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Twenty years ago, the narrator ran a successful duck shop in Nanjing. When a friend told him that his wife was having an affair with Manager Yang, he went to confront Manager Yang to seek revenge. They had a violent altercation at Manager Yang's house. Manager Yang suggested that in compensation, the narrator should sleep with Manager Yang's wife, a nurse. The narrator stayed at the house till the wife returned later that afternoon, and willingly offered herself to him. Repelled by her debasement, the narrator slit her throat instead, and tried to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. Ultimately, his crime was uncovered, and he was arrested, found guilty, and executed. From Issue 2 of Chinese Arts and Literature, published by Xanadu Press, 2016; reprinted by permission of Chinese Arts and Literature.
If I hadn't died, the longest surviving duck shop on Nanjing's Shuiximen would surely have been mine, Xu's Duck. For all I know, there might even have been branches, or a franchise. I'd have made my mark. This isn't just me bragging-back in the day, all my regulars said so too. On evenings in high summer, when the streets had been sprinkled with water, a sultry haze wavering in the twilight, two or three old guys would sit around with their upper bodies bare, snacking on "four duck parts" (two wings and two feet) as they enjoyed their liquor, slurping half a cup at a gulp-and someone would always say that with a sigh. To this day, they still miss Xu's Duck.
That's right, more than twenty years ago, Xu's Duck was fairly famous around Shuiximen, about as wellknown as Shuiximen Yin's Duck, Shuiximen Cheng's Duck, Shuiximen Lu's Duck, and so on-everyone claimed to sell authentic Shuiximen Salted Duck. As long as you had "Shuiximen" in your shop name, business would be unbelievably good, especially in the afternoon. I opened promptly at half past three, and every single day a line would form before three o'clock. My assistant and I worked non-stop, one of us chopping up ducks and the other serving customers, and we'd be sold out by six, leaving the glass display shelf empty and glistening beneath the greasy shaded lamp. It was the same with the...