: As I used to imagine them, beggars had to have shabby clothes and haggard faces. It would have been absurd, impossible to link beggars with extravagant living. It was only after coming to Maqiao that I realized I was mistaken, that there are all sorts of beggars in this world.

Benyi's father-in-law was a beggar who lived off the fat of the land, who lived better than many landlords. But as he didn't have a single inch of land, he couldn't be classified as a landlord. He didn't have a shop either, so he couldn't be counted a capitalist. Forced to adjust to this, the first land-reform team reluctantly defined him as a "rich peasant beggar." The work team that checked and rechecked class status felt this term was neither one thing nor another, but since they couldn't actually find a policy clause that would furnish a better label, since they didn't know how to settle the question, they had to make do.

This man was called Dai Shiqing and used to live in Changle. The place was a communications center on land and water, a collecting and distributing center for rice, bamboo, tea-tree oil, tung oil, and medicinal herbs through the ages. It was, of course, full of life, of brothels, opium shops, pawnshops, taverns, and other similarly intricate enterprizes; even the water running in the sewers reeked prosperously of oil, and just one mouthful of street air turned the stomachs of country-dwellers used to nothing but maize gruel. Because of this, Changle was nicknamed "Little Nanjing," and for the local villagers became something to boast about to outsiders. People traveled dozens of miles bringing a couple of tobacco leaves or to break a few lengths of bamboo strips, just to strut down one length of the main street; this they called "doing business." In fact, there was no commercial sense at all behind their journeys, they were just an excuse to see some of the action or listen to people singing and reciting stories. I don't know when the numbers of beggars, with their emaciated bodies and long hair, small faces and big eyes, and ill-fitting shoes of every hue, gradually began to increase, endlessly multiplying the pairs of eyeballs intent on swallowing up the cooking pots on the market street.

Dai Shiqing, who came from Pingjiang, became the leader of these beggars. Beggars divided into various classes: One Pocket, Three Pockets, Five Pockets, Seven Pockets, and Nine Pockets. He was of the highest rank, a Nine Pockets, and was respectfully addressed as "Old Master Nine Pockets"-everyone in the town knew this. A bird cage always hung on his begging stick, inside which a mynah bird always called out "Old Master Nine Pockets is here, Old Master Nine Pockets is here." There was no need to knock on the door of whichever household the myna bird called out in front of, no need to say anything; no family would fail to come out and greet him with smiling faces. When they were confronted with ordinary beggars, one dipper of rice was quite enough. But Old Master Nine Pockets had to be appeased with a whole bamboo cup, sometimes even with large presents, his pockets stuffed with money or with cured chicken feet (his favorite food).

Once, a newly arrived salt merchant who didn't understand the rules around here sent him on his way with just one copper coin. He was so angry he hurled the coin onto the ground with a clatter.

The salt merchant, who'd never seen anything like it, almost dropped his glasses.

"What d'you think this is?" Old Master Nine Pockets glowered.

"You-you-you-what're you complaining about?"

"I, Old Master Nine Pockets, have been through nine provinces and forty-eight counties and have never met such a gutless bloodsucking houseowner!"

"This is all very odd-look here, who's doing the begging here? If you want it, then take it, if not then get out of here, stop holding up my business."

"You think I'm begging? Me, begging?" Old Master Nine Pockets opened his eyes wide, feeling he owed it to this idiot to teach him a lesson or six. "Mysterious winds and clouds float across the heavens, from morning to night man meets good fortune and bad. In these unlucky times of ours, the country faces calamities, drought in the North and flooding in the South; government and people unite in concern. Although I, Dai Shiqing, am but one insignificant mortal, I accept that it is right to lead a loyal and filial life, placing country before family, family before self. Is it right that I should stretch my hand out to the government? No. Is it right that I should stretch out my hand to parents, brothers, kinsmen? Once more, no! I walk everywhere on my two bare feet, the true man of honor, strengthening my character without rest or repose, neither robbing nor stealing, neither cheating nor deceiving, conducting myself with dignity and respect, helping myself. And you expect me to put up with a stuck-up, cross-eyed bully like you! I've seen plenty of your sort, I have, once you've got a couple of stinking coppers to rub together your morals go out the window, it's just money money money…"

The salt merchant had never heard such a stream of rhetoric: spattered into retreat, step-by-step, by showers of saliva, all he could do was raise his hands in self-defence, "okay, okay, okay, whatever you say, but I've still got business to do, off you go, off you go. Off, off."

"Off? I'm going to get something through to you if I do nothing else today! I want you to tell me, clearly now: am I begging? Have I come to beg from you today?"

Making a face, the salt merchant rummaged out a few more copper coins and pressed them against his chest with a kind of desperation that showed his resignation to defeat. "Okay, okay, you're not begging today, and you haven't come to beg from me."

Instead of accepting the money, Old Master Nine Pockets plonked himself down on the threshold, panting with rage. "Stinking cash, stinking cash, all I beg for today is justice! If you'd only acted reasonably, I'd have given you all my money!" He took out a big handful of copper coins, far more than the salt merchant's coppers, that glinted and gleamed, and attracted the eyes of lots of little urchins.

After that, if he hadn't suddenly needed to visit the toilet, the salt merchant would never have gotten him off his threshold. By the time he returned, the salt store had already been tightly bolted shut. He banged his stick on the door with all his might, but it wouldn't open; male and female voices shouted out filthy abuse from inside.

The formal opening of the salt store came a few days later, and a few courtesy tables of meat and wine were laid out for the town's VIPs and the merchant's neighbors. Just after the firecrackers had been let off, a raggedy bunch of beggars suddenly descended, a dense agglomeration giving off an unspecified rancid odor, and who surrounded the salt store, shouting and yelling. If they were given steamed rolls, they'd say they were spoiled and throw them back one after another. If they were given a bucket of rice, again they'd say there was sand in the rice and spit it out all over the ground and street. There was nowhere for passers-by to tread and the guests who'd come for the banquet were repeatedly splattered on the nose or forehead by rice grains. Finally, four beggars beating a broken drum scurried in amongst the feast to perform a small drum dance in celebration of this happy event, their bodies covered in pig and dog shit. The terrified guests fled in all directions, holding their noses. The beggars then took the opportunity one after another to spit on the fine fare laid out on the table.

It was only after a good half of the guests had fled that the salt merchant realized what a force Old Master Nine Pockets was to be reckoned with, and what a sticky situation he was in. He asked his neighbors to plead for mercy from Old Master Nine Pockets. Old Master Nine Pockets was asleep under a big tree at the quayside and took absolutely no notice. The salt merchant had no choice but to prepare two cured pig's heads and two vessels of matured wine, and go in person to apologize for his transgression; in addition, with help from his neighbors he shelled out to buy the favor of a Seven Pockets, second in rank only to Old Master Nine Pockets, to have him also intervene for him. Only then did Dai Shiqing raise his eyelid a tiny, tiny crack and remark bitterly that the weather was very hot.