So Jiansu returned to the factory, leaving the Wali Emporium in the hands of Zhang-Wang, who sat behind the counter for two hours every day. Business did not suffer a decline. Without telling anyone, she added orange peels to the liquor vat and diluted it with cool water. She carefully organized the rest of her day, her early-morning hours with household duties and, when the sun was up, massaging Fourth Master’s back. All these she handled easily, though the man’s back caused her a bit of apprehension. Only two years away from his sixtieth birthday, he was still healthy and energetic. But there was a noticeable thickening of his back. She had massaged that back for decades with hands and fingers that had grown dexterous from fashioning her clay tigers. Her massages brought Fourth Master unparalleled pleasure, but in recent days she had begun to feel her strength ebb. One day, while she was kneading his back, she told him that Hanzhang, his foster daughter, ought to take over. He responded by shifting his rotund body, which was covered only by a towel for modesty’s sake, and snorting. It was the last time she brought up the subject. The red, round sun would be making its way into the sky when she left Fourth Master’s house and went to the shop to sit behind the counter, slightly out of breath.
As for Jiansu, who found the factory more to his liking, he stayed away from the shop, going back no more than once a month to attend to the accounts. The factory, big as it was, was still run more or less as a workshop; only the name had changed. But many of the former workers, unwilling to work for Zhao Duoduo, had left, and the majority of their replacements were women. Two shifts kept the factory running around the clock. As the nights grew longer, the heated air had a soporific effect on the workers, and the sight of all those women nodding off beside the starch vat and under the water basin was a delight. As technician in charge, Jiansu was not required to keep to a rigid schedule; he could check on the work any time he wanted.
After the sun went down, he changed into a light purple fall jacket and a pair of straight-legged indigo pants that he tucked into shiny high-topped rubber boots. Thick black hair made his face appear unusually fair. One after the other, he studied how each of the women looked as they slept, a trace of derision at the corners of his mouth. This turned his face even paler and lit up his eyes. After he’d stood there awhile, they would wake up, one after the other, and yawn.
A chubby woman by the name of Daxi started coughing any time she saw Jiansu and did not stop until her face was red. She was not one of the better workers, and when she washed the noodles, they often fell to the floor in front of the cold-water basin. Once, while she was coughing, Jiansu walked up and kicked the gooey mess, which stopped the coughing fit. She belched and stared at him, but he strode past her, his rubber boots making squishing sounds. At that sound the yawning women got to their feet and went back to work sifting the noodle mixture. Their white aprons fluttered in the room’s heavy mist; the unique fragrance of the shop began to spread like perfumed rouge.
An iron strainer full of holes hung above them, and when the sticky bean starch was poured into it, silvery threads of glass noodles streamed through the holes and into a steamy pot, where they turned clear. Sitting up high working the ladle was a swarthy man who, on this particular day, had just awakened when Jiansu entered. With a shout, he pounded on the strainer ostentatiously, his head swaying, filling the room with a rhythmic banging sound. Jiansu sat down to smoke, eyes sparkling behind a patch of hair that had fallen over his forehead. For half an hour he didn’t say a word; then he jumped to his feet and ran out, not looking back, passing by the women like a flash.
Jiansu ran out onto a tall concrete platform, where he stopped to catch his breath as he looked up at the moist stars in the sky and listened to the sounds of water flowing in the Luqing River. The millstone was still turning, still rumbling; he turned toward the row of small windows on the riverbank, through which light shone weakly. Baopu would be behind one of them, sitting on his stool and tending the millstone. Jiansu wished the window would open to let the light out, if only briefly. With a sense of disappointment he stepped down off the platform and walked to the building around the corner from the processing room, stopping just outside. Light emerged from inside, as did the sound of snoring, and he knew that the factory manager, Duoduo, was sleeping in there. Taking hold of the handle, he held his breath and opened the door slowly. Once inside, he quietly closed it behind him and turned around. Duoduo was on his back, warmed by the heated kang, wearing only a pair of black underpants. Made of thick, hard material, and shiny, they were disgusting. The older residents of Wali, with the exception of Sui Buzhao, were all getting fat. Duoduo’s fleshy belly was distended. His beard was graying, the skin on his face was sagging, and there were strange purple splotches on his cheeks. His slightly green lips were parted, revealing one of his front teeth. As he studied the face, Jiansu discovered that the left eye wasn’t completely closed, and that made his heart lurch. He stayed perfectly still, except for his hand, which he passed over the slightly open eye. It didn’t flicker, and he breathed easier. Duoduo’s prominent Adam’s apple moved in concert with his loud breathing. He had, for some reason, placed a cleaver on the windowsill near him. Although there were rust spots on the back edge of the blade, it appeared to be quite sharp. The blood drained from Jiansu’s face when he spotted the cleaver. He stood there a while longer and then left quietly.
The Midautumn Festival was only a few days away, and the accounts had been settled. The factory had brought in an astonishing amount of income, especially since becoming mechanized. In a week’s time the mill went through at least a thousand more pounds of mung beans than before. Each time Duoduo came by to inspect the millstone he left in high spirits. He had his bookkeeper tally up the mechanized production and was told that at this rate profits would soar. So, since midautumn was nearly upon them, he decided to host a dinner for Li Zhichang, who had contributed so much to the mechanization process; Technician Li; Sui Buzhao; and especially Sui Jiansu. He hired the government chef, Fatty Han, the finest cook in all of Wali.
When he was in a good mood Duoduo was a generous man; this was one of those times, so he told the night workers they could come in shifts to enjoy some good food and spirits. Rumor had it that Fatty Han had 160 different tofu recipes. Maybe that rumor had influenced Zhao Duoduo, for this time the ingredients he supplied the chef included a dozen or more baskets of broken glass noodles from the previous spoiled vat. That didn’t bother Fatty Han, who merely shed the vest he normally wore, now that he had a more difficult meal than usual to prepare, and was naked from the waist up. He devised twelve dishes for each table: There were reds and there were greens; there were dishes so sour it made the guests shiver and others so sweet the room was filled with the sound of smacking lips. Not long into the meal, the diners’ shirts were soaked with sweat as they contentedly caught their breath. After the meal, Duoduo told his bookkeeper to determine how much it had cost. The dozen or so baskets of noodle pieces were not worth much, and most of the money had gone to the purchase of sugar and vinegar, plus the pepper the chef had stolen from the municipal cafeteria.
The eating and drinking continued until two in the morning, with three shifts taking part. Jiansu drank cautiously that night, keeping his eye on all the others. Sui Buzhao, who was mightily drunk, was bending the ear of Technician Li, passing on stories about Uncle Zheng He. Zhao Duoduo’s face was dark, almost purple; still sober, he toasted Jiansu. “The people of this town are too shortsighted,” he said. “They laughed at me, saying I was wasting my money by putting a Sui on my payroll. But I knew what I was doing. I figured that if I had a member of the Sui clan working with me, there’s no way this factory could have a spoiled vat.”
Jiansu drained his glass and glowered at Zhao Duoduo. “You’re good at account keeping,” he said in a soft voice before sitting down and glancing over at Li Zhichang.
“The girls are getting drunk!” someone shouted as Jiansu quietly left the table. He walked into the processing room feeling the effects of alcohol, his face turning pink. He saw that some of the giggling girls’ faces were also slightly red. But they kept working, just a bit wobbly, pulling the strands this way and that; harmony reigned. Enveloped by mist, Jiansu lit a cigarette. Daxi was the first to spot him, but she pretended he wasn’t there and pulled the noodles like a madwoman, the best she’d ever looked at work. The swarthy man with his metal