your lovers?’ ‘They are all loving aunts who watch over me,’ replies Lan Laoda with a smile. ‘I'm too old,’ says the old man, his voice heavy with emotion. ‘The spirit's willing but the flesh is weak. You take good care of them, for my sake.’ ‘Don't you worry, Patron, satisfying them is something I'm committed to.’ ‘We're not satisfied, not even a little!’ the women complain coquettishly. ‘In the old days,’ the old man remembers with a smile, ‘the emperor had women in three palaces and six chambers, a harem totalling seventy-two concubines, but you've outdone that, young Lan.’ ‘I owe it all to my Patron,’ replies Lan Laoda. ‘Have you mastered the martial skills I taught you?’ the old man asks him. Lan Laoda backs up a few steps and says: ‘You tell me, Patron.’ Seated on the carpet, he slowly folds his body into itself until his head is hidden in his crotch, his arse sticks up in the air, like the rump of a young colt, and his mouth is touching his penis. ‘Excellent!’ the old man exclaims as he taps the ground with his cane. ‘Excellent!’ echoes the crowd. The women, likely recalling some intimacy, cover their mouths, blush and giggle. A few in the crowd react with open-mouthed guffaws. ‘Young Lan,’ says the old man, sighing, ‘you have gathered all the city's flowers in a single night and I can do nothing but touch their pretty hands.’ And his eyes brim over with tears. The emcee, who is standing beside Lan Laoda, shouts: ‘Strike up the band and let the dancing begin!’ The musicians, waiting patiently in the corner, begin to play—cheerful, light-hearted music followed first by lilting melodies and then by passionate numbers. Lan Laoda takes turns dancing with members of his female entourage while the most seductive among them winds up in the arms of the old man, who shuffles his feet so slightly it looks more like scratching an itch than dancing.
Mother's persistence worked: Father put on his grey suit and, with her help, knotted a red tie. The colour reminded me uncomfortably of blood gushing from the throats of butchered animals. I'd rather he wore another but I kept that to myself. To be perfectly honest, Mother wasn't much good at knotting the tie. Lao Lan had made the actual knot and now she merely pushed it up under Father's chin and tightened it. He stretched his neck out and shut his eyes, like a strung-up goose. ‘Who the hell invented this stuff?’ I heard him grumble.
‘Stop complaining,’ Mother said. ‘You're going to have to get used to this. From now on there'll be many occasions when you have to wear a tie. Just look at Lao Lan.’
‘There's no comparison. He's the chairman and general manager.’ Father's voice sounded strange.
‘You're the plant manager,’ Mother reminded him.
‘Plant manager? I'm just another worker.’
‘You really need to change the way you look at things,’ Mother said. ‘Times like this, you change or you get left behind. Again, look at Lao Lan, the perennial bellwether. A few years back, during the ‘age of independents’, he was the first to get rich in the butcher trade. Not only that, he helped the village get rich too. And just when the independent butchers began to get a bad name, he founded the United Meatpacking Plant. We've done well by keeping up with him.’
‘I can't help seeing myself play-acting like a monkey in a cap,’ Father remarked glumly. ‘And this outfit makes it worse.’
‘What am I going to do with you?’ Mother said. ‘Like I said, learn from Lao Lan.’
‘He's a monkey in a cap too, as I see it.’
‘Who isn't? And that includes your friend Lao Han. No more than a few months back, wasn't he only a no-account mess cook? But then he put on a uniform and turned into a hypocrite.’
‘Niang's right,’ I said, thinking it was time I said something. ‘The old saying “A man's known by his clothes, a horse by its saddle” got it right. As soon as you put on a suit, you became a peasant-turned-entrepreneur.’
‘These days there are more of those than fleas on a dog,’ Father said. ‘Xiaotong, I want you and Jiaojiao to study hard so you can leave this place and get a decent job out there somewhere.’
‘I've been meaning to talk to you about that, Dieh. I want to quit school.’
‘What?’ He grew very stern. ‘Just what do you plan to do?’