Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

“I wouldn’t waste such good stuff on myself. Refined sugar’s for giving away.”

“You’re right there,” said Blood Chief Li, edging the packet toward his side of the table. “It really would be a shame to use such good sugar yourself. Let me have another taste of the stuff.”

Blood Chief Li poured another spoonful of sugar into his palm, stuck out his tongue, and licked. As he savored the sugar, he once again pushed the parcel back to Xu Sanguan.

Xu Sanguan promptly slid it back over toward Blood Chief Li. “Take it. If I don’t say anything, no one will ever know.”

Blood Chief Li was clearly displeased by this last offer. His smile instantly disappeared, and he said, “I was just having a taste to make you feel better. If I give you a yard, don’t think you can take a mile.”

Xu Sanguan could only reach out and take the sugar. “Then I’ll keep it for myself.”

The blood chief watched as Xu Sanguan put the parcel back into his pocket. Then he tapped the tabletop with his finger and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Xu Sanguan.”

“Xu Sanguan?” He drummed on the table. “That sounds familiar.”

“I came once before.”

“No, that’s not why.” Blood Chief Li waved his hand. “Xu Sanguan, Xu Sanguan.”

Suddenly the blood chief let out a hoot and then a guffaw. “I remember now. So you’re Xu Sanguan? You’re the famous cuckold.”

After Xu Sanguan sold blood, he didn’t hand the money directly over to Blacksmith Fang. Instead, he went to the Victory Restaurant and sat down at a table by the window.

Recalling to memory the first time he had come here after selling blood with Ah Fang and Genlong ten years before, he scratched his head and remembered the way they had slapped the table for emphasis as they ordered their food. So he reached out and slapped the tabletop as he shouted to the waiter. “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”

The waiter took his order and was turning to go when Xu Sanguan realized that something was missing. He signaled for the waiter to stay where he was. The waiter stood waiting by his side, wiping the already immaculate table with a washcloth. “What else would you like?”

Xu Sanguan, hand still poised in midair, thought for a moment but couldn’t remember what it was. Finally, he said to the waiter, “I’ll let you know when I remember.”

The waiter nodded his assent.

Just as he moved away across the room, Xu Sanguan remembered the phrase for which he had been searching and shouted across the restaurant, “I remember now!”

The waiter immediately walked back toward his table. “So what is it?”

Xu Sanguan slapped the tabletop for emphasis. “Warm up that wine for me!”

AS SOON AS Xu Sanguan came with the money, Blacksmith Fang sent for three of the six men and one of the carts he had used the day before and returned their things. Blacksmith Fang said, “Actually, all your things fit on just one cart. Yesterday I brought one cart and three men too many for the job.”

One of the three men pulled the cart through the street, while the other two stood to the sides propping up the pile of furniture and household items on top. They soon arrived at Xu Sanguan’s door.

“Xu Sanguan, if you had just given us the money yesterday, we wouldn’t have had to haul all this stuff back and forth,” they said.

“But things never work out that way,” Xu Sanguan replied as he unloaded one of the stools. “Necessity is the mother of invention. It’s only when you’re at the end of your tether that you finally figure out how to solve a problem. If I wasn’t at the end of my tether, I might have figured out a way to get out of this mess, but I wouldn’t have known whether I could actually go through with it. If the people at the hospital hadn’t told you they were going to stop giving your son his medicine, you would never have come here to confiscate my things, right? What do you think, Blacksmith Fang?”

Before Blacksmith Fang even began to nod his agreement, Xu Sanguan suddenly let out a yelp: “I’m done for!”

Startled, the blacksmith and his men looked on as Xu Sanguan repeatedly slapped the sides of his own head. They watched in silence, unsure as to whether Xu Sanguan actually intended to do himself bodily harm.

Then Xu Sanguan gazed mournfully over toward Blacksmith Fang. “I forgot to drink water.” Xu Sanguan had only just remembered that he hadn’t drunk any water before he went to sell blood. “I forgot to drink water.”

“Water?” Blacksmith Fang and his men were mystified. “What water?”

“Any water would do.”

Xu Sanguan picked up the stool he had just unloaded, set it down by the wall, and sat down. He lifted up his arm, flexed his muscles so that the veins began to protrude, rolled down his sleeve, and gazed at the reddish puncture mark on the skin underneath.

“I sold two bowls. But those two bowls were thick enough for three. If only I hadn’t forgotten to drink water. It just seems like nothing’s going right for me these days.”

Blacksmith Fang and his men asked, “Two bowls of what?”

XU YULAN was at her father’s place, sitting in the rattan chair where he usually took his afternoon nap, wiping the tears from her face. Her father sat across from her, and his eyes were red around the rims from crying. Xu Yulan told him about how Blacksmith Fang and his men had come to take their things. She provided her father with an inventory of what they had taken, ticking off each item with her fingers.

Then she added a list of what remained. When she was finished, she added, “It took them two hours to take away ten years of hard work. They even took those two silk robes, the ones you gave me for my wedding dowry. I’d never even used them.”

Just as she was ticking off her household on her fingers, Blacksmith Fang and his men were busy putting each item back into its original place. By the time she got home, the job was finished. She stood at the door gazing wide-eyed into the house. Her ten years of hard work were once again laid out neatly inside the room. Her eyes shifted back and forth from the table to the trunks and over to the stools. She looked everything over, then went to look for the man with whom she’d worked together for those ten years to make a home. Xu Sanguan was sitting by the table inside the house.

Xu Yulan asked Xu Sanguan, “So who did you borrow the money from?”

As she spoke, Xu Yulan reached out her hand and pressed her fingers to the tip of Xu Sanguan’s nose, rocking it back and forth until it started to ache. Xu Sanguan pulled her hand away, but she simply replaced it with the other hand.

“You’ve paid Blacksmith Fang back,” she continued, “but now we’re in debt to someone else. That’s just taking bricks from the east wall to repair the west wall. What are you going to do about the holes in the east wall? Who’s going to lend you more money to pay back the debt?”

Xu Sanguan rolled up his sleeve to show her the puncture mark on his arm. “See that? See the red spot? The spot where it looks like I got bitten by a fly? That’s from the thickest needle they’ve got at the hospital.” Then Xu Sanguan rolled his sleeve back down. “I sold blood! I sold my own blood to pay back He Xiaoyong’s debt. I sold my own blood so I could keep on being a cuckold.”

When Xu Yulan understood what he was saying, she erupted, “Aiya! You sold your blood and didn’t even ask me about it first? Why didn’t you say something? We’re through, we’re finished. This family is ruined! What will people think if they find out that someone in the family’s been selling blood? They’ll say that Xu Sanguan’s been selling blood, Xu Sanguan’s all washed up, Xu Sanguan’s gone and sold his own blood.”