Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

When drinking, never get drunk over one bottle or two ;

When playing mahjong, never get sleepy after three days or four ;

When dancing, never make a mistake over five steps or six ;

When fooling around, never shy away from seven women or eight .

. . .

After mailing a letter at the post office, Zhong Weixian returned to his office, where he marked that day’s date with a red pen on his calendar and added an exclamation mark. He had just made tea and taken a sip when the head of the Department of Culture sent over a document. After one look, Zhong’s face turned ashen. He placed an immediate phone call to Zhuang’s house. Liu Yue, who answered, mistook Zhong for Meng Yunfang. “You can tell me what this is about,” she said. “I’m his secretary.”

“Secretary?”

Realizing her mistake, Liu Yue panicked and called Niu Yueqing over.

“Is that you, Mr. Zhong? Zhidie’s not home. Is there something I can do?” She glared at Liu Yue, who stuck her tongue out. Niu Yueqing’s face fell as she said urgently, “Tell him to bring it over.”

She hung up and collapsed into the chair.

“What’s wrong?” Liu Yue asked.

“Go to the compound and bring your Zhuang Laoshi here immediately.”

“I haven’t seen him lately. I don’t keep up with his comings and goings. He wasn’t there this morning. He left a note saying he’d gone somewhere to write. God knows where he is.”

“Where could he be? Go check again. If he’s not there, ask old Mrs. Wei, the gatekeeper, if he said anything to her. If not, go to Meng Laoshi’s, then to the bookstore to ask Hong Jiang.”

“Well, then, I’ll have a tour of half the city.”

“This is no time to be clever with your tongue. Go on now. Take a taxi if you’re tired. I’ll wait for Zhou Min here.” Niu Yueqing gave her thirty yuan.

She went in to change clothes and took Niu Yueqing’s monthly bus pass from her jacket before walking out with her own purse.

With the thirty yuan, she bought a pair of stockings and, adding some of her own money, a pair of white leather sandals and some dark sunglasses. Seeing she still had three yuan left, she went into a snack shop and ordered a dish of rainbow ice cream. She took off her old shoes and put on the stockings and the new shoes. Wearing the sunglasses, she grumbled as she ate the ice cream, “What could be so urgent that I have to run all over town? She was upset when I complained. I probably wouldn’t have gotten the thirty yuan if I hadn’t.” Noticing a young man at the next table looking at her, she boldly returned the gaze, under the protection of her dark glasses. She was swinging her crossed leg. The man smiled, exposing bright red gums, and beckoned her with a curled finger. Suddenly frightened, she got up to leave. The young man followed her out. Ducking into a shop, she thought she had shaken him, but he was waiting for her when she came back out. “Drill a hole, miss.”

She had heard about streetwalkers and their secret code with potential johns, “drill a hole.” She broke out in a cold sweat. Forcing a smile, she said, “Are you from Guangdong? Ai-ya, you have a piece of leek in your teeth.” The man turned red from embarrassment. While he was checking his teeth in the store window, she jumped on a bus. The door shut the moment she was aboard. Leaning against the window, she saw the man turn to look for her, so she gave him a charming smile, pointing at herself with her right thumb and then wagging her pinkie before spitting on it.

No one was in when she reached the compound. The gatekeeper had no idea where Zhuang was. She wondered if he had left another note, so she went inside, but she found nothing but a copper coin hanging over the bathroom faucet. She looked at it, fell in love with it, untied it from the thread, and put in her pocket. She left the apartment and boarded a bus to Meng Yunfang’s house. He was dressed in baggy shorts. He told her to wait while he rode his bicycle to see if Zhuang was at the House of Imperfection Seekers. Not finding anyone there, he returned home.

“Where did you go? Why did it take you so long?”

Knowing he mustn’t give her the address, he didn’t answer. Liu Yue now had to pin her hopes on the bookstore. When she got there by taxi, she saw that the space next door was being remodeled and knew that it was the planned gallery. She asked the workers if Zhao Jingwu was there, and was told that he’d gone out to buy building materials. Mistaking her for Zhao’s girlfriend, the workers drooled as they plied her with questions. “Disgusting!” she said and went into the bookstore. Hong Jiang wasn’t in, so she took the stairs to the second floor, where Hong lived next to two storage rooms. It was quiet, except for a cat licking a bowl of paste. She kicked open the door to Hong’s room and found him in bed having sex.

“Well, well. Doing that in broad daylight, are we?” she said.

Hong quickly pulled up his pants and dragged a sheet over the girl before shutting the door with one hand and covering Liu Yue’s mouth with the other. What bad luck to see something like that. She brushed Hong’s hand away, sat down to pick up a newspaper, and covered her eyes. “Despicable. Just despicable.”

“Good sister, please don’t tell Laoshi or Shimu about this. I’m begging you.”

“Trying to sweet-talk me, are you? Who’s your sister? Let’s not worry about Laoshi and Shimu yet. You have to deal with me first. If we were in the countryside, you’d have to give me two yards of red satin to ward off bad luck. Besides, I’m still unmarried.”

Hong opened a drawer and took out a stack of bills.

“Trying to buy my silence?”

“Please take it, good sister. I’d be worried if you didn’t. I know you don’t make much each month. Come see me if you need any help. I’m a man of my word.”

“I won’t take it. But if you’re worried, put the money in the bank and give me the deposit book. Has Zhuang Laoshi been here?”

“I’ll give it to you tomorrow. No, he hasn’t.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I have no idea.”

She got up to leave, but changed her mind and walked over to the bed to pull the sheet back. “Let me see who the lucky girl is.” She didn’t know the owner of the tender white flesh under the sheet, but she noticed a large mole on one cheek. She committed that to memory.

Niu Yueqing was waiting for Liu Yue and Zhou Min. Zhou Min didn’t show, but Tang Wan’er came. It turned out that Zhong Weixian had called Zhou in to read the document, and was told to make a copy for Zhuang. Zhou Min’s jaw dropped when he read it. It was a notice from Jing Xueyin, claiming that she would be taking legal action, since the department had failed to follow the directives from the head of propaganda, and that the magazine refused to publish an announcement. She had turned in a statement of charges to the District Court, which refused to take the case on the grounds that it was outside their jurisdiction, since Zhuang Zhidie, one of the defendants, was a member of the People’s Congress. The case was then turned over to the Municipal Intermediate Court. The defendants included Zhou Min, the author of the article; Zhuang Zhidie, the source of the material; Zhong Weixian, the editor-in-chief of Xijing Magazine , which provided the space for publication; Li Hongwen, the final reviewer of the article; and Gou Dahai, the initial reviewer. The Department of Culture did not receive the statement of charges, but was given a photocopy of Zhuang’s latest letter to Jing and her husband, with sections of the letter highlighted in red. Without a word, Zhou left the office, but instead of going to see Zhuang at Shuangren fu, he went to a beer bar and ate forty skewers of barbecued mutton, washed down with four bottles of beer, before stumbling his way home. Wan’er had gone out that morning to pick up a bottle of nail polish. She was applying it after carefully filing her nails when Zhou came into the yard and leaned against the door with a smile.