Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“How?” Zhuang asked.

“Jin Yong’s books sell out. This one can’t compare with his, but if we print the author’s name as Jing Yong in cursive style, it will look like Jin Yong at a casual glance. If we’re caught, we’ll have every right to say the author’s name is Jing Yong, not Jin Yong. I’ll take care of everything, except for the hundred thousand that you and Shimu have to put up.”

“As long as Zhuang Laoshi agrees, I’ll get the money.” Niu Yueqing turned to Zhuang. “Wang Ximian has invited us to a celebration for his mother’s seventieth birthday tomorrow. We can go together. I’ll borrow eighty thousand from him, and we’ll make up the rest from our savings.”

“So the old lady is going to be seventy? I thought she was younger than that,” Zhuang said. “I agree, we should go, but how can we borrow money at a birthday party?”

They could not agree on what to do, so she sent Hong back to the bookstore.

“Are you going back to the compound tonight?” she asked him.

“It’s too late, someone would have to get up to open the door for me.”

“So you’d go if it were still early, is that it? What kind of couple are we, then?”

Zhuang quietly went to bed. She followed a while later, but they kept their distance from one another. Then they heard the weepy notes of a flute on the city wall.

“I wonder who’s playing that,” Zhuang said.

“Who’s playing that flute?” she echoed, and they fell silent.

Zhuang hadn’t wanted to voice his thoughts about the flute player, and he was surprised to hear his wife say the same thing. All he wanted was for her to fall asleep quickly, but he heard a rustling from her side. She nudged him and tried to take his hand, which was what he had feared. Turning his back in disgust, he ignored her, pretending not to have noticed her movements. After lying silently for a while, he felt bad about treating her that way, so he turned to fulfill his responsibility, only to hear her say, “You’re not up for this, so let me help you while you tell me some stories.”

Naturally, he tried to tell her stories he had repeated many times, but she wouldn’t have it and asked for stories about real people.

“Where would I get those?”

“How about some of your experiences?”

“Like what? Like when the pigs at home are hungry, how can we sell the husks?”

“I’m just wondering why you can’t do it all of a sudden. You must have serviced someone else.”

“You watch me like a hawk, so how would I dare get near anyone?”

“No one? Weren’t you with Jing Xueyin for years?”

“I didn’t touch a hair on her head. I can swear to that.”

“You poor thing. Why don’t I find you someone? Tell me, who do you have your eye on?”

“No one.”

“Don’t think I don’t know you. All you lack is the nerve. When I brought up Wang Ximian’s birthday party for his mother, you happily agreed to go. That tells me you have your eye on his wife.”

“So what if I do?”

She fell silent, which he mistook as a sign that she was asleep, but then she said, “Wang Ximian’s wife loves to dress up. She’s not a young woman, but she tries to look like one.”

“She dresses well.”

“For whose benefit?” she demanded. “Gong Jingyuan’s wife said Wang’s wife got around quite a bit when she was young. In the old days, when she worked as a salesgirl at a shopping center, she did it with a man after work behind the counter, and very noisily. When people looked to see what was going on, they saw her legs sticking up, so they banged on the door, but the two of them were oblivious. They hung on to each other until they were finished, even after people broke down the door and stormed in.”

As she went on, she reached out to touch him and found his erection. So she guided him on top of her. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 51 words.] She cried out and curled into a ball.

“So you couldn’t hold out, either,” Zhuang said.

“I didn’t complain, so don’t you. You’re always saying you can’t manage, but talking about Wang’s wife got you excited. How can you expect me to last longer than you? You were born to be the master of the house, stretching out your arms to be dressed and opening your mouth to be fed, while I have to tend to every little thing in both houses.”

“Stop the nonsense. How old are you, anyway? Look at Zhou Min’s wife. She may be a few years younger than you, but after all she’s gone through, there’s not a wrinkle on her face.”

That upset Yueqing. “So Wang’s wife is not enough for you? Now you have to bring this one up. What has she gone through? Xia Jie told me that she ran away with Zhou Min.”

“That’s right.”

“If she could run away from her husband, that can only mean she was the mistress of a house who did not have to do housework. That’s what makes women so despicable. Once they’re well dressed and well fed, the more a man treasures them, the more they’re tempted to engage in illicit affairs.”

“When was Xia Jie here?”

“This afternoon. She brought me a jade chrysanthemum bracelet, saying it was from Tang Wan’er, who felt bad that I couldn’t make it to her dinner the other day.”

“You see, she’s nice to you, and yet you say unkind things about her behind her back. Where’s the bracelet? Let’s see what kind of jade it is.”

“It doesn’t fit my fat arm, so I put it away. When have I said something unkind about her? I’m just unhappy that every time you meet a woman somewhere, you come home and contrast my shortcomings with her virtues. People say you can go crazy trying to compare yourself with others. I wouldn’t have all these wrinkles if I didn’t have to worry about every little thing in this house.”

That shut Zhuang up in regard to Tang Wan’er.

“You do work too hard, so why don’t we hire some help? The other day, Zhao Jingwu promised to find someone for us. When that happens, you’ll be the leisurely lady of the house, and you won’t have to lift a finger. All you’ll have to do is give orders.”

That mollified her a bit. “You wait and see. I’ll make my skin smooth and soft.”

They talked for a while before she curled up in his arms like a kitten and fell asleep. Zhuang, on the other hand, wasn’t sleepy, so after she started snoring, he quietly sat up and reached for a magazine under the pillow. Bored after a few pages, he lit a cigarette and waited for the flute to start up again. But there was no flute, and no shouts from the old junkman.

The next day, Niu Yueqing ordered a birthday cake from a bakery in the Guan Gong Temple and told the baker to decorate it with seventieth-birthday wishes. Then she bought some fine Suzhou silk, a bottle of aged liquor from Shuanggou, a package of cured mutton, two catties of brown sugar, and half a cattie of Dragonwell tea. Upon her return, Zhuang told her he didn’t feel like going.

“You don’t want to go? What do I say when Wang’s wife asks why?”

“There will be too many people there, and I don’t feel like dragging myself over and having to talk to them. If he asks, just tell them the mayor wanted to see me and I couldn’t get away.”

“They want you there to make the Wang family look good. He’ll be upset. He might be willing to lend us the money, but what do I do if he isn’t? Do you really not want to go, or do you think I’ll make you look bad? If that’s it, then I’ll stay home.”

“You think too much. I’ll write a scroll for you to take along, and I’m sure that will make the old lady happy.” Zhuang unrolled a sheet of rice paper and wrote: The setting sun is unimaginably splendid / The human world values emotion late in life . Then he told his wife to run along with it.