Yu Hua - Brothers

One boy then specified, "That is the same Baldy Li who peeked at your bottom in the public toilet."

Lin Hong immediately turned deathly pale. Initially stunned, the other women then covered their mouths and stared giggling. The boys continued shouting, "Baldy Li wants to have intercourse with you."

Lin Hong became so furious that her eyes welled up with tears. She bit her lip and rushed forward. Her workmates behind her couldn't stop laughing. The boys then remembered that there was another phrase that they hadn't yet uttered, and so they pursued her like a bunch of rabbits and shouted after her, "Are you ready?"

Now that they had completed the glorious task that Baldy Li had assigned them, they proceeded to traipse, flushed with excitement, around the group of factory workers. The young women caressed the boys’ heads and faces adoringly and asked them to describe everything from beginning to end. They did so, and the women doubled over in peals of laughter, laughing so hard that they couldn't get back up.

The boys ran back to the Good Works Factory, which by this point had also closed. Then they asked for directions and ran, hollering, to Baldy Li's house. As Baldy Li and Song Gang walked out the five children met them at the door with their right hands extended. Baldy Li knew that they had come to collect their reward, so he removed the five pieces of candy from his pocket and placed them one by one in their palms. The children immediately ripped off the wrappers and popped the candies into their mouths. Baldy Li asked them hopefully "Did she smile?" He mimed a shy smile for them and asked, "Did she smile like this?"

The children shook their heads and replied, "No, she cried."

Baldy Li looked at Song Gang in surprise and said, "She must have been very moved."

He again asked the children hopefully, "She must have blushed?"

The children again shook their heads and replied, "No, she turned pale."

He looked at Song Gang in befuddlement. "That can't be — she should have blushed."

"No, she definitely turned pale," the children replied.

Baldy Li started to look at the children suspiciously and said, "Did you by any chance shout the wrong thing?"

"Of course not," they replied. "We shouted, ‘Baldy Li wants to have intercourse with you.’ We even added, ‘Are you ready?'"

Baldy Li roared like a crazed beast, "Who told you to say intercourse? Who the fuck told you to say intercourse?"

The children started trembling from head to toe and stammered as they tried to explain. However, they didn't know Poet Zhao, and therefore they couldn't clearly identify who it was who had given them the wrong word. They slowly backed away as they spoke, then turned and fled. Baldy Li was so furious that his face turned ashen, even whiter than Lin Hong's had been. He waved his fist and roared, "That son-of-a-bitch class enemy, whoever he is, I swear I'll ferret him out, and will definitely carry out a proletarian revolution against him!"

Baldy Li was so furious that his chest heaved in and out like an accordion. Song Gang patted his shoulder and told him that there was no point in getting angry. Instead, Song Gang suggested, Baldy Li should immediately go find Lin Hong and apologize. So the following afternoon, when it was time for Lin Hong to get off work, Baldy Li and Song Gang were waiting outside the main door of the knitting factory. When the bell rang signaling the end of the workday and the women workers started filing out, Baldy Li began to feel a little nervous. He said it was time to go out to face the firing squad. He asked Song Gang to keep a close eye out, and if things started to look bad, Song Gang should immediately tug at his clothes.

From far away Lin Hong spotted Baldy Li standing at the factory gate. She heard the other women gasp in astonishment as she walked toward the gate with a pale face. When she saw Song Gang standing next to Baldy Li, she couldn't help staring at him — this being the first time she had noticed the tall and dashing Song Gang.

When Baldy Li saw Lin Hong walk through the gate, he called out sorrowfully, "Lin Hong, it was all a misunderstanding! Yesterday, those little bastards said the wrong thing. I didn't tell them to say intercourse but, rather, to court. I, Baldy Li, want to court you."

When the women leaving the factory heard Baldy Li's sorrowful cries and saw his sorrowful expression, they again erupted into waves of laughter. Lin Hong was already numb with fury, and she walked past Baldy Li in complete silence. He followed closely behind her, raising his fist, beating his chest like a drum, and shouting, "I swear by all that is sacred and holy in the world!"

Baldy Li paid no attention to the tittering of the female factory workers, and instead continued to proclaim sorrowfully, "Those little bastards really did shout the wrong thing. There was a class enemy who messed things up."

Eventually Baldy Li began to calm down. He stopped pounding his chest and instead started knocking his own head. "That class enemy is destroying our proletariat revolutionary spirit, deliberately getting those little bastards to shout out intercourse. Lin Hong, don't worry, no matter how deeply hidden this class enemy is, I will make sure to ferret him out and conduct proletarian revolution against him."

Then Baldy Li said in all sincerity, "Lin Hong, whatever you do, don't forget class struggle!"

Finally Lin Hong couldn't stand it anymore. She turned around to face Baldy Li, who was still hollering behind her. Gritting her teeth, she uttered the foulest words she had ever uttered: "I hope you die!"

This made Baldy Li stop dead in his tracks, as if he didn't know what had hit him. It was not until the other factory workers walked past and their hysterical laughter died away that he finally recovered from the shock. He wanted to chase after her, but Song Gang restrained him. Pausing, Baldy Li gazed longingly at Lin Hong's departing shadow.

The brothers headed home. Baldy Li did not feel at all that he had failed and maintained his proud stride. Song Gang, by contrast, trailed listlessly at his side. He ventured nervously, "I don't think Lin Hong is interested in you."

"That's absurd," Baldy Li responded, adding confidently, "It's simply inconceivable that she would not be interested."

Song Gang shook his head and said, "If she really fancied you, she would not have said such an ugly thing."

"What do you know?" Baldy Li lectured Song Gang like an old hand. "Women are like that. The more they like you, the more they act like they hate you. When they do want you, they pretend that they don't."

Song Gang felt that what Baldy Li said sounded plausible. He regarded Baldy Li with surprise. "How do you know all this?"

"Worldly experience," Baldy Li replied proudly. "Just think, I often attend meetings with the other factory directors, all of whom are worldly, clever people, and they say this is how things are."

Song Gang nodded his head in admiration and conceded that the people Baldy Li hung out with were indeed a cut above the rest, and indeed it seemed that their worldliness had broadened Baldy Li's perspective, too. Just then Baldy Li abruptly cried out, "There's an aphorism that captures this idea." Baldy Li slapped his head and said regretfully, "Fuck, why can't I think of it?"

The entire walk back, Baldy Li struggled to remember the aphorism. He spit out seventeen more "fucks" but couldn't think of it. Song Gang tried to help, but by the time they got home they still hadn't made any progress. Song Gang then immediately went to look up the phrase in his middle-school dictionary of aphorisms, leafing through it on his bed for the longest time. Eventually he asked Baldy Li, "Is it playing cat and mouse?"