Yan Lianke - The Four Books

“Fire! Quick, come help fight the fire!”

This cry was like a tornado roaring down the riverbank. Everyone rushed out of their huts and saw that there was a column of dark smoke rising from the Child’s tent, spiraling up into the sky. The flames that were initially obscured by the dark smoke pushed their way out, whereupon everyone started shouting to get buckets from their rooms and from the steel furnaces. They carried the buckets down to the river, but by the time they were able to bring the water back, the Child’s tent was already burning brightly. Where before there had merely been dark smoke, now there were open flames. People began approaching carefully. Those who had brought water threw it on the fire, and those who were shouting orders continued shouting. Everyone continued running frantically back and forth, from the burning tent down to the river and back. They struggled for more than two hours, until finally the fire began to subside. Amid the layer of black ash, mud, and scattered embers of canvas and tent poles, there were a pair of the Child’s soaked shirts and Liberation shoes. Apart from this, all that was left was cinder and mud.

At this point, it occurred to everyone that what went up in flames was not only the Child’s tent, but also the row upon row of their own red blossoms and red stars that were posted inside. They stared speechlessly at that pile of blackness, as silence enveloped the earth.

By nightfall, no one had eaten. As usual, the canteen had steamed some buns, cooked some radish, and boiled some rice congee, but not one of those people who had already earned more than a hundred blossoms went to eat. Meanwhile, those who had fewer blossoms wanted to go, but were afraid that those who had more would curse them, and furthermore, in a gesture of solidarity, they also refused to eat. That night no one chatted or played cards or chess, as they had done in the past. Instead, the ninety-ninth was as quiet as if everyone had died. At daybreak everyone started looking down the road for the Child, since they knew he was supposed to return. Seeing no trace of him, they went back to the huts to wait. They waited until noon, and then until afternoon and dusk, right up until the time of day when the Child’s tent had caught on fire, but still no one called out. One person was standing on the embankment, stretching his neck to look down the road leading out to the rest of the world, and then he suddenly started running, saying hoarsely, “Quick, come look. Quick, come look!” He gestured toward the road leading out to the rest of the world, where they saw someone walking toward the tent compound. First, the figure appeared as merely a tiny black dot, like a leaf fluttering to the ground. Then, that dot began to assume a human form, and they were able to see that it was in fact the Child.

Everyone had already emerged from their huts. They all stood silently in front of the Child’s burned-down tent, watching as he walked under the setting sun. As the Child approached, everyone’s silence became increasingly uneasy. They were as pale as frost-covered leaves at the start of winter.

“Why are you all just standing there? Who’s going to greet me?” the Child shouted to them as he approached, in a tone of excitement, anger, and baffled resentment.

Standing at the front of the crowd were the Theologian, the Scholar, and the Physician. The Theologian originally wanted to go down to meet the Child, but when he saw that the Scholar and everyone else were standing there without moving, he also waited there as well. In the end, no one went down to greet the Child and tell him about the fire. Instead, they stared silently at his face, watching as he came forward with his bags, as though they were waiting for him to bring back their anger.

When the Child realized something was wrong, he paused and peered through the crowd at the black cinders behind them. He too turned pale and began to rush toward the people standing as silent as gravestones, as though wanting to burst right through. As he did so he uttered a series of sharp, unintelligible cries of surprise.

3. Heaven’s Child , pp. 312–20

So it came to pass.

The Child’s new tent was erected that same evening.

The new tent was placed in the same location as the original one, though a few meters closer to the embankment. When the moon rose, they erected several poles, then brought over some canvas from the canteen and proceeded to pitch the new tent under the moonlight. The moon was as bright as a mirror. They brought over some fresh yellow sand to the mud- and ash-covered area where the old tent had been, to serve as a foundation for a new one. As before, the Child’s room was like a new world.

There was a bed and a lamp. There was a wood-burning stove. The Child’s face glowed in the lamplight as he gazed out at the crowd standing before him.

They tried to recalculate how many blossoms and how many stars each person had received, in order to recognize those who were first in line to return home. Although the Child recalled that there had been only a handful of people who had more than a hundred and twenty blossoms, when they did their calculations they came up with more than a dozen. Similarly, he remembered that there had been around a dozen who had at least a hundred and ten blossoms, but when they did their calculations they came up with several dozen. Finally, he recalled that there had been two dozen who had at least a hundred blossoms, but upon recalculating they came up with forty-three.

The Child only remembered how many blossoms and certificates he himself had been given, and couldn’t recall precisely how many blossoms everyone else had. The Child knew his entire room had been covered in a sea of red, as red as wild persimmons in late autumn, but he couldn’t recall who had a hundred and twenty blossoms, who had a hundred and ten, and who had fewer than a hundred.

After the Child’s tent burned down, everyone recalculated how many people had just under a hundred blossoms, and they came up with seventy-eight. But originally there had only been around thirty. The Child was sitting by the fire and the Theologian sat nearby in a chair and listened as everyone came forward to report on their blossoms. But the numbers they reported were entirely fictitious. As everyone walked in and out, the Child sat on his bed by the fire, with that yellow canvas travel bag he had brought back sitting by his feet. When all the figures were reported, a smile appeared in the corner of the Child’s lips. Then he slowly walked out of the tent, and everyone followed him.

Inside the tent it was deathly quiet, but outside everything was in tumult. All of the criminals who had not yet reached a hundred blossoms came to watch the uproar, hovering in the moonlight in front of the tent. Those who had already exceeded a hundred blossoms, meanwhile, cursed those who falsely claimed they had earned that many. Everyone was cursing furiously. Those who originally had not reached a hundred blossoms falsely reported that they had, swearing up and down and cursing others for falsely reporting their own totals. No one knew, however, who had deliberately burned down the Child’s tent, with all the blossoms inside. Or perhaps it had been an accident.

The moonlight was as calm as water, and the night was dark and silent. It was almost New Year’s, and the waning moon was hanging in the sky. In the distance, the Yellow River was flowing, and steel furnaces were burning on the opposite bank. Faint sounds of steel smelting and of people talking wafted over. The Child gazed at the sky, looked at the light from the steel furnaces, then he returned alone to his tent and placed the statistician’s report on the chair. Under the light of the lamp, he removed a military jacket from his bag and put it on. The jacket was old, but when the Child put it on, buttoned it, and sat at attention, it looked very dignified. The jacket was light green verging on yellow, but the five large dull red buttons emitted a dull red glow. In a dignified manner, the Child called for someone to enter, and asked,