Since this unusual incident revolved around a simple potted plant, it was not widely known, and was quickly supplanted by other news. But every resident of Xijing experienced an even stranger incident that summer, one that occurred at noon on the seventh day of the sixth lunar month, when a red sun shone brightly in the sky. The virtue of the sun is that people tend to ignore it when it shines, so no one in the city gazed skyward. The streets were no different than they were on any other day: ranking officials rode in chauffeured sedans, while people of means but no high position, unwilling to squeeze onto crowded buses, flaunted their money and climbed into taxis. It so happened that a VIP came to town in a caravan of police cars, sirens blaring as they forced private cars, taxis, and buses to slow down and move out of the way, and wreaking havoc on the flow of bicycle traffic. Unaffected pedestrians stepped on each other’s shadow, but caused neither pain nor injury. As the shadows went from dark to light, they grew shorter, until they disappeared, seemingly in an instant. Bereft of shadows to drag behind them, the people stopped being people, or so it appeared, and reached behind them, looking doubtful. Someone gazed into the sky and cheered, “Look, there are four suns in the sky!” Everyone turned to look, and, yes, there were indeed four suns, all the same size, each one indistinguishable from the others, clustered in a “T” formation. In the past, the city had experienced both a lunar and a solar eclipse, but never four suns at the same time. People thought their eyes must be playing tricks on them. Another look and the sun had turned from red to white, bright as a flare. White like I don’t know what. Then nothing. We cannot see in pitch darkness, but is that also the case when it is blinding bright? Not daring to start their cars or buses, some people honked their horns; others ran around as if they were not out on the street but were watching a movie when the film breaks and the screen goes blank, leaving only the soundtrack moving forward. If one person felt that way, just about everyone did, and they fell silent, deathly quiet, all but a man atop a wall who wanted to play one final note on a flute called the xun, but lacked the strength, like a gust of wind bouncing off a wall and disappearing. Mocking laughter greeted the flute player, and that reminded them where they were; suddenly unnerved by the silence, they screamed. Many fell into a state of absolute madness.
The bizarre situation lasted for about half an hour, until the four suns merged into one. When the people once again saw their shadows, they exchanged embarrassed looks and scattered. The confusion that followed occurred without a single traffic policeman in sight. An old man sat peacefully on a safety island. Dirty and unkempt, with a long face, he coolly observed the chaos around him. It was a look that people found so disturbing, so irritating, they wanted to call a policeman. But they did not see one anywhere, not until one named Su ran up, adjusting his helmet, and shouted at the beggar, “Pi! Fuck off!” using the coarsest term in the Xijing lexicon.
The old beggar responded by writing something on the pedestrian island with his finger. What he wrote was the single elegant, ancient character “Bi.” In other words, Off you go! A smile spread across his face, eliciting raucous laughter from people who took note of what he was wearing as he stepped down off the island. His clothes had been fashioned out of a silk banner presented to the Yunhuang Temple by devout pilgrims. On his chest were the embroidered words “Every Wish,” while the seat of his trousers, which were split up the middle and crudely sewn, sported two more characters: the left side of his buttocks read “Is,” the right side read “Granted.” The old fellow, exhibiting no sense of shame, opened his mouth and treated his audience to a bit of doggerel.
In the days and weeks that followed, it made the rounds in the city, and here is how it went:
One class of people is on the public weal, a life of leisure they proudly reveal.
A second class uses the wealth of others, and enjoys the protection of powerful brothers.
A third class contracts for large amounts, charging wasteful spending to expense accounts.
A fourth class lives on profits from rents, sitting at home to count dollars and cents.
A fifth class, the judges, whose courtrooms are used, profit from both accuser and accused.
A sixth class wields a surgical blade, filling pockets with cash from their trade.
A seventh class, actors on the stage, by comic routines make a tidy wage.
An eighth class, propaganda shills, turn slogans and chants into cashable bills.
A ninth class teaches in our schools, but where luxury is concerned are impoverished tools.
Society’s masters stand high on the tenth rung, earnestly studying the life of Lei Feng.
After this began to circulate, people doubted that he was a beggar at all. At the very least, he must have been a teacher, they declared, since only a teacher could have managed to compose rhymes of that caliber, especially ones that mercilessly attack the first few classes of people yet expose the hardships of teachers. But that was just a guess. No one cared to probe further. In that year, as it turned out, Xijing welcomed a new mayor, a man from Shanghai who had married a Xijing native. For more than a dozen years, each of his predecessors had intended to make improvements in the old city, but after encountering daunting obstacles, they accomplished little and left office like flowing water. The new mayor had misgivings about taking office in his father-in-law’s hometown, but as a public official, he had no say in where he was assigned. The question of where to start, what to tackle, arose on his first day in office. Fortunately, he had a wife who brought qualified friends and relatives on board as her husband’s advisors. One of them, a young man named Huang Defu, offered a bold proposal. As the seat of government, a city that had seen twelve dynasties come and go, its cultural heritage was both its capital and its burden. Local officials and residents were mired in conservative thinking, which was why Xijing lagged behind coastal cities when it came to long-term economic development. The past few mayors had taken on too much, and because industry had stagnated and urban construction was deeply in debt, even hard work yielded meager results. Turnover was another problem, with each administration forced to leave office after no more than five years; such dramatic changes in personnel were a hindrance to long-term planning. Instead of continuing down the same path, he suggested, it would be better to adopt a new approach, one ignored by others: cultural development and tourism; that, in the short term, at least, would produce results. Inspired by this proposal, the new mayor, who was in no way ashamed to learn from subordinates, interviewed the young man for three days, after which arrangements were made for him to be transferred out of his teaching position to serve as the mayor’s personal secretary. The mayor wasted no time in seeking appropriations from the central government, at the same time that he was amassing local funding in support of a project of unprecedented scope; it included refurbishing the city wall, dredging the moat around it, and building an amusement park, rich in local color, on the banks of the moat. He also rebuilt three city avenues: One with Tang dynasty architecture was designed for the sale of books, art, and porcelain. On a second avenue, styled after the Song dynasty, local and provincial snacks were sold. Local handicrafts, folk art, and specialty products were available on the third avenue, which boasted a mixture of Ming and Qing architecture. Unfortunately, the influx of outsiders introduced by the tourism industry had a negative impact on public safety, and people began referring to Xijing as a city of thieves, drug dealers, and prostitutes. This development bred a new form of disquiet among the local population. So when the unkempt old man appeared to entertain people with his doggerel, he was followed by a ragtag crowd of idlers, who shouted encouragingly: “Another verse, give us another one!” And so he did, two, in fact: