Sunlight was streaming in through the window when they awoke the following morning, and Zhuang was impressed to see how nicely Ruan had decorated his apartment. He proudly revealed that the wallpaper was imported from France, the tea-colored window glass made in Italy. He’d bought thirty-seven laminated decorative panels from Shanghai, which still wasn’t quite enough. He took Zhuang into the bathroom to show off his tub, into the kitchen to show him the liquid gas stove, and into two small rooms to see the modular cabinets. One door off the living room was locked. “My wife’s room,” Ruan explained. “Wait till you see the unique Japanese chandelier.” He took out a key and unlocked the door. Zhuang could not believe his eyes. Two people were fast asleep on a king-sized Simmons mattress: one was Ruan’s wife, the other a man with slobber on his cheek. Zhuang had never seen him before and wondered if he was dreaming, but he heard Ruan say, “That’s my wife… when did she get home? We were so sound asleep we didn’t hear them come in.” Zhuang did not know what to say, but he thought he was expected to say something. The more he tried, the more he was unable to think of anything.
“Who is that?” was all he could come up with.
“Let’s just say it’s me,” Ruan said, before shutting the door and leading Zhuang back into his bedroom, where he opened a wardrobe with five shelves, crammed with women’s shoes in all sizes. “I’m fond of women’s shoes. Every pair you see comes with a beautiful story.”
Zhuang wasn’t sure what he meant, but he noticed that Ruan had sleep in his eyes. “Wipe your eyes,” he said. If he bought the shoes for women, why are they still here? Maybe for every pair he gives away he buys another, keeping some sort of record.
Ruan handed Zhuang a pair. “Manager Zhu of the West Avenue Mall gave me these a few days ago. They don’t have a number, and don’t have a story. Give them to your wife. Don’t say no.”
Shoes in hand, Zhuang Zhidie walked out of Ruan’s apartment and rode his scooter all the way to Guangji Road before recalling the payment voucher for one of his essays in his pocket. He turned and headed to the post office near the clock tower to get his money. It wasn’t much, a little over two hundred yuan. Back on what was now a crowd-filled street, he checked his watch and saw that people were just getting off work. Threading his way to the parking lot, shoebox in hand, he asked himself why he’d foolishly accepted the shoes. He had to laugh. Then he had an idea. He went to the nearest telephone booth to call Jing Xueyin at home. A man answered. “Who’s this?” he asked. Knowing it was Jing’s husband, Zhuang hung up and tried her work number. He learned she was away visiting her parents. Patting the shoebox, he listlessly exited the phone booth and stopped to see what the posted newspapers on the kiosk had to report. A young man sidled up to him. “Want to buy some eyeglasses, friend?” he asked under his breath, opening his jacket to reveal a pair with hard frames hanging from his vest. “I won’t lie to you, I stole them. Genuine crystal lenses, priced at eight hundred yuan at the store. I need money. You can have them for three hundred.”
Zhuang looked into the sky, where the sun shone brightly. His eyes narrowed into a smile. He reached into his pocket, but instead of money, he took out one of his cards. “I won’t lie to you, young man. I’ve been in your business, and that makes us soul mates. Here’s my card.”
The youngster took the card, read it, and snapped off a salute. “So you’re Zhuang Laoshi! Today is my lucky day. I went to one of your lectures, but you’re heavier now, with a bit of a paunch, and I didn’t recognize you.”
“You like to write, do you?” Zhuang asked him.
“I’ve dreamed of being a writer since I was a kid. The local paper published one of my little poems last year.”
“Xijing is a remarkable place,” Zhuang commented. “If a meteorite struck down ten people, seven of them would be fans of literature.”
The young man walked off sheepishly, turning around every few steps to look back. Zhuang found it a bit comical and somewhat off-putting. When he came to a sundries store, he bought a set of Jingdezhen porcelain dinnerware, a spatula, a briquette stove, and a tea set with the two hundred yuan, and then told the salesclerk to deliver it all to Tang Wan’er at the address he gave him. After that, he rode his scooter to his in-laws’ house on Shuangren fu Avenue.
Fifty-five years earlier, an eccentric by the name of Niu had lived on the bank of the Wei River in the northern outskirts of town. Coming and going like a shadow, he was adept at observing the constellations to see their effect on the world. At the time, General Yang Hucheng had ended his bandit career in central Shaanxi and become a powerful force in Xijing. He invited the eccentric Niu to be his aide. Unwilling to live in the city, Niu remained in his three-room cottage with its acre of anemic farmland, where he lived a life of ease, going into town when General Yang had something important for him to do. Soon thereafter, the Henan warlord Liu Zhenhua laid siege to Xijing. After meeting stiff opposition for eighty days, Liu tried the Japanese tactic of tunneling into the city. The residents knew what the enemy was up to, but did not know where the tunnel ended, so at night they buried earthenware vats filled with water and regularly checked to see if they were disturbed. They were in a constant state of anxiety. The eccentric arrived, dressed in traditional garb, and after walking through the city, street by street and lane by lane, he rested on a boulder at the martial-arts school to smoke his water pipe.
“Dig here to create a lake,” he said after twelve puffs on his pipe. Yang Hucheng was doubtful, but he had all the city’s water brought over. The tunnel ended at the bottom of the lake, and when it broke through, all the water flowed out of the city. Liu Zhenhua was forced to retreat. A grateful Yang rewarded the eccentric with a house on Shuangren fu Avenue; but he chose to return to the bank of the Wei River, so his son moved into town. The largest of Xijing’s four sweet-water wells was located in that lane, where the son created the Shuangren fu Water District, distributing fresh water throughout the city by the wagonload.
Zhuang Zhidie loved talking about this history. Whenever he entertained guests, he had his wife, Niu Yueqing, show them a photo of her grandfather and a plaque made of bone. He also took them to Shuangren fu Avenue and described how the Niu family had occupied an entire lane. His wife had criticized him in the past: “Why must you show off all the time? Are you mocking the Niu descendants as responsible for the family’s decline? My mother had no sons. If she had, we would not have been reduced to owning a mere few houses.”
“I’m not mocking anyone,” Zhuang Zhidie said solicitously on one occasion. “The family may have declined, but the same may not be true for the son-in-law.”