know her name. And third, her background was a complete mystery. As they walked together out of the civil administrator’s office, he asked her, “What’s your name?”
She grimaced angrily as she opened the red marriage certificate binder. “Take a good look,” she said. “It’s written right there.”
There it was, in black and white: Wang Yinzhi and Shangguan Jintong, having expressed their desire to marry, and having satisfied all the requirements of the Marriage Laws of the People’s Republic of China
“Are you related to Wang Jinzhi?” he asked her. “He’s my father.”
Everything went black – Jintong swooned.
Like an idiot, I’ve boarded a ship of thieves, but what can I do? Getting married is easy; getting unmarried is not. Now I’m more convinced than ever that Wang Jinzhi is behind all this. Damn that Unicorn, just because he suffered at the hands of Sima Liang, he dreamed up this sinister scheme to punish me. Where are you, Sima Liang?
With tears still wetting her eyes, she said, “Jintong, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. I love you. This has nothing to do with my father. In fact, he’s even threatened to disown me because of it. He asked me what I saw in you, reminding me that it was public knowledge that you served time for necrophilia and spent several years in a mental institution. So what if you have a nephew who is rolling in money or a niece who is mayor? he said. We may be poor, but not in spirit or integrity… it’s all right, Jintong,” she continued, looking at him through the mist in her eyes, “we can go file for divorce if you want, and I’ll pick up the threads of my life…”
Her tears fell on his heart. Maybe I was letting my suspicions get the better of me. What’s wrong with knowing that someone loves you?
Wang Yinzhi was a managerial genius. She set to work revising Jintong’s business strategy by building a factory behind the shop to produce top-quality “Unicorn” brassieres. Suddenly little more than a figurehead, Jintong spent most of his time in front of the TV set, where he was treated to ubiquitous ads for Unicorn Bras:
“Wear a Unicorn and life starts anew.”
“In a Unicorn fortune smiles on you.”
A third-rate actor was waving a bra in front of the camera:
“Put on a Unicorn and your hubby will flip.
Take it off and your fortunes will slip.”
Disgusted by what he saw, Jintong turned off the TV and began pacing back and forth along the rut he’d created in the lush wool carpet. His pace quickened, his excitement rose, his thoughts grew confused, like a starving, penned-up goat. Soon tiring, he sat down and turned the TV back on with the remote control.
The familiar theme music, the pleasant strains of Fate knocking at the door, preceded the voice of the announcer: “This program is brought to you by Unicorn Lingerie. Wear a Unicorn and life starts anew. The unicorn is the beast of love. It warms my heart day and night.” The Unicorn logo filled the screen. The image: a cross between a rhinoceros and a nippled breast.
“Today’s guest is Wang Yinzhi. Thanks to Ms. Wang’s aggressive marketing, the young men and women of Dalan take great pride in wearing Unicorn products. No longer limited to women’s lingerie, the line now features caps and socks, and everything in between.” The microphone moved over to the heavily lipsticked mouth of Unicorn’s general manager, Wang Yinzhi.
“Madam General Manager, my first question to you is, how did you come up with the unusual name ‘Unicorn’ for your shop, your factory, and your line of clothing?” Her smile exuded confidence. One look at her told you she was educated, intelligent, rich, and powerful – a woman to be reckoned with. “It’s rather a long story,” she replied. “More than three decades ago, my father adopted the pseudonym Unicorn. According to him, the unicorn is a magical beast that resembles, to some degree at least, a rhinoceros. It is the ‘magic horn of the heart’ that signifies a coming together in ancient texts. Lovers, spouses, friends, aren’t they all a magic horn of the heart? That is why I chose it for the name of our shop. Turning it into a product name was the next logical step. Magic horn of the heart, yes, magic horn of the heart, doesn’t the sound just carry you off into a world of blissful emotions? But I’m afraid I’ve gotten carried away myself, and all our magic horn of the heart friends out there don’t need me to offer an explanation.”
Why don’t you just shut up! Jintong sputtered indignantly. How dare you take the credit for that! I’ll “Unicorn” you one day!
Seated across from the hostess, a woman with protruding front teeth, Wang Yinzhi talked on and on. “Of course, my husband played a significant role in the early days of the business, but then he fell ill and is now convalescing, leaving it up to me to fight on alone. The unicorn is a true fighter in the wild, and I consider it my duty to carry on the unicorn’s fighting spirit.” “What, may I ask,” the bucktoothed hostess asked, “is your goal?” “To turn Unicorn into a nationally known product line within three years, an international one within ten, and, ultimately, the world leader in apparel.”
Jintong flung the remote control at the televised image of Wang Yinzhi. Have you no shame at all? The remote control bounced off of the TV set and landed on the floor. Meanwhile, on the screen, Wang Yinzhi, her falsies protruding like little umbrellas beneath her thin blouse, captivating a vast audience of youngsters, talked on and on. “Madam General Manager, in recent years, young women in the West have gotten caught up in a breast liberation movement. They say that brassieres are no different than the harmful corsets women wore in the seventeenth century. What’s your opinion?” “It’s ignorance, pure and simple!” Wang Yinzhi said categorically. “Those corsets were made of canvas and bamboo splints, like a suit of armor, so of course they were harmful. I’d say you can equate the European women’s love affair with the corset with the way Chinese women bound their feet. But you can’t compare either the corset or bound feet with a modern bra, especially our Unicorn product. A brassiere meets the needs of beauty and health. At Unicorn we take both aspects into account, doing everything possible to satisfy both aesthetic and biological requirements.”
Jintong picked up a teacup to fling at the TV set, but at the last moment he aimed it at the paper-cushioned wall; it hardly made a sound as it bounced harmlessly onto the carpeted floor, sending a few mildewed tea leaves and some red tea splashing onto the wall and the TV set.
A single limp tea leaf stuck to the 29-inch TV screen, like a beard just beneath her mouth. “May I ask, Madam General Manager, are you wearing a Unicorn bra?” the bucktoothed hostess asked, trying to be witty. “Of course I am,” she said as she reached up and shifted her false breasts – seemingly subconsciously, but actually quite intentionally. A bit of free advertising there. “How about your home life, Madam General Manager. Would you say it’s happy?” “Not really,” she replied candidly. “My husband suffers from a psychosis. But he’s a good and decent man.”
That’s crap! He jumped up off the sofa. This is all a plot against me. Honeyed words to my face, then you stab me in the back. You’ve got me under house arrest. The camera caught Wang Yinzhi at an angle that showed her sinister smile, as if she knew that Jintong was home watching her on TV.
He got up, turned off the TV, and began pacing the floor anxiously like a caged simian, hands clasped behind his back, anger mounting by the second. Psychosis? You’re the one with the goddamned psychosis! You say I can’t manage the business? I’m saying I can! You daughter of a whore, you just won’t let me. You’re not a real woman. You’re a stone woman, a hermaphroditic toad spirit! Overcome by a welter of emotions, an exhausted Shangguan Jintong lay down on his faux antique carpet on that spring evening in 1993 and began to sob uncontrollably.
By the time his tears had soaked a spot the size of a bowl, his Fil-ipina servant entered. “Dinner’s ready, sir,” she said as she placed a basket of food on the table, then took out a bowl of glutinous rice, a platter of stewed lamb and turnips, another of tiny shrimp and celery, and a bowl of sweet-and-sour soup with snakehead fish. She handed him a pair of imitation ivory chopsticks and urged him to eat.
Jintong had no appetite for the steaming food arrayed in front of him. Turning to the servant, his eyes puffy from crying, he shouted in anger, “What am I? Tell me that!”
The poor girl was so frightened she just stood there with her arms hanging loosely at her side. “I don’t know, sir…”
“You damned spy!” He flung his chopsticks down on the table. “You’re working undercover for Wang Yinzhi, you damned spy!”
“I don’t understand, sir, I don’t know what you mean…”
“You put slow-acting poison in this food. You want to see me dead!” He picked up the dishes and dumped their
