The Iron Society, which spent an enormous sum of money on my grandma’s funeral, financed its activities in Northeast Gaomi Township after the departure of the Leng detachment and the Jiao-Gao regiment by issuing its own currency, in denominations of one thousand and ten thousand yuan, printed on coarse straw paper. The designs were very simple (a strange humanoid astride a tiger), the printing haphazard at best (using printing blocks carved for holiday posters). At the time no fewer than four separate currencies circulated in Northeast Gaomi, their strength and fluctuating value determined by the power of the issuing authority. Currency backed by military force constituted the greatest exploitation of the people, and Granddad was able to finance Grandma’s funeral by relying on this sort of concealed tyranny. The Jiao-Gao regiment and the Leng detachment had been squeezed out, so Granddad’s coarse currency was very strong in Northeast Gaomi Township for a while. But then the bottom dropped out, a few months after Grandma’s funeral, and the tigermount currency wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
The two Iron Society soldiers entered the funeral tent with the physician in tow; they blinked in the bright candlelight.
‘What’s this all about?’ Granddad snarled, rising from his seat.
One of the soldiers went down on his knee and covered the shaved part of his head with both hands. ‘Deputy Commander, we’ve caught a spy!’
Black Eye, whose left eye was rimmed by dark moles, kicked the table leg and barked out an order: ‘Off with his head! Then rip out his heart and liver and cook them to go with the wine!’
‘Not so fast!’ Granddad countermanded. He turned to Black Eye. ‘Blackie, shouldn’t we find out who he is before we kill him?’
‘Who the fuck cares who he is!’ Black Eye picked a clay teapot up off the table and threw it to the ground. Then he stood up, his pistol sticking out of his belt, and glared at the soldier who had made the report.
‘Commander…’ the soldier stammered fearfully.
‘I’ll fuck your living mother, Zhu Shun! “Commander” means nothing to you, I see! You son of a bitch, get out of my sight. You’re a fucking thorn in my eye!’ The ranting Black Eye looked down at the teapot on the ground and gave it a swift kick, sending shards of clay flying; some of them landed in the grove of graceful snow willows beside the coffin and made them rustle.
A boy about Father’s age bent over, picked up the pieces of the teapot, and tossed them outside the tent.
‘Fulai,’ Granddad said to the boy, ‘put the commander to bed. He’s drunk!’
Fulai stepped up and put his arms around Black Eye, who sent him reeling. ‘Drunk? Who’s drunk? You ungrateful shit! I set up shop, and you eat free. A tiger kills its prey just so the bear can eat it! You little shit, you won’t get away with throwing sand in my black eye! Just wait!’
‘Blackie,’ Granddad said, ‘you don’t want to lay your prestige on the line in front of the men.’ His lips curled in a grim smile, and cruel wrinkles appeared at the corners of his mouth.
Black Eye rested his hand on the bakelite handle of his pistol. In a tired, strangely hoarse voice he said, ‘Get the fuck out of here! And take that little son of a bitch with you!’
‘It’s easy to invite the gods, hard to send them away,’ Granddad said.
Black Eye drew his pistol and waved it in front of Granddad, who held out his green ceramic cup, took a sip of wine, and swished it around in his mouth before leaning forward and spitting it in Black Eye’s face. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he flung the cup at the muzzle of Black Eye’s pistol; the cup shattered on impact, the pieces flying everywhere. Black Eye’s hand twitched, and the muzzle of the pistol drooped.
‘Put your gun away!’ Granddad shouted in a steely voice. ‘I’m not finished with you yet, Blackie, so don’t get smart with me!’
Black Eye’s face was bathed in sweat. He grumbled, picked up his pistol, stuck it in his leather belt, and sat down.
The mule-riding physician, who had watched the episode with a disdainful smile, suddenly started laughing so hard he could barely stand, so hard that hot tears streamed down his cheeks. His behaviour made everyone squirm uncomfortably.
‘What’s so funny?’ Black Eye asked. ‘I’ll fuck your mother! I asked you, what’s so funny?’
The laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and the physician said dryly, ‘Fuck away, if that’s what you want. My mother’s been dead and buried in the black earth for ten years, and she’s all yours!’
Black Eye was speechless. The moles around his eye turned the colour of fresh leaves. Leaping to his feet, he slapped the physician seven or eight times, sending trickles of blood out of his nostrils and down the bristly black hairs. The physician licked his lips greedily, his shiny white teeth stained with blood.
‘How’d you get here?’ Granddad asked him.
‘My mule!’ the physician replied, stretching his neck as though he were swallowing a mouthful of blood. ‘What have you done with my mule?’
‘I guarantee you he’s a Japanese spy!’ Black Eye said. ‘Bring me a whip. I’ll teach the son of a bitch something!’
‘My mule! Give me back my mule! I want my mule…’ There was panic in the physician’s voice. He tried to run out of the tent, but was stopped by the guards. One of them punched him in the temple. His head slumped forward, as though his neck had snapped like a sorghum stalk. He crumpled to the ground.
‘Search him!’ Granddad ordered.
The Iron Society soldiers searched him thoroughly, but all they found was a couple of marbles, one bright green, the other bright red, each with a little cat’s-eye bubble in the centre. Granddad held them up to the candlelight to reflect the brilliant rays. They were beautiful. With a perplexed shake of his head, he set them on the table. Father reached out and snatched them away.
‘Give one to Fulai,’ Granddad told him.
Reluctantly, Father held them out to Fulai, who was standing beside Black Eye. ‘Which one do you want?’
‘The red one.’
‘No,’ Father said. ‘You can have the green one.’
‘I want the red one.’
‘The green one; take it or leave it.’ Fulai grudgingly took the green one out of Father’s hand.
As the physician’s neck gradually straightened, the ominous light in his eyes was as strong as ever. His bloodstained, wispy beard bristled.
‘Talk! Are you a Japanese spy or not?’ Granddad asked him.
Like a stubborn child, the physician picked up where he’d left off: ‘My mule, my mule! I won’t say a word until you bring me my mule.’
Granddad laughed mischievously, then said, ‘Bring it over. Let’s see what he’s trying to sell.’
The scrawny mule was led to the tent, where the dazzling candlelight, the shiny coffin, and the dark, forbidding paper figures so frightened it that it balked at the entrance and refused to take another step. The physician covered its eyes with his hands and led the animal inside. Its skinny legs shook, and a rat-tat-tat of loud farts was released towards Grandma’s bier.
The physician threw his arms around the mule’s neck and patted its bony forehead. ‘Scared, fellow?’ he asked tenderly. ‘Don’t be. I’m telling you, don’t be scared. Not even if they lop off your head and leave a scar as big as a bowl! Even if it’s the size of a basin, in twenty years you’ll come back as a real hero!’
‘Okay, talk! Who sent you? What are you here for?’ Granddad asked him.
‘My dad’s ghost sent me here to sell my potion.’ He took his saddlebags off the mule’s back, removed a packet of patent medicine, and began to chant, ‘A dash of croton beans, two of bezoar, three of blister beetle, four of musk, seven onion whites, seven dates, seven grains of paper, seven slices of ginger.’
Everyone’s mouth dropped in astonishment as they looked at the expression on the physician’s face. The mule, having grown used to its surroundings, began pawing the ground casually with its pale, cracked hooves.