Grandma called him Ah-ha-gu. She believed that he was destined to become a big official, so she was always especially nice to him. Ah-ha had an elder brother who weighed 39 kilos and didn’t have to do military service. He also had a younger brother who held an egg in his palm while he practiced calligraphy, as well as another younger brother, and a smart, pretty elder sister. Yet he never seemed to understand matters of life and death. To him, the consequences of the August 23 War with Communist China were that he no longer had any apples to eat...