Yu Hua - Brothers

By this point Song Gang had been away from home for half a year. While in Fujian he had called Lin Hong three times — each time he called her in the evening while standing in front of the convenience store, with dust blowing through the streets and passersby talking loudly in the local Minnan dialect. Song Gang would grab the receiver tightly with both hands, as if he were afraid someone would come and snatch it from him. His palms wet with sweat, he stammered softly, completely incoherent. At the other end of the line, Lin Hong's voice sounded half-crazed with anxiety as she entreated him to return immediately. Repeating "Come home" over and over, she asked Song Gang how he had been feeling, and Song Gang replied that his health had been good and his lung disease was cured. Then, in a voice as soft as a mosquito, he added, "I don't cough anymore."

Song Gang had to repeat himself several times before Lin Hong understood. Then she hollered, "Are you still taking your medicine?"

At this point Song Gang hung up the phone and, as he was putting it down, said softly, "I've stopped taking it."

Then he stood, confused, on the lamplit street, watching one stranger after another pass by and listening to their voices. Finally he shook his head and slowly began to make his way back to the cheap hotel where they were staying.

When he arrived, Wandering Zhou was sitting cross-legged on the bed, wiping his tears as he watched a Korean soap opera on television. While in Fujian, Wandering Zhou had watched three and a half Korean miniseries, and after arriving in Canton he searched through all the television channels but couldn't find the second half of the last miniseries. He proceeded to curse all of Canton and then, when he finally calmed down, went out to peddle his Boobs cream.

For the next several months, the Minnan dialect they heard in Fujian was replaced by Cantonese, and although they went to fifteen different locations, they managed to sell only ten or so vials of the cream. In a moment of despair, Wandering Zhou suddenly had an inspiration and decided to sell the cream to beauty salons at a discount, but he discovered that all the salons were already selling bust-enhancing creams of their own. Wandering Zhou then investigated the pharmacies and department stores and discovered that they too were selling their own bust-enhancing creams. They saw more than a hundred brands of breast creams, and all of them were cheaper than their own Boobs brand. Zhou found himself at an impasse as he and Song Gang wandered aimlessly like headless flies trying to sell their Boobs cream on unfamiliar streets. The two looked around depressed, asking each other what they should do next. Wandering Zhou had lost confidence in selling the Boobs cream, so whenever he saw a young woman walk by, he pushed Song Gang to go speak to her while he stood behind him like a sentry. Song Gang would walk over with a bowed head and respectfully ask the young women, "Do you need bust-enhancing cream?"

The women always looked as if they had been accosted by a thief and scurried away while tightly grasping their purses. One pretty young woman didn't hear clearly and therefore paused and asked, "What?"

Song Gang gestured at his own chest, saying, "Bust-enhancing cream, in order to make your breasts bigger and firmer."

"You hooligan!" The woman backed away as she cursed them. Other passersby also stopped and stared at Song Gang, who started blushing and went back to Wandering Zhou, standing as though nothing was happening.

Around this time, Zhou had found a new Korean soap opera on a local television station, so he would spend the entire day being frustrated at every turn but at night would recover his spirits. During the first hour of the Korean drama he sat attentive on the edge of the bed with the remote control in his hand and asked Song Gang to take a walk outside so as not to interrupt his viewing pleasure. He added that if Song Gang didn't want to leave, he could stay, but "you mustn't make a sound."

Song Gang didn't stay in the room but wandered aimlessly through this foreign city, staring through countless windows of countless buildings. Eventually he stopped under a tree by the side of the road and watched spellbound through some family's window as a young husband and wife walked around inside. Sometimes a single shadow would appear in front of the window, sometimes there would be two, and sometimes there would be only the light of a lamp. Song Gang stood staring for a long time, until the husband and wife walked up to the window together and lowered the curtain, kissing each other as they did so. This scene brought tears to Song Gang's eyes. At that moment he yearned so intensely for Lin Hong and wanted more than anything to soar directly back to Liu Town. But he didn't know when he would start making some money. Dejected, he felt that the day he would finally be able to return to Liu Town was retreating further and further into the distance.

While they were in Canton, Wandering Zhou watched four entire Korean miniseries. Eventually, he became irritated to discover that he could no longer find any new ones. At that point they were on the coast, staying in a second-floor room of a dilapidated old hotel. Across the street was a billboard advertising bust-enhancing cream. Rather than a pretty young woman, however, the billboard featured a muscular hunk. This hunk was wearing a red bra over enormous breasts and a red G-string below. Wandering Zhou hadn't noticed this billboard, but after he calmed down and reconciled himself to the fact that there were no more Korean series to watch, he sat downcast on the bed, and his thoughts eventually returned to the bust-enhancing cream. The charlatan took out his calculator and started furiously punching in numbers. Half an hour later he looked up with an aggrieved expression and said simply, "We're fucked!"

Song Gang already knew that they were fucked. After six months of running around they had succeeded in selling only ten vials of the cream, during which time Wandering Zhou had become addicted to Korean melodramas the way a decadent ruler might become addicted to women. Now that there weren't any more melodramas to watch, Wandering Zhou had to face reality. He told Song Gang that if they couldn't sell all of the remaining vials within a month, they would have no alternative but to go to court. When Song Gang asked him what the point of going to court would be, Zhou tugged at his tie and, sounding like a boss of a State factory that was about to close, replied, "To apply for bankruptcy protection."

Song Gang laughed bitterly, wondering how Wandering Zhou found it in him to speak so grandly when they had fallen so low. Just as the two felt that they had reached a dead end, Zhou suddenly noticed the bust-enhancing-cream billboard across the street. He stared at the image of the magnificent hunk wearing bikini briefs and cried out in astonishment, "Bikinis!"

Song Gang also saw it, and his jaw dropped. Even in his wildest dreams he had never imagined such an advertisement. Wandering Zhou again muttered to himself, "I never imagined that men could also have a pair of plump breasts."

It was then that Wandering Zhou had his inspiration. After his eyes left the billboard, he began to stare lecherously at Song Gang. Song Gang felt very uneasy with Wandering Zhou looking at him like that and asked, "What are you thinking?"

Wandering Zhou sighed. "If only you had a pair of plump breasts, we would certainly be able to sell out our entire stock of Boobs bust-enhancing cream in no time."

Song Gang blushed to the roots. When Wandering Zhou saw Song Gang's face assume a sort of feminine bashfulness, his eyes lit up, and he enthusiastically began to lay out his plan. They would give Song Gang a boob job, and after he had an impressive pair of knockers, he would look as attractive as that hunk in the billboard. Zhou patiently explained that breast-enlargement surgery was just minor surgery and could be done in an outpatient clinic. He said, "It's as simple as hymen-recon surgery."