Graduation and Enrollment

By the time sixth grade ended, students from all four factory elementary schools sat for the joint entrance examination for middle school.

On the day the results were posted, six large sheets of red paper were pasted along the wall of the factory secondary school, covered densely with the rankings of one hundred and eighty student candidates. Xia Lei’s name appeared on the second line — first place from Factory Elementary School No. 1, and ninth overall in the joint examination. His mother had ridden her bicycle through a light drizzle early that morning to check the results, and when she finished reading, her heart felt as cool as the rain itself. When it came down to it, Factory Elementary School No. 1 still bore the character of the workers’ village — its student quality and teaching staff fell behind the other three schools by more than just one street.

Xiao Man couldn’t be bothered to go look at the rankings. He only wanted to sell as many mixed vegetable dishes as he could before noon. Over these past few years he had grown up, and his grandmother had begun to age, gradually handing the accounting over to him as well. He came to know the price of firewood, rice, cooking oil, and salt earlier than most children his age, and his vegetable-cutting had grown ever more skilled — straight cuts for cucumber, pulling cuts for kelp, rolling cuts for radish. His grandmother had told him: first you have to keep yourself clean and neat, then others will feel your mixed vegetables are hygienic too. So Xiao Man began trimming his fingernails every few days, washing his own clothes every now and then, no longer walking around covered in grease stains as he once had. He also saved up his loose change and bought himself a pair of size forty Shuangxing sneakers, the soles studded with twenty-eight rubber knobs.

Gradually, the people of Xi Tie Cheng began to take notice of the boy selling mixed vegetables at the crossroads. What they saw was his clean features and snow-white sneakers; what they could not see were the calluses worn into his hands. Nobody knew where this self-reliant young man, punting his own small boat, would steer the vessel of his fate.

The afternoon after the results were posted, the light rain had yet to stop. Xiao Man was just about to pack up his stall when a girl in a white sundress came walking over with a floral umbrella. She looked over the glass display case and said: “Five yuan’s worth of mixed bellflower root, please.”

Xiao Man felt she looked familiar, and ventured: “Yan Xiaodan?”

The girl looked up at Xiao Man and cried out in surprise: “Oh my! It’s you — ‘No-Brain’!”

“No-Brain” had been Xiao Man’s nickname from kindergarten. He had carried it all the way through elementary school, where Teacher Niu had announced it to the entire school. Now that he was about to start middle school, he had not expected anyone to still be dredging up his old embarrassment. Xiao Man set down his bamboo tongs in displeasure and said with no warmth in his voice: “You want to buy, and I don’t feel like selling!”

“Getting angry just because I called you ‘No-Brain’?” Yan Xiaodan asked.

“Hmph! Everyone calls me by that nickname — isn’t that all because of you?” Xiao Man widened his eyes and shot back.

Yan Xiaodan covered her mouth, unable to keep from giggling.

The two of them hadn’t seen each other in six years, ever since before elementary school, when they had attended the same workers’ kindergarten. One day, Xiao Dan had shared some of her little figurine-shaped biscuits with Xiao Man. He opened his mouth, and she fed him the first one. He opened his mouth again, and she fed him the second. When he opened his mouth a third time, Xiao Dan had secretly swapped the biscuit for a five-fen coin. Xiao Man, without even looking, without even chewing, swallowed it straight down. This gave the kindergarten auntie quite a fright — she hurried to have the canteen blanch a plate of chives, and coaxed Xiao Man into half-choking, half-swallowing them down. By the next day, the coin had made its exit, and the auntie held the enamel chamber pot with a sigh of relief. She then sent Xiao Dan to stand outside the door as punishment. Xiao Dan refused to accept the blame and argued: “You can’t blame it all on me — Xiao Man swallowed it without even looking. He’s just No-Brain.” From that point on, “No-Brain” became a nickname Xiao Man could never shake.

“You caused me to be called ‘No-Brain’ all this time, and not even an apology?” Xiao Man complained.

“All right, I was wrong, I apologize!” Xiao Dan said. “Now that I’ve apologized, you still won’t sell to me? Then I… won’t buy either.” With that, she made a show of turning to leave.

“Stop! Don’t go! Whatever you do, don’t go!” Xiao Man quickly rapped the rim of the bowl with his bamboo tongs. “It’s not like I’m that petty! Look — you’re only buying bellflower root? Let me throw in some bracken fern too. I won’t charge you extra.”

Xiao Dan rewarded him with a faint smile, took the full plastic bag of mixed vegetables, paid Xiao Man, and asked: “Did you go look at the big rankings board yesterday? How did you place?”

“I had to sell vegetables and didn’t have time to look. I heard I came in at one hundred and twentieth. What about you?”

“A hundred fewer than you,” said Xiao Dan.

After the summer holidays, the factory secondary school welcomed its new students on enrollment day.

Students first lined up in the schoolyard to be sorted into classes: Xiao Dan was assigned to Class One of First Year; Xia Lei to Class Two; and Xiao Man to Class Four. Once the class assignments were announced, everyone walked into their classrooms to hear the teachers announce student council positions, then the whole class cleaned the room together, and finally new textbooks were distributed.

Xiao Man collected his textbooks and sat on the horizontal bars in the schoolyard, waiting for Xia Lei. In the past, every time school reopened, Xia Lei would bring him a roll of old calendar pages to use as book covers. In those days, every household did their utmost to avoid waste and wear — television sets were draped with gauze scarves, sleeves were worn when writing, and new books were covered with calendar paper. Xiao Man’s grandmother’s home was so simple they didn’t even have a calendar, and he had always relied on Xia Lei to bring some.

After quite a long while, Xia Lei finally walked out of the school building with his head hanging low. He wiped his wet hands on his trouser waistband, pulled the old calendar roll from his bag and handed it to Xiao Man, then leaned against the horizontal bars and sulked in silence.

“Your class sure took a long time,” Xiao Man said. “What’s wrong? You’re unhappy again?”

“The homeroom teacher wasn’t fair — she didn’t let me be the study committee member,” Xia Lei said, bristling with irritation. “The student she appointed ranked lower than me.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s Director Meng’s daughter, that’s why!” Xia Lei said helplessly. “I saw several cadre children today. They all looked very impressive.”

“Yeah, everyone looks down on us from Factory Elementary No. 1. They say the kids from the workers’ village are the most unsophisticated, and the hardest workers when it comes to cleaning classrooms.”

“How is it that your thinking is just like our homeroom teacher’s?” Xia Lei smiled bitterly. “She made me the labor committee member. I just wrung out every last mop, and was the last one to leave the classroom.”

When the graduates of four elementary schools converged into a single middle school, the differences in family background immediately became apparent. Students like Xia Lei and Xiao Man, who had grown up in the workers’ village, were like their parents’ generation — strong, enthusiastic, and brave. They excelled at running and scaling walls, liked wearing sleeveless singlets, and often kept their hair cropped in short flat-tops or buzz cuts. The vast majority of them would never pass the university entrance examination; they would only inherit the mantle and become the next generation of workers.

When Xia Lei saw Meng Ge showing off her foreign stamp collection in the classroom, and heard her play a clarinet solo of the Minuet at the singing competition, the pride he had built up inside himself began to crumble. He felt as though he were a rainforest chieftain who had blundered into a modern city — the floral crown on his head, the beast-teeth necklace around his throat, all the glory he had earned at Factory Elementary No. 1, suddenly grew dim. He came to understand, slowly, that the teacher had been right to choose Meng Ge as study committee member. These cadre children had seen a broader world and possessed wider knowledge; they were entirely capable of earning the trust and admiration of their classmates.

In elementary school he had been a crane among the chickens of the workers’ village; in middle school he was a chicken among the cranes of the cadre families. This realization brought Xia Lei a vague, persistent pain. Throughout his middle school years, he was never able to find a sky of freedom that belonged to him. He could only pretend to hold his head high like a crane, while beating his feeble chicken-wings without rest, striving twice as hard to fly upward. This tightly-wound posture slowly worked its way into his character, and he never loosened or changed it, not even after graduating from university and entering the workforce.

In the early nineteen-nineties, the schoolyard of Xi Tie Cheng Secondary School still had a surface of sandy grey dirt. The spring winds blew the students gray-faced as terracotta warriors. Every physical education class, after lining up and calling roll, the teacher would fling a football and volleyball onto the field, then go to the other side of the yard to train the athletics students. The boys left without supervision kicked the ball about chaotically, with neither tactical coordination nor any distinction between long and short passes. When the physical education teacher blew his whistle before the end of class and returned to that end of the field, the students lined up like freshly unearthed antiquities, covered head to toe in dusty mud, called roll, and dispersed. That counted as one physical education class complete.

Girls frequently asked to be excused from physical education class. Their voices were small and indistinct, their faces flushed with embarrassment. The male physical education teacher, upon hearing their requests, would simply smile and grant every one without exception. The excuse, it was said, was simple — you only had to mention that a certain aunt from home had come to visit. This was a truly strange pretext, and Xia Lei couldn’t make sense of it, so he asked the girls for an explanation. The girls all became indignant and said it was a secret, boys had no need to know, and any boy who knew was a rotten egg.

During one physical education class, Xia Lei snuck back to the classroom to read his Composition Bulletin, forgot to return to the field for roll call, and was consequently marked absent by the physical education teacher and reported to the disciplinary office, where Vice-Principal Old Cai would administer a reprimand.

Old Cai, the disciplinary vice-principal, had little education, had been a rebel-faction activist in the past, and had never lost his fondness for tormenting people. Every day before the final bell, he would summon the students who had broken rules that day for interrogation. For students who refused to submit, Old Cai had invented his own punishment, which he called “striking the chime bells”: he would prod each rib one by one with a drumstick, top to bottom; if that wasn’t satisfying enough, he’d go again, bottom to top. The punished students howled and hollered in pain, the echoes reverberating through the corridor, sounding rather like a human rendition of the five tones of the pentatonic scale.

Xia Lei was summoned to the disciplinary office. Old Cai, like a eunuch from the Eastern Depot, cradled his porcelain teacup, blew the tea-froth, and asked without looking up: “What’s your name? What’s your excuse for skipping class?”

Seeing that Old Cai kept his eyes on his tea and didn’t look up, Xia Lei sensed that something unpleasant was likely brewing. In a moment of desperation, he suddenly recalled the girls’ excuse for requesting leave, and tried it out at random: “Vice-Principal Cai, I didn’t skip class. I… my aunt from home came to visit.”

“You can’t go to class because a relative visited?” Old Cai lifted his head from the teacup and looked at Xia Lei with a puzzled expression. “That… is that a reason? Personal leave, sick leave — you still have to apply for leave!”

He had finally found an excuse, and it didn’t even work!

Xia Lei couldn’t understand why the girls could use this excuse without any trouble, but he couldn’t get through with it. He and Old Cai stared at each other blankly, each wondering if the other had taken leave of their senses.

“Even if your own ancestor came to visit, you’d still have to apply for leave!” Old Cai finally set down his teacup and pointed his drumstick at the corner of the room. He ordered Xia Lei: “You — over there — stand facing the wall as punishment!”

Xia Lei had nothing to say in reply and could only walk silently to the corner. He glanced at the quartz clock on the wall: already four o’clock. Old Cai had to leave at five.

“What are you thinking!” Old Cai had apparently seen through his little scheme, and added with a cold laugh: “You can’t just stand there. You have to write characters with your head, facing the air — write the character for ‘dung’ one hundred times! Write!”

Xia Lei suspected his ears had deceived him. Was there a punishment this humiliating anywhere under heaven? He stood without moving, staring stupidly at Old Cai.

“Are you deaf?! The character for ‘dung’ — rice radical plus ‘gong’! Quickly write it! One hundred times!” Old Cai roared and thundered.

Frightened into silence, Xia Lei had no choice but to close his eyes and sway his head back and forth like an electric fan, writing in the air.

When he had finished dealing with Xia Lei, Old Cai took a sip of tea, let out a belch, and shouted toward the door: “Next one! Come in!”

There came only the sound of the door opening, and then a boy walked in and let out an enormous shout: “Re-PORTING!”

The shout made Xia Lei jump. He opened his eyes, and the person who had entered turned out to be Xiao Man.

Xiao Man, who had just come in, also spotted Xia Lei. The two brothers-in-misfortune exchanged a glance, both sets of eyes full of astonishment — one truly meets everywhere in this life.

“Why are you shouting so loudly?” Old Cai nearly choked on his tea in fright. “Who is supposed to be reprimanding whom here? You — are you not convinced of your wrongdoing?”

“Vice-Principal Cai, enough said — I’m convinced!” Xiao Man cut Old Cai off.

“Then tell me — what were you making a scene about in biology lab today?” Old Cai glanced at his watch and pressed him for an answer.

“I wasn’t making a scene! The teacher said to do it, and I did it.”

“The teacher told you to cut an earthworm, didn’t she?”

“Yes. The teacher said that even if you cut an earthworm in half, it won’t die. So I cut it, and that earthworm was not up to the task… and it died.”

“Go and die yourself!” Old Cai slammed the table with his palm. “The teacher said to cut it crosswise — nobody told you to cut it lengthwise! You were deliberately causing trouble and disrupting the classroom!”

“Vice-Principal Cai, my family sells mixed vegetables, and I’m used to cutting lengthwise,” Xiao Man attempted another argument.

“Enough of your nonsense!” Old Cai pointed with his drumstick. “Go! Over to that corner, and write the character for ‘dung’ one hundred times in the air with your head!”

“What? Which ‘dung’ character? Isn’t it too complicated? I don’t know how to write it,” Xiao Man began to stall.

“Stop making excuses. If you don’t write it today, I’ll have your guardian come to the school tomorrow!” Old Cai threatened.

Upon hearing this, Xiao Man burst out laughing: “Vice-Principal Cai, I only have one grandmother, and she’s hard of hearing. If you can make her understand clearly what this is all about, then I’ll completely submit to you!”

By the second semester, more and more girls were asking to be excused from physical education class. When summer came, the girls all wore small undershirts beneath their short-sleeved shirts, while the foolish boys in the same class were still completely oblivious. Once, the girl sitting next to Xiao Man couldn’t manage to pin her league badge onto her chest, and Xiao Man, without thinking, reached over to help — and was promptly accused of indecent behavior.

After the first year of middle school ended, the hot wind of summer blew from South Mountain to North Mountain, then from North Mountain to the orchards along the river, ripening the peaches and plums on the branches, and also ripening the new adolescents. The hair above the lips of the boys from the North and South Shaolin began to darken, and their voices grew lower.

Xiao Man often gazed at himself in the mirror and grew increasingly dissatisfied with his flat-top. The flat-tops of all the boys from North and South Shaolin were the handiwork of Old Mrs. Zhang, who worked at the workers’ bathhouse. Old Mrs. Zhang cut hair in the old-fashioned style, wearing a white coat and using hand clippers. Shaving brushes and strop cloths hung on the wall; hair pomade and talcum powder sat in front of the mirror. It was common for exhausted boys to fall asleep in the chair while getting their hair cut, and Old Mrs. Zhang would pinch them on the cheek and call out: “Hey, you little rascal, wake up! If you want to sleep, go home and sleep!”

With summer drawing to a close, Xiao Man went to consult Xia Lei about getting a trendy new hairstyle. Xia Lei thought the buzz cut was fine — when washing his face, he could swipe a hand across it and that counted as washing his hair. But he agreed all the same to go with Xiao Man to the Wenzhou Hair Salon for a Lin Zhiying-style side-swept part.

The Wenzhou Hair Salon was a newly opened fashionable barbershop at the back of the Xi Tie Cheng market. Most of its customers were trendy young workers. The owner, Xiao Wenzhou, was a man from the south with a lame leg. It was said that people with poor legs tended to have nimble hands — possibly the principle of compensation at work. He cut hair using only scissors, never clippers, and used neither razors nor talcum powder.

Xiao Man and Xia Lei made their way through the market to the Wenzhou Hair Salon. On the shop door was pasted a poster of the Japanese boy band Shonen-tai with their curly hairstyles, beneath which was written: “Haircut and blow-dry, ten yuan.”

“That expensive?” Xia Lei was taken aback.

“Ten yuan to transform into a big star — what a bargain!” Xiao Wenzhou led Xiao Man to the shampoo basin. “I use Wella shampoo here, and style with a Panasonic hair dryer. I guarantee you’ll have a Hong Kong and Taiwan look!”

Once his hair was washed, Xiao Man settled into the swivel chair, while Xia Lei sat to one side flipping through Zhiyin magazine. At that moment the door opened, and in walked a bald-headed man — the owner of the neighboring shop “Grace Boutique,” known to everyone as “Ge Ge Wu.”

Grace Boutique was another newly opened shop in the Xi Tie Cheng market. Rumor had it that all the clothing was sourced directly from Shenyang’s Wuai Market and was quite fashionable in style. Unfortunately, the owner’s appearance was far from boutique — he was bald over most of his head, with only a ring of hair at the back, which had earned him the uncharitable nickname “Ge Ge Wu,” after the villain from The Smurfs.

Ge Ge Wu walked in without so much as glancing at Xiao Man and Xia Lei, going straight to Xiao Wenzhou: “She wants to take that dress. My wholesale price was eighty yuan — is it worth it?”

“If you like her, it’s worth it…” Xiao Wenzhou shook out the styling cape, ready to get to work. “Take your chance while you can — that girl is pretty decent, you know.”

“What girl? She’s just a middle-aged woman,” Ge Ge Wu said, rubbing his fingers together, hesitating and calculating in his mind.

“Make your move — opportunities like this are rare!” Xiao Wenzhou egged him on. “I doubt her shop can stay open much longer. Nobody’s buying those cassette tapes.”

Xiao Man and Xia Lei now grasped what Ge Ge Wu and Xiao Wenzhou were talking about — the female owner of the audio-visual shop in the market. That shop was indeed doing poorly, and the female owner sat behind her counter cracking sunflower seeds all day, idly watching the comings and goings of the market.

“Makes sense,” Ge Ge Wu rolled his neck as though making up his mind. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained — can’t catch a she-wolf without bait! No dress, no she-wolf!”

“Are you sure? That eighty-yuan dress could sell for a hundred and fifty, you know,” Xiao Wenzhou continued to goad.

“Do it anyway!” Ge Ge Wu stopped fidgeting with his hands, his mind made up. “I’m going back right now!”

“I don’t believe it…”

“Just wait and see. I’ll be back when it’s done.” Ge Ge Wu pulled open the door and stepped out.

Xiao Man sat in the swivel chair listening, completely bewildered, and noticed Xiao Wenzhou’s scissor hand beginning to tremble. He glanced sideways at Xia Lei, who had also peeked out from behind the magazine. Neither of them could figure out what hidden mystery lay in that exchange.

When the haircut was done, Xiao Wenzhou plugged in his prized imported electric hair dryer and began the final styling for Xiao Man. Then the salon door opened again, and Ge Ge Wu walked back in with a smirk on his face: “Done. Feels great!”

“I don’t believe it.” Xiao Wenzhou merely snorted and didn’t turn around.

“I have physical evidence!” Ge Ge Wu reached triumphantly into his jacket pocket. “Don’t believe me? Turn around and look.”

Xiao Wenzhou turned around. Xiao Man looked through the mirror at the reflection behind him. Xia Lei also craned his neck out from behind Zhiyin. All three of them went wide-eyed — in Ge Ge Wu’s outstretched hand lay a pair of red women’s underwear!

The room fell utterly silent. Only the buzzing of a fly passing through could be heard. That red triangle seemed to radiate a mysterious feminine aura, which diffused through the small space of the hair salon, stirring the surge of male hormones.

“Eighty yuan, gone in ten minutes…” Ge Ge Wu said, then folded up the red underpants and stuffed them back into his pocket. “That woman’s got a sharp eye — she had to have that yellow dress, the most expensive one!”

“She walked away in a skirt with nothing on underneath?” Xiao Wenzhou was puzzled. “That can’t be right, can it?”

“That’s right — I said I wanted to keep the underpants as a souvenir, and she couldn’t wrestle them back from me, so in a panic she just pulled on the skirt over nothing and went back to mind her shop.”

“Oh! You’re terrible!” Xiao Wenzhou freed a hand and gave Ge Ge Wu a thumbs-up. “Though… ten minutes was a bit short!”

The two grown men pointed at each other and laughed with delight, paying no attention whatsoever to Xiao Man and Xia Lei in the room.

Xiao Man looked at Xia Lei. Xia Lei looked at Xiao Man. Both of them had finally figured it out — something between a man and a woman must have just taken place in Grace Boutique.

Though they had neither seen nor heard anything, both boys were gripped by an excitement that defied description — a feeling that mixed shame with longing and left them rather dizzy. As they left the hair salon, Xiao Man’s brainwaves still hadn’t settled back to normal, and he almost forgot to pay Xiao Wenzhou his ten yuan.

“Shall we go take a look at the audio-visual shop?”

“Why not!”

Xiao Man and Xia Lei walked to the audio-visual shop. The female owner was wearing a brand-new banana-yellow dress — the style was indeed very fashionable. Her cheeks were powdered deathly white, her lips thin and crimson, like a Nationalist female spy from the movies.

The two boys didn’t dare look up. They only bent over the counter, browsing the cassette tapes one by one, going through the covers again and again, their arms propped on their knees trembling ever so faintly.

“You two have been looking for so long — are you actually buying anything or not?” The female owner, impatient, stared at their flushed cheeks.

“That Zhang Yusheng tape on the bottom.” Xiao Man straightened up and pulled his last five yuan from his trouser pocket.

“This one?” The female owner crouched down inside the counter, pointing at a tape. “This one has new songs — it’s eight yuan.”

“But I only have five yuan,” Xiao Man said.

“That won’t do. My cost price is six yuan,” the female owner refused.

Xiao Man was about to say he wouldn’t buy it, when he suddenly caught sight of a drop of blood falling onto the glass of the counter. He tilted his head to look — a thin red line was trickling from Xia Lei’s nostril.

The useless wretch had gone and gotten a nosebleed!

“Why is this child so overheated?” The female owner stood up, found a few tissues, and handed them to Xia Lei.

Xia Lei took the tissues, rolled them up, and plugged them into his nostrils — he looked like he had grown a miniature tusk, deeply embarrassed.

“Oh, forget it, forget it — don’t get so worked up about it. Five yuan it is!” The female owner handed the tape to Xiao Man.

Xiao Man had no choice but to pay the money, pocket the tape, drag Xia Lei out of the market, and scold him as they walked: “You really let the side down today! How did you get so worked up you had a nosebleed?”

“I was really too nervous! Just then, when she crouched down, I could see—” Xia Lei pulled the paper roll out of his nose, exhaled deeply, and said.

“See what?”

“Underneath her dress…”

That late summer, Xiao Man and Xia Lei entered puberty. The slanting evening sun shone through the window lattice onto the eastern wall; the glow and the sound of cicadas faded together into time. The boys began to think fondly of girls in white dresses, girls in red dresses, girls in blue dresses — they were both specific and abstract, their smiles as untouchable as the setting sun, yet rising like the moon, every evening without fail.

That summer’s end, Xiao Man and Xia Lei played that Zhang Yusheng album to tatters. They often mounted their bicycles and rode aimlessly through the streets and lanes of Xi Tie Cheng, singing as they rode: “The fish that swims all day long — the fish never stops swimming. The one who thinks of you all day long — love never ceases…”

Xiao Man’s voluminous side-swept part made him stand out at the start of the new school year, like a vivid red crest suddenly sprouting among a flock of young cockerels. During the calisthenics exercises in the schoolyard, Xiao Man jumped half a meter off the ground, and when the breeze swept across the yard, his hair swayed like seaweed in a current.

When the exercises reached the stretching segment, Xiao Man swung his arm to one side while keeping his head still, waiting to catch Yan Xiaodan’s glance from the front of the formation. Sure enough, Xiao Dan turned and smiled at him. When the posture switched to the other side, Xiao Man smiled back at Xiao Dan. Left, a glance; right, a smile — Xiao Man’s heart brimmed with sweetness. Just at that moment, someone jabbed his ribs. He turned around to find Old Cai standing there, drumstick in hand.

“Hair must not exceed one inch! Must not exceed one inch!” Old Cai measured with his drumstick. “After school, go get it cut! Otherwise, tomorrow I’ll strike your chime bells!”

“Vice-Principal Cai, I honestly have no money left to get another haircut — I spent everything over summer. How about this: you give me three yuan, and I’ll bring you a bowl of mixed vegetables. Deal?” Xiao Man began stalling again.

“Nonsense! Who wants your mixed vegetables?” Old Cai said, caught between exasperation and laughter.

Xiao Man treated Old Cai’s words as hot air. The next day he came to school with his voluminous side-swept part still intact. Old Cai stopped him at the gate and refused to let him into the classroom.

“I paid a lot of money for this hairstyle. Let me keep it a few more days? Just ten days!”

“Ten days is out of the question. Five days. By flag-raising next Monday morning, I must see your buzz cut!” Old Cai counter-offered.

Having spent ten yuan for only one week of glory — everyone felt sorry for Xiao Man. Word spread from person to person and transformed into a rumor that Xiao Man was the wealthiest student in the second year of middle school, whose hairstyle alone was worth two yuan a day. The rumor grew more extravagant with each retelling; eventually it became that Xiao Man’s pocket money was inexhaustible. Before long, a demon craved the monk’s flesh — a disreputable third-year student named Wei Deluo came looking for Xiao Man to borrow money.

Wei Deluo was a fat boy with the surname Wei, though that was not actually his given name. “Wei Deluo” meant “bucket” in Russian; other Russian loanwords of the same vintage included bulaji (sundress) and kefir, known only to older people from Heilongjiang. Wei Deluo’s father was Wei the Fourth from the factory substation, who had drifted south long ago to seek his fortune, leaving behind this loutish son with no upbringing and all the airs of a street tough.

The bucket Wei Deluo intercepted Xiao Man after school and said he wanted to borrow a hundred yuan. Xiao Man threw up his hands and said he truly didn’t have any. Wei Deluo then frisked him bodily, but found only two slices of dried cucumber in his pockets.

“If you want mixed vegetables, I’ll bring you half a jin tomorrow,” Xiao Man said with a grin.

“To hell with your mixed vegetables — bring me the money tomorrow!” Wei Deluo shook his fist.

“Fine — tomorrow then. Don’t go anywhere,” Xiao Man agreed without hesitation.

The next day, during the lunch break, Wei Deluo swaggered to the corridor of Second Year Class Four and called Xiao Man out. “Money, money! Hurry up! Hurry!”

“Have you thought it through? You really want it?”

“Stop talking nonsense — cough it up!”

“Your mother’s — here you go!” In a flash, Xiao Man whipped a small hatchet from the back of his waistband and swung it at Wei Deluo’s shoulder.

Wei Deluo staggered back and dodged it, then turned and ran. He was terrified of hatchets. One year, his father Wei the Fourth had been struck with a hatchet; the blood had dripped onto the radiator, and the scorched, metallic smell of it had lingered throughout that entire winter. Now, unexpectedly, he himself was at the wrong end of a hatchet — Wei Deluo ran in blind panic. Xiao Man gave chase without letting up, until he finally cornered Wei Deluo at the end of the second-floor corridor, where a window happened to be.

Wei Deluo climbed up onto the windowsill. He glanced back once at Xiao Man and needed less than a second to read the fury in his eyes: jump or get the hatchet. He heaved a mournful sigh, extended his right foot into the void, and tried to leap onto the bicycle shelter below. But the instant his foot landed on the roof beam, he couldn’t keep his balance and lurched sideways half a step. The rooftop was already ancient corrugated iron and could not bear his considerable weight. With a crash, half the iron sheet caved in.

Xiao Man leaned out the window and saw Wei Deluo caught between the curling sheets of metal, unable to go up or down, stuck in mid-air.

“Serves you right! Watch me not smash you to bits!” Xiao Man raised the hatchet to throw it.

“Stop! Xiao Man, don’t throw it!” Wei Deluo suddenly cried out from mid-air. “Don’t throw it! I’m your great-uncle on your father’s side!”

Xiao Man froze, and his hand stilled.

“I really am your great-uncle!” Wei Deluo stamped his feet in mid-air. “Think about it — I’m your paternal aunt’s nephew! Your great-uncle!”

Xiao Man put down the hatchet and thought carefully. Wei Deluo actually was his great-uncle by that reckoning. In fifty years since the factory was founded, the second and third generations of military-industrial workers, who had married within the semi-enclosed compound, had branched and spread until almost everyone bore some distant family connection.

“Why didn’t you mention we were relatives when you were shaking me down for money?” Xiao Man demanded furiously.

“I only just remembered,” Wei Deluo said nervously. “I’m sorry… it’s like when floodwaters wash away the Dragon King’s own temple.”

“Get lost!” Xiao Man put away the hatchet and spat in the direction of Wei Deluo dangling from the bicycle shelter. “My family has no relative like you. Ptooey!”