doubt about it. But Fenghuang snorted and said derisively:
“Don’t put on that good-little-boy act. Go ahead, smoke it! The younger you are when you start, the easier it is for your body to adapt to the nicotine. England’s prime minister Churchill started smoking his granddad’s pipe when he was eight, and he died in his nineties. So you see, starting late is worse than starting early.”
Your son picked up the cigarette and hesitated; but in the end he put it in his mouth, and Ximen Huan lit it. His first cigarette. He couldn’t stop coughing, and his face turned black. But he’d become a chain smoker in no time.
Ximen Huan turned Fenghuang’s gold cigarette lighter over in his hand.
“Damn, this is top-of-the-line stuff!” he said.
“Like it?” Fenghuang asked with disdainful indifference. “Keep it. It was a gift from one of those assholes who want to get an official position or a building contract.”
“But your mother-”
“My mother’s an asshole too!” she said, holding her cigarette daintily with three fingers. With her other hand she pointed to Ximen Huan. “Your dad’s an even bigger asshole! And your dad”-the finger was now pointed at your son-“is an asshole too!” She laughed. “Those assholes are all a bunch of phonies, always putting on an act, giving us so-called guidance and telling us not to do one thing or another. But what about them? They’re always doing one thing
“So that’s what we’ll do!” Ximen Huan said enthusiastically.
“Right,” Fenghuang agreed. “They want us to be good little boys and girls, not bad ones. Well, what makes someone a good kid and what makes someone a bad one? We’re good kids. The best, better than anyone!” She flipped her cigarette butt toward the parasol tree, but it landed on one of the eave tiles, where it smoldered.
“Call my dad an asshole if you want,” your son said, “but he’s no phony and he doesn’t put on an act. He wouldn’t be in so much trouble if he had.”
“Still protecting him, are you?” Fenghuang said. “He abandoned you and your mother and ran off to play around with another woman – oh, right, I forgot, that aunt of mine is an asshole too!”
“I admire my second uncle,” Ximen Huan said. “It took guts to give up his job as deputy county chief, leave his wife and son, and go off with his lover on a romantic adventure. How cool!”
“In the words of our county’s crafty writer Mo Yan, your dad is the world’s bravest guy, biggest asshole, hardest drinker, and best lover! Plug up your ears, both of you. I don’t want you to hear what I say next.” They did as she said. “Dog Four, have you heard that Lan Jiefang and my aunt make love ten times a day for an hour each time?”
Ximen Huan snorted and giggled. Fenghuang kicked him in the leg.
“You were listening, you punk,” she complained.
Your son didn’t say a word, but his face had darkened.
“The next time you two go back to Ximen Village, take me along. I hear your father has turned the place into a capitalist paradise.”
“Nonsense,” Ximen Huan replied. “You can’t have a capitalist paradise in a socialist country. My dad’s a reformer, a hero of his time.”
“Bullshit!” Fenghuang said. “He’s a bastard. The real heroes of their time are your uncle and my aunt.”
“Don’t talk about my dad,” your son said.
“When he stole off with my aunt, he nearly killed my grandma and made my grandpa sick, so why can’t I talk about him? One day I’ll get really mad and drag them back from Xi’an so they can be paraded in the street.”
“Hey, why don’t we go pay them a visit?” Ximen Huan suggested.
“Good idea,” Fenghuang said. “I’ll take another bucket of paint with me, and when I see my aunt, I’ll say, ‘Here, Aunty, I’ve come to paint you.’”
That made Ximen Huan laugh. Your son lowered his head and said nothing.
Fenghuang kicked him in the leg.
“Lighten up, Old Lan. We’ll go together, what do you say?”
“Not me.”
“You’re no fun,” she said. “I’ve had enough of you two. I’m getting out of here.”
“Don’t go yet,” Ximen Huan said. “The program hasn’t started.”
“What program?”
“Miraculous hair, my mother’s miraculous hair.”
“Hell, I forgot all about that,” Fenghuang said. “What was it you said? You could cut off a dog’s head and sew it back on with a strand of your mom’s hair, and that dog could still eat and drink, is that it?”
“We don’t need that complicated an experiment,” Ximen Huan said. “You can cut yourself, and then burn a strand of her hair and sprinkle the ashes on the cut. You’ll be good as new in ten minutes and no scar.”
“They say you can’t cut her hair or it’ll bleed.”
“That’s right.”
“Everybody says she has such a kind heart that if one of the villagers is injured, she’ll pull out a strand of her hair for them.”
“That’s right.”
“Then how come she’s not bald?”
“It keeps growing back.”
“Then you’ll never go hungry,” Fenghuang said admiringly. “If your father loses his job one day and turns into a useless pauper, your mother can keep the family fed and housed just by selling her hair.”
“I’d go out begging before I’d let her do that,” Ximen Huan said emphatically. “Although she’s not my real mother.”
“What do you mean?” Fenghuang asked. “If she’s not your real mother, who is?”
“They tell me it was a high school student.”
“The bastard son of a high school student,” Pang said. “How cool is that!”
“Then why don’t you go have a baby?” Ximen Huan said.
“Because I’m a good girl.”
“Does having a baby make you a bad kid?”
“Good kid, bad kid. We’re all good kids!” she said. “Let’s perform the experiment. Shall we cut off Dog Four’s head?”
I barked angrily. My meaning? Try it, you little bastard, and I’ll bite your head off!
“Nobody touches my dog,” your son said.
“So then what?” Fenghuang said. “You’re wasting my time with your phony tricks. I’m leaving.”
“Wait,” your son said. “Don’t go.”
He stood up and went into the kitchen.
“What are you doing, Old Lan?” Fenghuang shouted after him.
He walked out of the kitchen holding the middle finger of his left hand in his right hand. Blood seeped through his fingers.
“Are you crazy, Old Lan?” Fenghuang cried out.
“He’s my uncle’s son, all right,” Ximen Huan said. “You can count on him when the chips are down.”
“Quit spouting nonsense, bastard son,” Fenghuang said anxiously. “Go inside and get some of your mom’s miraculous hair, and hurry!”
Ximen Huan ran inside and quickly emerged with seven strands of thick hair. He laid them on the table and let them burn, quickly turning them to ashes.
“Let’s see that finger, Old Lan,” Fenghuang said as she grabbed the hand with the bleeding finger.
It was a deep cut. I saw Fenghuang go pale. Her mouth was open, her brow creased, as if she was the one in pain.
Ximen Huan scooped up the ashes with a crisp new bill and sprinkled them over your son’s injured finger.
“Does it hurt?” Fenghuang asked.
“No.”
“Let go of his wrist,” Ximen Huan said.
“The blood will wash the ashes away,” Fenghuang said.
“No problem, don’t worry.”
