“Say, Lan Lian, time to turn your donkey into a eunuch?”
or:
“Xu Bao, did you find something to go with your liquor again?”
“Don’t do it, Lan Lian,” someone shouted. “That donkey had the balls to take on those wolves. Each nut supplies some of an animal’s courage, so he must have as many as a sack of potatoes.”
Some boys on their way to school fell in behind Xu Bao to sing a ditty about him:
Xu Bao Xu Bao, sees an egg and takes a bite!
Without an egg to bite, he sweats all night.
Xu Bao Xu Bao, a donkey dick of a sight.
A scoundrel who won’t stand up and fly right…
Xu Bao stopped and glared at the little brats, reached into his pack, pulled out a gleaming little knife, and shouted threateningly:
“You’d better shut up, you little bastards! Master Xu here will cut the balls off the next one of you who makes up something like that!”
The boys huddled together and responded with goofy laughs. So Xu Bao took several steps forward, and the boys matched him, going backward. Then Xu Bao charged, and the boys scattered in all directions. Xu Bao turned back to me, gelding on his mind. The boys came back, formed up, and followed him, repeating their ditty:
Xu Bao Xu Bao, sees an egg and takes a bite!
This time, Xu Bao had no time for those little pests. Taking a wide berth, he ran up in front of Lan Lian and started walking backward.
“Lan Lian,” he said, “I know this donkey’s bitten people. Every time he does that, you have to come up with medical expenses and lots of apologies. I say geld him. He’ll be back in three days, completely recovered, the most obedient donkey you could ask for, guaranteed.”
Lan Lian ignored him; my heart was pounding. My temper was something Lan Lian knew all too well. So he grabbed hold of the bit in my mouth and kept me from going after the man.
Xu Bao scuffled along, raising dust as he walked backward, the bastard, probably something he did a lot. He had a shriveled little face adorned with baggy triangular eyes and front teeth with a big space between them, from which spittle sprayed whenever he talked.
“Take my advice, Lan Lian,” he said, “you need to geld him; gelding is good, it’ll save you trouble. I usually charge five yuan, but for you I’ll do it for nothing.”
Lan Lian stopped, smirked, and said:
“Xu Bao, why don’t you go home and geld your old man?”
“What kind of talk is that?” Xu Bao squeaked.
“If that bothers you, then let’s see what my donkey has to say.” He let go of my reins and said, “Sic him, Blackie!”
With a loud bray, I reared up, the way I’d mounted Huahua, aiming to come down on Xu Bao’s scrawny head. People out on the street screeched in horror; the little brats swallowed their shouts. Now I’m going to feel and hear my hooves landing on Xu Bao’s cranium, I was thinking. But that didn’t happen. I didn’t see the contorted look of shock I’d expected and didn’t hear the howls of fright I’d hoped for; what I did see, out of the corner of my eye, was a slippery figure darting under my exposed belly, and I had a premonition of bad things to come. Unfortunately, my reactions were too slow; a sudden chill struck my genitals, followed by a sharp, intense pain. I felt an immediate sense of loss and knew I’d been tricked. Twisting my body to look behind me, the first thing I saw was blood on my rear legs. The next things I saw was Xu Bao, standing by the roadside, a bloody gray gonad in the palm of his hand; he was grinning from ear to ear and showing off his prize to a bunch of gawkers, who shouted their approval.
“Xu Bao, you bastard, you’ve ruined my donkey,” my master cried out in agony. But before he could leave my side and tear into the evil veterinarian, Xu Bao dropped the gonad into his bag and flashed his knife in a threatening manner. My master fell back weakly.
“I did nothing wrong, Lan Lian,” Xu Bao said as he pointed to the gawkers. “It was obvious to everyone, including our young friends here, that you let your donkey attack people, and it was my right to protect myself. It’s a good thing I was on my toes, or my head would be a squashed gourd by now. So I’m the good guy here, Lan Lian.”
“But you’ve ruined my donkey…”
“That was my plan, and I’m the one who could have done just that. But I felt sorry for a fellow villager and held back. That donkey has three gonads, and I only took one. That’ll calm him down a bit, but he’ll still be a spirited animal. You should damn well be thanking me. It’s not too late, you know.”
Lan Lian bent over to examine my privates, where he discovered that Xu Bao was telling the truth. That helped, but not enough to thank the man. No matter how you looked at it, the sneaky bastard had taken one of my gonads without prior consent.
“Xu Bao, take heed,” Lan Lian said. “If anything happens to my donkey because of this, you’ll pay, and pay dearly.”
“The only way this donkey won’t live to be a hundred is if you mix arsenic into his feed. I advise you not to work him in the field today. Take him home, feed him nutritious food, and rub on some salt water. The wound will heal in a couple of days.”
Lan Lian took Xu Bao’s advice without any public acknowledgment. That eased my suffering a little, but it was still with me, and still strong. I glared at the bastard who would soon swallow my gonad, and was already planning my revenge. But the honest truth was, this unforeseen incident, sudden and effective, instilled in me a degree of grudging respect toward the unimpressive, bowlegged little man. That there were people like that in the world, someone who made a living castrating animals and was good at his job – relentless, accurate, fast – was something you’d have to see to believe. Hee-haw, Hee-haw – My gonad, tonight you’ll accompany a mouthful of strong liquor down into Xu Bao’s guts, only to wind up in the privy tomorrow, my gonad, gonad.
We’d only walked a short distance when we heard Xu Bao call out from behind:
“Lan Lian, know what I call that gambit I just employed?”
“Fuck you and your ancestors!” Lan Lian fired back.
This was greeted with raucous laughter from the gawkers.
“Listen carefully,” Xu Bao said smugly. “You and your donkey both. I call it ‘Stealing peaches under the leaves.’”
“Xu Bao Xu Bao, stealing peaches under the leaves! Lan Lian Lan Lian, embarrassment teaches…” The young geniuses made up new lines, which they sang as they walked behind us all the way to the Ximen estate compound.
Lots of people created a lively atmosphere in the compound. The five children from the east and west rooms, all dressed in New Year’s finery, were running and hopping all over the place. Lan Jinlong and Lan Baofeng had reached school age, but hadn’t yet started school. Jinlong was a melancholy boy, seemingly weighted down with concerns; Baofeng was an innocent little girl, and a real beauty. Though they were the offspring of Ximen Nao, there were no bonds between them and Ximen Donkey. The true bonds had been between Ximen Donkey and the two offspring delivered to the donkey belonging to Han Huahua, but tragically, they and their mother had all died when the youngsters were barely six months old. The death of Huahua was a terrible emotional blow to Ximen Donkey. She had been poisoned; the two babies, the fruits of my loins, died from drinking their mother’s milk. The birth of twin donkeys had been a joyous event in the village, and their deaths, along with their mother, had saddened the villagers. Stonemason Han had nearly cried himself sick, but someone unknown was very happy; that someone was the person who had mixed poison into Huahua’s feed. District headquarters, thrown into turmoil over the incident, sent a special investigator, Liu Changfa – Long-haired Liu – to solve the case. A crude and inept individual, Liu summoned the residents in groups to the village government offices and interrogated them by asking the sorts of questions you might hear on a phonograph record. The results? No results. After the incident, in his story “The Black Donkey,” Mo Yan fixed the blame for poisoning the Han family’s donkey on Huang Tong, and although he made what appeared to be an air-tight case, who believes anything a novelist says?