A Bloodless Victory

By Dong Hai

There is an old saying that

goes, every family has

happiness and sorrow.And another one that says, behind every successful family man, there is a woman whose intelligence is off the charts.

My old buddy Curry is an ace Mahjong player. Known as the“one-finger master,” he could guess a Mahjong tile just by touching it with one finger. He used to call or text us to join him for a game or two by saying “one short three,” meaning he was ready to play with three others,as Mahjong is a game of four persons. Then one day out of the blue he announced he was quitting gambling.

I was thrown for a loop. Could he really make a clean break of gambling? Or was it that his wife had had a fit which changed his mind?

“Well,” sighed Curry, “she is the perfect woman. She has never once objected to my Mahjong hobby. Actually, whenever I played, it was always her serving the food and drinks, and even helping me keep track of the gambling chips so that I could focus on the game.”

I was floored. Could any wife be so perfect?

俗话说，一家有一家的幸福，一家有一家的痛苦，每一个五好男人背后，都可能站着一个智商爆表的太太。

老友咖喱是一位麻场骁将，号称“一指禅”，一根指头，就能摸出所有麻将牌的花色。最近，咖喱宣布戒赌，不再整天给大家发短信、打电话，吆喝“一缺三”。

我纳闷，难道狗真能改掉吃屎的本性，是被老婆一哭二闹三上吊给威胁的吧？

咖喱叹口气说，她才是贤惠人呢，从来就没反对过我打麻将，好吃好喝地在旁边伺候，帮我管理账目，让我专心搓麻。

我更纳闷了，难道天底下有这么贤惠的太太？

咖喱叹气：问题是，她执行的是收支两条线，输的是我的钱，赢了是她的。

无独有偶。曾经一天赶过五个场子的不倒翁同学，现在也宣布戒酒，即使非喝不可，也是白酒不过一两，啤酒不过一瓶，谁劝他多喝，就跟谁翻脸。我问他，是身体查出毛病来了？不倒翁摇摇头，说健康着呢。我又问，是老婆难缠吧？不倒翁摇摇头，说老婆大人宽宏大量，对我喝酒的事，从来就没管过，说男人不喝酒，就算不上男人。

我百思不得其解：“那是为什么？”

同学面色凝重：“问题是，酒在家里喝，她总是伙同他人将我灌醉，让我先睡；在外喝，她总是劝我，玩就要玩痛快，不用担心她，每次我喝酒，她都比我晚回。贤惠是贤惠，问题是，我总觉得哪里有些不对劲。”

资深烟民老纪戒烟的消息，无异于一颗重磅炸弹，让我们一帮子人大惊失色，感觉这是个狠角色，连戒烟这样的事都能干出来，还有啥事干不出来？

老婆曾经跟他商量“少抽点，抽点好的”，结果，老纪一句话就给顶回去：“我爹都没管过我，你个当老婆的，还能管我？”

我很好奇，这么硬气的老纪，怎么突然就想通了，下定决心戒烟呢？

老纪满面哀愁：那天，我在床上抽完烟睡觉，结果被子着火，给烫醒了，发现老婆就在旁边笑嘻嘻地看。我责怪她不叫我，结果，人家这么回答我：“你爹都没管过你，我个当老婆的还能管你？”

根据老纪的说法，他怀疑那场事故，压根不是失火，而是故意纵火。

（摘自《2016年中国幽默作品精选》长江文艺出版社）

Curry sighed even more deeply this time and continued, “She separates the profits and losses,which means, if I lose, I have to pay the losses out of my own pocket, but if I win, the profits end up in her pocket.”

Curry is not the Lone Ranger,an old classmate of mine with such a high alcohol tolerance once attended five banquets in a day without getting drunk announced he had quit drinking. If in a situation where he has to drink,he keeps it to just one shot of Chinese white wine or one bottle of beer at the most, and if anyone tries to force more alcohol on him,he turns into a ferocious beast and just lays into them. I asked him if he had gone to the doctor and found something wrong, but he just shook his head and said that all was well. So, I asked if his wife was giving him the runaround about his drinking. Again he shook his head and said his wife was very lenient to him and never stopped him from drinking even one drop, and was even of the opinion that a man who doesn’t drink is no man at all.

“Then why would you give up alcohol?” I wondered.

“The thing is,” my classmate said with a serious expression,“whenever I drank at home with my friends she would always gang up with them to get me drunk so I would pass out as soon as possible; and whenever I went out drinking, she would always encourage me to just have fun and forget about her, then she would come home even later than me. I mean, yeah yeah, people always say it’s like she’s the perfect woman, but I can’t help feeling that something’s rotten in Denmark.”

The shocking news that chain smoker Old Ji decided to quit smoking came as a bombshell to us all. We all agreed that he’s a tough dude, and that if he could manage to kick the cigarettes to the curb, what else couldn’t he be capable of?

His wife once suggested, “Don’t smoke too many cigarettes.Smoke some good quality ones if you must.” But Old Ji retorted,“Not even my own father ever had the nerve to nose around in my business. Why in the world do you think a wife has that right?”

So why would this hard-headed man suddenly go soft and decide to quit smoking? I was burning with curiosity.

Old Ji said, looking rather glum, “That very same day I dozed off smoking in bed. Suddenly the blanket was on fire, and I woke up when it started burning me.I started panicking but my wife was just standing there watching with a big smile on her face. I was furious at her for being so flippant about it, but she replied, ‘Not even your own father had the nerve to nose around in your business,what would give your little old wife that right?’”

According to Old Ji, he seriously doubted if the fire was an accident, or rather, it was set on purpose.

(From Collected Chinese Humorous Stories of 2016,Changjiang Literature & Art Press. Translation: Zhu Yaguang)