uniform faded nearly white from too many launderings. Lively and spry despite his age, he is clearly a man of unusual abilities. I recognize him right away—Lao Lan's follower Huang Bao, a man who's had considerable dealings with our family and who yet remains a mystery, at least to me. The men take a large net out of the van and then spread it open. Then two of them, one on each end, begin walking towards the ostriches, and I know that the end is nigh. Huang Bao has obviously been sent on a mission for Lao Lan, and as such is playing the role of commander. The ignorant ostriches run straight towards the net, and the necks of three of them are immediately snagged by its holes. All the rest, flustered by the trap the others have stumbled into, turn and run, leaving the unfortunate three to struggle and complain hoarsely. After fetching a pair of garden shears from the van, Huang Bao goes up to the net, and—snip, snip, snip—separates the birds’ heads from their bodies at the thinnest part of the necks. The now-headless torsos perform a brief macabre dance before toppling over, spurts of dark blood gushing like a runaway hose from their truncated, python-like necks. The stink of blood seeps into the temple just as Huang Bao and his crew's mortal enemy arrives on the scene, a manifestation of the saying ‘Every evil man fears someone worse.’ Five stony-faced men in black emerge from somewhere behind the temple. The tallest among them, wearing sunglasses, a cigar dangling from his lips, is the mysterious Lan Daguan. As his four henchmen charge Huang Bao and his men, they draw rubber truncheons from their belts and, without a ‘by your leave’, begin cracking open heads. The sickening crunches and spurts of blood chill my heart. No matter what, Huang Bao has been counted as one of us, a fellow villager. I see him holding his head in pain. ‘Who are you?’ he shouts. ‘Who gave you orders to attack us?’ Blood oozes from between his fingers. His attackers remain silent and simply raise their truncheons once more. Huanb Bao has lost this battle; stumbling over to the highway, he runs away, shouting: ‘Just wait, you guys…’ Now you may think none of this makes any sense but it's all happening before my eyes. Lan Daguan crouches in front of one of the ostrich heads, reaches out and touches hairs that are still quivering. Then he stands up, takes out a white silk handkerchief, cleans his blood-stained finger with it and then throws it away. It is swept up by a gust of wind before it hits the ground and, like an oversized white butterfly, flaps its way over the temple roof and disappears from view. He now walks up to the temple and stands there a moment before removing his sunglasses, as if to show his face. I see the ravages of time on that face and the depths of melancholy in those eyes. A piercing crackle fills the air, a burst of loudspeaker static, followed by a man's husky announcement: ‘Stand by for the Tenth Annual Twin Cities Carnivore Festival and Foundation-Stone-Laying Ceremony for the Meat God Temple!’
At last, Lao Lan, a brown wool overcoat over a military uniform, appeared in the circle of light cast by the lantern and candles in our house, preceded by a hearty ‘Ha-ha!’ His uniform was the real thing: the collar and shoulders still bore traces of insignias and epaulettes. His overcoat, with its bright shiny buttons, was that of a field officer. A dozen or so years earlier, woollen uniforms like that were worn only by local Party cadres, a sign of their status, in much the same way as the legendary grey Dacron Mao tunics symbolized a commune cadre. Lao Lan had the nerve to go out in a woollen uniform despite the fact that he was only a village cadre, which proved that he did not consider himself a minor official. It was rumoured in the village that he and the town mayor were sworn brothers; as a result, in his estimation, all the county and township heads were beneath him. And with justification, since they found it necessary to get in his good graces for their promotions and personal wealth.
Lao Lan stepped into our brightly lit living room and, with a shrug, let his overcoat slip into the hands of the seemingly simple-minded but actually brilliant Huang