Li shook his head. “I can’t remember now. A lot of people come to see me. They usually know who I am, but I don’t always know who they are. But I do know Ah Fang and Genlong. They came by just three months ago. When did you come here with them?”

“Ten years ago.”

“Ten years?” Blood Chief Li spat a gob of phlegm onto the floor. “How do you expect me to remember someone who came through here ten years ago? Even a god wouldn’t be able to remember as far back as all that.” He lifted his feet onto the chair in front of him and rested his arms on his knees. “You came in today to sell blood?”

Xu Sanguan replied, “Yes.”

Blood Chief Li pointed at the parcel on the table. “Is this for me?”

Xu Sanguan replied, “Yes.”

“I can’t take it.” Blood Chief Li drummed on the tabletop with his fingers. “If you’d come six months ago, I would take it, but now I really can’t accept any gifts. Last time Ah Fang and Genlong came they brought me two dozen fresh eggs, but I didn’t even keep one of them. I’m a Communist Party member now, know what I mean? Now I can’t even take ‘so much as a needle and thread from the masses.’ ”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “I have five in my family, so we get enough coupons for a pound of white sugar every year. I spent all of this year’s coupons just to show my respect for you.”

“It’s refined sugar?” Blood Chief Li lifted up the parcel, opened it, and peered at the shiny white crystals inside. “White sugar’s actually quite valuable. Just now I thought it was salt.” As he spoke, he poured a little sugar in his palm and gazed down at the crystals. “This white sugar’s nice and soft and fine, just like a young girl’s skin. Don’t you think so?”

Blood Chief Li bent his head to his hand, stuck out his tongue, and licked the sugar out of his own palm. He savored the sweetness for a moment, eyelids dropping shut with pleasure. Then he carefully wrapped up the parcel and handed it back to Xu Sanguan.

Xu Sanguan pushed it back across the table. “Keep it.”

“I can’t keep it,” Blood Chief Li said. “I can’t even take ‘so much as a needle and thread from the masses’ anymore.”

“I bought it just to show my respect for you. If you won’t take it, who else would I give it to?”

“Keep it for yourself.”