cruel exhibition. The people who flock to such exhibitions, Shifu said, are far more malicious than those of us who wield the knife. He said he spent many sleepless nights reliving every detail of that day’s execution, like a chess master replaying each move in a brilliant match that has forged his reputation. That night he mentally dismembered her body, then pictured it all coming back together. Her tearful yet melodic moans and shrieks swirled around his ears from start to finish in an unbroken stream. And the captivating odor that emerged from her body as it was being ravaged by his knife filled his nostrils. An ill wind struck the nape of his neck, a swoosh created by the beating wings of impatient, rapacious birds of prey. His infatuated recollections paused briefly at that juncture, like a pose struck by an actor on the operatic stage. At this point, little skin or flesh remained on her body, but her face was unmarked, and it was time for the coup de grace. His heart lurched as he sliced off a piece of her heart. It was deep red, the color of a fresh date; he held it on the tip of his knife like a precious gem as he looked into her ashen oval face, moved by the sight. He heard a sigh emerge from somewhere deep down in her chest. Sparks—not many, just a few—seemed to glimmer in her eyes, from which two large teardrops slipped down her face. He saw her lips move with difficulty and heard her say, soft as a mosquito’s buzz: “not . . . guilty . . .” The light went out of her eyes; the flame of life was extinguished. Her head, which had rocked back and forth throughout the ordeal, slumped forward, covered by a curtain of hair so black it looked as if it had just been taken out of a dyeing vat.
Zhao Jia’s fiftieth cut completed the paring of Qian’s chest muscles. The first tenth of his work was now behind him. After his apprentice handed him a new knife, he took two deep breaths in order to normalize his breathing. Qian’s ribs were exposed, as he could see, connected by thin membranes. The man’s heart was pumping like a jackrabbit wrapped in gauze. He felt good about his progress so far. The flow of blood had been stanched, and the fiftieth cut had removed the chest muscles, just as he had planned. The sole blemish so far was that the valiant man bound to the post had not made a sound, had not yelled in pain. This flaw had turned what should have been a spirited drama into a mime performance that lacked appeal. In the eyes of these people, he was thinking, I am a butcher, a meat merchant. He deeply admired this Qian fellow, who, except for a few barely perceptible moans during the first two cuts, had not made a sound. He looked into the man’s face, and what he saw were: hair standing up straight, eyes wide and round, the dark pupils nearly blue, the whites now red, nostrils flaring, teeth grinding, and taut cheek muscles bulging like a pair of mice. The ferocity of that face secretly astounded him. Soreness crept into the hand holding the knife. If the victim was a man, tradition demanded that once the chest muscles had been pared away, next to be taken from the body were his genitals. For this, three cuts were permitted, and the size of the excised portions need not complement other portions. Decades of experience had shown his shifu that what male subjects feared most was not the loss of skin or tendons, but the treasured object between their legs. Not because it was especially painful—it wasn’t—but because it gave rise to a psychological dread and a sense of shame. Most men would choose to lose their head over losing their maleness. According to the shifu, once you have removed even the bravest man’s genitals, you have taken the fight out of him, the same effect as cutting the mane of a warhorse or the plume of a proud rooster. Zhao Jia turned away from the solemn and tragic face that was putting him on edge and sized up his flaccid organ. It was shriveled pathetically, like a silkworm tucked into its cocoon. I’m truly sorry, young friend, he muttered to himself as he picked it out of its nest with his left hand