Yan Lianke - The Four Books

So it came to pass. The Child blushed deeply, and said, “For each ton, you may give me a certificate, a sack of flour, and two large blossoms. For a hundred tons, I’ll go to the provincial seat to attend a model ceremony.”

The Child had never been to the provincial seat, though he had long yearned to go. In the town there was only one street, in the county seat there were two or three, and in the district seat there were at least thirty streets and alleys. So, how many streets might there be in the provincial seat?

The Child was familiar with the town, the county, and the district seats, but he didn’t know what the provincial seat was like.

He had long dreamed of visiting it.

The Child decided that after he succeeded in smelting a hundred tons of steel — thereby earning a hundred certificates and another two hundred large red blossoms — he should spend a year at the provincial seat.

When the Child left town to return to the riverbank, the Theologian was pulling the cart and the Child was riding on top. The Child stared into the sky and reflected for a long time before saying,

“Help me calculate something: If a hundred and fifty jin of black sand will yield a hundred jin of steel, then how much black sand will be needed to smelt a hundred tons of steel? We have twenty furnaces, both large and small, and if on average we smelt a furnace-worth of steel once every five days, then how many days will it take to smelt a hundred tons of steel?”

The Theologian stopped the cart next to an empty field and, using a stick to write on the ground, muttered — For a hundred jin of steel, you would need a hundred and fifty jin of black sand. For a thousand jin of steel, you would need fifteen hundred jin of black sand. And for a ton of steel, you would need three thousand jin of black sand. If you have twenty furnaces, each of which on average can smelt three hundred jin of steel, then together they will be able to smelt six thousand kilos of steel. Therefore, each furnace must smelt thirty-five furnaces-worth of steel in order for you to end up with one hundred and five tons. If it takes five days and five nights to smelt one furnace-worth, then it will take approximately a hundred and seventy-five days, which is to say half a year, in order to smelt thirty-five furnaces-worth of steel, which is to say a hundred tons.

When he finished, the Theologian stood up. The ground next to where he was standing was filled with complicated equations, and looked as if it had been the scene of a crab fight. The great earth was supporting the Child’s face, which had a blank and disappointed expression.

“If we need two or three days to smelt a single furnace-worth of steel, and each furnace on average can handle five to eight hundred kilos of steel, then if we build two more furnaces, won’t we be able to smelt a hundred tons of steel by the end of the year?”

The Child’s face was illuminated by a red glow.

The ground was also illuminated by a red glow.

In this way, everything came to pass. The sun rose, and up ahead another cart paused to wait for them. They proceeded onward. The Child was sitting on the cart, as the Theologian hauled it forward. The Child smiled and said, “I didn’t burn your copy of the Bible, and instead I just fined you five red blossoms. I didn’t even ask you again to piss on the book.” The Child added, “At the end of the year, I plan to go to the provincial seat. You should return to the ninety-ninth and tell everyone that as long as they can smelt a hundred tons of steel, then thirty to fifty of them will be permitted to return home.”

The Theologian turned around in surprise.

“At least forty or fifty of them will be free to return home,” the Child said. “In that book of yours, it says, God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, let there be water, and there was water.”

Like a mule, the Theologian pulled the cart. The sun shone down upon his head. The earth was full of light.

1. Old Course , pp. 300–309

On the fifth day, the Child led back to the riverbank the people who had gone into town to donate their steel. The situation turned out to be just as had been reported, and as long as one group of people after another sent their black sand steel to Beijing, a group from the ninety-ninth would be pardoned and allowed to return home. But who would be pardoned? Naturally, it would be those people who had been on good behavior and who had received the most red blossoms. Accordingly, everyone proceeded to frantically collect black sand, chop down trees, and smelt steel. The most important thing was that it was not merely a question of the ninety-ninth collecting black sand and smelting steel, but rather that by this point the steel-smelting technology had already spread throughout the entire Re-Ed region, and within half a month the riverbank was full of people collecting black sand. As the New Year’s festival was approaching, not only were there thousands of people throughout Re-Ed collecting black sand and smelting steel, but for several hundred li in either direction you could see peasants walking up and down the riverbank pulling ropes tied to magnets. On the other bank, you could see someone swaying back and forth, after which you could see furnaces light up. The flames and smoke rose up to the sky, illuminating both sides of the river.

In the blink of an eye, the black sand steel-smelting technology had spread not only to both sides of the river but also throughout the country, and even the entire world. As New Year’s approached, the number of steel-smelting furnaces on the riverbank increased steadily. During the day there was the continuous sound of trees being felled, as the water from the river continued to wash up onto the bank. At nighttime, the flames from thousands of furnaces illuminated the riverbank, making the river look like a headless flaming dragon.

The certificate commending the Child was circulated to every corner of the country, with the red seal from the capital’s steel-smelting committee affixed to the top, like a red sun shining in the hearts of everyone in the ninety-ninth. Everyone felt that their own name should appear on the first list of people who had been pardoned and permitted to return home, and they all struggled every day to earn even more red blossoms.

The Child also obsessed day and night over his blossoms and certificates.

One day, the Child discovered that the certificates and large red blossoms he had brought back from the headquarters were as abundant as flowers in a spring field. He posted those certificates on the eastern wall of his tent, and posted the large red blossoms on tent poles and tree trunks. Also, in order to prevent everyone else’s red blossoms and pentagonal stars from getting damaged or lost, he collected all of their blossoms himself. He drew more than a hundred squares on the western side of his tent. Inside each square he wrote someone’s name, below which he posted that person’s red blossoms. The Child told everyone to come to his tent once every three days to check to see how many blossoms appeared below their name, and to compare them with those below other people’s names.

The walls of the Child’s tent were completely filled with red blossoms, red stars, and certificates — becoming so red that it seemed as though the tent were on fire. As a result, everyone in the ninety-ninth became highly motivated. The fifty people with the most blossoms were concerned that those lagging behind would overtake them, and therefore continued collecting black sand and smelting steel like madmen. The next group of fifty people saw that they only needed a handful more blossoms to catch up with the leaders, and therefore proceeded to smelt steel with such enthusiasm that they almost threw themselves into the furnaces as well. As for the people who had only a few blossoms, when they realized they would never be able to catch the leaders they still didn’t want to be left further behind, and therefore struggled to make a good impression so that they might be included in the second or third round to be sent home.