If I'd been born somewhere else I may not have developed such a strong craving for meat; but fated to be born in Slaughterhouse Village, where everywhere you looked there was meat on the hoof and meat on the slab, bloody hunks of meat and washed-clean chunks of meat, meat that'd been smoked and meat that hadn't, meat that'd been injected with water and meat that hadn't, meat that'd been soaked in formaldehyde and meat that hadn't, pork beef mutton dog donkey horse camel…The wild dogs in our village were so fat from eating spoilt meat that grease oozed from their pores, while I was as skinny as a rail because I couldn't have any. For five years I ate no meat, not because we couldn't afford it but because Mother refused to spend. Before Father ran off, there was always a thick layer of grease along the edge of our wok and bones piled up in the corners. Father loved meat, especially pig's head. Every few days he'd bring home a white-cheeked, fatty pig's head with red-tipped ears. He and Mother always argued over it, and eventually the fights turned physical. She was a middle peasant's daughter, brought up to be a hard-working, frugal housewife, to never live beyond her means and to use her money to build a house and own land. After the land-reform period, my obstinate maternal grandfather dug up the family's life savings and bought five acres of land from Sun Gui, a rehabilitated farm labourer. That waste of money unleashed decades of humiliation upon Mother's family. His attempt to swim against the tide of history made my idiot grandfather a village laughing-stock. My father, on the other hand, was born into a lumpenproletariat family. He spent his youth with my good-for-nothing grandfather and grew up into a lazy glutton. His philosophy of life was: eat well today and don't worry about tomorrow. Take it easy and enjoy life. The lessons of history coupled with my grandfather's teachings made him the kind of man who would never spend only ninety-nine cents if he had a dollar in his pocket. Unspent money always cost him a night's sleep. He often counselled my mother that life was an illusion, everything but the food you put in your belly. ‘If you spend your money on clothes,’ he'd say, ‘people can rip them off your back. If you use it to build a house, decades later you're the target of a struggle.’ The Lan clan had plenty of houses but now they're a school. The Lan Clan Shrine was a splendid building that had been taken over by the production team to turn sweet potatoes into noodles. ‘Buy gold and silver with your money and you could lose your life. But spend your money on meat and you'll always have a full belly. You can't go wrong.’ ‘People who live to eat don't enter Heaven’ Mother would reply. ‘If there's food in your belly,’ Father'd say with a laugh, ‘even a pigsty is Heaven. If there's no meat in Heaven, I'm not going there even if the Jade Emperor comes down to escort me.’ I was too young to care about their words. I'd eat meat while they argued, then sit in the corner and purr, like that tailless cat that lived such a luxurious life out in the yard. After Father left, in order to build our five-room house, Mother turned into a skinflint; food seldom touched her lips. Once the house was built, I'd hoped she'd change her views on eating and let meat return to our table after its long absence. Imagine my shock when her scrimping grew worse. A grand plan was taking shape in her mind—to buy a truck, like the one that belonged to the Lan clan, the richest in the village. A Liberation truck, manufactured at Changchun No. 1 Automobile Plant, green, with six large tyres, a square cab and a bed as solid as a tank. I'd have preferred living in our old, three-room country shack with the thatched roof if that would have put meat back on the table. I'd have preferred travelling down bumpy rural roads on a walking tractor that nearly shook my bones apart if that would have put meat back on the table. To hell with her big house and its tiled roof, to hell with her Liberation truck and to hell with that frugal life which forbade even the smallest spot of grease! The more I grew to resent Mother, the more I longed for the happy days when Father was home. For a boy with a greedy mouth—like me—a happy life was defined by an unending supply of meat. If I had meat, what difference did it make if Mother and Father fought, verbally or physically, day in and day out? No fewer than two hundred rumours concerning Father and Aunty Wild Mule reached my ears over a five-year period. But what instilled a recurring longing in me were those three I mentioned, since meat figured in all of them. And every time the image of them eating meat blossomed in my head, as real as if they were right there with me, my nostrils would flare with its aroma, my stomach would growl, my mouth would fill with drool. And my eyes would fill with tears. The villagers often saw me sitting alone and weeping beneath the stately willow tree at the head of the village. ‘The poor boy! they'd sigh. I knew they'd misread the reason for my tears but was I incapable of setting them straight. Even if I'd told them it was the craving for meat that caused the tears, they wouldn't have believed me. The idea that a boy could yearn for the taste of meat until his tears flowed would never have occurred to them—
Thunder rolls in the distance, like cavalry bearing down on us. Some feathers fly into the dark temple, carrying the stink of blood, like frightened children, bobbing in the air and then sticking to the Wutong Spirit. The feathers remind me of the recent slaughter in the tree outside, and announce that the wind is up. It is, and it carries with it the stench of muddy soil and vegetation. The stuffy temple cools down, and more cinders fall out of the air over our heads, gathering on the Wise Monk's shiny pate and on his fly-covered ears. The flies remain unmoved. Studying them closely for a few seconds, I see them rub their shiny eyes with their spindly legs. In spite of their bad name, they're a talented species. I don't think any other creature can rub its eyes with its legs and be so graceful about it. Out in the yard, the immobile gingko tree whistles in the wind which has grown stronger. As have the smells it carries, which now include the fetid stench of decaying animals and the filth at the bottom of a nearby pond. Rain can't be far off. It's the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the day when the legendary herd-boy and the weaving maid—Altair and Vega—separated for the rest of the year by the Milky Way, get to meet. A loving couple, in the prime of their youth, forced to gaze at each other across a starry river, permitted to meet only once a year for three days—how tortured they must be! The passion of newlyweds cannot compare to that of the long separated, who want only to embrace for three days—as a boy, I often heard the village women say things like that. Lots of tears are shed over those three days, which are fated to be full of rain. Even after three years of drought, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month cannot be forgotten! A streak of lightning illuminates every detail of the temple interior. The lecherous grin on the face of the Horse Spirit, one of the five Wutong Spirit idols, makes my heart shudder. A man's head on a horse's body, a bit like the label of that famous French liquor. A row of sleeping bats hangs upside down from the beam above its head as the dull rumble of thunder rolls towards us from far away, like millstones turning in unison. Then more streaks of lightning, and deafening thunderclaps. A scorched smell pounds into the temple from the yard. Startled, I nearly jump out of my skin. But the Wise Monk sits there, placid as ever. The thunder grows louder, more violent, an unbroken string of crashes, and a downpour begins, the raindrops slanting in on us. What look like oily green fireballs roll about in the yard. Something like a gigantic claw with razor-sharp tips reaches down from the heavens and waits, suspended above the doorway, eager to force its way inside and grab hold of me—me, naturally—and then hang my corpse from the big tree outside, the tadpole characters etched on my back announcing my crimes to all who can read the cryptic words. As if by instinct, I move behind the Wise Monk, who shields me, and I am reminded of the beautiful woman who lay sprawled in the breach in the wall, combing her hair. Now there is no trace of her. The breach has turned into a cascade, and I think I see strands of hair in the cascading water, infusing a subtle osmanthus fragrance into the torrent…Then I hear the Wise Monk say: ‘Go on—’