Bao, who had entered right on his heels and now stood there respectfully holding the coat and looking like a flagpole. He was the cousin of Huang Biao, who had put down his butcher's knife and begun raising dogs, and of course, the brother-in-law of Huang Biao's pretty wife. A martial-arts master, he was a wizard with spears and clubs and able to fly over eaves and walk up walls; nominally, he was the leader of the village militia while in fact he was Lao Lan's personal bodyguard.
‘Wait outside,’ Lao Lan said to him.
‘Why?’ Mother said generously. ‘He can sit with us.’
But Huang Bao stepped nimbly out of the living room and disappeared into our yard.
Lao Lan rubbed his hands and apologized: ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting. I returned late from an appointment in the city. With all the snow and ice on the ground, I told my driver to go slow.’
‘You honour us by taking time out of your busy schedule, with so many village matters to attend to…’ Father spoke with obsequious formality from where he stood behind the round table, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. ‘We are extremely grateful.’
‘Ha-ha, Luo Tong,’ Lao Lan said with a dry laugh. ‘You've changed since I last saw you.’
‘Getting old,’ Father said as he took off his cap and rubbed his shaved scalp. ‘Nothing but grey hair.’
‘That's not what I'm talking about. Everyone grows old. What I meant was you've got better at expressing yourself since I last saw you. And you've lost that old fight you used to have. These days you talk like an intellectual.’
‘Now you're making fun of me,’ Father said. ‘I've done lots of strange things in the past but the troubles I've had since then have shown how wrong I was. All I can do is beg your forgiveness…’
‘What kind of talk is that?’ Lan subconsciously reached up and touched his damaged ear as he carried on magnanimously, ‘Who doesn't do weird things at some point in their life? And that includes sages and emperors.’
‘All right, you two, enough of that talk,’ Mother said warmly. ‘Village Head, please sit.’
Lan deferred to Father a time or two before taking the chair Mother had borrowed from her cousin.
‘Come sit, all of you, don't stand about. Yang Yuzhen, you've worked hard enough.’
‘The food's getting cold,’ Mother said. ‘I'll go fry some eggs.’
‘I'd rather you sit,’ Lao Lan said. ‘You can fry the eggs when I say so.’
Lao Lan sat in the seat of honour, surrounded by Mother, Jiaojiao, Father and me.
Mother opened a bottle and filled glasses. Then holding up hers, she said: ‘Thank you, Village Head, for the honour of visiting this humble abode.’
‘How could I refuse an invitation from someone so renowned as the man of the hour, Luo Xiaotong?’ He emptied his glass. ‘Have I got that right, Mr Luo Xiaotong?’
‘No one's ever been a guest in our house,’ I said. ‘No one's ever deserved it before today.’
‘What kind of talk is that?’ Father said with a censorious look in my direction. Then he apologized. ‘Youngsters will say anything. Just ignore him.’
‘I see nothing wrong in what he said,’ said Lao Lan. ‘I like boys with a bit of spunk. Xiaotong's future as a man looks bright from what I see of him as a boy.’
Mother placed a drumstick on Lao Lan's plate. ‘Talk like that gives him a big head, Village Head. Best to avoid it.’
Lao Lan picked up the drumstick and laid it on my plate, then picked up the second one and laid it on the plate in front of Jiaojiao. She was timidly pressed up against Father, and I saw sadness mixed with affection in his eyes.
‘Say thank you.’
‘Thank you!’
‘What's her name?’ Lao Lan asked Father.
‘Jiaojiao,’ Mother answered. ‘She's a good girl, and smart too.’
Lao Lan kept placing morsels of meat and fish onto Jiaojiao's and my plates.
‘Eat up, children,’ he said. ‘Go ahead, eat whatever you like.’
‘What about you?’ Mother said. ‘Not to your taste?’
He picked up a peanut with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth.
‘Do you think I came here for the food?’ he asked as he chewed the peanut.
‘We know,’ Mother said. ‘You're the village head, with many honours and awards, someone who's well known at the city and provincial levels. I can't imagine there's any food you haven't tasted. We invited you here to express our regard for you.’
‘Pour me another,’ Lao Lan said as he held out his glass.