Second Donkey called in his son Handong to help draw up a contract. To Lin's amazement, the slender lad, who had an effeminate face and sensitive eyes, placed on the dining table a sheet of letter paper and a lumpy inkstone, which contained freshly ground ink. He climbed on the brick bed, sat cross-legged, and began to write with a small brush made of weasel's hair, which few people could use nowadays. From time to time he turned smiling eyes toward Lin. His posture, manners, and handwriting all appeared to be scholarly. In every way he didn't look like a son that the thickset, illiterate Second Donkey could father. Later, Lin heard from Ben-sheng, who thought a great deal of Handong, that the lad was a col lege graduate and a teacher in Wujia Middle School. Actually his father had given dinners and gifts to the commune leaders, who then had him elected for college as a worker-peasant-soldier student.
Besides the house and the furniture, the contract also included the shack in the backyard, the pigsty, the grinding stone, the vegetable garden, the eleven elm and jujube trees, the water well, the cauldron, and the latrine. Having read it through, Lin pressed his personal seal on the paper, beneath his name. Second Donkey did the same. Next, the buyer went into the inner room, in which his wife was shelling chestnuts, and came back with three bundles of cash, each consisting of a hundred ten-yuan bills. Then from a small envelope lying on a red chest, he pulled out forty brand-new fivers and put them together with the three thousand yuan on the dining table.
"Count this, please," he said to Lin, who was impressed, never having met a wealthier man.
Lin started counting the money, now and then pulling out a bill with a missing corner. Meanwhile Second Donkey poured another glass of beer for Bensheng, who frowned at Lin's white fingers.
All together Lin found seven damaged ten-yuan bills. "No store will accept these," he said to the buyer.
Second Donkey chuckled and said, "Smart man." He went into the inner room again and returned with seven intact tenners.
The transaction was completed, and Lin left Second Donkey a key to the house. Then he and Bensheng put on their caps, said good-bye to the father and son, and went out into the starless night.
On their way home, Lin gave the seven ten-yuan bills to Ben-sheng, who took the money but didn't look happy. A rooster crowed in the south. "Crazy. It's not midnight yet," Bensheng said. "They should kill or geld that damn cock who just confuses people, only makes noise and never lays an egg."
The next day Lin went to the village office and called his brother, telling him to come with a horse cart tomorrow afternoon to fetch things for his family. He had decided to give all the animals to Ren Kong. He told Hua of his decision, and she promised not to reveal a word to Uncle Bensheng, knowing her father had already given him seventy yuan and meant to leave him all their farm tools and the family plot.
Exhausted from sweeping and earthing up his parents' graves, Lin slept nine hours and got up late the next morning. His shoulders and elbows were still painful. After breakfast, he poured two bottles of sweet-potato liquor into the feed Hua had prepared – chopped radish greens and crumbs of soaked soybean cake. With a pair of chopsticks he mixed the alcohol and the feed, then fed it to the sow and the seven piglets, the poultry, and the goat. All the animals ate hungrily. He planned to leave for Muji the next day and was pleased that so far things had run smoothly according to his plan.
Ren and his two older sons arrived with a tractor in the early afternoon. Without delay they began to work. They put all the chickens, geese, and ducks into a large string bag, tied together the feet of the pigs and the goat with hempen ropes, then threw them into the spacious trailer. The creatures were all sound asleep and made no noise except to grunt vaguely once in a while. The boys were actually young men now, tall like their father with thick muscular arms. Lin was glad to see them, although he had never known them well. Ren had brought along a pair of brown leather sandals for Hua, the most fashionable and expensive kind in the county. The present delighted her so much that she immediately went about helping her cousins load into the trailer jars, vats, the meal bin, a pair of straw rain capes, pots, pans, two boxes of books, and a stack of unused notebooks for her youngest cousin who was still going to middle school.
"Hua, can you boil some water for tea?" her father asked.
"Sure." She went into the house to start the stove.
Meanwhile Lin and Ren sat under a jujube tree, chatting and smoking. Ren was puffing on his pipe, with an Amber cigarette tucked behind his ear, which Lin had given him and which he was saving for his eldest son. Again Lin expressed his admiration for his husky nephews. The eldest one was being trained to be a truck driver. Obviously Ren wouldn't lack wine and meat in the future, since the boy would have a lucrative job.
The trailer was fully loaded. Ren and his sons couldn't stay for tea because they would have to return the tractor to the commune Veterinary Station before five o'clock. After saying good-bye to Lin and Hua, they all jumped onto the vehicle, which rolled away with earsplitting toots.
As the tractor was put-putting down the road, Bensheng came in. His face fell at the sight of the yard, which was almost stripped empty. He asked his niece, "Hua, did you save the wheelbarrow for me?"
"I think it's still in the shed." She went there to see, but returned a minute later, saying, "Damn, they took everything, even the rakes and shovels."
Bensheng went up to Lin. "Elder brother, I thought you'd at least give me the sow."
"I'm leaving you our family plot."
"Forget it! The village is going to take it back."
"I – I told Ren to come with a horse cart so we could leave a lot of stuff for you, but he came with a tractor. We have some clothing for Hua's aunt in the house. Also, don't you want these?" He pointed to the stacks of brushwood and bean stalks, and a pile of manure.
"Damn you, such an ungrateful worm!" Bensheng stamped his feet, storming away. His left leg seemed shorter than his right; this caused him to wobble a little.
Lin and Hua decided to eat at their own home in the evening, not wanting to confront Bensheng. Lin took out some cookies and opened two cans, one of peaches and the other of fried minnow. Together father and daughter sat down to dinner, each drinking a cup of hot water.
As they were eating, Lin asked Hua whether he should give Ben-sheng some extra money, say, a hundred yuan, to make up with him. Hua thought for a moment, then said, "Don't do that. You should save the money for my mother. One hundred yuan is nothing for Uncle Bensheng. Sometimes he can make more than that in a week."
"All right, I won't give him any." Lin took a bite of a walnut cookie. "If he's so rich, I don't understand why he's so angry at me."
"Greedy. He has nothing but money on his mind. He even adds water to soy sauce and vinegar in his store. "
"Really? Does your aunt know that?"
"No, she doesn't. "
They smiled at each other. Lin was pleased with Hua's smile, which showed she had become his ally. He realized that since he had come home, he had been in good spirits and never felt lonely, perhaps because his daughter had grown close to him again. But she would soon belong to another man. If only he could have kept her around forever, or if only she were ten years younger. No, he said to himself, you've been alone all your life and will remain a loner. Don't be so mushy.
The house was quiet, as all the animals were gone. Most of the flies had disappeared as well. Somewhere in the village a horse was neighing.
Dusk was descending after father and daughter had cleared the table and washed the dishes. They had to go to bed early so that they could rise before daybreak to catch the bus. There would be a long, exhausting day tomorrow, since they were to carry three large suitcases containing winter clothes and quilts. After bathing his feet, Lin lit two incense coils to repel mosquitoes, one for his room and the other for Hua's.