Yu Hua - Brothers

Song Gang would blush and, out of habit, look around for Wandering Zhou, only to find himself surrounded by strange faces. Now he had to answer the questions Zhou would normally have answered on his behalf. He nodded uneasily and, lowering his head in shame, would say softly, "Uh-huh."

His shame moved many of the women and made them think that this man looked honest and reliable. Therefore, even without Wandering Zhou's clever talk and ingratiating manner, Song Gang continued to sell vial after vial of the cream. The male passersby were not as tactful as the women, and when they saw Song Gang's breasts, they would respond as if they were drugged, their eyes glued to Song Gang's chest as if they were staring through a microscope.

Song Gang didn't know, as he wandered through Hainan, that the silicone implants had begun to harden. He just knew that the breasts were beginning to feel as hard as stones. At the same time, his lung disease staged a comeback. Before he quit taking his medicine, he had stopped coughing, but now, exhausted from traveling continuously, he often felt that he was suffocating and would wake up coughing in the middle of the night. Song Gang was worried not so much about his body as about the future. He saw the box of bust-enhancing cream become emptier and emptier, until finally there were only five vials left. He was disconsolate, because he didn't know what he would sell after the Boobs cream was gone. Without Zhou, Song Gang was adrift, like a leaf fluttering aimlessly after leaving the tree. It was then that he came to understand what solitude was, the only thing keeping him company being the photograph of himself and Lin Hong. He carried it with him wherever he went, but he couldn't bring himself to actually look at it. He wanted desperately to go home but hadn't yet earned enough money to provide for Lin Hong for the rest of her life. Therefore, he had no choice but to continue wandering aimlessly, like a solitary leaf.

Song Gang was standing in the marketplace of some small town, trying to sell the final five vials of bust-enhancing cream. A fifty-year-old man was shouting himself hoarse hawking cutlery. This man had more than ten kinds of knives spread out on the ground, including kitchen knives, cleavers, fruit knives and paring knives, as well as bayonets, throwing knives, and daggers. Holding a cleaver in his hand, he cried out, "This is forged from tungsten steel and can cut through carbon steel, cold-pressed steel, stainless steel, cast steel, and titanium alloy. Every cleaver here is guaranteed to draw blood without a single nick in the blade."

As he spoke the man knelt down and demonstrated, with one blow slicing through a thick metal wire. After he stood up, he lifted the cleaver and walked around, asking the onlookers to inspect the blade to see if it had gotten chipped. After all the onlookers confirmed that it was not chipped, he squatted down again, rolled up his pants, and then began using the blade to shave off his leg hair as though he were shaving his beard. He then stood up with a fistful of leg hair in his hand and walked around, letting the onlookers get a good look.

"Do you see?" he cried out. "This is a legendary precious blade, which can slice through steel as through clay and shaves hair as if with a mere breath." Then he explained, "What is tungsten steel? It is the world's hardest and most precious metal and is used not only for blades but also for expensive watches. Tungsten-steel watches are even more valuable than gold ones. The two Swiss ‘Ni brands and the Chinese Yibo brand are all tungsten-steel watches."

"What do you mean by the two Swiss ‘Ni brands and the Chinese Yibo brand?" the onlookers asked in confusion.

"The two Swiss ‘Ni brands are Genie and Rossini, both of which are known around the world." He added, "Yibo watches are China's own famous brand."

That afternoon Song Gang sold three vials of Boobs cream. He stood at a distant point in the market and couldn't see the knife seller's face, though he heard his hoarse shouts for three hours straight. Song Gang estimated that, at most, the man had sold five or six knives before placing his unsold merchandise into a canvas bag and walking toward Song Gang, his knives rattling over his shoulder. As he was passing Song Gang the enormous pair of breasts caught his attention. He peered down, glanced up at Song Gang, then with a look of utter astonishment said, "You are obviously a man…"

Song Gang was already used to this sort of remark, so he merely smiled and looked at the man, then looked away. He suddenly felt that this man looked very familiar, but when he turned back, the man laughed and walked away. After he'd walked about ten yards, the knife seller stopped, turned around, and looked at Song Gang more carefully, then tentatively asked, "Song Gang?"

Song Gang then asked in surprise, "Are you Little Scissors Guan?"

In this way, two Liu Town sojourners met up in a distant province. Little Guan walked up to Song Gang and looked him over as though he were inspecting a knife blade. He looked at Song Gang's face, then at his fake breasts. He seemed to want to say something but then stopped himself and instead looked up at Song Gang's face and said, "Song Gang, you have aged."

"You have also aged," Song Gang said.

"It's been more than ten years." Little Guan laughed bitterly. "I haven't seen anyone from Liu Town for more than ten years. I never expected that I would run into you here. How long have you been away?"

"Over a year," Song Gang said sadly.

"Why did you leave?" Little Guan shook his head. "What did you come to do?"

"I sell health products," Song Gang stammered.

Little Guan reached for the last two vials of Boobs cream and looked at them, then couldn't help but look at Song Gangs breasts. Song Gang blushed and said softly, "These are fake."

Little Guan nodded. He pulled Song Gangs arm, inviting him to come sit for a while at the place where he was staying. Song Gang put the remaining two vials of Boobs cream into his pocket, then walked a long way with Little Guan. By dusk they had arrived at an area full of itinerant workers on the edge of the city. Little Guan led Song Gang along a muddy road lined with decrepit shacks. The shacks all had clothes hanging out in front, with women cooking on coal stoves in the doorways and men standing around smoking, chatting lazily with one another. Children were running around crazily each dirty from head to toe. Little Guan told Song Gang that he would generally stay in a place for about a month before moving on, because if he stayed any longer, it became difficult to continue selling his cutlery. He explained that he was now about to move again. Little Guan brought Song Gang to a dilapidated shack, where a dark-skinned woman in her forties was standing in the doorway hanging up clothes. Little Guan called out to her, "We're leaving tomorrow, so why are you washing clothes?"

The woman turned around and replied tartly, "It's precisely because we are leaving tomorrow that I need to wash clothes today."

Little Guan replied angrily, "We're taking the bus early tomorrow morning. What will we do if the clothes aren't dry yet?"

The woman replied confidently, "Then you can go first and I'll wait behind for the clothes."

"Fuck," Little Guan said, "I must have been blind when I married you."

"I was blind to have married you," she replied.

Little Guan angrily turned to Song Gang and explained, "This is my wife."

Song Gang nodded and smiled at the woman, and she looked quizzically at Song Gang's enormous breasts. Little Guan pointed to Song Gang and said, "This is Song Gang, from my hometown."

Little Guan noticed his wife staring at Song Gang's breasts and said unhappily, "What are you looking at? These are fake, he needed them for business."

Little Guan's wife nodded, then smiled at Song Gang. Little Guan led Song Gang into a hundred-square-foot room containing a bed, a cabinet, a table, and four chairs. Little Guan took out the knives he was carrying and placed them in a corner, then invited Song Gang to sit down. He then sat himself and called out to his wife, "Quick, fix us some food."