Free Brothers by Yu Hua

party consisted of a trio of men, a trio of women, and a trio of middle-school students, as well as a couple of boys slightly older than Baldy Li and Song Gang. The eleven of them surrounded Song Gang and Baldy Li, clucking at them angrily, "Where are our chickens? Did they follow you?"
    Baldy Li and Song Gang nodded, and the mob turned back to Song Fanping and Li Lan. "See! The little bastards admit it."
    They turned again to Baldy Li and Song Gang. "Where are our goddamn chickens?"
    The boys shook their heads, which angered the mob. "You little bastards, you just nodded, now you're shaking your heads…"
    The crowd insisted that roosters and hens were not fleas and ticks, and therefore they had to be somewhere in plain sight. They walked into Song Fanping's house, searching, opening cabinets, looking under the bed and into pots. The long-haired middle-school student, Sun Wei, even started sniffing Baldy Li and Song Gangs open mouths to see if he could detect any chicken on their breath. Sun Wei sniffed for a while but couldn't decide, so he called Victory Zhao over. Victory Zhao also sniffed for a while but couldn't tell either, so he asked Success Liu to come take a whiff. Success Liu smelled for a while and also concluded, "I don't think so."
    After failing to find so much as a single feather, the search party came back outside, cursing and swearing. Song Fanping was no longer beaming with pride but, rather, had turned steely-faced. His bride was pale with terror and tugged at his clothes to hold him back, afraid that her new husband would start a fight. Song Fanping had been suffering silently, and even when these people barged out of his house saying all sorts of foul things, he still restrained himself, just glaring at them with firmly set eyes.
    The search party started looking around the outside of the house. A few of them even took turns peering into the well, but they didn't see any hens and roosters, just the reflections of their own faces. The three middle-school students clambered up the tree like monkeys to see if the roosters and hens were hidden on the roof. They didn't find any chickens, though they did see a few sparrows.
    Unable to find anything, the search party continued uttering proanities,fwhereupon one suggested, "Maybe they fell into the toilet and drowned while sneaking a peek at women's butts."
    "Chickens also look at women's butts?"
    "Roosters."
    The men guffawed and the women tittered. By this point Li Lan was shaking all over. She no longer dared to even hold on to Song Fanping's clothes, feeling that she was bringing her own misfortunes onto her new husband. Song Fanping couldn't bear another word, and these people were still chattering as they walked away, "How about the hens?"
    "The hens wait till the roosters drown and then remarry."
    Song Fanping pointed to the man who was talking and bellowed, "Get back here!"
    All of them turned back. Three men plus three middle-school students, three women and two boys. Song Fanping saw that they had stopped in their tracks, and he yelled again, "Get back here!"
    All of them started cackling. The three men and three middle-school students walked up to Song Fanping and surrounded him, while the three women took the two boys and stood to one side, as if watching a good show. They knew they had him outnumbered and sneeringly asked him, "Do you want to treat us to a wedding banquet?" Song Fanping retorted, "No banquet, just my fist." He then pointed to the man in the middle and demanded, "Repeat what you just said."
    The man sneered, "What did I say?"
    Song Fanping hesitated, then said, "You were saying something about a hen…"
    The person said, "Oh!" as he remembered, then asked, "You want me to repeat that?"
    Song Fanping said, "If you dare say it again, I'll smash your mouth."
    The man looked at his companions and the three students. "And what if I don't?"
    Song Fanping, stunned for a moment, eventually sighed. "Get out of here."
    The group started