Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [123]
“Not everyone has the same reaction,” said Fang Caodi. “There are four of us here who have never been controlled by your drugged water.”
“I’m telling you,” said He Dongsheng, “this is a good drug, but it’s only a minor drug. There’s no way it can control people. It just changes their feelings a bit. Whatever the people have to do, they can still do it. Our follow-up studies indicate that over ninety-nine percent of people have the same positive reaction, but perhaps there is an extremely small number of people who for some reason or another don’t have any reaction. It’s good enough that the great majority feel happy, because any minority will have their emotions influenced by the majority. Of course, there are some exceptions among the exceptions. I can see that you all belong to the extremely small minority made up of an extremely small number of people who remain unhappy. Just like me! I deliberately don’t drink our Chinese water or other beverages, just to experience what it feels like to see everybody else high when I’m sober. But today I ‘fell off the wagon,’ as the Americans say. The effect is best the first time. Just look how much I talked after I drank a couple of glasses of your tap water. I’ve talked so much … including telling you all sorts of things I never should have.”
“When did you start putting Ecstasy in the water?” the hitherto silent Zhang Dou suddenly asked. “Exactly what day was it?”
“The exact day is very clear,” answered He Dongsheng, beginning to cough. “It was the last day of the three-week crackdown. On that day, the water works of all first-, second-, and third-level cities and all provincial cities put it in the drinking water at the same time. That was because we were going to officially announce the start of China’s Age of Ascendancy the next day and we had to properly calibrate the people’s emotions.”
“I’ll kill you, you bastard!” shouted Zhang Dou. He sprang onto He Dongsheng and pressed He’s feeble body down into the chair with the full weight of his hulking frame. “I’ll kill you, you bastard!”
The others frantically tried to pull him off, but Zhang Dou was too strong and they couldn’t restrain him.
“Zhang Dou, let him go! Are you mad?” the three of them shouted.
He Dongsheng was making choking noises. His face had gone a deep red.
“He hurt Miaomiao! He’s the bastard who poisoned Miaomiao!” shouted Zhang Dou with his hands closing around He Dongsheng’s throat. It looked like he was going to choke He Dongsheng to death right there in front of them.
Suddenly Miaomiao gave a big scream. Zhang Dou loosened his grip on He Dongsheng and turned to look at her. Miaomiao was standing in the doorway with a plate of cookies in her hand; she was glaring at Zhang Dou. Zhang Dou climbed off gingerly.
He had almost murdered their hostage, and the other three were very shaken. He Dongsheng, rescued from the grip of death, still had not caught his breath and was struggling to speak.
“He’s the one who poisoned Miaomiao,” repeated Zhang Dou. “Miaomiao started to act strange, like she was sick, the day the crackdown ended, and it was all because they put that shit in the water.”
“You’re mad! You’re all stark raving mad! You …” gasped He Dongsheng