Years of Red Dust (22 page)

Searching through the room, sure she had looked in every possible place, Qing finally unearthed a notebook that contained the numbers of the lottery tickets he had bought. Auntie Jia also came over, bringing the newspaper with the number of the winning lottery printed in red. One of the numbers matched, and the prize was a million yuan.

But the ticket itself was nowhere. “What an ill-starred woman I am,” Qing wailed heartbrokenly. “Finally, we hit the jackpot, but my husband has lost the ticket, and his mind too.”

More and more people gathered around. Some of them had come for the evening talk of the lane and witnessed the unexpected drama.

Jin was running back a second time, still waving his hand, as if grasping the lottery ticket.

“What now, Old Root?” one of the neighbors asked.

“Well,” Old Root said, squinting his eyes slightly in the cigarette smoke. “Who is he most afraid of?”

“His wife, the so-called roaring tiger east of the river.”

“Bring her over.”

Qing came running. Old Root, a legendary figure in the lane, was known for giving wise advice.

“Slap his face hard,” he said. “Tell him at the highest pitch of your voice that it's been nothing but a spring and autumn dream, and that he has won no lottery.”

“But how can I? He is a millionaire now. If he learns that I have slapped him, he will never forgive me.”

“Have you never done so before?”

“Well, but that's different. Now he could throw me away like the eel bone at the bottom of the soup pot.”

“Don't worry about such things. Do it, woman.”

So when Jin ran back yet another time, she steeled herself to go over and slap his face as hard as she could.

“You're dreaming about the lottery, you idiot.”

He was stunned into standing still, staring at her in horror, his ghastly pale face streaked with the eel blood from her hand, before he suddenly reeled and slumped to the ground.

“Oh now what are we going to do—” she wailed, stamping her bare feet on the dust of the lane.

But Jin was coming to. Still staggering, he struggled up with his hand on the lane wall. The frantic light in his eyes gone, he stammered, henpecked, as always.

“Oh, I'm so-so-sorry, wife. I should have told you earlier. I bought lo-lo-lottery tickets in secret.”

“No, I'm sorry—for everything, husband—”

“Where's the ticket?” Old Root cut in. “Give it to her!”

“Yes, it's in the toolbox inside,” he said obediently. “I'll go get it.”

But Qing didn't follow him into the room. Instead, she stood in the lane, holding her one hand in the other as if in great pain.

“What's the problem?”

“My hand can hardly move. People say a lottery winner must be predestined from high above—like a star—and I actually slapped his face like that. My hand is paralyzed as punishment, I'm afraid.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Your slap has saved your man.”

“How?” a young boy in the crowd asked out of curiosity. “A slap!”

“The excitement of winning the lottery was too much, driving him over the edge. He needed a blow—a blow on the head, as in a Zen story, to shock him back to reality,” Old Root said, shaking his head. “Who scares him the most?”

“That makes sense. Don't worry about it, Qing. That's a slap of endearment,” Four-Eyed Liu observed.

But she was already running into the room, her arms swinging.

“It's probably because of the eel blood,” Auntie Jia commented, as if in unexpected enlightenment. “Jin was possessed by an evil spirit. What's the most effective antidote
to evil spirits? Animal blood, as you must have read in many classical Chinese novels.”

“That must be a nutritious slap too,” another neighbor said, “leaving enough eel blood on his face to make a bowl of soup.”

“No, I'm not going to make any eel bone soup,” Qing said, coming out with a smile bursting out of her tears, holding a small piece of paper in her hand. “I don't have to—with such a husband, with the lottery ticket.”