and banged his chopsticks down on the table. Clearly unhappy, he forced himself to speak with laudable forbearance: “Elder nephew Liu,” he said, “your concern is misplaced. Do you really think I am here because of the food? If it were a meal I desired, I could visit any establishment in town and, without a word, be served fine sea cucumbers and abalone, camel’s hoof and bear’s paw, monkey brains and bird’s nest soup, one dish after another. Eating one while sampling another with an eye to the third, that, my boy, is a banquet worthy of the name. And what has your family provided? Some half-cooked bean sprouts, a plate of rotting, pestilential pig’s head, and a decanter of sour millet spirits neither hot nor cold enough. Is this what you call a celebration banquet? It is more like a meal to get rid of stinking actors. No, I have deigned to attend for two reasons: first as a favor to your father, to prop up your family, and second to mix with the local gentry. I am kept so busy that flames shoot out of my ass, and finding this little bit of time has not been easy.”
The elder son of the Liu family could only nod and bow in response to Li Wu’s rebuke, and make a quick, desperate exit when Li paused to cough.
“Master Liu, you are a learned, cultivated man,” Li Wu said. “How could you have raised such an empty-headed turtle?”
None of the embarrassed guests dared make a sound. But Sun Bing, infuriated by what he had witnessed, pulled the plate of pig’s head over in front of him. “Since the eminent Li Wu is used to eating delicacies from land and sea, placing this pig’s head in front of him is clearly meant to sicken him. For those of us who survive on a diet of chaff and coarse greens, this nicely greases our innards and helps us shit!”
That said, without so much as a glance around the table, he began stuffing greasy, dripping chunks of meat into his mouth, one after the other. “Um, good,” he mumbled, “really good, fucking delicious!”
Li Wu glowered at Sun Bing, who did not so much as look up. Gaining no satisfaction from his angry glare, Li blinked and turned his gaze on the others around the table. With a curl of his lip, he shook his head in the sort of contempt typical of those in high position, the common display of a gentleman in the presence of petty men. The guests, fearful of causing trouble, held out their glasses in a show of respect for Li, who, like a man who dismounts from his mule on a downward slope, emptied his glass, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and, picking up the thread of conversation lost in the remonstrance of the elder Liu son, said:
“Worthy gentlemen, I revealed the secret of the Lord Magistrate’s beard to you only because we are all friends. As the adage goes, ‘While we are not related, we come from the same place.’ Now that you have been let in on the secret, you must keep it inside and let it rot there. Under no circumstances is what I said to leave this room, for if it were to find its way to the ear of His Eminence, my rice bowl would be unalterably smashed. These are things known only to the Magistrate, to the First Lady, and to me. Kindly take heed!”
Clasping his fists together at his chest, Li Wu bowed to each of the guests in turn; they returned the gesture. “You needn’t worry. It is a rare honor for a place like ours to have in its midst a superior man like Elder Li Wu! Our residents, one and all, wait with bated breath to benefit from their association with you. With that in mind, by speaking out of turn, we would be doing injury to ourselves.”
“It is precisely because we are one big family that I am willing to speak my mind.” Li Wu took another drink and then lowered his voice to speak conspiratorially: “His Eminence frequently summons me to his official document room as a conversation partner. We sit across from one another, like brothers, drinking millet spirits, eating dog meat, and chatting about everything under the sun, past and present. Our Magistrate is a man of erudition, familiar with the affairs of the world, and never happier than when he is engaged in