Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

Then Xu Sanguan remembered that he had yet to give them any salt. He fished the packet from out of his pocket and passed it to them. “Eat a little salt first. When your mouth gets dry, you’ll be able to drink.”

The brothers took the packet and began to eat the salt. After a while Laixi said he was ready to drink. He skimmed another bowlful of water and took three gulps. Then he started to shiver. “You’re right. When your mouth’s all salty, it’s easier to drink it.”

He drank a few more gulps. When the bowl was dry, he passed it to Laishun and sat trembling with his arms wrapped around his own shoulders. Laishun took a few gulps but managed to finish the bowl only after letting out a long string of curses and exclamations.

Xu Sanguan took the bowl and said to them, “I’ll go first after all. Watch how it’s done.”

The brothers sat on the stone steps and watched as Xu Sanguan tapped a bit of salt into his palm and popped it into his mouth. His mouth twitched. Then he fished up a bowlful of water and drank it in one gulp. He drank two bowls in a row, stopped, poured more salt into his palm, and popped it into his mouth. He repeated these motions until he had swallowed eight bowls of water, never once wiping the water from around his mouth or allowing himself to shiver. Only when he was finished did he finally wipe his mouth, wrap his arms around his shoulders, and shudder with the cold. Then he burped three times. After burping three times, he sneezed three times.

When he finished sneezing, he turned to the brothers and said, “I’ve drunk enough. Your turn.”

Each of the brothers drank five bowls, then declared, “I can’t drink any more. Any more water, and my stomach will freeze solid.”

Xu Sanguan, realizing that “a man can’t get fat from a single bite of food,” let them stop there. That they had been able to drink five bowls of icy river water on their first try was enough. He stood and led them to the hospital.

When they got there, Laixi and Laishun sold their blood first. He was happy to discover that they too had type O blood. “The three of us all have circle type blood.”

After they had sold their blood at the Huang’s Inn County Hospital, Xu Sanguan brought them to a restaurant by the river. He sat in front of the window, and the brothers sat at his flanks. “You can be thrifty at other times, but at a time like this you have to spend a little extra. Do your legs feel weak now that you’ve sold blood?” He saw them nod. “That’s what it feels like after you’ve been with a woman. Your legs go weak. At times like this you have to eat a plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine. The pork livers build up the blood, and the wine gives it life.” As he spoke, he began to tremble.

Laishun said to him, “You’re shaking. When you’re done with a woman, do you shake after your legs go soft?”

Xu Sanguan chuckled and gestured in Laishun’s direction. “I see what you mean. But this time it’s only because I’ve been selling blood the whole way here.” Xu Sanguan crossed two fingers to make the character for ten. “In the last ten days I’ve sold blood four times. If you did it with a woman four times in one day, weak legs and trembling would be just the start of it. You’d start to feel cold chills too.”

Noting that the waiter was winding his way toward their table, he lowered his voice.

“Put your hands on the table. Don’t let them hang underneath the table like people who’ve never been to a restaurant before. You want to look like you always come to places like this, if only for some wine. Straighten up and hold your heads high. You have to do this with style. When you order, make sure to slap the table and speak up. That way they won’t dare cheat you, or skimp on the food, or water down the wine. When the waiter comes over to our table, just follow my lead.”

The waiter came over to the table and asked what they wanted. Xu Sanguan was no longer shivering. Rapping the table for emphasis, he barked, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.” He waved his right hand back and forth through the air and added, “Warm the wine up for me.”

The waiter took his order and turned to Laishun.

Laishun pounded on the table with his fist until it rocked back and forth. Then he demanded with a shout, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”

Laishun forgot what he was supposed to say next. He looked toward Xu Sanguan, but Xu Sanguan merely twisted his head in Laixi’s direction. The waiter had already begun to take Laixi’s order.

Laixi tapped the table with his fingertips, but he used a voice every bit as earsplitting as Laishun’s as he called out to the waiter, “A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine.”

Laixi also forgot what he was supposed to say next.

The waiter asked, “Should I warm the wine up for you?”

The two brothers turned questioningly toward Xu Sanguan. Xu Sanguan once again waved his right arm back and forth through the air, proclaiming in a magisterial tone, “Of course.”

After the waiter left, Xu Sanguan lowered his voice. “I didn’t tell you to scream. I just wanted you to speak up. What were you shouting about? It’s not like this is a fight or something. And Laishun, next time you should use your fingers, not your fist. Otherwise you might just break the table in two. And don’t ever forget the last part about warming up the wine. As soon as they hear you say the last part, they’ll know that you’re a regular at a restaurant. That’s the main thing.”

After they ate the fried pork livers and drank the wine, they returned to the boat. Laixi untied the rope from its mooring and pushed the boat away from the embankment with the bamboo pole while Laishun stood at the stern rowing with the oar. When they maneuvered the boat beyond the bank and out into the middle of the river, Laishun called out, “On to Tiger’s Head Bridge.”

His body rocked back and forth as he rowed, and the oar sang as it first divided, then danced above the river’s flow. Xu Sanguan sat at the prow of the barge, just behind Laixi, watching the bamboo pole move gracefully through his hands. Whenever they reached a bridge, Laixi would prop the pole against the foundations, ensuring a smooth passage through the passageway beneath the arch.

The afternoon light faded, and the sunlight no longer shone quite as warmly across their faces. As they rowed past Huang’s Inn, a fresh breeze began to blow, and the reeds on either side of the river rustled and sang. As Xu Sanguan sat on the barge’s prow, waves of cold shivered through his body. He wrapped himself in his cotton-padded jacket, his hands grasping his knees so that he curled himself into a kind of ball.

Laishun, still rowing at the stern, shouted at him, “Go down into the cabin. We don’t need you to help out up here anyway. Might as well go take a nap in the cabin.”

Laixi added, “Go on down to the cabin.”

Xu Sanguan, noting the gusto with which the breathless and sweat-drenched Laishun was throwing himself into his rowing, said, “You sold two bowls of blood, but you look so energetic that you’d never know.”

Laishun said, “When we first started out, my legs felt a little weak, but not now. Ask Laixi if his legs are still weak.”

“They were a while ago, but not now.”

Laishun said to Laixi, “When we get to Seven-Mile Fort, let’s sell two more bowls of blood. What do you think?”

“Sure. It’s thirty-five yuan, right?”

Xu Sanguan said to them, “You two are still so young. I really can’t keep up with you. I’m getting old. I’m sitting here shivering from head to toe. I’m going down to the cabin to sleep.”