My parents came to look down on Zhima more and more. They called him a sack of cow shit, not even fit for plastering a wall with. Zhima did not dare show up at their door too often. Only as a last resort did he pick up two bottles of wine and show up timidly one day. Of course, the wine was not the green leaf liquor he used to bring years ago, but they were at least Six Gold Blessing and Luzhou Liquor, spirits of reasonable quality. My father was quite particular about his wine, so Zhima did not dare be too stingy.

Yicao was close to our side of the family, not going home even over the long holiday. Zhima did not see her and was terribly bored with no one else at home like that.

He had always wanted a son, so had never really cherished his daughters. Now that he was getting older, his feelings changed, and he suddenly grew very attached to them. He always called Yihua, asking about this and that. He was alone from sunrise to sunset. He found that his life comprised these three women. When they dispersed, he fell apart. But what really riled Zhima up was Yicao’s harsh ridicule, saying all he did was drink and play cards all day. He did not do anything, but hung around waiting to share in others’ crops. She did not want such a father. She even said she would try to persuade her mother to divorce him, leaving him on his own.

Zhima thought of his own desolate situation, of how he was deserted by everyone in his old age, and he realised he was a little afraid. He drank to drown his worries, and then his long-lost wife appeared, as if she descended from heaven. He was drunk. He didn’t know what he was doing.

When he awoke, he was lying on the bed. The house had been cleaned, but there was no one to be found. He knew she had gone back to the city, not even spending the night at home. She did not treat it as her home anymore. His heart was filling up with bitterness. Immersed in such self-pity, his spirit grew even more sluggish.

There was a widow in the village whose husband had been gored to death by a water buffalo. She was called Chai Fengying, and she was on good terms with my sister. When Chuntian left, she kept criticising Chuntian in front of Zhima, asking what kind of woman had turned so wild that even a team of eight horses could not drag her back . . . Finally, she even accused my sister of abandoning her family. It made Zhima feel like he had found a bosom friend. He poured out many grievances to her, and even shared all of the couple’s most private secrets, including Chuntian’s lack of focus during that, saying she either cracked melon seeds between her teeth or bit her hangnails, telling him to hurry and get it over with, or talked about how she needed to pee, which made him lose interest, too. Maybe he was actually impotent by now!

Fengying was like a piece of farmland which had long suffered a drought, so she lost no time in letting her own maternal instinct come out, offering considerate comfort and acting flirtatious, her voice affected and saccharine. Such coquettishness gave her an advantage that covered her ugly flaws. Zhima was ready to clutch at any straw he could find, so before long, they were in bed together.

But the event soon turned into just an interlude. Fengying was a sensible person, and she did not intend to attach herself long term to an incompetent drunk. She also had a pair of children herself, so she knew that, if her own mind was flooded over, it would end in wretchedness for them all. She warmed herself with Zhima for about a month and was rejuvenated, decreasing her lust with each encounter. Ultimately, she cut him off.

Zhima was a married man. Being used and chucked aside like that was humiliating, but he was helpless in the face of it and could only suffer in silence. It was strange, but it was only after the affair ended that he realised how ugly Fengying was. Her face was round like a wash basin, her eyebrows sparse, her small eyes were painted with a dark ring of eyeliner, framing a pair of dead, fishy eyes, and her skin was splotchy. Even so, this was was the woman who had yelped like a young dolphin, whispering to his lustful instincts. He was bewitched for a while, and that made him feel used.

After this little setback, Zhima felt that other women were even less reliable than his own. Some people encouraged him to go into the city and set up a stall, selling kebabs or polishing shoes while he went about looking for his woman. No matter what, it was better for husband and wife to be together; offering more stability.

Zhima settled things at home and, carrying his checkered plastic bag, made his way to a construction site with another fellow from the village. Yiyang was developing rapidly then, and houses were being built everywhere. New high-rises popped up all along the banks of the Zijiang. Variegated lights were scattered across the landscape each night, like a flourishing dream. Zhima was not used to doing heavy work at home. After a few days of carrying concrete, both of his shoulders were swollen and aching. When he climbed the scaffolding, he was afraid of heights, so his coworkers looked out for him and asked him to shovel concrete, mix cement, and move bricks instead. At night, he slept in a shed with a dozen other people. The air was stale with mixed smells as they quarrelled, played cards, laughed, whistled, and told dirty jokes. It was a happy life.

When he had free time, Zhima went out to restaurants, shopping malls, hotels, and recreation centres, searching for Chuntian inch by inch. He went back to the tailor shop a few times, but found no happy surprises there. Instead, the place was not doing so well; there was no more rapid fire rhythm of the sewing machines. There were just three or four seamstresses left, calmly fiddling with fabric and occasionally stepping on the pedal of the sewing machines, making them sound like a cold gun.

Zhima had a look, then left. But then he turned back and told Shui Qin he was working at the Taohua Warehouse Construction site. He wanted her to tell Chuntian, if the two of them met.

When Zhima had been gone for a while, the women in the tailor shop started to talk.

‘If he knew his woman was with another man, he would kill her.’

‘As long as a woman never acknowledges it and she is not caught in bed with another man, her husband can’t stir up trouble.’

‘Liu Zhima is too rotten to even be turned into plaster for my walls. Chuntian should divorce him right away, then find a retired cadre to settle down with. She would be just fine then.’

‘Sun Xiangxi is quite something. He got a secondary school teacher pregnant some time back. I’m not sure how, but he settled that problem.’

‘It seems he is still in touch with his ex-wife. Who knows whether they’ll get back together someday.’

‘With his former woman’s tough character, there’s no way she’ll forgive him for fucking around.’

‘Why would Sun look for a village girl? Is he just toying with Chuntian? She’s so naïve, she’ll be easily fooled.’

‘Chuntian isn’t a girl. Whether her relationship is good or bad is her own business. Just don’t wag your tongues in front of Liu Zhima and it’ll be fine.’

*

Zhima did manual labour until his muscles ached, finally experiencing the hard work Chuntian had always done in the past. At night he was so full of regret, he could not fall asleep. Once, he called Yihua and said, ‘Your mother changed her cell phone number. Do you have the new number?’

Yihua answered, ‘That’s between the two of you. If she wants to see you, naturally she will look for you.’

Zhima said, ‘What do I have to do to get her to see me?’

‘She wants to divorce you.’

Zhima was confused. ‘She’s not serious, is she?’

‘I don’t know. Anyway, even if you two divorce, you’re still my father and she’s still my mother.’

When Zhima and his friends had been at the work site for three months, the project was completed. When he and the other workers went to the contractor to settle things, the contractor said the account had not been paid, so he could not pay the workers yet. After the workers went to him time and time again and still did not get their money, they decided he was cheating them. Finally, they all went to the office as a group and asked for their pay. Zhima was owed the least, and even his share was several thousand yuan. Conditions at the site, bearing both sun and rain, had been quite tough, so he intended to receive his money, then use it to open a stall and sell kebabs. So Zhima was in the front of the pack, shouting fiercely, as if all the bitterness of his marriage and the difficulties in his life had come about because of this payment in arrears. He carefully recounted the fatigue of the worksite, showing the wounds on his shoulders, arms, and legs. He said, ‘This is hard-earned money. You have to pay up, every penny of it!’

Thinking Zhima was the leader of the workers, the contractor went to speak to him privately. He waited on Zhima with tea and was very polite. But the soft approach did not work on Zhima. He grew arrogant, talking like a big hero. He said to the contractor, ‘Everyone is waiting for the money to support their families. We will only go away when you give it to us.’

The contractor changed his attitude. ‘You don’t fucking know how to appreciate kindness, choosing the hard way instead,’ he said, then kicked Zhima out.

When the workers came to Zhima for an update, he said the contractor was looking for a solution, but that if they did not get their money that day, then they would ransack the contractor’s place. His words just came out, and everyone immediately responded, wanting to beat the contractor to a pulp. It seemed Zhima really had become the leader of the group.

Just as things were getting riled up and everyone was determined to carry out their threat, two black cars pulled up and slammed on the brakes with a screech. In the cloud of dust kicked up by the vehicles, five or six young men got out. The hooligans had their hands behind their backs as they walked quickly towards Zhima and the group. In the blink of an eye, Zhima had been hit with a brick. His face was covered with blood. The workers recovered and started to pick up various objects with which to fight back. But in the end, they lost to the evil thugs, suffering injuries.

Badly wounded, Zhima had to be hospitalised. He had two broken ribs and needed ten stitches on his head.