Yu Hua - Brothers

RECLAIM YOUR INTACT HYMEN! SUCCESS RATE OF THE OPERATION: 100 %. SATISFACTION RATE: 99.8 %. PROBABILITY THAT YOU WILL BLEED DURING YOUR NEXT DEFLOWERING: 99.8 %.

As the hymen economy sprang up it added fuel to Baldy Li's Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition. During that period, money from sponsorships and advertising companies flowed continuously into Baldy Li's accounts, and Baldy Li, his eyes completely bloodshot, continued furiously making phone calls, inviting new sponsors and advertisers to join. He spent the entire day hoarsely shouting into the receiver, "This is an opportunity that you simply can't pass up. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

PR Liu became busier than he had ever been before, complaining that he was not only Baldy Li's fucking media spokesman but had to take care of all of Baldy Li's other fucking affairs as well. Baldy Li was concerned only with screaming into the telephone receiver like an executioner, asking everyone for money like a beggar, and couldn't trouble himself with other matters. PR Liu, therefore, had to delegate. He had to hire more assistants every day, and since his office had long been too small to accommodate everyone, he borrowed someone else's and eventually simply rented himself a small house, where he hung up a formal sign saying INAUGURAL NATIONAL VIRGIN BEAUTY COMPETITION ORGANIZING COMMITTEE. In the interest of both confidentiality and security, PR Liu asked Baldy Li to call the county division of armed police, and from that point on there were always two armed policemen standing guard at the entrance of the organizing committee building. Each of the committee's workers had to wear a badge with a photo ID, and anyone without this badge shouldn't even consider trying to get in.

After Baldy Li initially became famous, people started calling Liu Town Baldy Li Town, and now that his Virgin Beauty Competition became similarly well-known, everyone took to calling it Virgin Beauty Town instead. Virgin Beauty Town launched a series of beautification projects. The county government arranged to have all the houses along the road repainted and used all the county's radio and television broadcasts, as well as directives to each of its work units, to request that each family wash their windows so thoroughly that they appear invisible. They further requested that each family refrain from throwing garbage out and, especially after the competition began, that they hide their garbage under their beds. They enforced this ban by decreeing that anyone who threw out twenty jin of garbage would have to pay a fine equivalent to the price of twenty jin of pork. The government called on everyone to mobilize and asked that they help make Virgin Beauty Town as delicate and charming as the most exquisitely adorned woman, in order to put forward the most dazzling appearance while playing host for the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition. Then the town decked itself out with lanterns and decorations, stringing banners along all the streets and from all the buildings. Giant billboard frames were erected along the street that was going to be used for the competition, and billboard advertisements that Baldy Li had secured with his screaming telephone calls started appearing in them one after another.

The week before the competition was set to begin, the town was already overflowing with visitors. The first to arrive were the reporters, with print journalists and broadcast journalists arriving in one clump after another. Next the television and radio trucks drove in, followed by the VIPs, who were Baldy Li's sponsors and advertisers, as well as political leaders and the judges for the event. The most luxurious hotel in Liu was one of Baldy Li's, and he crammed the reporters, friends, and VIPs into it, filling it to capacity.

Originally, more than twenty thousand beautiful virgins had registered for the event, but because they had to pay for their own room and board, in the end only three thousand showed up. They came from throughout China, and all the hotels and guesthouses in Liu were completely booked. What had originally been twin rooms were made into four-person rooms, and still they couldn't accommodate all the virgin beauties. In the interest of preserving Liu Town's upstanding image, the country government called on everyone to donate their beds for the virgin beauties to use. The reasoning was that it would not do to have the beauties camped out in the street, because what would happen if some of the local men couldn't control their urges and raped them in the middle of the night? Even if they didn't rape but just copped a feel or two, the entire town would still lose face. Fortunately, it was summertime, and everyone responded enthusiastically to the call, with the men of many households taking their bedrolls and sleeping outside in the streets and alleys, thereby allowing the visiting virgins to use their beds. Poet Zhao also slept in the streets and lent out his one-bedroom apartment to two virgin beauties, with each virgin paying him one hundred yuan a day in rent.

Song Gang and Lin Hong too lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and when Song Gang saw that Poet Zhao was earning two hundred yuan a day, Song Gang proposed that he sleep outside while Lin Hong remained at home, thereby at least allowing them to earn one hundred yuan a day hosting one virgin beauty. Lin Hong, however, vetoed the idea, noting that Song Gang was ill and shouldn't be sleeping outside. When he insisted, Lin Hong got angry, saying that now that he was going to the hospital every day for shots and treatment, his health was finally improving, but if he were to sleep outside, it would surely deteriorate, and the money they would waste on medical treatment would surely exceed any they might have earned from rent. Song Gang didn't know that Baldy Li was supporting them, since Lin Hong had told him that her parents and their friends were paying for the medical expenses. Song Gang had already placed his bedroll next to Poet Zhao's when he saw Lin Hong standing in the doorway weeping tears of fury. Therefore, he had no option but to roll up his bedroll and return home. Those days Song Gang would open his front door every morning and the first person he would see would be Poet Zhao stretching at his spot under the electrical pole. When Zhao saw Song Gang, he would sit up and start chatting animatedly, claiming that sleeping in the street was more comfortable than sleeping in his own bed, and pointing out that it was much cooler out here, not to mention that he was also earning two hundred yuan a day. Song Gang was very envious, but noticing that Poet Zhao's face was covered with mosquito bites, he asked, "What's wrong with your face?"

Poet Zhao answered proudly, "These are acne pimples."

IT WAS at this juncture that the itinerant charlatan Wandering Zhou arrived in Liu Town.

Wandering Zhou was a sight to behold: Like all con men these days, he had a movie stars good looks. He walked over from the bus depot with two twenty-nine-inch color television boxes and only five yuan in his pocket. Actually apart from Chief Sub Song Gang, every man in Liu had more money in his pockets than did Wandering Zhou, yet they all felt poor. Even with only five yuan, however, Wandering Zhou had the air of someone who was on China s Forbes 400 list.

It was dusk and the moon had not yet come out, yet the lights from the streetlamps and the neon signs were already shimmering past one another on the streets. It was so muggy that the crowds wished they could simply run around naked. Wandering Zhou, however, was dressed formally in a suit and leather shoes. He set the two boxes down by his feet and stood on the street outside the bus depot, looking as cool and comfortable as if he were in an air-conditioned hall. Flashing a China Forbes 400 smile, he asked everyone walking back and forth, "Is this Virgin Beauty Town?"