Yan Lianke - The Four Books

“You have committed two religious crimes,” the Child said. “First, is that you have been secretly reading this Bible. This is a serious transgression. Second, is that you carved a hole in this real bible. This is an even more serious transgression. We will send you to the headquarters, where your punishment will be more severe than that which was meted out to the Scholar and the Musician for their adulterous affair. In fact, you will be executed.” At this point, the Child paused, and looked as though he were lost in thought. Then he leafed through the large volume again, and as he did, the smaller volume closed. He said, “I like you, and since I consider you to be an honest person, I won’t send you to the higher-ups for punishment. But how will you atone for your crimes?”

“Anything you decide is fine.” The Theologian accepted the pardon and nodded repeatedly. “I’ll do anything you want.”

The Child removed the small book from the larger one, and ordered, “Get up!” The Theologian stood up. The Child thrust the small volume at him, saying, “I want you to piss on this book. If you do this one thing, that will be the end of this matter.”

The Theologian stood motionless, his face as white as a sheet. “Kill me if you want, but I beg you to treat this book with respect. This is the last copy in the entire country. After the nation’s founding, all of the others were confiscated and burned. I used my family fortune and personal connections to obtain it from the national library’s rare books collection. If this volume is destroyed, there will be none left in the entire country.” As he was saying this, the Theologian’s lips began to tremble like leaves in the wind. It was a cold night, but his face was covered in sweat. The Child looked at him, then snorted. “If you won’t piss on it, then take it, but bring me all of your red blossoms. I believe you have about fifty? And one more thing. If you won’t piss on the book, then you will have to hand over your blossoms, and tomorrow you must pull a cart loaded with steel all by yourself, and accompany me to the headquarters.”

The Child gave the Theologian a choice of punishments — he could either urinate on the Bible, or hand over all of his red blossoms and, like a mule, pull a cart loaded with steel. He would have to pull the cart three hundred li to town. If they proceeded without stopping it would take them three days to merely cover the distance, even without pulling two or three lumps of steel weighing five or six hundred jin each.

The Theologian chose the latter option.

6. Heaven’s Child , pp. 209–214

The Child brought five people to help deliver the steel ingot smelted from black sand. In all, there were three carts. Four comrades pulled two of the carts, but because the Theologian had committed a crime he had to pull a cart on his own. When he reached a hill or a ravine, however, the Child would help him push the cart across. They headed out on the first day, and several days later they would reach the town. The ninety-ninth had to hand over the steel to the headquarters, which would hand it over to the county seat, which would hand it over to the district seat, which in turn would hand it over to the provincial seat — on and on until it finally reached the capital.

The steel needed to be taken to the capital to be exhibited.

So it came to pass. Everything was even greater and more spectacular than they had imagined. The Child’s idea of smelting steel from black sand was not only a pioneering development in its own right, but also constituted a powerful challenge to all of the reactionary countries in the world. From this point on, as long as a nation had the technology to smelt steel from black sand, they wouldn’t need to import steel from outside.

The Child went into town and didn’t return until five days later, during which time some scattered news drifted over in the breeze. The first news item was that the ingot of steel smelted from black sand was deemed by the higher-ups to be a virtual atomic bomb to be sent out to the world, which astonished the criminals of the ninety-ninth. The second item was that when the Child returned with his prizes, he would not only have large red blossoms, but also a cart full of grain and meat. The third item was that as long as the newly smelted steel could be sent to Beijing then a cohort of criminals from the ninety-ninth would be free to return home, like the Technician. When everyone heard this, they started madly collecting sand and cutting down trees in order to smelt enormous amounts of steel. Without even needing others to supervise and exhort them, they worked like crazy on their own accord. In the winter, they woke up before sunrise and looked around for a puddle in which to wash their face. After assigning someone to stay behind and watch each furnace, everyone else would go out and scour the embankments for black sand.

The Child was in town, a hundred and fifty li from the river. It was a small community with only a few hundred people, one main street, and a handful of shops. The Re-Ed headquarters was located here, at the end of the main street. The headquarters was in a large courtyard, surrounded on all four sides by red tile buildings. The building adorned with various wooden placards was the headquarters.

In the courtyard, there was a large pile of iron objects — including long ones, square ones, oval ones, green ones, gray ones, and dark greenish gray ones. Someone was weighing them and recording how much each district had contributed. There was a truck, and there were people in the process of loading the cast iron onto the truck. Bing, bang, boom — bing, bang, boom . the sound reverberated through the streets of the town.

It reverberated through the entire world.

Someone asked, “Where are they taking all this iron?”

A person who was loading it onto the truck replied, “To the steel mill.”

“What for?”

“Fuck. how can you be so blind?. Don’t you know that the steel mill will smelt this iron into steel pipes and steel bars?”

Now, the Child had spent two days hauling the first batch of steel from the banks of the Yellow River back to the headquarters. The higher-up stroked the newly smelted steel, then patted the head of the Child, who blushed happily. He awarded the Child a red blossom, and furthermore read aloud the writing on the certificate: Certificate of Merit . He intoned these initial words extremely slowly, but read the remaining text more quickly: Awarded to the Child, for your work on national development, in recognition of the enormous contribution and the effort you have made for the steel industry, you are hereby awarded this certificate, to encourage you to make further efforts.

The higher-up then read the headquarters’ name and the time.

As applause rang out, the Child went to receive the certificate. The higher-up also awarded him a large red blossom.

In this way, the Child became a celebrity in Re-Ed. In the evening, the higher-up invited him to a banquet, where he was served rice, steamed buns, meat and vegetables, stewed chicken, as well as wine. The Child asked, “Can the people who came with me to deliver the steel also join us?” So, they added another table, and the additional guests ate rice, buns, and meat and vegetables, though not the stewed chicken or the wine.

At the banquet, the higher-up asked the Child, “You haven’t yet gone to the provincial seat?”

The Child shook his head.

The higher-up reflected silently, then said, “Today you used three carts to haul a ton of steel. As long as you are able to smelt another hundred tons of steel in a year, we promise that not only will we organize a model ceremony for you, we will also arrange for you to attend a model ceremony in the provincial seat and even the nation’s capital.”