Another outbursts of clucks, then she stopped again. She sounded like a motor that won’t start. It had taken her only a minute to discover my weakness, and her breasts quickly sagged in dejection. The excitement gone, she scrubbed me front and back, then combed my hair and draped a fluffy bathrobe around me.
8
“So, what do you say, Little Uncle?” Sima Liang was sitting on a leather sofa, a cigar from the Philippine island of Luzon in his hand and a smile on his lips. “How do you feel?” “I feel wonderful,” I said gratefully. “Better than I’ve ever felt before.” “Your day of salvation has come, thanks to me,” he said. “Now, get dressed. There’s something I want to show you.”
We rode to the commercial center of Dalan in a stretch limo, which pulled up in front of a newly decorated lingerie shop. A crowd had gathered around the Cadillac, as if it were a rare dragon boat, by the time we’d stepped out and walked up to a gigantic shop window filled with mannequins. Above the door, the shop’s name – Beautify You Lingerie – was written in a florid script; beneath that, the shop’s motto: Distinctive Fashions in Ladies’ Undergarments. “Well?” Sima Liang asked me. “It’s wonderful!” I said excitedly. “That’s good, because you’re going to run this shop.” What a shock! “I can’t handle anything like this,” I protested. Sima Liang smiled. “You’re an expert in women’s breasts, so who could possibly be more qualified than you at selling brassieres?”
Sima led me through the silent automatic door into the spacious shop, where decorating work was still going on. All four walls were mirrored from one end to the other; the ceiling was a metal material that also reflected images. The foreman of the cleanup crew rushed up and bowed to us. “Now’s the time to make any changes you might have in mind, Little Uncle,” Sima said. “I don’t much care for the name ‘Beautify You,’ ” I said. “You’re the expert. What would you like to call it?” “Unicorn,” I said without a moment’s hesitation. “Unicorn: The World in Bras.” After a momentary pause, Sima laughed and said, “But they always come in pairs!” “Unicorn,” I repeated. “I like it.” “You’re the boss,” Sima said, “and what you say goes.” He turned to the foreman. “Have a new sign made right away. Beautify You has now become Unicorn. Hm, Unicorn, Unicorn. Not bad. It’s distinctive. See, Little Uncle, I said you were the man for the job. If you held a gun to my head, I couldn’t have come up with a more stylish name than that for this shop.”
“Women won’t let you fondle their breasts just because you feel like it,” the head of the Municipal Broadcasting and Television Bureau said as he stirred his Nescafe coffee with a tiny silver spoon. His gray hair, proof of a long, hard life, was combed back neatly. His face was dark, but not dirty; his teeth were yellow, but brushed; his fingers were stained yellow, but the skin was soft. He lit an expensive China-brand cigarette and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Are you of the opinion,” he asked, “that you can do whatever you want so long as you have the backing of a rich businessman like Sima Liang?”
“No, of course not.” Somehow I managed to keep my anger in check and appear as respectful as possible. “Bureau Chief,” I said to this man who had made such a name for himself during the Cultural Revolution and was still as powerful as ever, “whatever it is you want to say to me, please just say it.”
“Heh-heh,” he sneered. “This son of Sima Ku – a counterrevolutionary with the blood of Northeast Gaomi’s villagers on his hands – has become Dalan’s most honored guest on the basis of a few measly coins he’s put together. Like they say, ‘If you’ve got money, you can get the devil to turn the millstone!’ Shangguan Jintong, what were you before this? A necrophiliac and a mental patient. Now you’re a CEO!” Class hatred turned the eyes of this man they called the Unicorn bright red. He squeezed his cigarette so hard liquefied tar oozed out. “But I didn’t come here today to dispense revolutionary propaganda,” he said grimly. “I’m here in the cause of fame and wealth.”
I listened without interrupting. What difference could it make to Shangguan Jintong, who had suffered abuse all his life? “You know,” he said, “and you won’t ever forget, that time when you and your mother were paraded through the Dalan marketplace, how I suffered in the name of revolution. That’s right, I still recall what it felt like to be slapped by you. Well, I created the Unicorn Struggle Team and had my own program, called
“Be my guest.”
“Shangguan Jintong, don’t assume that just because Lu Shengli is mayor, you have nothing to fear. My brother- in-law is a vice minister in the provincial Party Committee, a higher rank than mayor. Besides, I know all about her checkered past, and it would not take much for Unicorn to pull her down off her pedestal.”
“Go right ahead. I have nothing to do with her.”
“Naturally,” he went on, “Unicorn has only the best of intentions, and you and I are, after all, fellow residents of Dalan. All I’m asking is that you do right by me.”
“Please, get to the point, revered Bureau Chief.”
“What I mean to say is, I think we can settle this privately.”
“How much?”
He extended three fingers. “I’m not interested in extorting money, so let’s keep it at thirty thousand. That’s peanuts for someone like Sima Liang. I’d also like you to get Mayor Lu Shengli to appoint me as deputy chairman of the Standing Committee of the Municipal Board. If not, there’ll be hell to pay.”
I felt cold all over. “Bureau Chief,” I said as I got to my feet, “you’ll have to talk to Sima Liang about the financial arrangements. The lingerie shop has just opened and we haven’t earned a cent yet. And since I’m ignorant where official matters are concerned, there’s nothing I can say to Lu Shengli.”
“Shit, so that’s his game, is it?” Sima Liang said with a smile. “He didn’t even check around to see what Sima Liang is all about! I’ll take care of that bastard, Little Uncle. I’ll see that he winds up swallowing his own teeth. He thinks he knows a thing or two about blackmail, how to fleece the well-to-do, does he? Well, our ‘Unicorn’ has met his master this time around!”
A few days later, Sima Liang came to me. “You’re in business, Little Uncle. Now, let’s see what you can do. I’ve already taken care of that chump Unicorn. Don’t ask how. He won’t cause any trouble from now on. It’s the dictatorship of the propertied class where he’s concerned. So go have a good time and make yourself proud. Don’t worry about whether you make or lose money in the process. It’s time for the Shangguan family to make a real splash. As long as I’ve got money, you’ve got money. So go for it! Money stinks, it’s nothing but dog shit! I’ve already made arrangements for someone to deliver everything Grandma will need on a regular basis. Now I have to go away on an important business trip and won’t be back for a year or so. I’ll put in a telephone for you. That way I can call if anything comes up. Please don’t ask where I’m going or where I’ve been.”
Business was booming at Unicorn: The World in Bras. The city was expanding rapidly, and another bridge was built over the Flood Dragon River. Where the Flood Dragon River Farm once stood was now home to a pair of large cotton mills, a chemical fiber factory, and a synthetic fiber factory; the area was now a celebrated textile district.
9
On the night of March 7, 1991, as a light rain fell outside, Shangguan Jintong, CEO of Unicorn: The World in Bras, was in a highly emotional state; thoughts thronged his mind as he paced the floor in the shop happily after the lights had been turned off for the night. Upstairs, the salesgirls were giggling. The money was rolling in. Finding himself understaffed, he’d advertised on TV; the following day, more than two hundred young women showed up to apply for jobs. Still excited, he rested his head against the shop window to watch the goings-on outside, also to clear his head and settle down. Shops on both sides of the street had closed for the day, their neon signs flashing in
