He wouldn't budge.

The ticket seller gave as good as she got: "Who asked you to get on the bus? You want a ride, this is what it costs, don't want a ride, get off right now!"

"Three jiao, how about three jiao⁷. Four jiao⁷. Four and a half?"

"This is a public bus, I can't bargain with you!"

"Funny that, business without bargaining-when we buy a bucket of manure we'll always talk terms."

"You go and buy manure, then, no one asked you to get on this bus."

"What kind of talk is this from a young girl?"

"Get a move on, one yuan two jiao, get your money out."

"You-you-you what're you wanting so much money for? I just don't believe it: do the tires on a bus as big as this, with all these people on, really need to turn so much?"

"Get off, get off." His adversary impatiently pushed him down the steps.

"Help! Help!" Zhaoqing hung onto the bus door for dear life, plunking his bottom down onto the floor, "I've just had a vasectomy and the commune cadres all sent their regards to me, how dare you throw me off the bus?"

Neither the driver nor the conductor could get him to understand and the passengers crowded onto the bus were starting to yell agitatedly at the driver to hurry up and get driving. Starting to feel a bit alarmed, Fucha hastily dug out the money to buy the ticket.

Zhaoqing's face was not a pretty sight after all that: poking at the bus window, tugging at the cushions, spitting with fury, he wouldn't get off at their stop; even when, called several times by Fucha, he discovered he was the last person on the bus, he still only slouched off grudgingly. "Barbarian parts are full of crooks. For the cost of a catty of meat, you get to ride in a bus for about as long as it takes to have a piss."

Followed by a stream of filthy abuse.

On his return from the county, he said whatever happened he'd never ride on a bus again, he raged at all buses: when he spotted one on the street, a stream of "stinking whores," "fucking thieves," studded with constellations of spit, would chase at lightning speed after the bus. In the end, all buses became targets for his loathing, for his ferocious glares. That time he went to Huang City, he came upon a jeep that had run over and killed a peasant's duck and whose browbeating driver was refusing to compensate the owner of the duck-nothing to do with Zhaoqing at all. Possessed by a towering rage that came from nowhere, he pushed out of the crowd of onlookers and before anyone had time to put up any objections, with one punch toppled the driver over backwards onto the ground, face-up with a bloody nose. Although sympathetic all along with the owner of the duck, the onlookers had cowered in the face of the driver's bullying tactics and hadn't dared say anything. Now they'd seen someone else take the lead, a mass of yells and blows erupted, following which the driver and his companion paled with fright and hastily dug out some money to prevent further trouble.

The jeep screeched off in panic. The owner of the duck was brimming with gratitude toward Zhaoqing: this driver, he said, was in the county government, was a famous bully who'd often come by here in the past; he'd not only been refusing to pay compensation for the duck, he'd even accused the duck of obstructing him in his war duties. If it hadn't been for Zhaoqing's sense of justice, the driver might well have taken him off to the county government.

Zhaoqing took no notice of the gratitude and admiration of bystanders, nor of the weighty import implied by mention of the county government: he was still muttering regretfully that the jeep had slipped away so quickly-if he'd known that was about to happen, he'd have found a carrying pole to pry off the tires.

He and Fucha went on their way: despite their attempts to get a lift with a tractor going the same way as them, driver after driver refused and they had no choice but to walk along the steaming highway. As the sweat dripped off Fucha's face while he walked, he couldn't help complaining: "Anyway, it was the team leader who gave us the bus money, why d'you insist on saving it? You're just making life difficult for yourself!"

"Cost of those tickets, the people ought to protest!" Zhaoqing was referring to the ticket price: "I'll put up with eating and wearing less, but I just can't swallow my temper."

Road sign after road sign they passed. So thirsty their throats and eyes were starting to smoke, they came across a little stand at the roadside selling tea for one cent a bowl. Fucha drank two bowls and told Zhaoqing to have a drink too. Without saying a word, Zhaoqing turned up his nose and just curled up under the shade of a tree to sleep. Braving the sun once more, they finally came across a well after another ten li, at which Zhaoqing borrowed a bowl from a roadside shack and drank eight bowls without pause, drank until his burps rumbled, his eyes glazed over, saliva hung down off his chin and his breath almost choked him. He gave Fucha a smug piece of advice: "You must be awakened, boy, you can't've grown hair around your dragon yet-don't you know how hard life is? People like us can't earn money for other people, we can only earn money for ourselves."

The team leader gave people traveling on business a five jiao meal subsidy. Zhaoqing starved himself throughout one whole day of walking, went home with the full amount and gained a bowl from the shack at the roadside.

: Purple-teeth soil is the soil you see everywhere in Maqiao, so it shouldn't take too much explaining here. It is, in a nutshell, hard, acidic, and extremely infertile. It's different from metallic loam in that metallic loam is pure white, while purple-teeth soil is deep red with white streaks, a bit like tiger skin.

The thing is, though, if you don't know about purple-teeth soil, then you can't know that much about Maqiao. For a long, long time, this has been the soil Maqiao people have had to face every day, the soil that has made countless harrows tremble, the soil that has transformed countless hands into rolls of blood blisters, into bloody pulps, soil that destroys metal faster than skin, soil that soaks your pants with sweat that runs down to the feet and congeals into salty stains, soil that leaves people dizzy and disoriented, half-alive, half-dead, soil that deletes consciousness of time, that leaves you panting so much that all desires are obliterated, soil that makes every day-the blazing heat of the summer sun, the freezing cold of serious winter-feel the same, soil that drives men to insanity, women to desperation, that leaves children prematurely aged in no time at all, soil that is eternal, inexhaustible, soil that drives people to hate, to argue, to blows, to knives, soil that multiplies hunchbacks, limps, blindness, miscarriages, imbecility, asthma, backache, and deaths, soil that drives people into exile, to suicide, soil that turns life into a daily grind, soil that, regardless of whatever form of upheaval or suffering might be occurring, remains soil upon soil upon soil upon soil upon soil upon soil.

This layer of soil rolls out from the Luo River, from the even more distant eastern mountains of Hunan, coming to an abrupt halt below Tianzi Peak, then meanders toward the villages down south. It had coagulated like a flood of molten iron, a vast, blazing sea of fire that still tortures people throughout their lives.

Zhaoqing's first son was buried alive in this soil. He'd been helping to repair the water reservoir, removing earth to build a dam, and he did what the other public laborers did to get his duties in the earthworks finished a bit faster: first he'd scoop out the soil from underneath to a certain depth, then let the upper soil cave in. This was called releasing the "fairy soil," and was a more efficient way of working. But Shortie Zhao wanted just a bit too much: having scooped out the soil to a depth of three metres, he calculated the purple-teeth soil was too solid to bring the overhanging fairy soil down right away. As he scooped up his bamboo hat, a sudden crashing noise erupted behind him and he turned to see clod upon great clod of red tumble and collapse, somersault and avalanche before his eyes, leaving not a trace, not a whisper of his son.