You can do it with your dagger or that pair of scissors, or you can use this butcher knife. I don't care one way or the other, it's up to you. Just do it.’
‘Get lost,’ I said. ‘We've got no beef with you, why would we want to kill you?’
‘That's right,’ he said, ‘you've got no beef with me but I still want you to kill me.’ When he tried to force his knife into my hand, both Jiaojiao and I backed away. But he was relentless—he kept coming at us, moving a lot quicker than we'd have guessed, given his bulk. He was like the offspring of a cat and a mouse. We had no idea what you'd call something like that but we couldn't shake him no matter how hard we tried.
‘Are you going to kill me or aren't you?’
‘No.’
‘All right, then, if you won't do it, I'll do it myself—slowly.’ He turned the butcher knife on himself and sliced a deep gash in his belly, which immediately began to ooze yellow fat and then blood.
Jiaojiao threw up at the sight.
‘Are you going to kill me or aren't you?’
‘No.’
He stabbed himself a second time.
We turned and ran but he followed us relentlessly. Knife raised high and blood streaming from his belly, he came after us, shouting over and over: ‘Kill me—kill me—Luo Xiaotong, Luo Jiaojiao, do a good deed by killing me—’
The next morning, we'd barely shown up at the Huachang gate when he ran up on his stubby legs, knife in hand, and opened his shirt to show us his wounds. ‘Kill me—kill me—Luo Xiaotong, Luo Jiaojiao, kill me—’
We ran off, but even from far away we could hear his cries.
Back home, before we even caught our breath, a man in dark glasses rode up on a motorcycle with a green sidecar and stopped at our gate. Wan Xiaojiang climbed out of the sidecar and staggered into our yard, still holding his knife, still showing us his wounds, still shouting: ‘Kill me—kill me—’
We slammed the door shut; shouting, he attacked it with his substantial buttocks. His voice, which cut like a knife, sounded like it could slice through glass. We covered our ears with our hands but to no avail. The door was starting to give way, the hinges pulling free. A moment later it fell apart with a crash and the splintering of glass. Wan burst into the room: ‘Kill me—kill me—’
Jiaojiao and I slipped under his armpits and ran as fast as we could. But when we reached the street the motorcycle was following us, as were Wan Xiaojiang's shouts.
We ran out of the village and into the overgrown fields, but the rider—the man must have been a motorcross racer—rode straight into the waist-high grass and across the water-filled ditches, startling clusters of strange-looking hybrid animals out of their dens. As for Wan Xiaojiang, his unnerving shouts never stopped swirling round us.
That's what did it, Wise Monk. We left home and began living a rootless life, all to get away from that rotten Wan Xiaojiang. Three months later, we returned, and the minute we walked in the door of our home we discovered that we'd been cleaned out by thieves. No TV, no VCR, the cabinets thrown open, the drawers pulled out, even the pot was gone. All that was left were two stovetop frames, like a pair of ugly, toothless, gaping mouths. Fortunately, my mortar still rested in a side room under its dusty cover.
We sat in the doorway and watched the people on the street, both of us sobbing, high one moment, low the next. The neighbours brought jars, baskets, even plastic bags, all filled with meat, fragrant, lovely meat, and laid them at our feet. No one said a word. They just watched us, and we knew they wanted us to eat the meat they'd brought. All right, kind people, we'll eat it, we will.
We ate it.
Ate it.
Ate.
We ate so much we couldn't stand; we looked down at our bulging bellies and then crawled inside on our hands and knees. Jiaojiao said she was thirsty. So was I. But there was no water in the house. We looked round till we found a bucket under the eaves, half filled with foul water, perhaps rainwater from that autumn. Dead insects floated on the surface but we drank it anyway.
Yes, that's how it was, Wise Monk.
When the sun came up, my sister was dead.
At first I didn't realize it. I heard the meat screaming