Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

rubbery legs. He saw that the sun was a blazing ball of white above the treetops, and that the dozen or so stained glass windows in the church steeple shone brilliantly. The Felicity Manor steward, Sima Ting, was hopping around atop the watchtower, which was roughly the same height as the steeple. He was still shouting his warning that the Japanese were on their way, but his voice had grown hoarse and raspy. A few idlers were gaping up at him with their arms crossed. Shangguan Shouxi stood in the middle of the lane, trying to decide on the best way to go to Third Master Fan’s place.
    Two routes were available to him, one straight through town, the other along the riverbank. The drawback of the riverbank route was the likelihood of startling the Sun family’s big black dogs. The Suns lived in a ramshackle compound at the northern end of the lane, encircled by a low, crumbling wall that was a favorite perch for chickens. The head of the family, Aunty Sun, had a brood of five grandsons, all mutes. The parents seemed not to have ever existed. The five of them were forever playing on the wall, in which they’d created breaches, like saddles, so they could ride imaginary horses. Holding clubs or slingshots or rifles carved from sticks, they glared at passersby, human and animal, the whites of their eyes truly menacing. People got off relatively easy, but not the animals; it made no difference if it was a stray calf or a raccoon, a goose, a duck, a chicken, or a dog, the minute they spotted it, they took out after it, along with their big black dogs, converting the village into their private hunting ground.
    The year before, they had chased down a Felicity Manor donkey that had broken free of its halter; after killing it, they’d skinned and butchered it out in the open. People stood by watching, waiting to see how the folks at Felicity Manor, a powerful and rich family in which the uncle was a regimental commander who kept a company of armed bodyguards, would deal with someone openly slaughtering one of its donkeys. When the steward stamped his foot, half the county quaked. Now here were all these wild kids, slaughtering a Felicity Manor donkey in broad daylight, which was hardly less than asking to be slaughtered themselves. Imagine the people’s surprise when the assistant steward, Sima Ku — a marksman with a large red birthmark on his face — handed a silver dollar to each of the mutes instead of drawing his pistol. From that day on, they were incorrigible tyrants, and any animal that encountered them could only curse its parents for not giving it wings.
    While the boys were in their saddles, their five jet black dogs, which could have been scooped out of a pond of ink, sprawled lazily at the base of the wall, eyes closed to mere slits, seemingly dreaming peaceful dreams. The five mutes and their dogs had a particular dislike for Shangguan Shouxi, who lived in the same lane, although he could not recall where or when he had managed to offend these ten fearsome demons. But whenever he came across them, he was in for a bad time. He would flash them a smile, but that never kept the dogs from flying at him like five black arrows, and even though the attacks stopped short of physical contact, and he was never bitten, he’d be so rattled his heart would nearly stop. The mere thought of it made him shudder.
    Or he could head south, across the town’s main street, and get to Third Master Fan’s that way. But that meant he would have to pass by the church, and at this hour, the tall, heavyset, redheaded, blue-eyed Pastor Malory would be squatting beneath the prickly ash tree, with its pungent aroma, milking his old goat, the one with the scraggly chin whiskers, squeezing her red, swollen teats with large, soft, hairy hands, and sending milk so white it seemed almost blue splashing into a rusty enamel bowl. Swarms of redheaded flies always buzzed around Pastor Malory and his goat. The pungency of the prickly ash, the muttony