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fight through. Unlike the men, Second Dog openly took sides, waving a wooden stick to urge the black boar on. They all forgot the sow that had escaped into the pigpen.
    The white boar opened its jaws, snapping at its attacker. Its scarlet tongue was dripping blood, which the men couldn’t tell was from the wounds on the black boar or from the bleeding inside its own mouth. Again and again its flinty teeth cut through the air but missed the black boar, which seemed clever, able to parry the attacks with its snout.
    After a few rounds the two pigs disengaged themselves. Each stepped back for ten feet or so, turned around facing the other for a moment, as if dazed by the hot blood pumped into their heads, then dashed toward each other and clashed with a muffled noise. Neither of them lost its balance or retreated a step. Insteadthey stuck together, holding each other with their snouts, and started a kind of wrestling. The two bodies turned tense as if having shed their fat. The pigs were circling around and around rather slowly; each wanted to throw the other down, but neither was able to make it. Their columnar hind feet sank into the earth.
    Suddenly the black boar passed water. A thick line of greenish liquid gushed out and fell on the ground. Liao’s heart shuddered, because he realized his boar couldn’t match the white beast in strength. He was right; in a few seconds the black boar began retreating, two deep grooves emerging under its hind feet. The ground soaked with the urine could no longer give a solid footing. The white boar pushed and pushed and pushed, till with a crushing thrust it hurled its enemy over. The black boar collapsed right in front of its master’s feet, whining and gasping. Liao felt a sharp pain in his heart and wanted to bend down to help it up, but he restrained himself, seeing a smile cross the square face of Ma Ding, who was looking at the black boar contemptuously. Anger flamed up in Liao and he kicked his pig ferociously in the flank. That sent it to its feet at once. The boar seemed to understand its master’s mind and went for its enemy again.
    This time they fought differently. The black boar appeared to know its own physical inferiority and tried resorting to its teeth. With its mouth open, it snapped at the white boar, which couldn’t move fast enough to avoid every attack. Yet the white boar was so large it stood there like a bridge pier.
    Liao worried. Obviously his boar had no chance of winning the fight. While he was figuring how to invent an excuse for withdrawing his force from the battle, the black boar stepped aside; then, approaching the white boar slowly, all of a suddenit jumped into the air with its front legs upwards. The pair of pointed feet plunged and stabbed into its enemy’s face. The white boar growled wildly. Below its right eye an inch of hairy skin was torn off together with a chunk of flesh, and the cut, smeared with yellowish mud, turned scarlet instantly.
    “Good pig! He sure knows how to scratch,” Leng cried.
    “Kill this foreign beast,” Second Dog shouted, whacking the white boar’s rump with the stick.
    “Second Dog!” Ma yelled. “You son of a rabbit, don’t abuse a pig! It’s just a dumb animal.”
    Liao was pleased. Looking at Ma, he put on a smile and said, “We stop here, Old Ma, all right?”
    Ma didn’t respond, as though he hadn’t heard Liao.
    The two pigs went on biting each other. The white boar looked pink now, but there weren’t many wounds on its body, and it had gotten only a few short rosy furrows on its sides. Though the black boar didn’t change color, it had more wounds than its enemy. Yet its fighting spirit was not sinking. The dark snout reached for the under part of the white belly and took a solid snap at the soft area beneath the ribs. The white boar gave out a deafening howl, and blood was dripping on the ground. The black boar was stunned by the murderous sound and paused, standing there as if wondering. The