The mute, a liquor bottle hanging around his neck, lurched down the crowded street. Dust flew as one gang of laborers pushed carts filled with iron ore from east to west, while another gang pushed carts of the same color from west to east. Mixed with the two crowds, the mute was leaping forward, a great leap forward. All the laborers gazed respectfully at the glittering medal pinned to his chest and stopped to let him pass, something he found enormously gratifying. Although he only came up to the other men’s thighs, he was the most spirited individual among them. From that moment on, he spent most of his daylight hours out on the street. He would leap from the eastern end of the street all the way to the western end, take a few refreshing drinks from his bottle, and then leap all the way back. And while he was engaged in his great leap forward, Laidi and Birdman Han would be performing their own great leap forward on the ground or in bed. Dust and grime covered the mute’s body; his stools had been worn down an inch or more, and a hole had opened up in the rubber mat attached to his backside. Every tree in the village had been cut down to stoke the backyard furnaces; a layer of smoke hung over the fields. Jintong had fallen in with the sparrow eradication corps, marching under bamboo poles with red strips of cloth and accompanied by the clang of gongs, as they stalked the sparrows in Northeast Gaomi Township from one village to the next, keeping them from finding food or a spot to perch, until they dropped to the streets from exhaustion and hunger. A range of stimuli had cured him of his lovesickness, and he had gotten over his obsession with mother’s milk and revulsion of food. But his prestige had plummeted. His Russian teacher, Huo Lina, to whom he was devoted, had been declared a rightist and sent to the Flood Dragon River labor reform farm, two miles from Dalan. He saw the mute out on the street, and the mute saw him, but they merely acknowledged one another with a wave before moving on.
The raucous season of rejoicing, with flames lighting up the sky, came quickly to an end, replaced in Northeast Gaomi Township by a new and dreary age. One drizzly autumn morning, twelve trucks with artillery pieces rumbled down the narrow road from the southeast into Dalan. When they entered the village, the mute was lurching around on the wet ground, all alone. He had exhausted himself during the recent days of leaping, and had turned listless. His eyes were lifeless, and because of all the liquor he’d consumed, his legless torso had grown bloated. The arrival of the artillery company reinvigorated him. Inappropriately, apparently, he moved out into the middle of the road to block the convoy. The soldiers stood there blinking in the rain and looking at the strange half-man in the middle of the road. An officer, wearing a pistol on his hip, jumped out of the cab of his truck and cursed angrily, “Tired of living, you stupid bastard?” Incredibly, since the road was slick, he was truncated, and the truck tires were tall, the mute had leaped out into the road, well out of sight of the driver, who had seen a brown streak in front of the truck and slammed on the brakes, not quite in time to keep his bumper from touching the mute’s broad forehead. Although it didn’t break the skin, it raised a large purple welt. The officer wasn’t finished cursing when he saw the hawkish glare in the mute’s eyes and felt his heart clench; at that moment, his eye was drawn to the medal pinned to the mute’s tattered uniform. Drawing his feet together, he bowed deeply and shouted, “My apologies, sir. Please forgive me!”
This gratifying reaction put the mute in high spirits. He moved to the side of the road to let the convoy pass. The soldiers saluted as the trucks passed by slowly, which he returned by touching the beak of his soft cap with the tips of his fingers. The trucks left a chewed-up road behind them. A northwest wind blew, rain slanted down, and the road was veiled by an icy mist. A few surviving sparrows slipped through the gaps in the rain, while some water-soaked dogs standing under a roadside propaganda tent were captivated by the sight of the mute’s movements.
The passage of the artillery company signaled the end of the season of rejoicing. The mute slinked home in dejection. As before, he banged on the door with one of his stools; it opened on its own, creaking loudly. He had lived in a world of silence so long that Birdman Han and Laidi had been able to keep their adultery hidden from him. For months, he had spent most of his daylight hours out on the street near the smelting ovens, and then dragged himself home to sleep like a dead dog. Come morning, he’d be out the gate again, with no time for Laidi.
The restoration of the mute’s hearing may well be attributed to his encounter with the truck bumper. The touch on his forehead must have loosened whatever was stopping up his ears. The creaking of the door stunned him; then he heard the patter of rain on leaves and the snores of his mother-in-law as she slept. She had forgotten to latch the door. But what utterly shocked him were the moans of pain and pleasure from Laidi’s room.
Sniffing the air like a bloodhound, he detected the clammy odor of her body and lurched over to the eastern side room. The rain had leaked through his rubber cushion, soaking his backside, and he felt stabbing pains around his anus.
Recklessly, the door had been left open, and a candle burned inside. In the drawing, the Bird Fairy’s eyes shone coldly. One look, and he spotted Birdman Han’s long, hairy, and enviably sturdy legs. Birdman’s buttocks were pumping up and down; beneath him, Laidi’s buttocks arched upward. Her breasts sagged and jiggled; her tousled black hair shifted on Birdman Han’s pillow, and she was clutching the bed sheet. The intense moans that had so aroused him were coming from the mass of black hair. The scene was lit up as if by an explosive green flame. He howled like a wounded animal and flung one of his stools; it glided off Birdman’s shoulder, bounced off the wall, and landed next to Laidi’s face. He threw the other stool; this one hit Birdman in the rump. He turned and glared at the drenched mute, who was shivering from the cold, and grinned smugly. Laidi’s body flattened out and she lay there panting as she reached down to cover herself with the blanket. “You’ve seen us, you mute bastard, so what?” She sat up and cursed the mute, who propped himself up on both hands, froglike. He bounded across the threshold, and from there to the feet of Birdman Han, where he lunged forward with his head. Birdman’s hands flew to his groin to protect the organ that just moments ago had been such a masterful performer; with a shriek he doubled over and yellow beads of perspiration dotted his face. The mute charged again, harder this time, scissoring Birdman’s shoulders with his powerful arms, like the tentacles of an octopus; at the same time, he wrapped his cal-lused hands, the steel traps in which his strength was concentrated, around Birdman’s throat. Birdman crumpled to the floor; his mouth opened in a fearful grimace, and his eyes rolled back in his head.