In the Pond Read Online Free Page B

explanation before coming to me.”
    Bin realized he couldn’t get the money back, so he changed his topic, reporting to the leaders that Accountant Hou Nina had called him a lunatic just now, in her office.
    “You are a lunatic,” Liu said matter-of-factly. “I believe so too.”
    “What?”
    “Yes, we all think you have a mental disorder or something,” Ma said, wiggling his forefinger at his temple. “You’d better go to the hospital and have your brain checked.”
    “What? You two are leaders. You must not insult me like this.”
    “Who insulted you?” Ma asked with a surprised look, then poked Bin in the chest with his fist.
    “Why use your hand? I came to you for help, but instead of listening to me, you call me names and beat me.”
    “Who beat you?” Ma gave him a slap on the face.
    “You, you’re doing it now!”
    Liu stepped forward and cuffed him on the neck, then asked with a smile, “Who beat you? Can you prove it? Who is your witness?” He clasped his hands behind him.
    Bin, rubbing his neck, looked at Bao and Dongfang. They were sitting there quietly, their eyes fixed on the glass top of the table.
    Ma pushed Bin to the door, shouting, “Get out of here, lunatic.” He kicked him in the butt.
    The door slammed shut and almost touched the tip of Bin’s nose.
    Bin heard Liu curse inside the office, “Such an idiot.” He wanted to burst in, spring on the two leaders, and choke the breath out of them, but he was no match for them, especially Ma, who was tall and burly and had once been on a divisional basketball team in the People’s Army. Besides, Liu wore new bluchers, which looked lethal.
    Yet the rage was too much for Bin to hold down, so he yelled out, “I screw your ancestors! I screw them pair by pair!” He kicked the door and then hurried away.
    He remembered that his father had once wanted him to learn kung fu from an old man in their home village and offered to pay the tuition for him. But Bin hadn’t been interested and had spent his free time with the art teacher at the elementary school, learning how to paint.Now, how he regretted that he hadn’t followed his father’s advice! Had he done that, he could have burst into the office and felled the two rabbits to the floor with the Eagle Palm.
    Bin didn’t want to have dinner that evening. Meilan worried and tried hard to persuade him to eat something; she even peeled two preserved eggs for him. Still he refused to touch the chopsticks, sitting by his desk, smoking and sighing; the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes had grown deeper and thicker. His dark face reminded her of a woodcut portrait of an old peasant kept in one of his albums.
    Finally it was Shanshan who brought him around. Following her mother’s instruction, she said to him, “Daddy, you’re a good boy. I follow you. If you not eat, I not eat myself.”
    He gave the baby a smile and let out a long sigh; then he moved to the dining table and began to drink the corn-flour porridge. He noticed a cooked weevil floating in his bowl. With a pair of chopsticks he fished it out and dropped it to the floor.
    Meilan wanted to tell him to stop confronting the leaders, at least for the moment. “A sparrow shouldn’t match itself against a raven” — she wanted to remind him of the saying, but she remained silent, waiting for his anger to subside.
    * * *
    The next afternoon the workers and staff of the plant again gathered in the dining hall, listening to Secretary Liu’s preliminary report on the annual achievements. Liu announced: the plant had produced 940 tons of fertilizer this production year, which surpassed the annual target by 8 percent; twenty-four families had received new housing; nine babies had been born, only one of them having violated the one-child policy; 134 workers and staff had got raises; and sixteen people had been promoted to new “fighting posts.” He concluded by declaring, “This is a victorious year. The victory is due to the solidarity