Xiao Man grew up in a small town on the western outskirts of Tiechen City, a town whose heart was a massive factory of ten thousand workers. Because the factory was a classified facility, neither the city nor the rural maps of that era recorded its location or name, and its mailing address was nothing more than a post office box known as “Tiechen Mailbox No. 2.” The factory had been urgently relocated from the Sino-Soviet border in the late 1960s, hastily constructed in a desolate mountain valley on the western outskirts of Tiechen. At the time, almost no one knew what the factory produced, so the locals simply called it the “Xi Tie Cheng Factory.”

Back then, the western outskirts were still barren mountain terrain, with sparse cornfields filling the valley. Construction began right in the middle of those cornfields. The workers who built the factory slept in reed mat shelters in summer and in rammed-earth mud-brick houses in winter. Occasionally they traded their labor insurance shoes — sturdy three-joint work boots — with nearby villagers for eggs, and when they did, they said little, citing the confidentiality regulations of a Third Front factory. The nearby villagers had no idea what a Third Front factory was. They only watched as the factory buildings in the foothills grew taller day by day — a hundred times faster than the rising corn — and within a year the construction was complete and production was underway, with the first plumes of black chemical smoke drifting into the sky. The construction brigade, operating under the motto of “production first, life later,” immediately began building the residential quarters. Hurried and rough-and-ready, rows of two and three-story buildings were topped off in quick succession, and the first wisps of white cooking smoke appeared.

By autumn, two hundred Liberation trucks drove into the newly completed residential area, loaded with wardrobes, wooden beds, pots, and bowls. The men who arrived with the convoy wore work clothes and forward-peaked caps — their dress an exact match for the figures illustrated on “Mass Production” cigarette boxes. The workers climbed down from the trucks and offered a cigarette to the local villagers who had come to watch, asking: “Is it warm here in winter? Do you get big snowstorms?”

The local villagers couldn’t understand what a “big snowstorm” meant. They tucked the cigarette behind one ear, pulled out their own pipe, lit it, and exhaled a puff of smoke, asking in return: “Is your factory good for two hundred households?”

“You’re far underestimating our factory!” The worker in the forward-peaked cap blew a puff of smoke as well. “We’re just the first wave! These two hundred trucks will make twenty round trips. The men are escorting the first load — the wives and children are coming by train and will be here soon!”

The villagers did the arithmetic. Good heavens — four thousand households! At the very least, twenty thousand people.

And so it was that twenty thousand workers of a military factory descended from the northern frontier to establish a brand-new domain on the warm western outskirts of Tiechen, quickly earning themselves the nickname “Xi Tie Cheng people.” The Xi Tie Cheng people gradually built kindergartens, primary schools, and middle schools; a workers’ hospital and a workers’ club; a library, a gymnasium, and a floodlit basketball court. They even transported the Chairman Mao statue from their old factory compound in Heilongjiang to stand before the administrative building of the new factory. Factory workers took turns posing for group photographs beneath the statue. They mailed the photos to relatives in the distant north, writing in their letters: “No matter where the factory moves — to the ends of the earth — wherever Chairman Mao stands, that is our home.”

During those extraordinary years, the Xi Tie Cheng factory publicly maintained the cover story that it was an agricultural chemical plant. This held until a catastrophic production accident occurred: a massive explosion let out a thunderous boom that shattered the windowpanes of half of Tiechen City, fifty miles away. The locals asked the Xi Tie Cheng people: isn’t your factory supposed to make fertilizer and pesticides? How did you manage to make such an enormous noise? The Xi Tie Cheng people gave vague answers, saying that high-grade fertilizers were prone to explosion. The locals pressed: if fertilizer can explode, doesn’t that make it the same as dynamite? The Xi Tie Cheng people said: that’s right, fertilizer and explosives have always been two sides of the same coin. The locals remained skeptical for several years, before slowly piecing together the truth — the mysterious Xi Tie Cheng factory produced no fertilizer whatsoever. It was one of the country’s foremost gunpowder manufacturing bases. And those workers toiling in the mountain valley had all been vetted through strict political screening as the finest and most trustworthy, having undergone the most rigorous confidentiality training.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that the Xi Tie Cheng factory gradually shed its former veil of mystery. More and more locals gained access to the factory compound and discovered that it was practically a self-contained independent kingdom, operating a complete social system of its own. Power supply, water supply, heating, hospital, schools, post office, bank, newspaper, closed-circuit television station — all of it was available within the factory grounds. It was no exaggeration to say that from the moment of birth with a cry at the workers’ hospital to the final rest in the mortuary, a person could spend their entire life without ever stepping outside the ten-mile factory zone.

In those years, large Third Front factories like Xi Tie Cheng were scattered across the eastern, central, and western regions of the country. These heavy industrial enclaves each proudly bore names like “Ten-Mile Auto City,” “Ten-Mile Artillery City,” and “Ten-Mile Textile City.” Xi Tie Cheng had once styled itself “Ten-Mile Chemical City.” Factory was city, and city was factory. The daily scenes of this unified factory-city life were grand and orderly: every morning at sunrise, twenty large loudspeakers across the factory grounds would simultaneously ring out with the song “Singing of the Motherland,” and countless bicycles would surge like a tide from the residential zone toward the production zone — to the prefabrication workshop, the nitration workshop, the mixing workshop, the machinery branch plant, and the cap-and-primer branch plant. On every handlebar hung a plastic bag of the same color, and inside each bag sat an aluminum lunchbox much like all the others. When the workday ended, the countless bicycles would once again converge into a river, flowing back to the residential zone where cooking smoke was rising. Life in the residential zone was likewise one of intense collectivism and uniformity. Upstairs and downstairs were all colleagues; in front of and behind the buildings were all fellow workers; the children all knew each other’s parents. A household with only one family member working at the factory was called a “single-base compound”; two workers meant a “double-base compound.” Every worker habitually said “our factory,” referred to going into the city as “going to Tiechen,” and called having children “producing output.” Each residential area had several large loudspeakers that regularly broadcast daily-life announcements:

“Water Shutoff Notice: Water supply pipes will be repaired tomorrow. Residential Areas One, Three, and Five will have their water shut off. A fire truck will deliver water at five o’clock!”

“Vaccination Notice: All primary school students born in 1982 must be accompanied by a parent to the Workers’ Hospital this week to receive their preventive injections, take sugar tablets, and be treated for roundworm!”

“Lantern Festival Notice: The factory will hold a Lantern Festival celebration tomorrow evening. Parents are urged to keep a close watch on their children to prevent trampling and getting separated!”

“Closure Notice: Due to a recent outbreak of pink eye, the factory swimming pool is temporarily closed. Reopening time is to be determined!”

The Xi Tie Cheng factory was like a massive meteorite that had fallen from the sky, carrying its own magnetic field, at odds with the local town and countryside for decades. In terms of speech and accent, the factory workers never picked up the nasal dialect of Tiechen’s locals; within the factory, only the Heilongjiang-accented factory dialect was spoken. When it came to food, Xi Tie Cheng’s sweet and sour braised pork was made with a sweet-and-sour sauce, while the Tiechen locals preferred a savory flavor. Even when it came to playing with insects, the factory children and the village children had nothing in common — the factory kids didn’t know what a “cicada nymph” was, and the village children had no idea what a “daddy longlegs” was.

Before the Xi Tie Cheng factory arrived, Tiechen City had a scattering of modest light industrial factories — enamelware factories, water heater factories, sewing machine factories, towel factories, and rubber shoe factories. Even counting workers and their families, none of these reached a thousand people in total. The Xi Tie Cheng factory that arrived afterward was classified as a full divisional-level unit; its Party committee secretary and the city’s Party committee secretary were equal in rank, but superior in treatment — the city committee secretary rode in a domestic Beijing 212 Jeep, while the factory secretary rode in a Soviet Volga sedan. Accordingly, the both-red-and-expert Xi Tie Cheng people didn’t think much of the small-workshop factories or the city residents. The only peers they recognized were the “Three Major Power Plants and Ten Major Military Enterprises” of Harbin, the “Number One Heavy Machinery” of Qiqihar, the “Dawn, Eastern Machinery, and 5703” of Shenyang, and the “Three Steel Plants and One Iron Works” of Anshan.

The city residents in turn couldn’t stand the arrogance of Xi Tie Cheng. They mocked: “We have a Confucian temple and a Kuixing Tower, an ancient pagoda over a thousand years old and a century-old monastery. What does your factory have besides mountain gullies and smokestacks? What’s there to be proud of?” The Xi Tie Cheng people shot back: “What broken towers and lowly temples — all feudal, Confucian relics. You flaunt those? Your entire city amounts to nothing more than ‘three streets, five buildings, one traffic cop, and one monkey.’ When will you ever achieve industrial modernization?”

As a glorious Third Front industrial enclave, the Xi Tie Cheng people felt themselves to be specially chosen colonists arrived on the Mayflower — while the locals regarded them as the Jin Dynasty’s General Wushu, who had swept south to seize new territory. During the years of armed factional struggle, the rebel faction of the Xi Tie Cheng factory had once dragged cannons out of the factory zone, intending to bombard their class enemies in the city. From that time on, the Tiechen locals summed up the Xi Tie Cheng people in a single character: fierce. This word carried both contempt for their bellicose manner and fear of their formidable force.

Xiao Man and Xia Lei’s childhood friendship began in a dry-pit latrine in the residential area — which sounds like the sort of gritty, unglamorous encounter fit for dung-beetle brothers meeting on the road.

By that time, the Xi Tie Cheng factory had been relocated to the western outskirts of Tiechen for over twenty years. Xia Lei and Xiao Man were third-generation children of the military factory. Both were born at the factory’s workers’ hospital. On the day of Xiao Man’s birth, it happened to be the solar term called Xiaoman — so he was simply named Xiao Man and done with it. Xia Lei was born during a thunderstorm; the delivering doctor, in a moment of haste, had cut his umbilical cord a little short and tied the knot somewhat uncertainly.

That year, the factory’s workers’ hospital delivered over two hundred babies. Most of these children were the only child in their families, and not long after their birth, their parents were persuaded by the factory’s family planning cadres to undergo sterilization procedures. In the year these children were learning to speak their first words, their parents bundled them into their arms and took them to the Workers’ Club to watch Shaolin Temple. That same year, many families bought black-and-white television sets; the brand name on the shell was not yet “Panasonic” but still “National.” Later, a one-yuan color film appeared on the market. Pasted over the screen of a black-and-white television, it could turn a black-and-white Mickey Mouse into a rainbow Mickey Mouse.

When they reached school age, the children were all sent to the factory’s own primary schools. Xi Tie Cheng had four such schools and one middle school. The first residential area corresponded to Factory Primary School No. 1, the second to No. 2, and so on. All primary school graduates were like batches of raw coal extracted from a mine shaft — first they went straight up to the factory’s own middle school, then, after passing through the screening of the high school entrance examination, those who qualified moved up to the factory’s own high school. Three years later, the finest-grade anthracite would sit the college entrance examinations, while the ordinary coal lumps would attend the vocational-technical school. The vocational school would then train them as chemical workers, electricians, fitters, and machinists, assigning them to the various workshops to begin work. The entire Xi Tie Cheng factory was like a colossal power generator: every year, a new batch of young workers was fed in as fresh coal, sustaining a productive flame that had burned without extinguishing for decades.

Xiao Man and Xia Lei both lived in Residential Area One. Residential Area One was the workers’ village — not a single department section chief, not a single doctor or engineer lived there. The toys of the workers’ children included slingshots, glass marbles, screws, nuts, and spent cartridge casings. The rhyme all the boys knew by heart went: “Lathe work, fitting, and milling — can’t be beat; riveting, welding, and soldering — full of food to eat” and “The lathe worker’s tight, the fitter’s loose, the electrician’s a carefree goose; the maintenance man’s a ragged wreck, and the welder has no shame or check.” When the four primary schools held their joint sports meet, students from other schools sat on stools and folding chairs, but the children from the workers’ village all sat on wooden cable spools — uniform and without exception.

The Residential Area One that Xia Lei and Xiao Man remembered had a plain asphalt road running down its central axis, with fifty old brick apartment buildings lining each side and, between the buildings, a chaotic tangle of earthquake-shelter sheds and storage rooms. Every storage room held a stack of worn-out manuals and brown glass bottles. The manuals included titles like Military Enterprise Confidentiality Manual, Chemical Warfare Militia Manual, and Anti-Nuclear Strike Manual; the brown plastic bottles contained chemical solvents such as acetone, methanol, and mineral spirits.

These fifty old brick buildings were divided by the road into a northern block and a southern block. The neighborhood children naturally split into two factions accordingly, each calling themselves the Northern Shaolin and the Southern Shaolin. Both Northern and Southern Shaolin had their version of a “Grand Hall.” The Northern Shaolin’s hall was a dilapidated, abandoned mud-brick storehouse, with a crooked line of chalk scrawled across its iron door: “Authentic Shaolin” — and below it in smaller letters: “I love Wang Xiaobing.” The Southern Shaolin’s “Grand Hall” was a perennially locked, run-down pump house, whose base was ringed with a bleached crust of dried urine, and whose rooftop waterproofing felt had long been torn away strip by strip by the children.

The first child to tear off the felt was Xiao Man. In those days there were no flush public latrines; several apartment buildings shared a single dry-pit latrine. The latrine was drafty and open, especially on winter nights when the north wind howled and froze your backside. Every time Xiao Man made his way to the latrine, he would first tear a strip of felt from the pump house eaves, light it, and toss it into the depths of the frozen pit below. Then he would undo his trousers and aim his backside toward the flames and the rising warmth. The felt made a flame that resisted the wind and was not easily extinguished; its only drawback was the black smoke it produced. Xiao Man didn’t particularly care if his backside got smoked black — on a winter night, warmth mattered more than dignity. Sometimes the flame grew too strong and scorched him painfully, like sitting on a bed of needles. Through trial and error, Xiao Man worked out that a strip of felt the size of a palm was just right.

That winter — during the coldest stretch of the deepest cold — Xiao Man noticed that the rooftop felt on the old pump house was growing thinner and thinner, which suggested someone else was also tearing strips. One night he had a stomachache, took a piece of felt, and ran to the latrine, where he found a boy of about his own age pulling up his trousers and fastening his belt, while a large piece of felt burned fiercely in the pit below.

The boy saw the piece of felt in Xiao Man’s hand and froze as well.

It was a chance encounter in a latrine in the dead of night. Xiao Man spoke first: “Who are you? How come I don’t know you?”

“Who are you? Why should I know you?” the boy shot back.

“I’m the abbot of Southern Shaolin,” Xiao Man said proudly. “Where are you from? How did you end up using our latrine?”

“I’m from the factory too. I used to live at my grandfather’s place — the old factory caretakers’ quarters.” The boy answered.

“No wonder I’ve never seen you. What’s your name? What grade are you in?”

“I’m Xia Lei. I just transferred to third grade.”

“What a coincidence — I’m in third grade too.” Xiao Man glanced down at the burning felt in the pit and asked: “Is that a piece you tore from the pump house roof?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you tear such a big piece?” Xiao Man shook his head. “The flame gets too big, and it’ll cook your backside!”

Xia Lei nodded in agreement — he had indeed just been enduring a half-squatting horse stance to keep his rear end from getting scorched.

“A piece the size of mine is just right.” Xiao Man waved his own strip of felt, lit it, and tossed it into the pit. “Once you’re done, get out of here. I can’t go with you standing around.”

Xia Lei walked out of the latrine but came back a few steps later: “Can I come find you to play tomorrow?”

Xiao Man was in the middle of squatting and gathering his energy, and replied with some impatience: “What would we even play?”

“I have a single-leg donkey ice sled. My grandfather made it for me out of angle iron.”

“Out of angle iron? Alright then — come find me tomorrow. I’m at Building 26, Unit 5.”

“Got it! Thank you!” Xia Lei patted his pocket. “I have sour three-color candy. Want some?”

“Yes!” Xiao Man held out his hand.

Xia Lei put two pieces of sour three-color candy into Xiao Man’s palm, then walked away holding his flashlight, singing as he went: “The big shock, the big craze, singing free-verse folk songs for the plainclothes police to hear…”

Left alone squatting in the pit, with silence on all sides and nothing to do, Xiao Man thought of a rhyme and began to murmur it to himself for amusement: “Nineteen ninety, I learned to drive a car… no light in the latrine, fell into the excrement pit, fought hard in the pit, and in the end I perished.” When he’d recited it through once, Xiao Man thought: if he perished before finishing the candy, that would truly be a loss — so he unwrapped the candy and popped the sour three-color piece into his mouth.

On that cold night, the latrine fire flickered and swayed. Xiao Man squatted in the pit eating his candy — both occupations proceeding without interruption — his mouth full of sweetness, his backside warmed through.

The layout of the Xi Tie Cheng factory had the production zone backed against the hills and the residential zone beside the water. The river flowing through the residential zone was called the Huiliu River. Come winter, the water would freeze from the slower-moving sections first, with the surfaces closest to the banks icing over earliest.

The next morning, Xia Lei brought his ice sled and he and Xiao Man climbed over the riverside embankment together, stepping out onto the frozen river. A group of rowdy children was already there, noisily racing their ice sleds.

Xiao Man first introduced Xia Lei to everyone. A boy named Wang Dongdong came up and handed Xia Lei an ice pick: “This one’s sweet — give it a lick!”

“Get away from me, you liar!” Xia Lei’s face flushed crimson with anger. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Wang Dongdong, you big fool!” Xiao Man gave him a smack on the back of the head. “Xia Lei used to live up by Xingkai Lake — over there the pee freezes into a popsicle before it hits the ground. You think you can fool him?”

Wang Dongdong’s ploy had failed, and he stuck out his tongue in embarrassment.

“Can you really ride the single-leg donkey?” a boy named Song Heshang asked Xia Lei. “In our Southern Shaolin, Wang Dongdong’s the best at it.”

“Of course I can!” Xia Lei puffed out his chest. “I’m the Flying Ice Spirit of Xingkai Lake!”

Everyone burst into laughter and disbelief.

“Don’t believe me? Let me show you!” Xia Lei planted his foot on the single-leg donkey, slowly crouched down to balance his center of gravity, swung both arms back hard against the ice picks, and shot forward with a whoosh.

“Do a sharp turn! One sharp turn!” Song Heshang and Wang Dongdong craned their necks and shouted.

A sharp turn — the local term for a tight, sudden pivot — was the hardest move on a single-leg donkey. But even that was no challenge for Xia Lei. He shifted his weight forward, then whipped his rear end sideways in a sharp swing, the blade under his foot screeching against the ice and sending a spray of ice chips flying.

A perfect drift!

“Brilliant!” Xiao Man led the applause.

“Amazing!” The watching children clamored and cheered. Song Heshang promptly pulled a strip of fruit leather from his pocket and handed Xia Lei a whole piece.

“You only gave me one bite, but you gave him a whole piece?” Wang Dongdong complained.

“Because Xia Lei skates better than you!” said Song Heshang. “I’m not learning from you anymore — I’m going to learn from Xia Lei.”

Amid the laughter and commotion, Xiao Man was the most pleased of all — his new friend had earned him plenty of face. He walked forward and took the ice sled from Xia Lei: “Come on, let me try a sharp turn too!” With that, he pushed off with the ice picks and glided toward the opposite bank.

Xia Lei had just put the fruit leather in his mouth when he glanced back and saw Xiao Man skimming toward the middle of the river. The sight frightened him so much he spat out the fruit leather and shouted urgently: “Come back! The ice isn’t solid there!”

Only then did Xiao Man realize the danger in the middle of the river. He was just about to turn back when the ice suddenly let out a dull crack, a large section of the surface collapsed, and he plunged entirely into the ice hole!

“Help—” Xiao Man had barely opened his mouth when ice-cold water flooded in through his nose and mouth, gurgling and surging. He felt his head growing emptier and emptier, his vision blurring more and more, time slowing more and more.

When Xiao Man opened his eyes again, the sky was below him and the ground above, and the water he spat out ran down to his forehead. “He’s awake, he’s awake!” Xia Lei and Wang Dongdong, seeing him open his eyes, cried out in delighted relief. “Master Ding, you can put him down now!”

“This kid has a tough life…” The man addressed as Master Ding let out a long breath of relief, laying Xiao Man flat on the ground. After helping him dress, he hoisted Xiao Man over his shoulder like a saddlebag and walked toward the nearby workers’ hospital.

The person who had pulled Xiao Man from the ice hole was none other than the legendary Master Ding of Xi Tie Cheng.

Who was the most formidable person in Xi Tie Cheng during the 1980s? The Xi Tie Cheng people would tell you it was neither the factory director nor the Party secretary, and certainly not the head of the security department — it was Master Ding, who had received his injections. Master Ding went to the workers’ hospital twice a month for his injections. On the way home after each injection, it didn’t matter who stood in his way — he would turn on them instantly. Not even the Jade Emperor himself could have stopped him.

Once, the new factory director’s Blue Bird sedan blocked Master Ding’s path. Master Ding reached his calloused hand through the car window and slapped the new factory director squarely across the face. The new factory director was a newly parachuted-in cadre freshly dispatched from the Fifth Machinery Ministry, and was momentarily stunned. What kind of lawless factory was this? A worker could just slap the factory director without a word? The secretary and driver jumped out of the car and rushed after Master Ding, but he was already mounting his bicycle and riding away, cursing over his shoulder as he went: “A good dog doesn’t block the road — can’t even understand that, and you call yourselves officials? Hold me up for one more minute and I’ll gut all three of you tomorrow.”

On all other days, when he hadn’t received his injection, Master Ding seemed like a completely different person — he rode his bicycle at a leisurely pace, spoke in a drawling murmur, and didn’t mind no matter how people teased him. A passerby once asked him teasingly: “Master Ding, no injection today?”

Master Ding replied: “Can’t get that stuff every day.”

The passerby pressed further: “Does the injection work?”

Master Ding rolled his eyes: “Get lost! Whether it works or not, ask your mother!”

Master Ding had served in the Sino-Vietnamese War in his younger years, and after demobilization, he was assigned to work at the Xi Tie Cheng factory. It was said that on the battlefield at Fakashan, a bullet had blown away one of his testicles — which could be considered a sacrifice made for the nation, in a manner of speaking. There was an even more fantastical version of the story, claiming that when Platoon Leader Ding was escorting a captured Vietnamese female soldier, he was caught off-guard when the female captive grabbed him by the lower anatomy and crushed his testicle. This version was obviously nonsense — probably made up by someone who had just seen the film Eagle Claw Iron Shirt.

Over the years, officials at various levels frequently came to the factory to visit Master Ding, offering warm regards on holidays and at the new year. The factory’s first priority in honoring military personnel and their dependents was to ensure Master Ding’s regular testosterone injections. Director Lu of the workers’ hospital explained that testosterone could substitute for the functions of a testicle in maintaining a man’s physiology — not only affecting his physical appearance and disposition, but also his marital life.

Master Ding went to the workers’ hospital for his injection once every two weeks. Reportedly, a single injection could summon a burst of vigorous passion for one hour, after which the effect wore off. After receiving his injection, Master Ding raced home against the clock — not a moment could be wasted. Once, he collided with and knocked down Middle School Principal Hou on the road, but didn’t even stop to help him up. He called back over his shoulder as he sped away on his bicycle: “Old Hou, get yourself up! I’ll buy you a drink tomorrow!” Principal Hou rose from the ground, dusted off the dirt from his knees, and reflected with feeling: “This, this is truly a case of a single spring night being worth a thousand gold pieces!”

After each injection, when he arrived home, Master Ding wouldn’t even bother locking his bicycle — he’d go inside, pull the curtains shut, then watch the North Star wall clock while urging his wife: “Stop watching television! Less than half an hour left — we need to move quickly!” His wife hadn’t yet had a chance to turn off the television when she’d let out an “Oh my!” and find herself swept off her feet by Master Ding and tossed onto the bed.

Sometimes, when he was riding against the flow of the bicycle commute, Master Ding would pick up a rolling pin and brandish it as he rode — a sight that called to mind the ancient warrior Xingtian brandishing his weapons. This was a famous spectacle on the roads of 1980s Xi Tie Cheng. Every parent of a child riding a bicycle to school for the first time would warn them: “First, watch out for trucks; second, watch out for Old Ding. Trucks have big wheels; Old Ding has urgent business.” The children would ask what urgent business he could possibly have. Their parents would think a moment and say: Old Ding is rushing home to deliver an urgent message. The children would ask whether there was a signal-tree at his house. The adults would think again and say: there is — Old Ding’s wife is that signal-tree.

That winter, the heating radiator in the pharmacy of the workers’ hospital burst, and the floodwater soaked a large quantity of medications. Master Ding saw that his special medicine box had been completely drenched and turned to find Director Lu to request a replacement. Director Lu tried to brush him off: “Your medication is specially scheduled and procured from a specialized pharmaceutical company — there’s no other supply in all of Tiechen. It’s very difficult to replace.”

“Difficult or not is none of my concern. Look — is there enough face behind this?” Master Ding brought his rolling pin down on Director Lu’s office desk with a loud bang. “All I know is, I need a fresh dose to inject next week, and you, Old Lu, cannot fob me off with water-damaged medication!”

Director Lu had no choice but to reassure Master Ding with personal guarantees and send him on his way, then immediately filed a report with the factory administration. The factory director read the report, first recalled the slap he’d received the previous year, then thought of Master Ding’s newly acquired two-foot rolling pin, and promptly dispatched his personal car driver with a letter of introduction to go to Beijing and procure testosterone injections, which were brought back to Xi Tie Cheng.

The day Xiao Man fell into the ice hole was during the coldest stretch of the deepest winter cold. Master Ding had just received his injection at the hospital and was racing home at full speed when, as he reached the bridge, he heard children screaming for help from below. He immediately abandoned his bicycle, threw off his padded jacket and trousers, and plunged into the icy river with a loud splash. The water reached his waist, and the cold made every hair on his body stand on end. He bent down, felt for Xiao Man, gripped him firmly from behind by his belt, and with one powerful surge of both arms, heaved him up onto the ice.

By the time Master Ding hauled himself out of the water, his body had been cut by the sharp ice into more than a dozen lacerations; when the north wind hit, the pain felt like being slashed by a thousand blades. He lifted Xiao Man upside down and held him head-first to drain the water — like a hunter holding a trussed-up pheasant by the feet. Xia Lei and Wang Dongdong beat on Xiao Man’s back like drumming, and Xiao Man spat water out in mouthful after mouthful until he finally recovered a breath. Only then did Master Ding feel relieved. He put on his clothes, hoisted Xiao Man onto his shoulder, and made his way back to the hospital.

At the hospital, Master Ding handed Xiao Man over to the emergency doctor and went to find a warm radiator to sit against, arms wrapped around it. Director Lu, who had rushed over upon hearing the news, brought him a cup of hot tea and offered: “Old Ding, come with me! I’ll take you to the operating room for a hot shower. At your age, jumping into an ice river — you really put your life on the line.”

Master Ding took the hot tea, drank a sip, wiped his mouth, and said: “Nothing serious — consider it winter swimming. Only a pity that this injection was wasted, never got to use it…”

After the coldest days of deep winter came slightly milder ones, and after those, the Lunar New Year was near. Every year at this time, the Xi Tie Cheng factory held its annual commendation ceremony for outstanding workers. The model workers selected from each workshop and branch plant were draped with sashes of honor and took turns going up to the stage to shake hands and be photographed with the factory director and Party secretary.

At that year’s ceremony, the new factory director personally presented Master Ding with a “Courageous Act of Heroism” commendation certificate. Master Ding grinned so broadly that every wrinkle on his face turned upward. Gripping the factory director’s hand, he said: “Director, I must apologize — I’ve been impertinent toward you, and I’ve caused you trouble.”

“Enough of that — you’re a role model of the age, the Xi Tie Cheng factory’s own Luo Sheng-jiao!” The factory director drew Master Ding’s shoulder close. “From now on, I’ll have the hospital keep a full supply of testosterone on hand, so this single-clove bulb of ours can stay pungent and sharp for another thirty years!”