I was spinning a top at the door. When it was spinning, it seemed to stand still. I lay the rope down and stared at the top as it turned. My grandfather had much experience with boredom. Seeming to think I was bored too, he took compassion on me. He called my nickname and waved to me. Staring at a thing spinning blindly was in fact quite boring, but I did not expect my grandfather to step in with anything of interest to me either.

I walked lazily over. For the first time, my grandfather disclosed the contents of his treasure chest. A smell of old must and fragrant food rushed out of it. All my grandfather’s possessions were locked inside. I was like a thief checking to see what treasures I would like. I saw some bottles, cans and several books that were starting to turn yellow. A set of ivory Chinese dominoes flashed vaguely, and then my grandfather fastened the lid again. He put a large piece of rock sugar into my mouth, saying, ‘Let Grandpa teach you some calligraphy. We in the Li family have this one excellent craft. It would be a shame not to pass it on.’

I asked what was so good about writing calligraphy. What I really meant was, would there be rock sugar every day when I wrote. My grandfather said the benefits equalled that of playing dominoes. It built character, nourished one’s nature, and if he did not care about winning or losing, one would be free of worry, unhappiness . . . that kind of crap.

Later, I listened to my grandfather’s lofty rhetoric regarding gambling as he flicked open the box. He pushed a piece of rock sugar into his own mouth, teeth crunching on it as he spoke, like he had pebbles in his mouth. He deftly retrieved a brush and some ink from a chaotic pile and told me to hold them. I felt that he was thinking quite highly of me. He moved a small square table over and continued saying that the feeling of having a good hand of cards is the same as writing well, both were worthy of pride. It was many years later that I came to understand my grandfather’s analogy, but he had extended the meaning of having a good hand of cards.

That day I copied the phrase ‘Guan! Guan! Cry the fish hawks.’ My grandfather said the words had endured for three thousand years. My hands were shaking so much, as if I were on death row. I thought something must be wrong with me. I continued to seek my grandfather out to practice calligraphy with him every day after that. When my hand stopped shaking, I felt that writing calligraphy was as interesting as rolling a metal hoop through the street, or playing with a slingshot, or spinning a top – or perhaps even more interesting. Before long, I got a taste of the pride my grandfather had talked about when my teacher praised my writing in front of the rest of the class. I memorised a good deal of poetry. Thinking that Li Bai, Li He, and Li Shangyin might be my ancestors, I found it even more exciting to memorise their work.

That summer, my grandfather found a boil as big as an egg on his buttocks. He felt the opportunity had come to get revenge on my parents, so he took this ailment as an excuse to lie in bed and not get up at all, expecting them to serve him as he ate, drank, peed, and pooped in bed. When anyone came by, he would scream as if dying, shouting, ‘I’m dying! I won’t last long. I just want a bowl of chicken and noodle soup before I die, with a fried egg and chopped chillies.’

Sometimes my mother sent me to see whether or not my grandfather had died yet. When I returned, I said it seemed he still had plenty of spirit left, and had even explained the rhyme scheme of a poem to me. My mother called the old man a coward, saying dying scared him half to death.

With the dressing on the festering boil, my grandfather’s room smelled strongly of herbs. He was like a hen sitting on soon-to-hatch eggs for half a month. When the boil did finally hatch, it gave birth to a bowlful of pus. Collapsing inward, it left a pit on his skin. He lay for ten more days before he was willing to get up. After that, whenever he saw anyone, he made a show of having recovered from a serious illness.

Logically, once he had recovered, my grandfather should have sat at the entrance to our house, smiling and thanking passersby, or counting the stars at night until bedtime. Instead, he vanished. This made my parents very unhappy. They had not cared for him like a wounded soldier just so he could return to the battlefield of the gambling house. Before he vanished, my grandfather did not have any money, so he pretended to be so sick he could stay in bed. He wanted to continue being sick, but the mysterious distant relative suddenly sent a rather huge sum of 200 yuan to my grandfather. He could lie still no longer then.

When I came home from school, my grandfather was sitting on the floor staring at the pond outside the door. A few ducks were frolicking on the surface of the water, the male duck flapping his wings and squawking loudly. I felt instinctively that there was something mysterious coming between the ducks and my grandfather. That mysterious matter was his real concern right now.

My grandfather waved to me like a generous lord. He told me to go to the cooperative shop and buy some liquor for him, along with a pound of snacks shaped like cat ears, reminding me to make sure the snacks would crackle when he chewed on them. When I returned, my grandfather invited me to share his snacks. At this time, my grandfather suddenly seemed quite young, pouring his liquor into the dirt-covered iron sheet cup and taking a swig. Each sip he took was followed by a slurping sound, so content he sounded like a vampire finding blood. The ‘cat ears’ were burnt yellow, thin and crispy. I focused on eating the snacks, my heart not really in my grandfather’s chatter.

My grandfather pinched a piece of ‘cat ear’ between his long fingers as he talked about a place called Anhua, which sounded far away and mysterious, like my grandfather’s past. For a while, his story caught my attention, so I asked, ‘What happened then?’ But it was just for show.

Half of the liquor had disappeared inside my grandfather by that point, turning his cheekbones blood-red. He opened the wooden box, pulled out a well-thumbed-through book, and took out an old picture. It was a woman with hair coiled at the back of her head, revealing her forehead. Though the face was faded by this time, I could still see how delicately pretty and elegant she was.

My grandfather stared at it for some time, then sighed, put the photo back into the book, and carried on drinking.

When he started to recite poems and sing, I decided I had had enough to eat and abandoned him.