Yan Lianke - The Four Books

“Are you a criminal who got what he deserved?”

I opened my eyes, which had been tightly closed, and nodded.

“Say it!” He kicked me again.

I opened my mouth, which had also been tightly closed, and said, “I deserved this. I really deserved this!”

“You’ve finally shown that you are not so stupid after all.”

Everyone laughed at this assessment. After a pause, they each pulled up their pants and headed back to the furnaces. I sat up on the sandy ground and gazed into the darkness. Under the starlight, I saw the shadows of those four figures, and vaguely recognized the middle two as two men from the ninety-ninth, but I didn’t hold any hard feelings toward them. I merely began to suspect that perhaps the Theologian had had an ulterior motive when he came to watch the furnace for me and urged me to hurry away. After those four men had disappeared into the distance and the fire next to me had completely burned down, I picked up my wallet and examined it, and discovered that the money inside was still inside, untouched. I picked up the empty bag next to me and used it to wipe my face and scrub my neck, as the stench of urine again assaulted my nostrils. I threw the bag into the fire, and after watching it go up in flames, I finally stood up. I carefully tested my arms and legs, and was relieved to discover that, apart from a pain in my shin, their punches and kicks had not been as devastating as I had feared. But without the five stars for which I had exchanged my hundred and twenty-five blossoms, I had no choice but to return to Re-Ed. Pausing briefly under the vast night sky, I sighed. Then, in order to establish the truth of what the Theologian had said, I headed toward the tent area, following the same road to the outside world that I had initially took when I left. I saw up ahead the four men who had just beaten and urinated on me, coming from the other direction.

“Success!” they shouted, as they walked onto the road. “The Revolution has been victorious. ” When their voices died down, five or six people suddenly appeared at the same point in the road. Under the glare of three flashlights, they all threw to the ground the ropes and poles they were carrying, then gathered together and began talking and laughing. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it seemed as though they were praising someone to the stars. Then they went together back toward the tent area.

I no longer resented the Theologian. When I reached a salt flat, I sat and stared up at the sky. I listened as the footsteps receded into the distance and the urine was so cold it felt like it was freezing to my skin. The emptiness and loneliness in my heart was like that of a homeless dog that has been beaten and tossed aside. As I feebly lay down in the sand of the salt flat, it occurred to me that I should go to the furnace and dry off my urine-soaked clothing before returning to my tent. It also occurred to me that I should cry helplessly. I suspected that I must have even shed a tear, but when I wiped my eyes I discovered that they were actually as dry as a bone. It seemed remarkable that even after having my five stars burned up, having been savagely beaten, having four men piss on my head, and one of them repeatedly slap my face with his penis until the final drops of urine ran down my cheek, I still didn’t feel at all resentful. Instead, I found myself so at ease that I didn’t have anything left to say.

I marveled at this feeling of lightness and comfort.

1. Old Course , pp. 381–86

In the spring, the residents of the ninety-ninth returned from the riverbank because they needed to spread fertilizer and hoe their wheat fields. The Child had once again gone to attend a meeting where the higher-ups demanded that the district make good on the per- mu amounts they had promised during the previous year’s harvest season, and when he returned to the ninety-ninth, he took out his gun, oiled it, and left it to dry in the sun. Then he put a bullet in the chamber, and placed the gun on a cloth-covered tray. With the Theologian following behind him carrying the tray and the gun, the Child walked past each building, and whenever he saw someone, he would ask,

“Are you confident we’ll produce ten thousand jin of grain per mu ?”

The person would look surprised.

“If you are not confident that you can meet the quota, then just take this gun and shoot me right here and now. I just ask that you shoot me from the front, so that I’ll fall forward when I die.”

The person would look first at the Child, then at the pistol on the tray the Theologian was carrying. Then he would nod to the Child and say, “As long as the others are confident, I am definitely confident as well.” The Child would smile with satisfaction, and from under the cloth covering the tray would remove a fist-sized pentagonal star cut out of slick paper, and hand it to the person. The Child wasn’t distributing blossoms anymore, and instead had begun handing out pentagonal stars. Whoever acquired five stars was still permitted to return home. People were no longer as obsessed with earning red blossoms and red stars as they had been when they were smelting steel. But there also wasn’t anyone who said they didn’t want a large star, or who would accept one only to rip it up or throw it away. They would accept the stars in a very restrained manner, pretending they didn’t care about them at all, while in reality they would carefully place them in one of the books they were permitted to read. I knew that many people, such as the Scholar, the Physician, and the criminals who had mastered the black sand steel-smelting technique, would act very dismissive when publicly accepting one of these stars, and would toss it onto a table or their bed. As soon as they found themselves alone, however, they would carefully hide it where no one would easily find it.

As the Child was awarding each pentagonal star, he would ask,

“Do you think we can produce ten thousand jin of grain per mu in our experimental field? If we can’t, you should shoot me. I just ask that you shoot me in the chest, so that I’ll fall forward when I die.”

Everyone responded that it could be done, and that they would work with the Child to make it happen. They even said that not only would it be possible to produce ten thousand jin ; even fifteen thousand jin should be within reach. As a result, everyone received a large red star and proceeded to go work in the fields, spreading fertilizer and irrigating the crops. I hadn’t promised the Child that the ninety-ninth would definitely be able to produce ten thousand jin of grain per mu , and consequently I wasn’t awarded one of those fist-sized stars — of which, at any rate, I had already received five.

The Child and the Theologian took the tray with the gun to one tent after another, but when they arrived at our tent I hid from them. That night I emerged alone. By that point it was the third lunar month, and it was still chilly out in the wasteland along the old course of the Yellow River. The winter breeze nevertheless brought the faint scent of plants returning to life, like the smell of soda in a hospital. With a newly awakened nose and heart, I wandered far and wide. I knew perfectly well that there were no trees around, and yet several catkin blossoms wafted over from somewhere. Everyone was asleep, and in those several rows of tents, apart from the Scholar — who had his light on and was writing something with iodine — all of the other lights were off. Beyond the courtyard, there was the rustling sound of plants breeding and the faint sound of night insects flying around. Following that sound, I went to the district gate and saw the moonlight on the ground as calm as a pool of water. In the distant fields, the tiny wheat sprouts were awakening from their slumber under the silver moonlight.