Rickshaw Boy: A Novel by She Lao Page A

“would you hold this for me? Thirty yuan.” He returned the small change to his pocket.
    “Where’d you get it?” Fourth Master’s eyebrows formed the question.
    Xiangzi related his experience with the soldiers as he ate. “You young fool,” Fourth Master said, shaking his head. “If you’d brought those camels into town and sold them to a slaughterhouse, you could have gotten ten or fifteen a head. In the winter, when they’re done molting, they’d have brought in sixty yuan!”
    Xiangzi already had qualms, and this news only made him feel worse. But on second thought, selling three living, breathing creatures to face the knife didn’t seem right. He and the camels had escaped together, and they all deserved to live. He said nothing, his heart at peace.
    While Huniu was clearing the table, Fourth Master looked up, as if mulling something over. He smiled, revealing those two fangs, which were getting harder with age. “What a simpleton you are. You say you fell ill at Haidian. Then why didn’t you take the Yellow Village road straight back here?”
    “I went the long way around the Western Hills to avoid running into trouble. If the villagers thought I was a deserter, they’d have come after me.”
    Fourth Master smiled and rolled his eyes. He’d been afraid that Xiangzi was lying about where he’d gotten the thirty yuan, and he wouldn’t have been able to hold it for him if it had been stolen. As a young man, if it was illegal, he’d done it. Now he declared he was on the straight and narrow, and that required caution, something he had gotten good at. There had only been that one hole in Xiangzi’s tale of woe, but his explanation made it possible for the old man to breathe easy.
    “What do you plan to do with this?” he asked, pointing to the money.
    “You tell me.”
    “Want to buy another rickshaw?” Once again, the fangs appeared, which seemed to mean “You plan to use your own rickshaw but live here for free, is that it?”
    “There isn’t enough. I’m only interested in buying a new one.” Xiangzi was too occupied with his own thoughts to notice Fourth Master Liu’s fangs.
    “Want a loan? Ten percent interest. For others I charge twenty percent.”
    Xiangzi shook his head. “Better to pay me ten percent than borrow from a loan shark.”
    “I say no to both,” Xiangzi said, almost spellbound. “I’ll save up, little by little, until I’ve got enough to pay cash.”
    The old man looked at Xiangzi as if he were a written character he’d never seen before. No matter how unpleasant things might be, he could not get angry. After a moment, he picked up the money. “Thirty? You’re sure that’s all?”
    “That’s all!” Xiangzi stood up. “Time to turn in. Here’s a box of matches.” He laid a box on the table, stood there vacantly for a moment, and then added, “Don’t tell anyone about the camels.”

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    A s promised, Old Man Liu told no one of Xiangzi’s experiences, but the camel story quickly spread from Haidian into the city. In the past, people had found little fault with Xiangzi, except that he was stubbornly antisocial and a bit difficult to deal with. But “Camel Xiangzi” was a different matter. Though he continued to work quietly and stayed clear of people, they began to see him in a different light. Some said he’d found a gold watch, others that he’d come into possession of three hundred yuan, and one person, who considered himself to be the only one in the know, nodded confidently and said that Xiangzi had brought thirty camels back from the Western Hills. The stories differed, but the conclusions did not: through shady dealings Xiangzi had struck it rich, and anyone who came in to easy money, whether he was on good terms with people or not, was worthy of respect. Selling one’s muscle is a hard way to make a living, so who could be blamed for dreaming of ill-gotten riches, no matter how long the odds? No wonder such people were seen as