Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel by Mo Yan Page A

air were now snorting from her nostrils, too.
    “Are you two dead or alive?” Fan Three complained.
    The two Shangguan men rushed up to help, and nearly tripped over the donkey’s legs. Shangguan Lü rolled her eyes; Fan Three shook his head. Finally, they got the donkey’s head up high enough. It curled its lips back and showed its teeth. Fan Three stuck a funnel made of an ox horn into the animal’s mouth and emptied the contents of the bottle into it. “That’ll do it,” Fan said. “You can lower its head.”
    As Shangguan Lü tried to catch her breath, Fan Three took out his pipe, filled it, and hunkered down to smoke. Two streams of white smoke quickly exited through his nostrils. “The Japanese took the county town and murdered the county chief, Zhang Weihan, then raped all the women in his family.”
    “Did you hear that from the Simas?” Shangguan Lü asked him.
    “No, my sworn brother told me. He lives near Eastgate in the county seat.”
    Shangguan Lü said, “The truth never travels more than ten li.”
    “Sima Ku took the family servants to set fires on the bridge,” Shangguan Shouxi said. “That’s more than a rumor.”
    Shangguan Lü looked at her son angrily. “I never hear an encouraging, proper sentence from that mouth of yours, and you never tire of spouting nonsense and rumors. Fancy you, a man and the father of a large brood of children, and I can’t tell if that thing on your shoulders is a head or an empty gourd. Haven’t any of you considered the fact that Japanese have mothers and fathers, just like everybody else? There’s no bad blood between them and us common folk, so what are they going to do with us? Run off? Do you think you can outrun a bullet? Hide out? Until when?”
    In response to her chiding, the Shangguan men could only bow their heads and hold their tongues. But Fan Three knocked the ashes from his pipe and tried to save the situation. “In the long run, our sister here sees things more clearly than we do. I feel better after what she said. She’s right. Go where? Hide where? I might be able to run and hide, but what about my donkey and my stud horse. They’re like a couple of mountains, and where can you hide a mountain? You might stay hidden past the first of the month, but you’ll never make it through the fifteenth. Up their mother, I say. Let’s get that baby mule out of there, and then figure out what to do next.”
    “That’s the attitude!” Shangguan Lü said happily.
    Fan took off his jacket, cinched up his belt, and cleared his throat, like a martial arts master about to take on an opponent. Shangguan Lü nodded approvingly. “That’s what I like to see, Three. A man leaves behind his good name, a wild goose leaves behind its call. If you bring this mule into the world, I’ll give you an extra bottle of liquor and beat a drum to sing your praises.”
    “That’s pure shit,” Fan said. “Whose idea was it to make your donkey pregnant by my stud horse, anyway? This is what’s called doing the sowing
and
the harvesting.” He circled the donkey, tugged at the mule’s leg, and muttered, “Donkey, my little in-law, you’re standing at the gate of Hell, and you’re going to have to tough it out. My reputation hangs in the balance. Gentlemen,” he said as he patted the donkey’s head, “get a rope and a stout carrying pole. She can’t get it done lying there. We need to get her to her feet.”
    The Shangguan men looked over at Shangguan Lü, who said, “Do as he says.” Once father and son had done as they were told, Fan ran the rope under the donkey just behind its front legs, then tied a knot, and had Shangguan Fulu stick the pole through the hole made by the rope.
    “Stand over there,” he ordered Shangguan Shouxi.
    “Bend down and lift the pole with your shoulders!”
    The Shangguan men began lifting the pole, which dug deeply into their shoulders.
    “That’s it,” Fan said. “Now there’s no hurry. Straighten up when I tell