Mo Yan - Pow!

I barely paused in front of this building, since it wasn't occupied. Looking through one of the dirty windows, I spotted a pair of desks and a disorderly array of chairs. All brand new, they had yet to be cleaned of factory dust. A disagreeable paint smell seeped through gaps in the window and set me off on a sneezing fit.

But the main reason I chose not to dally was the captivating aroma of meat in the air. Admittedly, after the Spring Festival passed, meat dishes had stopped being a rarity at our table, but the devilish attraction of meat created an insatiable appetite, the sort of effect women have on men. You can eat your fill today and still hanker for more tomorrow. If one meaty meal somehow satisfied people's appetites for all time, Father's meatpacking plant would have had to shut down. No, the world is the way it is because people are in the habit of eating meat, and their nature is to return to it meal after meal.

Four barbecue stands have been set up in front of the temple. Four ruddy-faced cooks in tall chef's hats are standing under white umbrellas. More stands have been set up in the field on the north side of the highway, where the line of white umbrellas reminds me of the beach. By all appearances, today promises to be bigger than yesterday, with greater numbers of people who want to eat meat, who have the capacity for it and who can afford it. Despite the daily media blitz against a meat diet and the call to replace it with vegetarian fare, how many people will willingly give up eating meat? Look, Wise Monk, here comes Lan Laoda. I count him among my acquaintances, even though we're yet to have a chance to talk. But that day will come, I'm sure of that, and we'll become fast friends. In the words of his nephew, Lao Lan: ‘The friendship between our two families goes back generations.’ If not for my father's grandfather, who braved chilling dangers to take him and his siblings through a blockade and deliver them to the Nationalist area by horse cart, there'd be no glories for his descendants. Lan Laoda wields enormous power, but I, Luo Xiaotong, am a man of unique experience. Just look at the Meat God standing there. That's me in my youth. The youthful me has been transformed into a god. Lan Laoda is being carried in a simple sedan chair patterned after those Sichuan litters, its passage marked by a series of languid creaks. A fat child who's fast asleep, snoring loudly and drooling copiously, occupies another sedan chair behind him. Bodyguards are arrayed, front and back; there's also a pair of loyal, dependable middle-aged nannies. Lan Laoda's chair is set down and he steps out. He's put on weight since I last saw him, and he has bags under his eyes. He's also not as energetic as before. The second chair touches the ground, but the boy sleeps on. When the nannies move to awaken him, Lan Laoda stops them with a wave of his hand; he then tiptoes up to the sleeping boy, takes a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wipes away the spittle. The boy wakes up and gazes at him with a blank look before opening his mouth and bawling. ‘Don't cry,’ Lan Laoda says soothingly, ‘that's a good boy.’ But he cries on, so one of the nannies twirls a little red rattle-drum in front of him. The boy takes it from her, twirls it a time or two and throws it away. More tears. The other nanny says to Lan Laoda: ‘The young master must be hungry, sir.’ ‘Then get him some meat!’ he says. At the prospect of business, the four cooks bang their utensils and begin to yell:

‘ Barbecue, Mongolian barbecue !’

‘ Barbecued lamb kebabs, genuine Xinjiang lamb kebabs !’

‘ Beef teppanyaki !’

‘ Barbecued goslings !’

At a wave of Lan Laoda's hand, the bodyguards shout in unison: ‘One of each, and hurry !’

Four large platters of fragrant, steaming, sizzling, grease-dripping meat are brought up to one of the nannies, who hurriedly sets up a folding table and places it in front of the boy. The other woman ties a pink bib, with a little embroidered teddy bear, under his chin. The table is only big enough for two platters, so the bodyguards stand holding the other two, waiting to replace the first two as soon as they're empty. The nannies stand on either side to help the boy eat, which he does with his hands. He stuffs the meat, piece after piece, into his mouth. His cheeks bulge so much I can't see him actually chew, but I envision the chunks of meat working their way down his outstretched neck like little mice. I'd always considered myself a champion carnivore, and seeing this child putting meat away is like seeing a carnivorous twin, though I've taken a vow to never eat meat again. This boy is a carnivorous genius, way ahead of where I was as a youngster. I could eat meat, but I had to chew it awhile before swallowing it. There's no chewing with this five-year-old—he just stuffs it into his mouth. Two large platters of barbecued meat are gone in no time—he's definitely earned my respect. No matter how good you are, there's always someone better—how true that is! The nannies whisk away the empty platters and the bodyguards lay the next two onto the table. The boy wastes no time in grabbing a goose drumstick. His teeth are so sharp they clean away tendons better than any knife. Lan Laoda's eyes don't leave the boy's mouth for a moment. Unconsciously, his mouth moves along with the boy's, as if he too were eating. That movement epitomizes his deep feelings for the child. Only one's flesh and blood could inspire such a depth of emotion. At this point I conclude that the young carnivore is the son of Lan Laoda and the now cloistered Shen Yaoyao.

As I mulled the relationship between man and meat, I arrived at the entrance to Father's meatpacking plant. The main gate was closed and so was a smaller side gate. I knocked on the latter, which made a loud, scary noise. Since school was still in session, Father and Mother would not have been happy to see me, no matter what excuse I came up with. Lao Lan had already poisoned their minds into thinking that only by attending school could I rise above others, something they assumed was a foregone conclusion. They couldn't possibly understand me, even if I revealed everything that went on in my head. That, in essence, is the agonizing cost of genius. This was no time to show up in front of my father's plant but I was defenceless against the smell of meat rushing at me from the kitchen. I looked into the sunny blue sky and saw that it wasn't yet time for a meal at Lao Lan's. Why go to his house for lunch? Neither Father nor Mother went home to eat. Nor did Lao Lan. Instead, he had Huang Biao's daughter-in-law do all the cooking and look after his invalid wife. Lao Lan's daughter, Tiangua, was a third-grader in school. I'd never much cared for the light-haired girl, although that had now changed, for the simple reason that she was a dimwit. Her thoughts were always remarkably shallow, and getting as much as one question wrong in an exam had her in tears, the moron. Jiaojiao always joined me for lunch at Lao Lan's. She too was gifted. And, like me, she was in the habit of falling asleep in class. And, like me, going without meat at even one meal made her listless. But not Tiangua—not only did she not eat meat, she actually called us ravenous wolves when she saw how much we enjoyed it. In return, we took one look at her pathetic vegetarian fare and called her a goat. Huang Biao's wife, a shrewd woman with fair skin and big eyes, wore her hair short and had a pretty mouth—red lips over white teeth. She was always smiling, even when she was alone in the kitchen doing the dishes. She knew that Jiaojiao and I were there to eat but, since Tiangua and her mother were her primary responsibility, she mainly prepared vegetarian food. Only occasionally did she prepare a meat dish, invariably bland and tasteless, something simply thrown together. Needless to say, eating at Lao Lan's house was no treat, but it was all right, since a good meaty dinner awaited us at home in the evening.