Yan Lianke - The Four Books

After the Technician heard that the Scholar and the Musician had been seized, he ran to the district entrance, but all he saw was the cart carrying the Scholar, the Musician, and the higher-up disappearing into the distance. The sky was full of clouds, behind which the afternoon sun was like an unquenchable fire. Amid the billowing clouds, you could see a point or two of light swallowed up by the darkness. Everyone had already dispersed, and they seemed surprised that the Scholar and the Musician could manage to carry on a secret affair before their very eyes, and relieved that the ninety-ninth had finally hosted such a momentous event. Instead of constantly searching for iron, wood, and steel — the same monotonous tasks day after day — the criminals instead had an extraordinary event that everyone would discuss and remember for a long time, just as they would remember a performance with a beginning but no end. The Technician stood in the tracks left by the mule cart at the entrance to the district. He looked around, with a stunned and disappointed expression — as though seeing a sky dark with storm clouds, but which had not yet produced any snow or rain.

“Who reported them?” he asked, half to himself. “Who reported them to the Child?”

The few lingering comrades watched him for a moment, then either returned to their rooms or went back to work.

“How did the Child and the higher-up learn about this?” The Technician walked over to me and asked again, “Who reported to them?”

After everyone else left, the Technician and I walked to the courtyard and we saw that the Child’s door on the west side of the district was tightly shut. In the entranceway, the covers of two books were wedged under his window like a pile of leaves at the base of a wall. The Technician continued to ask me who had reported the affair to the Child and the higher-up. He said that other than himself, no one in the ninety-ninth had known about it.

“There are more than a hundred pairs of eyes in the district,” I replied coldly.

“If I had realized that this was how things would turn out, I would have reported them earlier.” He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists, which hung by his sides like a pair of eagles about to take flight. “I want to know who the fucker was who claimed those twenty red blossoms. They were clearly mine, but someone else walked off with them.”

As he was heading back to the dormitory, the Technician kept mumbling to himself. He seemed to feel that the failure to make the report and claim those twenty red blossoms was the biggest tragedy of his life, and was far more serious than having been sent to Re-Ed in place of his advisor.

The Technician started searching for the person who robbed him of his twenty red blossoms. He spent several days visiting everyone’s dormitory room to see who might have ten or twenty new blossoms over their bed or in front of their desk. The Child had said that everyone had to post their blossoms over their bed or their desk, so that their dorm mates could verify whether or not a sudden increase was legitimate. Whoever reported the affair between the Scholar and the Musician, and thereby claimed the twenty-odd blossoms that rightfully belonged to the Technician, would have to publicly display these new blossoms and implicitly announce to everyone that he was behind it. The Technician kept devising excuses to sneak over to my bed, to the Theologian’s, and the beds of a dozen or so other Re-Ed criminals who hoped to accumulate enough blossoms to permit them to return home. He would even use the pretense of needing to borrow a needle and thread in order to go into the women’s dormitory and see who had a new row or two of blossoms above their desk or bed. He knew that five small blossoms could be exchanged for a medium-sized one, five medium blossoms for a pentagonal star, and five stars for the freedom to leave Re-Ed and return home. In order to earn five stars, you would need either twenty-five medium-sized blossoms or a hundred and twenty-five small ones. Many people were too daunted by the prospect of trying to earn a hundred and twenty-five blossoms, and therefore didn’t even bother. The Technician, however, was convinced that as long as he put his mind to it, he would eventually be able to earn the requisite number of blossoms. He had already received the third-highest number of blossoms in the district, with twenty-five small ones. The person in the lead had thirty-two small blossoms, while the person in second place had twenty-seven. If someone suddenly appeared with more than thirty small blossoms, or more than six medium-sized ones, the Technician would know who had stolen the blossoms that rightfully belonged to him. He wanted to find that person, not necessarily to do anything to him but rather simply because he wanted the satisfaction of knowing who had discovered the Scholar and the Musician’s adulterous relationship. If possible, he wanted to ask the person if he or she had witnessed the Scholar and Musician coupling naked.

In the end, the Technician never did manage to find that person who reported the affair and collected the reward.

The Technician didn’t find anyone who suddenly had an additional twenty small red blossoms above their bed or desk. After failing to identify this person for several days, the Technician found himself in a wretched mood, as dispirited as someone who had been robbed and couldn’t track down the thief. Although he still did what was expected of him, he became very silent, keeping his head bowed all day long. Before his very eyes, the door of merit had swung shut and was now tightly locked, as though a floodgate had suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

Following the seizure of the Scholar and the Musician, the district was rewarded with fifty jin of pork and thirty jin of beef. For the next few days, everyone smelted steel, feasted, and enjoyed a festive and joyous atmosphere in the middle of winter, as though it were New Year’s. Of the men, apart from the ones who were inside every day searching high and low for iron to smelt, the remainder gathered around the furnaces and discussed the adulterous affair. Of the women, apart from the ones who took turns cooking in the kitchen, the rest also spent their time gathered around the furnaces discussing the affair. Like food and rice, it got everyone excited, until they ran out of raw iron to smelt. Apart from essential tools like shovels, hoes, plows, seed drills, and rakes, all of the metal implements in the ninety-ninth had already been donated, including kitchen rods, cabinet handles, and locks, and even the nails above the windows. In addition, all the trees in the vicinity of the village had been chopped down to provide fuel for the furnaces, and consequently on a clear day you could see for dozens of li in every direction. All that remained were tree stumps, which resembled baby suns emerging from the ground. The smell of wood chips and molten iron permeated the courtyard and the endless expanse of sandy terrain. In order to increase steel production, everyone’s grain allotment was cut from forty-five jin a month to twenty-five, and in order to claim those final twenty jin they would need to contribute at least two tons of steel every month.

It turned out that the previous meal allotment of four liang of white and yellow flour and half a steamed bun per person had been cut to three liang , with everyone also receiving half a bowl of vegetables. Apart from radish and cabbage, not only did they not have any meat, they barely even had any oil in their vegetables.

The investigation team sent by the higher-ups consisted of several young militia who searched each of their rooms and confiscated everything containing any metal, including even a porcelain teeth-brushing cup that happened to have a metal rim.