Xiaogai started after her, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I picked up the scissors and blocked his way. Unfortunately, Old Cui and Little Chen were on his side, and I was outnumbered. I could only stand and watch Xiaogai walk outside. He turned, pointed at me threateningly and said, ‘Just you wait, Kongpi. Don’t think I won’t use those things on you. And if I don’t, somebody else will. Get ready to go into mourning for that dick of yours. You’re full of big talk now, but you’ll be begging for mercy before long.’
I stayed in the barbershop, waiting for Huixian to return. Waiting, too, for Xiaogai to return, and that made me uncomfortable. I sat in the corner from two in the afternoon, reading a newspaper. It was a new edition, but the contents hardly differed from days before: ‘News of victories on the labour front continue to pour in’ or ‘Unprecedented harvests in the agricultural, forestry, and fishery industries,’ stuff like that. All I had to do was read the first paragraph to know what the entire article said. Old Cui and Little Chen left me alone, and I ignored them.
Customers started showing up before long, under my watchful eye. A middle-aged woman with a youthful, seductive voice came in and sat down. She and Old Cui seemed to be on close terms. The flirting between barber and customer began. I didn’t like what I was seeing. Didn’t he know that this work environment had a bad influence on Huixian? Next through the door was a young dandy in fancy clothes, an official at the General Affairs Building called Little Zheng. He was obviously looking for Huixian, since he glanced around and poked his head in the boiler room. When he saw that she wasn’t there, he patted Little Chen on the shoulder and left. He hadn’t said a word the whole time. That put me on my guard. ‘What did Little Zheng want?’ I asked Little Chen.
He just looked at me out of the corner of his eye and snorted contemptuously. ‘That’s funny, you asking about other people. What is it you want?’
What could I say? ‘I’m waiting for Huixian,’ I said once I’d gathered my wits. ‘She told me to.’
‘You think she likes you, don’t you? She says wait, and you wait. Maybe she wants you to take in a movie. Or maybe have a wedding picture taken at the photographer’s shop. Dream on!’
‘Say what you like, I’m not leaving. I’m waiting for Xiaogai to come back and cut off my dick.’
He sneered. ‘This is no place for you to be showing off, Kongpi. We know all about you. You’re no match for Wang Xiaogai, so I’d steer clear of trouble, if I were you, and head back to the fleet now, before it’s too late.’
The clock on the wall said it was nearly four o’clock. It was beginning to get dark outside. I spotted Chunsheng and his sister walking past the barbershop shouldering a bag of rice. Fortunately, they didn’t see me on the other side of the glass door; that would have meant trouble for sure. The waiting was beginning to get to me, and in my mind’s eye I could see Father, eyes glued to the shore, rolling pin in hand, and his worry had turned to anger; he was willing me to return to the barge. Tired of sulking, I decided to go across the street to pick up the quilt stuffing, but I’d only made it as far as the door when a familiar figure appeared. It was Huixian; she’d come back.
She was loaded down with purchases, and I wondered what that was all about. A green nylon mesh bag over her shoulder was crammed full of sweets, biscuits and bottles of orange soda, while in her hands she was holding a thermos flask and a sack of apples. I stepped aside and held the door open for her. She smiled; I returned the smile. As we looked at each other, her smile froze. One after the other, she laid her purchases on the floor by my feet. Not sure what was coming, I stepped over the vacuum bottle and bag, but she grabbed hold of my shirt to stop me.
‘Let’s settle our accounts.’ It sounded like a casual comment, but the look in her eyes was anything but casual. ‘You said you didn’t want money or ration chits, right? Well, I broke one of your thermos flasks when I was a little girl, and I ate a lot of your food — biscuits, sweets, orange soda, things like that. I’m paying you back now. These are the only things I remember, but if I’ve forgotten anything, just tell me.’
Who’d have thought this would be how she’d decided to call it quits with me? I was on the verge of tears as I looked down at all those things. What could I say?
‘I know I’m acting like a spoiled child. Go ahead, take this home with you. Now we’re even.’ She walked away, heading towards the boiler room, but stopped after a couple of steps and said, ‘Are we quits now, or aren’t we? I don’t want to make you mad, Ku Dongliang. I haven’t forgotten where I came from. You may not care about the future, but I do, so please stop coming here to pester me. If word gets out, it’ll look bad for me.’
The tension in the shop was palpable. The twisted expression on my face must have frightened them. I picked up the flask and flung it to the floor; the glass lining shattered with a bang, sending the plastic case rolling on the floor as broken glass spread quickly. Then I picked up a soft-drink bottle and aimed it at Huixian. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she shrieked.
That stopped me, but only for a moment. I spun around and aimed it first at Old Cui and the woman he was working on, then at Little Chen. They’d never shown me any respect, but none of this was their fault, so I turned again and flung the bottle at the shop’s mirror. ‘We’re quits!’ I shouted. ‘That makes us quits!’ The mirror shattered. Then I aimed at the second mirror, which merely cracked. So I threw a third bottle. ‘We’re quits!’ I was crying by the time the third bottle was in the air. Hot tears ran down my face. Old Cui and Little Chen rushed up to grab me. Raising another bottle over my head, I swung at Old Cui’s face. Little Chen grabbed my left hand, so I hit him in the head with a bottle in my other hand.
Chaos ensued. Huixian and the woman in the chair screamed, blood and orange soda stained Old Cui’s face, who glared at me with disbelieving pain in his eyes.
‘Are you out of your mind, Kongpi?’ A trickle of blood oozed from Little Chen’s scalp. Boiling with rage, he picked the last bottle of soda out of the nylon bag and flung it at me. Dropping whatever was in my hand, I turned and ran, but too late. I’d barely made it to the door before I was stopped by people who had quietly sealed off my escape route. I felt like a ball that had banged into a wall, as fists and feet slammed into me, driving me back inside the shop.
A trio of young men surrounded me like three gloomy bombs. One was a powerful fellow with a goatee who went by the name of Old Seven of Li Village; a distant relative of Wang Xiaogai, he’d killed a man during his youth. I knew that Xiaogai had sent them to the barbershop; what I didn’t know was what they planned to do.
At first I just stood there to get a good look at them. They were all younger than me, in their late teens, and were dressed alike, with white bell-bottomed trousers and similar checked shirts. They wore fashionable digital watches, and Old Seven had a leather pouch hanging from his belt; something gleaming was sticking out of the top — an electrician’s knife. I wasn’t scared, not at first, because they merely had mischievous looks in their eyes; I even saw them wink at the barbers. But then Old Seven did something that put me on my guard: he spat in his hand and reached down towards my crotch. I jumped back and shoved him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
He responded with a sinister grin. ‘What am I doing? I hear you’ve been a bad boy, letting that thing act up in public. Well, we’re here to see it doesn’t happen any more.’ Now I knew what they had in mind, and I broke for the door, but again not in time. One of them grabbed me around the waist, another held my legs, and I heard Old Seven shout, ‘Pull his trousers off!’ All three bombs exploded at once. They were stronger than I’d given them credit for. Suddenly, I felt like a sack of rubbish being thrown to the floor.