Summary

On his first weekend in X, Chen gave him a tour. "There was not much to see" (4). The only interesting buildings were "the local government office and the ancestral temple" (4). A plaque on the government building said, "Yu Household" (4). Chen said they were once the richest family in town, but had disappeared years prior. Inside the temple, there was an altar, walls of shelves, and pillars "covered with knife marks" (4). The shelves "held . . . ancestral tablets" (4). The scratches were meant to cover "the teachings of Confucius" (4).

As time passed, Zhao adjusted to life in X. He "walked around shirtless" (4). He ate flies. He leered at women, grabbing them and laughing. He learned "to shit outside at night," as the town had no toilet (4).

He also learned to call the dogs to eat his defecation. X was filled with dogs. Most of them avoided humans...