made you wonder if he was of pure Han stock. All eyes were on him the minute he strode into the square, his face glowing in the sun. He walked up to my father but his gaze was fixed on the fields beyond the squat earthen wall, where rays of morning sun dazzled the eye. The crops were jade green, the flowers were in bloom, their scent heavy on the air, the skylarks sang in the rosy red sky. My father, who was nothing in the eyes of Lao Lan, might as well not have been sitting by the wall at all. And if my father meant nothing to him, naturally, it was even worse for me. But perhaps he was blinded by the sun. That was the first thought that entered my juvenile mind, but I quickly grasped that Lao Lan was trying to provoke my father. As he cocked his head to speak to the butchers and the peddlers, he unzipped his uniform pants, took out his dark tool and let loose a stream of burnt-yellow piss right in front of my father and me. Its heated stench assailed my nostrils. It was a mighty stream, I'd say a good fifteen metres; he'd probably been saving up all night, going without relieving himself so he could humiliate my father. The cigarettes on the ground tumbled and rolled in his urine, swelling up until they lost their shape. A strange laugh had arisen from the clusters of butchers and peddlers when Lao Lan took out his tool, but they broke that off as abruptly as if a gigantic hand had reached out and grabbed them by the throats. They stared at us, slack-jawed and tongue-tied, their faces frozen in stunned surprise. Not even the butchers, who knew that Lao Lan wanted to pick a fight with my father, imagined that he'd do something like this. His piss splashed on our feet and on our legs, some even spraying into our faces and our mouths. I jumped up, enraged, but Father didn't move a muscle. He sat there like a stone. ‘Fuck your old lady, Lao Lan!’ I cursed. My father didn't make a sound. Lao Lan wore a superior smile. My father's eyes were hooded, like a farmer taking pleasure from the sight of water dripping from the eaves. When Lao Lan finished pissing, he zipped up his pants and walked over to the cattle. I heard long sighs from the butchers and peddlers, but couldn't tell if they were sorry nothing more had happened or happy that it hadn't. The butchers then walked in among the cattle and in no time made their selections. Then the peddlers walked up and the bargaining commenced. I could tell their hearts weren't in it, that something other than the best bargain was on their minds. Though they weren't looking at my father, I was sure they were thinking about him. And what was he doing? He'd brought his knees up and hidden his face behind them, like a hawk sleeping in the crotch of a tree. Since I couldn't see his face, I had no way of knowing what he looked like at that moment. But I was unhappy with what I saw as weakness. I may have only been a boy but I knew how badly Lao Lan had humiliated my father, and I also knew that any man worth his salt would not take that without a fight; I'd proved that by my curses. But Father remained silent, as if he were stone dead. That day's negotiations were brought to a close without his intervention. Yet when they were over, all the parties walked up as usual and tossed some notes at his feet. The first to do this was none other than Lao Lan himself. That mongrel bastard, apparently not content to piss in my father's face, took out two brand-new ten-yuan notes and snapped them between his fingers to get my father's attention. It didn't work—Father kept his face hidden behind his knees. This seemed to disappoint Lao Lan, who took a quick glance round him, then flung the two notes at my father's feet, one of them landing in the middle of the still-steaming puddle of piss and lying nestled against the soggy, disintegrating cigarettes. At that moment my father might as well have been dead. He'd lost face for himself and his ancestors. He was less than a man, no better than the bloated
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