this the ghoulish crowd, with blue faces and protruding tusks, burst into laughter.
Just then Chen Lao-wu caught up with me and forcibly dragged me home.
After I was dragged home, everyone pretended not to know me; their eyes were like those of everyone else. As soon as they got me into the study, they closed the door and chained it from the outside as if they were shutting up a chicken or a duck. The more I thought about this the more befuddled I became.
A few days ago a tenant from the Wolf Village came to complain of hard times and told my elder brother that a very wicked man in the village had been beaten to death by the villagers and that some of the men had taken out his heart and fried it in oil and had eaten it in the belief that this would give them more courage. When I put in a few words in protest against this savage practice, both the tenant and my brother gave me a hard look.
I suddenly realized that their eyes were the same as those of the people on the street.
When I think about this, I become cold from head to feet.
If they ate another human being, it is not at all inconceivable that they might eat me.
All signs point to this possibility: remember what the woman said about biting off a few pieces of her son's flesh, remember the fiendish glee of the crowd with blue faces and protruding tusks, remember the story told by the tenant the other day. I see venom in their words and knives behind their laughter; their teeth, white and menacing, are those of cannibals.
I did not think that I could be considered a wicked man, but since I trampled Mr. Hoary Tradition's book under my
