Translator: ayszhang
Proofreaders: krabbykabbi, Luzo & Red
Prologue and chapter 1 of our new story: The Rental Shop Owner.
Prologue
My university arranged a job for me at an
agricultural experimentation centre after graduation. The pay was fifty bucks a month. I quit
after not being able to feed myself. But what could I do?
I went to a few career fairs but agricultural parasite majors were
not exactly the most attractive group.
I had driven trucks for a while and I was utterly wiped every single
day. My family were concerned too. I was the only child, after all.
I had opened an apparel store. I thought that my selection was
unique in town (albeit a very small town), but I had little customers and even ended
up owing my dad, who was about to retire, over two thousand dollars.
I had opened a bakery. Everyone who came in said it was yummy. It
was just that there weren’t many who came in.
In the end, with my back against the wall, I brought out my entire
prized collection and opened a little video and book rental shop. My taste that
I was very proud of finally worked its magic and business was booming, so much
so that several nearby stores had to close down and relocate.
My dad and mom could finally let out a breath of relief. Although
their only son was still far from what they had hoped for, I was finally making
enough to keep myself alive. Afterwards, all that was left was continuing the
lineage.
Regarding this issue, I was destined to disappoint them. I had
already known since puberty that I was a man who did not like women.
I did not like women but I hadn’t planned to date men either. In my
opinion, dating was like drugs. If you do it once, then there will be a second
time and then a third time and then it’s addiction; it’s disaster. And one day
the beans would be spilled. My dad was already thirty six when I was born. I
couldn’t let an old fellow like him get shamed on by others.
Of course, I understood that homosexuality is not perverse—it’s just
different. But in others’ eyes, homosexuality was no different from perversion,
am I right?
All in all, I lived a simple life. I didn’t feel that I couldn’t
live without sex.
But humans cannot win against nature.
01
The shop opened late even during the Lunar New
Year’s season when everyone else was off on holiday. It was the third day of the first lunar month and a cold, snowy day. I didn’t want to go out after
closing the shop at ten o’clock so I decided to sleep there.
I was watching Legend of the
Fall and mumbling about Brad’s six-pack when I dozed off. Someone started
knocking in the middle of the night and woke me from my light sleep.
It was unusual so I asked, “Who is it?”
The knocking continued but no one answered. My stomach did a little uneasy
flip. I got dressed and went to the door, opening the door a tiny crack.
The moment I opened it, a person barged in.
A tall guy wearing a sterile mask and wrapped in a scarf and down
jacket stood in my shop, scolding me with a glaring look in his eyes. “Aren’t we the
daredevil, opening doors in the middle of the night? You ain’t got nine lives!”
Seeing him fling his clothes away, the retort I was about to make
got stuffed back down my throat. All I could see underneath the jacket were
bloody bandages.
Nonchalantly, he lied down on my clean metal cot, muttering. “I have
a fever.” By the time I comprehended it, he was already unconscious.
I was at a complete loss.
×××
I told you that I had led a simple life; I
did not want women or men. He, well, he was younger than me and was still a
little thug out and about on the streets just three years ago. He kept coming
to my shop to borrow videos. He had bad taste and also never paid. But he was a
leader of the local scene nonetheless, and I wasn’t one to bother with kids
anyways.
Winter of 1997, he came running into my shop, asking me, “Yo, you
got any movies with Leslie Cheung in it?”
I looked up from the screen playing Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion. One glance at him almost made
me cough out last night’s dinner—oily, wax-yellow hair with a tuft in the front
dyed green and purple, a fake gold earring on the left ear, a pair of coffee
brown sunglasses, a fake black leather jacket, a metal-studded belt and an
unbelievably fat pair of red pants.
Disgusted, I asked, “Which do you want?”
“That fag one, of course!”
I was very repulsed. I knew he was talking about Happy Together, which was the best gay
film I had ever seen. Although I didn’t count as a legitimate queer, I did feel
disgusted when people called gay people fags. But what could I say to garbage
like him?
Still disgusted, I spat, “I don’t have any! Take this. Sex and Zen. It’s got Shu Qi, Chingmy
Yau, see–”
“You fuckin’ deaf? You got what I want or not?”
Your mother fucking has it, I swore in my head.
“Yes.”
“Hehe, knew you got all the goodies. Bet you’ve seen it already too.”
He stuck his disgusting yellow and purple coloured, sticky-looking hair in my
face. It smelled like cheap hair gel.
I crinkled my nose, “Nothing special,” and said no more.
Sullenly, he left with the disk. As expected, that copy of Happy Together did not return.
Some days later, he showed up again. “Yo, you got anymore? The ones
with homo Cheung if you can.”
I clenched my teeth before flashing a smile. “I wonder why you
always watch them.” I took a full look at him. His face was nicely proportioned
but he was just another bony teenager going through puberty.
“Hehe…” I snickered meaningfully.
“Whatchu laughin’ at?” He shot up and glared at me with a pair of
disgruntled eyes like a vulture. It made my hairs stand up.
What was with that reaction?!
But there was one thing I could stand about that piece of garbage—his
eyes. Aside from the disgruntled look that he had acquired, they were a pair of
pitch black and bottomless eyes.
I wiped my smile off and stopped fooling around. “This one, right?
Just take it.” I tossed the American gay film towards him since I didn’t expect
it back anyways.
What really infuriated me was when he nicked my entire private
collection one day. The rascal rummaged through my cash drawer while I went to take a
piss. Farewell My Concubine: this was
thin on the ground back in ’98 and was brought by someone all the way from
Guangzhou; The Wedding Banquet
starring Winston Chao; Cheap Killers (not
Hold You Tight) starring Alex Fong; Total Eclipse, the best DiCaprio film;
and the three Japanese dramas I had spent a fortune on, Dousoukai, Ningen Shikkaku:
If I Were to Die and Kira Kira Hikaru;
and…
He took them all.
Now that I think about it, QAF was everywhere. There was nothing
special about my stuff.
He slapped my back before he left and made faces at me. I did my
best to keep it together, telling myself: amiability brings riches, amiability
brings riches, amiability brings riches…that motherfucker. He just had to take
my gay films. As if they were easy to get my hands on!
After a while, the damn jerk strode into my shop again after the
Lunar New Year’s holidays.
I was stupid and quickly hugged my drawer close.
“What’re ya doin’? I look like a thief to ya?” The hoodlum rolled
his eyes at me with a cigarette between his teeth.
“Your stash was pretty sweet!” He flashed a flattering smile right
after the eye-rolling. “You got anymore? Hmm?”
Ew. Disgusting. What the hell was he smoking?
More smoke ended up coming out of his stinking mouth.
“Hey–!” Then I broke out coughing.
“Mwahahaha!” He began laughing at me exaggeratedly.
Everyone has their limits.
And I always saw these crooks as eyesores.
So I pointed my nose up in the air. “You’re not welcome here. Please
leave right now.”
Ahem. I admit I was pretty harsh. He still makes fun of me about it until
this day.
The hoodlum shot me a glance before plopping onto the table without
a care in the world and even started flipping through my rental records and
reading out loud.
“Zhang
Hua rented Ghost…”
He misread several characters and even licked his fingers to flip
the pages.
I froze in place as flames of fury sparked within and rose above my
head. I understood then what it meant to be driven mad.
I carefully set the drawer down and shoved the useless piece of shit
off the table.
“Get the fuck out!” I roared.
He didn’t pay any heed and kept teetering.
I was a man. Although I wasn’t as hot-blooded as Mister Lu Xun hoped
our countrymen to be, I was still a man.
Thus, without much consideration, I punched him.
Actually, as a cultured person, I usually never lost my temper. I
could count all the fights I had in twenty four years with one hand. He had not
done anything evil or unforgivable and there were not any hate based on our
social classes, but I was just so angry.
Sometimes, one punch leads to a life of complications for two.
He was 180 centimetres tall, about half a head taller than me.
Though he looked malnourished, he was apparently very experienced. My fury went
into hiding once more after dealing two punches and taking four of his. I had
knocked one of his teeth out since my first punch landed on his mouth—which I
wasn’t told until much later—and that truly angered him. We fought like there
was no tomorrow. Disks were cracked and shelves were tipped over. The
thunderous racket brought over a crowd of curious people.
What they saw was the mild-tempered Qian Jr. beaten bloody by some
thug, the popular Qian Jr. getting his store wrecked by a hoodlum lowlife.
I don’t know what happened after that: I got knocked out. What a
joke. A twenty-four-year-old man getting knocked unconscious by an eighteen-year-old
kid.
I was the Qian family’s only child.
My uncle’s son-in-law’s second brother worked in the police station in the East
District and the scoundrel was arrested on the day of the incident. My dear
mother told me this when I woke up in the hospital that night.
“…wouldn’t have let you if I knew
opening a book store would get you beat up…I told you not to…” My
sixty-year-old ma could barely breathe through the sobbing. “It’s all your old
man’s fault…making you apply for that stupid agriculture university. If only
you listened to me…”
I felt guilty. This is going to be
the last time that I make you worried, I promised silently.
My head still didn’t feel too well
so I stayed another day.
I was on the hospital cot, drinking
the dates, white fungus and lotus seed soup my mom made me and skimming through
Slam Dunk.
“Hahaha!” Hanamichi Sakuragi was really adorable but I still liked
Mitsui the best.
“Excuse me…” A small, skinny woman appeared by my bed. I was certain
I didn’t know her. She had a very thick layer of foundation on her face which
still couldn’t hide the thin creases all over her skin. She was probably close
to my mom’s age. I only knew afterwards that she was only in her early forties.
“Are you Comrade
Qian Jiying?”
I frowned. Apparently Jiying was the name of a famous poet from our
hometown in the imperial times and my self-crowned, learned intellectual father
named me after him. But I’m Qian Jiying, not Comrade Qian Jiying.
“What can I do for you?” I asked kindly.
A giant bag of bananas and apples popped out of nowhere. “I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry. I’m Shen Bin’s mom. He shouldn’t have fought with you.
I didn’t do a good job raising him. Sorry…”
So
the rascal’s name is Shen Bin, I thought. I was nowhere as furious after the
fight.
“I’m sorry but I don’t have anything else I could give you other
than these fruits. Shen Bin’s still young. He’s only going to turn nineteen
after the next New Year’s. I’d hoped that he’d amount to something. They said
he started a fight in your shop and broke lots of things and even hurt you. I
know I have to pay but I really don’t have any money. I’ll educate him in the
future, I promise. He’s already in jail now. I just hope you can find in your
heart…”
I wonder how a tiny woman like her could raise such a tough son.
Honestly, I did not want to make a fuss over it too much. He was a kid after
all and I was the one who started it.
“You don’t have to pay. But there’s no use in begging me. I’m not
the one who arrested your son.”
The old lady puckered her lips and almost burst out in tears. I
never liked seeing women cry so I hurriedly said, “Come on, it’s okay. He’ll be
released in a couple of days. It’ll be fine!”
Her old, teary face made me feel so sorry for her and even a bit
regretful. I wondered to myself if the rascal would learn his lesson this time.
She took out another bag after wiping off the tears on the powder.
“I know he broke the videos in your store. I found these in his room. I’ll try
looking again when I go–.”
I had just taken the bag from her when my ma came in like the Tasmanian
devil. “How dare you show your face around here? Probably thought our sweetie’s
easy to fool, didn’t you? Your thug of a son is gonna end up in jail sooner or
later, I tell you. If anything happens to my son, that piece of shit is gonna
be dead meat! Now, get the hell outta here!”
The woman left unkemptly in a hurry with her fruits.
I frowned as my mom started on me. “Don’t you be nice now. You
almost got beaten to death! What are we gonna do if you died, son? Hmmph. She
thinks a few apples is all it takes? How funny!”
By then, I was already regretful. I felt really sorry for Shen Bin’s
mom.
I opened the bag. There were approximately forty or fifty disks in
there. My entire collection.
“Don’t you be fooled by her appearance now. She used to be that
little widow up the street. Tons of lovers. They say bitches raise sons of
bitches, and they’re darn right about that. Don’t you start feeling sorry for
her.”
Sigh. I guess even the kindest mother would become a witch when it came
to her son.
There were other stuff in the bag aside from my disks: The Longest Nite, Young and Dangerous, Midnight
Cowboy, The Sting, Sniper…even Rouge, Centre Stage, and Three Colours.
My collection had not been lying abandoned in the trash but rather,
they were perfectly fine. I was quite dumbfounded.
My old lady was still grumbling, “Gotta make sure he goes behind the
bars…”
“Let’s forget it.”
“But son!”
Only after my persistent pleading did my family decide to go easy on
Shen Bin.
However, my brother-in-law’s second brother came back saying that
the rascal had the guts to beat the living daylights out of the big fellow that
was locked up with him on his second night at the detention centre, breaking
three ribs, blinding one eye and almost rupturing the spleen.
I gasped out loud. My so-called injuries were nothing compare to
those. Why was he so misbehaved though? He wasn’t going to get out easily after
something like that.
I opened shop again in a couple of days, alive and kicking.
I had just opened for business when these little scoundrels dressed
like thugs showed up at my door. “Qian! You won this time wit’ your dirty tricks!
Disrespectin’ Shen Bin like that…just you wait!”
What tricks? I was puzzled
“Don’t play innocent with me. E’eryone knows what that motherfuckin’
Ol’ Wu does. You Qians sure are cold!”
Then they left after not being able to do anything in broad
daylight.
I smelled something fishy so I went to ask the second brother.
He hesitantly told me after my interrogation, “We were thinking the fellow
didn’t behave, plus he had beat Qian Jr. up, so, um, we put him with Old Wu
‘cause we thought, you know, but who knew he’d be that ballsy? Old Wu is one
big guy. You should’ve seen that giant being beaten to a pulp…”
I glared at him.
“Hey buddy, your mom was the one who asked me!”
I continued to glare at him.
“’Kay, fine. I heard Old Wu’s done that kind of stuff before, but I didn’t know about it beforehand. I
ain’t that wicked. I really didn’t know!”
“What kind of stuff?”
“You know, the usual. They say he did a few little boys before.” He
patted me on the back after my silence. “Qian Jr., this really ain’t our fault.
I only heard about it afterwards, if not I would’nt’ve–.”
“Of course,” I nodded. “It’s not your fault, brother.” Then I left.
After reporting this to the family, my old man announced, “We are at
fault for–.”
But Mom interrupted before he could finish, “What’re you saying?
They’re all the same—karma, I reckon! Say, you think those little punks are
gonna take revenge?”
×××
I felt kind of uneasy and had trouble
sleeping for the next several days. All I could think of while tossing and
turning were Shen Bin’s disgruntled, black eyes and his mom’s ancient, wrinkly
face. I decided to visit their home.
The Shen household was located on the only street in town that had
not been upgraded yet, and consisted of three tattered brick rooms with a roof
sticking out for a kitchen.
Shen Bin’s widow mom was Ding Hongmei. She used to work at the No. 1
Cotton Spinning Factory and had been a looker once upon a time. Later on, she got
involved with a sadistic brute and often got beaten blue and purple. Apparently,
she was rescued once and had been naked, covered with bloody burn marks on the
skin and piercings on her nose, belly, vagina…
No wonder she aged so fast.
_____________________
ayszhang: >o< I hope you guys like the new story. I think I will release chapters every weekend! :D There will be more chapters tmr~
P.S. I got an email two days ago from the school in Japan that I applied for. I received official admission and the Japanese student visa and everything! ~\(≧▽≦)/~ I will be studying in Tokyo from Oct 2015 to Aug 2016! Woohoo~ Just wanted to share this news with my favourite readers in the whole wide world <3 (and maybe if any of you are going to be there during that time ;) you know who to call!)
_____________________
ayszhang: >o< I hope you guys like the new story. I think I will release chapters every weekend! :D There will be more chapters tmr~
P.S. I got an email two days ago from the school in Japan that I applied for. I received official admission and the Japanese student visa and everything! ~\(≧▽≦)/~ I will be studying in Tokyo from Oct 2015 to Aug 2016! Woohoo~ Just wanted to share this news with my favourite readers in the whole wide world <3 (and maybe if any of you are going to be there during that time ;) you know who to call!)

The Rental Shop Owner - English Translation by ayszhang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.