Yu Hua - Brothers

Everyone then realized that Poet Zhao must be innocent of this whole affair and therefore once again started suspecting others, but during the entire process no one thought of Wandering Zhou. Zhou was an extraordinary charlatan. He arrived in Liu Town at the same time as the three thousand virgin beauties, who had slept with the judges, with the political leaders, with Baldy Li, with PR Liu— essentially with everyone. The judges, political leaders, Baldy Li, and PR Liu were all hoodwinked, having slept with women who either had surgically reconstructed hymens or were using artificial ones. Wandering Zhou, meanwhile, was the only one who slept with an authentic virgin, transforming the only genuine virgin in Liu Town, Missy Su, into an ex-virgin.

Missy Su still sat at the cashiers counter every day, but now she no longer chatted with the waitresses or customers. Wandering Zhou's unannounced departure had left her heartbroken, and from that point on she was somber and grim. Mama Su would often stare off into space and sigh, and sometimes she would secretly cry. What she couldn't figure out was why her fate was now being repeated by her daughter. At first everyone was curious and excited, but gradually they got used to the situation, pointing out that the same thing had happened to Mama Su and that no one knew who had gotten her knocked up — they only knew that she subsequently gave birth to Missy Su. Now Missy Sus belly was made big by a mysterious man, and nine months later she too gave birth to a daughter. Missy Su named her Su Zhou, but even then no one suspected that the itinerant charlatan Wandering Zhou was the father. By this point everyone had lost interest in speculating and shifted their attention to divination: They predicted that after this girl grew up, her belly would also mysteriously get large, just like that of her grandmother and mother. They concluded confidently, "That is fate."

WHEN WANDERING ZHOU left Liu Town for Shanghai with Song Gang, he headed south along the railway system and hoped to repeat his enormous success, this time selling male virility-enhancing pills. Zhou and Song Gang got off the train at a couple of midsize cities along the railroad and hawked their male-potency pills at the train station, at the wharf, and in the commercial districts. The neatly dressed Wandering Zhou held up a vial of imported Apollo pills in his right hand and one of domestic Fierce Zhang Fei pills in his left, announcing dramatically, "Every man wants to have a hard erection and fully display his virility. For many reasons, however, men often develop erectile problems as they grow older. This is very common."

Wandering Zhou shook the vials, letting the people crowded around hear the pills rattling inside. The Fierce Zhang Fei pills, he said, were made from a treasured formula of traditional Chinese medicine, originating in the imperial medical files of the Ming and Qing dynasties preserved in the Forbidden City's Palace Museum and created from a synthesis of the best concoctions used at the time. As for the imported Apollo ones, he said that they were the pride of foreigners, formulated on the basis of the American company Pfizer s Viagra but with additional genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Wandering Zhou was like a street vendor with his peddlers drum, waving the vials around and cordially telling everyone that their formal name was Virility Enhancing Pills but colloquially they were called Bigger, Thicker, Longer Lasting Pills. Wandering Zhou patted his chest and guaranteed that just two to three doses could make you a "real macho man."

By this point Song Gang had realized that Wandering Zhou was a charlatan. As their long-distance bus left Liu Town and set off toward Shanghai, Zhou pulled off Song Gangs face mask and threw it out the window into some tree branches. Wandering Zhou told Song Gang that now no one knew of his illness and therefore his lungs could be considered cured. Song Gang breathed the Shanghai air, then turned around and looked back at his face mask hanging from the branch. When the bus turned a corner, the mask disappeared from view.

It was a few days into their journey, though, that Song Gang really understood what kind of person Wandering Zhou was. After traveling down many dark alleys, they arrived at an underground warehouse full of counterfeit tobacco and liquor. In a dark corner of the warehouse, Wandering Zhou bought two boxes of virility-enhancing pills. Then he and Song Gang, carrying their boxes of Fierce Zhang Fei and Apollo pills, hopped aboard a train headed south and embarked on an excruciatingly long and unsuccessful year trying to sell them off.

The cheap "hard seat" rail compartment they rode in was full of itinerant workers heading south, speaking a wide variety of dialects. Some were going to Canton, and others planned to take the ferry to Hainan Island. All of them were young bachelors hoping to earn some money and then return home, get married, and have a child. Wandering Zhou sat among them, a smile plastered on his face, occasionally striking up a conversation with some of the laborers and periodically glancing up at the two boxes of virility-enhancing pills up in the luggage rack. Song Gang felt that Wandering Zhou looked quite comical, dressed so nicely and sitting among all of these itinerant laborers. Two laborers asked Wandering Zhou what he did for a living, and Zhou glanced at Song Gang and casually answered, "Health products." Zhou knew that these laborers didn't have any money to be swindled out of and therefore didn't even bother trying to make a sales pitch.

Song Gang realized that everything Wandering Zhou had said in Liu Town was a complete lie. He looked sadly out the window at the endless fields, feeling very agitated. What prospects did he have following this charlatan around? Song Gang didn't know. But when he remembered that Wandering Zhou had, in fact, earned a huge sum of money in Liu, Song Gang began to be feel more hopeful. He hoped that he could quickly earn a fortune and then return home. The sum he set his sights on was one hundred thousand yuan, because with that Lin Hong wouldn't have to worry about anything. For Lin Hong, Song Gang told himself, I'd be willing to do anything.

For several years, Song Gang had been breathing through a saliva-soaked face mask, so during the first few days without a mask he felt that the air had become unusually dry. While Song Gang was fairly quiet to begin with, after following Wandering Zhou on his swindles, he became even more silent. Often he would wake up in the middle of the night and recall his departure from Liu Town, imagining how Lin Hong must have ridden her bike home from the factory and found the house empty, and his eyes would tear up. Many mornings, when he would walk out of an unfamiliar hotel and into the streets of an unfamiliar part of the country, he would feel a strong urge to return to Liu Town, to Lin Hongs side. But the die was cast, and he told himself that he couldn't return empty-handed. Now he had to grin and bear it and follow Wandering Zhou on the road.

Song Gang would often take out that picture of himself and Lin Hong and examine it closely. Their lives had been so perfect, and that Eternity bicycle had been a symbol of their happiness. For the first few months, the photograph served as Song Gangs spiritual support, but after half a year he couldn't bring himself to even look at it. At the mere sight of Lin Hong's smiling face, he would begin to feel uneasy and be overcome by a wave of homesickness. Therefore, from that point on he left the photograph locked up in his luggage and struggled to forget it existed.

The two traveled to five cities over the course of the next two months. Zhou's method of hawking his virility-enhancing pills resembled that of a highway bandit: He would grab a passerby by the shoulder and begin speaking nonstop. He shouted himself hoarse but during those two months only managed to sell ten vials of medicine, five each of the Apollo and Fierce Zhang Fei brands. Song Gang also tried to sell the pills but proceeded much as he had when selling the little magnolia flowers in Liu Town — politely inquiring of middle-aged men as they walked by, "Do you need enhancing pills?"