In the second half of 2001, the number of workers on standby in Xi Tie Cheng grew and grew. In the residential area, someone had repainted the large characters reading “Workers’ New Village” with oil paint to read “Workers’ Sorrow Village.” Seven or eight phone booths and small shops had sprouted one by one throughout the community, and inside each phone booth’s glass window sat a laid-off female worker with glazed eyes, sometimes going an entire morning without a single customer.

Master Pu, who had been laid off from the nitration workshop, was the most anxious of all. His wife had been bedridden with illness for several years, and at home he had two twin daughters both attending senior high school. One day, he ran into Xiao Man in the building downstairs just as he was heading into town, and stopped him to ask: “You run into the city every day — can you look out for any odd jobs for me? Night watchman, cook, anything will do.”

“Sure, I’ll ask around,” Xiao Man agreed. “By the way, Master Pu, is your eyesight still good?”

“Still sharp — no trouble seeing near or far.” Master Pu pointed to a dog at the corner of the front building. “That dog is a female. Go take a look if you don’t believe me.”

“All right, all right, I believe you — that’s quite a talent!” Xiao Man said. “By the way, when are you going to make that dog meat soup again?”

“No time for that anymore. The workshop is nearly finished — where would the trade union get money for group meals?”

Back in the day, the military-industrial factory had been relocated from Jixi, Heilongjiang, and had brought along with it the custom of eating dog meat. The Korean workers who had relocated south with the factory were all skilled at cooking dog, and Master Pu above all others — he couldn’t tell a neutral wire from a live wire if they were right in front of him, but could identify a male from a female dog at a hundred meters. When the factory was thriving, the various workshops often held communal dinners, and the workshop directors would ask Master Pu to help buy and cook the dogs. As a result, year after year he was nominated as the factory’s “Model Worker Following Lei Feng.” Every year when the start of winter arrived, Master Pu would brew a pot of dog meat soup, and coworkers would line up with their enamel mugs to drink the broth before heading into the operations room.

Several weeks later, Master Pu ran into Xiao Man again in the building downstairs: “Nephew, any leads on those odd jobs?”

“I asked a few small business owners, but they only use their own relatives as night watchmen — no outside hires,” Xiao Man spread his hands.

“What do I do? I’ve got two nagging creditors at home who need to sit their exams, money going out and none coming in — it’s truly going to be the death of me!” Master Pu sighed deeply.

“Master Pu, don’t let that skill of yours go to waste! Why not think about opening a dog meat restaurant?”

“Can’t make it work. First, renting a storefront is too expensive. Second, I worry the workers of Xi Tie Cheng won’t have money to eat.”

“Then open it in your own courtyard. Don’t bother with a license for now — if it works, great; if it doesn’t, just drop it,” Xiao Man said offhandedly.

Master Pu actually took it to heart. He calculated: no storefront, no license, no cooks or waitstaff needed. The craft was ready, the cooking range was ready, the bowls and chopsticks and glasses were ready. Keep it simple — if it doesn’t work out, just drop it!

And so Master Pu opened the nameless dog meat restaurant in his own small courtyard. The humble eatery was more successful than expected. Master Pu didn’t even need to go to the countryside to buy dogs. A few days in, several workers lugged in a dead dog and said: “Master Pu, help us stew this up — leave half the meat for you, that can be your payment.”

Master Pu asked: where did this dog come from?

The workers said: just got hit by a car on the road.

Master Pu looked at the dog’s head and said: this wasn’t hit by a car — it was strangled.

The workers said: well, it wasn’t poisoned, at least — you wouldn’t poison something you’re going to eat yourself.

Master Pu didn’t ask further, and just boiled up a pot of water and began to prepare the dog, keeping half the meat for himself. The next day, another group of workers showed up with woven sacks asking Master Pu whether two bundles of copper wire could be exchanged for ten pounds of dog meat. Master Pu said: get out of here! Go exchange it for cash first, then come back. I’m not a scrap metal collection station.

Ever since Master Pu’s nameless dog meat restaurant opened, the stray dogs of Tie Cheng grew fewer and fewer. The anti-rabies vaccines at the epidemic prevention station expired in storage, and all the spoils of the volunteer dog-catching squad ended up in Master Pu’s pot. When the blue-uniformed inspectors from the commerce bureau and the hygiene bureau came knocking, Master Pu stewed up a pot of fragrant spicy dog ribs for them. At first they refused to eat and demanded only the fine, but in the end even they couldn’t resist the smell of the meat, so they took off their uniforms and sat cross-legged on the heated kang, clinking cups and eating their fill until they were thoroughly satisfied, and they took their fine notices back with them when they left.

Neighbors also often came to Master Pu’s place for a bowl of dog meat soup. Many adults would only drink the broth rather than eat the meat, piling all the meat into the children’s bowls. The children, upon seeing the meat, were so happy it was as if they were celebrating Children’s Day all over again.

Master Pu’s cooking reputation spread by word of mouth. Before long, government office units from the city were also driving out to his restaurant for group meals. Many diners asked for receipts after eating, which put old Master Pu in a difficult spot. He apologized, saying this humble roadside eatery had no receipts. The customers said: we’re on public funds — we don’t need a discount, but we need a receipt to file our expenses. So Master Pu registered the nameless little restaurant, called it “Chun Xiang Dog Meat Restaurant,” and officially received a book of handwritten receipts.

One day, Teacher Dai from the children’s middle school cycled past the Chun Xiang Dog Meat Restaurant. He stopped to look at the signboard, feeling something wasn’t quite right. After cycling on for two li, he finally remembered — The Tale of Chunhyang was a classical Korean masterpiece, the equivalent of China’s Dream of the Red Chamber.

Wouldn’t “Chun Xiang Dog Meat Restaurant” be just as culturally offensive as a “Lin Daiyu Roast Chicken Shop”! Teacher Dai turned his bicycle around and cycled back to the Chun Xiang Dog Meat Restaurant, found Master Pu, and insisted that the dog meat shop be renamed.

Master Pu handed Teacher Dai a cigarette and said: you intellectuals really are pedantic through and through — forcing a beggar to wash their face. Fine! If you want a name change, go ahead! But you pay for the new signboard!

Teacher Dai said: I’ll pay, and I’ll choose the name.

Master Pu said: you’ve got to keep the three characters “dog meat restaurant” for me — otherwise people will think it’s an ordinary stir-fry place.

Teacher Dai said: all right. The name should be elegant yet accessible — how about “Thousand-Li Horse”?

Master Pu said: what? “Thousand-Li Horse Dog Meat Restaurant”? Would that be horse meat or dog meat?

Teacher Dai felt that didn’t work either, and said he’d go home and look something up.

That afternoon, Teacher Dai came cycling back, slapping his chest: “How about calling it the ‘Three Thousand Li Dog Meat Restaurant’!”

In the old days, traditional restaurants in the Northeast had a custom of hanging tasseled banners. By rights, Master Pu’s establishment was at most a two-banner level. On the day the “Three Thousand Li Dog Meat Restaurant” officially got its signboard, coworkers and neighbors all came to celebrate. One worker made two red fabric banners, and by coincidence another worker brought two more. Master Pu stood there holding all four banners in a dilemma for a long moment, then slapped his thigh and declared: “What the hell — today I’m putting on airs too! All four go up!”

Xiao Man and Teacher Dai also came to celebrate. Xiao Man brought three pairs of Bili jeans — one for Master Pu, and one each for his two twin daughters. The sisters wore brand-name jeans for the first time, the fit just right. Beaming with delight, they paraded around the house.

At the dinner table, Teacher Dai asked the sisters what majors they were hoping to study in the college entrance examinations. The elder daughter, Jinhua, said she wanted to study medicine. The younger daughter, Yinhua, said her grades weren’t as good as Jinhua’s, and if she couldn’t manage, she’d go to an agricultural university to study veterinary science.

“Whether human medicine or veterinary medicine,” Master Pu raised his glass to toast everyone, “four years! As long as my restaurant keeps running for four years and puts two university graduates through school — then I will have completed my historical mission!”

Luxury cars and vans often lined up in front of the Three Thousand Li Dog Meat Restaurant, which made Master Jin from Workshop Seven envious beyond measure. Master Jin reckoned his culinary skill was no less than Master Pu’s, and there was no reason he couldn’t run a restaurant just as well. So he also opened a restaurant, calling it “Jindalai Dog Meat Restaurant.”

After that, dog meat restaurants in Xi Tie Cheng kept increasing, with four or five establishments forming half a street of eateries. The diners included not only gourmands from the city, but also Korean businessmen who had just entered the domestic market. After eating and drinking their fill, they would dance and sing along to television karaoke: “Doraji, doraji!” The neighbors asked Master Pu: what are they singing in your restaurant? What garbage are they dumping? Master Pu said: it’s not dumping garbage — that’s the Balloon Flower Song.

“Xi Tie Cheng, three businesses: gunpowder, ice cream, and dog meat restaurants.” Before long, Xi Tie Cheng gained a fourth business — the illustrious “Xi Tie Dance Hall.”

The predecessor of the “Xi Tie Dance Hall” was the factory trade union’s workers’ dance hall, built during the factory’s peak years, and thus constructed with quality materials and fine furnishings. The oak dance floor, the enormous crystal chandelier, and the colorful mosaic wall decorations inside the hall were all testaments to the factory’s once-lavish prosperity. Later, as workers were laid off one after another and tens of thousands of people were struggling just to put food on the table, the workers’ dance hall was closed and locked up.

That year, a factory-born son who had worked managing entertainment venues and selling cough syrup in the south — Wei Laosi, that is, Wei Deluo’s father — unlocked the doors of the workers’ dance hall. He looked at the cobweb-covered mirror ball and lights, then stamped his foot on the dust-covered dance floor, said what a shame, and took over the lease. Before long, the neon lights bearing the four large characters “Xi Tie Dance Hall” blazed back to life, becoming the only nighttime spectacle in the desolate Xi Tie Cheng.

Gazing at the blinking dance hall neon lights, the people of Xi Tie Cheng couldn’t help but feel skeptical. This was a remote, impoverished military-industrial factory community — nobody even repaired broken streetlights here. Would anyone really come to dance? Unable to contain their curiosity, some went to ask Wei Laosi. Wei Laosi said: don’t worry — the free spirits and pleasure-seekers of the city will come here to dance.

Only then did everyone realize that the “Xi Tie Dance Hall” was a lights-out dance hall — operating in a legal gray area.

Before bathing establishments and massage parlors became prevalent, lights-out dance halls had once dominated the gray-area entertainment industry, and they were most concentrated in the declining cities of the Northeast. For just ten yuan, a customer could dance three songs with a hostess dancer. The first two songs were danced under normal lighting, but for the third song, the music would slow to a sensual four-four beat and all the lights would be extinguished. In the darkness, men and women would cross boundaries and grope each other. When the song ended and the lights came back on, the hostess dancer would smooth down her clothing, holding the just-earned ten yuan in her hand.

Two lights-out dance halls had long existed in Tie Cheng’s city center: the “Fire Phoenix” in the east of the city and the “Grand World” in the north. These two establishments opened and closed repeatedly, frequently shut down for rectification by the cultural bureau. Xi Tie Cheng was located in a remote area and was essentially an independent enclave of the military-industrial factory, beyond the reach of municipal oversight. Wei Laosi had seen exactly this opening, which was why he opened the lights-out dance hall in Xi Tie Cheng.

The reputation of lights-out dance halls wasn’t good, but they could bring in spending. The laid-off workers of Xi Tie Cheng — whether running taxis, tricycles, restaurants, or small shops — all needed the dance hall customers to bring in cash. Of course, the people of Xi Tie Cheng also turned a deliberate blind eye. The factory guesthouse never accommodated dance hall patrons who wanted to stay overnight, and residents of the housing area didn’t rent rooms to the hostess dancers. When the dance hall cleared out at midnight, more than ten laid-off workers drove their second-hand taxis — sixty yuan a car — to send the customers back to the city, making it the last income of the day.

As for whether dance hall owner Wei Laosi counted as a gangster, the people of Xi Tie Cheng said he didn’t quite rise to that honorable title — at most he was a big pimp. Look at the few small-time brothers around him: they were like the three, four, and five of clubs in a deck of cards — barely enough to count as human beings. The true gangster of Xi Tie Cheng was the one-eyed Lu, who had long since grown tired of the factory area’s poverty and led his underlings south to seek their fortunes. They were said to have pushed the Hunan gang south of Liuhua Road in front of Guangzhou Railway Station, monopolizing all the ticket scalpers in the station area. One year when Wei Laosi couldn’t buy a train ticket back from Guangzhou to the Northeast, he found the one-eyed Lu to help. The one-eyed Lu asked Wei Laosi: is the Xi Tie Dance Hall yours? Wei Laosi said yes. The one-eyed Lu said: with no great generals in Shu, even Liao Hua steps forward — our leaving made way for you! Then he threw the ticket in Wei Laosi’s face.

Wei Laosi had no respect for the one-eyed Lu either. He only sought profit and wanted nothing to do with underworld entanglements. The various big and small thugs and hired killers who had gone south alongside him had gradually vanished — some sentenced to prison, some killed in feuds, some gone to remote Myanmar and Southeast Asia. Only Wei Laosi remained steady, guarding his ground and running the Xi Tie Dance Hall — running yellow lights but never red.

From the moment the Xi Tie Dance Hall opened, it attracted the pleasure-seekers and dance enthusiasts of Tie Cheng, who came gliding in. These two groups of people — some by public bus, some sharing taxis — came fifty li from the city to give the place their business. Whenever these dance hall patrons appeared in Xi Tie Cheng, people throughout the factory would look at them as if admiring exotic wildlife. The old model worker said they had horns on their heads and spines on their backs. The security department said they were the remnants of crackdown targets. The disciplinary director of the children’s middle school, Big Old Cai, said they were depraved troublemakers. Language teacher Teacher Dai corrected him: “Those aren’t depraved troublemakers — they’re malevolent spirits and demons.”

The dance enthusiasts who made the special trip all shared one distinguishing feature: they absolutely had to wear leather shoes. That of course was the lowest level. The next level up was wearing leather shoes with a dress shirt; above that was wearing suspender pants with a white dress shirt tucked in; and the highest level was the slicked-back hair and bow tie. Some had also imitated the old-style Shanghai gentlemen — a pipe clenched in their teeth, a white handkerchief produced to wipe sweat — and there had been pickpockets who approached them with great anticipation, only to find their wallets even cleaner than their faces.

The dance enthusiasts were not many in number; their core was old Cui from the city’s Literature and Arts Federation. Old Cui could dance the tango and the jitterbug, and his usual dance partner was a middle-aged woman. This older lady wore a large red skirt in summer with bare legs underneath, and in winter she still wore the large red skirt with long underwear beneath. Old Cui had danced with her for six months without ever finding out her age — the lady would only say it was her birth-year, so Old Cui figured she must be forty-eight. One time while dancing, Old Cui stepped on a sticky white piece of paper; peeling it off his shoe, he found it was a sanitary pad. Old Cui felt it was bad luck and muttered: whose blood-soaked battlefield is this? His dance partner shrugged and said: it’s not mine — I’m sixty years old, been through menopause seven or eight years already.

The more discerning dance enthusiasts all loved the Xi Tie Dance Hall’s oak dance floor. Stamping on oak had just the right amount of springiness, and the dancing flowed smoothly. They usually only danced the first two songs — either Beijing flat-four-step or waltz. When the third song and the lights-out began, they would leave the dance floor to rest — some drinking water, some smoking — leaving the lower-minded pleasure-seekers behind in the dance floor to horse around and hunt for excitement.

The pleasure-seekers were the dance hall’s main spending group. They dressed and shod themselves casually — some even wore slippers and undershirts. They had no fixed dance partners and only temporarily invited the hostess dancers they fancied. There was an etiquette to inviting the dancers: generally the customer would size them up from a distance, then approach directly to extend the invitation — no lingering glances were allowed. The most despised people in the dance hall were the “country bumpkins.” That was a Northeast expression for people who had never seen the world. The bumpkins neither knew how to dance nor would sit down; they wandered through the dance floor like tourists, looking left and right, trying to get a good look at every woman’s face. At that point, one of the bouncers would rush over, grab the bumpkin by the collar, and bellow: “What do you think you’re doing — picking out pork cuts? Either dance or get lost!”

The most dazzling sight at the Xi Tie Dance Hall was the hostess dancers. They usually stood along the mosaic-tiled wall, waiting for the pleasure-seekers to come and invite them, and if they were willing, they would go down to the dance floor together for an embrace. Experienced dancers all brought their own small blue UV flashlight to check the watermark on banknotes, guarding against counterfeit bills so they wouldn’t be groped for nothing.

For a period, a long-legged beauty in stockings came to the dance hall alone, keeping to herself. She wore a turtleneck top and a body-hugging skirt, said very little, danced superbly, and when she was in a good mood, wouldn’t even ask for money. During a lights-out song lasting five minutes, she would slide her stockinged long legs between a dance partner’s thighs, rubbing back and forth. There was once an old dance patron who was so seduced by her that he couldn’t hold onto his false teeth, which clattered to the floor. Later, the long-legged dancer was beaten up by several dance hall patrons and fled in a panic, disappearing never to be seen again. The great strides she took as she fled looked exactly like those of sprint star Johnson. Rumor afterward had it that the long-legged dancer was a transgender woman, and the turtleneck had been just right to hide her Adam’s apple. The men who had danced with her all regretted it afterward: damn it — to have been entangled so intimately with a “two-tailed creature” for so long, that was truly a disgrace beyond all disgrace!

Lewd places inevitably breed jealous quarrels, and later Wei Laosi had a metal security detector installed at the dance hall entrance to keep knife-carrying young men outside. When he had nothing to do, he would sit by the security gate drinking tea, surveying the entering patrons with narrowed triangular eyes, turning away at the door anyone who was drunk, shabbily dressed, or behaved suspiciously.

As the saying goes, walk the night road long enough and eventually you’ll meet a ghost. Wei Laosi’s security gate and triangular eyes were no match for scanning out a truly dangerous person. Several years later, the police arrived with a suspect and questioned Wei Laosi, and only then did the owner learn that this seemingly upright dance enthusiast was the killer behind Tie Cheng’s serial case of missing dance hall women. After that major case “broke,” a special crackdown was launched across the entire province, shutting down all lights-out dance halls in cities and villages alike.

During the last summer vacation before his graduation, Xia Lei returned to Xi Tie Cheng. Xiao Man invited him over for drinks — the two of them shared one bottle of liquor and two roast chickens, drinking and chatting. Xiao Man asked Xia Lei about his life and experiences in Shanghai, and finally said a little regretfully: “If I’d known Suzhou was so close to Shanghai, I should have gone from Suzhou to Shanghai to visit you back then.”

“That’s why it’s important to have a good grasp of geography, Second Officer Xiao Man!”

“By the way, does the Paramount Ballroom in Shanghai still exist? That’s where Xu Wenqiang was killed by the French.”

“It’s still there — near Jing’an Temple.”

“Our Xi Tie Cheng has its own Paramount Ballroom now — lights out in the dark, not very proper.”

“I heard it was converted from the workers’ dance hall into a lights-out dance hall?”

“About half dancing, half fooling around, I’d say. I’ve been there — the dancers stand in a row against the wall, waiting for men to pick them.”

“My roommate from Shaanxi said they call them ‘wall girls’ there.”

“Similar enough. If you’re curious, I’ll take you to have a look!”

“I’ve eaten my fill and had my fill of drink. Let’s go right now!”

There was still one roast chicken unfinished. Xiao Man found a mesh bag and put it in for Xia Lei to carry. The two of them walked all the way to the Xi Tie Dance Hall, passed through the security gate, and were followed from behind by Wei Deluo, who was watching the floor.

Wei Deluo and Xiao Man had become acquainted through a fight, and had later even found they were distantly related. At present he was helping his father Wei Laosi run the dance hall.

“Who’s this glasses-wearing friend you brought?” Wei Deluo pulled Xiao Man aside to ask.

“A classmate of mine — just got back for summer vacation.”

“Not someone from the underworld?”

“How could he be? The man is an intellectual.”

“That’s fine then,” Wei Deluo said. “It’s just that last time, someone else wearing glasses came into the dance hall also carrying a roast chicken. He sat at a tea table, finished eating the roast chicken and wiped his mouth, then pulled out a box cutter and stabbed two old men. After that incident, my dad specifically installed the security scanner.”

“Don’t worry! This glasses-wearer really is my classmate!” Xiao Man patted Wei Deluo on the shoulder. “He was even the top student in his high school class — I brought him here to open his eyes.”

Inside the dance hall, Xia Lei was still holding the mesh bag with the roast chicken, not knowing where to put it down. At that moment a low-cut older woman came walking toward them and grabbed Xiao Man’s arm: “Handsome, come dance a song with your sister!”

“Dance with my friend first!” Xiao Man mischievously pointed behind himself.

The low-cut woman looked at Xia Lei and asked: “Young man with glasses, want to dance a song with your sister?”

“I… I’ll watch first,” Xia Lei said in embarrassed, stuttering tones, frantically waving his hands. “You go ahead, you go ahead.”

“What’s the fun in watching?” the woman said, pulling her low neckline down a bit further. “Touching is the fun!”

“When I said watching, I didn’t mean watching that…” Xia Lei’s face turned crimson.

Xiao Man was bent over with laughter beside him. He sent the woman away and led Xia Lei to find a tea table and sit down. Before long the third song started with the lights-out. The dance enthusiasts left the floor, leaving only the pleasure-seekers and the hostess dancers. Cigarette smoke and perfume mingled with the musty smell of the floor, the cheap atmosphere and desire drifting and rising together in the darkness.

Not far from the tea table, one dance patron was holding a young woman in a close-contact dance. When the song ended and the lights came back on, the young woman took the banknotes and carefully counted them. Caught in a passing sweep of light, Xia Lei suddenly saw the young woman’s face clearly. He couldn’t help but open his mouth wide — it was her! Staring for several seconds, Xia Lei confirmed without a doubt. He whispered a few words to Xiao Man. Xiao Man stood up, walked over to the young woman, and extended a hand in invitation.

“Handsome, be my boyfriend — let’s dance several songs together!” the young woman assumed he was asking for a dance and put her hand in Xiao Man’s.

“There’s an old friend over there who’d like to invite you to sit for a while,” Xiao Man said, leading her out of the dance floor to the tea table.

The young woman looked at Xia Lei, who had stood up, and looked puzzled: “You are…”

“What a coincidence! We meet again! That summer on the train — do you remember me?” Xia Lei extended his hand.

“Oh my! It’s really you!” the young woman exclaimed. “You’ve grown so tall!”

“It has been six or seven years in the blink of an eye.”

“Thank you for saving me that year — it must have cost you quite a bit too.” The young woman handed Xia Lei a cigarette.

The three of them chatted for a while. The dance hall went dark again, and the lights-out music struck up once more. The young woman asked Xia Lei: “Shall we dance? Do you know the slow four-beat?”

“I only know how to do radio calisthenics.”

“That’s all right. Then let’s just do a three-contact dance.” The young woman took Xia Lei’s hand and led him to the dance floor, spreading her arms and holding him close.

It was Xia Lei’s first time being embraced by a young woman. Catching her scent, he couldn’t help asking: “What perfume smells so good?”

“Stop asking — just sway,” the young woman said, then kissed Xia Lei on the cheek.

“Don’t—” Xia Lei was caught completely off guard, and awkwardly wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

“You’re shy about a three-contact dance?” The young woman pressed her waist against Xia Lei. “I can give myself to you tonight — consider it my way of repaying you.”

“No, no — absolutely not!” Xia Lei began to stammer again.

“I’m clean, you know. You’ll regret it in the future!” The perfumed young woman was like a vine wrapping around a tree. “Next month I’ll be going to a nightclub in Macau to work.”

“Thank you, but… really I can’t,” Xia Lei shook his head.

“All right then, let me treat you to a meal,” the young woman said, straightforwardly. “Eating a meal, you can manage that, surely?”

Not far below the Xi Tie Dance Hall was Master Pu’s Three Thousand Li Dog Meat Restaurant. The three of them sat down to order. The young woman suggested: “Let’s just drink a full case!”

“Fine by me, but your benefactor here is still in university — he shouldn’t drink too much,” Xiao Man said.

“I’ll be all right, actually. We often drink on university weekends,” Xia Lei said, uncharacteristically.

“I’ll say now — nobody fights me for the bill tonight. I’m paying!” the young woman declared grandly, and truly called over the waiter to bring a whole case of Xuehua beer.

“Are you really going to Macau?” Xia Lei asked.

“Yes. Night venues in Macau bring in money fast.” The young woman lit a cigarette. “The basic platform is ten thousand a month; the top tier is thirty thousand or more.”

“Is it high-platform diving?” Xia Lei asked.

“You bookworm, still asking? Still asking?” The young woman couldn’t hold back a laugh and blew out a puff of smoke.

“No more questions!” Xiao Man had already guessed seven or eight parts of it, and raised his glass: “Wishing you a smooth trip and great wealth!”

The three raised their glasses and drained the first cup of Xuehua. The young woman set down her glass and said: “It’s really hard to make money in the Northeast now. Everyone is heading south. The university graduates who left don’t come back either. There’s no saving this place.”

“It’s not that they don’t want to come back — it’s that there are no good jobs to come back to,” Xia Lei said.

“What about you?” the young woman asked Xiao Man. “When are you heading south?”

“I’m just a lowly worker — having a proper job isn’t easy. I have to rise and fall together with the factory.” Xiao Man leaned back against his chair.

“Don’t you know your factory is nearly finished?” the young woman asked.

“People have been saying that for the past few years,” both Xiao Man and Xia Lei said.

“A few days ago, a factory official came to the dance hall,” the young woman said, exhaling a smoke ring. “This official had lost his wife and wanted to keep me as his girlfriend. He said the factory is almost finished — the leadership are all busy selling off assets. He’s already made a tidy sum, just waiting for the factory to go bankrupt.”

“Damn! I can’t believe someone is profiting from the factory’s misfortune!” Xiao Man slammed the table so hard it rattled. “I was still waiting for the factory to call me back to work!”

The young woman said mockingly: “Why don’t you convert the factory buildings into farmland, plant crops, raise some chickens and ducks, marry a village wife, and spend your whole life squatting in this mountain gully?”

Xia Lei stayed only a few days in Xi Tie Cheng before rushing back to Shanghai to work on his graduation project. Xiao Man had nothing to do during the day, and thought about going to find the perfumed young woman for a chat. He walked to the dance hall entrance, only to see Wei Deluo standing beside the security scanner in a police uniform. Xiao Man asked: “Is that uniform real?”

Wei Deluo said: “High-quality replica! I’ve also got a police badge and an electric baton.”

Xiao Man asked: “Nobody cares?”

Wei Deluo spread his hands: “As long as I don’t wear it in the street, nobody cares.”

Xiao Man also asked: “Why dress so alarmingly? Isn’t the scanner already there?”

Wei Deluo said: “Can’t help it — the moment the dance hall opens, flies and mosquitoes all come buzzing in.”

Xiao Man turned and walked into the dance hall. From a distance he spotted the perfumed young woman dancing with an old man. Just then the third song began with its lights-out. Xiao Man didn’t want to interrupt them in the darkness, so he lit a cigarette and stood there in the dark. When the song ended and the lights came back on, the old man released the young woman and came walking toward Xiao Man, cigarette pinched between his fingers: “Friend, got a light?”

Xiao Man glanced at the old man’s wrinkled face and recognized him — it was Xu Da Mabang, the one whom he and Xia Lei had pelted with rocks in the tunnel ten years ago!

Xu Da Mabang didn’t recognize Xiao Man. All these years he had continued to lead his carefree, pleasure-seeking life. Seeing that he still had a gaudy patterned necktie cheaply knotted around his neck, Xiao Man gave a cold laugh, thinking: this man just won’t die decently — he’s walked right into my hands!

“Hold on!” Xiao Man’s hand found his lighter inside his trouser pocket. He secretly turned the flame to maximum, and signaled Xu Da Mabang to lean in closer.

Not knowing it was a trap, Xu Da Mabang bent forward, cigarette in his lips, and leaned in. Xiao Man suddenly pressed the lighter, and a towering flame shot up — like the tongue of a welding torch, lighting up Xu Da Mabang’s terror-stricken face in an instant. Xu Da Mabang reflexively stumbled back a step, wiped his face, and found several singed eyelashes and eyebrow hairs in his palm, crumbling to charcoal dust.

“What the hell, you’re playing tricks on me?” Xu Da Mabang’s fear turned to fury.

“Sorry, old brother — I didn’t know the flame would be so big!” Xiao Man gave a cold smile and turned to leave.

“Don’t go! Don’t you walk away!” Xu Da Mabang grabbed Xiao Man’s sleeve. “You just used your own lighter and the flame wasn’t this big — how do you explain that?”

“How should I know? Must be your bad luck.”

“You did this on purpose! My eyebrows are singed off — you owe me money!”

“I owe you nothing. Let go of me! You hear me? Let go!” Xiao Man jabbed his finger at Xu Da Mabang’s nose.

Xu Da Mabang was an old rogue — unreasonable and refusing to let go.

“Won’t let go? Go to hell!” Xiao Man suddenly swung a massive roundhouse punch, landing squarely on Xu Da Mabang’s nose. Stars exploded before Xu Da Mabang’s eyes. One hand clutching his nose, the other hand spread open to scratch at his attacker.

Xiao Man stepped in ahead of him, swinging a second massive roundhouse punch — “bang” — sending him flat on his back on the floor.

“Murder! He’s killing me!” Xu Da Mabang floundered on the ground and screamed.

Wei Deluo, the fake police officer watching the floor, came rushing over and first asked Xiao Man: “What happened? Did you hit him?”

“He started it first,” Xiao Man said, pointing down at Xu Da Mabang on the ground. “I warned him, and he still kept at it.”

Xu Da Mabang strained to sit up and lodged his complaint with Wei Deluo: “This moron scorched my eyebrows with a lighter.”

Wei Deluo pulled Xu Da Mabang up from the floor and advised him: “Let it go. We’ll give you complimentary dance tickets in the future — now please be on your way!”

“Go now — you’re lucky you didn’t get knifed today!” Several of the bouncers stepped in and pushed Xu Da Mabang out of the dance hall.

When the crowd dispersed, Xiao Man found the perfumed young woman. She asked him: “Were you jealous just now, watching me dance with that old man?”

Xiao Man smiled without answering.

The young woman continued: “Last time when I asked if you wanted to be my boyfriend, you wouldn’t agree. Do you regret it now?”

Xiao Man said: “No. I had an old score to settle with that old man. Today just happened to be the right moment.”

The young woman said disappointedly: “Then why are you looking for me? You’re not going to dance either.”

Xiao Man stubbed out his cigarette and said: “Not dancing. Just wanted to come and see you. Nothing else — I’ll be heading off.”

The young woman asked: “What is it you actually wanted to say to me? I’m leaving for Macau next week.”

Xiao Man stood up and said: “Nothing much, really. Thank you for the meal. Stay safe, and have a good journey.”

Leaving the Xi Tie Dance Hall, Xiao Man wandered without purpose. Before he knew it, he had found his way to the building under which Xiao Dan used to live. He rubbed his palms together, grabbed onto the maintenance ladder, and climbed back up to the rooftop.

In the gathering dusk, the apartment blocks were dim and shadowed, the distant streets empty and deserted. The floodlit basketball court had no more lights or games, and the smokestacks of the production zone stood silent and unyielding in the last fading glimmer of light. An unprecedented desolation enveloped the lonely Xi Tie Cheng.

Xiao Man sat there until darkness fell, thinking about many, many things. When the moon rose above the ridgeline, he ground out his last cigarette with fierce finality, and the thought of leaving Xi Tie Cheng surfaced for the first time.