Fucha just docked him some work points and left it at that.

Zhihuang didn't actually care about work points, even if he was being docked by a team cadre. He didn't care about anything apart from rocks, nothing that hadn't been produced by his own two hands had any great importance for him; he just couldn't find any reason to care. The year he and Shuishui got divorced, Shuishui's people came and almost cleaned his house out of stuff, but he didn't care a bit; he just watched them move things out, and even made them tea. He lived in the upper village, and on the mountainside not far away there was a grove of good bamboo. When spring came, the bamboo roots spread like wildfire underneath the ground, the shoots running everywhere: sometimes, as if by magic, a thick bamboo tip would sprout up in someone's vegetable garden, or under their bed, or in their pigsty. According to the general rule, the bamboo shoot belonged to whichever household it had run to. Zhihuang understood this, it was just that he had difficulty remembering to put it into practice. Once, when he went to his vegetable patch to build a melon hut, he saw a stranger there, a passer-by most likely, who fled in panic as soon as he saw him. He obviously didn't know the way, and jumped into the ditch instead of taking the main road; Zhihuang shouted out but couldn't get him to stop and watched, wide-eyed, as he stepped onto nothingness and then fell into the deep ditch, sinking up to his waist in sludge. He yowled at great volume, a big fat bamboo shoot rolling out of his shirt.

It was obvious that this bamboo shoot had been dug up from Zhihuang's garden. But making as if he'd seen nothing, Zhihuang hurried over, deftly cut down a sapling with a wood knife he produced from behind his back, and lowered one end down into the ditch for the person in the ditch to grab hold of and slowly climb out.

Seeing the knife in Zhihuang's hands, the passer-by blanched and started trembling all over. Seeing as Zhihuang didn't seem to be making any move, the man took a few tentative pigeon steps toward the main road.

"Hey! Your bamboo shoot-" Zhihuang yelled out.

The person almost tripped and fell.

"Your bamboo shoot, don't you want it?"

He threw the bamboo shoot over.

The person picked the bamboo shoot up from the ground, stared at Zhihuang in stupefaction, but as he couldn't actually spot any trick, any danger, off he pelted like a madman and soon afterwards disappeared. Zhihuang watched his back view with some amusement, and it was only a good while later that the expression on his face turned to puzzlement.

All the villagers laughed at Zhihuang afterwards, laughed that he hadn't just failed to catch the thief, he'd even cut down a tree and rescued the thief from out of the ditch. And the funniest thing of all was that he'd worried the thief would've had a wasted trip and made a gift of what was his own property. Zhihuang blinked at these comments, and just smoked his tobacco.

: I've got a couple more things to say about "precious."

I once saw Zhihuang bring a few people to the supply and marketing cooperative to put up two buildings. When the last piece of tile had been lowered into place, Benyi sprang up from somewhere or other to check on the quality of work, giving it a kick here, a prod there. His face suddenly clouded over: the stone wall hadn't been built level, he declared, and too little mortar had been used-everyone would have their work points cut.

Zhihuang went to reason with him, to ask what on earth he was talking about. "I'm a stonemason, d'you think I don't know how much mortar to use?

Benyi sniggered icily: "Are you Party Secretary or am I Party Secretary? What's more important: what Awakened Huang says, or what the Party Secretary says?"

It looked like he had it in for Zhihuang.

Bystanders tried to smooth things over, pulling Zhihuang to one side, placating Benyi. Zhaoqing tailed the Party Secretary everywhere: if he saw him going to the toilet hut, he'd wait outside the toilet hut; if he saw him going to the butcher's, he'd wait outside the butcher's. When he finally saw him leave the butcher's smoking a cigarette, he accompanied him on an inspection tour of the cucumbers and peppers along the side of the road, but still couldn't get so much as a backward glance out of him.

The mealtime bell sounded in the cooperative. Benyi rubbed his hands in glee, "Good, good, off to Director Huang's to eat a nice bit of turtle!"

The delight was written all over his face.

Just as he was about to set off, a rat-a-tat noise suddenly erupted from somewhere around the just-completed granary, a rather irregular noise. People hurried over to report: unbelievable, unbelievable, Precious Huang's out there pulling down the building. Momentarily stunned, Benyi quickly propelled himself over to have a look and discovered that old Zhihuang had indeed worked himself into a lather; this solitary figure, swearing and cursing away, was savagely thwacking the wall with his double-ball hammer.

The new wall was like beancurd. One piece of stone had already warped on one side, another piece had started to bend, and powdered debris cascaded in fine trickles. Old Huang of the cooperative was at his side, unable to get him to stop. Old Huang spotted Benyi: "What's going on here? What's going on here? What's the point in pulling down a good building? Even if you don't care about your labor, eh, I care about my bricks. Four cents a brick, doncha know?"

Benyi cleared his throat, to announce his arrival on the scene.

Precious Huang didn't grasp the significance of the cough.

"Huang, you fartbrain!"

Huang threw him a glance, but took no notice.

"Why're you acting so precious!" Benyi had reddened to the base of his neck, "Whether we pull it down or not, you've got to wait till the cadres have looked into it… and then we'll see. You've got no speech rights. Go back home! All of you, you're going back with me!"

Zhihuang spat into the palm of his hand, then picked up the stone hammer again. "I broke these stones off the mountain, I brought them here in my cart, I built the wall. If I pull 'em down, what's it to you?"

Once he'd gotten onto the subject of stones, no one could reason with Zhihuang, no one could do anything about his baleful glares. Zhongqi stepped forward to give the Party Secretary some verbal support. "Huang, m'boy, that's no way to talk, the stone isn't the cooperative's, it isn't yours either. You belong to the team leader, so the stones you break belong to the team leader."

"What kind of logic is that? Old Dribbler belongs to the team leader too, and his old lady too, so everyone can sleep with her, can they?"

Everyone snickered quietly to themselves.

This got Benyi so angry he couldn't speak, and his jaw hung out of place till he pulled it back in again. "Fine, you smash away! Give it a good smash! I won't just dock all your work points, I'll punish you till you howl! I won't give you another chance, you'll know that nails are made of iron and eggs are eggs when I'm through with you!"

When they heard they'd be punished, the situation started to turn; the expression on several people's faces changed and they came forward to tug at, to intervene with, Zhihuang. Some stuffed cigarettes into his hand.

"What's the point? Calm down a bit, calm down."

"Don't ruin things for other people."

"Let them cut our work points, but why pull the thing down?"

"Part of this wall's mine too: why should it be smashed just because you say so?…"

Zhihuang was quite a bruiser, and one shake of his shoulders to the left, then to the right, threw the people on both sides off. "Don't worry, I only want my stones, I won't lay a finger on any of yours."