Read Online The Real Story of Ah-Q by Lu Xun - Free Book Online Page B

the fleshy face blustered on. ‘A miracle cure! Right? Get it hot, eat it hot.’
    ‘Without your help, Mr Kang – ’ Hua Dama gratefully began.
    ‘Guaranteed! Eat it hot. That consumption of his won’t stand a chance, not against a bun dipped in human blood!’
    Paling at the word ‘consumption’, Hua Dama smiled all the more valiantly, before walking off, mumbling some excuse, to conceal her discomfort. Oblivious, Mr Kang raised the volume of his voice a notch, squeezing a further coughing fit from the Shuan boy asleep in the back room.
    ‘What a stroke of luck. Soon he’ll be right as rain; no wonder old Shuan can’t keep the smile off his face,’ the grey-beard echoed, approaching Mr Kang. ‘I heard it was the Xia boy – is that right?’ he lowered his voice deferentially. ‘What happened?’
    ‘It was Mrs Xia’s son, all right! The rascal!’ A feeling of exceptional well-being rushed through Mr Kang as he observed his rapt audience, the folds of his flesh seeming to swell with delight. ‘He threw his life away, the idiot,’ he went on, even louder. ‘No doubt about it. Didn’t get anything out of it myself, of course – not like our friend Shuan here. Red-Eye the prison guard got his clothes, while the boy’s uncle cleaned up with a twenty-five-dollar reward. Straight into his pocket!’
    The younger Shuan slowly made his way out of the back room, both hands pressed against his chest, unable to stop coughing. Walking over to the cooking range, he filled a bowl with cold rice, poured on hot water, then sat down and began to eat. ‘Feeling any better?’ his mother murmured, following behind. ‘Still as hungry as ever?’
    ‘Guaranteed!’ Mr Kang glanced at the boy, before turning back to his audience. ‘Sharp as a tack, that uncle of his. If he hadn’t informed when he did, the authorities would have gone for the whole family – root and branch. Instead of which, he’s made a mint! That boy – you wouldn’t believe it, he even tried to get his jailer to turn against the government.’
    ‘Unbelievable,’ spat a furious-looking young man, around twenty, in the back row.
    ‘When Red-Eye went to sound him out for bribes, he tried to talk him round. The empire, he said, it belongs to every one of us. Ever heard anything like it? Mad! Red-Eye couldn’t believe how poor he really was – even though he’d known all along there was only an old mother back home. He lost his rag completely when he found out there wasn’t a drop to be squeezed out of him. Gave him a couple of good slaps round the face – and quite right!’
    ‘That would’ve given him something to think about.’ The hunchback in the corner suddenly revived.
    ‘Ha! Not a bit of it. He just said he felt sorry for him.’
    ‘Sorry for hitting a fool like that?’ the man with the grey beard asked.
    ‘You weren’t listening,’ Mr Kang smirked contemptuously. ‘The
boy
felt sorry for Red-Eye!’
    His listeners’ eyes suddenly went blank, their chatter fading away. His eating done, the sweat was steaming off the Shuan boy.
    ‘
He
felt sorry for Red-Eye – crazy! He must have gone crazy,’ the man with the grey beard illuminated.
    ‘Crazy – crazy,’ the man in his twenties echoed, identically inspired.
    Life – and the power of speech – returned to the other customers. As the teahouse buzzed with noise once more, the Shuan boy began coughing desperately. Mr Kang strode over to thump him on the back.
    ‘Guaranteed!’ Mr Kang told him, thumping him on the back. ‘No need to cough like that, Shuan my boy. Guaranteed!’
    ‘Crazy,’ the hunchback nodded his head.

IV
     
    For as long as anyone could remember, the land beyond the western gate in the town wall had been common ground, bisected by a narrow, meandering path tramped out by the shoes of short-cutters. To the left of this natural boundary line were buried the bodies of the executed and those who had died in prison; to the right lay the mass graves into