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too low for anyone to hear: ‘All I asked you to do was apologize … Would it have killed you to say you’re sorry?’
    My dad lay on the ground, struggling to catch his breath. He lay there for a long time before he finally managed to sit up. His breathing was ragged, his skin mottled red and white. He looked like someone who had scaled a mountainside and finally reached the top, exhausted. Dad loosened his collar to get some air and unzipped his grey autumn jacket, revealing two thumb prints that stood out on his neck like angry red burns. His eyes watered, but he didn’t even bother to wipe away the tears. Nor did he speak; he couldn’t have if he’d tried. The noise coming from his throat sounded like the wheezing of an asthmatic.
    After a while, the wheezing subsided and my dad rose to his feet. He glared at Grandpa – a cold, hate-filled look – then reached out and slapped my sister across the face.
    ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come here,’ he roared. ‘But you insisted! You should have listened to me! Next time you’ll listen!’
    Dad glowered at Grandpa – oh, if looks could kill – before turning his gaze on the villagers, the same people who had stood by and watched him being strangled by his own father. Not one of them had tried to stop the fight, not one of them had stepped in to save him. Dad wheeled around, grabbed Yingzi by the hand and stomped off, dragging my weeping sister behind him.
    Grandpa watched my father walk away until he was just a blur in the distance, a shrunken figure at the school gate.
    Then, his face covered in perspiration, Grandpa began retracing his steps to the stage, stopping only when he stood face to face with Ma Xianglin. The musician seemed not to have moved at all: he was rooted to the same spot on the stage. Grandpa turned to the villagers, likewise frozen in their places. He gazed at them for a moment before falling to his knees with a thump. In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, Grandpa proclaimed, ‘As you can see, I’m not a young man. I kneel before you now, in my sixtieth year, to apologize to everyone on behalf of my oldest son, Ding Hui. I know a lot of you got infected from selling him your blood, and he is toblame for that. But please remember that my youngest boy has the fever too, and my twelve-year-old grandson died after being poisoned. Seeing as how it is come to this, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive us.’
    Leaning forward, my grandfather knocked his head against the boards of the stage. ‘Please accept my apology. I beg you not to hold a grudge against our family.’
    Thwack. Grandpa struck his head upon the stage a second time. ‘I know I let everyone down. I was the one who told you that blood is like a natural spring, that the more you take, the more it flows.’
    Thwack. The third and final kowtow. ‘I also want to apologize for helping the government organize the trip to Cai county. The trip that started everyone selling their blood, and sold you into the sickness you are suffering from today.’
    After the first apology, several of the villagers jumped on the stage and tried to lift Grandpa up. ‘There’s no need for this,’ they told him. ‘There’s really no need.’ But Grandpa managed to shake them off and perform the final two kowtows, thus completing the ritual. When he was finished, he rose to his feet like a man who had fulfilled a vow, or made good on a long-overdue promise.
    Grandpa gazed at the large crowd of villagers like a teacher surveying a classroom full of students. They looked back at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to announce the start of class.
    ‘Beginning tomorrow,’ Grandpa announced in his most professorial tone, ‘anyone who is sick can come and live in the village school. Now, I know the village hasn’t had a cadre in years, but if you’re willing to put your trust in me, I promise that I’ll take care of you. You’ll be fed and housed at the school. I’ll make an