Telling himself that this doctor had no sense of humor, Meng asked where Ruan had gotten the new eyes.
“From a dog.”
“A dog!” Meng cried out. “What’s that saying — to a dog, people all look small?”
The doctor snorted and walked off, ignoring Meng, who left the hospital feeling snubbed. It was getting late, so he decided not to go back to the dance hall. Instead he went home, where he found Zhuang, Xia Jie, Zhao Jingwu, and Zhou Min sitting around listlessly.
“Ha! I waited at the dance hall until I’d just about sunk roots, but you’re still sitting here. Doesn’t what I say mean anything? Or are you playing a trick on me?”
“I’m so mad I could kill you.” Xia poked him on the forehead before dragging him into the kitchen to talk in private.
She told him they had played mahjong until 3:40 that afternoon. Just as they were ready to leave for the dance hall, Zhou Min arrived. He had returned from Tongguan, and instead of coming back with Tang Wan’er, he walked in with a bandaged head. His sorry look told everyone that he had been in a fight in Tongguan. They asked when he had come back and why he hadn’t called to have them meet him at the station. He said he’d been back for two days.
“Two days?” Zhuang said. “Why did you wait that long to come see us?”
“I didn’t see a need to tell people anything,” Zhou said. He shifted his attention to the mahjong table, asking to play a round.
“So you came back, and that’s it?” Zhuang was so mad his face looked almost black. “We were looking forward to your return so much that our eyes nearly bled, but you waited two whole days to come see us. And now here you are, looking nonchalant. Tell me, what happened to Tang Wan’er?”
“I failed to rescue her,” Zhou said, obviously frightened by Zhuang’s outburst.
“I can see that. But don’t you have any news about how she’s doing?”
Zhou told them he had been cursed, jeered at, and mocked by nearly everyone in Tongguan when he got there, so he had to stay out of the public eye. He asked a few old pals to go to her house to check things out and learned that her husband had stripped her naked and beaten her until her body was covered with welts. He wanted her to promise that she would be content to stay home with him, but she refused to say anything, neither yes nor no, so he tied her up and raped her over and over. He tortured her, burning her privates with cigarettes, cramming a flashlight up… Zhuang was weeping before Zhou had finished.
“It’s all right,” Zhou said with a laugh. “Don’t shed any tears over her. None of us may ever get to see her again, so we have to learn to forget her.” He went on to say that he had sent a mutual friend to see her after he talked to some lawyers and learned that she could get a divorce by sending a request to the court, whether her husband agreed or not. But the man did not get to see Tang Wan’er, since she was locked up in a shed in the back yard. Zhou said he couldn’t stand it any longer, so he put on a straw hat as a disguise one afternoon and stormed into her house. Her husband had prepared for that possibility by keeping four bruisers around. The moment Zhou was inside, they tensed up, raising their fists and glaring at him. “I don’t want a fight,” he told them as he sat down at a table and took out a bottle, inviting everyone to drink. Seemingly reassured by his behavior, Tang’s husband opened some cans of snacks, and the six of them commenced to drink.
“Let’s talk now that it’s reached this point,” Zhou said. “When Wan’er went to Xijing with me, I knew she was married, but I loved her and she loved me, so we took off anyway. Then you went to Xijing to get her back. That’s fine, but you should have let me know, so I wouldn’t worry about her.”
“Well, how should I put this? I’m not the cultured type, so let’s not beat around the bush. You’re well known in Tongguan, but she cheated on me for a long time. Now that we’re sitting here, I won’t beat you up or even curse you; all I ask is for you never to see her again. Do it for our child’s sake, if not for mine.”
“Are you begging me?” Zhou said.
“Yes, I am.”
“But how can I forgive you? You tied her up and brought her back here to beat her to within an inch of her life. Then you sexually abuse and torture her. She’s your wife, not some farm animal. Besides, you can’t beat her into loving you.”
“That’s none of your business. She’s my wife, and no one can tell me how to rein her in.”
“I won’t allow you to treat her like that. If you still want to be with her, then you have to treat her with care. Get a divorce if you plan to continue abusing her.”
“I’ll die before I divorce her.”
“All right, then. You begged me, and now it’s my turn to beg. Would you let me see her?” Zhou had filled out a divorce application, which he had planned to have Tang Wan’er sign with her fingerprint when he saw her and then take it to court on her behalf. But the husband refused, so they began to argue. When Zhou tried to force his way out back, one of the bruisers knocked him to the floor. “Beat him, beat the damned hooligan! He came here to stir up trouble, and we won’t be breaking the law if we beat him to death.” All four of the men went at him with their fists and feet, so he jumped up onto a table, knocking two of them down with one kick each. When Tang’s husband grabbed hold of him, he bit down on his hand so savagely that the bone showed, but one of the men cracked his skull with the liquor bottle. Finally the neighbors, alerted by the scuffle, ran over. Zhou jammed on the straw hat and ran out, his head bloody. He took to bed the moment he got home, and was so ashamed he stayed there for three days. On the fourth day, he learned that Wan’er’s husband and his lackeys had smashed the glass case at the small sundry shop run by Zhou’s mother. He jumped out of bed, ready to fight them again, but his parents held him back, asking him to let them live in peace. They said he had already stirred up enough trouble on account of a woman, as people were talking about how he had tricked another man’s wife into running away with him. Even they had been affected, which was why so many people had looked on silently while the shop was vandalized.
“You’ll kill us if you stir up more trouble. With all the available women, why did you have to fall for somebody’s wife? At your age, other men are already providing for their parents. We don’t expect money or help from you. All we ask is for you to let us live in peace, son, and not make us worry about you all the time!”
His anger now spent, he slept for several more days before returning to Xijing.
After hearing the story of Zhou’s visit, Meng Yunfang walked out of the bedroom with a heavy heart and headed straight to the refrigerator for a bottle. “Wan’er won’t be returning, so be it,” he said. “At least Zhou Min’s back. I want to drink today, and I want to eat meat. Xia Jie, go buy four catties of dog meat.”
“Liquor and dog meat?” she said. “That produces too much heat in the qi.”
“Just do as I say. No more backtalk,” Meng said, and she left. Everyone else was still quiet, so Zhou said, “Why doesn’t someone say something? Wan’er was my woman, and I’m no longer sad, so why are you feeling bad? Life is like a dream, so we’ll just wake up from this dream and go on with our lives.”
Zhuang reached for the bottle, but he couldn’t open it no matter how hard he tried. Zhou offered to open it for him, to which Zhuang responded by using his teeth, making a cracking noise before finally uncapping the bottle. He poured a glass for himself and drank, followed by the others, who each downed a glass. By the time Xia Jie returned with the dog meat, there was hardly any left.
“Yunfang,” Xia Jie said, “people at the store were saying that Ruan Zhifei was kidnapped and blinded. Did you know that?”