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for him. But Yile isn’t my son, I raised him for nine years, and for what? All for nothing. How much of my own money have I spent on him? I’ve been kind enough not to demand that He Xiaoyong pay me for what he owes. Haven’t you heard what they’re saying? They’re saying that I’m a good man, that I’m generous, that if it was someone else in my position, He Xiaoyong would already have been beaten within an inch of his life, not once but several times over. So don’t ask me to talk it over, because this has nothing whatsoever to do with me. This is a He family affair. Haven’t you heard what they’re saying? Wouldn’t paying up just add insult to injury? . . . All right already, stop crying, it’s driving me crazy, the way you’re always crying. All right, I give up. Forget it. Go see He Xiaoyong. You can tell him that we’ve been together almost ten years. You can tell him that Yile’s thought of me as his dad for almost as long. That’s why I’m allowing him to stay here. And why I’ll agree to be responsible for raising him from now on. But
only
if he pays what he owes this one time. Just this once. He has to pay up, if only just this once. Otherwise I’ll have no face left at all. Why am I letting that bastard off so damn easy?”

CHAPTER NINE
    Xu Yulan announced to Xu Sanguan that she was on her way to see He Xiaoyong.
    Xu Sanguan was sitting inside, knotting some rags to make a mop. When he heard what Xu Yulan said, he stuck out his hand to rub his nose, wiped his mouth, and wordlessly continued to work on the mop.
    Xu Yulan continued, “I’m going to see He Xiaoyong, but only because you asked me to. I swore long ago that I would never see him again.” She asked Xu Sanguan, “Should I dress up before I go over there, or is it better if I go as I am?”
    Xu Sanguan thought to himself,
She wants to dress up to see
He Xiaoyong? Does that mean she’s going to comb her hair in the
mirror, moisten it with hair oil, rub Snowflower cream on her
face, put on her best sweater, pat the dust from her shoes, and
wear that silk scarf around her neck? And then cheerfully
saunter off to see the man who made me a cuckold these nine
years?
Xu Sanguan threw the mop to one side and bounded up from his seat.
    “You still want He Xiaoyong to squeeze your fucking tits? You still want to have your fun with him? You want to look nice for him? You’re going just as you are. Better yet, rub your face with ashes from the stove.”
    Xu Yulan said, “But if I go with stove ash on my face and my hair all a mess, don’t you think He Xiaoyong might say, ‘Hey everyone! Come look!
This
is what Xu Sanguan’s woman looks like! ’ ”
    Xu Sanguan had to agree that she was right. He was not about to let that bastard He Xiaoyong have a good laugh at his expense. “Then you better dress up before you go.”
    So Xu Yulan put on her finely woven sweater, over which she wore a dark blue khaki jacket with a turned-down collar. She adjusted the collar so as to show as much as possible of the sweater underneath, then went to get the silk scarf from her trunk. She tied and knotted it around her neck, but after a glance in the mirror revealed that it covered the sweater, she shifted the knot to the side and tucked it under her collar. After another glance in the mirror, she tugged the two ends of the knot out from underneath and let them rest atop her collar.
    Xu Yulan walked over to He Xiaoyong’s house enveloped in a cloud of fragrance emitted by the Snowflower cream on her face. The ends of her scarf fluttered in the breeze like a pair of chicks flapping their wings. She passed two intersections, turned down a small lane, and came to He Xiaoyong’s door.
    Xu Yulan saw a thirty-year-old woman sitting by his door scrubbing clothes on a washing board. This, she knew, was He Xiaoyong’s woman. He Xiaoyong’s woman was as skinny as a bamboo pole. She had been just as skinny ten years before, when she had walked through the