in the northeast, he'd developed an understanding of the link between dogs and wolves. Now, as I thought back, I cringed at the thought of what would have happened if those now wolfish animals had made it out of the pen. The entire area could have wound up under siege.
The man wheeled the scale over to the dog pen, where my father appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
‘Hey, dog-peddlers,’ he shouted to the men waiting in the queue. ‘Line up over there.’
The old fellow squatted down, picked up his shoulder pole and straightened up, lifting the four dogs off the ground. Oh, there's one thing I forgot. People who raised dogs believed in marking their animals, including clipping their ears and inserting nose rings. This old fellow, shunning such half-baked strategies, actually removed his dogs’ tails; it gave them a dopey look but increased their agility. I wondered if his tailless dogs would turn wolfish in the pen and, if so, if they too would leap about in the moonlight. Let's say they would. Then would they be more graceful than the others or would they bounce about like billy goats? We fell in behind him, feeling sorry for the dogs yet knowing what hypocrites that made us. Showing sympathy to a dog was asking to be eaten by it. And what a waste, albeit insignificant, that would be. In ancient times, human flesh had probably—no, definitely—been a delicacy for beasts of prey, but in present times a human being eaten by beasts of prey would be turning the world upside down, confusing the roles of eater and eaten. Their purpose in life was to be eaten by humans, which makes sympathy for them both hypocritical and laughable. And yet, I couldn't help feeling sorry for those pitiful creatures hanging from the man's shoulders—or perhaps I should say that I found the sight hard to endure. Wanting to clear my head of these weak, shameful thoughts, I took Jiaojiao by the hand and headed towards the meat-cleansing workshop, where we watched as the dog-peddlers laid their animals, one on top of the other, onto the scale. The only signs of life were their low moans, a bit like an old woman with a toothache; it was hard to imagine them as living creatures. The scale operator skilfully moved the slide across the arm and announced the weight in a low voice. Father, who was standing to the side, said unemotionally: ‘Deduct twenty pounds!’
‘Why?’ the seller protested loudly. ‘Why are you deducting twenty pounds?’
‘Because you stuffed each of them with at least five pounds of food before you left home,’ Father said coolly. ‘I'm deducting only twenty to save you a bit of dignity.’
‘No one can put anything over on you, Manager Luo,’ the man confessed with a wry smile. ‘But these animals are here to be slaughtered and we had to let them eat, didn't we? I raised them myself. They're like family. Besides, don't you fill them full of water before you kill them?’
‘You'd better be ready to prove that,’ Father said with a steely look.
‘Seriously, Lao Luo,’ the dog-seller sneered, ‘if you don't want people to know something, don't do it in the first place. Everyone knows about your meat-cleansing technique. Who do you think you're fooling?’ The man glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, said, ‘Am I right or am I not? You're the head of the meat-cleansing workshop, aren't you?’
‘We don't infuse our animals with water,’ I responded. ‘We cleanse the meat. Is that something you can understand?’
‘Cleanse the meat?’ the man sputtered. ‘You fill those animals almost to the bursting point. Cleansing the meat! Well, I have to give you credit for coming up with such a fine term.’
‘I'm not going to argue with you,’ said Father angrily. ‘Sell your dogs for twenty pounds less or take them back home with you.’
‘Lao Luo,’ the man said, squinting, ‘you're a different man now that things are going your way. I guess you've forgotten the time you went round picking cigarette butts up off the ground.’
‘That's enough,’ Father said.
‘All right,’ the man conceded, ‘you win. You can tell when a man's luck is up by the state of his horse, and a bird of prey is always round when a rabbit's luck runs out.’ He reached down and arranged his dogs on the scale and then, with a forced smile, he said, ‘Not wearing your green cuckold's