meat longed for me to eat it, which was in perfect accord with my desires. I did not want any of it to wind up in the bodies of people who had no understanding of it but I lacked the power to see that that did not happen. In order to ensure that I continue to dine on meat thereafter, I shut my still-greedy mouth and tried to stand. I couldn't. With difficulty, I looked down at my hideously swollen belly and tried my best to ignore the meat on the platter and its sweet yet mournful appeals. I knew that I'd die if I took another bite, so I gripped the edge of the stool and somehow managed to stand. I was a little light-headed from all the meat—‘meat dizzy’, a not-totally-unpleasant sensation. Huang Biao held me up by the arm and, in a voice dripping with admiration, said: ‘You've earned your reputation, my young friend. That performance was an eye-opener.’
I knew what he was getting at. My meat-eating ability and my hankering for it were no secret in Slaughterhouse Village.
‘To be a carnivore you must have a prodigious stomach,’ he said, ‘and you were born with the stomach of a tiger or a wolf. The heavens have sent you down here, my young friend, for one purpose only, and that is to eat meat.’
I knew that there were two levels of meaning in his words of praise. One was that I had truly opened his eyes by my capacity for meat, and that deep down he admired me. But on another level he wanted his fine words to buy my silence over the fact that he'd pissed in the pot.
‘Meat finds its way into your stomach, my young friend, the way a beautiful woman finds her way into the arms of a staunch man and the way a finely worked saddle finds its way onto the back of a gallant steed,’ he said. ‘Putting it into the stomachs of others would be a terrible waste. My young friend, come see me any time you desire a meal of meat. I can put some aside for you. But tell me, how did you manage to get in here? Did you scale the wall?’
Ignoring him, I opened the kitchen door, hitched up my belly with both hands and walked out with a pronounced sway. ‘Tomorrow, my young friend,’ his voice followed me out, ‘you don't have to crawl in through the sewage hole. I'll leave some meat here for you at noon.’
My legs grew rubbery and my vision blurred, my protruding belly slowed me down. Struck by a feeling that I existed solely for the benefit of my stomach, I actually sensed the meat that lay in it. What an amazingly joyous feeling that was, flickering through my head as if I were sleepwalking. I strolled aimlessly round Father's plant, from one workshop to the next. All the doors were tightly shut, in order to keep prying eyes away from the secrets within. That did not stop me from peeking through every crack, but I saw only spectral movements in the darkness, most likely beef cattle awaiting slaughter. I was later proven right, for the buildings did in fact house beef cattle. Four buildings in the plant were devoted to slaughtering animals, one each for cattle, pigs, sheep and dogs. The two reserved for cattle and pigs were quite large, the one for sheep small and the one for dogs smaller still. I'll delay descriptions of the four buildings for the time being, Wise Monk. What I want to say now is that while I was walking through Father's plant, I forgot all about what had happened at school, thanks to a belly filled with meat. More than that, my plan to pick up Jiaojiao from her preschool and take her to Lao Lan's for lunch had been swept from my mind.
I simply enjoyed a leisurely stroll that took me up to an elegant table groaning under the weight of many, many plates and bowls filled with meat, along with an array of colourful things.
POW! 29
That plump, golden goose is now nothing but a pile of bones. The boy leans back his corpulent body and exhales loudly, the expression on his face one of intoxicating, after-meal contentment. Bright sunlight falling on his face paints an enchanting image. Lan Laoda walks up to him, bends over and asks lovingly: ‘Have you had enough, dear?’ The boy rolls his eyes and belches.