Yan Lianke - The Four Books

“I will cooperate with you, and if you slice me in half, then you can leave. You can go wherever you want.

“This is my only request, that you slice me in half. Then you won’t have to work the fields or smelt steel, and instead you can just leave.”

Night fell. So it came to pass. As darkness arrived, the land and sky blurred together, forming a dark green mass. Everyone dispersed, carrying their certificates printed on white paper with a red border, at the top of which was the national flag and national emblem, together with the word certificate . Where there normally would have been written text, however, there was instead a picture of a bullet — an extremely large golden bullet that looked like a giant fruit. God said, In the heavens there shall be a luminous mass, which can illuminate the sky and light up the earth, while marking days and years. So it came to pass. Then God created two vast orbs of light, calling the larger one day , and the smaller one night . He also created a myriad of stars, and arrayed them throughout the night sky. He saw that all was good. The earth was created. There was morning and evening. Before nightfall there was dusk. After dusk, there was night. When nightfall approached, everything was peaceful. The earth trembled, reverberating through the land, while the grass murmured, echoing through the sky. There were sparrows returning to their nests. There was the people’s depression. They were all carrying their certificates, like large flowers. But they were all silent and depressed, like flowers that begin to wither away with the arrival of autumn, wounded by the night.

So it came to pass. The Child returned to his room. Throughout the land, everything grew still. This stillness supported people’s feet, as though they were floating on water.

2. Heaven’s Child , pp. 19–23

The land and sky were turned upside down, the heavens parted, and the earth split.

The harvest was bountiful. The people plowed the soil and planted wheat. It was the ninth month, and the vast sky was empty, as the scent of autumn pervaded the wilderness. Wherever the sun wanted to shine, it did; and wherever it didn’t want to shine, it didn’t. The wind was the same way. If it wanted to blow through the treetops, the trees would sway back and forth; if it wanted to blow through people’s hair, their faces would shiver; and if it wanted to blow across the land, the earth would tremble and the grass would whisper. The banks of the Yellow River were far away. You couldn’t see the flowing water, and instead all you could see were the open fields lying between Re-Ed and the banks of the river. There were no villages in sight, and all you could see were crowds of people from Re-Ed.

Each of the Re-Ed districts was far from the others, and there was scarcely any communication between them.

The people plowed the earth, and spread out across the fields. As soon as they woke in the morning, they went to plow the fields. After eating breakfast, they plowed the fields. At midday, they plowed the fields. This was the ninety-ninth district. The higher-ups said, Let’s designate the people, land, and crops scattered along the banks of the Yellow River as a Re-Ed region. In that way, Re-Ed came into existence. The higher-ups said, Let’s assign all the people in the region a number and re-educate them through hard labor. Heaven will look after the earth, and the earth will look after the people. Let them labor. The people will be directed by others, and those others will establish a first district, a second district. all the way up to a ninety-ninth district. The higher-ups also said, This is good. Let them labor; that way they can be commended and reformed. Let them labor day and night, so that they may thereby be reformed and remade. Regardless of where they were originally located — in the capital, the south, in the provincial seat, or in a local area — and regardless of whether they were originally professors, cadres, scholars, teachers, or painters, they all must come here to work and create, to educate and become a new people. They will remain here for two, three, five, or eight years, or even their entire lives.

So it came to pass. This is how there came to be labor, and how there came to be Re-Ed.

Around midday, the Child arrived. People were scattered over the land like so many stars. There were birds flying in the sky. A putrid mist wafted over from the Yellow River. The recently plowed fields gleamed reddish yellow in the sun. Throughout the land there was the smell of centuries-old soil. The people were exhausted, so they squatted down to rest. When everyone saw the Child arrive, they again started working frantically. One person appeared not to notice, so the Child walked over to him and, knowing that this was an author who had written many books, said, “Your works are pure dog shit.”

The Author stared in surprise, then nodded and replied, “My works are dog shit.”

“Repeat that three times.”

The Author said three times, “My works are dog shit.”

The Child laughed and walked away.

The Author also laughed, then returned to plowing the field.

Then the Child came upon a professor, who was a scholar. He was crouched down reading a book. The Scholar didn’t see the Child, but the Child saw the Scholar, stood behind him, and cleared his throat. “What are you reading?”

Startled, the Scholar stood up grasping the book to his chest. With a scornful expression, he tucked the book into his jacket, picked up his shovel, and began turning over the soil.

The sky was blue, with scattered clouds. The soil was fresh and fragrant. The people of the ninety-ninth district were organized into brigades. Those who worked the fields belonged to the masses, and were scattered to the east of the district. Everyone from the first through the third brigades worked far away, across the vast land. The cornstalks from the previous season had been left in a pile at the edge of the fields and were surrounded by a circular grove of trees. People could enter the grove to stay warm, but also to do other things. Everyone from the third brigade was there, plowing the soil. But if you looked closely, one person was missing. Upon noticing this, the Child turned toward the grove and walked deliberately toward one of the poplars at the edge of the cornfield. There he kicked the pile of cornstalks, then kicked them again and again, until someone emerged with dried leaves and grass in his hair.

When the person saw the Child, he turned pale.

“Were you relieving yourself?” the Child asked.

The person didn’t respond.

The Child asked again, “Were you shitting or pissing?”

The person still didn’t respond.

The Child pushed aside the cornstalks, and saw that someone had created a small hollow with a light. The light was coming from inside a tree, and hanging from the tree was a painting of Mary, Mother of God. The Child didn’t recognize Mary, but saw that she was very beautiful. The painting was old and dirty, but the image itself was still quite beautiful. The Child gazed at it and smiled, then stuck a cornstalk into his mouth. His smile quickly disappeared, and he grew serious.

“Say three times in a row, ‘I am a pervert!’”

The person didn’t reply.

“If you don’t say it, then what were you doing in there, with this foreign woman?”

The person didn’t reply.

“If you say it twice, that would be fine,” the Child said, offering a compromise.

The person didn’t say anything.

The people working the land turned and looked in their direction, but didn’t know what was happening. They just turned and watched for the longest time. The Child became somewhat impatient. He stepped forward and asked, “Are you really not going to say it? If you don’t, I’m going to tear that painting down, and hang it from a wall in the district, saying that you slept with this woman here in these cornstalks.”